Duramen Château

A/N: My first attempt at Scooby doo, I don't own him, but a bunch of companies do. Also like to point out to those who get all strange about the characters being in character. This is fan fiction, like you know the name of this site? lol AU is what this whole site is. So my playing with them will put them out of character, we all just want to have some fun with them.

Chapter One: Notre Château des cœurs fragiles

I sighed, I hated creepy castles and nevertheless I had to come with the gang for a job, one that included as always the ever important creepy castle. Just his luck, my sister would love this though. Gods how long had it been since I thought about Melisa? Maggie thought about our sister more than I did and I was older for Petes sake. Maggie was only two years younger than me, but Melisa was ten years older. I had been thirteen and she was eighteen so mag had been eleven? I growled frustrated with myself, how could I be thinking of liss? She hadn't even said goodbye when she left us. Why should I care about her! Mom had said it was because she was just so much older than me and sugey. I chuckled at the old nickname for my younger sister.

"Ray Raggy, Rhat's Rong?"

I turned to Scoob. He seemed a little upset from my attitude shift, man he was getting pretty old for a dog. Already twelve years old, He still was pretty active at his age and slowed down on the food. We both had, without the gang we just drifted around, I surprised Scooby with my book. The flames within, I snorted at the title. For months I had wrestled with the title. That was the best I could come up with, funny enough it was about people solving a mystery like the gang did. Only the monsters were real and deadly. Had we ever really came across them we would be dog food.

"nothin' Scooby, just thinking about my sister is all."

He nodded; it was fair after all that Maggie had been the top of our worries. She was about to have her second child with Wilfred. Their first cris was a real award winner, she could write a poem so beautiful that you'd ball your eyes out and she was only four or sing for that matter, god was her voice beautiful for a little kid.

"Hey guys why you way back there! Come on!"

Frederick yelled back at us. I snickered at the use of his full first name, I knew how much Fred hated that name, and he would rather just be called Fred for god sake and be done with it. Rushing up, I noticed several people doing the meet and greet. One who I had not seen in ten years. Her hair a soft golden brown that mine hadn't managed and eyes the color of honey just like Maggie's behind thin black rimmed glasses. She was tall and slender like me and had an air of someone who was emotionally unavailable. What had happened to her after all these years to make her seem so distant from these other people, from our gang? Was it the Ghost problem, business problems, personal problems?

"Melisa?"

She looked up, her mouth dropped in horror. Now that was a shock, I'd just been thinking about her. Scooby doo growled at her and came to stand in front of me.

"Rulisa."

She backed away from him. He didn't like her only for the fact I couldn't forget about her, which the one time I'd tried to- I couldn't think about that. Not now, not yet.

"Scooby? Shaggy do you two know her?"

Dumb question Freddie, I wondered sometimes how people thought he was smarter than me. Petty I know but sometimes I just couldn't help myself. All the bad thoughts and nightmare wouldn't just go away however.

"Like yea, she's Melisa Rogers. My older sister."

Which I had never spoken about to them and why would I? She had been gone for ten years, ten long years in which I couldn't- wouldn't think about her.

"Can't say that really seeing as I was never there for you and mag."

She seemed truly sad about that, was she sad she'd left us? She had been eighteen when she left us...just barely an adult, did she regret leaving us alone?

"Why not?"

Velma...didn't she know curiosity killed the cat? Melisa sighed;

"Come in and we'll talk."

The place was well kept; it wasn't creepy like most castles were. Melisa knew how much I hated scary places. The others were off with Melisa's helper James Nout; I turned from the windows to face her. She looked like someone who was on the verge of illness, someone who just wanted to throw something. Hopefully not at me.

"Melisa, it's been so many years since I last saw you."

She nodded and took a gulp of whiskey. She'd be twenty-seven now, gods it had been a long time.

"I'm sorry Norville. I was frickin stupid to leave like I did, I uh, well I've been talking to mom n' pop. Maggie too. I just...I didn't want to interrupt your life, mag wrote to me and mom n' pop called. I'm so stupid, I should have called or wrote or hell just showed up! I don't blame Scooby for getting mad at me."

He had bit her, hence the rest of the group being elsewhere. She meant all of this, meant every damned word.

"Sis, why did it take you ten years? Why so goddamned long?"

She gave me a distant look;

"I could be dying...Doctors are trying to find out what's wrong with me...Pop insisted that I see you, I knew you all could solve this stupid ghostly bint that's been going round scaring every one. I didn't know how else to get you here."

My sis...wanted what? Forgiveness? A family who weren't mad at her?

"Why? If you're dying, why did you come back into my life?"

She pulled out some paperwork and slid it to me. Her will...oh god her will. Had she placed me in it? Of course she had why else would she be showing it to me?

"If I die, I want you and mag to have everything. I know that even if you hate me, that you'll help out mag and her kids, make sure that when Scoob is really old he'll have the best care ever... That you will do good with what I can give even if it pales with what I should have given you...Love, friendship, siblingship...A sister whom you could look up to."

That was not what I had expected; I had wanted to hate her, Wanted to be mad at her. But if she was truly dying, this could be the last time I would see her. My poor liss who should have lived a long and healthy life, gone before thirty.

"I'll think about it. But if you're not, I want you to take me off your will. I don't want to be reminded of you."

And I stormed out. I knew it wasn't fair to her, But my sister had walked out on all of us for ten long years. Ten years that I worried about her, ten years of wondering if she was even alive still...

"Shaggy?"

Frederick. He walked towards me as if I was some wild dog he'd come across. Was I really that fearsome looking?

"Yeah? What did Nout tell you guys and where are the girls?"

He leaned against the banister and gave me another strange look, something very pointed and fearful.

"Well there's been a female ghost round these parts who's scared several people out of their minds, Nout one of them and the girls went up to talk to your sister. Did she hurt you? Cuz if she did we can leave."

No we couldn't. Case to solve, it wouldn't solve itself after all.

"No, she just told me something that won't stop me from helping with this case."

But a female ghost might. Before Melisa had left, we had written a story...The Ghost of The castle of mirrors. That had been with a ghost who had hated her husband and died hating him, she'd come back from the grave to give him a telling off for letting her die to find out he had set up the accident to kill her so he could marry another woman whom he'd been having an affair with. Heavy stuff for a thirteen year old and eighteen year old. We hadn't finished that story, but I had. I had and yet I hadn't giving it up like my own. I know the story was good, it was great. My editor had seen and read the thing, asked me if I wanted it published. I couldn't without Melisa however;

"Bienvenue au château de miroirs, où vous perdez votre cœur et très soul..."

Fred gave me a strange look;

"When did you see the dining hall?"

I froze and looked at him. When had I what?

"What?"

He frowned;

"James said that, Velma said it meant, 'Welcome to the castle of mirrors, where you lose your heart and very soul.' or something like that."

I burst into laughter, Melisa that brat! This was the castle of Mirrors! I turned to look up at the castle; of course this was the castle of Mirrors. The whole thing should have looked familiar to me before Fred said that! Damn that was stupid, Melisa did love me. She had gone through great pains to recreate the castle and then it clicked, the ghost was one Viviane Heartwood. Some one knew the book; Melisa wouldn't have left that lying around. No wonder she had called us up, because I would know the background on this castle like no one but her.

"Fred welcome to the castle of Mirrors, a story that goes back two thousand years of love, devotion, pain, betrayal, death, and eventual payback. This is the Heartwood Castle. I should have known my sister would create this castle, she told me she would ten years ago."

He seemed truly confused by my statement, of course he would because he knew this castle was only three years old like I did from the case notes, but he wouldn't know that my sister created the very castle that was a deep connection between two very imaginative siblings. This castle was the creation of many months of work, all the detail drawn out, and every color down to the core of the building. All the secret passageways, which funny enough I remembered by heart. I knew this place like the back of my hand.

"Shaggy, Fred?"

We turned to see the girls who were giving us a strange look. Good grief, it's not like we were in danger just yet!

"Shaggy just called this place the Heartwood castle."

Duh Fred, IT was the Heartwood castle made into reality. Sis created several books in her time since she was gone, more than twelve different stories of her own hand and twenty with other people. Some just short stories complied with others based on one of her twelve books, or whole new worlds. I wanted to write with her even if I was mad at her, it was all in the case notes and Melisa hadn't used her real name. Her pen name was Amarante Ohanzee and that was the name she'd used to hire us.

"You know you guy really need to learn to look at others and not judge them off of what you see, God like you do it all the time with criminals. Maybe if you'd used that towards others you would have known every time you brought up Absolon Wyngaard me or Scoob would snicker or roll our eyes."

They still were in shock of course, it wasn't every day that your friend told you they were an author who had been getting a lot of awards for the written word and you were totally oblivious to it. Malisa sure found it funny, even having been separate for ten years she'd recognized my work and had bought all three of my books just as I had her books. Velma stood;

"You're Absolon and you didn't tell us even when we gave your books praise? God shaggy, are we in your books?"

I snorted; of course you were my friend. You're my computer loving, villain loving little cheat. I had made Vivi James after her; Vivi was a dork and had fallen for the killer in my book. Not that you would have caught me telling her that. Fred was also a funny in my books, his character was Charles Thornburn. A married man with a deep dark secret, married to a model that was modeled after Daphne was gay. Yep, gay. Fred seemed gay to me, maybe he was maybe not who knew? That was just the luck of the cards for him. Now Scooby, he was my favorite character;

"Scooby doo is Hadrian Heartwood, the ancestor to Viviane Heartwood. Viviane is the main character to our book The Ghost of The castle of mirrors. Hadrian is haunted by the past pain of his Ancestor even though she got her revenge on her cheating husband."

Melisa smiled at me, she knew I was still a little ticked off at her but that I still loved her somewhere after all why would I make a book titled Gate to the Mirror and have a Heartwood in it if I wasn't thinking of her and the book we had wrote?

"Wait, you two wrote a book together?"

Fred said a bit slow on things;

"Yes, The ghost of the castle of mirrors. We never released it since we wrote it ten years ago... I have a copy of it in my lockbox."

I grinned;

"And mine is coved to look like my book Gate to the Mirror; no one would know the difference since they begin the same way."

I had done that after Tim found the damn thing. Liss snorted, it had to have been hidden somehow and that was what I had come up with.

"So really only you two should know the story?"

Yes Velma only us, But someone did. Someone who seemed to be following the book only one problem;

"Yes and they plan on killing."

Ok so randomness insured, at first I wanted to make her hate everyone but her brother and to have Shaggy be the forgiving younger brother, somehow between paper and computer that changed. I have a very strange and wicked mind lol.

Her Author name (The point behind the name is it translates to 'unfading shadow'):

AMARANTE: French form of Latin Amarantha, meaning "unfading."
OHANZEE: Native American Sioux name meaning "shadow."

His Author name: (A joke, that wine is peaceful. Don't ask I just thought it was funny.)

ABSOLON: French form of Hebrew Abiyshalowm, meaning "father of peace."
WYNGAARD: Dutch surname meaning "a vine."