Chapter 267: Chapter 267: Unable to Contact
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Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 267: Unable to Contact
"Lumos." A small bright sphere illuminated the hall.
A bit of moonlight was able to get into the entrance hall, but the upper corridors were pitch black.
There were some torches on the walls, but all of them were off.
'Something happened here…' The more time he spent here, the more he had this feeling.
Even if Augustus Rookwood was the only member left of his family or the only one who lived here, there should be at least some servants working here. A castle this big would need at a minimum three house elves or two dozen squibs to keep it in decent shape.
Harry looked over the furniture and decorations as he walked. There was no dust on them. The wooden floors were clean and polished. This home had been well cared for until recently.
'It also makes no sense for the wards to be… wait…' His green eyes moved to a double door to his right. It appeared to be the entrance to a dining hall or another large room.
But what caught his attention was that one of the door handles was missing and there were slash marks on the wooden surface. He could even feel the traces left behind by the cursed weapons that had been used.
Harry pushed the door open and aimed his wand inside.
"Mmm… someone had a bad time in here…"
There were clear signs of a fight in the living room. It must have been fancy at one point, but now it was filled with broken furniture, pieces of glass all over the floor, and several large red stains near the end of the room.
"So… somebody attacked Lord Rookwood in his house… but where is he?" If he had been killed, the body should have been here.
Considering the amount of blood on the ground, if it all belonged to the wizard, he was most definitely dead. But there wasn't a single corpse in the dining hall.
He decided to check the rest of the castle.
"This is going to take a while…"
By the time he had visited all the rooms, including a few hidden ones, it was already dawn.
The only interesting things he found were a stash of illegal artifacts and a couple of dead house elves. Very hardworking house-elves, Harry was sure of that.
There was no trace of Rookwood or anyone else. He did find the point of entrance. They used one of the windows of the west tower to gain access to the castle. Other than the dining hall, that was the only part with signs of a fight.
Harry then used his last resort.
"Answer my call… Augustus Rookwood…" There was no immediate response.
"So, he is alive? Someone took him as a h—what?" The green mist started to manifest in front of him.
He had only used this ability a few times, but it had never taken this long to show any sort of reaction.
The mist began to group together and form a human figure, as it usually did, but it was now moving very slowly, like it was struggling to create the visage of the dead wizard.
"Augustus Rookwood… are you there?" Harry asked.
For a moment, the mist began to form the face of a middle-aged man. Harry recalled the face he saw in the newspaper months ago. It was definitely him.
The spirit appeared to look at Harry and then opened its mouth to speak, but before a single sound could come out… the mist lost its shape… and dispersed.
"Wait! What?..." That had never happened before. Calling a spirit would take a toll on his magic, but despite that, he would be able to maintain it for a long time.
This could only mean that this was not a failure on his part but instead, it was on Rookwood himself.
"The soul… whatever they did to him, they must have also damaged his soul…"
He personally knew a few ways to accomplish that. There are spells out there that are capable of attacking more than just the body.
There is even an entire branch of magic dedicated to affecting the soul. It's called soul magic, but its main purpose is not to destroy souls but to find ways to make them stronger.
It is commonly believed that the soul is tightly associated with one's magic and is also the reason some people are able to use magic at all, while others just can't.
'There is another branch of magic whose practitioners normally delve a lot into the study of the soul… necromancy.'
Necromancy and soul magic go well together, and sometimes you need the latter to make the former work at all.
"Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. Whether this was the work of a necromancer or someone else… it doesn't get me closer to my initial goal."
He came here looking for information about the other Death Eaters, and especially to Lord Parkinson.
Now he was left empty-handed, with no more leads to follow. He did not know where to find any of the other members of Parkinson's inner circle, and he couldn't exactly walk into a Wizengamot meeting and kill them there.
"There is another way…" He did not want to use this method, but the only other person who could lead him to where he wanted to go was Pansy Parkinson.
He had no qualms about using Draco Malfoy to access his house. But Pansy was innocent, as far as he knew, she had no idea what her father was doing behind the curtains.
With a sense of defeat… he returned to Hogwarts.
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