Hogwarts Legacy is a massive Harry Potter RPG that I played off and on for roughly a year, spanning 80+ hours.  The world of Harry Potter is, undoubtedly, a spooky one indeed, with giant spiders (the acromantula is just the worst!), undead inferi, super sus dark magic, and lots of ghosts and poltergeists.  To my knowledge, this game features two poltergeists.  And while I would normally avoid anything related to these spectral troublemakers, the ones in Harry Potter seem to be more annoying than scary.  Nevertheless, one such poltergeist is featured in my favorite side quest in the game, and although this guy is just as irritating as Hogwarts’ own Peeves, the quest itself has just the right amount of spooky and spoopy to fit the Halloween season.  Spoilers for the Haunted Hogsmeade Shop Quest (AKA Minding Your own Business).

The quest can be initiated by talking to a house elf named Penny, who seems to be keeping some sort of secret from me and has a habit of holding her breath whenever she says something she shouldn’t.  Ignoring Penny’s, admittedly, strange behavior, I then spoke to the shop’s owner, a witch named Cassandra Mason, who wants to sell the place after her husband’s passing.  But for whatever reason, she seems quite certain I won’t be able to handle the responsibility.  In fact, none of the previous tenants have lasted very long and seem to have left in quite a hurry!  Hmm, I’m sure it’s nothing…  Well, ignoring all the very obvious red flags, I bought the shop anyway.  After quickly cleaning the place up with Reparo, I went to do one last favor for the shop’s previous owner, retrieve her late husband’s belongings from a chest in the back.  Penny seemed…uncomfortable about the whole idea, and I quickly learned why….

Opening the large chest in the back room, I find a ladder leading into a dark basement.  And so I left and demanded my money back immediately!  No, no, this is a video game, so of course, I did the most illogical thing a person could do when faced with an unexpected murder-basement.  I went in.  Because…gameplay.  After arriving in a fairly ordinary, but rather large cellar, the ladder disappears.  Well, sure there’s no reason to feel concerned.  Guess I have no choice but to explore.  Shortly after, I find another room with a house elf-sized hat inside a chest and some rather suspicious mannequins.  I don’t know why, but these things are giving me the creeps!  I destroyed them just in case they, I don’t know, decide to come alive and gang up on me, before heading for the door, and…

It shuts itself, seemingly of its own accord, locking me inside!  What an odd and suspicious thing for a door to do…  Next thing I know, the room is empty, aside from mannequins hanging from the ceiling, and a voice announcing, “Oh, goody!  Someone to play with.”  The subtitles say this voice belongs to someone named Fastidio, and the voice is a mix of jovial, mischievous, and just a bit sinister.  I’m starting to see why none of the previous shopkeepers lasted very long…  When the door finally opens, you’re able to walk down a hallway, where a ghost of a man flies by, closing every door on either side of the corridor as he passes.  Yep, my suspicions are confirmed.  This shop…has a poltergeist problem.  Lovely.

This rather lengthy side quest has us exploring a nonsensical maze of rooms that change around you.  The very next room, for example, appears normal at first, only for the lights to blink out, returning a moment later to illuminate a dungeon with piles of skulls!  Um, who’s bones are those…  To proceed, you’ll be exploring and looking for lanterns that you’ll need to unite with these hands.  Not the most thought-provoking of puzzles, admittedly, but that’s not really important.  Because it’s the atmosphere that really made this quest stand out to me, with the trippy and surreal scenery of rooms that spin around you, endless hallways that form an infinite loop, and rooms that change in size until you’re stuck in a space the size of a closet.  (Of course, my own description can’t possibly do this quest justice, so below is a video to show you what I had to endure!)

And of course, just as I expected, the mannequins eventually come to life.  As if seeing these guys stationed around in weird poses wasn’t eerie enough.

Throughout your quest, you’ll be taunted by Fastidio the whole way, a rather aristocratic looking guy in a powdered wig and blue coat.  But don’t be fooled because this guy has apparently driven multiple people insane in the past, and he will not hesitate to throw furniture at you!  In the end, however, you do manage to best all of his challenges and even defeat a giant monster made out of furniture (rather anticlimactic, I must say) before making a deal with this rather irksome poltergeist.  The agreed upon terms is that he can haunt your shop two nights a month, as long as he agrees to only do so after 9 PM.  (Well, joke’s on you, dude, because I’ll just close my shop before then, so you won’t be able to pester my poor customers!)

After escaping from Fastidio’s clutches, I was able to free Penny and beat up Mrs. Mason before sending her off to Azkaban for her crimes!  And now, finally, I could be the owner of my very own shop at the tender age of 15 or so.  Though, the only purpose of the shop, as it turns out, is to sell clothing at a higher price than anywhere else.  Which was really not necessary after the tens of thousands of galleons I had accumulated by then, with nothing to spend them on because the Room of Requirement was already providing everything I needed.  Alas, I guess I’m just too good at the game, I suppose…

I played this quest at night with the lights off, and not because I expected a spooky good time.  Honestly, I truly believed this was just going to be a rather mundane task where you’d manage a shop and make some extra money.  I had no idea this was going to turn into a horror movie where I’d be exploring a haunted chest and facing off against vengeful mannequins and angry furniture while being mocked by a long-dead ghost with the mental maturity of a naughty child!  Fastidio, I think I enjoyed your games just as much as you did!  With that said, let’s never do that again!

Banner image from Hogwarts Legacy Steam page, but I don’t have any other images because Fastidio pilfered them all!