Two for One

Chapter 24: Getting Lost

Tom has immersed himself in a nest of snakes on his bed writing a letter to the Unspeakable, while Gellert reads on the window seat, and Death lies under the bed whispering to something. It whispers back.

"Who are you talking to?" Tom asks.

Gellert looks up from his book and flops sideways to peek under the bed. Gellert then sits up. "You don't want to know."

"But why is it under my bed?"

Death emerges in a distorted child form, crawling on eight arms, and skitters up to the ceiling. "Harry draws these creatures, though they enjoy your aura the most and gather close to where your destructive dreams can feed them."

"Do I have any?" Gellert muses.

"A few, the trickster sort," Death explains. "And I do mean trickster as in stealing away humans to torture."

"Ah, my kind of people then," Gellert half jokes. He does think torture is necessary at times but it's inefficient and unreliable. He likes to think he can charm people out of their secrets, because otherwise Harry would be upset.

Tom pauses and turns up the volume of the small glowing orb on his bedside table, and the conversation from downstairs filters through louder.

"...to their friends' place as soon as school let out," Harry is saying casually. "Can't keep those boys inside anymore. I don't know where they get all that energy from."

Tom rolls his eyes. Harry is doing that thing again where he cares about other people's opinions. If he said the boys were home then it'd be rude for them not to show up and say hello, and Tom and Gellert adamantly refuse.

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Harry sits on an armchair across from the neighbour couple on the couch, happy as they drown him in praise for the plum cake. "Oh, it isn't much. The strudel on top got a bit soggy."

"I could eat this for the rest of my life," the wife says with a laugh.

The husband leans in then with a bright smile. "Well now you have to give me the recipe."

"Of course, though to be honest I just guess the amounts of everything," Harry admits.

"I've found a friend," the man jokes. "Don't ask me what a tablespoon is, it's just the first spoon I grab."

The wife sighs fondly. "And yet you both make such incredible meals. You two should cook together, I think that'd be sweet."

Harry perks up, as does the man, and they start planning what to make. A feast definitely. Or maybe starts with a small desert? No, something complicated. Really fancy.

Harry runs off and comes back with a cookbook and then they decide who cares, they'll make something themselves without a recipe. The woman excuses herself to the bathroom as they're writing down a list of ingredients.

"Oh, just down the hall," Harry says, pointing out of the door. "Very last room, right in front."

She excuses herself with a smile and ducks out of the room. She walks right up the stairs and stops, peering into a half open doorway to the first bedroom on this floor.

A relatively plain room, probably belongs to one of the children. There's a leather-bound book with runes on the cover sitting on the bedside table but it's always difficult to judge these things. Most people are delusional and very few are actually true magicals.

"May I help you?" Tom asks.

The woman tenses but very quickly relaxes, turning to look at the boy with a wry smile. "I was looking for the bathroom," she says with a touch of embarrassment. "Such a big house this is."

"This way," Tom says and leads her down the hall.

She follows with an easy stride, arms loose at her sides and a bland expression on her face. The boy stops beside a closed door and she steps past, one hand moving to the hidden holster at her side where the boy can't see. Even the young ones can be dangerous.

She pushes open the door and tenses.

A little blond-haired boy sits on the bed, thirteen slowly spinning rings of glowing rune chains circle the room with him at the centre. She grabs for her gun but her fingers can do nothing but twitch. There's a wand at her back and her body unconsciously walks forward with a few wooden steps.

Tom closes the door behind them and with a quiet, echoing hiss, the walls pulse the dark green of a mixed ward.

"Hello," Gellert says politely. "How interesting. You see, ma'am, you are supposed to be a muggle. Who should not be able to perceive the second floor of this wizarding house."

The woman grits her teeth. "Oh my, I seem to have gotten lost."

Gellert laughs.

The runes spin faster.

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Harry is awkwardly babbling about the weather because they've sorted out the plan for the food they'll makes and now they're running out of topics that Harry can actually talk about to a normal person.

He wants to ask if the man wants to find his wife, she seems to be taking a while and might have a problem. But also Harry doesn't want to be rude.

Maybe she has a bad stomach? Or she's on her period and she forgot supplies for that? Harry doesn't know how he's supposed to politely ask about it but he can conjure some things if she needs them, since it's a pretty basic spell everyone was taught at Hogwarts.

She steps back into the room, pale and eyes just a bit too wide.

The husband stands sharply and makes an aborted movement towards something at his hip. "Dear."

"I almost tripped," she laughs. "Oh, but that did give me quite the scare."

The husband smiles at Harry. "I hate to cut our visit short but please excuse us."

"Oh, that's okay. We can always catch up again later," Harry reassures as he stands up.

He accompanies them to the door and waves idly as he watches them walk away quickly, leaning towards each other and murmuring something far too quiet for Harry to hear.

Harry shuts the door. "Huh. Odd."