Meliorism

10 | loyalty

Chapter Ten

When I was ten, I entered Grimmauld Place for the first time.

Remus accompanied me as I travelled down the narrow halls, running my fingertips over the dark wallpaper. This was home. That's what he told me, as the hidden door revealed itself between two apartments. I would move in alone when I became older, inherited from my father who would stay in Azkaban for the rest of his life. The lone Black family heir.

Even as a child, I sensed the hollowness of the place. Nothing in the sullen atmosphere or rickety staircases felt like home. Not to me.

I remember balancing up the creaking stairwell, sneezing repeatedly from the dust in the air. Upstairs, a faint sound of banging could be heard in one of the rooms. Terror gripped my heart like a vice, but I still stumbled after the sound in curiosity. It was a Gryffindor characteristic that I, thankfully, grew out of.

There was a trunk at the foot of a bed, aged with rusted metal and decaying wood. It jerked across the wooden floor in jagged movements. I registered that something was desperately trying to break itself free from its confinements.

Slowly and shakily, I pushed the bedroom door open anyway. Somehow, either knowing Remus was downstairs or out of sheer stupidity, I inched closer. And, as if sensing my nearing presence, the trunk moved more aggressively, creating scratches on the once-polished floor.

With a final bang, the creature suddenly broke free in a flurry of wooden pieces.

I could still remember the dread in my heart, threatening to consume me alive, as I ran back downstairs. I had taken two steps at a time, hoping that my greatest fear wouldn't grab me in time. The boggart had transformed into the hollowness of my father, but with pitch-black eyes and dark purple veins. Evil, just like everyone described him to be in the papers. 

I never stepped inside that room again.

Now, staring at the cursive engravings upon the gold surface, I felt the same nauseating lurch in my stomach. Although, disbelief and anger began to flood my senses, instead of dread.

Somewhere out there, some dimwit had the snitch that only my father and I were supposed to share. They either stole the snitch or he gave it to them himself. It felt like the utmost betrayal.

I scrambled to sit upright, finding it difficult to breathe with the walls closing in around me.

Swallowing my increasing anger, I brought the snitch to my lips again: Who is this?

Seconds passed. Minutes.

I shut my eyes for a brief moment, willing my mind to clear from clouded judgement and frustration.

There was a limited number of people who knew my father, and an even smaller number of people who he trusted. For whatever reason they had the snitch, they knew who it belonged to. No doubt the message came from one of the other houses. Gryffindor, most likely.

Those tossers would remain hopeful and overly optimistic even when the world was ending. I couldn't imagine believing my father was alive after knowing, or witnessing, his death. Even I had long faced the conclusion that my father was gone and never coming back.

But according to Blaise, most of our classmates were dead because of the ongoing war.

He witnessed The Dark Lord kill Potter in the final duel, promptly defeating The Order. Apparently many people witnessed Potter's two sidekicks and other Order members barely escape alive on their brooms. Potter's body had gotten lost during the chaos, but Blaise was sure that he saw a distinct redhead fly away with the body.