How poetic a fate is this. In life, I hungered for immortality. My only fear was death, and it was that fear that saved me from oblivion. Now, I drift the halls of Hogwarts, insubstantial as the mist that flees before the dawning day. I exist, and that is all. Because of the steps I took to preserve my life, in death I have less substance even than the other ghosts who inhabit the castle. Only in darkness can I be seen at all, and then, only just. I am a ghost among ghosts.
The students call me "the Tall Man". They speak of me in fearful whispers, if they speak of me at all, and they avoid me when they can. They know my other name, too, but none of them fears to speak it now. No child now attending the school was alive to remember me. They do not know that I am still here - that I am the shadowy presence they fear. In the beginning, I tried to speak to some, to tell them my true name, but they heard no more than the breath of a whisper, and fled from me in fright.
As the years passed, I learned to keep my silence. To watch and listen and wait. In death, I have at last learned patience.
The doors of the castle open, heralding the start of another school year. The beginning of a new cycle in the rhythms of the castle. Children enter, bright-eyed with excitement and fear. They do not see me standing in the shadows, watching. Their lives are so small, but I envy them. I, who have lost all. When they enter the Great Hall, I follow, drifting behind.
One by one, they are summoned by name. One by one, they step forward, placing the ancient Hat upon their heads and waiting for it to tell them their destiny. Some of the names are familiar. Some of the faces are dimly-mirrored reflections of faces I once knew.
A boy with the Malfoy name and face hurries to the front, looking anxious. When the Hat declares him a Slytherin, he seems pleased. And why not? Slytherin is the House of greatness. It was my House, and first true home. I can only wonder what this boy's self-serving, traitorous family have told him of me. He need not fear my vengeance now. He and his family are beyond my reach.
A few more are Sorted, and then - A face so familiar that I would catch my breath, if I still breathed. Black hair. Green eyes. Thin, brown face. The Potter boy. This one bears no scar of prophecy upon his brow, however.
His name is read out, and I laugh softly. Potter has given his son the names of my great enemy, Dumbledore, and the traitor, Severus. The boy's jaw clenches in determination as he places the Hat upon his head. A moment passes, and then another, as the Great Hall holds its breath in expectation.
"SLYTHERIN!" the Hat declares at last.
There is a deafening silence. The child on the stool freezes in uncertainty. The Malfoy boy calls out to him, smiling, as the rest of the hall erupts in whispers.
I throw back my head and laugh. Potter's son, Sorted into the House that was once my own - the House that gave me so many of my followers in life.
Students sitting nearby edge away, wide-eyed and shivering. They had not even sensed that I was there among them. One leans closer to another, casting a fearful glance in my direction, and whispers, "The Tall Man ..."
I want to tell them that is not my name, but I cannot. I have no power to make myself known, or to affect the world around me in any way. The only power I have left is the power to watch and to exist, endlessly, deathlessly. This is my immortality. Be careful what you wish for.
