"..."

  In the dirty, dimly lit pub, Eda sat with the twins, frowning at the dusty Butterbeer bottles, her look of disdain written all over her face.

  Gee pulled out the items the twins had prepared in advahree gsses.

  "Damn..."

  Realization dawned on Eda, and she finally uood why they insisted on ing to the Hog's Head and why their footsteps had jingled earlier—they had hidden the gsses.

  "Heh~"

  After wiping the bottle's mouth, Eda poured the Butterbeer into the gsses. Fortunately, only the outside of the bottles was dirty, and the Butterbeer inside hadn't been "inated."

  The twins took a satisfied sip of their Butterbeer, excitement evident on their faces. They kept gng around at the pub's patrons, but they did so subtly, not drawing any unwatention.

  The door creaked open, and a gust of cold wind blew in as fures, ed tightly in cloaks, ehe pub. Like the other patrons, their shapes and faces were obscured.

  In this bar, cealing one's identity was the norm. Only first-timers like Eda and the twins would enter so openly.

  The ers spoke in hushed toheir versations inaudible. The twins had hoped to see some iing characters but didn't spot aeworthy, and they weren't equipped with super-hearing to eavesdrop oher patrons' murmurs.

  "You were right. We should've goo the Three Broomsticks," Fred said dejectedly.

  "Yeah, at least it's warmer there," Gee added, pulling his cloak tighter around himself. "And there's Madam Rosmerta."

  Madam Rosmerta is far out of your league!

  Eda rolled her eyes. Her eyes were rge, making her eye-roll especially dramatic.

  Fred noticed Eda's eye-roll, but he didn't mind. Instead, he cast her a disdainful gnd said, "Unripe fruit always ehe ripe peach, just like..."

  "Just like what?" Eda asked casually, raising her gss.

  "Nothing. I just envy others drinking real liquor. I want whiskey," Fred wisely stopped himself from tinuing. He was certain that if he did, he'd end up taking a Butterbeer shower, followed by a Scify charm.

  "We didn't expect the Hog's Head to be like this. Hagrid said it was fun," Gee chimed in, steering the versation away.

  Hagrid's words had sparked the twins' curiosity about the Hog's Head, but they had never sidered the differeween themselves and Hagrid. Even though they were as fucked as Hagrid in the head. For one, Hagrid was an adult. He also knew how to enjoy himself at the Hog's Head—qualities the twins cked. As a result, the bar held no real excitement for them.

  "Where should we go ?" Eda asked. "Back to school?"

  "You finally get a day out, and you 't stop thinking about your dark books?" Fred teased. "Or do you actually want to further your studies in Azkaban?"

  From being the Hogwarts's Emerald to the Emerald of Azkaban—that's quite the leap, isn't it?

  Leaving the Hog's Head behind, the trio once again wahe streets of Hogsmeade. Their destination was the Shrieking Shack. It wasn't their first time there—they'd even visited at night—but they had yet to witness any haunting in the supposedly most haunted house in Britain.

  The Shrieking Shack was an abandoned house in Hogsmeade Vilge. For years, vilgers had been spooked by the pierg screams emanating from it, leading to widespread belief that it was hauhis reputation had earhe Shrieking Shack the title of the most haunted p all of Britain.

  Despite the modest size of the British Isles, ghost stories abounded without end.

  For instance, in the year Eda was born, a strange i occurred in Enfield, North London. Objects in a house mysteriously moved on their own, terrifying the homeowners. Desperate, they even called in a medium to resolve the situation, and only then did the disturbances cease.

  In truth, however, it had been a wandering wizard who had taken up residehere. He had used magiake the furniture and objects move, intending to scare the owners away. When the i gaioo much attention, the wizard fled, and the medium took undue credit for "solving" the problem.

  Another famously haunted location was the Tower of London.

  Muggles cimed to have seen ghosts there multiple times, the most well-known being Queen Anne Boleyn.

  Anne Boleyn, the sed wife of Henry VIII, was accused by the capricious king of being a witch. Charged with treason and adultery, she was imprisoned iower of London and beheaded with a sword in 1536.

  After her death, her body was stuffed into a chest and hastily buried in the chapel withiower.

  Sihen, sightings of Anne Boleyn's ghost had beeed. Dressed in a white robe, the headless queen was said to roam the Treen and corridors. Stories of the headless queen spread far and wide.

  It was said that every year, around the anniversary of her execution, people could see her carrying her severed head under her arm, riding a headless horseman's carriage back to her birthpce—Blig Hall in Norfolk.

  What truly led to Queen Anne's downfall remained a mystery to Eda, but there was ohing she knew: Henry VIII's suspis wereirely mispced. The queen, whht a storm to the Tudor dynasty and altered the course of British history, was indeed a witch. To this day, her portrait still hung in the halls of Hogwarts.

  Eda had even sidered asking Sir Nichos de Mimsy-Pton if he had ever entered Anne Boleyn's ghost—after all, they had both met their ends by beheading.

  Many of the ghost stories that circuted among Muggles were actually the result of wizard interference. But the haunting of the Shrieking Shack remained unexpined. For this reason, wizards viewed the unassuming little house as the most terrifying of all haunted pces.

  Eda, Fred, and Gee stood outside the fence surrounding the Shrieking Shack. They weren't aloher daring, curious souls had gathered nearby, all waiting for the appearance of a ghost or the spine-chilling screams that had shtehe vilgers.

  The shack was fenced off, barring visitors from entry.

  Even if someone wao go i was impossible; every door and window had long since been sealed, even before rumors of its haunting began to circute.

  Aside from its eerie appearahe Shrieking Shack was hard to associate with tales of ghostly activity. It wasn't a grand castle haunted by the deaths of many, nor ae onhabited by a signifit figure. Its rundown state seemed unworthy of the infamous reputation it bore.

  As time passed, the students gathered nearby began to disperse. After waiting for what felt like forever, they had lost patieno pierg, blood-curdling screams emerged from the shack.

  Discussions arose among the remaining onlookers: had the ghost left, or was the haunting nothing more than a myth—a clever ploy to draw more visitors to Hogsmeade?

  "This pce doesn't feel hau all!"

  Eda said, leaning against the fence. She was itg to pull out her wand and cast Bombarda or Reducto, blowing open the sealed doors and windows of the shack to explore what y inside.

  "That's what everyone says, but it must be true! It scared plenty of people ba the day!"

  Fred replied as he picked up a small stone from the snow and hurled it at the shack. Unsurprisingly, nothing happened.

  "Ba the day? Which day?"

  Eda tilted her head and asked.

  Hogsmeade was said to have beeablished around the same time as Hogwarts, with the vilge even serving as headquarters for the goblin rebellion in 1612. Eda was eager to uhe exact point in Hogsmeade's long history when the legend of the Shrieking Shack began.

  The twins both turo look at her, their expressions practically shouting: You're asking us? Who do we ask? Aren't you supposed to be the all-knowing Miss Encyclopedia? Is that all you've got?

  "Whe back, I'll do some researd see if I find anythied to the Shrieking Shack," Eda said, her curiosity about the pce growing. "Then we make a pn to sneak inside and catch a ghost. How about it?"

  The twins' i iqued as well. The three of them cpped hands in agreement, sealing their decision. The long-abandoned Shrieking Shack would soon have visitors—three daring adventurers ready to us secrets.

  ______

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