ꜱᴇʀᴘᴇɴᴛɪɴᴇ ꜱᴇʀɪᴇꜱ | ᴛᴏᴍɪᴏɴᴇ

Serpentine, ch. 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

Harmony lay on her bed and waited, not certain what she was waiting for. She could be waiting for Claudia to come back, Snape to come and get her, or anyone who might come to take away her lunch tray.

I just want someone to talk to, she sulked. I want to know more about my new mysterious life. Then her thoughts strayed back to when she had met Barty Crouch Jr. in the hallway. Well, maybe not him, she thought with a shiver of revulsion. She hated the way his cold, dark eyes roved over her body like she was a piece of meat.

After she took a nap to rest off some of the soreness from her lessons, Harmony made a decision. If no one would come here to tell her about her new life, then she would just have to go exploring and find out more herself.

After she checked her face scarf to be sure it was in place, and with her wand firmly in hand, Harmony left her little chamber before she could change her mind. The hallway was pitch black as she continued down, so she had to cast a Lumosspell to see her way.

The tip of her wand glowed a bright golden light over a hallway covered in cobwebs. She passed lots of other doors that possibly led to other guest rooms. Her black boots left impressions in the dust on the floor, and she deducted that no one else had been down this way for years.

Occasional pictures lined the walls, but they all seemed empty of people; it was so quiet down there, as though she were deep beneath the earth. Sconces lined these walls as well, but no candles lit up as she passed. She rounded corner after dark corner in her search to find anything that might tell her more about her new Master or his home.

Every door she passed had a small portrait on it, similar to her own, but the further she went the older the photographs became. Nineteenth to eighteenth century clothes adorned the men and women she saw.

I wonder if these are all relatives who once lived here together, she thought. She tried to imagine these hallways radiant and beautiful, like the people in the portraits.

Could they be relatives of Lord Voldemort himself? Harmony tried to imagine the Dark Lord as a family man who visited his family every now and then for tea and crumpets. She actually grinned at the ridiculousness of the thought.

He's a solitary man, she decided. There could be no question about that. He had no wife or children, not even any real friends, just the same fearful followers. She wondered if he was lonely sometimes, and then she wondered if that was why he had sent for her. Perhaps he was tired of being alone.

Harmony stopped short and shook the pitying thoughts from her head. Then she looked around, and spun in circles several times as she stared down one hallway and then another.

"Oh no," she groaned, then paced down several more corners. "Oh, no no no."

With a shuddering sigh she realized she'd become completely and utterly lost. All halls looked identical. She started to run, knowing she would have to come upon something eventually, even if it was just a dead end.

She cast the light of her wand on every door she passed, looking for the familiar portrait of the young woman who adorned her own chamber door, but never saw her. Either she had grossly underestimated the size of this mansion, or she had stumbled onto some sort of a spell.

Okay, if it's just magic, I can defeat it, she thought. Her eyes closed in concentration as she tried to determine what she was up against. A somewhat dark spell, cast to defend the place against intruders. They would wander endlessly through this labyrinth until they decided to rest in one of the rooms, and then they would become a prisoner.