𝒜𝒻𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓂𝒶𝓉𝒽 | 𝒟.𝑀.

67 | ﴾ Imposter ﴿

The fields around the ghostly Manor typically took on a cloudy gloom during the twilight hours as fog developed in the air like a noxious gas in the rural setting. It was practically blinding some nights, and getting stuck outside of the building beyond midnight was not an ideal happenstance. The sound of howling beasts in the woods not far away brought Draco back to consciousness in the back of the dewy Jeep.

He yawned and blinked away the lingering inebriation, kept warm by Madeleine who had curled up all over his body like a human blanket. She on the other hand was only in a thin dress and shivering profusely. He sighed and pushed up to a better sitting position, patting his sweater pockets for the keys.

As he was searching, his eyes caught on something that had been watching them sleep ominously in the distance, perhaps a quarter of a kilometer ahead, standing not far from what had once been the exterior glazing of his father's study windows.

He squinted through the rolling fog with rising dread. A pair of luminescent eyes standing still as a statue were glued to him, far off of the ground beyond any typical human height.

The feathery blue glow gave it away as a ghost, and he was instantly convinced that he knew exactly who it was. The spectre was up past it's knees in the garden plants that Madeleine had once gone to so much trouble to plant in the worst possible plot she could have chosen, and it's eyes glinted with the same soft cerulean glow emanating from it's body.

It stood still as a telephone pole, rigid and concentrated, boring it's gaze into him, and he briefly wondered how long it had been there. He slowly reached into his pocket for his new wand without breaking eye contact. In the blink of an eye, it shot across the space between them and he found himself nose to nose with it absurdly quickly, shaking under it's accusatory eyes mere inches from his own. The movement had been impossibly fast, akin to teleportation, and he choked on his breath in his throat with his fingers twisted around his wand.

After a few seconds he found his strength, now having come across the phantasmal spirit on multiple occasions and escaped unscathed. He swallowed, "I realize what you want, but I can't break the wards on the dungeons."

It solemnly nodded it's head, it's jaw hanging uncomfortably crooked and open. Draco searched anywhere but at Neville's awful stare, "I would take it back, if I could." His hand on Madeleine's shoulder gripped her tightly, afraid that it somehow might harm either of them. The temperature of the air had dropped down bitterly low, and the stench of decay once more dominated his nostrils.

Neville reached out a glowing finger and Draco desperately tried to shrink impossibly further into the back of the chair he was up against. His hand came up to cover Madeleine's head protectively, and she sighed against him completely unaware.

Neville's shaking finger drifted slowly towards Draco's chest and he panicked, "Don't touch her! Stay away!" He lifted his wand with his arm before her, trying to remember if he'd learned any spells to deal with poltergeists. He'd had to deal with Peeves at Hogwarts many times, but only the results of the specter's nonsense by using a Skurge charm to clean away assaulting ectoplasm.

He lit the tip of his wand with the brightest spell he could think of, but it only served to illuminate Neville's ghastly features more. The ghost remained in place, strong and determined to pass on whatever message he felt he needed to.

His hand passed straight through Draco's arm sending shocks of icy shivers through his skeleton. The tip of his finger landed centimeters from Madeleine's nose, directly above Draco's heart over his hoodie. The ghost tapped there multiple times as Draco shut his eyes in terror, then it backed away.

It's hand came up as though holding an invisible bowl, and there in the air bobbing above, little beads of spectral energy began to bleed off of his visible form and collect into a swirling image of a bright, floating Moonstone.