The Deathly Hallows - Harry Potter Male Reader Insert

Arc 1 Chapter 7: Intruders

Ellie woke ear­ly next morn­ing, wrapped in a sleep­ing bag on the draw­ing room floor. A chunk of sky was vis­ible be­tween the heavy cur­tains. It was the cool, clear blue of wa­tered ink, some­where be­tween night and dawn, and ev­ery­thing was qui­et ex­cept for Ron and Hermione's slow, deep breath­ing.

Harry, however, was curiously absent.

She slowly dragged herself out of her sleeping bag and contemplated waking the others, but ultimately decided against it. From what little pieces of the the puzzle they had given her, it seemed sleep was a scarce luxury they'd definitely need a lot of.

Ghost-Ellie didn't seem to be awake yet. Ellie found that there were moments when her alternate self would simply disappear for long periods of time and reappear when it suited her. Almost as though she was sleeping, though Ellie distinctly remembered the ghost telling her her kind didn't sleep.

She wondered, as she gave her pyjama top a sniff, if in a predominantly wizarding house such as this one there were any showers. Surely, if working Muggle toilets had been incorporated into Wizarding society, wouldn't showers too?

A quick tour of the ground floor and all it's toilets (tiptoeing past Lady Blacks portrait and praying Ghost-Ellie wouldn't suddenly wake and surprise her) would suggest that whilst Muggle plumbing had been incorporated into toiletry and bathing, there wasn't a single toilet in sight.

She freshened up at a bathroom sink, brushed her teeth and made to return to the living room and fetch a change of clothes, but she was stopped by one of the many moving paintings along the way.

"How very curious." Said the painting. "A Muggle in the esteemed House Black? Walburga would have a heart attack."

The man in the painting looked to be from the Victorian era, a top hat nearly triple the height of his entire face perched atop his clearly thinning hair.

Ellie stared at the painting in awe. It all seemed so surreal, like some kind of insane dream she was yet to wake from. It had been one thing hearing of magic from Andromeda and Dora, but another thing entirely to see it in action.

The paint embued on the canvas was moving, not to the point where it appeared liquid like water, but somehow instead retained all the micro-strokes a genuine painting would have. Almost as though someone had painted several works of art and filmed them all as a stop-motion animation, though Ellie could think of no Muggle artist who had ever done such a thing before.

Abandoning the portrait (who began blustering about the rudeness of the youth) Ellie bolted upstairs to the next floor, eager to see more magic.

She would find herself quite disappointed. Aside from the talking paintings, there were all manner of decapitated heads from creatures Ellie could only describe as the most grotesque little stunted humans. What could only be described as magical parasites littered every floor, from spiders to flea-like things. Even the weapons hung on the walls didn't do much, staying locked in place purely for decoration.

Did Wizards ever even use medieval weaponry? She wondered. If supremacy against Muggles was so severe, why did it seem like wizards had an abundance of old-fashioned weaponry and suits of armor proudly displayed in their homes?

She found Harry, who like her was still in his pyjamas, at the top­most land­ing where there were on­ly two doors. The one fac­ing him bore a name­plate read­ing Sir­ius. If Harry had noticed Ellie's presence, he was ignoring her, his eyes locked onto a piece of parchment.

The room was spa­cious and must once have been hand­some. There was a large bed with a carved wood­en head­board, a tall win­dow ob­scured by long vel­vet cur­tains and a chan­de­lier thick­ly coat­ed in dust with can­dle scrubs still rest­ing in its sock­ets, sol­id wax bang­ing in frost­like drips. A fine film of dust cov­ered the pic­tures on the walls and the bed's head­board; a spi­ders web stretched be­tween the chan­de­lier and the top of the large wood­en wardrobe, and as Ellie moved deep­er in­to the room, she heard a scur­ry­ing of dis­turbed mice.