Chapter One
The Riddle house had remained decrepit and unused since the strange events that had taken place there three years ago. The lawn outside was in complete disorder, the grass overgrown and dried to a crisp gold, the shrubbery multiplying, and the vines creeping over the walls of the house. The structure itself was barely worth mentioning, since the walls were buckling under the heavy weight of the roof, and the mould was eating away at the dying wood. It was the veritable epitome of a haunted house.
And thank Merlin that persona had held up for so many years, otherwise the task at hand would have become that much more difficult and, unfortunately, painful.
The steps to the notorious house were thankfully still intact, the vines slowly digging in to the rough stones, patiently awaiting the day to tear them up. It was upon these steps, now, in the dead of night, that a dark figure stood. The figure itself seemed nothing more than a shadow against the hollows of darkness that surrounded the house and it moved slowly and hesitantly towards the doorway. Quietly, almost in painful caution, it opened the door. The sound it made wasn't as horrible as expected, even though the hinges had almost completely rusted through.
As it stepped into the threshold of the creaky-floored entrance, the figure stilled. Breathing silently, it surveyed its surroundings. It seemed that the wild nature outside had finally made its way into the edifice. The floor was strewn with live and dead leaves which protruded through the warped floor boards. Something small and nocturnal shuffled across the hallway in front of the figure, which shifted noticeably at the sound.
"Jumpy, aren't we?" asked a cool voice from the other end of the hallway. The figure in the entrance took several startled steps back, its hand reaching out and gripping the door frame.
"Lucius," The figured breathed in a half-relieved, half-cautious tone.
"Tell me if I'm wrong, Mr. Price, but it seems you're reticent about this mission. Taking your time with it, in fact… Avoiding coming back with bad news, are we?"
The figure (presumably Price) near the doorway stiffened and almost mechanically reached in to its pocket, removing a wand which shone slightly from the little light there was. There was a soft muttering, and the tip of the wand ignited with a warm hazy point of light, which flew lazily towards the ceiling where it hovered and was soon followed by others. In a few moments the entire hallway was lit dimly, but with enough to see the decomposing state of the plaster on the walls and the doorways along them. It suddenly became apparent why Price had been so shadowy outside: the cloak he wore was shimmering slightly with the dim repetition of the scene behind it, making for a chameleon-like camouflage.
"I'm here aren't I, Malfoy?" He spat back in a hoarse voice.
Lucius Malfoy, at the other end of the hallway, was wearing a similar cloak, but the hood had been lowered to reveal an aging man with silvery hair and cold eyes. He stood with a stiff assertiveness that one only sees in the most powerful of aristocrats; his arms crossed over his chest and his chin slightly lifted. The left corner of his thin frowning lips twitched slightly, either out of apprehension or impatience. Perhaps both.
"Then get on with it," he replied through gritted teeth.
This seemed to spurn Price on, who at once lost his previous demeanor of defiance and stepped further in to the hallway. In a swift movement he lowered his hood, revealing a youngish looking man of about thirty with long wavy brown hair and eyes to match. He had a strong jaw which was covered with a prominent shadow of, amazingly, red stubble.
"Where is it?" Price asked urgently, brown eyes shifting nervously between the two doorways he had been coincidentally standing between.
"How am I to know? It was your charge; you must have been given proper instructions. Just find it so we can leave," Lucius' words had been spoken quickly as he examined a rather dirty-looking pile of debris that must have fallen from the ceiling months prior.
Price nodded assertively, but waited a moment before actually moving. He turned towards the doorway on his left and walked in, soon followed by the points of light and the sounds of Lucius' footsteps. The room he entered was furnished with antiques, which were in an understandable state of disarray. Once again, the plants had begun winding their way through the windows and floors. Price looked around in honest surprise, his steps faltering.
"How did the plants grow so quickly?" He asked, knowing Lucius was standing in the doorway behind him. Price hadn't thought of it before, but the last time he was here, scarcelytwo years ago, the interior had looked nothing like this. Certainly it had been neglected, but to see such a rapid progression of decay…Well, needless to say it was puzzling.
"Stop dawdling Price, and get it!" Lucius snapped, stepping with loud confident steps in to the room. He gestured towards a small picture frame next to a closed-in fireplace on the opposite side of the room. "There. Now do it."
Price swallowed down a restricting collection of bile that had settled in his throat. It has to be done, he thought forcefully, unable to stop his hands from nervously fidgeting. He walked over to the picture frame, the points of light above his head shifting slightly to accommodate.
The picture was grimy and small, about the size of a square jewelry box. Price regarded it quietly, his brown eyes examining the heavy brushstrokes of the oil paint. It was quite well-painted in an amateurish way, and the signature at the bottom was elegant and undeniably feminine. He read it over and over in his mind…
Deanna Valrose.
There was no date. The scene the painting depicted was that of the house he stood in now, but from outside in the daylight. The house was in the very prime of its existence, standing almost proudly on the well-manicured lawn, surrounded by magnificent rose bushes. Standing in front of the house was a handsome young man, perhaps in his late teens, with dark hair and a charming smile. As Price watched, a soft breeze rustled the man's hair and the bushes behind him. It was all quite pretty in a soft and demure way. Price licked his lipsnervously, leveling his wand with the painting and whispering softly.
"Servicio," He said, taping the simple wooden frame once with the tip of his wand.
For a moment he felt a sudden burst of bewildering fright at the thought that it might not have worked. Then, quietly, the door of the small house in the painting opened revealing a dark entrance. With one last hesitant glance over his shoulder at Lucius, Price raised his index finger to the entrance door, pressing it against the paint firmly.
What he was met with was searing pain which spread white hot from his finger tip through the very lengths of his body. If later asked how it felt, he might say that it was as if his bones had liquefied and reformed in to sharp needles…But it was nowhere near that simple.
To Lucius Malfoy, this lasted something like five seconds. To Price, it was like five decades. Price's form, at first stuck by his hand to the painting, opposite hand against the wall and pushing vainly against it, soon crumpled in a heap on the wooden floor. Lucius stepped over his quivering form, gracefully reaching up towards the painting, taking it off the wall and tossing it carelessly to the side. Where there should have been nothing but more wall, there was a small square-shaped hole where an object wrapped in fine red silk lay covered in dust. This was what Lucius now took up; placing it carefully in his robes before walking back towards the doorway (again avoiding the breathing pile of dark cloaks that was Price).
Just before leaving, Lucius turned to the dark heap and smiled like a snake.
"Thank you, Price. I couldn't have done it without you."