Summary: The house groaned as Remus stood at its base, peering up at the shutters that flashed in the dull sun. A tickling sensation ran up his spine as he looked at it. What could possibly go wrong?

Pretty much everything, Remus finds out soon enough. Ghosts aren't particularly a thing that is right after all, seeing as they aren't supposed to even exist!

...Right?

Haunt

The house groaned as Remus stood at its base, peering up at the shutters that flashed in the dull sun. A tickling sensation ran up his spine as he looked at it. What could possibly go wrong?

Definitely everything.

Everything was wrong! Remus groaned as he glared at the door of his new, very broken looking, house. This was not what he had wanted in life, some creepy old mansion that his parents had gotten at a low price. Shivers ran down his spine, and it occurred to him that he did not want to know why the price was set at that level.

He jerked his feet out of his car, twisting his body out of the truck to stretch his legs after the hour it had taken to get here to check the place out. Remus' lips pursed at the thought of moving in within the next week.

Why did this always happen to him? Surely bad luck wasn't real, but here he was! Kicked out of his last place via the two dogs he wasn't supposed to own… Well, that was a good reason to be kicked out of an apartment, but Remus had felt very sorry for the strays- both of which whined in the back of the truck through the cracked open window.

"Don't worry, guys. You'll be out soon, just let me check to make sure there's nothing you can eat that might kill ya both," Remus snorted out as the pups stuck their noses out and snuffled. "Yeah, yeah. I'll hurry up." He must admit, he was awfully fond of them both. It's too bad they had to move, though. The apartment definitely seemed a lot cleaner than this old dump.

Remus grimaced at the shutters which banged open. I'm gonna have to fix those, aren't I. Glad I'm good with my hands at least. Carpentry class will come in handy in this place.

It took a moment to shuffle out the keys from his pocket, and warily walk up the cracked concrete stairway, with another dull note to fix that up or replace it. The gate, opened with the first key on the ring Remus held, swung open easily enough with a loud squeal that he had dutifully expected, but upon looking at the large oak door of the entrance, Remus thought that perhaps not everything was going to be completely fixable.

The cracks lining the dark wood, and the metal knocker loomed over him eerily, the eyes of the wolf- which Remus eyed back- peered out as murky glass marbles. This also gave Remus the shivers, not hair-raising, but enough to keep his eyes on them as he stuffed the heavy key into the keyhole and cracked the door open.

Heavy dust, laden with the air of old musk, blew straight into his face. Remus choked and his eyes watered slightly. Was this place not cleaned for a hundred years or something? Surely that must dust couldn't exist in a place without living things…

Remus gaped.

Dim light filtered in through the windows, some of which lined the ceiling with stained glass, the rest which were covered in dust and grime, barely letting anything in. It lit the entrance faintly up, revealing white, dirtied cloth covered a numerous amount of things piled in corners fashioned with dank and lines of dripping water.

Despite the dirtiness of the place on first arrive, his mind boggled at the thought of suddenly owning so much. Remus felt giddy, and his heart jumped as he grabbed the nearest white sheet, yanking it back to reveal dark oak wood of an old grandfather clock.

The beautiful machine hadn't worked for some time, Remus noted as his fingertips grazed the shining surface, but it hadn't stopped the beauty from lessening in the slightest. He could practically feel the potential for the tick to come back to the gold adorned hands and numerals that circled glass mirror. The old clock had little scratches as far as Remus could tell, and had been well taken care of, told only by the staining and most likely many polishes it had in its time. He ran his hands down the sleek sides, bumping over only gold details of the borders that lay in small vines.

He grinned quickly, yanking at another white sheet nearby, revealing a small chest. He guessed at what it sat on sideways, which was most likely a sofa. The chest, much like the clock and the house, was an old dark oak, but closer to black than the others, and was bordered with brass and had a padlock rusted on it tightly. Remus moved the chest to the back of his mind, vowing to pay it more attention later when he had the time. For now, as the sofa was uncovered and the dust settled quietly from the rustled sheets, Remus sat gingerly on the edge, slightly surprised that the cushions hadn't given out by now.

He looked around, spotting the other corners taken up by more stuff he had yet to uncover, and realized just how much of a job it was going to be in order to clean, organize, and move everything if this was only just the entrance.

Remus huffed. So much for relaxing, but at least the feeling of unease was gone inside of the house. Only the faint light gave an impression of mystery, the rest was just old and dusty. Not so freaky, basically.

He brushed his pant bottoms off, now coated lightly in white, and stood up to crack his back and pad heavily to the ornate staircase at the end of the entrance. Looking up, the ceiling seemed much higher than he originally anticipated. That's not so bad though, right? At least there's no sense of suffocation that one might get in an apartment. There's so much room here, it might just make up for the creepy exterior, Remus thought with a sarcastic snort.

The wooden boards creaked less than the door and gate, but sounded loudly in the quiet hall as he climbed the stairs. Certainly would provide enough exercise to work off all the Chinese food he liked to eat, due to just the sheer amount there were. Remus laughed quietly as he panted. God he was so out of shape.

His feet pushed off the top step, and Remus eyed the long hallway that drew off to his left and right, carpeted in front of him, instead of the dark wood. His shoes, which stepped upon the... actually, it was just a very long rug, Remus noticed. Well, as he stepped on the rug, it kicked up more dust that quickly found its way unfortunately into his nose, causing the poor guy to sneeze loudly and swipe the carpet out from under him violently. Remus cried out as he grabbed at the banister, planting his feet loudly.

He waited until he could see properly to move again, using his heel to spread the rolled carpet out again. This time, he shuffled over it. No more dust would be welcome in his respiratory tract, thank you.

On his left, Remus soon found that the hallway did not actually end so early, instead it curved off, leading him towards the back of his building, and to more and more shut doors that he, like the chest, vowed to open. But not right now. Later, when he had time and cleaning supplies, and especially a mask.

Precautions were best, after all. Remus was not dumb enough to enter unknown doors without the right equipment. These places must have been left alone for a very long time, even if the last owners had opened them. The entire place looked un-lived in for a very, very long period.

Remus spotted the end of the corridor and sighed happily. At least thing place was slightly manageable in size. The upstairs left was now searched via size, now off to the right.

(Remus found out it simply mirrored the left, and felt very grateful for that fact, which meant most of the building probably just mirrored itself.)

He hopped down the staircase happily, and back into the entrance to search the frontyard. Poor dogs had been out in the car too long for his liking, and guilt ate at his gut lightly. Doing a once over, and satisfied with the fact there was no trash or broken bottles, Remus opened his car and let loose his dogs in his front yard.

Never had a front yard before, much less this large, Remus grinned to himself. It felt nice, to be able to have this amount of room. Perhaps he'd find another stray? There was certainly enough space for a third, and he was always a sucker for the big ones...

Remus laughed as one of his dogs, Rex, the tan and grey one with shaggy hair, chased after a squirrel and barked happily out loud. The other, Jack, paced leisurely over to where Remus stood, and wagged his tail. His tongue lolled out as Remus patted him fondly.

"This good enough for you mutts?"

Jack barked happily, licking at Remus' hand.

"I'm glad."

Remus looked up as the dog proceeded to follow after Rex, who now barked up a large willow tree bordering the side of the square, where the squirrel had found a safe place.

The house soon drew his attention, again, as his eyes caught movement in the windows. This time, as the clouds passed over and blew a chilly wind, Remus couldn't blame the cold quite much for the sudden hairs that prickled on the back of his neck as he stared at the upstairs attic window.

A black shadow, except for two bright shining eyes, stared back down at him...

... Remus was frozen in place as his eyes locked on the thing between the shutters. It seemed to glow with darkness, swallowing the light from the sun that bounced off all the other windows. It's eyes, bright, were the only thing that Remus could tell with distinctness.

It was staring at him.

Remus felt its eyes on his skin, boring icy holes into his brain as the air chilled and the sun began to fade behind the clouds. The thing... it stood... motionless in its place, piercing irises peering down into Remus' brown ones. Remus, in turn, felt his legs lock up and the muscles in his arms tense as he dug his nails into his palms. Sweat bead his skin.

No one was inside.

No one was inside, he was sure!

No one had lived here for ages, but his eyes played no tricks as the figure swayed lightly, finally, in the window, and slowly backed away, lifting a dark arm up to the glass as it moved back, not breaking eye contact.

Remus hissed through his teeth as the black figure faded, the impression of its eyes staying in his spine and inside him, leaving only adrenalin in his veins, and fear spiked in his blood.

No one... lived... inside the house?

Rex barked, and Remus' head whipped to his dark, still facing up the tree. Remus lifted a shaking hand up to his face and rubbed at his eyes, thankful for his dog breaking his thoughts away from... that. He couldn't help but lift his eyes back up though, which widened drastically as he looked at the closed shutters, and boarded up window.

No. No!

It doesn't matter, Remus thought to himself as his heart gave a jolt, and he forced himself to physically call out to his dogs, who padded happily over to him and sat at his feet.

"Seems like we're going back. This is enough exploring for today, I think."

In truth, Remus was shaking, too afraid to step back into that place today now that he had noticed something was most definitely sharing the place with him and his two dogs now.

And he was definitely unsure of the fact that it may or may not be friendly at all.

Those eyes...

Remus hooked leashes back onto his dogs and led them to his car, hopping into the driver's seat and driving away to stay the night somewhere else.

The image of burning cold eyes bore themselves into his brains, even as the lulling roar of traffic caused his mind to go numb.