Beguiled

Voldemort's Mission

Dahlia followed Sphinx as he led her down the long and narrow candle-lit hallway, lined with numerous portraits of pale-faced people, whom Dahlia guessed were Alecto's ancestors. She could hear soft snores echoing through the hallway as she passed the frames - the sound seemed to be coming from the paintings.

The marble floor glimmered eerily, reflecting the yellow candle-light. The shadows cast by the house elf and Dahlia extended down the length of the hallway, swallowing any trace of light in their path. Like dark guardians, they carried on ahead of them, at the frontlines in the face of oncoming threat.

They came to a halt at the end of the hallway, at the foot of an aging, black wooden door. With a swish of Sphinx's hand, the rusted doorknob clicked and the door slowly creaked open. A large room was revealed, furnished with the same modern, black-and-white style as the front room.

Unlike the front room, however, it did not possess the same warm feel to it. Instead, a musty smell occupied this room. There was dust everywhere, lining every piece of furniture, laying as thickly as winters' first snow. As the door groaned open, some of the powdered mud swirled in the dry air and made its way into my lungs, tickling the back of Dahlia's throat as it did so, and compelling her to cough until her eyes watered. As soon as she had caught her breath again, Sphinx spoke.

"There are some slippers for you too, miss." he said in a shrill, shaky voice. His eyes remained lowered to the ground as he spoke. He kept his head bowed even as Dahlia thanked him, before closing the door.

Once the room was empty, Dahlia pulled her wand out of her robes and placed it on the large, black mahogany bed, cursing silently at the fact that she could've used it to defend herself against Alecto's spell. She stripped off her dirty, tattered robes and placed the pile in a corner of the room. She noticed a washcloth hanging on the rim of a wooden bucket of water, placed by the white marble fireplace against the opposite wall. Dahlia started towards it, shoving the washcloth in the water and gliding it down her body without wringing the excess water out. The water was pleasantly warm, and it was satisfying to see her skin cleared of dirt and soot once again.

Taking her wand from the bed where she had left it, Dahlia pointed it at the empty marble fireplace.

"Incendio."

A thin stream of fire glided out of her wand, erupting into a beard of orange flames as soon as it entered the fireplace. She sat in front of the fire for a while, watching the dancing flames sway, long enough for the heat to prick her skin slightly, making it go red. Once she could smell the faintest trace of singed hair, Dahlia stood up and walked back over to the bed where she had placed her change of clothes, and began to dress herself. The clothes smelled of clean linen, brushing softly against Dahlia's skin. She slipped into the rather rough slippers at the foot of the bed.

Dahlia would have been perfectly happy to slide under the covers and slip into a deep slumber at that moment. Alas, she could not do so, for she was about to meet the darkest wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort himself, any moment now. Dahlia opened the door and began navigating her way back to the main hall, where Alecto was waiting.

"Sit." she instructed her, as Dahlia stepped into the front room, motioning to the sofa once again. The girl complied, and walked over to the leather sofa, sitting down slowly and tentatively looking around. It didn't seem like he was here yet.

"I shall call for him now.", said Alecto with a menacing smile, as if having read Dahlia's mind. Alecto rolled up the sleeve on her left arm, revealing a mark bearing the image of a snake twisting through a skull. With her right arm gripping her wand, she placed its tip on the mark, causing it to darken and ripple.