955 Return Ⅵ

Returning to the present, Rowan raises the silver key up to the light. She carefully studies the key and turns it this way and that before spotting the delicate parseltongue carved on the spine of the key. The written words are few and simple, "Down on high, I return."

"Down on high, I return?" Rowan mused out loud. She glanced at the floor in thought before an epiphany strikes her. "A ceiling down below!"

A jaded sigh escapes from Rowan already guessing the location. Still, she dutifully floated upward to double-check the ceiling of the chamber. She would not put it past Salazar Slytherin to lie. The trip to the ceiling is slower this time. Her bones feel abnormally heavy, and she knew with clear certainty that she was running low on magical reserves.

Tired and grumpy, Rowan found that the ceiling of the chamber did not have a single keyhole after a careful search. She clicked her tongue in resignation and disappointment. She unsteadily lands on top of the pedestal and maintains her balance. She stiffly stands in thought and furrows her brows. Her mind is sluggish, and it takes her some time before a mocking laugh burst forth from her lips. "This is just getting ridiculous."

Closing her eyes, Rowan teleports from the closed hidden chamber to the hidden chamber that housed the former time crystal. The former cavern looked the same as the last time she had been within it. The giant massive crystal hanging overhead is missing except for a few crystal fragments that rain like thin glittering veins. Glancing at the floor, she holds her wand up to light the ground. She was going to start from the ground up and only check the ceiling as a last resort. She was very tired, and she didn't want to fly again unless it was absolutely necessary.

The tip of the wand glows lightening the floor. Slowly, Rowan moves forward across the floor until she spots a keyhole that she could have sworn she would have never missed. Then again, it had not been there before (timewise at least).

Inserting the key with care, before she even turns the key, Rowan carefully says. "Open for the heir of Slytherin, heir to the greatest of Hogwarts Four," before turning the key. The key smoothly turns, before a rumbling sound is heard throughout the chamber. The floor begins to turn to reveal an emerging dais with a large glass orb filled with a swirling dark fog.

It takes a moment for Rowan to comprehend that she is seeing an obscurus! An obscurus is the manifestation of repressed energy from a young wizard or witch. It is a dark, parasitic force created when a wizarding child represses their magical abilities by force due to eternal means be it physical or psychological abuse. This energy could manifest itself as a separate entity that acts in violent, destructive, and furious ways. The obscurus typically reacted in such a manner when the obscurial, (the host aka Creedence or Ariana), lost control the obscurus force would be released. The obscurus would often focus on the cause of the obscurial's torment and leave destruction in its wake.

Yet most obscurus needed the innate power of the magical host to survive. The more powerful the obscurial, the more powerful their obscurus. In fact, when an obscurial reached a breaking point, they would transform into the obscurus and could only be returned to their physical form via being calmed down or running out of power.

Far more concerning is the fact that most obscurus's can only be killed when the host dies, but the obscurus itself cannot be killed much like in Credence Barebone's case when he was thought to be dead and yet still returned. When the obscurial (the host) dies, the obscurus will vanish along with them.

However, there are exceptions such as when Newt Scamander successfully kept the obscurus of a young Sudanese girl, who had died. The obscurial lived inside a magical bubble powered by Newt Scamander's magic. Yet how was the obscurus still alive after all these thousands of years? Salazar Slytherin was long dead!

With that perturbing thought, Rowan remains at a distance from the glass orb and does not approach the captured obscurus. The black swirling ink wind reveals glimpses of a fluttering white glowing image. And upon occasion even shinny white eyes that peek out.

There lay only two options before Rowan to kill the obscurus or allow its continued existence. Still why had Salazar Slytherin left her such a thing? He trusted in no one and dared not to create a Horcrux much less entrust it to anyone. Rather who did the obscurus belong to that he was willing to hide it away and leave it to her? What purpose could it possibly serve?

Stepping closer to the orb, Rowan reaches into her moke pouch to remove a flashlight, before dosing the light from her wand. The room darkens a bit, but the flashlight does a good job. Leaning closer, she peers into the orb, before opening her mind.

"Legilimens," Rowan muttered catching a pair of darting silver eyes. The world around her begins to blur as she mentally finds herself flying forward leaving her body behind. The colors swirl about her as glimpses of memories flash past. A child, violent beatings, anger, and hatred. So much hatred.

The fragments of memories become darker and darker until inevitably first blood is shed when the obscurus attacked the face of the obscurial's tormentor. It is the first time for many of both the innocent and the guilty. Death only grows and grows in its destructive wake until the obscurial is captured and killed, while the obscurus is trapped within the sphere.

With a gasp, Rowan falls back into her body loudly gasping for air. She tries not to shudder having experience bits and pieces of the obscurial's past that still resided in the obscurus. It was a dangerous, powerful existence. Ignoring the memories glimpsed inside the obscurus that is still trapped within the magical orb, the obscurus by all accounts should have perished hundreds of years ago. And well, she did not trust the obscurus, it relished in bloodshed and longed to return to its bloody reign of terror.

Normally, Rowan would assume that the breaking of the magical orb would destroy the obscurus, but she was not so certain in this case. It had sufficient power to find a new magical host. And it would succeed too in a school full of young children sleeping peacefully overhead.

Rowan would not risk unleashing it upon the world, nor would she permit its continued existence. Without even flinching, she uses her wand to neatly slice open the palm of her hand. The obscurus stirs hungrily within the orb frantically darting towards crimson drops, but unable to leave its trapped cage. Crimson flickering lights begin to stir within it as the obscurus' rage and wrath begin to swell.

"Blood of my blood," Rowan said, "I call upon the Keeper of the Prince Household. Blood of my blood, I call upon Sir Knight Prince to answer my call. So, mote be!" The crimson droplets drip down onto the floor but instead of doting the stone floor, the blood seemingly evaporates into thin air as if summoning an inhuman existence from the great beyond.