The Manor breathed.
That was Harry's first impression as he followed Wednesday up the long, curved staircase. The air in Addams Manor felt old, not musty, exactly, but alive in the way forests felt alive. Or maybe graveyards. The air carried weight, the scent of dust and candle smoke, of velvet and polished wood and something floral and faintly funereal.
The walls creaked in response to each step, the shadows flickered even where there were no flames, and every so often, Harry swore he heard the walls sigh.
"I know you mum said otherwise…" Harry said nervously. "But I think your house might actually be haunted."
Wednesday didn't look back. "Of course it is. Mother was just being facetious."
"Oh."
"Would you prefer it wasn't?"
Harry considered that. "No. It… fits."
Wednesday nodded in approval. "Good."
XXXX
They reached the second floor, and Harry's eyes went wide.
A hallway stretched in both directions; long, lined with portraits, all of them watching. Not figuratively. They blinked as he passed. One sneezed. Another whispered something about "soft meat."
The chandelier above them was made of twisted iron and hanging bones, swaying gently, though there was no wind. Tattered drapes clung to enormous bay windows, and the floor was so polished that it reflected them like a dark mirror.
A heavy suit of armor stood at the hallway's midpoint, holding a battleaxe in one hand and a bouquet of cobwebs in the other.
Harry slowed as they passed it.
"Is it… alive?"
"Only during thunderstorms," Wednesday replied without pause.
"Oh."
XXXX
They turned the corner into another corridor lined with cracked portraits and tarnished sconces. There were alcoves with preserved bats, a faint trail of smoke wafting from under one door, and something that distinctly resembled a gallows at the far end.
Then a door creaked open ahead of them, and a boy stepped out.
He was slightly younger than Harry, stockier, with a mischievous grin and soot-streaked cheeks. His shirt was torn, and one of his eyebrows was singed at the corner. He held what looked like a homemade explosive in one hand and a wrench in the other.
When he saw Wednesday, he grinned wider.
Then he saw Harry.
His eyes narrowed.
"Who's that?" he asked, pointing the wrench at Harry.
Wednesday didn't stop walking. "This is Harry. He's going to be living with us now."
Harry gave a small, awkward wave.
"Forever?" Pugsley asked, tilting his head.
"Yes," Wednesday replied, her voice casual, but with an edge that made Harry swallow. "He's mine. That's all you need to know."
Pugsley's grin turned to a smirk.
"Hope he lasts longer than your last playmate."
Harry blinked. "Last…?"
Pugsley turned and walked off down the hallway, whistling a funeral march. Thing skittered down from a rafter and landed on his shoulder like a disembodied parrot. The two vanished into one of the far rooms with a puff of green smoke and a small bang.
Harry turned slowly to Wednesday. "What… happened to your last playmate?"
Wednesday didn't stop walking.
"We were playing French Revolution," she said, as if that explained everything. "He was Marie Antoinette."
Harry stared. "And… what happened?"
Wednesday turned her head slightly, dark eyes glinting.
"He lost his head."
Harry tripped over his own feet.
She did not wait.
XXXX
They continued through the Manor, Harry trailing a step behind, occasionally glancing back as if half-expecting the hallway to seal shut behind him.
To his surprise, Wednesday didn't try to scare him, at least, not on purpose. She moved with calm precision, pointing out doors as they passed.
"That's the conservatory," she said, gesturing to a door with a wreath of dead thorns. "We keep the carnivorous plants there."
Harry peered inside. Something green hissed and lunged at the glass. He quickly stepped back.
"That one's Belladonna," Wednesday added. "She doesn't like strangers."
They passed a library with shelves so high they disappeared into darkness above. Books floated from shelf to shelf of their own accord, some whispering to each other. One growled when Harry looked too long.
Wednesday's bedroom was next—she opened the door without a word and let him peer inside.
The room was dimly lit with black candles. The curtains were heavy velvet. A small guillotine rested on her nightstand. Her bed was a low four-poster covered in deep red and black sheets, and there was a cage in the corner with a large, very fluffy spider.
Harry took a cautious step back.
"She's very sweet," Wednesday said, following his gaze.
"I'll take your word for it."
They passed a nursery ("No babies in it. Just rattlesnakes."), a ballroom with blood-red chandeliers, and a long hallway full of mirrors, none of which reflected correctly. In one, Harry saw his reflection blink a full second late. In another, his eyes glowed faintly red.
He did not look too closely into the third.
XXXX
They reached a balcony overlooking the front hall.
Harry leaned on the railing, looking down at the grand entrance. He could just make out Morticia and Gomez below, dancing slowly while Lurch stood nearby, playing a violin so old it sounded like it was made of bones and sorrow.
Harry was quiet for a long time before he finally whispered, "Is this all real?"
Wednesday tilted her head. "What do you mean?"
"I mean… I'm not dreaming, am I? No one's going to shake me awake and tell me to get breakfast for Dudley?"
Wednesday didn't answer right away. She simply stepped beside him, arms folded behind her back.
"You're awake," she said at last. "You're here. And if anyone tries to take you back, Mother will use that lovely knife she keeps in her garter."
Harry blinked. "…Really?"
"She has others, too."
He swallowed once before a smile appeared on his face. "Wicked."
XXXX
They explored more of the Manor; Wednesday showing him a secret passage behind the library, which led to an underground corridor full of jars containing things Harry tried very hard not to look at directly.
They passed a door labeled "Do Not Feed After Midnight" and a locked trunk that growled when they walked too close.
At one point, they passed a painting that followed them with its eyes. When Harry frowned at it, the painting stuck out its tongue.
"Uncle Brutus," Wednesday explained.
Eventually, they returned to the second floor and reached a small alcove overlooking the garden.
Below, in the moonlight, a cemetery stretched out behind the house, dozens, maybe hundreds of gravestones. Some crumbling, some pristine. Some shaped like angels, others like screaming faces. There was a broken fountain, and a willow tree hung low over the family crypt.
Harry stared, silent before finally admitting softly, "…I think I like it here."
Wednesday nodded once. "Of course you do."
"No one's… scared of me," he said quietly.
"No one should be, but that doesn't stop them."
"I'm used to it."
"Well," she said simply, "you won't have to be anymore. Unless you want them to fear you. That's always fun too."
Harry turned to her.
Wednesday Addams wasn't smiling. But her expression was softer than he'd seen it. She looked at him not like he was strange, or dangerous, or something to be fixed, but like he fit. Like he belonged.
He smiled, just slightly. "I think I'm going to like being yours."
Wednesday's fingers twitched before a wicked smile began to stretch over her face. "…Good."
XXXX
The scent hit Harry before they even reached the kitchen.
It was earthy. Pungent. Faintly metallic. Like a swamp that had been lovingly simmered.
He wrinkled his nose.
Wednesday didn't.
She led him down the back staircase and into a corridor thick with steam. The walls here were lined with dried herbs—lavender, wormwood, hemlock—bundled and hanging from the rafters. Jars filled with eyeballs, leeches, and what looked suspiciously like severed tongues lined the shelves. A pale green glow seeped out from under the kitchen door, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of something… bubbling.
Wednesday pushed the door open without knocking.
"Grandmama," she announced simply, "I brought a guest."
The kitchen was a witch's dream.
Pots clattered of their own accord. A cauldron the size of a bathtub hissed over a flickering green flame. There were stains on the walls that might've been soup—or a minor summoning mishap. A small skeleton hung from a spice rack by its ankles. A taxidermy bat wore a chef's hat.
And in the center of it all stood Grandma Addams.
She was short, hunched, and swathed in layers of black and purple shawls. Her wiry gray hair was wild as a thundercloud, and her large eyes twinkled with perpetual mischief. In one hand, she stirred the bubbling cauldron with a ladle longer than Harry's arm; in the other, she held a small skull like a tasting spoon.
She turned at the sound of the door and grinned, revealing teeth that looked like they'd won multiple bar brawls.
"Well, look at you!" she cried, her voice full of gravel and glee. "You must be the new little corpse!"
Harry blinked. "Um… hello?"
"He's Harry," Wednesday added helpfully. "He'll be living with us. He's mine."
"Ahhh," Grandma said, as though that explained everything. "Delightful. I love new blood."
She hobbled forward with surprising speed and seized one of Harry's hands, patting it with her own gnarled fingers.
"So thin! So pale! You'll fit right in, dear."
Harry offered a polite smile, but his nerves were bouncing like Thing on a sugar rush.
Then her eyes narrowed as her gaze lifted to his forehead, making Harry freeze.
"Ohh," Grandma Addams murmured, leaning in. "What have we here?"
He didn't move as she reached up with one cold finger and brushed back his fringe.
The scar was revealed.
That familiar lightning bolt. Jagged and faintly pink. Always present. Always there.
Her smile faded.
The mischief drained from her face.
For a moment—just a moment—her kitchen stilled.
The pot stopped bubbling.
The bat stopped twitching.
Even the flames seemed to crouch.
"Now that," she whispered, staring, "is power."
Harry swallowed.
"It positively pulses with dark magic," Grandma said. "Old. Violent. Bound by blood and death."
Wednesday leaned closer, intrigued. "What kind?"
"Hard to say. Cursed, maybe. Or marked. There's a binding on it for sure, I'll have to peel it back layer by layer."
Harry took a cautious step back. "Peel—?"
"Later, dear," Grandma said cheerily, patting his cheek. "Not before dinner. Wouldn't want you fainting into the soup. Makes it too salty."
She turned back to the cauldron and lifted the lid with flair.
A cloud of green steam rose, hissing like a dying toad.
Inside were dozens of snails—large, slimy, and very much still alive, squirming contentedly in thick, glistening broth.
Harry's stomach did a somersault.
"We're having snail soup?" he asked, trying not to sound like he was panicking.
"Of course," Grandma said. "They're best when slow-cooked. Gives them time to absorb the despair."
Harry turned to Wednesday, eyes wide.
"Is she… joking?"
Wednesday's face was serene. "Of course not."
"But she said absorb the—"
"She's very proud of her despair-infused cuisine."
"…Have you eaten it?"
"Every week since infancy," Wednesday replied, as if that were normal. "She adds a dash of grave dirt for texture."
Harry looked back into the pot and watched one of the snails blink.
"I miss toast," he mumbled.
Grandma cackled from the stove.
"You'll learn to love it, boy!" she called. "You'll crave the crunch of shell between your teeth! The squeal of surrender in your mouth!"
Harry wasn't sure if she meant the snails or something far, far worse.
XXXX
They excused themselves from the kitchen shortly after—though Grandma made sure to press a small pouch of dried nettle into Harry's hand ("For courage, or insomnia, whichever you prefer")—and returned to the hall.
Harry was quiet for a few moments.
Then: "She's really going to look at my scar?"
Wednesday nodded. "She has special sight. She once diagnosed a ghost with tuberculosis."
"…What happened to the ghost?"
"Exorcised."
"Oh."
They reached the portrait hall again, where moonlight streamed in through cracked, stained-glass windows and made the ancestral paintings flicker like flame.
Harry stopped and looked at one of the faces, an old man with a stern expression and a crow on his shoulder who was smiling at him.
"Wednesday?" Harry finally asked quietly, causing her to turn to him.
"…Why are you all so nice to me?"
She blinked. "We're not."
"No, I mean… you didn't have to take me in. Or feed me. Or care… But you are."
She looked at him for a long time, before finally answering. "You spoke to a serpent. You survived a curse. And you followed a woman you barely knew into a haunted house without flinching."
She stepped closer, her voice lower.
"You're not just one of us. You're better. Because they tried to break you… and you're still standing."
Harry's throat tightened as tears threatened to emerge. "…Thanks."
She retook his hand
. "Come on. You need to change for dinner. Snails are best eaten in formal attire."
Harry blinked. "What counts as formal attire?"
"Something black. And ideally, mildly cursed."