"Te lo he dicho muchas veces, nunca me escuchas. Solo tienes que tener opinión sobre todo!"
"Qué quieres decir con eso? Crees que las mujeres no pueden tener opinion?"
"Ay, por supuesto que una mujer puede tener una opinion. Pero todos, hombres y mujeres, deben ser responsables de ello."
"Crees que no soy responsable!?"
"Miranos, mi amor, muerto!"*
The bickering two Colombian ghosts didn't even notice when Hazel stepped out of the hearth.
Hazel managed to Bubble-Head Charm herself (yes, the mixed fragrant was still too much), Waddiwassi-ed two poltergeists who were shouting off random sounds to liven up the fight even more, and spun three wandering gnomes and threw them away from the broken windows of the Green Hall.
The last wasn't a success. Hazel ended up breaking another window instead. But it managed to make the newly arriving Gillivray ghosts noticed Hazel.
"Hi, Uncle Bill, Aunt Beth," Hazel greeted.
"Is that little Hazel?" askex Aunt Beth's ghost in a smile. She was wearing the typical politician's pair of matching jacket and skirt (also matching lipstick-color, matching big stones of earrings and finger-rings, and of course, matching nail color).
"She's no longer little, which you would have known if you were to come to family dinners," answered Uncle Bill's ghost. He was also formally dressed, although not as perfectly color-coded as his wife.
Ignoring her husband's answer, Aunt Beth tried to scoop Hazel's cheeks, most probably to put her under a lock while she planted her kisses on every inch of Hazel's face (just like Aunt Beth always did when she used to attend family dinners two decades before).
Aunt Beth failed in her attempt, of course, leaving Hazel's jaws locked under the lasting freezing sensation where Aunt Beth tried to touch them. Aunt Beth smiled in her bitter awkwardness on the realization of her current ghost state.
"Ay, it is what it is, isn't it, my love?" she said.
"I'm sorry, Aunt Beth," Hazel offered her condolences.
"Oh, don't you mind. Now," Aunt Beth glided to Hazel's side, "Is there anything we can do, to speed up our process? You know, to free us from this ghostly form, or at least to free us from the Keep?"
"Merlin's Beard, woman!" Uncle Bill shouted.
"I don't think I know of any way, Aunt--"
"Hazel, my sweet, sweet child, I've set aside a sum of money and estates away from the Gillivrays for decades. All could be yours, if only the Mistress of the Keep would spill us a teensy bit of the Keep's secrets," Aunt Beth smiled a wide smile.
"I would like to know of those secrets as well, Aunt Beth. Maybe you can try to ask Grandfathers Abe and Logan," Hazel returned Aunt Beth's smile.
"Merlin's Pants, woman. Are you really trying to bargain yourself off of death as well!?" Uncle Bill shouted even louder.
"Silence!" Ekrizdis' painting roared his order even louder than Uncle Bill. Sadly, Ekrizdis' order wasn't as effective as it used to, due to his kind-looking buttoned-nose.
"Is that really Ekrizdis?" Aunt Beth asked.
"No, he isn't! He is painted out of imagination, not of the real Ekrizdis, because we're not actually related to him, which you would know if you had a teensy bit of care for my family, or even me!" Uncle Bill kept on shouting.
YOU ARE READING
The Keep
FanfictionThere is a lore in the wizarding world of Ekrizdis Keep, the ancestral home of Ekrizdis', architect of the famed prison, Azkaban. It was told that Ekrizdis' descendants still linger there as ghosts, entrapped within their own vile malevolence, unres...
