Act I: I Can't Believe I'm Doing This

Part 18

I let Cissa lead the way, just in case. I am not fighting fit, after all, and I trust Cissa to defend us in the case of any traps. It may be mostly abandoned, but it's still Black Manor. "Lumos!" The light from her wand shines pale blue down the stairs, showing them to be even, straight, and steep. She hesitantly takes a step forward, then freezes in place. "This place does not feel... right."

Still, she steps down the next stair. I follow behind and feel the same spine-crawling wrongness that froze her in place. Whatever this place is, we are not welcome.

Another step. The warmth from the library has already faded, leaving icy waves rolling up my arms. The light from the library barely reaches the fifth step. It even feels like the light of Cissa's wand is fading faster than it should.

Another step. I feel the weight of the air pressing in on me. No... the magic. This place is dark. It does not want to be seen. I reach out and put my hand on Cissa's shoulder, and she jumps with a shout. "We should turn around and prepare, Cissa. Let's go." She nods - clearly grateful - and we go up the stairs.

I keep my gaze behind us. I feel like I'm being watched. Like I'm being studied. As soon as we're both out, I take the book from Cissa and push it towards the empty hole in the bookshelf, not thinking about possible curses. To my relief, the shelving curls into existence around it.

For just a moment, as the last bits of light fade from the stairs, I could swear I see two sharp, intelligent eyes glowing out from the darkness. But that must be my imagination. It's far too dark down there for us to see something like that - and besides, it would only have been a step or two down from Cissa, if I'm judging the distance correctly. She would have seen it. Surely.

I shake off the feeling and stand up a bit straighter. "Like I said, we should prepare before we go down there. It's clearly dangerous, so we should be as ready as we can be."

"Right, you're right." Cissa takes a step closer to me, wraps her hands around mine. "Part of that should be waiting for your magical core to recover. In the meantime, though, we have a lot of daylight left. Should we go to her room instead?"

"Sure." Anything to get us far away from that... hole. Cissa stops to set up some basic wards around the entrance - just in case.

"So this is her room..." I'm used to the extravagance of these manors by now, so I'm not surprised to see that Bellatrix's 'room' is more like a full suite dedicated to her. The door opens to a large, surprisingly open room with a fireplace off to one end - too small to Floo into. At the center of the room is a round table surrounded by three ornate chairs in dark leather.

I take a step in, just behind Cissa, and see that the table was never cleared from her last meal. It sits, moldering, strewn around as though she'd left in a great rush. "Yes, it is." I have never heard Cissa's voice filled with such nostalgia before, even at our first meeting - when she told me of Bellatrix for the first time. "I have not been here in... over three decades."

She waves a hand and vanishes the mess, then rights the cutlery in another flick of her wrist. "I'm surprised there weren't elves to take care of that."

"The Manor's elves were... killed, shortly after she was imprisoned. She did not have access to the Malfoy elves, and refused to search for one herself." She continues tidying while she talks, "I am surprised it isn't worse."

Me, too, but I don't say as much. "Where should we start?" I walk past the table and look further into Bellatrix's suite, down a short hallway with three closed doors along the walls. "How big is this suite?"

"A parlor, bathroom, study, bedroom, and a sun room. I believe starting in the study would be our best option." Cissa gestures to the left of the hallway, behind a door which I can only assume leads to the study. "In just a moment, I will unlock it. Her password should still be the same."