Raised by the Dementors

Number 12 Grimmauld place

I OWN NOTHING BUT GEMINI OK? (it's 10 PM for future me, time to rewrite yayy)

Gem's POV: 

Apparating felt more like momentary suffocation than what one would expect teleportation to feel like. I felt like I was reduced to particles, watching as colors shifted around me in all directions for what felt like an eternity and a mere moment at the same time. By the time it was over, I was on the ground, trying my hardest not to puke on the street. Street. Not cellblock, street. Made of what Sirius had described as Pavement, not brick dust. I must have looked like a maniac, dressed in rags and with a strange envelope in my hands as I lay on the ground, laughing. It still had not sunk into my head that I was free, it was all so... strange. The bright streetlights, the clear sky, the feeling of a ground heated up by the summer sun and temperature. It felt unreal. Looking at the stars from outside felt unreal. 

It took me a few minutes to stand up and realize what my situation really was. Unbeknownst to the Ministry of Magic, I had now apparated to a random location somewhere outside of Azkaban. But was it the right one? I felt my hands shaking from leftover adrenaline as I grabbed the picture I had hoped to teleport into, putting it in front of my face. A neighborhood with houses tightly pressed together, all with the same dull, black coloring and broken outdoor lights. And two houses that were not in numerical order yet were right next to each other. 11 and 13 were neighbors, but where was 12? That's when I remembered the letter my mother sent me. Number 12 Grimmauld place was hidden from the naked eye, and only a select group of people would be able to open the doors to it. She never wrote down an incantation or charm though, so as far as I knew, I was stuck. Great! 

"Ahem, open sesame? House hello? Could you make yourself visible, please? I'm just a regular ol' kid who is a bit- homeless at the moment. If only the residence belonging to The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black could make itself visible so I could have a place to sleep!" The last sentence seemed to do the trick, so I watched in amazement as, from the shadows, a new house squeezed itself between Number 11 and Number 13 Grimmauld place. This one looked unkept, with broken windows and oxidized decorations. Quietly, I made my way to the front porch, hesitating to grasp the door handle and open the door. What if there was a trap? Or spiders- I had never been a fan of spiders. "Oh suck it up, Gemini! You're no Malfoy coward!" Over the years, I had taken up the habit of talking to myself in situations of stress. It grew to be quite an effective coping mechanism in the prison, actually. So I grabbed the handle and pushed the dark wooden door open. 

Dust seemed to surround me from all directions, making me let out a few coughs. Sirius wasn't kidding about this house being abandoned. Slowly walking in, I put my hand on the wall in an attempt to guide myself through the dark corridor. Instead, I found myself touching... a switch? It could be a trap, but I flipped it nonetheless, relieved to find that it turned on the lights of the house. Now that I could see, I could spot why Bellatrix loved this place. The ground was made of polished, nearly black wood, and the walls were covered in elaborate green and grey tapestries. There were several portraits on the walls, some moving, some lying still. Most of them depicted rather gruesome scenes of war and torture, though they were painted beautifully. A few of the paintings were portraits of what she assumed to be past relatives, who glanced at me with judgemental looks. Sirius had said that magical paintings could move and talk, but he never told me that they'd look... alive. 

Right, they were probably looking at me because I look like an escapee child. And I needed to fix that as quickly as possible. The floor creaked as I walked on it, trying my hardest to dodge the bits of broken glass across the corridors. There were heirlooms sprawled on the floor, broken jars on rotting wood tables, old books that were falling apart. This house was but a shadow of its former glory, just like the Black family. Speaking of the Black family, there should be a house-elf in this house. What was his name again- Kreacher? Yes, Kreacher. He had been mentioned in the letter as well, as a servant and possible ally. I never knew what house elves looked like, but Bellatrix often advised me not to get used to human looks when thinking of them.