In the shadows. (H.S) [A.U]

Chapter 37

There is some old furniture which has been covered with white sheets and for some reason there's a white sheet covering a figure which I'm assuming is a mannequin. Well I hope it is. I slowly step towards the figure and subconsciously hold my breath as I slowly grab the white sheet and pull it off in a split second. 

I let out the breath I was holding when I see that it is in fact just a mannequin. But as I keep looking at it, a thought pops up in my head,

Why the hell does he have a mannequin in his attic? He sure as hell isn't a fashion designer. 

But before I can creep myself out, I cover the mannequin back up. He did say that it was not his stuff. It was his grandparents' stuff. The mannequin surely looks very old. So it may have something to do with his grandmother.

I shrug it off and look around more. Everything is covered in dust and spider webs. There's an old piano in a corner of the attic. From a small distance to it, there are multiple cardboard boxes. I make my way towards them. 

I open the box to see that it is filled with a lot of old documents and other things. After a moment of going through it, I find some old pictures. I wrap my hand around them and take them out of the box. 

The first picture looks to be a family portrait of a mother, father, a child and their dog. The parents are smiling brightly in it but what confuses me is the fact that the child's face is scratched out with some kind of a needle or something.

Why would you scratch a child's face in a picture?

I flip them to look at the second picture to see that this one is also a family picture. This time, there is just the father and mother with their child. They look a bit dull, their smiles not as bright and they seem older as if this one was taken a few years later. There is no dog and the child's face is scratched out again.

Is the scratched out child Harry?

Just as I flip them again to see the third one, I hear the sound of piano being played and I scream as I jump back to look over at it. There's nothing but just a mouse running across it. I shake my head and try to calm down my racing heart as I look back at the pictures in my hand.

I look at the third picture, it looks to be taken a year or two later than the second one. In this one, the family obviously looks older and there's a different dog standing with the child this time. The child's face is scratched out yet again.

The one after that is just of the boy and the previous dog from the first picture. At this point I'm pretty sure that it's Harry but the boy's face is scratched out in all of the pictures, so there's a chance of it not being him.

The last picture which I find is just the parents standing in the same place as the other pictures many years later. They are not even pretending to be happy in it. The boy and the dog aren't in the picture.

This is way too weird. I don't look further in the box and put the pictures back in it as my mind roams back to the locked cabinet in Harry's room. There has to be something in it which is related to his past.

I get up from the floor and wipe the dust off from my clothes. I get out of the attic, closing it and rush downstairs.

I have to find the key first. It is not in the room. That's very obvious from the last time I looked for it and fucked up.

Think Elizabeth! Think! Where can he keep it? Somewhere he knows that I won't check. 

As I pace back and forth in the lounge, my gaze falls onto the book shelf. I never mentioned it in front of him until today. Is that why he was caught off guard? I have seen him around the shelf many times but he always walks away from it when he hears me coming. He doesn't even take a book out of it to read.. Maybe the key is in there somewhere?