Hogwarts: Era of Darkness

"How are you going to produce venom?" Quincy asked while we were sitting in our bathtub. She was lying against my chest, enjoying the warm water and relaxing after a long day.

"Good question. Maybe I jerk it out."

"Idiot!" She giggled, bopping my forehead, "Maybe we need a big bucket and turn you into a cow. Double transfiguration? What do you think?"

"And you call me an idiot?" I grinned, tickling her sides, "Wouldn't I be a bull then?"

"You? A bull? Sorry, you are not like one."

"Heeeeey, are you sure?"

"Yep!" She answered proudly, beginning to wiggle her bottom. "Am I wrong? Can you prove it otherwise?"

"Heh... You little!" I moaned, beginning to move, making her laugh with such a charm I felt myself being put under her spell. Not that I would fight back against her...

...

....

......

"This is the place?" Hermione asked as the duo stood in a dubious neighborhood right in front of 12 Grimmauld Place. Some of the muggle windows in 11 and 13 were on, giving off a faint, orange hue but not enough to reach the street level. Half of the street lamps were broken or just flickering there, giving it a very eerie feeling, barely illuminating the surroundings of the wet concrete walkways.

"We should be fine." Neville explained, looking at the door of number 12. "Some really wild charms are placed on it so muggles would not notice us even by us standing here. So don't worry about their gangs."

"Worried?" Krum smiled, his arms crossed. Just as he said it, lightning flashed above them high, illuminating the surrounding abandoned streets and giving them an even more gloomy and ominous feeling. "We are fine. Trust me."

"Let's go, big guy." Hermione chuckled, leading the trio forward and heading towards the door. "Won't Dumbledore be notified if we enter, though?"

"He already knows I am here." Neville shrugged, "Do you think he would let me come here if it was that dangerous? This place should be abandoned. After the Dark Lord punished Walburga, the place was stripped of all of its valuables and family heirlooms. They even set it on fire, so I think they think it was destroyed in it."

"It not?" Krum asked, making Neville smile.

"The Order arrived the moment that HE and HIS cronies had left. Sirius still had access to the place, and the house was home to one of the most prominent wizarding families for multiple centuries. The fire did nothing to it..." He whispered, opening the door before them and revealing the dark, musty greeting hall. "We wouldn't miss a chance to have a hidey-hole in the middle of London."

"He is becoming sloppy, huh?" Hermione asked, holding a handkerchief before her nose as the stale air assaulted her senses the moment Neville pushed open the front door.

"He killed the old woman and left; the rest was left to his minions. What do you think?" Neville sneered, deep-seated hatred oozing from every word of his when it was time to talk about Death Eaters and Voldemort.

"Overconfidence. Big problem. For HIM." Krum agreed, following them and closing the door behind them while Neville reached out, flipping the light switch next to them on the wall.

"It is why we took this place. Although it is not used as a daily hideout. We are not as careless as HE is. However, when Order members are undertaking missions, it comes in handy as a pass-through point. The fireplace in the main living room has been connected to the partisan network we built and can take us to many places if you know the passwords and coordinates. With a little bit of help from the inside, we can move right under the nose of the Dark Lord without him realizing it."

When the dim lights turned on, they revealed a few visible scorch marks and some ancient carpets curling upwards thanks to the fire that was quickly put out. The atmosphere inside the ancient homestead was tangible, and not in a good way. Hermione could not help but try to cast a spell designed to clear the air, but it was like a drop of water into the ocean—totally useless.

Watching the once-living pictures and their damaged frames on the narrow corridor. What she saw was their empty and ruined canvases, their previous residents gone forever, never to return. This sent a shiver down her spine, knowing they were most likely eradicated just like the old woman living here. Realizing the severity of what happened between these walls, the air was no longer just musky but became heavy instead. The history of this place, laden with secrets whispered through the generations, weighed down on her like two heavy hands grabbing her shoulders.

"What that?" Krum asked, holding his wand, its tip pointing toward the staircase. "There was shade."

"There wasn't." Hermione mumbled, gulping, hoping he was mistaken, but now that he mentioned it, the shadows were indeed dancing ominously along the walls, casting eerie shapes that seemed to shift and morph with each flicker of weak lightbulbs.

"It should be empty, but let's check all the rooms first." Neville whispered. "Don't wander off; stay together and be ready."

Krum took up the point, heading out first. Hermione became stuck in the middle while Neville took up the rear. They walked forward cautiously, checking every dusty and abandoned room from top to bottom. The atmosphere was suffused with ancient magic, tinged with both darkness and a lingering sense of noble purpose that got twisted and morphed into something vile throughout the centuries. Maybe what happened to this bloodline was inevitable, a kind of karmic retribution that had been brewing for centuries.

The walls were adorned with burnt portraits of the family's ancestors at every level, leaving only their frames behind. When Voldemort finished off the Blacks' bloodline, he made sure that those who already passed away had no chance to keep their memories. No portrait was spared, no matter where, stopping the Blacks' history from being retold by anyone.

Looking into room after room, all of the furniture was worn and faded, bearing the marks of countless years of use and then the inevitable neglect. Dust motes dance in the air, catching the faint light that filtered through the grimy windows and dirty lampshades, often scaring Hermione, who swore it was like ghosts. It didn't help that the occasional lightning strikes outside kept flashing them like an invisible detective documenting a crime scene. Even though she knew ghosts existed, this place still gave her the creeps... She didn't want to meet any. And someone... namely Quincy, lived here? What kind of life was that, in a place where the air was thick with the scent of age and decay, mingling with the faint aroma of the long-forgotten glory of a fallen bloodline? How did she survive in a place like this?

"She had to be strong..." She murmured, making Krum look back over his shoulders as they ascended to the last floor. "I would have gone insane if I had to live in a place like this."

"It be different then." he answered, trying to show that she had nothing to fear and that he would protect her.

"Not by much." Neville added, his voice somewhat sarcastic. "Seeing Sirius's memories, this place was like this when he was a kid. If you ask me, it was even worse because the portraits were alive, just like his mother. Although I had never been here before, I knew Quincy had it bad. Now I understand why she was adamant to live with Conrad... She must have hated being stuck in here..."

"Hey. Look!" Krum interrupted them, pointing his wand towards a door with Quincy's name on it, making Hermione steel her body, stepping forward and feeling much braver than before while holding onto the doorknob.

CLICK.

"Ah." She blushed, pointing her wand at it, "Khm! Alohomora!"

Entering the dwelling that Quincy called home was a bit of a letdown. Hermione didn't know what she was hoping for, but not for something like this. It had nothing more than a simple bed, a fallen cupboard with clothes spilled out everywhere, and a dusty writing table placed before the small dirty window on their left. There was nothing that would make this a child's bedroom or make it... girly. There was no color besides the ancient tapestry on the wall, depicting the Black family's different branches from ancient times, but even its colors were drained and faded. Where were the posters? Flowers? Something? Anything? Toys? Nothing. Was this a room or a cell?

"Well..." Neville murmured, just as disappointed, "This is worse than I expected."

"Sad." Krum shrugged, feeling sympathy for the girl but also happy that she definitely had a better life by now, even with being pursued. "Let's clean," he added, waving his hand and lifting the cupboard up. While ordering the clothes to fly back into it, a little book fell out onto the rough carpet from one of the bundles of sweaters.

"Oh? What's this?" Hermione asked, already holding it in her hand, and she didn't need to open it to find out.

"A diary. Um..." Neville said, hesitating and feeling a bit guilty about finding it, but they did come here to learn more, and he was just as curious about it as Hermione.

"Well... I will ask for forgiveness after we meet again." She mumbled, looking at the boys.

"Let go down." Krum spoke up, "Kitchen? Let eat something while reading. I'll cook."

"Always the eating..." She smiled, joking a little, making Krum crack a slight chuckle, "At least it shows you are calm... Okay! Let's go down then! We can read in peace at a proper table."