Seven (R.L)

45

"Sounds like my mother." Sirius whispered, earning shhs from everyone now invested on Marlene, who did her best as storyteller to create suspense.

"You see her at night on desolate streams, the Isles Mull and Tire, washing..... Bloody Clothing."

"Its said the Bean Nighe are spirits of women who died in childbirth doomed to wash the clothes of the near-dead until the day their lives would otherwise have ended." Marlene narrated like an overly committed theatre student.

"It is said if you sneak up on the washing woman as she sings her mournful dinge and seize hold on her before she flees... she will reveal to you the name of the soul condemned to die and if your luck is in, she may also grant you three wishes." Marlene finishes out.

Pity silence landed. Waiting for her to continue, tell a story about some couple getting killed by her. Or how her attribute of three wishes would lead to a horrible tale about consequences.

"That was a bit boring." Remus crossed his arms, still a bit miffed she had interrupted him and Ana.  

"Depressing is what it was. I mean, she's the one who died in childbirth. Why does she have to do peoples who almost died laundry?" Lily added. 

"Yeah, I thought she was going to be some murder cursed to wash all the clothes of everyone killed." James revealed his predictions.

   "I don't know why! That's the story my nan told me. I do know that her boobs was so long she had to hang them behind her back." Marlene frowned, adding the last key detail of the description as if it would save her lackluster story.

"Your nans?" Peter asked.

"NO! The Bean Nighe." Marlene whined, glaring as the group burst out into laughter, silencing all chorus from any nightly creatures.

James enacting the folktale, throwing her boobs back as if it was a sassy hair flip.

"I thought it was scary." Peter shrugged, stopping Marlene's scoffling.

The Scot ruffled his mousy blonde hair, smiling. "Aww thanks Pete."

Sirius sat up from his knees tucked position. "Wait-Wait, I have one and it won't be boring."

"Mine wasn't boring!"

"Whys that, Siri?" Ana asked, eating a piece of Remus' chocolate.

"Because it's a real story."

They all tucked back into their seat. Ana sat forward, a new marshmallow on her stick. She was hopeless in trying to make it a perfect dark golden, close to burning it again.

Remus took the stick she was holding by the unstacked end guiding it away from the flames down to the charred ashed.

He whispered. "It'll catch a flame like that."

-

"Now has anyone heard of the tomb of Baroness Demidoff?" Sirius asked, smirking as they all shook their head.

"Good. It's a french story my cousin told me it." Sirius took the blanket covering his and Ana legs fashion it around his head like muggled story witch.

"Now... there was a woman, Baroness Demidoff, she was a Russian women who lived in France. And she was awfully rich." Sirius used every word in between a ghostly whisper and a too loud boom.

"She died very unexpectantly in I think it was- early 1800s- but only days before her untimely death she had altered her will." He kept a pause for effect or to remember the history.