Chương 44: Snap

Cross went back to the Room of Requirement the next day, seeing no one inside, he let out a breath. He sat down on the ground and meditated on his Mantra, using the notes from Trelawney's class as well as the personal notes he had from asking her about Divination itself.

He entered a calm and serene state, completely cut off from the outside world, with his strings on every inch of the room. Forming a sort of alarm system, as he mediated on the Mantra.

Cross felt his Mantra was becoming even more easily controlled, it seemed like he needed to keep it on constantly for it to progress quickly. He could easily do this as it was only his perception that was being used, hence it was unable to be seen or felt.

Suddenly a string was stepped on!

Cross shot his eyes open and pointed his wand forward at the intruders. He immediately cursed as he saw Harry, Hermione, Ron, Neville, Fred, and George. All the strings came back to him silently and he put his wand away, cursing constantly.

Hermione said "You can come here?" Cross grumbled "Excuse you? I have been using this Room for 5 years thank you very much. You're intruding on MY space." Hermione was stunned and said "You've been practicing in the Room of Requirement for 5 years!?"

Cross grumbled once again "It all ends today." Harry said "You can stay." Cross sighed and said "That's not what I meant. With you three here, something will definitely happen to this room. I can guarantee it. Whatever, enjoy while you can." he paused and said to Hermione "No."

Hermione said "Can you-" before choking on her words and saying "How did you!?" Cross smiled mysteriously and said "I pay attention in Divination class..." As he fell through a tunnel, that opened up under his feet, and disappeared. The tunnel closing behind him.

Fred and George said "Wicked exit!" Ron nodded and said "Bloody hell, that was cool!" Harry nodded and Hermione sighed, missing the opportunity to recruit an amazing teacher.

Cross reappeared in his room and sat on his bed, continuing to practice. Now that his super secret practice place was found out he needed a new one, a new place came to him immediately as he grinned and teleported away.

Cross landed in the Chamber of Secrets, right in front of the Salazar head. He spread out his strings, feeling every single nook and cranny of the Chamber before sending out his clones and giving them tasks, at least he had used the Room of Requirement to it's fullest and read every book in the castle.

Now he just needed constant practice. And so the clones started constantly practicing every spell he knew until they were all perfected. Cross estimated that out of all his spells he was around 70% finished perfecting them all. Once he reached 100% he would move on to the Grandmaster spells that he remembered and when he perfected them he would try and find some Arch-Mage spells.

He assumed that the Ministry would have them but he had no way to get into the Ministry unless something happened. If he had the chance he would rob them blind, until every Arch-Mage spell book was gone and in his hands.

All he needed was an opportunity and he hoped it would come sometime soon as he was getting closer and closer to a 'limit' of sorts. Not a magical Limit or a Physical limit, but a Limit of limited knowledge. Basically, there was nothing left for him to learn when he reached this limit and he could only study higher tier spells or experiment on his own, trying to advance through the ranks by himself.

This will undoubtedly take significantly longer as Cross has no direction to go in and no spell to study. He hoped he could at least reach Arch-Mage spells before he had to go on his own and forge his own path towards the peak, after all it's much easier to tread a pre-made path than to make one on your own.

A few days later

Cross was talking with Luna, who said happily "Did you hear? They're starting a teaching class from those who want to learn. It's called Dumbledore's army." Cross pinched her nose and said "My little Luna wants to join?"

Luna scrunched her nose and said "I have you, why would I learn from someone else?" Cross felt immense pride as he said "Of course! You have finally realized my greatness!" Luna laughed and hugged his arm as she skipped happily next to him.

A few weeks passed

Umbridge started questioning students personally, enforcing a ton of rules.

Currently, however...

Cross was looking all around the castle for Luna, unable to find her. He thought it was strange, he tried to talk to her through the ring but was getting nothing. He was starting to get nervous as he slowly got more and more frantic in his searches.

A while later

Cross had no results, he even broke into the Ravenclaw House, demanding to know where Luna was. Scaring the Ravenclaw students senseless as he directly threatened them with his wand out. Thinking about where to cast a Cruciatus Curse on them or not.

McGonagall came to the Ravenclaw common room and saw Cross with a manic look in his eyes. She shouted "Cross! Enough, dear boy." Cross snapped his head to the side and saw McGonagall, who was looking at him with a sad expression.

A very, very, bad feeling arose in his heart.

He said crazily "What happened?" McGonagall bit her lips and said "You should come with me." Cross immediately followed McGonagall, urging her to hurry up as he was slowly becoming more and more crazy.

Black markings spreading from one side of his neck onto his face.

McGonagall brought him to the infirmary and Cross rushed in seeing a group of student around a bed. Namely Harry, Ron, Hermione, Daphne, Astoria, Ginny, and Cho. Cho was bawling her eyes out mumbling it was all her fault over and over.

Cross pushed the people out of the way and his pupils shrank as he started trembling the black markings exploding over one side of his face forming separate flame-like patterns. They glowed gold brightly before flashing a different color for each element he had, ending on a light engulfing black.

They creeped up from his upper left back, covering his left shoulder, a bit of his arm, the left side of his neck, his left cheek and left forehead. Not touching his ears or eyes. It was a sharp contrast to his currently white hair and fair skin.

A powerful wave exploded from his body as he looked at Luna on the bed and growled in a tone that was colder that the deepest parts of hell "Who did this." the group and McGonagall were shocked as the wave they felt made them almost suffocate and have a hard time breathing.

None of them knew who it was.

Cross stared at Luna on the bed as he reached his hand out to touch her body. His hand was trembling fiercely as he softly touched her hand, he poured a bit of magic inside of her and his face turned as white as the snow outside.

Luna's body was completely 'destroyed' for lack of a better word. Her nerve endings were severely damaged beyond repair and her organs were shot, especially her stomach. The only things that were intact was her magic, soul, eyes, and mind.

Though, her mind showed signs of severe bombardment, like it was trying to be forcefully broken and forced into. Had it not been for her mother's sacrifice and the ritual she did on Luna, she would probably nothing more than a crippled retard right now.

The signs were anything but gentle, whoever did this, obviously didn't care about the after effects but they didn't leave any evidence either. Cross felt Obliviate residue in front of Luna's mental barrier, which meant that the obliviate hadn't worked.

Cross' hands roamed her body, pressing on many points, ignoring any sense of embarrassment as he touched her breasts and pelvic area. Hermione said "What are you doing?!" Cross glared at the rest and growled "Shut your fucking mouth. I didn't give you permission to speak!"

As he went back to his diagnosis.

Hermione and the rest were stunned, mainly Hermione felt wronged. She didn't do anything, she just came to give her support, but she realized that Cross' mental state must be extremely bad at the moment, so she kept her mouth shut.

Cross let out a breath of relief internally, seeing no signs of sexual abuse. Though that was the least of his worries, her organs were failing very slowly as they only acted at 2/10ths of their original state.

Cross bit the bullet and pressed on Luna's sternum, forcefully waking her up.

Luna gasped and woke up, looking around in confusion with a scared look in her eyes. Cross held her cheeks and whispered softly "It's okay.. I'm here... It's okay, look at me.." Luna saw Cross and started crying silently as she whispered "I'm sorry.."

Cross touched his forehead against hers as he whispered "It's okay. I checked you, there's no signs of severe mental trauma, sexual abuse, or mind breaking. You're okay now." Luna shook her head and said "Not that. I.. I.."

Cross kissed her and whispered in Elven "It's okay. No matter what happened, we'll get through it together right?" Luna cried even harder and spoke her broken Elven to him "After Cruciatus and Ligilimency didn't work, he used a Veritas Potion.. He- He knows your secret now!"

Cross hugged Luna and said "Who. Tell me who did this to you." Luna choked on sobs and she whispered "Dumbledore. Cross, I'm so sorry... Please don't hate me.."

Cross kissed her softly and whispered "I can never hate you, Luna. I love you." Luna cried again but this time she was smiling as she said "En. I love you too.. I'm.. so.. happy..."

Cross got up as Luna closed her eyes with a smile. He felt the death creeping around Luna, he grit his teeth and his eyes were completely crazy as he said "Not while I'm still breathing." his eyes glowed orange as he spread his hands out, orange glowing orbs sitting in his palms.

Cross smashed them together and twisted his hands, pulling them apart as he said "Chronostasis!" he spun the twisted orange length into an hourglass and squeezed the ends towards each other, inflating the hourglass, before pressing it on Luna's body.

The orange hourglass sank into Luna's body and halted her death as Cross spat out a mouthful of blood all onto the floor. He waved his hand and the blood boiled before burning into nothingness.

Cross held Luna's body and whistled, Selena slithered out of the bag and carried Luna into the beast bag gently, feeling immense rage and anger, but not as much as Cross.

Nothing could compare to his anger right now, he wanted nothing more than to charge up to Dumbledore's office and slaughter him right now.

Surprisingly, that didn't happen. What did happen though, was Cross' face became completely emotionless. Everything at Hogwarts flashing through his mind as he found the reason Dumbledore was planning everything. For fame, for power, for control.

An insane chuckled escaped Cross' mouth, soon turning to an mad eruption of laughter.

Cross quieted down and a devilishly cold grin formed on his lips as he thought 'Fame, power, control? Oh, Dumbledore.. Why didn't you just leave me alone? Now you can watch as everything you've ever wanted crumbles before you.'

Cross wasn't just going to kill him. No, no, no. He was going to torture him, physically and mentally... UNTIL HE BROKE.