"The boggart sitting in the darkness within has not yet assumed a form. He does not yet know what will frighten the person on the other side of the door. Nobody knows what a boggart looks like when he is alone, but when I let him out, he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears…"

The key is turned, and the door is opened.

It is no banshee, nor spider – not even a dentist. What faces me is my greatest fear. It is a fear that turns my blood both cold and hot, ready to run, but ready to fight. It is a fear unimaginable, yet one faced day in and day out, every waking hour and every drawn breath.

I see myself.

Her eyes are cold and distant – her stare one of harsh vigilance and perception. Behind her stretch generations before, with all their rotted taint and lessons passed as a hereditary inheritance, unknown. She stands as a leviathan, the culmination of all predicating lies and deceits, knowledges and skills.

In her hand she carries an axe. No sword to smooth her prey into death, nor arrow to strike the one small part. She hacks. The lessons she carries are too foul to come easily – too incapable to show mercy. The blade lies already stained by the blood of the previous dead.

She is unstoppable.

What humor can be found, in this? What cure to conquer a fear with laughter?

I laugh regardless. A hollow laugh of despair and regret, and I disappear from my sight.