By the time Harry finally lowered the Nimbus onto a grassy hill overlooking the estate, the sun had already begun drifting westward across the sky and his stomach reminded him rather loudly that he had skipped lunch entirely.
Considering the cursed forests, haunted lake, abandoned ruins, and overwhelming possibility of dying horribly, Harry felt that was understandable.
Still, starving himself would not hasten the investigation so he decided to take a break.
A small village lay several kilometers from the estate boundaries, close enough that locals inevitably knew stories about the cursed lands.
Before heading there, however, Harry rummaged through his bag and retrieved a Polyjuice Potion vial bought earlier.
The potion tasted exactly as awful as he remembered, which honestly felt almost impressive.
Moments later, Harry’s body shifted unpleasantly as bones stretched and features rearranged themselves.
By the time the transformation ended, the famous twelve-year-old Boy-Who-Lived had vanished entirely and in his place stood a fairly ordinary-looking man somewhere in his mid-twenties with brown hair, forgettable features, and tired greenish eyes.
Harry studied the reflection of his borrowed face with mild fascination.
Polyjuice Potion was still one of the creepiest bits of magic he’d ever encountered, but it was undeniably usefu; it did solve the whole “child wandering around the countryside asking questions” problem rather nicely.
The village itself was small and old-fashioned, filled with narrow stone streets, flower boxes, ancient pubs, and cottages older than some countries.
The sort of place where everyone probably knew everyone else’s business within twenty-four hours.
Harry entered the local pub first, inside it smelled strongly of wood smoke, old ale, and fried food while quiet conversation drifted beneath the soft murmur of rain beginning outside.
Perfect.
Harry ordered a late lunch and casually brought up the estate while pretending to be “considering purchasing nearby land.” That alone opened the floodgates.
Everyone had a story since the old estate had terrified locals for generations.
One elderly farmer swore his grandfather had once seen lights dancing above the lake at midnight, while another man claimed travelers could hear voices calling from the woods after sunset.
A woman sitting near the fireplace mentioned a pair of university students who had disappeared while exploring the ruins back in the 1980s.
Most of the stories contradicted one another.
Some blamed curses, others spoke of creatures lurking in the estate, and a few dismissed the entire thing as nothing more than bad luck mixed with dangerous terrain.
Interestingly, however, nearly everyone agreed on one detail: the estate was far worse at night.
People who explored the land during the day usually returned unharmed, even if deeply unsettled by the experience.
The real tragedies happened after sunset: accidents, disappearances, and even deaths.
Harry listened carefully while eating.
No one mentioned anything concrete enough to explain the curse itself, but patterns slowly emerged beneath the folklore.
The isle in the lake appeared frequently, so did the ruins in it.
And older locals sometimes referred to the estate by another name entirely: Ashford lands.
That caught Harry’s attention.
Eventually he asked directly whether any records existed regarding the estate’s history.
That earned him directions toward a nearby town containing an old regional library known for maintaining local historical archives.
Harry left almost immediately afterward.
Rain followed him most of the journey.
By the time he reached the town, the sky had darkened enough that the old library lamps already glowed warmly through tall windows overlooking narrow streets.
Unfortunately, a clock near the entrance informed him that the library closed in two hours, so Harry hurried inside.
The place looked ancient in the comforting sort of way only libraries managed.
Dusty shelves stretched endlessly beneath vaulted ceilings while old paper and polished wood filled the air with that familiar scent Harry increasingly associated with knowledge.
A tired librarian directed him toward the regional archives the moment she heard the estate’s name, and Harry spent nearly an hour digging through records: ownership documents, family histories, inheritance disputes, tax ledgers, and countless other papers, most of which proved completely irrelevant.
Then he found the Ashfords.
Viscount Æthelred Ashford.
Thirteenth century.
The original rulers of the estate before the castle’s destruction.
Harry sat down immediately and continued reading with growing focus.
The Ashfords had been wealthy regional nobles with influence across several counties.
Records described them as unusually educated and “peculiarly associated with unnatural arts,” which in medieval writing probably translated to people suspected them of witchcraft.
Just minutes before the library closed, Harry found her.
Edith Ashford, born in 1220 and dead by 1239 at only nineteen years old.
Harry read the page twice, then a third time after his brain finally processed the next line:
Betrothed to Cadmus Peverell.
Harry froze completely.
Cadmus was not exactly a common name, especially not in medieval England, and family names like Peverell were even rarer.
His pulse quickened as the realization settled heavily in his chest, because there was absolutely no way this could possibly be a coincidence.
Cadmus Peverell.
The second brother.
The owner of the Resurrection Stone.
The man from the tale of the Three Brothers who supposedly used the stone to summon back the woman he loved after her death.
And when the ghostly imitation could not truly return to life… He killed himself to join her.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
Edith Ashford.
Dead at nineteen.
Beloved of Cadmus Peverell.
Former lady of an estate cursed for centuries afterward.
Harry would have bet his Invisibility Cloak she was somehow connected to this entire disaster.
And suddenly, the dark lake, abandoned ruins, and oppressive atmosphere surrounding the estate felt much more threatening.
This was not merely some abandoned, cursed property.
It was tied directly to one of the oldest and most infamous magical legends in Britain.
And Harry had the deeply unpleasant feeling that he had just wandered straight into the middle of it.
***
By the time Harry returned to the estate, night had fully fallen across the countryside.
The Cotswolds looked different in darkness.
Smaller, lonelier.
The gentle beauty of the rolling hills vanished beneath shadow while the ancient woods became enormous black masses stretching endlessly beneath the cloudy sky.
Mist drifted low across the ground in pale ribbons, gathering near rivers and marshes until portions of the estate seemed half-submerged beneath ghostly water.
Harry stood beside the ruined stone wall where Dobby had left him earlier and stared into the distance.
Then, quietly, he admitted something to himself.
He was scared.
Not a little nervous, not uneasy.
Actually scared.
The kind of fear that settled heavy beneath the ribs and whispered that this entire situation was a catastrophically stupid idea.
Which, honestly, it probably was.
Harry was twelve years old.
Twelve.
He had a magical tent, a butler, an owl, unresolved trauma, and apparently enough confidence to investigate a cursed medieval estate connected to death magic and ancient ghosts entirely alone.
Objectively speaking, this sounded less like bravery and more like the opening chapter of a cautionary tale.
Still…
Harry Potter had never been particularly good at backing away from danger.
At eleven years old he fought a mountain troll with little more than panic and determination.
Later that same year he went through a trap-filled underground death course containing a giant three-headed dog, homicidal plants, flying keys, cursed chess pieces, and Voldemort himself.
This year he killed a Basilisk.
Fear had never stopped him before.
Being scared was not weakness, Harry thought while pulling the Invisibility Cloak around himself again.
It meant he understood the danger.
Only idiots felt no fear whatsoever.
Though admittedly, continuing forward anyway perhaps still qualified him as some variety of idiot.
Harry mounted the Nimbus and rose quietly into the night sky.
The estate beneath him looked unnaturally dark.
Moonlight reached the southern hills well enough, silvering abandoned fields and rivers, but deeper within the property the shadows seemed thicker somehow, especially around the woods and lake.
Most of the estate itself felt creepy only in the ordinary way nighttime naturally made old abandoned places creepy: ruins looked more threatening after sunset, forests became unsettling, every distant noise sounded suspicious,…
That much was normal.
The lake was not.
Harry noticed the difference almost immediately as he approached it from above.
The air grew colder.
Not physically colder exactly.
Magically colder.
The sort of chill that crawled beneath clothing and settled somewhere deeper than skin.
The water below reflected no moonlight, and that realization bothered Harry immensely.
The entire lake looked like a hole cut directly into the landscape, dark and still beneath the ruins towering above it.
So during the day the lake reflected things a bit too clearly, and at night it reflected absolutely nothing at all.
Yep.
Completely normal lake behaviour.
Definitely not cursed. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
And the isle…
The isle looked wrong even from a distance.
Harry slowed the broom instinctively while hovering high above the shoreline.
Every instinct screamed at him not to get closer and for several long moments he seriously considered listening because suddenly the reality of the situation crashed down on him with humiliating clarity.
He was twelve.
Alone.
Miles from help.
Investigating what might genuinely be one of the oldest dark curses in Britain.
His broom suddenly felt very small, the night felt enormous and Harry swallowed nervously, then straightened slightly atop the Nimbus.
No.
He was scared, that was fine.
Reasonable, even.
But he refused to let fear control him.
Gryffindors were not brave because they were fearless, because fearlessness was stupidity.
Gryffindors were brave because they kept moving despite fear.
At least, that sounded inspirational enough for Harry to continue.
He tightened his grip on the broom and flew toward the isle.
At a very safe altitude because the creepy cursed lake absolutely looked like the kind of place containing giant underwater monsters waiting to drag people screaming beneath the surface.
Maybe paranoia spoke there.
Still, Harry preferred cautious paranoia over heroic drowning.
As he circled higher above the isle, details slowly emerged through the darkness.
The ruined tower rose crookedly from dense woods at the center of the island, partially collapsed yet somehow still standing after centuries of decay.
And there were the lights.
Not lanterns or candles.
Something else.
Pale drifting glows floated through shattered windows near the tower’s upper levels while smaller lights moved silently between trees below.
Harry immediately froze midair.
Those were definitely not normal lights.
Carefully, he retrieved binoculars from his bag.
The moment he focused on the isle properly, his stomach tightened.
Shapes moved beneath the trees.
Thin, pale figures drifted silently between ruins and tangled roots.
Some looked vaguely human.
Others absolutely did not.
One creature crawled unnaturally along a broken wall before vanishing directly through solid stone.
Another floated several feet above the ground surrounded by faint blue light.
Harry did not recognize any of them.
But he was almost completely certain of one thing: Those were spirits.
Or ghosts.
Or something close enough to both categories that Harry seriously preferred remaining very far away from them.
The tower itself seemed worst of all.
The largest concentration of lights gathered near its upper floors, pulsing faintly through shattered windows like dying stars.
The entire isle radiated dark magic strongly enough that Harry could practically feel it pressing against his skin even from the air.
And suddenly, for perhaps the first time all evening, Harry experienced a miraculous moment of common sense.
Absolutely not.
He was not going down there tonight.
Not alone, not without preparation, not while mysterious spirit creatures infested the island like a nightmare version of wildlife.
Harry slowly lowered the binoculars, then very carefully turned the Nimbus away from the isle.
Retreating, he decided firmly, was not cowardice.
Retreating was strategy.
A strategy involving not getting murdered by cursed ghost things beside a haunted medieval ruin at two in the morning.
Honestly, that sounded like an excellent strategy.
***
I need a few more so the story can be ranked.