Love is the ghost haunting your head
Love is the killer you thought
Was your friend
Love is the creature who lives
In the dark
Sneaks up, will stick you
And painfully pick you apart
-Concrete Blonde, "The Beast"
***********************************************************
It was past midnight in Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Moonlight fell in patches across the ancient floor, glowing wanly like a growth of poisonous mushrooms. A pair of boots strode stealthily through the murky hallway; stirring dust into little eddies with each step. Aged portraits crusted with grime clung to the dark walls, their occupants staring with glittering eyes at the passing shadow. Down it went, descending the twisted staircase and into the kitchen, where the darkness was lessened somewhat by a sullen glow that seeped from under the crack of a dingy cupboard. The steps slowed, moving softly, carefully, as a faint muttering became audible.
"They're gone, gone now, yes, but not for long, oh no, they'll soon be back, filthy mudbloods and traitorous meddlers, Kreacher knows, creeping and prying, staining the House with their tainted hands..."
A hand reached out to touch the cupboard door. Gently as a breath of wind, it pushed the door slowly inward. A steady stream of pops and hisses sizzled from the boiler coiled in the center of the closet, its pipes warped like the limbs of a crouching beast. Ruddy light outlined the silhouette of an ancient house-elf, each of its muttered curses punctuated by a twitch of its ears.
"But there's one gone already, and more to follow, oh yes, Kreacher made sure of that, the blood traitor had to go, oh my poor Mistress, to have such a son..."
Spindly fingers shuffled through cracked frames, caressing black-and-white faces, long dead. The house-elf's voice lowered to an ugly hiss. "Kreacher fixed that, yes he did, he made certain that the Master would not soil the name of Black again, disgracing, dishonoring, defiling....." The shadow shifted in the doorway, slipping closer to the hunched figure. Light from the boiler flickered redly on the blade of a long knife.
Kreacher turned as a draft of air stung his back. "Eh.?"
The knife flashed once, twice. And abruptly, Kreacher's mutterings were silenced.
***********
Reddish light flickered through a dirty window, but no one could see it, and no one would have cared if they had. The shadowy figure turned back down the street, the end of its cloak gleaming wetly in the faint light of the street. Behind it, smoke rose from a chimney of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, ashes floating upwards towards the stars.
Love is the killer you thought
Was your friend
Love is the creature who lives
In the dark
Sneaks up, will stick you
And painfully pick you apart
-Concrete Blonde, "The Beast"
***********************************************************
It was past midnight in Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Moonlight fell in patches across the ancient floor, glowing wanly like a growth of poisonous mushrooms. A pair of boots strode stealthily through the murky hallway; stirring dust into little eddies with each step. Aged portraits crusted with grime clung to the dark walls, their occupants staring with glittering eyes at the passing shadow. Down it went, descending the twisted staircase and into the kitchen, where the darkness was lessened somewhat by a sullen glow that seeped from under the crack of a dingy cupboard. The steps slowed, moving softly, carefully, as a faint muttering became audible.
"They're gone, gone now, yes, but not for long, oh no, they'll soon be back, filthy mudbloods and traitorous meddlers, Kreacher knows, creeping and prying, staining the House with their tainted hands..."
A hand reached out to touch the cupboard door. Gently as a breath of wind, it pushed the door slowly inward. A steady stream of pops and hisses sizzled from the boiler coiled in the center of the closet, its pipes warped like the limbs of a crouching beast. Ruddy light outlined the silhouette of an ancient house-elf, each of its muttered curses punctuated by a twitch of its ears.
"But there's one gone already, and more to follow, oh yes, Kreacher made sure of that, the blood traitor had to go, oh my poor Mistress, to have such a son..."
Spindly fingers shuffled through cracked frames, caressing black-and-white faces, long dead. The house-elf's voice lowered to an ugly hiss. "Kreacher fixed that, yes he did, he made certain that the Master would not soil the name of Black again, disgracing, dishonoring, defiling....." The shadow shifted in the doorway, slipping closer to the hunched figure. Light from the boiler flickered redly on the blade of a long knife.
Kreacher turned as a draft of air stung his back. "Eh.?"
The knife flashed once, twice. And abruptly, Kreacher's mutterings were silenced.
***********
Reddish light flickered through a dirty window, but no one could see it, and no one would have cared if they had. The shadowy figure turned back down the street, the end of its cloak gleaming wetly in the faint light of the street. Behind it, smoke rose from a chimney of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, ashes floating upwards towards the stars.