Chapter 18: Silence

Minutes passed in forced silence, for both the boy nor the spectators knew of the hat's instantaneous demise. No sounds occupied Herne's mind. There was no one to converse with anymore, the eerie soothing sensation that previously enraptured his entire being began to fade, his body no longer felt fatigued, he needed not the hats forced alleviation of his consciousness and yet, Herne still worried for the silent ruler of his reality.

Like a mist had lifted, forced yet idle thoughts began to prop up in the child's apprehensive mind while the passing of time started to take a toll on his mentality. He could feel the seconds creep by, his skin growing ever colder under the chilling gazes that prodded his flesh with little remorse. His ears no longer fell deaf to the world. It was as though the hats forced state of isolation had dissipated, and yet what greeted his now agape ears was not the cheers of a table nor the items bellowing verdict but instead an eerie grating silence that scraped against his form in a vain attempt to uncover what had happened between him and the hat, what was taking the piece of leather so long to form a conclusion.

His eyes which were once barred by a realm of darkness, now saw light, for radiant bursts of sun pierced through sections of the petulant creation, dying fragments of the boy's vision in a highlighted brown. Minutes passed this way, with not a word uttered by student nor teacher alike. Their gazes simply fell upon both Herne's slowly quivering figure and the decrepit form of the deceased mass of leather that lingered atop him.

Dead, stagnant air filled the room, creating a stifling atmosphere that suppressed even the most haughty of nobles. It was taking too long. No matter what the boy possessed in his flimsy brain, nothing should have been able to stall the masterful creation for such a period of time. Now the creators shared in the child's anxiousness. They needed to renew the hat's place atop his head, interview it as to what was taking it so long.

Rowena was the first to move. Without need for direction nor orders from her peers, she meandered towards the upright form of Herne with a strange sense of foreboding plaguing both her mind and body.

Her blood appeared to run backwards, filling her person with a peculiar chilling sense of frigid suspense. Her eagle-like eyes observed the child's subtle trembling visage, a sight that held no place in the item's magical interrogation with utmost intrigue, taking note of every action that never should have come to pass, his anguish, his worry, his ability to see and hear the creeping sense of dread that circumvented the great hall with little remorse for his breaking naivety. His lips slowly quivered as though struggling to suppress a call, a yell for help but to who no one knew.

Herne's figure, dyed in the multicoloured light of the stained glass window, appeared like a forsaken nun, a creature left abandoned by god, one who held no place amongst such a sanctuary of blessed humans and yet, the sight was breathtaking. It enchanted all those whose eyes fell upon his blasphemous form, but not in the sense that it was inherently beautiful. Instead, it was quite the opposite. Herne's visage, fragmented and partitioned into portions of dyed light, appeared oddly prophetic, like the boy did not possess a fated path he was destined to walk but instead rebelled against god's plan in a baneful manner.

The sun did not form a break in the clouds for the boy but instead left him alone, surrounded by the dim grey light of the murky sky above. Rowena's steps were the sole sound to shatter the void-like atmosphere that plagued the once jubilant hall. They rattled across the walls, bouncing atop the high ceilings before eventually finding their way into Herne's loosely sealed ears.

Someone was nearing him, but why? Didn't they need to wait for the hat's verdict? Why were they cutting his time short? Couldn't they just wait for a second longer? He was sure that if they just gave him the time of day, the hat would surely regain its consciousness, that its once loathsome voice would reignite in the mind of the inauspicious boy. Herne clung to such a hope that by the time the figure neared him, the hat would cast its verdict with a mighty roar, and yet, no matter how much he begged nor urged the item to talk with his heartfelt thoughts and monologues nought but the sound of silence greeted his calls.

He could now feel the presence of someone at his side. The heat that solely came with life exuded from their form and pressed against his body with an almost stifling aura. It was there that the figure froze, for what their gaze caught sight of was not the slumbering mound of leather they assumed the hat to have fallen into but rather a decrepit item that was without the spark of consciousness. Its once shadowed eyes were now little more than faked slits, a cheap copy of what they once were, a notion any item would imitate when forced into such a form. It was dead. Rowena could not sense the mystical presence it once held.

Her eyes quivered as she cast a glance at her peers before motioning them over. They needed to speak out of sight and mind of the children, though not wholly alone. She needed to bring Herne to decide his fate before lecturing her peers on the harsh reality that befell the item they spent years forging. At her call, the vexatious sound of wood grating against stone stretched across the hall, creating a dissonant atmosphere that one could not even hear their own voice amidst. The three heads of house spare for Rowena marched towards the awaiting beauty and the still-cowled Herne, who sparsely sensed their presence by the added weight that circumvented the air around him.

They exchanged secretive glances for but a moment before breaking out into a fast-paced walk towards a door that stood ominously to the side of the grand table upon which they once occupied. A soft hand wrapped around Heren courtesy of Rowena. It pulled at him from the underside of his armpit while yet another hand fastened the rotting corpse of the once-mystical creation upon his head.

'Leave this on no matter what, ok? I'll tell you when you're free to take it off,' Rowena's harsh whisper pounded against Herne's obscured ears, her voice stern, more rigid than it had ever been while in his presence. It was a serious matter. Not only for her and her peers but also for the boy, for if such talk about the hat's demise were to be spread, rumours as to his inability would surely follow.

They marched through the hall, their skin stabbed by the countless curious gazes of the silent many, all of whom wished to know why the boy was taking such an abrupt leave from the grandiose land, yet, despite having such fervent interest burning in both their hearts and mind none spoke, nor dared shatter the seal of silence the room had fallen under.

The clang of metal and the sound of grating steel befell the ears of the occupants of the room, for the hefty wrought door that loomed ominously in the backdrop began to turn, its pace slow in nature as though to add to the atmosphere of helpless dread that culminated in the sacred land that could be likened to Eden. *Bang* The mass of metal collided with the solid wall of artificially browned marble that lingered dauntingly behind, though its attack did not leave a mark like one would expect upon its victim and instead bounced benevolently off of it.

Hurried footsteps soon greeted Herne's shuttered ears, though their tone had shifted, no longer the crisp sound of stone, it was something else, something more royal in nature, more grandiose, like a ballroom the heads of house strutted across the open plain their eyes fervently fixed upon the decrepit cap the boy wore though not in the manner one would expect, they did not focus upon the item but rather what it shielded, the child's firmly pressed eyes that they did not wish to be opened in their secluded land. The warmth of the hall had faded, and akin to a dying flame, a bloodcurdling chill filled the space it once danced. No light found its way through the boy's leather blockade, not even the sparse wisps of a petulant candle. He was isolated, left alone to rot in the umbral land in which he could not see.

Voices hushed in both tone and nature danced around Herne, their ethereal-like atmosphere too difficult for the boy to grasp as they faded before he could decipher their meaning, yet he continued to move. He was being dragged further into the darkness until his body abruptly collided with a keen-edged corner, one that stabbed into his barely shielded chest with enough energy to wind him.

He choked, gasped for breath, yet what he inhaled was not a palatable serene breeze but rather rank, musty spores that could only exist in a perpetually darkened land. He could feel the jagged edge press into his gut, though after the initial impact, its stabbing features seemed to have eroded, and now his tight-fitted skin stretched halfheartedly around the edge's precipice.

It felt like wood. No, it was too cold for wood, too damp. It was an item more akin to stone, one that could have smashed his ribs into dust if the impact was just the slightest bit more volatile. It stood like a bulwark before the boy, immobile to even his grandest motions. It did not taper, nor dance upon four legs like one would expect, for when Herne's foot attempted to feel the space underneath, he was greeted with little more than the exact chilling texture of rock that flowed through his leather boots and into his body, turning his obscured face a peculiar shade of blue.

The voices around him had dimmed. He couldn't hear their reverberations, their ethereal tone languidly moving through the rotten air of the enclosed land. And it was in such silence that the following sound boomed, for the same grating tune of metal clashing with stone replayed itself for the boy to hear. However, this time it did not end with the serenade of a gentle thump against marble but instead a gut-wrenching explosion of noise that pierced the boy's body.

*BANG* The door slammed shut behind Herne, the initial impact causing both his body and stomach to give an involuntary lurch of dread and despair, two emotions the boy still remained oblivious to, though one's he would come to familiarise with in the coming months. His hand brushed against his stomach in a brief instance of instinctual fear, though what he felt was not the soft texture of robes but rather a dampened, sticky substance that clung to his very skin. It slid between his fingers with a silken smoothness drenching his exposed flesh in whatever unimaginable colour the liquid possessed.

"What's going on," A broad, charismatic voice bellowed through the enclosed room, bouncing off the four narrow walls that barred the child's escape to the outside world as though mocking him by the hair's breadth it would take to traverse the distance.

"The sorting hat has…well…let's just say it's fallen asleep," From his side reverberated Rowena's velvety tone, her hand that clutched the boy had loosened to the point where he forgot she even guided him here, for he could no longer feel her warmth, only the stringent coldness her figure exuded in mass.

"What do you mean the hat's fallen asleep? I thought we made sure such a thing wasn't-" The charismatic man continued only to be promptly cut off by Rowena's sharp rebuttal, for he could not even breathe his final syllable without having the air removed from his chest by the unyielding woman.

"Well, it has," Rowena stated though her eyes told another story, a tale Herne could not yet read though one all the heads could decipher even amidst the opaque twilight. There was more to what the head of Ravenclaw was saying. Though she could not breathe such a muttering while in the presence of the curious child, who hung onto the masses every word with an undying intrigue. "And because of that, we don't know what house he should be placed in," The secretive mother continued, much to the shifty affirmation of her peers.

"I see. You're right!" The boisterous voice of the man garbed in shadows reaffirmed the mother's statement, "Though how are we meant to decide what house he should be in when none of us really know what type of personality he possesses, what makes him tick, what ideals he would live and die by"

"I know which is why it's so difficult to select the right house for him," Rowena responded however before she could even mime the first syllable of her following statement she would be cut off by the raspy, snide voice of a man sharing the same predatory posture as his namesake.

"I don't want him…His blood, I can just tell it isn't pure. It reeks. He repulses me. It doesn't even smell like a half mix, nor one of pure diluted mistakes. It's something weird, something abhorrent, just being in the same room as this…boy makes me feel-"

"All right, that's quite enough, Salazar!" Echoed the cheery voice of a red-faced Helga. "You've made your objection quite clear, though it should be known that even placing such an unknown child in your prestigious house never crossed our minds. You have nothing to worry about."

"*Scoff* I knew as such, I don't require your pampering Hufflepuff," The man named Salazar hissed much to the perpetual annoyance of the gathered figures, who Herne had come to assume were the men and women who lingered atop the great table. He could liken their form to their distinct voices, from the boisterous tone of the man draped in red bearing the title of Gryffindor all the way to the snide Salazar who had expressed his hatred to the oblivious child who knew not what such a sentiment carried.

"Still, if you're unsure about what house to put him in, why not leave the boy with me? I'm sure my Hufflepuffs would be more than welcoming to the child." Helga gestured much to the smiling applause of the gaudy man draped in red who had yet to express his own concern for the child's well-being but instead saw fit to offload such a momentous decision upon his peers. After all, from what he had seen, the child did not possess the courageous attitude befitting a Gryffindor.

However, unlike her peer draped in red, Rowena did not applaud such a declaration. Instead, her face appeared to contort for a fraction of a second, her muscles contracted, forming a neat scowl hindered by the umbral night. For some reason, she didn't like the offer. She knew her friend held no maliciousness in her attempt of inclusivity, but it didn't sit right for her…for Herne to be placed in Hufflepuff, but where else was he to go? He was not wise beyond measure. In fact, he was like a stumbling newborn, ever curious about the world around him, though possessing not the power to back such a drive.

And it was with such a thought that the shining light of dawn graced the woman. This was her excuse. Herne's fascination, his ineptitude brought about by a seemingly traumatic upbringing, was all the reason she needed.

He would be a Ravenclaw, like her, like her daughter. She knew him the best. Even if the house he would be placed in did not suit him, she would accompany him, guide him, offer Herne solace in the infinite darkness. She would be his saviour once more.

"He'll be a Ravenclaw," Rowena hushedly muttered, to the point where her words served as little more than ethereal wisps in the non-existent wind, like a gust that could only be faintly heard yet never focused upon nor deciphered. Her statement was solely for herself.

"Pardon? I didn't quite catch tha-"

"He'll be a Ravenclaw. I know him the most, and from what I've seen of the boy, his temperament seems to fit perfectly amongst those chosen for my house." The mother sternly stated, her tone leaving no room for discussion amongst her peers, only forced silence.

"O-Oh ok," Helga mumbled, a skittish gesture of acceptance. All the while, the child who lingered to the side could do little more than release a cloaked smile shrouded by the deceased leather corpse of the hat.