Harry pushed open a door at the back of the room.
"Come with me." Hermione and Ron glanced at each other. Ron shrugged, and started after Harry. Hermione searched the foyer for a moment, and hurried after her friends.
Harry was running his fingers along the walls as he walked. He stopped and examined every piece of artwork, and took in the view from every window that passed.
M
A woman walked slowly though the garden outside. She held the hands of her baby as he cautiously stepped forward with her. The rest of the family sat on a nearby blanket, eating a picnic. They laughed and applauded at the baby's toothless grin. At that, the child began giggling and fell back on his bottom, his face lost for a moment in his mother's skirts. The woman leaned over, and pulled her skirt back.
"Peek-a-boo, baby Luc!" the woman said, laughing at the startled look on her young son's face.
E
The family faded away like smoke in a gust of wind. Harry smiled, and turned away from the window. The hallway seemed to go on forever, and Hermione jiggled the doorknob of the first door they came to, but Harry didn't stop walking.
"That's just the parlor, 'Mione. Lets' keep going." He urged.
"How do you know it's a parlor? I want to look inside." She stated, pushing the door open slowly.
"It won't be of any use. The parlor was only opened when important guests came over." Harry replied. Hermione ignored him, and walked in anyways. Ron followed, but Harry stayed in the hallway, looking over a tapestry hanging on the wall.
"Wow!" Hermione exclaimed. The room was pristine, save for a thick sheet of dust covering everything. There was a petite looking white couch splashed with pink flowers, several small armchairs, a coffee table, and a white baby grand piano all set up comfortably in the parlor. Hermione used one of the curtains to rub years of grime from a window.
"Harry…" she raised her voice. "Harry, how did you know this was a parlor?" she asked cautiously.
"Hermione, what…" Ron started. Hermione put a finger against his lips.
"Shh! I think…" she stopped. "Harry?"
"Right here. I don't know how I knew. It was just like someone popped into my head and told me. It's a bit weird." Harry replied, wiping the dust from the piano bench and sitting down.
"Like someone was in your head? Telling you what to say?" Hermione asked insistently. Harry nodded, confirming her fears. "Harry, remember when that ghost tried to possess you a couple of years ago?"
"I remember. And I know what you're getting at. You're wrong. He isn't trying to possess me. He's just… pointing me in the right direction." Harry replied firmly. Ron cleared his throat.
"Harry, what's he leading you to?" he asked.
"I…. I don't know yet. But I'll know when I find it. This way. Up the servant's stairs." Harry walked out of the parlor, Ron and Hermione following him with shared looks of concern. He walked slowly to the end of the hall, batting at cobwebs around a warped wooden door. He jiggled the doorknob, but it was no use. The weather had changed the shape of the wood. Harry leaned against the door with all his weight, and it popped open an inch.
"There's something blocking the way. Hermione?" The girl pulled out her wand.
"Reducto! Harry, Ron, stand back." She cast a few more spells, and a strengthening spell on the doorframe. A few moments later, she stepped back, looking satisfied, and motioned the men forward. Harry eagerly pushed the door open the rest of the way, and three gasped, his friends echoing him as they looked past him.
It was like the door had led to another dimension. The walls were black with soot, and the roof had caved in several places. The walls bowed over, and the smell of mildew assaulted their nostrils. However, as Harry watched, time seemed to reverse itself. Nature's marks pulled away, and the walls rebuilt themselves. Within seconds, the place was whole again, phantoms of memories bustling around the kitchen preparing a meal.
L
"Master Darius also requested that lemon tart be served with supper tonight." A skinny man, with a hooked beak that rivaled Severus Snape's reported.
"Thank you, Johnson." A burly woman, who looked to be a cook replied. "See to Melody, will you? She'd just toddled off to the gardens."
"Of course. Though I'm sure young Julian is close behind. He wouldn't let any harm come to her." Johnson said with a smile. Sure enough, a few seconds later-
"Melody! Come back! We can't pick Mummy's flowers!" Six year old Julian struggled to lift his three year old sister. "Come with me. We'll go play on the brooms Daddy got us for Yule." Julian said. Melody giggled
"Kay kay Jule. Brooms!" she shrieked, kicking her feet in the air excitedly.
O
Harry was suddenly thrown out of the memory.
"This used to be the kitchen. Everyone thought the fire started here, but it didn't. When Julian ran back inside, it was through this side door. There was a lot of smoke, but the fire started upstairs. The kitchen wasn't originally a part of the house; it was built later, so the upstairs didn't extend over it. My guess is that when the outer wall upstairs started to burn, the roof of the kitchen caught." Harry said, poking though the ashes with a bit of rusted metal. "The stairs are this way." He moved aside a large piece of rotted wood and began to test each stair carefully as he climbed. Ron followed behind him, and laughed nervously.
"It feels like first year again. Remember, always checking the staircases so we wouldn't get caught in a jinxed one?" Hermione giggled, climbing after the men, and Harry grinned.
"It's okay. I think these are safe, but they haven't been used in a long time." He replied.
"Fifty years… and some of the house shows no sign of the fire at all. The Malfoy's were a very powerful family, I'm sure they had protective spells weaved into the very woodwork. The fire had to have been started magically, and by a formidable witch or wizard." Hermione declared, awe coloring her voice.
"But who could have done something like that? Voldemort wasn't around yet, and no one really powerful has lived in this area for quite some time. Mum would've told us all about it otherwise." Ron replied, brushing some soot from his trousers as they reached the top of the stairs.
"Harry, where are we going?" Hermione asked.
"I'm not sure. Julian is telling me where to go."
"So he's actually talking to you?" Ron asked skeptically. Harry shook his head.
"Not exactly. He's just aiming me. Like he has his hand on my shoulder or something." Harry replied absentmindedly. The hallway upstairs was worse, by far, than the kitchen had been. They moved with extra care over the rotted floor, all three of then casting strengthening spells on the wood below them. Harry gently kicked aside a fallen beam, placing his hand on the wall for support. Suddenly-
D
Three sets of feet were heard pounding up the stairs.
"Melody, I understand that you want to study art. I can even cope with you going to a Muggle school. But why America?" a booming voice echoed up the stairs, and a beautiful girl a few years younger than Harry entered the hall, followed closely by he father and older brother.
"Father, I'll be fine! And I won't have any more talk! I'm going to America, and nothing you say will change my mind!" Melody declared, whipping around to face the two men.
"But it's so far away! What if something was to happen to you, and-" She cut Julian off with a scathing look.
"I'm seventeen years old, Julian. I don't need you to protect me anymore! Please, just let me have a life!" Her voice rose in pitch and by the last word, she was screaming. Their faces faded, twin looks of shock on the two men.
Y
Harry watched the scene and turned away. He blinked a few times, and continued cautiously down the hall, thinking about what he had just seen. About fifty spell-strengthened feet later, he stopped at a charred hole in the wall that looked as if it had once been a doorway.
"We're here." He whispered.