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[05 May 2010|11:41am] |
The last thing Gellert remembered was this:
Albus, cheeks flushed, gasping for breath and moaning Gellert's name as he spilled himself deep within him. Kissing, as Albus slowly pulled himself out and fell to the bed at Gellert's side, reaching with one sweat-glazed arm to draw him closer. A brief debate, but it was four in the morning so Gellert had eventually agreed to stay the night, letting Albus curl up against him and whisper a Shakespearean good-night against his brow before they both drifted into sleep.
But when Gellert woke, the bed was cold. He shifted slowly, his hand creeping out to the side to fall still on an empty pillow. His eyes flew open and then he was immediately sitting upright, gaze flickering about the room to take in his abruptly altered surroundings. This...this was not Albus's bedroom. He was lying in a bed in the center of a large, finely-decorated chamber, daylight gleaming in through the open window, a slight breeze playing with the ends of Gellert's hair. It was nothing he recognised, no room in which he could ever recall having been before.
There was no pause for fear. Gellert's thoughts had leapt almost instantly to a more rational plane, though adrenaline still simmered through his veins. There was no doubt to the fact that, as Gellert had done no spell that could have displaced him mid-slumber, he must have been brought here by some external force. Whether that force was malevolent or benign could not yet be determined. And until Gellert had evidence to suggest contrarily, he would assume the former.
Gellert's gaze, sharply narrow, fell upon a stack of clothes neatly folded on an armchair near the hearth, a pair of shoes and socks at their side. After casting a quick wandless spell to determine the safety of the floor, Gellert slipped out of bed and padded across the cold hardwood to the chair. The clothes were new, but they looked and felt expensive, and were in the precise style that Gellert would have chosen for himself. He was immeasurably relieved to find his wand in its sheath at the bottom of the pile, next to a pair of burgundy braces. Skilled though he was without one, to have his wand provided to him seemed to imply that there was no malignancy in his presence here. (Unless there was, and his captor merely wished for a fair fight.)
Gellert dressed swiftly, the clothes fitting as if they had been perfectly tailored to his form. His wand, he unsheathed and held aloft, completely prepared to face anything that might be on the other side of the bedroom door as he turned the handle and yanked it roughly open.
But the corridor outside was empty--nothing but lushly-carpeted floor stretching out before him, and a few closed doors leading off to the sides. Looking into those rooms revealed a rather expansive bath and a library to rival that of Durmstrang. Gellert swore to return to the latter when he was finished exploring the rest of the house, but learning as much as he could about his environment was his first imperative.
The corridor ended on a landing, out from which spread several other hallways and a few open alcoves against tall windows looking out on the grounds. A magnificent spiraling staircase continued both up and downstairs, carved of mahogany with intricate etchings marked on the handrails. Gellert tested it with his wand as well before descending, fingers trailing along the rail as he passed a second landing, to finally step out into the foyer on the ground floor.
It was becoming increasingly apparent that this was a very large house indeed, probably belonging to one of the wealthier English pureblood families. Its style implied that it was constructed during the Regency period or perhaps even earlier--Gellert had never been too educated on the architectural variation in English history. For it was clearly England that Gellert had glimpsed outside of the windows, England with its sprawling meadows and distant treelines.
So. A very large, very rich house. Or perhaps a prison.
Gellert crossed the foyer slowly, on alert for anyone or anything that might leap out and tell him that he could not--was not allowed--to leave. But there was only the silence of an empty mansion. Gellert grasped the door's handle and pushed. It was heavy, and took most of his strength--the thing was solid oak, all the way through--but it did open. Gellert stepped out into the glaring sunlight of a summer morning, onto the sprawling marble front steps of what was--Gellert glanced behind, and up at the towering stone walls--apparently not just a mansion, but a manor.
There was no magical shield blocking him as he clattered down the steps and onto the front path, which extended out before him, headed toward the distant wood. Gellert thought he could just barely see the outline of an iron gate. To his right, about a quarter of a kilometre away, a lake glimmered, the green grass of the field reflected in its silvery surface. To his left there was a smaller gravel path leading into what looked to be an elegantly-landscaped garden.
Gellert went left for no reason other than the fact that a garden meant gardeners, and groundskeepers--anyone who might be able to tell him where he was, what he was doing here, where Albus was, and when or if he could expect to leave.
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