After what felt like eternity, but was probably only about ten minutes or so, Aurora descended upon the shack. She stopped at the door and used her wand light to read the note that was pinned to it. OOOOH a riddle! She read it over once, then twice...and a few more times for good measure. Ok, so she had to locate some objects in here. Shouldn't be too hard...
At least, that was what she thought until she actually opened the shed, and saw what a complete nightmare the place was.
She wrinkled her nose in disgust as she walked in to the main floor, taking in the completely trashed house. EWWWW, rotten food! The smell was nauseating, and she had to take a few seconds to steady herself and stop herself from retching. It smelled like rotting cheese mixed with animal feces. GROSS! Wasn't this like, a tourist attraction for Hogwarts students? Why was it so MESSY then?? Surely no one wanted to tour a house that was in this much disarray! She also found it hard to believe that absolutely NO ONE had wandered in here to clean up the place in all those years. Perhaps the place had been...re-cluttered specifically for this challenge. That had to be it. Otherwise, Hogsmeade would attract all manner of wildlife with this rotten food, and that would HARDLY go unnoticed.
She pulled the collar of her shirt over her mouth and nose and read the clues again. Ok, pigletted friends...did that mean actual piglets? Her first reaction was to look for bacon of some sort. No, that couldn't be it. There was definitely no bacon here - at least not any that was edible by any means. The house bit in the next line made her think that maybe she was looking for wood or straw of some sort. After all, wasn't there a No-Maj story about three little piglets building houses out of straw? She kept reading. Try them all...so something that had multiples in the house? Hmm. She turned in circles a few times, taking in the various objects around the house and also taking note of the stairs behind her. So there was a second floor...she'd have to venture up there if her efforts proved fruitless down here.
She went on to the next clue. Something small from across the seas...that made her think that maybe it was something that had to do with Ilvermorny. Something American. After all, they WERE here from across the sea...but what was that bit about the noxious gas? Her eyes darted over to the bathroom to her left. Could it mean, like...THAT kind of noxious gas? No, that would be WAY too disgusting. Surely even these English folk had their limits when it came to that kind of stuff. And waste didn't destroy wood - at least not right away...
Fire destroyed wood. She looked over to the dusty fireplace and went to examine it. She wasn't sure how she could adjust a fire in there, though, because she would just wave her wand a fire would appear. The fireplace at the Chae house had a lever that would adjust the intensity of the flame for them, but she didn't see anything like that here. There was no knob or switch to control a flame....
Suddenly, she sat up straight as an idea popped in to her head. She turned on her heel, facing the kitchen, and hurried over to the old kitchen appliances.
Stoves had knobs, and could create fire...
If the stove was old and broken, it could certainly be dangerous and cause a gas leak...
YES! This had to be it!
Smiling to herself, she put the parchment on the table as she entered the kitchen and examined the stove. If she just...turned the knobs and started the burners, would that be enough to reveal a clue? It was the best guess she had at the moment. She'd have to be careful of course, as she had no intention of dying in this stupid shed from a dumb gas leak. She wasn't sure if this was an automatic stove though, or if she would need to actually start a fire with the spark of her wand. She pulled it out of her holster just in case. She hoped not - Aurora had been spoiled all her life with very nice appliances and had never had to use a flame to actually start a burner on a stove, and she might very well blow this whole place up in the process.
Biting her lip, she leaned forward and examined the knobs. The right front burner was the only one that appeared to have a working knob. The other ones were all broken or hanging off the hinges.
The note had said that turning clockwise would do nothing. That made sense -she thought back to her own stove at home, and how turning it clockwise without first lighting it would do nothing. But turn it COUNTER clockwise, and she might regret it, the note had said. She'd have to go super slow, to make sure that she didn't accidentally cause a gas leak. This old thing WAS old and broken, after all. Taking a deep breath, she reached out and wrapped her fingers around the knob and pushed in, then turned it counter clockwise, holding her breath as she slowly turned the knob...she heard the click click click that most stoves made when you started up the burner, and hoped in a few seconds, she'd be rewarded with a flame...and not an explosion...
__________________  |