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Chapter 18 — The House on the Hill
"Baby, you must be joking!" Narcissa shrieked from her place at the dining table, scandalized.
"I'm not," Malfoy replied calmly.
"I absolutely refuse to believe this. Homework? For Christmas? And you have to travel Merlin-knows-how-far?" Narcissa slammed her palm on the polished mahogany. "Tell me honestly—did that giant of a teacher assign this? I'll have your father remove him immediately. Imagine Hogwarts hiring a murderer as a teacher!"
"Oh, Mother… he's only a caretaker now," Malfoy said, deliberately slow. "And this isn't required coursework. It's just an optional Potions assignment. But shouldn't your son be the best? Shouldn't I complete any task perfectly?" He paused, then added, "The Potions master is Severus Snape. You should know the name."
"Snape," Narcissa repeated, frowning. "I believe he and your father worked together on something years ago… still, I don't approve." Her voice softened dramatically. "You're truly willing to abandon your mother alone at home during Christmas?" She dabbed at her eyes as if summoning tears.
Malfoy stared, struck silent.
"I'm back," a low, weary voice called from the marble fireplace.
"Mother, I think Father can keep you company now," Malfoy said, unable to hide the relief in his tone.
"You're never here when I need you, and always here when I don't," Narcissa shot back sharply.
Lucius, travel-worn and confused, stepped into the room and accepted a cup of honey tea. Malfoy explained the situation to him succinctly.
"The Malfoys don't act rashly," Lucius said after listening, "but neither do we lack courage." He rested a hand on Malfoy's shoulder. "Of course I support you."
"Why, in my school days I—"
"Enough. I know all about your 'school days,'" Narcissa snapped, cutting off his nostalgic story before it began.
Lucius froze, then gave a stiff, awkward smile. He wisely chose silence rather than provoking her mood any further.
As people from the Celestial Empire might say: "It's a holiday—why invite trouble?"
◆ ◆ ◆
After lunch, Malfoy said goodbye to both parents and prepared to set out.
Before leaving, he made a deliberate stop at a Muggle market, purchasing several beef bones—though he didn't yet know what they were meant for.
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Little Hangleton's villagers still called the place "the Riddle House," though no Riddle had lived there in decades. Perched high on the hill, it overlooked the entire village. Several windows were boarded, roof tiles were missing, and thick ivy clung to the walls like creeping claws. Once the grandest house for miles, it had faded into a damp, desolate shell.
Today, the old house received a visitor.
A pale boy with light blond hair and a black satchel walked up the wide path.
Curious villagers stopped him along the way—strangers were rare in a place this small. But when Malfoy told them his destination, each villager reacted the same: their faces twisted with unease. To them, that house was still steeped in the shadow of the murder that took place fifty years ago.
When they failed to talk him out of going, they merely shook their heads and hurried on, baffled as to why any child would willingly approach that cursed hill.
Only Frank Bryce, the house's caretaker and gardener, ever went near it.
He had once been the prime suspect in the murders. A veteran returned from war, he was branded unstable by speculation and dragged off by police. Frank denied everything, insisting he'd only seen a single boy—around ten years old, pale-faced with dark hair—near the property. But no one else had ever seen such a boy, and the police assumed Frank invented him.
Yet the autopsy had baffled everyone.
No poison.
No wounds.
No suffocation.
No signs of struggle.
Perfectly healthy bodies—except for the fact that they were dead.
All three had died wearing identical looks of terror.
Who had ever heard of three people being frightened to death at the same time?
Frank was eventually released.
Strangely, he returned to the small hut on the Riddle property. The new owner neither lived in the house nor used it for anything. The villagers guessed it was something about taxes—no one truly knew. But the wealthy owner continued to pay Frank to tend the grounds.
◆ ◆ ◆
Knock, knock, knock.
A rapping at the front door stirred Frank from his chair in the garden. Leaning heavily on his walking stick, he limped toward the sound. Whether from old war wounds or simply age, one of his legs no longer obeyed him well.
As he shuffled forward, he wondered who it could be.
"It can't be the boys," he thought. "They're never this polite." The village lads enjoyed throwing stones at the windows, trampling the grass Frank spent hours trimming, even breaking into the house for bets.
They tormented him because their parents and grandparents insisted he was a murderer.
The front door creaked open with a miserable groan.
"Oh—child? What are you doing up here?" Frank blinked at the pale, blond stranger. The boy carried himself with a poise far unlike the local brats. Something about him felt… refined. And for a fleeting moment, Frank was reminded of that other pale-faced boy from long ago.
"Sorry about this," Malfoy said quietly.
He lifted his wand.
"Stupefy."
A jet of red light struck Frank squarely in the chest. His body crumpled onto the grass, and the caretaker lay still, unconscious.
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