At the new home of Grindelwald, deputy headmaster of the Hogwarts University Department, a group of parents stood with their young wizards, staring blankly at the banquet unfolding in the yard and forgetting to help themselves from the big pumpkin candy basket by the door, carved with the words "Please take one."
In another carefully arranged area in the yard for cooking and preparing ingredients, every kind of essential kitchen utensil had been set out in perfect order. A splendid lacquered red long table stood in the middle, covered with a white tablecloth and several candles in uniquely shaped metal holders. Every vessel gleamed expensively in the candlelight, while German-style lamps and candles floated high in the air, casting a hazy glow over the food and wine on the table.
If not for the several blackened corpses lying across the soil of the yard, their eye sockets, torsos, and limbs all sprouting layers upon layers of mushrooms of all sizes, then compared with the strange decorations of the surrounding neighbors, this place would have looked more like a horror-themed open-air restaurant.
Some of the mushrooms growing across the bodies were broad as wide leaves, while those around the neck were as small as mottled fish scales. Their color was like the "soil" that nourished them, a dark fleshy hue faintly tinged with gray, and they were growing with remarkable vigor.
Even though everyone knew this was probably just a decoration and not the real thing, the onlookers still felt their hair stand on end and their skin crawl. Together with the scene at the dining table, the urge to vomit rose straight into their throats—in fact, quite a few people really had thrown up—but beyond disgust and fear, other things within the scene drew them to keep watching.
Because many