Things That Go Bump
Ramona had taken to refusing to speak to her dad. Meal times were now the most uncomfortable things imaginably, even her mother and brother could feel the tension between them reaching new heights. It wasn't just the fact she was away from George, it was everyone really. The only contact she had outside her parents and brother was the odd messages she received from Neville and even then, well it wasn't much to go on but at least she knew he was ok.
Every day seem to drag on. It was hers and Preston job to fix up the small house her parents had managed to find in the middle of nowhere. So while they disappeared day to day Ramona and Preston cleaned and fixed all the broken floorboards and smashed windows. It was times like this Ramona was glad she had magic to help.
But there was one thing she had been trying to avoid this whole time, the back room on the second floor. It was probably the worst out of the lot and neither of them wanted to spend would have been a good couple of days scrubbing it clean.
"I'll flip you for it." Preston said pulling a sickle out of his pocket as they both stood outside the door.
"Fine." She sighed. "You call it."
Preston flipped the coin and caught it expertly in his hand before placing it on his palm. "Dragons." He said before moving his hand and smiling with triumph when he saw the small dragon engraved on the silver finish.
"Damn it." She hissed. "Best out of three."
"Oh no." He smirked. "I won fair and square, so go on, get to it. You never know I might feel really nice and help you later."
"Help me now!"
"Sorry. Can't. Have to clear the doxies from the attic." With a final smirk he ran off leaving Ramona, with a huff, to enter the room. It was worse than she remembered on her first inspection. Both of the windows were broken and the remaining glass was thick with dirt. Ivy had started to grow in through one of the windows and had now spread along the shortest wall and several floorboards had come up from their spaces. There was also a dilapidated wardrobe that stood in one of the corners but she decided to ignore that for now. Knowing there was no use in complaining she set to work. She started by placing all the loose floorboards back and stamping down on the ones that poked out from the floor. Next she started to tear the ivy from the wall throwing it out of the window. She then realised fixing the windows probably should have been first priority as a cold wind blew throughout the room chilling her to the bone. She had forgetting for a while that it was almost the middle of December, mainly because she didn't want to think about her upcoming birthday that she didn't want to celebrate.
After fixing the window she started to scrub at the floors. She could hear her brother banging above her head and cursing, which in turn was covering the low banging noise coming from the wardrobe. She only started to notice it once her brothers swearing and stomping around had calmed down, and now it was the only she could concentrate on.
Ramona remained on the floor starring at the wardrobe, feeling her heart thump every time the soft banging came from it. 'Probably only a doxie' she thought to herself, even though she couldn't take her eyes off the bloody thing.
Finally she stood, picking her wand up from beside her and standing with it raised pointed at the thing. Better to be safe than sorry. She slowly moved forward until see was inches away when it gave an ungodly rattle causing her to jump back in fright. That was it. How could she be expected to go against bloody death eaters and god knows what else if she couldn't even face a noisy wardrobe without fear of death.
She held out her wand and with a small flick the door slowly began to creak open. Ramona didn't know what to expect, maybe a swarm of doxies would fly out, maybe something worse, but in that moment she had wished she'd called her brother down first.
Then it happened, she wasn't quite sure how, but suddenly the door which had been creeping open slowly suddenly burst and…well...it was George who had fallen out. Ramona felt her whole body freeze in terror, her eyes widened as she stared at his lifeless body hanging out of the wardrobe. His eyes staring straight through her, fresh blood completely covered the left side of his head and torso.
Ramona didn't know what to do; she could feel the scream caught in her throat as she fell to the floor. This couldn't be happening she thought over and over, that couldn't be George, that couldn't have happened to….to George.
She moved forward towards not even quite sure if she was breathing anymore, she could feel the tears streaming down her face as she slowly moved a trembling hand towards the corpse, terrified of might actually happen when it reached him.
But she couldn't do it. Blood started to pool around him, spreading across the floor, towards her. That's when she scrambled back across the floor before ending up against the wall eyes fixed upon the sight before her.
"Preston..." She managed to choke out, but instead of it being loud and clear the words caught in her throat so it only came out as a whimper. She managed to tear her eyes away shutting them as tightly as possible before she managed to speak again. "PRESTON!" She screamed making sure it was loud enough so he could hear from upstairs. He did. She could hear his footsteps running along the ceiling and before she knew it the door open and there was a small gasp.
Ramona would have looked up but she was too busy pulling her knees up and burying her face in her hands so she didn't have to look at it.
"Ridikulus!" She heard Preston call, and then all of a sudden she felt like such an idiot. She glanced up in time to see him slamming the wardrobe shut and locking it tightly before he was right next to her his arms wrapped securely around her.
"It's ok." He muttered rocking her gently as she pressed her tear soaked face into his chest. "It was just a boggart, it wasn't real."
"But…it looked…"
"I know. It did look pretty awful…"
She had now moved her face so she could stare at the spot where George….the boggart, had once been.
"So that's your biggest fear huh? A dead George?"
She didn't respond, mainly, because she didn't know how to. She only clung harder to her brother, unable to believe how stupid she had been.
