Stay With Me

Chapter 9

"You have a lovely house, Miss Bagshot." Hermione eyed a photograph of a curiously compelling young girl, then ran a finger along a table.

It came away thick with dust. She frowned and looked up, finding Bathilda watching her.

"Miss Bagshot? Who is this man?" Harry stood by a chest of drawers, holding the match over a grouping of photographs.

Coated in dust, the figures in the frames flit like ghosts behind veils. Harry picked one up and wiped away the dust with his hand.

In it a merry-faced boy looked out, his cheery expression belying a particularly intense gaze. "His name. Can you tell me his name?" Bathilda stared at the photograph solemnly, then peered up at Harry.

Her eyes are thick with cataracts. Harry stared, unnerved, then Hermione walked over and looked at the picture.

"This is him, Hermione. The one I saw in Gregorovitch's wandshop. The thief. Miss Bagshot, who is he?" Bathilda looked at him, then jerked her head toward the stairs.

"She wants us to go upstairs." Harry told Hermione, who bite the inside of her cheek. She did not like this at all, but she made a promise to keep Harry safe.

"All right..." As Hermione moved, but Bathilda shook her head. Only pointing at Harry.

"She wants me to go. Alone."

"Why?" Hermione asked as she messed around with her hands. She really did have a bad feeling.

"It's all right. You stay here."

"Harry..." Harry held up his hand, silencing her, then followed Bathilda. Just before he disappeared, he looked back and winked, but Hermione didn't look reassured.

Harry trailed Bathilda up a circular staircase, uncomfortably narrow and lined with books.

The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore. A hand reached in, taking it, Hermione's hand. A note was attached: "Dear Batty. Thanks for your help. You said everything... even if you don't remember. Rita."

Harry entered a dark low-ceilinged room. He wrinkled his nose at the smell, then heard the door close behind him. The room plunged into darkness.

"Lumos." Harry swept the room and gave a start. Bathilda's face wavered in the dark, only feet away, staring at him.

Hermione hugged herself as she exited the sitting room and peered into the adjacent hallway. A sliver of the kitchen can be seen and a faint buzzing heard. A strange shadow danced on one kitchen wall, of specks moving. Hermione approached it cautiously.

Harry watched as Bathilda moved closer, transfixed by her milky eyes. The Horcrux on his chest twitched. "You are Potter?" Bathilda asked him in Parseltongue.

"Yes."

As Hermione neared the kitchen, she eyed the cloud of specks swarming the wall curiously. The buzzing grew to a hiss. Hermione gasped at what she saw.

Clotted blood streaked the sink and great wide swathed of red stain the floor where hundreds of flies swarm.

"I have something for you..." Bathilda told him in Parseltongue, making Harry tilt him head.

Hermione's gaze rose, to the ceiling, to the heating vent, from which the hissing voice had just come.

Harry's arm drooped, his wand tip painting the room with dots of light as he swayed, wincing as his scar stung. Bathilda pointed, to a dressing table cluttered with soiled laundry, her milky eyes fixed on Harry. Something surfaced in her filmy corneas, her pupils changing from dots to silts.