The Hogwarts Emerald

Chapter 96 Wizards and Ghosts

Ada and the twins were sitting together in a dirty and dim bar. Ada frowned at the dusty bottle of butterbeer, with a look of disgust written on her face.

George took out what the brothers had prepared in advance - three clean cups. Ada suddenly realized that it was no wonder that they came to the Hog's Head and that they made clinking sounds when they walked. It turned out that they had hidden three cups.

After wiping the bottle mouth, Ada poured the butterbeer into the cup. Fortunately, only the outside was dirty and the butterbeer was not "contaminated".

The twins took a sip of butterbeer with excitement on their faces. The two brothers kept looking at the customers in the bar, but they didn't do it too obviously and didn't cause any disgust from other customers.

The door of the bar was opened, a gust of cold wind blew in, and four people wrapped tightly walked in. Their figures and faces could not be seen.

In this bar, concealment is standard. Only first-time visitors like Ada and the other two will come in openly.

The customers spoke in low voices and could not hear anything. The twins did not see any of the interesting people they expected to see, and the twins did not have super hearing, so they could not hear what the other customers were talking about.

"Listen to you, we should go to the Three Broomsticks." Fred said dejectedly.

"Yes, it's warmer there at least." George tightened his cloak and continued, "And there's Madam Rosmerta."

Madam Rosmerta is not someone you youngsters can handle! Ada rolled her eyes. Her eyes were big, so every time she rolled her eyes it was very obvious.

Fred saw Ada's eye roll, but he didn't care. Instead, he looked at Ada with contempt and said, "Green fruits are always jealous of ripe peaches, just like..."

"Like what?" Ada asked casually, raising her glass.

"Nothing, I just envy the wine that other people drink, and I also want to drink whiskey." Fred was tactful enough not to continue talking. He firmly believed that if he continued talking, he would definitely take a butterbeer bath and be cleaned up.

"We didn't expect the Hog's Head Inn to be like this. Hagrid obviously said it was very interesting." George began to change the subject.

Hagrid's words were the reason why the twins wanted to come here, but the twins never thought about the difference between them and Hagrid. First of all, Hagrid is an adult, and secondly, Hagrid knows how to have fun in the Hog's Head Pub, which the twins don't have, so this place is not interesting to the twins.

"Where are we going?" Ada asked, "Back to school?"

"You finally get out to play, can't you stop thinking about your books?" Fred asked, "Or do you really want to go to Azkaban for further study?"

From the emerald of Hogwarts to the emerald of Azkaban, isn’t the gap too big?
The three people who left the Hog's Head Inn walked on the streets of Hogsmeade again. They were going to the Shrieking Shack. This was not the first time they had been there. They had even been here at night, but they had never seen the Shrieking Shack haunted.

The Shrieking Shack is an abandoned house in Hogsmeade. For many years, villagers believed that the house was haunted because of the screams coming from it. This became a rumor and the Shrieking Shack was considered the most haunted place in England.

Although the British Isles are not a very large area, there are many rumours of ghosts there.

For example, in the year Ada was born, a strange incident occurred in Enfield, North London, where objects in the room would always move for no reason. The owner of the house was so frightened that he even asked a psychic to deal with it, and the room finally stopped moving.

But in fact, it was a wandering wizard who lived there at the time. He wanted to scare away the owner of the house, so he used magic to make the furniture and items move. Later, the matter became serious and the wizard left here. It was not the credit of the psychic at all. Another famous haunted place is the Tower of London. Muggles claim that they have seen ghosts in the tower more than once, and the most famous ghost is Queen Anne Boleyn.

Anne Boleyn, the second queen of Henry VIII, was considered a witch by the king who had fallen in love with another woman. Queen Anne was accused of treason and adultery, imprisoned in the Tower of London, and beheaded with a sword in 1536.

After her death she was put into a chest and hastily buried in the chapel of the Tower of London.

Since then, some people began to see the ghost of Queen Anne, who was dressed in a white robe and patrolled the green space and corridors in the tower, and the strange story of the headless queen spread.

It is said that every year around the day of Queen Anne's execution, someone would always see her carrying her head under her armpit, riding in the carriage of the Headless Horseman back to her birthplace, Blickling Manor in Norfolk.

Ada didn't know what was behind the downfall of Queen Anne, but she knew one thing: Henry VIII's suspicion was correct. Queen Anne, who brought a storm to the Tudor dynasty and changed the course of British history, was indeed a witch. To this day, her portrait still hangs in Hogwarts Castle.

Ada even wanted to ask Sir Porpington if he had seen the ghost of Queen Anne, after all, they were both beheaded.

Many haunted stories among Muggles are caused by wizards, but the reason why the Shrieking Shack is haunted has never been found out. So in the eyes of wizards, this inconspicuous hut is the scariest one.

Ada and the other two stood outside the fence of the Shrieking Shack. In addition to them, there were some brave and curious people standing nearby. Everyone was waiting for the ghost to come, hoping to hear the screams that terrified the villagers.

The shed is surrounded by a fence to prevent tourists from entering, but even if everyone wanted to go in, there was no way to get in. This abandoned house has no way to enter. Before the shed was rumored to be haunted, the doors and windows had already been sealed.

Apart from the fact that it looks a bit eerie, it is hard to associate the Shrieking Shack with being haunted. The Shrieking Shack is neither an ancient castle where many people have died nor a manor where some big shot once lived. The shabby shack does not live up to its famous name.

The students who had gathered nearby gradually dispersed. After waiting for a long time, they lost their patience. No shrill, terrifying screams were heard from the shed.

Everyone was discussing whether the ghost had left the place, or whether the shed was haunted just a rumor, a way to increase traffic to Hogsmeade.

"This place doesn't look haunted at all!" Ada said, holding the railing. She really wanted to pull out her wand and blast the closed doors and windows of the shed to pieces, then go in and find out what was going on.

"Everyone says so, so it must be correct. It scared a lot of people back then!" Fred replied. He picked up a stone from the snow and threw it hard at the shed, but of course nothing happened.

"What year was it?" Ada asked, tilting her head.

Legend has it that Hogsmeade was built at the same time as Hogwarts, and was used as the headquarters of the goblin rebellion in 1612. Ada really wanted to know when the rumor about the Shrieking Shack first spread in the long history of Hogsmeade.

The twins looked at Ada together, their eyes seemed to say: You ask us, who should we ask? Aren’t you Miss Know-It-All? Is this all you can do?

"After I get back, I'll look around and see if I can find anything related to the Shrieking Shack." Ada said. She was full of curiosity about the shack. "Then let's plan to go into the shack and catch ghosts, how about that?"

The twins' interest was also aroused. The two brothers high-fived Ada, and the exploration of the Screaming Shack was decided. This long-abandoned shack would welcome a visit from three people in the near future.

(End of this chapter)