A Doxy-tale

The old owners of the house on the hill left abruptly and that’s what started the rumours. Really, if they’d just told the truth and said there was a bundimun infestation so bad they lacked the magical power to deal with it, then nobody would have thought any less of them. (Or, old Mrs Duke, the mother of Declan “Honey” Duke might’ve, but she judged everyone). Most importantly: if they’d told the truth then nobody would’ve died.

There were no prospective buyers, and the decay was visible a lot quicker than anyone who didn’t know about the bundimuns expected. There was a rumour the occasional student from the nearby school broke in when they were in town, but other rumours soon overtook it. Hags were using the cellar to store muggle children they’d caught, and vampires left drained victims in the upstairs bedrooms, soon corpses as they were inevitably too fatigued to seek help. Worst were the stories of the banshees shrieking the night away. Children were told to close their windows at night in case the shrieks would float down the hill and into town, killing them in their sleep.

Another way to begin the story is to start with Manda’s toy fairy. It was a fairy; her auntie had said so when Manda received it for her birthday. It had pretty black hair like Manda, even a fringe of sorts. But Manda’s sister thought it looked like a doxy. Too hairy to be a fairy, and fringes were only for babies, anyway. She wasted no time teasing her poor sister over it.

Nobody at first owned up to hearing the gramophone playing, but it was such an integral part in all later stories that it’s likely they all had. The kids certainly had. Later, one of the mother’s said she’d heard it too. Mix of muggle and magical, both Bach and Beethoven. Whatever unholy thing inside had eclectic taste.

A third way to start the story would be to mention the little boy. He said loud and clear he could hear the gramophone, and he was inside Honeydukes when he decided to speak up. There were plenty of witnesses. Plenty of people who should have spotted the danger.

The Hogsmeadians never knew if it was Evie who had dared Ned, or Ned who had dared Evie. It wasn’t until next morning their parents discovered they were gone, and by then it was too late.

Manda, Evie little sister, went with them. She had her toy fairy clenched in her right hand and an ever-burning candle in the left. She entered the derelict house last.

Her eyes widened, the sitting room was dark and filthy and there was scarcely any furniture. Some dusty old trophies hung on the wall, stuffed grindylows and hippogriffs in a corner, even a small mounted troll’s head whose dull, swamp-coloured eyes appeared to follow them all around the room.

Then there was the smell. It was overwhelming and acidic, a word Manda only learned to connect to the whole ordeal when she was much older.

“Eww, what’s that green thing under the wallpaper?”

“Dare you to touch it!” Ned said, pushing Evie towards the wall where the peeling wallpaper, in the light from Manda’s flickering candle, almost appeared to be harbouring something living.

Evie put out a leg to trip him up but just then what had been at the backs of their minds the whole time suddenly got louder.

“Can you hear the gramophone?” Evie whispered; the usual bravado quite gone from her voice. “I think the needle must be stuck in a loop.”

And so it was, Manda could hear it too, now. The same faraway notes, the fragment of a melody, over and over.

“It’s coming from upstairs,” Ned mumbled, just as a floorboard above them creaked.

Their three pale faces turned upwards, and they waited with abated breath. Another floorboard creaked and then there was a scratching noise. The melody stuttered and continued.

“We should leave,” Manda whispered, but her sister and her sister’s friend wouldn’t hear of it. They were thrumming with fright and curiosity. They needed to know. Was it hags or vampires or banshees?

Evie had brought several bulbs of garlic, Ned some earmuffs. A hag they figured they could outsmart.

Up the stairs they went, Evie first, then Ned, then Manda with the candle and the toy fairy.

The smell was even worse upstairs. It must be coming from the walls and the ceiling. The very floorboards they trod. Before they reached the door ahead, Evie stepped on a floorboard that creaked.

She threw out her arm, garlic clasped so firmly her fingers shone white in the dark. They stopped like one, they held their breath like one. The music continued. Just like the smell it might be coming from the building itself.

Evie pushed open the door and entered, Ned on her heels. Manda drew a deep breath, then two. Her lungs hurt with the smell of this house. Just as she took a trembling step forward the music stopped.

The screams came first as she remembered it, before the door slammed shut. Then came the laughter.

“Evie!” she screamed, her panicked voice mixing with the noises from inside the door. The laughter inside did not stop when the screaming did, but there was another noise instead. It sounded like something wet and slimy was being splattered all up the walls.

“Evie!” Manda cried again and again, tumbling towards the door. She dropped the candle to be able to turn the doorknob, but it wouldn’t budge, the candle floating morosely beside her, lighting up the cobwebs and the odd greenish moistness visible between the cracks in every floorboard and underneath the torn wallpaper beside the door.

The laughter stopped. All became quiet. With a heave and a push Manda finally burst into the room, candle right beside her. The door slammed shut again.

Trembling, Manda hugged the fairy toy to her chest and looked around the room from underneath her fringe. The room looked back.

The wall was covered in something that looked and smelled like gigantic bogies, shiny vertical puddles of green slime slowly oozing out of the walls. Every puddle had eyes, two each. The eyes were dull and swamp-coloured, all were watching Manda.

“Evie,” Manda whispered, squeezing her toy. Her sister wasn’t there, nor was Ned. There was a broken bulb of garlic on the floor, cloves scattered all over like broken teeth across the filthy floor. There was also a navy-blue pair of earmuffs and a portable gramophone. The gramophone had been dropped and looked completely broken, metal innards of rusted screws covered in dust. As she looked at it, the record started turning and slowly began to play.

The floorboards behind her creaked. She was paralyzed with fear. Only thing she could do was grip the toy and stare straight ahead. The candle was there, lighting up the mess on the wall in front. It kept oozing out, different greens marking the different puddles. Dozens and dozens. Some so large they were touching ad mingling with others. The eyes all gleamed, swamp-coloured irises except for one pair. No two. Two of the eyes were blue, like Evie’s, and two were toffee brown, like Ned’s.

On and on the gramophone played, on and on until –

“Take her!” an evil voice shouted and Manda swung round and screamed.

There was a troll there, or was it a human? It swung its spiky club through the air, straight through Manda’s head.

She screamed and screamed, and the troll laughed so hard it dropped its club. As soon as it hit the floor, it disappeared. Just like it was made from smoke.

Tears streaming across her face she squinted up at the laughing troll. It was picking its nose while laughing, something green oozing out and dropping straight through it onto the floor. The troll was see-through. Smiling evilly at her it opened its mouth and blew a stream of putrid air into her face. The floating candle flickered and died and with a last guffaw, the troll disappeared into the ether.

A boarded-up window was the only remaining source of light. The puddles on the wall were slurping and sludging their way towards her, the nearest conquering the gramophone and forcing it to stop playing with a squelch. Every single eye was on her, hundreds and hundreds, all as evil as the troll’s had been.

Manda was crying and trembling so much she dropped her fairy, and with it went her last hope. She sacked to the ground, shouting for Evie, then for her Mum, eyes clenched shut and fumbling on the rotting floorboards for her toy. She was expecting to feel the troll’s boogers between her fingers, maybe squishy eyes or even teeth if the puddles had them, but she absolutely refused to open her eyes.

It might’ve been minutes, probably just seconds, and she screamed to high heavens when her fingers nudged something. Something hairy.

Her eyes opened and the fairy with the pretty haircut with the fringe was in her hand. There was no green slime on it, indeed what little green slime was still visible appeared to be retreating with as much haste as viscous, green troll bogeys possibly could.




It only became clear what had happened eight years later when Manda found herself in the new headmaster’s office. His appointment had come as no surprise, he had been an excellent teacher for decades. Nationally and internationally renowned.

Manda was one of the new prefects that year and headmaster Dumbledore had kindly invited her for a cup of tea after her first week.

She always avoided talking about what had happened in the Shrieking Shack, likely very few people remembered she’d been there that night. The stories had run like wildfire at first, what with two missing, probably dead kids. No bodies had been recovered; indeed some nasty rumours would have you think that the wizards sent over from Magical Law Enforcement had been too scared to enter the house and look for the bodies. The details Manda had shared with her parents and with the MLP became distorted once they entered the wider population.

Besides, she had always had the feeling neither her parents nor Ned’s ever believed her version of events, and she knew they still hoped that one day, Evie and Ned would return. Like they were two naughty children from a story book who’d just decided to run off together.

She had no idea how the conversation had taken them here, but she found herself telling the headmaster in great detail what had happened that night, and how she still didn’t understand why she hadn’t perished like the other two.

“And was it a fairy?” Dumbledore asked, setting his cup down in its saucer with a contented sigh.

“What?”

“Your toy? Was it a fairy or a doxy?”

“It was a toy,” Manda said petulantly, a tone of voice from years and years ago resurfacing in the wrong company, completely unsought for. She’d never again had use for that voice. She didn’t have any other sisters.

“Yes, but trolls aren’t particularly clever. Half-troll, I should say, of course it couldn’t have been the genuine article.”

“Why are you taking an interest, Sir?” Manda found herself asking.

Dumbledore appeared completely unaware of her barely disguised annoyance. He smiled serenely at her and said: “The building itself interests me. It imagine it has a lot of hidden potential.”

“You would be insane to enter it.”

“As you say. But it seems an excellent hiding place. Would need to get rid of the troll and his infestation first, of course.”

Manda frowned. She found she didn’t care what plans the headmaster had for the old building, mostly she didn’t want to talk about it at all. But on the off-chance he had understood something more than her she said: “You keep saying troll but… it was like it was a ghost.”

“I’m sure he was a ghost,” Dumbledore agreed easily. “But a troll would never become a ghost as I’m sure you’ve learnt in Defence Against the Dark Arts.”

Manda must have looked so angry at having her word doubted that Dumbledore raised a placating hand.

“A half human, half troll individual would, of course, be more than capable of becoming a ghost.”

“Ah.” Manda leaned back in her chair and had another sip of tea. She should have realized, but somehow it had never crossed her mind that that even was a possibility.

“He would be, let’s say particularly inclined to become one if he was hunted to death by magical beast hunters. You mentioned a troll’s head on the wall?”

“Merlin’s beard! Yes, you’re right, it was there, and the gross stuff on the walls had the same eyes as the troll did!”

“I believe the last owners of the Shrieking Shack were keen hunters. Perhaps their conscience finally caught up with them and forced them to move.”

“Caught up with Evie and Ned more like it,” Manda said thickly.

“There used to be an old superstition that bundimun infestations happened only in houses with thatched roofs because a troll would come along at night and use it to blow its nose on. Supposedly the reason why wizards stopped using it for roof material.”

“Was it really just a bundimun infestation that took them?”

“Nothing just about it you might say. I suspect the restless ghost, if he didn’t create the bundimun infestation himself, then he at least channelled some of his anger and violence through it.”

Manda sniffed and searched her pockets for a handkerchief. Before she could find one Dumbledore had pulled a lace-edged one monogrammed with Manda’s initials out of thin air and handed it to her. She did not ask him how he knew her middle name.

“Which brings us to my question,” Dumbledore continued, pretending to be absorbed by his own fingers while she blew her nose, the tips of each hand’s fingers meeting and finally settling underneath his chin. “Was it a toy fairy or a toy doxy you brought to the Shrieking Shack? Because doxies are the mortal enemies of bundimuns and would be any discerning witch’s choice of weapon in a situation such as yours.”

Manda felt so stunned she actually laughed. Perhaps she had shed so many tears for her sister over the years that there were none left? She was damned if Evie hadn’t been right all along about the fairy.

 

Spoiler

Good, strong start. Classic storytelling, classic ambience and setup, really nice way to draw the readers in. It is, I think, the part of the story I've enjoyed the most. Really on point writing all around.

Then comes the story itself, pretty enjoyable as well, nice work at choosing the names, but maybe a bit underwhelming in horror and overwhelming in details associated with it. I guess it works for children's magical tale.

Aaand then enters the Dumbledore. An explanation as you called it. I have nothing against the words themselves, and it is nicely written dialogue. It's just that with the beginning as it is, it doesn't really work out in my opinion. It stops being a story, and honestly barely ties into the prompt itself. The shift of narrator, and then the shift of time, I think it's too much.

Loved the details, and the doxy ending, though, and the handkerchief stands high above all the smaller ones, almost made me sigh in satisfaction to see Dumbledore Dumbledory without really trying. Glasses nudging Dursley's in 6th book come in mind.

You really can write though, almost to the point it makes me a tad jealous.

 

Spoiler: Damn

This is excellent—tense and scary, yet somehow cathartic with those last two lines. I will say that I think Dumbledore should be more empathetic. The handkerchief bit was nice, but before that, it seems a bit callous that he's talking about turning the shack into a hiding spot in front of this girl who has such awful memories tied to it. It actually took me right out of the story. I don't mind Dumbledore as a device to tie the story together, but I think his portrayal is subpar. Other than that, there's not much to criticize, to be honest.
I liked it.

 

Spoiler

Alright, Shrieking Shack backstory? Great! Lay it on me.

Or... don't? I don't know what the point of starting with the introduction about the bundimuns is. The segment with Evie and Manda (odd name not going to lie) would've been fine on its own, and then you could have Dumbledore exposition in-character about what he thinks the cause was.

Manda's voice isn't really nailed down. "Merlin's beard!" took me straight out of the story, as one example. You have her first as a scared child - that part works - and then her talking to Dumbledore, and that part doesn't. Dumbledore doesn't seem to quite fit.

Ending would've been great but you could've worded it to give it more impact, I feel like.