Blindness

Chapter 25: Ripples of Brown Light

Hermione held his hand in her own, tracing the raised scar ridges left by the Stone across his palm, her heart beating too fast, her emotions tethered just enough to keep her silent as she tried to think it through.

The octahedron stone was embedded deeply into the palm that carried it, long shining strands of metallic black spiraling out into vein and muscle, sinking down under skin until only a ghost of it was visible.

Within the stone, the symbol of the Deathly Hallows glowed out visibly, starkly white within the black angled surface.

"It doesn't hurt." Harry whispered, as if a soft voice would also soften the blow. "I... contemplated cutting it out, but at the thought of trying, the Stone responded. It grew these... roots. Its pattern wrapped up to the inside of my wrist. When I thought of amputating and regrowing my wrist, the roots grew again, to my elbow. I do not dare try to remove it at this point."

Hermione's breath sped up; she was almost panting with it now.

She rotated his hand within hers, staring at the unmarked skin of his wrist and elbow.

She could only see the marks on his palm. Obviously what Harry saw was under skin and into bone.

And Harry just kept whispering, words spilling into the silence.

"I've thought the Hallows were possibly sentient before. They must have established some sort of connection with my soul, can respond to my thoughts as well as my emotions. I've been able to summon the Cloak for some time, call it from across the room with a thought. I never... I didn't think what else that might mean."

He licked his lips; a nervous gesture that she couldn't yet find enough calm of her own to soothe.

And still he whispered, on and on.

"I tried a summoning, thinking that without the rotation its effects might be nullified. In our previous tests the three rotations had to be precise, remember? But it doesn't matter. The Stone is able to rotate its pattern within my skin at my command. It feels... it feels like another muscle, a new one I've never had before. It moved just like I would move my fingers, or my toes. Except there is no obvious way it can move, no muscles or bones or tendons. The pattern just moves, except the stone itself does not. As if its pattern is fluid within its physical shape. Like... like the metamorphmagus on my team. She is still human, but it's a flexible, fluid humanity. She..."

Hermione reached out, put her free hand against his mouth to stop the flood of rambling whispered words.

As he couldn't stop speaking, she couldn't start.

So she held his words in, and let the silence wash over them both.

Then she moved her hand away, and looked down at the dark scarred stain on his palm, the living gemstone that had apparently chosen her boyfriend as its new host.

She refused to think about fictional aliens and what often happened to their hosts.

"Harry." Hermione cleared her dry throat, continued. "I want to view the memory. I want to ask you to forgo using the Stone again, at least until we... understand more. There are parasitic magical ailments out there, objects too. Hell, even humans can be parasitic, based on that stupid horcrux you wear on your head. We have to make sure this... this Stone is not going to hurt you. I... There must be something..."

She broke off, took a deep breath, looking into the familiar green eyes that stared into her soul with desperate trust. "There must be some information on dark objects and magic that can assimilate into human bodies. That's part of the classification of something as dark, being able to change and manipulate human bodies and personalities against their will. You will be f-fine."