Disclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 55: The Haunted House Part 3
"Why won't this open?!" The terrified Mr Laurent kept trying to twist the door handle.
"Forget about the door, we are not leaving yet," Harry told him. "Not without what I came here for."
"You… will never leave this place!" the eerie voice said again.
"Yes, we heard you the first time…" Harry rolled his eyes. "This ghost is starting to annoy me."
"Ahhh!" The other man screamed and fell on his butt. "T-The door handle disappeared!"
"I told you to forget about the door. Now come on. Show me where you first saw that book," Harry said.
"That is upstairs." The man was nervously looking at the second floor of the manor. "All the weird things always happened up there."
"Fine, stay here then. I'll try not to take long." Harry was making his way to the stairs when he heard something cracking above him.
"Careful!" Mister Laurent screamed while pointing at the chandelier, before it fell down on his head.
Harry made an exasperated grunt as he moved his hand to one side, sending the chandelier flying until it crashed against a wall.
"Stupid ghost, don't waste my time with your silly games."
"How… how did you do that?!" Mister Laurent stared at him in shock after what he had just seen.
"I told you. I'm an expert on strange things. Now, if you don't want to come along, wait there an—"
"No!" He hurried to say. "I'm coming with you!" Mister Laurent figured that he would be safer with Harry than by himself at this point.
"Very well, then hurry up." Harry began to walk up the long staircase.
This time, no more objects fell on his head.
But as soon as he arrived on the first floor, he felt the temperature starting to drop quickly.
"It's c-cold…" Mist came out of the keeper's mouth as he spoke.
As the temperature dropped, the floor and walls became covered in a thin layer of ice.
"We are going to f-freeze…" Mister Laurent trembled.
Harry placed a potent warming charm on himself, as well as the other man.
He gasped when the warm sensation invaded his body. "What happened? The cold is gone."
"Then you can ignore it. Now tell me, which one is the room?" Harry asked.
The man pointed to one side. "Master's studio was at the end of that corridor."
Harry turned around and began to move that way.
Magic fluctuations were getting more intense, so he was definitely going in the right direction.
"Does Mister Potter have a light? I can't see anything ahead of us," the keeper said.
The corridor ahead of them was completely dark.
Harry made a gesture with his hand and produced a sphere of light that levitated ahead of them, lighting the path.
"Mister Potter… are you like, some kind of magician?" Mister Laurent asked. He had already seen too much weird stuff today.
"Something of the sort. Mmmm…" Harry's eyes became narrow. There was something moving right outside the range of the light, and it was approaching quickly.
"W-what is that?!" the keeper shouted when he saw the movement.
Soon enough, a humanoid creature could be seen running directly at them.
"Ahh!" Mister Laurent tried to run away, but Harry stopped him.
"Stay behind me, and don't move," Harry instructed him. "If you get separated, that thing is going to kill you."
The creature in question could clearly be seen now, thanks to Harry's Lumos spell.
It was a man with rotten skin and red eyes. He was wearing an elegant suit, but it was now dirty and decayed.
"Oh no!" Mister Laurent said. "That's Master Frank!" He cried as he recognised the face of the creature.
"Well… now it's an Inferius." Harry wasn't too surprised to find one of these undead creatures in here.
Normally, they are created by a wizard or witch, but in places with a high concentration of negative energy, they could naturally form.
From the story he had heard, this person was the previous owner of this house. He must have died in here during his last visit, and no one was able to find his corpse.
The negative magic in here must have affected the body, turning him into an Inferius.
"Can't use fire in here," said Harry as his wand appeared in his hand. He couldn't risk burning down the house before he found what he came here for.
"Let's try this out." He had recently learned an interesting charm from one of the books that Morgan had provided him.
It was meant to harm dark creatures and ghostly entities.
White mist manifested before Harry.
The Inferius was mere feet away from him. It opened its mouth and extended its hands, wanting to grab him and rip his flesh apart.
"Expecto Patronum." A pure white raven took shape right in front of Harry before flying towards its target.
The Inferius must have felt the danger because it immediately stopped. However, the dark creature had no way to defend itself against something like this.
The raven collided against the undead and pushed it backwards with tremendous force as its magic purified all the negative energies from the corpse, returning it to its original form.
Once it was done, all that was left of Master Frank were a few pieces of bone and fragments of what used to be his suit.
Mister Laurent didn't know what to say after witnessing something like this, but he could still feel the warmth emanating from the magical construct.
"If you can, I would advise you to take those remains and bury them somewhere else," Harry told the keeper. "That way, your old Master will be able to rest in peace."
"Y-yes, Mister Potter. I will."
"Now…" Harry's eyes shifted across the hall until they stopped on one particular door. He could already feel the magic from the black tome.
"It's there," he said softly as he approached the studio.
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