Fred and George and the Toilers of Trouble (Year 1) ✔

Chapter 10:5

When the front door slammed shut, the twins cowered slightly in the hall as their ears were gradually overcome by the sounds of the shack. Rarely had they felt so afraid. Biting wind whistled through cracks in the walls, chains were rattling somewhere, and there was a heavy, rhythmic scraping coming from the floor above them, as if some ghastly beast was waltzing with a chest of drawers.

Fred tried to stop his legs from trembling. "What should we do, George?"

"I don't know," he replied in a meek voice. "Have a look round, probably."

In the room directly off the hall there was a long, dusty table set for twelve. Much of it had been demolished by something with terrible claws. In the next room, the entire floor was covered in a green swamp. It bubbled and spat its muck onto the wallpaper, which was lined in deep, cross-hatched scars, no doubt caused by the same creature. A chandelier had been torn from the ceiling, leaving it dangling mere feet above the oozing swamp, and there was something moving in the fireplace. Its glowing orange eyes blinked at them. Next, they took the collapsing staircase up to the second floor, where they found dusty, deserted rooms barely lit by the stars that peeked cautiously through the many boarded windows. One room had a splintered stone cauldron, while the next had an assortment of porcelain dolls arranged neatly on the bed, all of their noses having been caved in by some blunt object decades earlier.

"Overall...not as bad as the Burrow," Fred hummed, wiping the dust off his hands.

George pushed out a reluctant grin. "Solid walls, a swamp. Just needs a good cleaning and I'd feel right at home."

Although the Shrieking Shack was a terrifying place to spend a night, it was late and the boys were still tired after trudging back and forth to Hogsmeade (including however long they had been sleepwalking with the Quidditch team), so Fred and George sought out the largest four-poster bed in the least disturbing bedroom and fell asleep.

They stirred soon after from a chilling, crunching noise.

With their eyes half open, the twins reached worriedly for the quilt, only to remember, all too quickly, that they had covered themselves with Oliver Wood's foul smelling robes. The bitter stench woke them instantly and they shot up in bed. Panicked, Fred swung his bat in the dark and it cracked against his brother's face.

"Bloody hell, Fred," George griped, rubbing his brow.

"Sorry, George. Do you hear that?"

The crunching continued. And it seemed to be coming from the ground floor. It was so loud and unnerving that the twins knew they had to leave the bedroom and get to the bottom of it if they wanted to get any sleep at all. When they reached the landing, careful not to walk on the smattering of broken glass, they saw a family of well-groomed ghosts eating at the ruined table. The parents were seated across from three girls of the same age, their gray-blonde hair in ringlets. Slowly, the family turned to face the twins.

"Carry on," said Fred with a gesture. "Don't want your food to get cold."

Laughing uncertainly, George led them down the stairs to the front hall. "You don't happen to know where that noise is coming from, do you?"

One of the children, expressionless and drenched in silvery blood, left the table and walked directly through the space between Fred and George. They followed her until she stopped in the kitchen, where the crunching noise was loudest. With her eyes locked on George, she pointed to the window above the disheveled sink.

"Thanks, little girl," Fred said cheerily, in an effort to calm his nerves. "Why don't you run along and —" His voice halted in a crack as he glanced through the boards that overlapped the broken window. "INFERI!"