🗲 BITING TEAPOTS & ANGRY LOCKETS / @mavvaisefoi
Harry was halfway inside a cupboard in the second drawing room when his right ear began to hum.
Sneezing on some dust, Harry struggled to free himself. A full minute later, he pushed back onto his heels, sweating and irritated. Grey silt covered the front of his t-shirt and jeans; he had to push his glasses up his nose with his forearm. The humming in his ear increased.
“Bloody hell.” Harry picked up the small wooden box he’d found at the back of the cupboard and got to his feet. His muscles ached after what had been a full afternoon of impulsive spring cleaning; the act reminded him strongly of that summer in his fifth year, when he, Ron, and Hermione, along with the Order, had joined forces to cleanse Grimmauld Place from its Dark stain. That had been the last and only full summer Harry had spent in Sirius’ company. He recalled how frustrated Sirius had been that summer, not only with the Order business, but with the house seemingly refusing to bend to his demands. The portrait of Walburga was but one example. Now that Harry had been here himself for a little over a year, he had to admit that those same issues seemed less Sirius specific and more Grimmauld Place specific. Put bluntly, the house hated him.
Rubbing his right ear, Harry padded out of the drawing room and down the hallway that usually ran adjacent to the foyer. Today, however, he found himself in the dining room.
“Please!” Harry stared at the molded ceiling dripping with a chandelier, glass burned yellow from age. “I just want to know who’s trying to get in. For Merlin’s sake,” he added in an undertone. The far door swung open in a manner that, were Harry inclined to believe the true extent of his house’s sentience, he might term sarcastic. Harry sighed. “Thank you.”
He’d only taken two steps into the foyer when, to his horror, the sound of the front door opening reached his ears. Harry’s blood ran cold. Box in hand, he whipped out his wand from where he’d stuck it in the waistband of his jeans. Someone or something was scuffling around at the far, dark end of the hallway. Harry raised his wand and approached slowly. When his eyes adjusted to the shadowy figure loitering by the coatrack, Harry straightened his aim.
“Oi,” he called, voice clear and cold. The figure stopped dead. Harry narrowed his eyes. “Just what do you think you’re doing in my house?”