Chapter 4

I apologize for all errors that may be contained here within, I just finished this story at roughly 2am! I have tried to edit it as I went along,hopefuly I corrected most every error,I am truly sorry for the ones I have missed. Hope everyone is still enjoying this story, I would love to hear some more feedback please, any questions,coments,or concerns are all welcome; or, of course, just whether or not you like it so far. Happy reading everyone. Take care and have a great day.

Harry's unearthly screams could have woke the dead,breaking the oherwise still night air,if it wasn't for the simple fact that no sound would ever leave those impenetrable walls.

The same icy hand that had been raking his back only moments before, now penetrated through his chest and gripped his heart between its lifeless knarled fingers and squeezed until Harry found himself growing weak,clutching at his chest he fell to the floor.

Crumpled in a heap on the floor, he laid in a motionless fetal position. Harry gasped and his eyes fluttered open as the icy fingers finaly relinquished their hold on his heart. Harry could actually feel the malevolent spirit receed back from him,the farther it went away from him,the warmer the room seemed to become once more. Scared beyond words,beyond comrehension, Harry remained still for quite sometime,just listening to the sound of his own heart pounding in his chest,slowly returning to its normal rhythmic beat. Without moving,as he was not yet ready to test fate,Harry slowly let his eyes roam over the room. Everything seemed to be as it once was,the blood no longer diminished the quality of the room,temperature was normal,the icy fingers seemed to have left and yet...

Harry sat bolt up right,"What's that god awful smell," Harry silently wondered to himself. It reminded him faintly of rotting meat. One time Harry had found a dead alley cat behind the Dursley's house,suspected Dudley had killed it. The poor creature had to have laid there the better part of a week before he came across it,the smell had been sickening. His stomache had turned,lurching to the point he had almost vomited. It was in that moment that his Aunt Petunia had suddenly came out the back door. Supposedly, to weed the garden she had neglected for more then a week, astonished to have suddenly spotted Harry and the dead cat. She had screamed like an old Banshee at him when she saw the cat,thought he killed the poor thing. The funny thing was that he had always suspected that she really did not looked shocked,like she knew it was there in advance,knew the real culprit to,but rather then admit that to others and to herself,she blamed Harry. Often Harry wondered if his Aunt and Uncle were not as naive as to Dudley's doings as they let on to be,but because they wanted to believe he was perfect,they were convinced of it and made it so in their eyes Dudly could do no wrong,despite the things they heard and saw.

The smell lingered in the air briefly,saturating the room,seeming to emanate from every orifce. When it finaly lifted, Harry scrambled out of the room, glad to have a temporary reprieve.

Hastily, Harry grabbed the 'Eye of Ra' and flipped it open. Dumbledore's etching stared up at him,"What's the matter Harry? I could hear the all the comotion,what is going on out there?"

"After being thrown out,I had to find a new home,..." Harry gasped as he tried to catch his breath while Dumbledore only nodded in understanding. "I bought this place, it seemed nice,but it appears to be haunted,or posessed!" Glancing about nervously, Harry continued to suspect that at any moment something was going to grab him and drag him into some forsaken Hell.

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow,his face slightly creasing with worry, " ... and dare I ask,where does this house happen to be located?"

" The town of Hastings," Harry sighed as he suddenly wished he had spent the night at a hotel and house hunted in the morning, instead of buying the first thing he could find without looking into it's history a little more.

A pained expression crossed Dumbledore's face,"...on Shady Hill?"

" Yes,you've heard of it?" Harry looked awestruck at the news of Dumbledore's familiarity with such an obviously evil house.

" I should say so, this was my daughter Elora and her husband's house, she and her mother were murdered within these very walls!"

Harry's mouth hung in amazemnt. So this was Dumbledore's daughter's house! The fact that Elora and Athena were murdered here could only lend to explaining the haunting,but were they the lone two haunters,or was there more spirits? Harry resolved there had to be more spirits for the way the whole house seemed to be a living,embodied energy of vengance!

" I'm sorry to hear that... If it's not being too forward of me to ask,who murdered them," Harry believed and knew in his heart that it had to have been Voldemort.

" It is not whom you presume it to be," Dumbledore remarked,knowing what Harry was thinking," though their deaths were ordered under his command... This man you have known in your own right Harry,for your own reasons and to this day,he has never had to face a jury, to be answerable for his crimes"

Dumbledore seemed to almost shake under the weight of the burden of the information he held,like chain bindings that had been built link by link by each unspoken horror.His wisened eyes,looking grave and wary,glistening with inky tears," Their killer is none other then, Lucius Malfoy".

" Draco's Father!" Harry could hardly believe what he was hearing, in a way it should not have surprised him and yet he still felt taken back by what he was hearing. Being a 'Death Eater' of course would have meant Lucius was under orders, yet even now Harry could picture Lucius enjoying such a task, would have done the vile deed with little coaxing,all the while a sick grin curling the corners of his mouth into a delighted,malicious grin.

" There was never any physical evidence to convict him and only one witness, who by all accounts was not in the position to tell. If he had come forward he would have been killed and he was far too important to loose, an ally in the ranks of the good, my own dear Elora's husband...," Dumbledore winced for some reason unbeknownst to Harry.

" Whoa! You're telling me that Elora's own husband stood by idly and watched her be murdered right before his very eyes," Despite the fact he had never known neither Elora nor Athena, Harry felt a kinship for them and mourned their loss," If it had been me, I would have died fighting, at least I would have tried to save her, to save them".

" As would I Harry,I assure you. Do not believe for a moment that her husband felt any different than you do. He loved her more then you could ever know. He was in the position that Volemort would not have him killed,unless provoked. But, he knew if he died then, their deaths would not have been avenged properly,to have only killed Lucius,where as if he bided his time he would be in the position to kill Voldemort himself along with the rest of the Death Eaters! It was in that moment of grief and anger, that he put a curse on this house. A 'Blood Code' to ensure that neither Elora's nor Athena's soul could ever be taken from this house until the day he freed them through the code,or someone of good heart was able to do it in his place,he saw to it that Voldemort would never posess them," Dumbledore's gaze on Harry as he flinched from hearing a distant pityful moan of agony emitting from the second floor.

" As honourable as his intent was,because of his actions, their spirits after being trapped on this plane of existence for so long,they've become more like angry Wraiths,looking for the chance to extract their own revenge. On top of that, all the negative energy that has become associated with this palce has created a demensional vortex which has made for a gateway for all kinds of spirits to pass through,particularly the evil ones," Dumbledore shook his head sadly, " As if the spirits weren't enough to deal with, the Blood Code was initiated on your head the second you stepped through those doors, now you must play your way through the code if you are to survive, it's ongoing and enduring. You must break the code Harry, the fate of two worlds lies in your hands".

" Elora's husband must have been a genius and a nutter all at the same time" Harry remarked,appalled and scared by the prospect of what he must endure to break the code.

" In a way yes,perhaps,but there was indeed 'method in his madness', that same code is installed by him at Hogwart's,extra precaution, crack this one and you move automaticaly on to the one there. It is the key to not only freeing more then one restless spirit and ending the curse - directly sending Elora and Athena to the other side, it will also breech the gap between the relams through the vortex,it's so much more. It, means more then I can possibly explain,but I do believe it will be one of the biggest steps you ever take in bringing about the end of Voldemort,for with the unlocking,the breaking of the Blood Code,all the hidden secrets wrapped inside it's design unravel and make Voldemort more human and will lead to his own undoing,his final bloody demise,from which there is no return. The Blood Code,my dear boy, is not only working as a safety lock,it is also an Armagedon device,just waiting to be activated!"

Harry could not believe it, the Blood Code was a mixed blessing, it could finaly help him end this battle with Lord Voldemort,but what if he could not crack the code,what would happen then? How did such a 'code' come to be in the first palce? It, sounded like something Harry remembered from his own childhood,a Muggle term he had heard once,though he could not say why. " So, ... whom, is this raving mad-genius husband of Elora's that you trust so much?" Harry stifled a laugh that threatened to errupt just then.

" That," Dumbledore smiled faintly,a whistful look in his eyes,"...would be none other then Professor Severus Snape".