Under Your Spell

Pettigrew's Secret Hideout...

“Potter!” McGonagall hissed, “Be quiet!” Harry subsided into silence. They had trudged through a small dead-looking village and were now standing quite still outside a small grotty looking house; This Harry would have expected of someone like Snape to be living.

Professor McGonagall swept forwards, and sweeping a hasty, wary look around, she tapped her wand to the peeling brown door. There was a metallic click and the door opened, creaking ominously to reveal the dark bowels of the house beyond.  “Hurry, Potter,” she breathed, ushering Harry into the house, and following him quickly, tapping the door so that it clunked shut behind them. The darkness swallowed Harry whole, pressing in on him like weights. In a split second, Professor McGonagall had conjured a lantern in a stream of fiery liquid from the end of her wand, and held it aloft. The warm orange light flooded the dingy hallway, illuminating bleak empty paintings that would once have contained people. Snape had obviously once held a taste for trolls, as an umbrella stand, almost identical to the one at Grimmauld Place (Harry winced) sat motionless next to a heavily varnished corner table. “Come, Potter.” Professor McGonagall made her way through a door into another room.

Harry followed her, and was greeted by the stench of mould and damp. It was apparent that they, or rather she, was looking for something.

“Oh, yes.” McGonagall inched closer towards a bookcase, lifted her wand, and tapped it gently. In the instant that the bookcase swung away with a crash, the lantern extinguished itself, and disappeared.

Harry looked on in amazement to glimpse a dark stone stair way coiled behind the ‘bookcase’. It sloped upwards shallowly, twisting out of sight.

McGonagall lifted her wand in a ‘come hither’ movement, and Harry shuffled closer. “On my signal, curse whatever you see,” she breathed. Harry opened his mouth to question her, but she had already begun to scale the stairs. Harry followed her, his breathing accelerating.

The stair way was short, but incredibly curvy. Harry felt like his hips were going to twist out of their sockets. Professor McGonagall remained ahead by a few steps, but Harry could hear her laboured breathing, even from where he was.

Finally, they reached the top, being confronted by a thick wooden door. Muttering an incantation under her breath, McGonagall waved her wand and the door clicked open.

The room was dark and had obviously not seen the light of a flame for a very long time. Everything was covered in a thick blanket of dust and cobwebs hung like ghostly drapes from the beams on the low wooden ceiling. Professor McGonagall advanced slowly across the room, her cloak dragging sluggishly along the floorboards, leaving a long clear stripe in the dust. Harry mirrored her, his trainers crunching in the dust.

The walls were pasted in posters, wizarding posters with pictures that moved, but the closer Harry moved, the more he saw that they weren’t posters, they were in fact newspaper clippings. Harry sucked in a sharp breath, as Voldemort’s face stared out at him from every picture. The Dark Lord Returns! Declared one clipping; Has Harry Potter Finally Met His Match?

Most of the clippings were old; some three or four years old. A low wooden desk staggered under the weight of a stack of crumpled parchment. Harry lifted a piece.

Pettigrew,

The time has come. Rumours of the Dark Lord’s death have been all too dominant these past few weeks. With Lily and James Potter’s deaths, we are hoping that the Dark Lord is merely celebrating this news alone. He was last seen in Albania shortly after the deaths, however, it is said that he is dying, and that makes him more desperate. He will be in need of a companion to help him, to serve his needs. You will do this job.

We are holding a meeting in Malfoy Manor to discuss the matter further. Narcissa Malfoy, although heavily pregnant, will provide an ample heir once it is born. The couple proclaim their child is a son, as it has been in the Malfoy family tree for centuries. If this is so, your job will be made easier, as the child will take over your duties once the time is right.

You have done well, my friend, and I know you will continue to serve the Dark Lord for many years to come with great faith.

Yours always,

Ethel Black

Harry felt a nasty blow crush his insides.  Where had he heard that name before?

An almighty crash brought them back to their senses. In a split second, McGonagall had fired an exploding curse at a box of matches, and gripped Harry’s arm, twisting them in the same second. They were there long enough for Harry to see the room burst into flames before they disapparated.

Something told Harry that they weren’t going to see the last of this.