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

A/N: Ok, this is my second chapter, only took me two hours! Alright, please review! And don't worry, the good stuff is all the coming chapters, this is all just setting it up.

Warnings: See first chapter, SLASH.

Wiltshire

Harry slammed the door to the cab as Hermione got out, and took a look around. The small town seemed perfectly normal; shops were open, businessmen were making their way to the train station and a gang of kids ran down the street laughing. Harry frowned in thought before turning back to Hermione.

"Just where the hell are we?" This did not seem the sort of place he had been expecting when investigating malevolent spirits, for some reason. It just looked, well too normal.

"Wiltshire" came the smart reply.

"Wiltshire?! As in Wiltshire, England?" asked Harry incredulously. For heavens sake, he even knew where Wiltshire was in relation to where he had grown up! It wasn't exactly the place he had imagined when Hermione had told him about this job. "Wiltshire?"

"Yes! And if you had actually listened to me you would know! What did you expect, some haunted little village in Eastern Europe somewhere?" Hermione said slightly sarcastically.

" . . . No."

Hermione rolled her eyes and muttered "hopeless" under her breath. She gave him an appraising look. She had been a little worried about him for a while. He seemed tired lately and had a greater tendency to drift off and get lost in his own thoughts. It had worried a few of the others as well. She hoped that what he had to do here wouldn't drive him deeper into his little depression. She shook herself, grabbed Harry forcibly by the hand and dragged him off in search of the hotel.

Harry meanwhile was rubbing his temples with one hand as he was led along. His hand unconsciously drifted to the scar that was located on his forehead. It was a thin, small thing, in the shape of a lightening bolt. He had always been self-conscious about it and so was nearly always hidden behind his locks of his pitch hair. It had never bothered him physically before but as soon as he had arrived; he had felt this strange tingling sensation run across it. It was rather distracting.

Harry decided to blame it on the headache that came with travelling. That was another thing Harry was really beginning to loathe. It was the jetlag you see. This morning, or this afternoon, or whenever it was, they had been in Montreal and now, he was in England and he had no idea what time, or even what day it was. This was not an uncommon problem for Harry, but damn did it get annoying. He wouldn't sleep properly for days. Not that he would probably sleep at all in the coming week he thought ruefully.

His face split into a full-fledged grin at the thought of this job. Finally, something interesting to take his mind off things.

As he thought about it he decided to ask a question. "So when are we meeting the owner of this place then?"

"As soon as we get to the hotel" Hermione answered absently. She was supposed to be in Italy with the others, but she seemed to feel a bit bad leaving him completely by himself, so had come just to get things started; she would be leaving tomorrow morning. "Now Harry, you have to stay in the house for the full week, get the recordings and then the week after sort them all out, as we'll all be coming on the Friday. So we shall all be back together in just under two weeks, that's all right isn't it?"

"Yes Hermione" he said dully " I'm not someone you need to baby-sit 24/7, I shall be fine. As long as I don't get eaten before you get back of course."

Hermione hit him for his joking but smiled nonetheless. Harry was not smiling, that woman hit hard!

Harry's bad mood was quickly replaced by the nervous excitement that had been building ever since Hermione had told him about it in the rental room office.

Apparently, some owner of this big castle (or mansion, they weren't quite sure) wanted evidence of the presence of a malevolent spirit that 'lived' in the place. Harry wasn't sure what the man wanted to do with this 'evidence' but that wasn't his place to ask. At the time he had been sceptical, that didn't sound too scary. Hermione had then proceeded to explain that the man had had others in the past stay there and that there had been 'incidents'. When Harry asked for more information, Hermione had said that she didn't have any but that the owner would explain when they got there. However, the pay being offered was ridiculously high. Therefore Harry had a bad feeling he knew what might have happened to the previous people. Of course this just meant his interest rose even further. Damn his curiosity, damn it to hell; it was seriously going to get him killed one day.

Oh well, these things happen.

Harry sighed to himself as they finally arrived at the small hotel that was situated just outside the town centre.

"So where's this mysterious 'owner' then?"

"Over there."

" . . . Oh. He looks…sort of …"

"Mad?"

"Yes."

Hermione sighed. "Well that doesn't matter because he is the one paying us. Besides, you should respect your elders."

Harry gave her a dubious look and turned his attention back to the man humming to himself in the corner. He was tall, and seemed about 300 years old. He had a long beard that he had tucked into his belt and was wearing the most jumbled mess of clashing colours that in Harry's mind most greatly resembled some sort of flashing neon sign.

He approached cautiously.

"Um, would you happen to be…Albus Dumbledore?"

The old man looked up, appearing pleasantly surprised. "Indeed I am m'boy, and you must be Harry Potter and this lovely lady must be Hermione Granger, no?"

They both nodded and sat down at the table in the lobby.

"So, I gave you a brief description of what I wanted didn't I?" asked Dumbledore.

Hermione cut across him. Harry gave her a look that clearly stated he thought the world was ending. She ignored it. "If you wouldn't mind, sir, could you tell us the full story behind the house, it would help us in our investigation" she said hopefully.

" Oh, of course Miss.Granger! It wouls be most rude of me to send you off with so little information wouldn't it? Yes, most rude indeed" he mumbled to himself.

Both Harry and Hermione just stared at him waiting to continue.

"Well, about twenty years ago the house came into my possession, more of a mansion really. It was in quite the disrepair, still is as a matter of fact. None of the workmen want to go near the place you see."

Harry was becoming more intrigued by the minute. Of course it could just all be superstition around the place but for some reason Harry didn't think so. It just had this odd feeling in the back of his mind that this was the real thing.

Albus continued with his musing story, " Odd things happen in that place. I remember one day I came in to check on the work, we were trying to make it hospitable, and the kitchen was in complete disarray; plates flying everywhere pots, pans all over the place…My brother Aberforth, doesn't believe me you see. I need evidence to show him that there is something not right over there." He stated in a slightly proud voice. Harry and Hermione looked at each other. Yep, definitely cuckoo.

"Has anything else happened there, what about the others you have sent over?" Harry asked. He really wanted to know what had actually happened to everyone else who had been sent there. Fair enough, seeing as he was going there himself.

Dumbledore suddenly looked a little uncomfortable, as if he really didn't like the answer to Harry's questions. "Well, there have been shadows, odd figures, that sort of thing…"

"And the people" Harry prompted.

"Er, well, um…they have, mostly, disappeared."

Harry said "mostly" at the same time Hermione said, "disappeared", looking rather alarmed.

Dumbledore was obviously uncomfortable now. "Well, the ones that didn't disappear were found dead." This was met with wide-eyed stares so he quickly pressed on. "But, we know now from experience where the people have died so as long as you don't go to those places in the dark of night, I'm sure you'll be fine Harry m'boy." He finished with a benevolent smile, which did not comfort Harry in the slightest.

"Well, we've already agreed. . ." Hermione said hesitantly, she felt awful. How could she let Harry go there? It was suicide by the sounds of it.

"I'll be fine Mione. Always have in the past. This just…makes it more exciting!" Harry exclaimed chirpily.

Hermione looked at him as if he had lost his mind. Harry was beginning to wonder that himself.

There was a bump as the car hit yet another mound in the road. They had been driving down something that could only be called a dirt track for half an hour. The fact the driver had called it a short cut was not making him feel that much better about it. Harry dove to keep his equipment bag from falling for the fourteenth time that afternoon and thought back to Hermione's goodbye.

He could still quite clearly see her harried face; she clearly was taking the whole 'everyone has died' thing much worse than Harry himself was. He could also remember Dumbledore's crazy little smile as the car went off. He shuddered; in his opinion of Dumbledore was that he was as mad as they came.

He didn't know why he wasn't as worried about this as he really should be. That fact was what was actually worrying him. He tried to be scared, really he did, but Harry just couldn't smother his undying curiosity about the whole thing. It was a mystery, and a mystery, Harry groaned to himself, he just never could resist.

It was also highly possible that his lack of fear stemmed from the fact that he had only seen a picture of the mansion, had only heard of the bad things about the place rather than experiencing them himself and that the autumn sunlight was chasing all the shadows away.

Then again…the sun was starting to set as he looked out the window…

With an extra large bump, that sent him careening forward into the seat in front, the car bounced off the dirt road and onto another one. This one however was paved, though still enclosed on both sides by tall trees. The engine stopped rattling and a door slammed as the driver got out.

"Sorry, but I ain't gettin' any further than this, 'kay? The place gives me the wibbles'."

Harry just blinked, before the fact that he had to get out of the vehicle registered in his brain. He clambered out and wrenched his bag from the back and gave it a quick once over to make sure nothing expensive had broken.

"Righ', well it's just down the road, yer can't miss it alrigh'?" said the driver, pointing vaguely down the road into the distance, before climbing back into the car. He really did seem on edge Harry mused.

"Well, good luck, yer'll need it" and with that he nodded and drove off in the opposite direction. Harry watched him until he got out of sight.

Harry suddenly shivered, a small wind had picked up; and now he was alone, the sun seemed a lot lower in the sky. Or perhaps it was just the clouds that had come in. Funny, he didn't remember seeing any clouds in the sky earlier. He looked around and clutched the bag tighter. Get a grip! It was just the bloody weather.

This thought didn't comfort him as much as he wanted it to.

He started walking down the road to where the driver had pointed. He couldn't help but notice that the branches of the trees on either side of the road hung low and in such a way that they created boughs that really did enclose the road very well from the outside. It was early October and autumn was in full swing, the leaves were quite beautiful in their reds, yellows and oranges. The road was covered in an odd sort of paving, which made a clicking noise for his every step. He also noticed that there were gutters on either side of the road, which were filled with fallen leaves from the many trees. It all seemed sort of familiar.

He shivered again as the collecting clouds above gave a slight rumble. There was going to be a storm, how typical. He let out a slightly shaky sigh. He hoped he would get to the mansion before it started to rain. He really couldn't get all his equipment wet.

The wind got a little stronger, rustling his already very messy hair and disturbing the leaf piles, pushing them into the air. He zipped up his jacket; the air really was much colder than it was this morning.

Through the tree line he could begin to see a tower. The sight of his goal, made him speed up slightly. It pierced the sky, and behind it he could make out more slate grey stone. Harry frowned, was this a castle or a mansion? He continued on, impatient to see the house in its entirety, it appeared to be just round the next corner.

He stopped in his tracks. Out of the corner of his eye, he had seen something in his peripheral vision. It was a rusty swinging gate, hanging gently against its hook. There was a little path behind it, which was overgrown; some of the paving had been pushed over from the weeds. As he watched, the wind swung the gate open; creating a whining sound that stirred something in his memory. He had seen this before, he was sure of it. He tried to recall where, but he was at a loss. Harry looked about himself again. It was all very familiar, frighteningly so. The swinging gate whined again as the gusts of wind changed direction.

Harry bit his lip, a nervous habit, and hurried at double the pace to the house, turning his back and trying to push the road and the swinging gate out of his mind. He was just being stupid! But even as he thought this, a nagging fear had settled itself in the back of his head. Things were already getting weird, and being all by himself was not helping his paranoia.

The swinging gate gave another grinding whine as it was forced open once more.

Harry shivered.

A/N: Alright, how was that, I think I have a slightly better idea where this story is going now. Please review, it gives me inspiration to update faster! I'm really soft, so I will give into badgereing!