The Nocturne Residence
It was the end of summer, yet frosted grass crunched deafeningly under Professor McGonagall’s hesitant step. Walking through the unkempt garden would have been impossible without the paper thin layer of snow blanketing the sleeping statues, dead flowers and leafless trees. The moon shone meekly over the mansion, lighting the pathway in a faint glow.
The professor stopped in her pursuit once again and looked around, her bespectacled cat-like eyes struggling to see in the dark. Her gaze fell over to the right where multiple gravestones stood in disarray in the distance. It was a cluster of crosses and bulky headstones, positioned as if the people who once habited this forsaken place had to huddle together for warmth even after death.
McGonagall exhaled a visibly shaky puff of air and wondered for the umpteenth time whether anyone actually lived here. It was far too quiet. Far too dead. No wind, no moving clouds, no signs of animals and no lights in the windows of the tall building up ahead. Its charcoal grey walls were anything but inviting and the rows of onyx black windows glinted dangerously with the reflection of the starry sky. The only signs of any life at all, she now noticed, were the small footprints that littered the otherwise untouched snow.
The footprints were hard to make out. It was even more difficult to tell where they came from and where they went. It seemed as though someone had been pacing endlessly and aimlessly between overgrown garden beds, bushes and frozen ponds.
Perhaps the person she had come to meet did reside here, after all. The professor meant to feel relieved - she really did. However, as she neared the heavy front doors once more, she felt as though she had entered a place where such feelings couldn’t exist. Her thin summer cloak did little to keep away the all-consuming chill and dread she had felt the moment she apparated here. Her neck had bristled with the unpleasant feelings and she had prepared to cast a patronus against a dementor. What else could explain such despair? No dementors had come and she trudged along with the spell ready on her lips.
Now, she stood before the front entrance of the frozen manor and hesitated to knock. She clutched her wand tighter and coerced her other hand to the door knocker, which pictured a very realistic toad. She lifted the knocker and let it clang against metal, creating a hollow sound that echoed inside the walls for a long moment. The silence following was even sharper.
And it stretched for a short eternity.
Maybe they’re sleeping, she thought. It is dark here. It was a stark contrast to Hogwarts, the school she had left only ten minutes ago, where the sun shone high above the grounds indicating it was around noon. Professor Dumbledore was surely drinking his afternoon tea in his study right this moment.
She had had a brief meeting with him after breakfast in the Great Hall, during which Professor McGonagall had gone over her plan for the day: she was to meet with the Finch-Fletchleys and then the Nocturnes for a briefing on magic. In her experience, breaking the news that magic exists has to be a rather sensitive event for the Muggle parents' sake. Dumbledore preferred to send McGonagall specifically to these families, for she was very adept at reassuring worried parents.
But here she was, not feeling one bit reassured herself.
Maybe she was right to assume that the residence was vacated.
Maybe she had come to the wrong place.
She stepped away from the doors and towards the garden. She was just about to turn to leave when something flashed by one of the windows on the second floor. An audible gasp escaped her in surprise and the professor stumbled slightly. She craned her neck to see what the movement was. Everything stood still for a moment before the same figure emerged in the next window. This time it stood there and looked outside, where McGonagall met its gaze. His gaze, she realised and stopped pointing her wand at the window.
When had she drawn her wand? This was very unlike her - being so on edge and pointing her wand at harmless people on a whim.
A second figure appeared in another window. This time it was an elderly woman. With her was a man wearing a top hat.
Something didn’t seem quite right.
Another person appeared, this time on the ground floor multiple windows to McGonagall's left.
They were glowing .
The old professor recognized the glow when a little boy looked at her from a window that was much closer. She had seen it many times during her years living and teaching at Hogwarts. She knew the translucent shine and faded colours well.
They were ghosts.
They looked at her, some with curiosity, others with distaste, as if she had awoken them from their hibernation. They sluggishly floated from window to window sharing hushed words with each other. She could hear the chilling cackling and crazed shrieking of a poltergeist long before it came to her view.
She was startled once more and her head snapped to look in front of her, when a rustling sound scratched the front door from inside. A lock opening. Another one. A chain sliding and dropping from its place. One more clicking sound. And at long last the door creaked in its hinges as it was pushed open with great effort.
Baffled and wordless, Professor McGonagall looked at the ghost that had just opened the door. Ghosts can’t do that, her mind provided. A ghost would have simply floated through any material surface. It couldn’t have answered the door. Yet the child before her glowed. A soft blue hue surrounded the child - the light shone from underneath her skin and it rolled off her hair in languid waves. But she wasn’t see-through, the professor noticed with great intrigue.
Clearing her throat with a small cough, the older woman decided that introductions were in place, however confused she felt.
“Professor Minerva McGonagall, deputy headmistress at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, pleased to meet you. I am here to speak with Miss Catallena Nocturne and her family,” she addressed the little girl standing silently on the doorstep. The nightgown and the tired eyes the girl wore made the professor suspect that she was right in guessing that the occupants of this mansion had been asleep upon her arrival. Why it was nighttime in this corner of England, when it was supposed to be the sunniest day in weeks, was beyond her.
As if still in deep slumber, the girl's light grey eyes had focused on the simple golden embroidery on McGonagall's cloak, rather than her face. As if her head was too heavy to lift and as if shifting her eyes was too much struggle.
The girl finally stepped to the side and McGonagall entered the building after a moment’s hesitation, still firmly holding her wand within the folds of her robe. The door shut with a heavy thud and everything became even darker than out in the moonlit yard. A brighter, almost blinding (due to the contrast), light lit the entrance hall’s dusty surfaces. Professor McGonagall whipped around searching for the lightsource, since the big chandelier overhead had stayed unused.
The girl walked past McGonagall further into the room, taking the light with her. Her hair dragged behind on the hardwood floor and it illuminated the whole room in a cool white-blue shine as if she had casted a successful Lumos spell.
The immediate -and admittedly dumb- thought that crossed McGonagall's mind told the professor that this girl was magical. If she even was just that - a girl. Everything about her and about the dark interior of the mansion was magical. It was definitely not what was expected from a Muggle residence.
Stunned, the professor couldn’t say anything on the matter. She settled on eyeing the girl as she was led down a hallway to the right and up a beautifully decorated staircase to the second floor. The girl had yet to say anything, but the silence was filled by ghosts appearing from behind closed doors and solid walls. They asked the newcomer what her business at their home was and if she knew any stories she could share with them “ for we are oh-so bored! ” The pair walked past (and through, regrettably) the ghosts and entered a sort of lounging room deep inside the building.
The girl gestured with a sluggish hand movement to the mauve coloured sofa set and McGonagall chose a seat. She dusted it before settling down, small dustbunnies floating in the air. The girl left the room wordlessly and all the professor could do was examine the room and survive the onslaught of poltergeists. The room was smaller but much taller than the entrance hall, with a ceiling made of patterned glass. The ceiling let cool rays of moonlight filter in and light the floor-to-ceiling bookcases in a haunting manner. It was almost unbearably cold, and the professor shivered as she waited for the girl to return to the room with a human adult, hopefully.
She ducked when another book was chucked at her head by one of the poltergeists. The poltergeist with the angry yellow tailcoat had found great delight in dropping books from the highest shelves and shouting "Heads up!" way after the book had actually smashed onto the floor. Usually, the stern woman wasn't deterred by poltergeists in the least. The school she worked at housed one as well and Peeves was somewhat agreeable when he was met with McGonagall's demanding words and glares. Here, McGonagall didn't feel quite like herself and so the spirits were allowed some leniency.
Ghosts stuck their faces into the room through its walls and then quickly jerked them back to the other side. There, out of the professor's sight but not out of earshot, they gossipped and giggled amongst themselves, clearly amused by this stranger in their home.
What felt like hours later, the girl re-emerged with a silver tray that held a teapot, sugar, cream, biscuits and at least a dozen small tea cups stacked on top of one another. No human adults.
She carefully lowered the tray onto the coffee table in front of McGonagall. Meticulously, she placed empty tea cups around the room, onto the sofas, individual chairs and even the floor. She then poured tea into two of the remaining cups and handed one of them to the befuddled professor. The tea steamed and smelled sweet, but McGonagall was too distracted to appreciate the warmth that holding her cup provided.
Gaining courage from the girl's presence, ghosts filtered fully into the room and -as if they were having a tea party- posted themselves to their designated spots marked by cups. They couldn’t sit so they pretended to do so while floating in the air. They couldn’t drink or hold the cups for that matter either, but they seemed very pleased to have been involved in this get-together anyways.
Only the three poltergeists remained moving about the room, but no-one else seemed to pay them any mind. They played a loud game of who-can-break-the-most-saucers-with-just-their-feet amongst themselves.
The girl herself finally sat on a sofa. She sipped her tea carefully and then decisively reached over to the porcelain sugar bowl and plopped three sugarcubes into her drink.
It became clear that everyone expected the visitor to start the conversation. Questioning glances and crazed looks all honed in on poor Minerva at once.