Dark Secrets

Chapter 48:

I slumped in my chair and leaned my head on Draco's shoulder.

"What do you think the note means?" I asked, picking up the small note that came with the necklace my grandpa left Draco.

"No idea. Maybe this necklace will help with the curse or something." Draco said, clasping the necklace around his neck.

"Maybe." I mused, ruffling through all the papers the executor left me.

A slip of paper caught my attention and I pulled it out of the stack to read it. It was a note written in Dumbledore's handwriting:

To find the other clue you must look in dark places
Where you would hide in small spaces
While playing your favorite game
Where you carved your name

"Bloody hell. Seriously? Can't he leave one straight forward answer? Why does he have to talk in riddles?" I groaned, handing the note to Draco.

Draco read through it and furrowed his brow. "He must have been afraid that information about the curse getting into the wrong hands. Do any of these lines bring an image into your mind? These clues are meant for you, he wrote these so that only you could figure it out."

I ran my fingers through my hair as I tried to decipher what exactly he meant. Look in dark spaces, hide in small spaces, playing my favorite game, where I carved my name...

"I got it!" I exclaimed, startling Draco.

"What? What is it?"

"I know where he wants me to go. We have to get to my summer house in Belgium."

Before Draco could say anything, I grabbed his hand and apparated away. We appeared in front of the house in Belgium and Draco fell to his knees next to me.

"Bloody hell, Jen. Warn a guy before you off and go apparate on them." Draco coughed.

"Sorry." I said sheepishly.

I helped Draco to his feet and pulled out the key that the executor had left with the deed to the house. I led Draco into the house and looked around as memories engulfed me, making me smile. This place was like a second home to me. Dumbledore and I would come down here every year and stay for almost the whole summer. It was placed on the beach, far from the mortal cities, close to the edge of Belgium. The house was huge with three floors and five bedrooms. It was the perfect place to play my favorite game as a child, hide and seek.

I walked up the stairs that were placed in from of the front door and Draco followed me up. We passed my bedroom, the guest room and the bathroom before I stopped. I opened the door to Dumbledore's office and looked around. Memories flashed in my mind of me when I was younger, running around his office while he worked at his desk:

"Grandpappy, you promised you'd play with me." I whined, tugging on the leg of his pants.

Dumbledore smiled down at me. "I did? I don't recall promising anything."

"Grandpappy." I whined, jutting my bottom lip out.

Grandpa laughed. "Alright, alright. I suppose I can play one game with you."

"Yay!" I cheered and Grandpa stood up.

"What game are you playing?" Grandpa asked.

I gave my grandpa a look. "The game we always play, duh."

Grandpa grinned. "I thought you'd get over playing hide and seek all the time. I mean you've almost seven now..."

"Oh, shush. You know it's my favorite game in the whole wide world."

I smiled at the memory. When I was younger I'd always have my grandpa play hide and seek with me. I'd always be the one to hide and he'd have to find me. There was one place in particularly that I hid in and it took my grandpa ages to find me, during that time I had gotten so bored that I had carved my name in the wood. I walked over to Dumbledore's desk and knelt beside it. Draco watched me without a word as I searched around under the desk for where I had carved my name.

After I finally found it I also found a dent in the wood that hadn't been there before. I put my fingers under the dent and pulled it forward. I heard a pop and then the sound of stone dragging on stone. I looked up from under the desk and saw a gaping hole shaped like a doorway in the wall that had been whole before. I looked up at Draco at he was looking at me in shock.

"Well, I think I know where we'll find our next clue." I said, standing up from under the desk.

Draco nodded and we both walked through the hole in the wall. Before I could take another step Draco grabbed my arm to stop me. I looked up at him.

"What is it?"

"We should check if there are any traps or something."

"Traps?" I asked. "Dumbledore wanted me to find this, why would he add traps?"

"He also wanted people not to find out what he knows. He wouldn't have gone through all this trouble with the clues and riddles if he had wanted others to know. He most likely took precautions. Look around, does anything jump out to you?"

I looked around the dark hallway, with the only light coming from the room behind us. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the hallway, except...

"There" I pointed up towards the ceiling where there was a small 'J' written, unnoticeable unless you were looking for it.

Draco pointed his wand at the J and spoke a spell "Lumos"

The J lit up and then the whole hallway was engulfed in light, exposing the trip wire on the ground and the groves in the wall where I expect unpleasant surprises would appear once the wire was tripped. I smiled and kissed Draco's cheek.

"I'm glad one of us is taking precautions. I like us un-kebabed." I said.

"You may be book smart but I'm street smart, princess. Being in the Slytherin house teaches you a few things on booby traps and the like. Especially if a lot of them are envious or just don't like you. You've got to learn fast."

I laughed. "You? Unlikable? No." I teased.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Oh, hush."

I grinned. "Lead the way, street master."

Draco rolled his eyes again. "You're a dork." He said but led the way anyway.

The hallway went on for a while but the lights didn't go out. After a while of walking the hallway broke out into a room. The room was like an office. There was one giant desk at the far end of the room with papers scattered across it and the rest of the walls were bookshelves filled with hundreds of books. I walked over to the desk and shuffled through the papers. Some of the papers had things underlined or circled and it all had to do with a curse. Next to the scattered papers was a book that had DUMBLEDORE written in bold letters.

There was a book mark in it and when I opened it up to that page I realized it was a family tree. In the family tree were circled names and I noticed one of the circled names was Dumbledore's wife, my grandma I had never met. My great uncle had mentioned something about my grandma dying so suddenly. My eyes widened when I realized that the names that were circled were victims of the curse. Under my parents names was my name. Grandpa had drawn a line from my name and in the empty space he had circled it and next to the empty circle he had written 'next victim.' I swallowed and looked up at Draco. I was relieved that we had found information about the curse but this was just another reminder that if I didn't break the curse, Draco would be the one to suffer for it.