Disclaimer: I do not in any way own Harry Potter.

A/N: Right, I'm on a roll, three chapters in three days! Finally we have some Draco coming in, and super sweet Neville! Well, a lot happens in this chapter. Harry really is becoming traumatised. It's great! Well, I shall once again beg for reviews, as I have about 800 hits, and 10 reviews. I rerally need some encouragement at this point! Well, on with the fic I guess. . . Oh and,

'. . .' now means direct thought.

Warnings: See first chapter, SLASH

Visits

The shadow stared out at the landscape lackadaisically. It did not interest him; he had seen it many times before. Thus, the reason for his lack of enthusiasm. Then again, not much interested him at all these days.

At the moment he was languidly relaxing in one of the towers, as he was often want to do. Time passed so much faster when one was only barely aware of time passing at all, in his opinion. And he had so much time to spare.

Normally he would be sleeping, especially as he had fed so recently, but for once, something had caught his attention. He had felt it earlier, then stronger as the day progressed. It was almost like a presence, he normally could feel such things after all, but this one felt much more…intriguing. In fact, he could almost taste it. It slid across his tongue and down his throat in teh most delightful fashion. Yes, most interesting.

Imagine his surprise when source of said interest came to him. He had caught a glance of the creature as he entered. It was a pretty little thing he supposed. The shadow would most delight in his new interest that he had stumbled upon. He had to find out more. It was a compulsion that had to be satisfied.

He hoped it was skittish. A grin shone with malignant intent. It would be so much more fun that way.

The shadow withdrew from the window, back to the darkness to ponder over the new addition.

Dawn had never been more welcome. Harry had stayed up for hours last night before he had managed to drift off back to sleep. The horrible sensation of being hunted had lingered for a long time after he had woken and made his heart beat irregularly. When he did manage to catch some sleep, he was twisting and turning for the remainder of the dark hours.

Overall, it had been a rather dreadful first night. Harry just hoped the following evenings didn't follow this one. He had no desire to repeat the experience.

On a brighter note, he had survived the night. With all of his limbs intact too. It did little to lighten his mood though. Harry was no stranger to nightmares but never had one felt so…so…real. It had been as if he had been reliving something that had actually happened. He sighed. He really needed to straighten out his thoughts. He did not need to brood over this all day.

Nevertheless, Harry was in a rather sombre mood for the rest of the day.

After tipping his bag upside down, he finally managed to find his sandwiches. Ahh, Hermione, she was so kind to him. Sometimes. As he picked them up a little note fell from between the wrappings. It was pink. Harry felt his mood sink even further. He tentatively picked up the note and read it,

' Hope you like the sandwiches, Love Ginny!'

Harry shuddered, and tore the little pink paper into tiny smithereens. He knew that it was a completely unnecessary thing to do, Ginny wasn't that a bad if he ignored her, but this morning, he was in a rotten mood and had no desire to ever set eyes on anything pink again.

He grumbled to himself as he found his shoes and put them on, before realising he had absolutely no idea where to go or what to do. He gazed out the window. It was October, so the nights could be quite chilly but the days were normally warm enough. A walk outside should be able to clear his mind. With that, he headed to the door after shrugging on a jumper (it was still a little cold) and headed down the stairs, map carefully folded in the back pocket of his jeans.

He eventually found a backdoor after a good fifteen minutes searching for it. Damn worthless map. With a relieved sigh he finally walked outside. The wind was blowing quite strongly today; the leaves were being blown all over the place. The sky was a thick blanket of cloud, but the air itself was almost humid. He set off down the path, head down and arms wrapped around himself, not really thinking much of anything. He turned a corner and found himself in front of the tree he had seen from his tower window. It was incredibly wide and incredibly tall. However, what most interested Harry was what he spied in between the branches.

There, hanging off two twines of rope was a swing. It was just a simple wooden board that was a little rotten round the edges, but Harry didn't care. He slowly sat himself down upon it, wrapping his arms around the thick, stiff ropes. He gently swung himself back and forth a few times, shoes dragging on the ground. The ropes creaked with age and the tree groaned slightly. He sat there and thought.

He had been so tired recently. Tired with everything, work, travelling, shopping, eating, just… everything. He didn't know why either. He sighed and looked at his converse trainers that he was wearing. 'Huh, didn't know they were falling apart that much'. They were indeed falling to pieces. He scuffed them again in the grey dust that would have been soil at some point in the past.

Everything was so complicated as well. Couldn't people just leave him alone when asked, Ginny for example? Though he supposed it didn't really matter. Most things just couldn't bother him at all anymore, mostly because he didn't feel a part of them. He felt…isolated from everyone else, like an observer. When he was awake, it was like he was dreaming; nothing seemed real, while his dreams felt frighteningly so. He felt numb, hollow.

Hw swung a little more on the swing. He wasn't as if he was feeling suicidal or anything, it was just that…he felt alone. More alone than he had ever felt in his whole life, which was saying something. He sighed and looked at the sky. The wind blew and lifted his hair, tingling his scar once again. This time he put a hand to it, rubbing it slightly, wondering why the fucking hell it was doing this. With another sigh of aggravation he stood up from the swing and walked back to the house. He clutched his arms tighter to himself. There was no one else to keep him company anyway.

As he walked back down the corridor on the second floor to the tower, he glanced at the portraits once again. It wasn't until the last, however, that he stopped. There was the boy, of about eleven or twelve, staring back at him. Yesterday, he was sure that the boy had only held a rather impassive air. Now, as he leaned closer, he identified that the painting was most definitely smirking at him. He quickly jumped back in surprise. Yes, the boy was still wearing that smirk. He looked to his right and left. He could have sworn that last night the boy was merely distasteful in his expression. However, before he could fly into a full-fledged panic, something else distracted him from the mocking portrait.

As he looked left down the corridor, he felt something. Whatever it was, it had his skin prickling and the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. His breath was deep as he stared down the corridor, eyes glazed. Something was coming, he could feel it.

There was a horrendous crash from downstairs and Harry snapped back to reality, immediately running as fast as he possibly could in the direction of the disturbance. He was led to the top of the entrance hall; he leaned over the banister and saw a dark figure at the bottom, leaning next to something that might once of been a vase. Finding unknown courage, Harry crept down the staircase, behind the bent figure. Just as he reached it, it turned around,

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Two identical screams rung out in the silence.

Once Harry recovered enough to see that the figure was another person, he quickly demanded, "Who are you?"

The round faced boy fiddled with the hat in his hands and opened his mouth to speak several times with no result before squeaking out in a small voice,

" I'm the gardener."

"The gardener…" Harry said faintly. His heart was still located in his throat somewhere.

The boy fidgeted again, " Well, I'm a gardener", still in a very small voice.

Harry just looked at him blankly, not knowing quite what to say.

"Erm, are you Mr. Harry Potter, sir?" at Harry's vacant nod he continued, "Oh, I'm so sorry for scaring you sir, it's just that old Dumbledore sent me to check on you once he found out that Mundungus, the blighter, only sent you as far as the road."

Harry took a minute to absorb the information, heart still beating faster than was healthy.

"Right, and you are…?" Harry finally asked.

"Oh, I'm Neville, and I'm so glad to see you're still alright, sir." Said Neville earnestly.

He really seemed sweet, this Neville, Harry mused. "No need to call me sir Neville, I'm probably younger than you."

"Oh, right, sorry," stuttered Neville "It's just me Gran, she's big on manners…so, yeah…"

Harry smiled slightly, "I guess you were the one that broke the vase, hmm?" Harry asked only slightly mocking. He couldn't help it, Neville just had a clumsy look to him.

Neville blushed to his ears, "Er, yes, um, I'm a bit…uncoordinated at times. Sorry"

Harry shook his head. "It's fine Neville, really. I would offer you tea, but I don't think you want to go to the kitchen." Harry gave wry grin at that.

Neville seemed to pale. "No, no I think I'll just stay here, don't want to get lost."

Harry gave a small chuckle. Neville had effectively distracted him from his previous mood.

"Have you lived in the village all your life Neville?" Harry asked curiously.

The slightly chubby boy appeared glad to get off the previous topic, "Yep, lived here with me Gran ever since I was little" he stated happily.

" Then you know all the stories about this place then?" Harry knew there was a lot more to this place than Dumbledore had told them. Remembering the portrait from just a few moments ago, Harry shivered slightly.

"Well," Neville looked a little uncomfortable, "I suppose since you're staying here I should tell you the truth. Dumbledore, though really kind, has a habit of leaving out the…worst bits."

"And what would those be Neville?" said Harry in a steady voice.

Neville sighed. Harry seemed like a really nice person. Most other people laughed at him when he broke something, he didn't want to frighten him. But Harry really did need to know the truth.

" I know you have probably heard that the occasional person has died here, yes? Normally from odd 'accidents'? Well that's…smoothing things over a bit."

Harry raised an eyebrow at that. People dying from horrible incidents was smoothing things over? Harry's trepidation began to rise. He had a really bad feeling about all of this.

Neville continued, looking worse by the second "The truth is, everyone, who has stayed here over night has died. They may just claim they disappeared, but everyone knows their dead." Neville hesitated before going on; it really wasn't a pretty picture.

" And when they do turn up, they look perfectly fine, apart from being dead of course, and pale as anything, but most dead people are pale though…" he trailed a bit before glancing at Harry. "In fact, you're the first one to survive the night for years. The last person Dumbledore sent, just last week, a Mark Evans, he disappeared just a few days ago."

Neville shook his head. " And all this for what? Evidence to his brother that he isn't round the bend."

Harry's first thought was, 'my mother's maiden name was Evans…'Poor thing, was probably in shock. He had heard it was bad, but not this bad. It really was suicide. His ire at the situation rose. When he got his hands on Dumbledore, he was going to kill him. In the most painful way he could possible think of.

And Harry had a very creative imagination.

Neville must have felt bad for be being the bearer of bad news, no matter how unintentional it was. That or he was rather frightened by the malicious look on Harry's face. Either way, he made a quick goodbye and wished him luck, still fiddling with his hat. Neville really was quite sweet. And he had been company.

Once again he had been left alone and the fears that had been repressed by Neville's visit were rising to the surface again. He looked at the sky through a broken window. The sun was far too low in the sky for this time of day. He checked his watch and was unpleasantly surprised to find it was 2.30 already. Wonderful, half the day was already gone. And he was hungry.

He decided just to go up to his tower room and perhaps read one of the books he had brought with him. He really needed a distraction from the revelations Neville had brought.

He slowly climbed the staircase. At the top, he teetered slightly; he was reluctant to go back. He didn't particularly have any desire, whatsoever, to pass those portraits again. He shook himself, what was he thinking! The whole thing was probably just part of his paranoid imagination. He growled slightly to himself, staying in this bloody mansion was really creating hell on his neurosis. He stormed back up the stairs; he was not frightened of some oil paint and canvas!

His resolve melted when he reached the edge of the corridor. He suddenly had the unreasonable sensation that he was being watched. He surreptitiously looked about him, no one there. Big surprise. Still, the feeling lingered and refused to go away. How irritating.

Harry took a calming breath before he began to walk down the corridor. He was doing well until he reached the boy's portrait. He hesitated, rocking back and forth on his feet. It was a completely irrational fear, so he should just face it and be done with it. He couldn't do this every time he wanted to go to the tower!

He took another breath and pivoted to face the portrait.

Was it him, or did that smirk look even more conceited than last time? He mentally berated himself; this was ridiculous! He decided he should probably at least learn the name of the boy that was disturbing him with such infuriating ease.

'Draco' the nameplate read.

Harry frowned, was that Latin?

"Draco?" he murmured.

'Yes?' replied a whisper in his head.

That was it. He couldn't help it.

He screamed, turned tail and fled down the corridor as fast as humanly possible.

A/N: Ok, I have a feeling that this chapter was a little rushed, so tell me what you think. I tried, but I got far too tired of this chapter to do anymore on it. So, please review, it'll make me really happy!