STRANGERS

Author's note:

OK, this is a story I began to write last summer. I had it planned out, wrote three chapters - and then my computer crashed and I lost the whole thing. So now I'm making back-ups *and* I'm going to try posting the chapters as I write them, though I normally like re-drafting as I go - I'll correct anything I'd like to change in author's notes like these.

Er, I hope you like it - please review and tell me! :) The story is set in Harry's seventh year at Hogwarts; it will involve the five younger Weasleys, Harry, Hermione ... and someone else? I'll try and write new instalments as quickly as my schoolwork allows.

(As for Dengwert, please tell me if this is, like, a German swear word or something. I checked as well as I could on various search engines ...)

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to the amazing Ms. J.K. Rowling - except Iain Romany.

Rating: Er. This chapter is PG-13, I think, for some mildly offensive language and dark-ish overtones.

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Chapter 1: Dengwert

Fear. Horror. A sickening rush of terrible sadness.

Your standard reactions to death: Muggle, wizard, whatever. More so, the death of a young boy. And as the news swept through the school, these emotions followed in its wake, yanking sobs and gasps and disbelieving whispers from the mouths of the students, rippling right through the corridors, down the stairs, up through the long solemn tables of the Hall ... right up to - into - the subdued eyes of the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore.

He quieted the Hall with one stern, sad gesture: he placed his hand on his heart. All eyes were on him; all faces looked to him for comfort, for hope, for desperate reassurance. The war against Voldemort had been building up through the last few years; rotting away the peace at the centre of their lives, replacing it with a steady, sickly undercurrent of fear. The fear had trickled through everything; even through the past few months, which had been free of any major violence. Any momentary illusions of peace were shattered now.

Dumbledore cleared his throat, and began the Halloween speech.

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A long time later - or at least, it seemed long - the last of the subdued bustle had faded from the empty common rooms, and Hogwarts lay cold and dark. The Fat Lady had wandered off to drown her sorrows in a painting of a rowdy medieval feast, the floor below. Even Mrs Norris wasn't on the prowl; the black silence of the corridors was undisturbed.

Until ... a gentle creak broke the air. The deserted Gryffindor common room peeked out at the corridor, as the portrait swung open. The walls frowned disapprovingly as a slight rustling sound followed, and then a smaller creak as the painting swung delicately back into place. The sound of footsteps faded down the corridor, hushed by the dark quiet that settled back into place, if with a touch more expectancy than before.

The gentle patter continued down the marble staircase, into the Hall. Stars twinkled above, with a vague sort of warmth. Nothing else moved in the hall, barely even the air.

The quick, quiet scuffing of shoes on marble continued across, finally coming to a halt in a secluded niche at the side furthest from the staircase. And then, a portion of the starlit murk slithered to the ground, and in its place were not one but two figures.

Starlight glinted in his green eyes, but it had no effect on Harry Potter's raven-black hair. A couple of steps away, the other boy ran a nervous hand through tousled red hair.

"Are you positive this is a good idea, Harry?" Ron asked. Harry didn't reply immediately; he was soaking in the dark night cool, and his eyes were alert with thought. Ron leaned into his line of sight to catch his attention, and Harry sighed, with a note of impatience.

"Look, didn't we already discuss this? If you want to go back, take the Cloak. Fat chance anyone'd see me here, and anyway, there's plenty of empty classrooms to duck into." Ron frowned. Harry mellowed a little.

"Fine, fine. I just ... c'mon Ron. We know this place better than anyone, thanks to this," he brandished an old parchment, " and also thanks to this, we'll have a head start on anyone about to catch us. I can't sit around and do nothing, and you know Snape would prevent any attempts of ours to join in with the teachers' efforts. Call it force of habit - we have to find out what's going on. And believe me: there is something going on." Bygone advice from Dumbledore flitted across his brain ... use caution with our curiosity. He ignored it and concentrated instead on peering around the room.

Ron stared at his friend. Harry's face was impassive in the dark. He had always been the most introverted of the inseparable trio - well, maybe not inseparable, grimaced Ron. If he thought it was a bad idea to snoop round the scene of the crime, goodness knew what Hermione would have screamed if they'd told her.

In truth, Harry had become more intense over the years. If anyone were ever to paint his portrait - as, Ron had no doubt, someone eventually would - it would be full of deep shades and rich colours, and strong, dark outlines. Red for a fierce temper, warm forest green for a strong heart (especially protective of his friends), gold for a staunch pride in being a Gryffindor, black for a far too painful past, and midnight blue for his sharpness, his unpredictability, and the place in his mind he kept reserved for himself and his thoughts.

A lot of people noticed the gold these days. Gold for the Snitch he seemed to magnetically draw to his hand - gold for the sunlight he loved to bask in, silently, with his closest friends bickering by him - gold with red, like Gryffindor, the pride he took in being alive and the recklessness with which he often endangered that life. The pride had been the focus of many words, not all of them kind, and tellingly, not all of them from Snape or the Slytherins. Harry was thinking of himself as a crusader, eh? what's that Potter kid been up to now? he's an odd one, now, innee, seems to stare right through you, dunnee?

The Boy Who Lived In His Head. The first major row the two friends had ever had, at the start of that fateful Tournament, had been over this precise problem. Admittedly, Harry had done nothing to provoke it, and Ron was honest enough to allow that part of his own anger had been caused by envy of the attention his best friend always got. But then, it wasn't really about what Harry had specifically done, it was about how he thought. He took on every problem as if it were his personal responsibility to solve it - in a large way due to his experience before and during his time at Hogwarts, of course - yet even now that the fight against Voldemort had fanned out to encompass the whole wizarding world, Harry still saw it as a one-to-one duel. Intuitively, Ron knew, and perhaps everyone else knew as well, that eventually there was going to be some sort of showdown between the Boy Who Lived and the Big Nasty Wizard Who Tried To Kill Him - the question that lingered quietly but insistently in Ron's head was: how much would Harry himself be the one to seek out Voldemort for that final battle?

Ron and Harry had patched up that first argument way back then in fourth year; one of the things about close friendship is the way the good aspects will immeasurably outweigh the bad, and you'd much rather have that person in your life than not. However, another thing about close friendship is that when arguments happen, they happen because of deep-seated causes. Ron knew there was a independent and unpredictable streak to Harry, which, while being one of the things he admired about the friend he knew so well, was also a good reason to have misgivings about tonight's "investigation".

Still, they'd got this far, hadn't they? With any luck, the big dark empty hall lying now at their disposal would remain just that: big and empty, with lots of little dark empty places branching off it. "Fine. Where do you want to start?"

"Er ... well, the scene of the crime, I suppose."

"Harry. The 'scene of the crime' has been trampled over at least fifty times today." Ron stared at the massive doors - to the side, and barely visible now, was a pile of wreaths and flowers and notes. He looked back at his friend; lost in thought, as usual. Frustration began to gather in his throat as he hissed, "Listen to me, wont you? The entire Hogwarts staff, not to mention several members of the Ministry, and Mrs Norris, have been examining that spot with charms and potions even Hermione'd get a migraine trying to learn. What on EARTH do you expect to find there -" The sentence tailed off and was forgotten.

As they'd been staring at the doors, something had begun to happen. The enchanted starlight had been at first too faint for them to make out more than an outline of the archway; now, though, they could trace the heavy metalwork of the handle, even from their niche halfway across the hall. The increase in visibility had been so seamless that only the glint of new light on one of the ribbon-wrapped bouquets had alerted Ron. Harry didn't move - but his eyes, too, were shining.

"Ron ... perhaps what I'm expecting to find won't exactly be what you'd call 'earthly' ..."

The light had grown stronger still; it was now possible to see where it was coming from, more or less. There was a shimmering in the air across the Hall, opposite to Harry and Ron, near to the side where the entrance was. A few seconds more, and Harry, squinting, saw, clear-lit against the dark, a small door.

"Come on." His small wiry frame was merely a movement in the dark as he swiftly crossed the floor. Ron followed; but the lankier boy was hunching a little with nervousness, as if he felt exposed in the open space. He reached the door a step behind Harry, his heart thumping. He had a vague idea what he was about to see, but that didn't stop him wincing when Harry stretched a thin hand out, opened the door, and walked through.

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Harry's first thought was "Just a ghost", as he watched the bobbing, shimmering light in the corner of the small store-room. Then it turned around, and his stomach gave a funny turn. He wondered why he hadn't foreseen this most simple of possibilities; perhaps foreseen the awfulness of witnessing this again.

The ghost of Iain Romany floated before him.

The son of James and Lily Potter had seen many ghosts or near-ghosts in his time: the school ones, those whose deaths had been directly or indirectly caused by Voldemort, his parents, and schoolmates. It could never prepare him for the thud of cold horror in his gut whenever one was new-created. There was much in the wizarding world he'd had to get used to, things considered frightening aberrations by many Muggles, things he'd gladly accepted as part of his new reality. But to see, almost part of the night air, simply the essence and the image of a boy he'd spoken to only three days ago as flesh and blood ... It was Iain Romany, yes. And it was Cedric all over again.

Iain surveyed him quizzically. He threw a little wave to Ron, peering through the doorway, and Harry felt him recoil in horror behind. Harry's own fear was immobile, ever-present, a familiar memory deep in his being. After the initial shock of nausea, it gave him an odd feeling of being detached. When he finally spoke, it was in a surprisingly normal voice, as if he were merely telling Iain and his best friend Colin to bog off and leave him alone, just as he'd irritably snapped three days ago. The last time he'd seen Iain alive.

"Hi, Iain. Don't suppose you could tell us what's going on?"

Iain, a fifth-year, had been thin, blond and fair, with pale wide blue eyes - therefore, he was quite well suited to the shimmery ethereal lightness of being a ghost. He had made friends with Colin Creevey over a shared love of photography, and a common inquisitiveness. Iain was quite a resourceful mischief-maker. Since then, Colin's deferential treatment of Harry had changed somewhat in nature; instead of treating him as a celebrity, he had begun to turn to him for advice. As a co-conspirator, even as a friend. Harry didn't mind, and he knew they meant well; but last week, he'd had masses of Potions homework, and Ron and Herm had been teasing him over his agony-aunt status with the two younger boys, and well, he'd been a little harsh when Colin turned up, and big-eyed Iain hanging over his shoulder.

Ghost Iain cocked his head. "Well, yes, Harry, I could help you find out. Or should I say 'oh, it's none of your business, can't you - go off and shoot pictures of mating Flobberworms, or whatever it is you do in your free time other than tail me!'" Harry began to apologise, but Iain raised a shimmering hand, grinning. "Look, there is really no point in bearing grudges when you're dead. I'm just joking with you, Harry. I'm still me, even though I'm ... dead. Well ... it's not easy - coming to terms with that," his voice grew quieter, face more sombre. Then he shrugged and smiled, wryly. "There are up sides, I suppose. I'm going to get Nick to throw me a great welcome party. And as for that wretched Peeves ..." His silvery pale eyes twinkled even brighter.

Harry and Ron still gaped.

"Fine then, let's get to the point. Obviously my afterlife plans aren't quite so interesting as my death - oh, stop apologising, Harry, I'm joking again. I've got the whole of eternity to tell you this stuff, I'm just trying to make it fun."

"Yes - Iain, but er, we only have tonight." It was Ron, awkwardly speaking up for the first time.

Iain beamed. "Hi there, Ron. Hey, how's Ginny doing these days? Send her my regards - no, scratch that, I'll be here for the next few centuries, positive I'll see her sometime before graduation ..." Harry put his head in his hands.

"Iain -"

"All right, all right. I don't know why I was killed."

That caught the boys' attention. Iain stopped bobbing in mid-air, and sat down on a shelf. Harry did likewise, on an old wooden box. Ron stayed where he was, warily leaning against the doorframe, the door ajar beside him.

"I don't even know if I should be telling you any of this, but hey, you were the original investigators, the prototype for Colin and me - must pop by and visit Colin, actually - basically, I'm sure you'd try to find out one way or another. Just trying to make it safer and easier for you.

"Did you ever see the Avada Kedavra curse performed? Agh, bollocks," he swore, seeing Harry cringe, "- sorry about that, Harry. Well, anyway," he went on hastily, "it was like that, a quick whoosh of death. I don't even know why. I didn't do anything to cause it." He frowned, pensive.

The other two waited. Ron looked nervously over his shoulder at the dark Hall behind him, wishing Iain would hurry up so he could just get back to the dormitory. There was something distinctly creepy about conversing with a dead schoolfriend in a store-room, in the dead - pun intended - of night.

"Well," he started up again, "I've been thinking about this quite a bit - nothing else to do really - and there was one really odd thing in my final days. Final moments, even. Something I heard; but I hadn't even acted on it yet ...

"Colin and I got in trouble after, ah, practising our investigative photography techniques in the Gryffindor girls' dormitory, so we weren't allowed to go today, to the Hogsmeade trip. There weren't even any girls in it at the time," Iain scowled. "All right, no grudges, whatever. Um, Colin had a lot of homework, so he told me to get lost; sort of like you, Harry. I was bored silly, and decided to go exploring, with a pair of those new Omnioculars ...?" Blank faces. "Oh come on Ron, it was your brothers who sold them to me! They're great, you can hear close-up as well as see! There must be some secret passages somewhere in this castle ... I was just outside the main doors, and I heard far-off voices, so, like the fearless and daring investigator I naturally am, I, well, hid my sorry arse behind the nearest statue. Pointless, really, since the Omnioculars were magnifying a conversation from halfway across the school, but there you have it. "

"Sounds like us." Despite his nervousness, Ron wore a wry smile. He was now especially glad, too, that Hermione hadn't come with them. If she'd heard about the dormitory escapade, she'd probably have exorcised Iain. Despite this amusing thought, Ron couldn't help looking over his shoulder. An anxiety was building up in him that he couldn't quite explain; he wished Harry hadn't folded the Marauder's Map away into his pocket, but Harry was far too caught up in what Iain was saying to take it out for a check. The ghost went on.

"It was Dumbledore and McGonagall. They seemed quite het up; Dumbledore, especially. He sounded furious. I didn't quite catch everything, but what I gathered went something like this: there were people near here who shouldn't be, there wasn't much time ... and only one name. Dengwert."

At that moment, Ron was about to look worriedly over his shoulder again, but he didn't have to. Something came hurtling in through the door-frame; he yelled in fear and ducked. Harry spun around to look. Even Iain jumped.

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Peeves hovered in mid-air, in the centre of the store-room. Harry let out a sigh of relief, which, however, caught in his throat when he saw the expression on the poltergeist's face. Peeves looked horrified, he was even paler than usual, and he was glaring at Iain. It was the first time the boys had ever seen Peeves look serious.

If Iain could also have breathed out a sigh of relief, he would have, though his face showed considerable trepidation at the sight of Peeves' wrath. He wasn't quite sure precisely how much damage a poltergeist was able to inflict on a ghost, but he decided to risk it. "Anyway, that's the end of the story, folks ... er ... I took a step forward, repeating the name to myself - it sounded German, and I used to study German in Muggle school. And then I dropped dead. Fin."

"Fool! Hasn't Dumbledore spoken to you yet?" Peeves snapped.

"Er ... oh, what do you mean, that "don't tell anyone how you died" thing? That's all he had time for, but, er, I thought he meant so as not to scare anyone squeamish. And Harry's quite brave, you know. And Ron, too," he added, unconvincingly as Ron was staring at the proceedings with an expression of abject terror on his face.

"NO, you ectoplasmic imbecile! He told you to keep quiet so you wouldn't lead any more nosy halfwits into danger, which, within only hours of dying, you have succeeded in doing!"

Now Iain looked quite scared. "Er -"

Peeves cut him off, turning to Harry and Ron. "Get back to bed before you get yourselves killed too! NOW!" Harry looked as if he were about to protest, but Ron grabbed him by the arm.

"Let's go. I mean it, Harry. There's something extremely wrong here." Harry's eyes were still fired with excitement and curiosity, but his friend's tone seemed to bring him back to the reality of the situation. Moreover, Ron's yell when Peeves shot in could well have attracted someone's attention. He looked up at the ghosts.

"Thanks for everything, Iain." He turned to go.

"Yeah, see you around, mate," Ron added, moving out of the door and waving tentatively as he left. The two boys scurried across the darkened hall floor, disappearing halfway as Harry threw the Cloak over them.

"Thanks? They should be bloody well killing you again for what you've done!" Peeves scolded, albeit a little less ferociously now the boys had gone. Iain tried to apologise, still frightened. "Oh, leave it out. But I'm warning you; you'd better not be a troublemaker. This school ain't big enough for the both of us." Suddenly, he broke into his trademark wicked grin. "Blegh. That's more serious than I've managed in over a millennium. But still, Dumbledore'd better hear about this - and I didn't do it, so you're going." With that, he shot out the way he'd arrived. Iain remained in the store-room, thinking, his silvery light dimming as he sank into that limbo-like state ghosts sometimes substitute for sleep. It was strangely reassuring to see Peeves back to normal after his tirade - so much so, that the dozing Iain faced the thought of confessing to the Headmaster with considerably more resolve than he otherwise would.

He needn't have worried. As the silvery light faded from the Hall, and the Fat Lady (also dozing, drunkenly) was swung oh-so-gently back into place over the portrait hole, the darkness settled lazily again - if anything, thicker than before. Nobody had heard Ron's yell; there was no Mrs Norris on the prowl. There was no noise at all in the entire school besides snores ... almost. The only thing to be heard, imperceptible even to Zonko's New Range Omnioculars, was the soft cooing of a phoenix, as its owner worriedly paced the floor of his study.

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