He had been at his grandparents’ house near the woods. He remembered how full of people the place had been; relatives, friends, and acquaintances had gathered to pray for his grandfather’s rapidly deteriorating health. He remembered how he had sat sniffing in a corner, alone and ignored.
“What’s wrong with me Grandpa?” he had asked those nearest him.
“Lad,” one of them had answered kindly “ he couldn’t place who it had been. “Don’t worry your little head over this. We will pray for him tonight by the shore.”
He had nodded back.
That night, his mother had tried to put him to sleep. “Be a good child now,” she had said to him, her eyes filled with tears. “You will have good dreams. Your Da is sleeping right outside this room on the sofa.”
“Won’t Da pray for Grandpa?” he had asked.
“Oh…oh no, Da can’t…pray with us…”
He would have preferred to have his mother by his side that windy night, but he had let it go because his grandfather obviously needed her more. He had even kept his word and fallen asleep. However, an odd sound had woken him up. Unable to shut his eyes again, he had crept out of bed and went to the window to check.
What he had seen had enthralled him.
Most of the visitors that had come had congregated in a clearing a little way off the house. His mother and grandmother had been there as well. They had stood around a huge bonfire in the center of which blue and green flames erupted. The crowd had been chanting something, their wands directed alternately at the fire, and then at the sky.
He hadn’t known what exactly they were doing, but a balloon of hope had started to swell inside of him.
So many people are praying, he had thought. Nothing can go wrong. Grandpa will be safe.
Suddenly, the flames had been extinguished by an unseen force. The crowd had fallen hush. Over the next few seconds, several cries of “Lumos” could be heard as beams of light flared from wand tips.
“What has happened, Mam?” he had whispered to the window-panes.
That was when it had appeared out of thin air: a skeletal woman with green skin and black hair that swept over the ground. She had turned her hollow sockets towards the panicking group of people who had fallen back; she had rotated her head till she had found his mother.
“No…” his mother had screamed.
His heart had nearly stopped; he had never seen his mother frightened. But before he could begin to believe it, the unwelcome guest had opened her mouth and wailed in the most terrible voice he had ever heard.
He had wanted to block out the sound, but his hands had never reached the ears they hurried to cover because he had fainted.
His grandfather had died the next day.
It was the same house, except that this time, it was emptier. There were only three people present: Seamus Finnigan, his wife Debra, and his bed-ridden mother.
“Debra,” said Mrs Finnigan. “Would you make some tea for us?”
Debra instantly got up from the sofa, smiled and bustled off towards the kitchen.
“Seamus,” whispered Mrs Finnigan. “What are you doing near that window? Come here.”
Seamus left the window and returned to Mrs Finnigan. “I was just…thinking about that night, Mam.”
“The night before Grandpa died?”
He looked away before he nodded.
“We knew she was coming,” said Mrs Finnigan. “It’s tradition. Every member of our family destined to die from natural death has been visited by her for centuries. There is no stopping it.”
“Is that why you wanted to come here?” he asked her abruptly. “Did you want to go with tradition and end everything here like your forefathers?”
She closed her eyes wearily. “That is the only way I can be reunited with my family.”
“Well, I’m not going to allow it this time, Mam,” snapped Seamus. “I’m going to pray and keep her away. I’m not going to “ to lose you to her.”
“Seamus, there’s nothing you can do about it, my love.”
“Feck it!” he shouted. “Why are you giving up so easily? You’re only fifty, for bleeding Merlin’s sake! You have to live more, you have to see your grandchildren. You...”
He trailed off, unable to continue his tirade as his voice had begun to shake. “It’s not your bloody time yet,” he said. “You could have gone to St. Mungo’s if you wanted.”
“Even Healers can’t save me from fate, Seamus,” said Mrs Finniganin a tired voice.
“Well, I’m going to give it a shot anyway,” said Seamus as he picked up his wand and left the room, closing the door with an almighty bang.
“Incendio!” he cried, pointing his wand at the pile of wood. It burst into flames. He closed his eyes and began to chant a prayer he had sworn to himself not to utter. It was meant to keep the Banshee at bay so that she couldn’t bring death to a family, but his childhood experience had left everything connected to that night a phobia with him. However, the time had come for him to go out and face his demons. He would do whatever it took to save his mother from an early, unfair demise.
The orange flames rapidly changed to bright green and blue hues. He kept on muttering the incantation, keeping the fire stoked. He knew that the prayer was just a hit-or-miss method of preventing the Banshee from appearing; as it had failed that night before his grandfather died, it could fail now for him.
Let her come, he thought. Let her dare and come tonight.
The Banshee had been his bane for years, the symbol of his nightmares, his permanent Boggart. He had been so scared of her that he had even avoided reading Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart, the foppish fraud. Still, his year as a part of Dumbledore’s Army at Hogwarts had taught him something: it didn’t do much for you if you ran from your fears, but you could conquer them yet if you took them by their horns.
I am ready for you, you hag, he thought.
Nevertheless, he couldn’t stop the feeling of absolute terror that rose above him as the flames blew out. He couldn’t help taking several steps back as a figure started forming from the air right above the ashen, charred pile on the ground. He couldn’t stop himself from shutting his eyes.
“Seamus,” said a flirty, familiar voice unexpectedly. “Why are you lying on the ground, you idiot?”
He couldn’t believe his ears. What, in the name of Godric’s stringy beard, was she doing here?
“Lavender?” he asked tentatively, opening his eyes.
She was standing in front of him, looking as pretty as she ever did with her curly brown hair and cool, blue eyes.
“Yes, you prat,” she said, giggling, “it’s me. Get up!”
She extended a hand towards him. He took it and struggled to get up. The hand was strangely warm and cool at the same time. He let it go and moved away from her.
“Why are you here?” he asked. “I mean…yeah...what are you doing here, Lavender?”
“I came to see you,” she said softly. “I missed you.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Bit late for that, don’t you think?”
“Why should I think that?” she asked, coming closer towards him.
“You went off with another guy,” he said with a shrug. “Never bothered to contact me again. I found meself a good girl…and I’m a happy man.”
“Are you, really?”
She was beginning to unbutton her Hogwarts shirt, making Seamus panic. “What the hell are you doing?” he muttered angrily. “If Debra sees this, both of us are as good as gone, d’you understand? Lavender!”
She merely smiled at him as she finished unbuttoning. Her breasts were now partly visible. She proceeded towards her skirt.
“Feck, Lavender!” shouted Seamus. “Don’t fecking tell me you’re going to take off your school “ ”
He stopped, realisation dawning on him. Lavender had left Hogwarts eight years ago; she was currently in London with another man. She definitely wouldn’t show up in Kilkenny in her school things to seduce him without reason or rhyme, and she absolutely wouldn’t employ such a desperate tactic, even if she were to seduce him.
“You hag!” he yelled, drawing a diagonal line across the air with his wand.
A deep, oblique gash appeared across Lavender’s face, but no blood came bursting out of the wound. She snarled as she peeled away her skin, revealing her true form. What had recently been an attractive Hogwarts student mutated into a tall, green woman with hollow sockets for eyes, and long, wet black hair that fanned out behind her.
She opened her mouth, but Seamus got there first.
“Oh no, you don’t!” he said, jabbing his wand in the direction of her lipless mouth. “Silencio Maximus!”
The Banshee gagged and clutched her throat, her hair suddenly falling limp.
It was quite horrible to watch, reflected Seamus morbidly as he stood thinking what to do next. He supposed she would be glaring malevolently or cursing him if she had a choice, but the lack of both eyes and voice didn’t work in her favour. In fact, he was beginning to find the whole thing funny as she silently went round in circles, catching her throat in one arm while the other flailed helplessly. He recalled with a smile that he had banished his Boggart in a similar fashion during his third year at school.
If only he knew how to banish the real thing…He was now fervently cursing himself for not reading Break with a Banshee. Even if Lockhart had been a cheat, he had at least recorded how these fiends could be destroyed.
“It’s the comb,” said a voice behind him.
He whipped around and saw his mother standing near the clearing with Debra.
“Mam! Debra!” he cried. “Get back inside the house.”
“Seamus,” said Mrs Finnigan in tone that suggested she was berating him, “stop gibbering. I am here to tell you how to destroy her.”
He began to protest but she cut across him. “There is a comb stuck at the back of her head,” she said. “Destroy that and she will be gone.”
“Are…are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes,” answered Mrs Finnigan. “Gilderoy Lockhart knows his beasts.”
Seamus groaned slightly before turning back to the hapless Banshee. He ran towards her and tried to locate the comb. It didn’t work as she kept lumbering round the clearing.
“Petrificus Totalus!” yelled Seamus.
The Banshee instantly froze and fell face first onto the ground. Seamus whooped and made straight for her. Using his right foot, he checked her greasy, smelly hair for the fabled comb. He couldn’t see anything at first, but when he parted the hair a little, he spotted something “ a curious knot of hair that faintly resembled a comb.
“Cut it off,” ordered Mrs Finnigan.
Seamus went down on his knees and carefully separated the comb-hair using a Shearing Charm. He took it and turned to his mother. “Now what?” he asked.
“Burn it.”
He flung it down, and flicked his wand. “Pyrus,” he said.
The comb was engulfed in flames that attained blue and green hues as the hair burned. Seamus was startled as the Banshee disintegrated into dust.
“A good day’s work, my son,” remarked Mrs Finnigan. “Now then, I’m off for my cup of tea.” She left after giving Seamus a quick smile.
“So,” began Debra, walking towards him with a suspicious look on her face, “who was that girl?”
“Which girl?” asked Seamus airily as he rubbed his hands on his pants.
“The one who just had the hots for you, Seamus,” she said.
“Ahhh… that,” said Seamus. “That would be an old friend from school.”
“Really?”
She had reached him. He looked into her violet eyes and grinned. “You’re the most beautiful woman on earth, Debra,” he whispered, putting his arms around her waist and drawing her closer. “You have nothing to fear on that count.”
She grinned and kissed him.
I have nothing to fear now, either, thought Seamus happily as he and Debra made their way back to the house.