"Oi, this is heavy. What's in here?" George grunted, hefting the large-sized box into his arms.
"Something da brought home from the department. It was confiscated but no one knew how to turn it on, so he got permission to bring it home. I bet he wants to tinker with it." Fred replied, stepping up to help his twin set the box on the kitchen table. Once settled, the twins opened it.
Inside was a smooth, black panel that gave a faint reflection, like that of a polished piece of tin. Fred made several faces in it before receiving a cuff on the arm from George.
"Whatzit called?"
"Um, Da said it was a 'monitor'."
"Wot's it monitor?"
"No dummy," Fred scoff. "It's part of a muggle PC. It's the screen."
George scowled. "So what does it do?"
Feeling around the formed plastic case, Fred looked for what he knew would be a "power switch". "It shows you what you're doing on the PC. But I doubt it'll work. Magic would interfere with the power supply."
Just then his fingers found a funny rectangular depression that sunk in when he pressed it. Nothing seemed to happen.
"Wotcher, what's that?"
Fred looked up to see what George was pointing at. The glossy black had changed to rows of funny glowing green symbols, letters, and numbers, cascading down the front of the screen, constantly moving. Blinking, Fred took a step back.
"It's not plugged in. What's it doing?"
"Ruddy hell if I know." George shrugged, stepping forward and leaning down to look closer. "I don't recognize any of this. It looks like a bunch of gibberish."
Suddenly the screen resolved itself back to black, with one line of green text: Hello.
The twins shared a look. This was certainly strange.
We, too, are twins.
"Are you doing this? Did you cast some charm on it to scare me?" George growled, unable to take his eyes off the screen, hoping to Merlin that this was just Fred joking around.
"No." Fred whispered, his own gaze locked on the screen.
We would very much like to join you. The words appeared on the screen, as if by magic. Both Fred and George took a step back, thoughts flying wildly around in their minds.
Before either could think of something to do, the image on the screen changed again. This time, instead of words and those strange cascading symbols, faces appeared. Ghostly, like after-images. The twins could see the features of two men, identical faces, with their lips pulled back in feral grins, revealing sharp teeth. Their hair, fashioned into thin ropey dreadlocks, swirled wildly like living snakes.
The ghost-like twins seemed to be trying to pull themselves out of the screen. Helpless, and frankly terrified, Fred and George stared in horror as the other set of twins slowly slipped into corporeal form.
"Reducto!" A loud, male voice shouted just before the monitor shattered into minute pieces and was reduced to dust. The force of the explosion sent the Weasley twins landing hard on their butts on the kitchen floor.
Arthur Weasley finished entering the Burrow's kitchen through the back door, pocketing his wand before helping his sons to their feet.
"What was that, da?" George asked shakily, still not believing what he'd just witnessed.
"Were those dementors?" Fred added, brushing dust from the front of his sweater.
"No, and frankly we're not sure what they were." Arthur sighed, satisfied that his sons were all right. "All we know was that that particular muggle object was haunted. I brought it home to destroy it. Good riddance. Now, you two best clean up this mess before your mother finds it."