The Weird Friends Co.

Draco's Secret Weapon

Wensley and I traversed through the house to find Malfoy. We thought at last the house had been cleansed and thereby Griffin would be gone too, but we were too quick to sigh in relief. The house wasn't back to normal at all. The staircase was now on the complete opposite side of the wall, and it had about one hundred additional steps added to it. We didn't comment on it to one another as we climbed down but kept silent, both anxiously ruminating on the fact that Griffin had more than one energy source. It made sense since he was able to alter the structure of his home so easily and haunt us from several rooms away.

At last, the landing was in sight. We both quickened our pace and then ran down the hall. As fate would have it, Malfoy and I turned the same corner at the same time and collided with one another. With his body weight being heavier than mine and his force in the collision greater, I fell on my back and he would have crushed me if it wasn't for his arms landing his fall. He breathed heavily over me with a bloody nose and scrapes on his cheeks. A drop of his blood fell onto my forehead.

"You alright?" He breathed.

"Fine. What happened?" I groaned in pain.

"He got me good, but I got him better in the end. Turns out it wasn't the only energy source Griffin has though."

"We know... We just exorcised a DIY graveyard in the cellar."

Wensley cleared her throat and Malfoy finally helped me up. His grip tightened on my hand and he pulled it close, "What is that? Where'd you get it?"

"Huh? Oh... I completely forgot about that..." I commented at the silver ring, still hung up over the possibility I stole it while I was drunk.

"I noticed it in the library earlier... I-It was just suddenly on my—"

The carpet caved, and I slipped from Malfoy's hand into a dark abyss. In the next moment I collapsed in the library too dizzy to stand. Every piece of furniture was mirrored to the opposite sides of the walls as if it were all rearranged. Even the moon shining through the window was now on the west end of the sky.

"M-My fair lady...."

Griffin's outdated dress shoes appeared in front of me, and he bent low to offer his hand as assistance. I smacked it away and rolled to the door. When I looked back, he was crouched at my side, his grin misshapen. The corners of his lips stretched so far into his hollow cheeks that I could see every tooth in his mouth.

"Do not reject me. It w-will only m-make our union all the m-m-more tumultuous!" He spoke in a low tone.

"I beg your bleeding pardon? Union? DRACO!" I howled at the door.

His finger flicked up into the air and a piece of paper flew past my head.

"Oh, bliss! My plans w-were simple. But you have c-complicated... them. When I first beheld y-your beauty... The m-most wicked of f-feelings de-... devoured my heart ..."

He snatched it and held it in front of my face, tapping his finger on the empty signature lines of the marriage license I saw earlier.

"You will s-sign and we will be married. T-The deed will go into your n-name so that I may haunt for another..." he swallowed the uncontrollable laugh swelling in his throat, "Another forty-years or s-so without interruption from... from the nouveau riche dirtying my h-home! HA-HA-HA!"

"I will not sign!"

His terrible laugh ceased, and the lids of his sunken eyes grew heavy.

"You. Will. Sign," he slowly rose to his feet, "T-Tell me your greatest fear, my j-jewel... S-S-Spiders?"

He extended his arm out and turned his palm toward the floor. A black lump fell from it and bounced across the carpet then sprouted eight thin legs. Another lump fell and another, and then a hundred spilled after them all sprouting legs and headed straight for me. I scrambled to my feet, but it was too late they were crawling up my legs. I brushed them off, smearing their squished bodies all over my blood-stained nightgown.