New story! This is independent of my last multi-chapter fics so no need to have read those to read this one.

Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think!

In his line of work, Harry often got customers who looked half-embarrassed to be entering his office. He'd even had a few cases of people walking in and then immediately running out the minute he greeted them, obviously having second thoughts. Out of those who stuck around, most of them usually scrutinized the wizard with a more than healthy dose of skepticism. A few times, it had even led to unwarranted hostility about being a fake and opportunist before they stormed out. At this point, Harry was getting good at not taking any of that personally.

Pauline Gordon looked about as mortified as anyone else walking through his door. But she had the good graces to stay and not accuse him of preying on people's vulnerabilities.

"I feel…a little silly," she admitted, taking a seat.

"Trust me, a lot of people who come to me feel that way," Harry said, not entirely sure if that was supposed to sound assuring. But the young woman gave him a wan smile, the gesture accentuating the puffy eyes and the general tiredness stamped all over her face. "Tea?" he offered.

Pauline shook her head. "No, thank you. I've been hopped up on enough caffeine lately." She took a better look at her surroundings, her eye falling on a framed poster near the back. "The Astounding Dresden," she read. "Is that you?"

"Uh, no, that was my father," Harry answered. "He was a stage magician," he supplied at her curious expression.

"So…this is like a family thing?" she asked.

"Well, no. Not really. It's actually very different." The wizard smiled inwardly at how the High Council would no doubt hop up and down in a fit at having their class and skills be compared to that of stage magic.

"Are you close to your father?" Pauline inquired.

Harry paused as it appeared the first polite question had now leap frogged into personal territory rather quickly. "How can I help you, Ms. Gordon?" he asked politely instead.

An apologetic expression flittered across the young woman's face, despite Harry's genial tone. "I'm sorry. I have a tendency to ask a lot of questions when I'm stalling," she confessed.

"No, it's fine," Harry assured. "What can I do for you?"

Sighing, Pauline nervously played with a silver chain that hung a small silver cross around her neck. "I'm going to sound crazy," she began.

"Please, don't worry."

"Well…I…" she fidgeted a little longer. "I know it sounds nuts, but…I think I'm being haunted."

The somewhat dramatic and wincing way she laid out her claim made Harry wonder if she recalled that his door did say 'Wizard.' More than half his customers came to him complaining of a haunting. Usually most were unfounded.

"What makes you think you're being haunted?" he asked, keeping his voice neutral.

"Oh, god," she moaned. "I sound crazy, don't I?"

"Please, Ms. Gordon. It's not crazy. I just need a little information," he said. "Can you describe to me what's been happening?"

Much to Harry's horror, the woman began to cry instead. It wasn't even the kind with silent tears that Harry could just wait out after offering a tissue. It was the kind that involved violent sobs and where he'd need to take a more active role at consoling. Walking around to where she sat, he awkwardly patted her shoulder while offering her a few tissues from his desk.

As Pauline Gordon sat and wept into the crumpling Kleenex, Harry glanced up from the distraught woman to see Bob on the far side of apartment. The ghost had obviously heard the wailings and was giving Harry a quizzical look that seemed vaguely laced with the question of what Harry did to make the woman cry.

Harry managed to throw denial, offence, and an order to get back in the lab all in his silent reply to the ghost. A feat that made him feel rather proud.

Watching the spirit disappear back through a wall, the wizard got back to Pauline Gordon who seemed to be calming down.

"I'm sorry," she said, wiping her eyes. "I'm being hysterical."

"It's alright, really," Harry assured. "Please, take your time."

"I just…I feel like I haven't slept for the last six months."

"Is that when the haunting started happening?"

"No," she answered, brushing aside the last of her tears. The puffiness of her eyes had doubled. "My fiance, Simon. He passed away six months ago."

"I'm very sorry to hear that," said Harry, sympathetically as he re-took his seat across the table from her.

"It wasn't sudden," she explained. "He'd been diagnosed with a brain tumor. We'd all had time to prepare."

"We?"

"Me and his family. They're all very close."

Harry nodded. "And now you believe Simon could be haunting you?"

Pauline Gordon looked up sharply at his question. "I know it sounds like I simply can't let go, but these sensations that keep me up every night, it can't be just grief."

"What sort of sensations?"

Pauline's lips thinned into a grim line as she tried to find an apt description. "It started out feeling almost like…I had a leaky faucet keeping me up. It's not like I could hear it, but I could almost feel it. Just going and going. But then it became something more like intense jetlag. I'd feel exhausted from not having slept much the night before, but every time I tried to close my eyes, I'd almost feel dull pains. Like a kind of….ice cream headache?" she tried that term on for size and then grimaced. "It makes it sound almost pleasant." Her expression suggested it was very much otherwise. "Anyway," she continued. "It's been going on for nearly three months."

"Three months?"

"Yes, that's how I know it can't be just grief," Pauline reiterated. "I know I'm not done letting Simon go yet, but I was getting to a point where I wasn't moving around every day, feeling like I wanted to die and I wasn't bursting into tears every time I saw a jar of pickles because Simon loved them on his tuna fish sandwiches. I was getting better. But then these sensations started happening."

She rubbed a tired hand across her face. "I've been to doctors, therapists," she gave a short, disparaging laugh. "Simon's sister even referred me to their priest."

Harry gestured to the cross around her neck. "You're not…?"

Pauline looked down at her necklace. "Oh, no. I'm not really religious. It was a gift from Simon," she explained. "His family is very Catholic." She smiled sadly. "They'd probably laugh at me for coming to see you."

"Was Simon religious?"

"Not as much as his parents or his sister, although he became more devout as the time got closer. It's only natural, I suppose…" she trailed off.

"Was a priest there toward the end to deliver last rites?" the wizard asked. Harry didn't have that much knowledge in the practice of Catholicism. But the religion was steeped in old rituals and the wizard knew that a lot of the universe responded well to rituals, may it be from orders as widely accepted as Catholicism or from groups a little more covert like his own.

Pauline nodded. "Yes, the family priest was there."

"I see." It didn't seem likely whatever was happening to Pauline Gordon was a haunting from her deceased fiance if he'd received last rites. It might be another spirit who for whatever reason had picked the poor woman as its hauntee. Although the timing seemed a little too coincidental. Or maybe it really was nothing more than a grieving woman's imagination. Either way, he wouldn't know unless he took a look.

"This sensation you get," asked Harry. "Is it only when you're in your house?"

"It gets a little better when I stay over some place else," she admitted. "But not by much."

"Okay," Harry assessed. "I'd like to take a look at your house to get a better idea of what's going on."

"Alright," Pauline agreed. "Would tomorrow work?"

"Tomorrow's fine," said Harry. "In the mean time, I have a slightly odd request."

Pauline nodded cautiously.

"Do you have anything of Simon's that I might be able to borrow? Any possession of his that he had with him the day he passed away? It'll help me figure out if he's still…present," he added at the frown on Pauline's face.

"I don't have anything on me right now," Pauline replied. "But I have his rosary. He had that with him. Would that work? I can messenger that over to you later today."

"That'll be fine," said Harry. "And I promise, I'll return it safely to you."