As he came into the window it was the sound of a crescendo
*The night has passed into a trance and brought Regulus along with it, hypnotised into a soft and unblinking moment that stretches on as the house creeks beneath him and never sees fit to end. The sound of the clock on the landing below measures out his heartbeats, and his breathing has aligned with Barty's as he lies dreaming on his side of Regulus' bed. Though the usual guest room has been made up, Regulus has found it easier to look in on him when he is near, easier to be there for if he wakes, to reach over in the night to make sure he's still breathing, and recently, to to him. He hasn't answered yet, he's hardly moved since allowing Regulus to bring him to Grimmauld to rest, not said a word or made any sign he hears. The comatose uncertainty of it all has begun to be too much for Regulus to bear without feeling a little ghostly himself.
The room waxes in and out of brightness. A light burns on the bedside table and covers Barty in a steady amber glow, but at his desk Regulus has grown weary from his work and begun to occupy idle fingers with the knob of the desk lamp. The ink on his quill has long dried, and he keeps on his gentle torture of the wick. From down so low it looks like an ember from a dollhouse fireplace, bringing half the room into shadow, to a blazing, wilting pillar that smokes the glass chimney and warms his nearby knuckles. It simultaneously helps to calms his nerves and to stave off the ill at ease feeling that has begun in his stomach.
The house creaks with unusual vocalization tonight, sighing and settling without anything to cause it. Barty keeps breathing, Regulus keeps his eyes on the flame and imagines there's no such thing as the ghoul in the attic. Still, the feeling rolls around in his gut, feeling slimy and chilled like swallowing an ice cube. After a while the room seems to cool much too quickly whenever he lowers the light, and never quite grow as warm again. He's so buried in his own, unrested mind that he only notices the familiar tense of muscles and raise of gooseflesh when the crash of glass makes him yelp and plunges the room into the dark.
What's left of the lamp from the bedside table rolls across the floor with an uneven clatter, coming to a stop against the leg of the bed. Though his wick has fallen completely down inside his lamp, he sees Barty twisting in the bedsheets in the light filtering through the curtains, his arm still flung out off the mattress. He climbs over the footboard toward Barty, to avoid stepping on glass. While trying his best to soothe him, and stop his fitful squirming, a mist puffs out from between Barty's lips, and a shadow slips across the room.
His own breath fogs and mingles with Barty's as he kneels frozen over him on the bed, only moving his eyes to glance toward the window. A second shadow joins the first, cast onto his walls from the street lamp below. At the sight of an impossibly long, withered hand, looking more like the silhouette of tree branches than a limb, he pulls the blankets tight around Barty, slips off the bed, and unlocks the window.*
The room waxes in and out of brightness. A light burns on the bedside table and covers Barty in a steady amber glow, but at his desk Regulus has grown weary from his work and begun to occupy idle fingers with the knob of the desk lamp. The ink on his quill has long dried, and he keeps on his gentle torture of the wick. From down so low it looks like an ember from a dollhouse fireplace, bringing half the room into shadow, to a blazing, wilting pillar that smokes the glass chimney and warms his nearby knuckles. It simultaneously helps to calms his nerves and to stave off the ill at ease feeling that has begun in his stomach.
The house creaks with unusual vocalization tonight, sighing and settling without anything to cause it. Barty keeps breathing, Regulus keeps his eyes on the flame and imagines there's no such thing as the ghoul in the attic. Still, the feeling rolls around in his gut, feeling slimy and chilled like swallowing an ice cube. After a while the room seems to cool much too quickly whenever he lowers the light, and never quite grow as warm again. He's so buried in his own, unrested mind that he only notices the familiar tense of muscles and raise of gooseflesh when the crash of glass makes him yelp and plunges the room into the dark.
What's left of the lamp from the bedside table rolls across the floor with an uneven clatter, coming to a stop against the leg of the bed. Though his wick has fallen completely down inside his lamp, he sees Barty twisting in the bedsheets in the light filtering through the curtains, his arm still flung out off the mattress. He climbs over the footboard toward Barty, to avoid stepping on glass. While trying his best to soothe him, and stop his fitful squirming, a mist puffs out from between Barty's lips, and a shadow slips across the room.
His own breath fogs and mingles with Barty's as he kneels frozen over him on the bed, only moving his eyes to glance toward the window. A second shadow joins the first, cast onto his walls from the street lamp below. At the sight of an impossibly long, withered hand, looking more like the silhouette of tree branches than a limb, he pulls the blankets tight around Barty, slips off the bed, and unlocks the window.*