Lily Potter has just been sorted. Now we are going to switch perspectives---the rest of the story will be from Albus's point of view. Read on...
Disclaimer: Nothing has changed since last chapter.
Chapter Two: A Day In the Afterlife
"Come on, Al! Get up!"
Albus blinked groggily. "Wha?"
"It's the first day back! Come on, let's get down to breakfast!"
Cedric was shaking him vigorously. He opened his eyes fully, and saw a blurry face, raven-colored hair already washed and combed, looking down at him impatiently. When Cedric saw that he was awake, he made a humphing noise accompanied by the curtest of approving nods and swept over to his own bedside table.
Albus sat up. His black hair was a horrific mess, so that he probably now resembled his father more than himself.
"Get a move on," Cedric urged from across their small and circular dormitory. He was pinning his robes with a crest depicting a golden lion on a red background, with barely legible text reading: "GRIFFINDOR". "Don't you want to see your little sister?"
The memory of the previous night came rushing back to him---the Sorting Hat roaring that she was in Hufflepuff; her eyes popping open in dismay; his brother's outburst; James furiously relaying that he thought their must be some sort of mistake ("Don't these ninnies know who her parents are?") in a conspiratorial whisper. He groaned and stood up very quickly. With the result of slumping back down from lightheadedness.
Cedric let out a matching groan and hauled him upright. "Well," he said in exasperation, "Aren't you going to get dressed?"
When Albus's hair was neatly parted and his robes were on, he and James set off for the Great Hall. The castle was comfortably familiar, in all its mystic glory. The fire crackled merrily at them as they passed into the seventh-floor corridor.
"Morning, sweets!" called the Fat Lady from her oil portrait at Albus and Cedric, who were descending a narrow stairway. They waved back at her, and kept walking. Then they stopped.
As it always had been, the decision of which route to take through the school was a challenging one, especially for a perfectionist like Cedric.
"Should we go straight, or take the other way---the one to the left?" he wondered aloud, peering down each path in turn.
"Let's take the long way," said Albus. "I'm not in the mood to deal with those ornery staircases."
So they turned left and hurried down the bright corridor. Cedric was panting a tiny bit when they finally reached the Entrance Hall seven long floors below.
As they passed the small double doors that lead into a small antechamber, Albus's belly squirmed. Lily had waited in there with all the other first years, just before she had been made a Hufflepuff.
Albus scolded himself. You should be happy for her, he thought sternly. It doesn't matter what House she's in!
They found Lily sitting at the Hufflepuff table, finishing off her breakfast. Her face brightened slightly when she saw Albus and Cedric.
"High-low," she said. "I mean, hi. I mean hello."
Albus snorted. "Sounds like somebody's not quite awake yet this morning."
Lily flushed.
A freckled boy sitting near her also snorted. "She's been like that for ever. I think there must be something wrong with her brain---it's disgraceful. She sounds like a puffskein."
A girl with blonde pigtails laughed. "Good one, Earl!" The freckled boy looked pleased with himself.
Lily blushed even harder. Then she scooped the remains of her fried egg into her mouth and left the Hall, tripping a bit as she went.
"Must've had a rough night," Cedric observed. "Best leave her to her own devices, she obviously doesn't want to talk to anyone."
Albus shrugged---a little sadly---and sat down. Nobody they knew was at the Gryffindor table; they must have all finished eating already. Albus glanced at the ceiling to see what the weather was like, spooning grits into his mouth without looking at them. The sky was a depressing, murky grey, and silent raindrops were falling and vanishing several feet above the tables. The storm must not have quite passed yet. At least there wasn't any sleet anymore.
Albus continued eating, cheered up a little actually. He liked the feeling of being cooped up inside while it was miserable outside meanwhile. It came with a pleasant, cozy sense to him. Cedric did not share this view.
"Ugh, look at the conditions! I hate rain!Now we can't even go outside on our first day back. Oh, well, maybe we'll have Herbology." He frowned. "Come to think of it, we never looked at the timetable on the notice board."
"You forget," said Albus, after swallowing his sausage, "We've got new schedules now---third year classes, remember?"
"Oh, yeah! Which ones did you take again?"
"Divination, Ancient Runes, and, erm, Care of Magical Creatures. You?"
"Same, except I've got Arithmancy instead of Divi---Oh, look, I guess Professor Longbottom hands out the course schedules for third years."
Neville was sidling along the Gryffindor tables, giving pieces of parchment to the older students. Like Professor McGonagall before him, he was both head of Griffindor and deputy headmaster.
He came to the two of them and handed Cedric a card. "Cedric Chang, right? And here you are, Alb---Mr. Potter."
Albus's card showed that he had Double Potions, Double Care of Magical Creatures, Transfiguration, and History of Magic. He bade Cedric so long, and went back upstairs to fetch his bag.
Sir Nicholas De Mimsy-Porpington was not used to students going out of their way to speak to him. He usually roamed the corridors, occasionally saying cheers to people, but all together alone. Nobody seemed to want to go near a ghost very often, and the students had an absurd desire to shiver whenever he made to touch them.
So he was solitary most of the time. He spoke to the other ghosts more often than the students and faculty, but not exactly frequently. He had long since given up hope of being accepted into the headless hunt---he had even attempted, years ago, to pull his head off, but as a ghost his form could not be changed.
It was a bit of a surprise, therefore, when Albus Severus Potter called to him from over the heads of a flock of first year students all milling into the Charms classroom. When Nick looked around, his head wobbled dangerously; he placed it firmly back down and adjusted the ruff on his neck.
Albus waved, and the red leather bag slung over his arm swung back and forth as he did so. He and Nick strolled around a corner into a deserted corridor, and then Albus struck up conversation.
"Hi, Sir Nicholas! Had a good summer, then? Did you try again with Veronica?"
Last year, Nick had taken a liking to a pretty witch's ghost who had attended his five hundred and twenty-fifth deathday party.
"Oh, no," said Nick quickly, blushing cloudy, "I'm too cowardly to talk to her."
Albus grinned. "Oh well. This year, maybe."
Nearly Headless Nick grimaced skeptically.
"I attended your sister's Sorting Ceremony last night. Quite extraordinary...yes, quite...Your elder brother didn't seem too pleased, did he? What's his name---Timothy?"
"James."
"Ah, yes, thought so! Named after his grandfather," he said matter-of-factly. "I was never terribly fond of either of them, to be frank. No offense meant, no offense..."
"Is something wrong?"
"Oh no, I'm just a bit...lonely."
"Lily's feeling down too, I think. She seemed very distracted when I talked to her, and she never smiled once."
"My advice; it can be tough being brought into a situation that scares you with no friends to back you up, especially if you're unfamiliar with everything around you. Your sister will want to be alone, but believe you me, she'll feel much better if she's got you to comfort her."
Nick looked out the window, with an air of uncomfortable thoughtfulness. "When I...died, I had the choice of whether or not to...to go on, as it were."
Albus stared at him. He did not know why Nearly Headless Nick was telling him this. "They executed me because of my magic---I had tried to fix a lady's teeth in the park, and the charm sort of, ah, went astray. She grew, oh, at least one tusk, yes. It's been so long, I...I forget."
Nick was still looking exceedingly awkward as he related his tale. "The executioner didn't sharpen his axe properly. It took forty-five blows just to get me like this,"---here he swung his head sideways; it made a positively nauseating squelching noise as it swung as if on a hinge---"forty-five! Can you imagine the...ah, but I digress...Yes, the, the, ah, the dying---that is to say, my death---was painless---it's just the transition to death that---yes---in a sort of limbo---a void---anyway. Very long story made short, I was lonely. Lonely and scared. I was afraid of what lay ahead, unwilling to let go of what I had lost. It is unnatural for a dead being to go back into the living world, it was never meant to be. Only wizards...well---"
Nick was obviously very uncomfortable with the subject of death, and Albus was just about to change the subject, but the ghost continued on. "The, ah, the point is," he said slowly, "I came back as a ghost because I didn't want to leave those I knew and loved. And then when they died I was so sure they would come back for be, and we'd be together...They didn't, of course. This is why ghosts are so depressed and depressing. Happy people don't generally become like us, not if they're...if they're content..." He trailed off again.
"It can do funny things to people, being so alone and secluded. Don't let your sister bottle her self up...don't let her...the guilt...trust your...So, what class do you have next? A new one?"
Albus nodded, not pursuing the subject that Nick so obviously wanted to avoid. "Care of Magical Creatures. Double, with the Ravenclaws."
Nearly Headless Nick nodded curtly. He made an attempt at a smile that made him look like he was constipated. Then he drifted through the stone wall, leaving Albus alone.
Rubeus Hagrid had always had a wild, and kind of intimidating, sort of appearance to Albus. His battered old coat, so unlike the neat robes everybody else wore, was scratchy and enormous; he had a string of dead rodents draped over his shoulders more often than not; his white-streaked dark hair never failed to astonish Albus with how atrociously groomed it was; and he was big. Albus thought he was probably twice as tall as a normal man, and much, much wider than one.
"So, kids," he said in a deep voice that was just as scratchy as his hair, "Welcome ter yer first Care o' Magical Creatures Class!"
He beamed at them all behind his ears. Albus was comforted by the warmth in his crinkled black eyes.
They had an enjoyable lesson. They studied little things called kneazles. These were cat-like creatures with shrewd, knowing faces and irritable temperaments. It was nearly impossible to trick them, and when they discovered your attempt they gave you a look that made you want to hide your face from those disdainful, penetrating eyes. They could make a person feel dangerously conspicuous, even if they had nothing to hide. One of them viciously attacked Lawrence Fletcher, a Ravenclaw who had unwisely prodded it with a twig in frustration---but otherwise they were not aggressive.
Albus's final class of the day was History of Magic. As usual, he tried valiantly to be attention to the boring drone of a lesson, but zoned out relatively quickly. Gazing absently at Professor Binns's shimmering figure as he lectured, Albus thought of Nearly Headless Nick's words on death and ghosts and loneliness. He remembered the advice about Lily, and also that he had not seen her since breakfast. He felt uneasy; something was going on with her, something that seemed to be more than the Sorting.
Another anguish-filled day in the life of me, he thought dryly. He had spent a day in someone else's life, watching his own as if from a difference. He recalled the philosophical wonder he had felt at Nick's words. He had spent the day in a ghost's life...He had spent a day in the afterlife.