Home is Where the People Are
Regulus Black. I repeated the name not aloud, but in my thoughts, hoping it would make sense. Regulus Black…not the beast. Or perhaps they were one and the same. Suddenly, the name of Regulus Black felt more like a chill down my spine than any simple name. Old man Jono flashed behind my eyes when I tried to blink all my fear away. Maurens humming rung loudly in my ears. I felt suffocated by the knowledge that where I stood is where The Beast -Regulus Black- would have walked through the door with bloody hands.
When Kreacher rose from his bow, I found he still walked with a rather large hunch. His eyes seemed both endless and shallow as they wandered to my feet and he let out a startling growl.
“Hurry, you are making mess for Kreacher to clean,” he spat each word as if they were daggers he could throw with his mouth. Without a second thought, I stepped inside, my eyes kept gravitating towards the shadow atop the stairs. I wonder who was watching me now as Kreacher skimmed my arms with his pointy fingers as he took off my soaking wet coat, the one I left for the apple orchid in. I wondered about the color of the eyes that stared at me as I waited for further instruction, or would they be just as black as Kreachers? Full of horror and death, sin committed with the shadows’ own hands?
All my thoughts were so consumed with a muddled mix of fear and curiosity, that I have forgotten about his silk voice. It startled me when he used it once again.
“Give them a room, Kreacher. There is one still kept with clothes I think are fitting. And…(Y/N),” he spoke my name like a poet. “Stay out of the west wing.” And just like that the voice of silk turned to stone, a coldness and threat to them that reminded me of the name we gave him. The Beast.
Panic began to rise in me and tasted an awful lot like bile, but somehow courage still found me.
“I thank you for your hospitality, but I wish not for a room. I would like to return home. My family…they need me,” I said. The silence was almost more deafening than the roar of the mob just minutes earlier, the last note of my wavering plea hanging in the air like a cobweb.
The voice finally spoke. “You will not be going home,” I felt my heart stutter before it broke. I swear I could hear the pieces falling in his echoing footsteps above. “They gave you to me. You are mine to keep.” For a moment, I feared he was stepping down the stairs. That he was going to lock me in with claws and trace his teeth along my neck. I’d be just another body for someone to find. But with relief, I realized he was walking away.
The distance was welcomed, but it meant one thing only. His words were final. I would not be going home.
Kreacher led me through the halls with his candle in hand, his arm reached the height of my waist as he tugged my shirt harshly, leading me along. The hallway was so dark, but with every flash of lightning paid with the candle, I could make out dark flowers on wallpaper, even darker portraits of people who seemed to smile with a snarl hung against the wall.
I don’t remember the darkness ever being so frightening. At home, when the moon was gone and the house was plunged into black, I grabbed my sister by the hand and we’d go outside to listen to the crickets and the night birds. We stopped, of course, when the night began to hold real darkness; death. But now it feels as if we stayed out too long, and the crickets song turned to that of the vulture. I am never going home.
We made a sharp turn and the light from Kreachers candle illuminated towering doors that reached the ceiling, the knobs of the door stood out startlingly so when the candle light danced across them. The knobs were a dull gold, sculpted as striking snakes reaching to bite the hand that dare wrap around them.
“Your room, as Mr.Black has requested.” Without another word, I reached for the handle. Hesitating only when the candlelight made the snake look as if it was actually slithering towards me. I wrapped my hand around it and opened the door. Kreacher’s eyes stayed on me the whole time, they felt like being bathed in ice. Dust fell from the opening like snow, and I coughed violently as it entered my lungs.
A single tear slipped from my eye. I wiped at it hastily and pretended it was from coughing so hard, not from how miserable I felt with each passing moment. The walls were dreary and gray, capturing the dark like a caged beast and keeping it always. I could not imagine even daylight could bring light here. The bed looked stiff and old, the sheets more made of dust than cloth. But the most beautiful vanity I’ve ever seen stood proudly to the side, not a speck of dust among the things that laid there, nor the red velvet perch that sat underneath it. I could see the outlines of gold, and rich green,, from Kreachers candle. Than, it was gone.
With a turn of my head ,I see the retreating figure of Kreacher down the hall. Dread fills me quickly, like water flooding the roof during winter. Not for Kreacher leaving, if anything I was glad for that. But where Kreacher went, his candlelight followed. I closed the doors and locked them, hoping I can make friends with the dark before sunrise. I ran towards the bed and threw myself on it, crying into my arms and feeling the dust gather upon each wet streak on my cheek.
I thought about my father, who stood fiercely in the crowd, courage and anger fisting his hands, a fight brewing behind his warm eyes. Slowly, my sobs turned to hiccups. I thought of my mother, who held me where others tugged, who screamed with sense at those insane, standing with her wit and sophistication and her love. Slowly, the tears stopped flowing so freely. I thought of my sister with her scared eyes, her own tears through the bars of a jail cell, her kindness reaching me despite the distance. I wiped my face and turned on my back. I will sleep here tonight, and in the morning I will explore the castle. I will check the windows and I will view the forest.
I will find a way to get home.