The Doll House

Chapter 9: Making a Plan









Warning: This chapter is rife with disturbing and offensive subject matter.





Draco stood near the cellar doors with the mid-morning sun shining down on him. He didn’t offer to help the witch currently bent over examining the rusted, old fashioned padlock. Helping her would mean that he had to go back inside the blasted house, not to mention that it would require him to stop staring at her backside. He wasn’t sure which disturbed him more at that moment. He still couldn’t believe that he had spent last night and most of the morning shagging the witch he had spent most of his adolescence tormenting. If he had had any inkling that it would be so utterly mind blowing he might have focused his energies elsewhere. It certainly would have made Hogwarts a far more pleasant experience.





“Aha!” Hermione’s exclamation shocked him out of his daydreams and brought his focus back to her and the blasted locks. She stuck the tip of her wand against the keyhole and the lock began to glow soft amber, slowly turning bright red before the metal melted away into a pile of rust colored ash. Of course she would figure it out. The witch was tenacious and bloody brilliant without a cowardly bone in her body. “Success!”





“Oh, goody,” Draco said with mocked enthusiasm. Chivalry took over and he nudged her aside to pull open the heavy wooden doors. A cloud of dust rose up that had them both coughing and fanning the air in front of their faces as they waited for it to clear.





“I think that the reason he was able to manifest so strongly the other day was because we were actually inside the room with the dolls,” she said, staring down into a the darkness of the cellar. “He was able to draw off of them at close proximity and it made him stronger for a time. I think we should be safe today, but just in case wear this.” Hermione reached into her pocket and withdrew a small silver crucifix.





“I’m not a Christian,” Draco said quietly as he stared at the small pendant dangling from the end of a chain.





“It doesn’t really matter,” she said as she slipped it over his head. “I was raised Catholic but no longer practice. Demonology and the occult are heavily rooted in Christian mythology. It isn’t about what religion you subscribe to that gives the talisman its power, but what it represents. The crucifix represents rebirth, goodness and faith and that is what will give it the power over the evil.”





“What does demonology have to do with this? You’ve brought it up before,” Draco asked as he fingered the pendant.





“I suspect that Doll was heavily involved in the occult,” she said. “Practicing witchcraft is different, what we practice is what we were born with. It is a part of us, natural, like breathing. Dark magic is something we are taught, something we learn, it isn’t something we are born with. Dark magic falls into the category of occult along with Satanism and demon worship. I suspect…I can’t be certain…but I suspect that Doll was calling demons, maybe even Satan himself, to increase his power.”





“But wouldn’t he have to be a Christian? I mean, Satan is a Christian belief….”





“No…every tradition has their boogie man, their representation of the ultimate evil. I use the example of Satan because that was what I was brought up with, but other cultures have their own version. Buddhists believe in Mara the Tempter, Native Americans the Trickster, even ancient Egypt had Ausar or Osiris. Demonologists believe it is essentially the same demon, the king of all demons as it were.”





“Fucking hell, Hermione,” Draco groaned. “It just gets worse and worse! We’ve gone from psycho wizard to king of demons?”





“Would you rather believe it was something simple and go into this unprepared?” she asked.





“I’d rather burn the house to the ground and just re-build it from scratch!” he said throwing his hands up.





“Not before we free the children,” she said as she held her wand up and started into the cellar.





“What the hell, Hermione, you should let me go first!” he snapped, retrieving his wand from his pocket.





“Oh? Why, because you have a penis?” she laughed. “How many times have you dealt with malevolent spirits?”



“Alright, just this one,” he said. “Fine, you go first, but I’m going to be right behind you.” And he was, right behind her. As in his fingers tucked into her back pocket and his semi aroused aforementioned penis bumping up against her backside as she stepped inside. The only break between them came as they descended the stairs and then at the bottom he was once more plastered to the back of her.



Small gas-lit sconces flared to life, the flames sputtering and crackling as they cast the dank cellar in a dim glow. They were standing in a small rectangular room that looked like any other cellar. Wooden shelves lined the walls laden with bottles, jars and boxes and several barrels and crates lined the packed dirt floor. At the very back of the room between two rows of shelving was a tall, narrow wooden door.





“We need to go in there,” she said, zeroing in on the door and heading straight towards it.





“Of course we do,” Draco muttered as he followed her. She tugged on the door a few times, dirt and dust shaking free of the frame and raining around them for a moment before it finally opened. They waited as the sconces sputtered to life to light their way.





“Oh, dear god….” Hermione said quietly as the room came to life. It was a large, square room with stone walls and a poured concrete floor. A workbench ran the length of one wall and shelving the other. From hooks attached to a wooden grid on the ceiling dangled tiny, porcelain body parts. Arms, legs, torsos and bald, eye-less heads hung like a macabre mobile above them.





“I will have more nightmares about this experience than I had of The Dark Lord!” Draco said. His discomfort showed clearly on his face as he looked around the room.



“What is it with you and dolls?” she asked curiously. “I’ve never seen anyone so creeped out about a toy before.”





“It’s not all dolls, just the creepy porcelain ones with their glassy stares and prefect hair and fancy clothes….they just sit there staring at you,” he said, visibly shuddering. “The ones little girls actually play with are fine, they serve an actual purpose. Having one of them actually pulse in my hand doesn’t endear me to them any more.”





“Do you like children?” She asked as she looked into various containers littering the top of work bench. Tiny glass eyes of various colors filled them and stared back at her.





“Actually, I do. I’d love a house full of them someday,” he said, shaking off his discomfort to explore the room.





“As long as they are sons,” she snorted, taking note of the various tools and paints on the table. She stopped to stare at an antique sewing machine with a manual pedal set up on one end.





“Sure, I’d like a son; every man wants a boy to carry on his name. But I wouldn’t mind a girl or two,” he said. He didn’t see her turn and give him a surprised stare, a slight smile tilting the corner of her mouth up. “Hey, all these boxes over here have names on them.”





Distracted from her admiration of the man he had become, Hermione joined Draco in front of the box lined shelves. Several small boxes stacked three high lined each shelf, each one marked with a different name.





“Alan, Susan, Clifford, Elizabeth, Rosemary…look, Polly,” Hermione said as she pulled the box down and carried it over to the work-bench. An inch or more of dust covered it and formed a small cloud as she lifted the lid to peer inside. The first thing she saw as a pair of small, old fashioned well-worn leather slippers with a hole worn in the sole of one. She lifted them out and set them aside to reveal a worn, soiled dress made of cheap linen with a draw-string neckline and a full tired skirt. A red waist cincher with leather ties lacing the front was resting on top. A small square of material was missing from each piece.





“Fuck me,” Draco said softly, pulling her attention from the garments in her hand. She followed his gaze to the bottom of the container and the black and white magical tin type photograph.





“Thas’ me.” Hermione and Draco both jumped at the sound of Polly’s voice behind them. “ ‘E took tha’ jus’ ‘efore he killed me, ‘e did.”



The photograph showed her slumped on the floor, her arms stretched above her as if invisible chains held her secured to the wall. She was emaciated, her hair tangled around her face and her body shook as if she were sobbing. As the scene played again and again Hermione felt her stomach begin to roll with nausea.





“ ‘E liked to remember,” Polly said softly.





“This is so…disgusting,” Hermione said, turning the photograph face down on the workbench and recoiling at the sight of Polly’s dark curls and tiny white teeth at the bottom of the box. “I’m so sorry, Polly.”





“Ye plan to set us free, don’ ye?” The shimmering specter asked, a hopeful lilt sounding in her voice.





“We plan to do our best,” Hermione said as she gently, respectfully, placed the girl’s belongings back into the box. Once upon a time those tattered clothing were probably the only things the child had to her name. “What can you tell us about what happened to you….after?”





“ ‘E liked to tup the bodies after…at least we wasn’t alive fer tha’,” she said, floating across the room to stare at the rows of boxes. “Behin’ here ye will find his ‘special’ place.”





Draco took a look behind the shelving and saw the door. He grabbed the shelves and pulled with all his strength until finally it swung forward with the creaking of rusted hinges. He held out his hand without really thinking about it and felt Hermione tuck hers into it, her slim fingers wrapping tightly around his as they opened the door and waited for the light.



Inside it was cold and damp with an unpleasant odor that lingered in the air. Immediately upon entering they could feel the weight of lingering emotions bombarding them. Sadness, pain and fear permeated the walls decades later. Inside they found the same stone walls and a concrete floor. The walls were marked with ancient runes and in the center of the room the floor was marked with a pentagram. Several burned out candles and a broken circle of salt indicated that a spell had been performed there.





“What is that?” Draco asked, inching towards a table on the far side of the room. It was a ceramic table on a metal rack with wheels. An inch deep trench ran along the perimeter of the tabletop which was slanted slightly.





“An old embalmers table,” Hermione said softly. “The table is slanted so that blood and other fluids will drain down to the bottom and into a waiting bucket.” A tall table stood nearby with a cloth covering it. Hermione drew back the cloth and the light glinted off of several macabre looking surgical tools. “This was where he removed the hearts.”





“I hate this fucking house,” Draco swore, his hands fisting and un-fisting at his sides.





“It’s not the house, Draco,” Hermione said softly as she recovered the table. “It’s the man who lived here.”





“I don’t think he is a man,” Draco replied. “A man doesn’t hurt children.”





“Polly, what can you tell us about the things he did here?” Hermione asked.





“When ‘e was finished wit’ the kids ‘e would take the clothes off an’ wash the body. ‘E was always so gentle wit’ them too. ‘E would cut off the hair and take out the teeth and then ‘e would take out the heart so careful like. Then ‘e would put it in a doll and ‘e would say strange things while ‘e put it together. An’ then ‘e would put it in the room wif the others.”





“He was trapping their souls within the doll,” Hermione said softly. “I had sort of hoped I was wrong.”





“Are you ever wrong?” Draco asked, his tone droll and lacking the normal sarcasm she had come to expect from him. One look at his face showed that he was disgusted and angry.





“On occasion,” she said softly. She went to the center of the room and knelt down carefully on the edges of the pentagram. Her fingers hovered over the glyphs that had been drawn within the circle but she didn’t touch. “He used blood to draw these.”





“What is it?” Draco asked, staring over her shoulder.





“A summoning spell. A dark one. He was practicing black magic,” she said quietly.





“You don’t practice magic, Hermione. You are either born with it or you aren’t,” Draco frowned.





“Muggles practice witchcraft, Draco. It’s a religion commonly referred to as Wicca,” she said.





“Of course, leave it to muggles to pervert something natural,” he snorted, rolling his eyes.





“It’s not a perversion at all. Wicca is a very lovely religion with its roots firmly planted in the worship of nature and all things pure. It is only a very few who pervert the purity of it to practice black magic,” she explained.





“I don’t understand why this Doll guy would need to practice a muggle religion when he was born a wizard, he already had power.”





“He was using his natural magic to call demons,” she said softly. “Muggles have a very difficult time calling such beings because aside from a select few, most muggles can’t bring themselves to commit the acts required for such a spell.”





“Such as?”





“Rape, murder….sacrifice,” she said quietly. “Doll didn’t seem to have any qualms about fulfilling such rites.” She looked up and saw the frayed ends of a rope dangling from the ceiling. “He made the ultimate sacrifice over this circle,” she said. “He hanged himself here. The aurors retrieved his body from muggle law enforcement. They got here first and because they didn’t know any better they cut the body down and broke the circle. He knew that if the aurors got here first they would reverse the spell….so he made sure that the muggles beat them to it. Their lack of knowledge and belief that magic is all make believe helped him secure his place here and his power over the children.”





“So now what?” he asked, a tingle of dread working its way up his spine.





“Now we go back to the carriage house and come up with a plan to separate him from this house completely and free the children,” she said rising and dusting off her knees.





“This is what happens when you associate with heroes,” Draco groused. “Somehow you end up taking on responsibilities that you didn’t sign up for.” Hermione smiled and brushed her lips against his gently.





“Just remember, Draco, heroes are well rewarded for their efforts,” she said with a raspy tone.





“How well?” he asked, reaching out to caress the curve of her hip.





“So well that you won’t be able to walk for a week,” she said, nipping at his chin playfully.





“Well then…lead the way, my lady, this Superman is ready to fly,” he said with a swat to her backside as they headed towards the door.







*~*~*~*~*~*~





“They won’t succeed,” Claire said softly as she shimmered into view beside Polly and watched the laughing couple leave. “He won’t let them.”





“They is the firs’ ta try an’ ‘elp us,” Polly said. “She be a tough’n, dat ‘ermione. An ‘e be stronger’n ‘e fink ‘e is. I fink they might do it.”





“I hope so, Polly,” Claire said on a sigh. “I really do.”