ATTENTION ALL READERS. THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. I will be changing this story's name from Vessel to A Fork in the Road in approximately two weeks. I have made this decision after some thought and the realization that its original title doesn't have much to do with the plot (To be honest, when I had the idea to write this I just threw out the first name I could think of. I'm terrible at picking relevant titles). So please don't unfollow/unfavorite if you suddenly see a story you don't remember adding to your list.

Thank you to all my delightful reviewers!

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me except for parts of the story line and my little twists. Things you recognize are probably from the books or TV show.


BOOK ONE

Chapter VII


The make-shift infirmary (neither Harry nor Madam Pomfrey had felt at all inclined to stay in the old one) seemed particularly empty at night without Neville. Harry turned over and tried to fall asleep. It was uncomfortably hot. Turning again, he flung his hand restlessly over the edge of the bed and jumped when it came into contact with something wet.

He switched on the lamp with trembling fingers and almost screamed. Neville's vacant eyes stared up at him, his face still spattered with blood.

Harry jolted awake, bundled in blankets and dripping sweat. He drew a shaky breath.

Every single night of the week that had passed since Neville's death, he had had the same dream. Darkness, heat, blood. It never got any easier.

He kicked off his blanket and padded towards the common room in his pajamas, feeling rather desperate for human company. It was early morning, so barely anyone was awake yet, but he figured he stood a better chance of finding someone if he was out and about.

The only occupant of the common room turned out to be the one person in all of Hogwarts that he wanted least to see. Harry halted short at the doorway and almost decided to leave, but he had already been seen. Draco lounged back, lacing his fingers behind his head lazily.

"Don't let me scare you away," he drawled.

Flushing, Harry stalked to the further end of the room without a word. He stared stiffly at the dancing flames of the fire, acutely aware of Draco's presence and wishing he hadn't left his room after all. The coach creaked protestingly as Draco stood and sauntered nearer. He leaned casually on the back of Harry's chair.

"So," he started nonchalantly. "How are you holding up?"

Harry resisted the urge to turn around.

"Fine," he said shortly.

"Must have been a shock."

Harry pursed his lips, thinking it a silly comment.

"Do you think I wake up every morning expecting to see a murder scene?" he asked icily. "Of course it was a shock."

Draco circled around to stand in front of him and Harry heaved an internal sigh of relief. He didn't like having people in his blind spot.

"Well, I didn't know." Draco shrugged while Harry eyed him suspiciously. This touchy-feely act was setting off a warning bell in his head. "You're the Boy Who Lived."

Harry raised an eyebrow with careful disinterest.

"And that is relevant in what way?"

Draco looked far too gleeful for it to mean anything good whatsoever.

"I thought you might be used to it," he said, still casually. "I mean, you already woke up to your parents. How'd your mum look? Cold? Blue-lipped? Wide, staring eyes?"

Harry felt a surge of fury even as the image of Neville's wide, staring eyes rose to the top of his mind.

"Why do you hate me, Malfoy?" he bit out. Because that was what this was really about. Not Neville... not Lily. He felt a childish urge to kick Malfoy's shins.

"It's not you, it's me," Draco said, in sing-song. Then he glared at Harry. "Take a guess. Maybe because you should have been put in Gryffindor like both your stupid parents? I could have taken this, though, but for some reason you're still trying to be like them. You live a Gryffindor life, Potter, you're even friends with a mudblood. You don't belong here."

At a loss for words (he wasn't sure if it was anger at the insult to Hermione, or shock that Draco was stooping to petty house rivalries, or a mixture of both), Harry simply stared at him. Draco looked disgustingly smug.

"It's better than having feelings of inadequacy and making up for them by being your father's little puppet."

Margaret's voice held a particularly sneering note as she glided smoothly into the room. Harry shot her a warning glance, but she predictably ignored it and threw herself onto the couch next to them. She twirled a single lock of dark hair around her finger thoughtfully and watched Draco's face – which was turning a variety of different colors as he struggled for words – with narrow, calculating eyes.

"How about if you go now?" suggested Margaret, with a hint of steel in her tone.

Draco looked murderous, but she evidently held a higher position in the Slytherin family circle because he retreated... if not from the room, at least into silence. Harry stood rigidly and gazed into the fire. If anything, he felt worse than before.

Margaret's feet were swinging gently, in the corner of his eye. She hummed for a while tunelessly, and then jumped to her feet, tossing her hair over her shoulder. The storm had apparently passed and her face was bright and cheery.

"If you're ready in five minutes, I'll wait for you to go up," she told him, and spun around without waiting for an answer, her green-trimmed robes swirling around her.

Bemused, Harry returned to his room. The warm spring air had penetrated even the thick stone walls of Hogwarts, so he put away Mrs. Weasley's sweater in favor of lighter wear. As he dressed, he began mentally to review his spells and history dates.

Finals were coming up in less than a week. Ron was having a horrible time, which wasn't surprising considering the majority of his homework he had copied from Harry, who had copied a little of his from Hermione, who of course hadn't copied but had done about ten times the amount required.

Harry felt ready. He had only had trouble with the dates (when did Augustus Nizelus first discover the gurbagoot nest? and on what day did the Battle of Worcester Bowl end and which side won?) but after several nights in the library he had gotten quite a handle on it. He never liked to stay too late in the library now, though, because ever since Neville's death he'd been experiencing something akin to acute paranoia.

That Neville had been murdered by a demon he had no doubt. He never left the dorms without holy water and salt tucked away in his pocket. That was because the day after it happened, he'd forgotten them and very nearly had a severe panic attack in the middle of the crowded hallways. Fortunately he had been right outside the Great Hall, so he was able to go back and take some salt... or more like a whole salt shaker. Any of his past compunctions with regards to stealing from the dining tables were discarded without further deliberation.

Every time a student ducked his or her head (suspiciously, he thought) while passing him, he muttered "Christo" and waited with bated breath until he was sure that no one's eyes had turned black. He jumped at the slightest noise and constantly gripped an exorcism in one pocketed hand, as if the written words would somehow protect him. Hermione had noticed quickly that something was wrong, but when she'd asked about it he had lied and said that it was only the stress of the upcoming finals.

"That was ten minutes," said Margaret when he met her in the common room.

Harry straightened his collar self-consciously with his exorcism-free hand.

"Sorry."


Finals week passed in a blur of tests and cramming and general pandemonium. Harry did relatively well (except of course for Potions, where Snape again made him feel as if he was personally responsible for all the evil in the world) but it was with a sigh of relief and a feeling of freedom that he disembarked from the Hogwarts Express. He could almost visualize the three beautiful months of school-free summer waiting to welcome him back with open arms.

His elation was quickly shattered when he saw Uncle Vernon on the platform, surrounded by jabbering witches and wizards with a disapproving and fearful expression on his pudgy, bloated face. Harry sighed and hoisted Hedwig's cage higher on his shoulder, bracing himself for a snide opening remark.

On the other hand, it might prove to be a very long summer indeed.


"Harry!"

At the all too familiar screech, Harry woke with a start and tumbled off his cot. He scrambled for his glasses and crammed them on his face, throwing an apologetic look at Hedwig, who shot him a ruffled, sleepy look.

"Coming, Aunt Petunia!"

He sprinted downstairs, still trying to tie his shoe, and mentally berating himself for not waking up earlier. He'd gotten lax over the school year and was now trying to smack himself back into shape (with some help from his aunt), but his lack of success was evidenced by the constant shouts that reigned the indoors of the Dursley residence. Petunia looked very sour by the time he reached the kitchen.

"I'm sorry," Harry said breathlessly, hurrying to the cabinet for a pan.

His aunt didn't often – ever – accept excuses, so he didn't bother giving her one.

"It's late," she informed him, irritably.

"I know."

He grabbed several eggs from the refrigerator and began to crack them sloppily. Petunia retreated without a word. Ever since he'd come back, the Dursleys had seemed even more fearful of him, possibly because of his official magical training. While it was pleasant to have his own room (albeit a small one), it wasn't nice to feel even more like a freak than before.

At least he was able to eat with them... after Dudley of course. As if in answer to his unspoken thought, the eggs sizzled in the pan. He sniffed them hungrily.

Today was going to be one of the better days as all of them were going to London. He was staying home to do housework. He wasn't worried at all about that because he'd become something of an expert at getting things done in record time. Any extra time he had he would spend mulling over the newest information on supernatural beings that he'd gathered.

It had struck him one day soon after coming back to Privet Drive that, if demons were real, an expansive and admittedly horrifying paranormal world might be real as well. It wasn't one of those things about which you could find reliable information in the library, so he mostly tried to gather as many generally accepted facts on killing and repelling things that he could find on the internet.

Dudley had a really old, beaten-up, forgotten computer stowed in the attic. Harry hid it under his bed and took it out when he was sure no one was home. He had to coax it a good deal to make it work, and even then the internet connection was terrible. But he managed.

He knew that ghosts were real, of course, but when he'd searched for "ghost killings" – simply out of curiosity and to see whether all those creepy bedtime stories were true – a surprising number of results came up. Most were useless and obviously fake, but in the few that he thought were authentic articles and worth reading he found several common factors.

The witnesses all said that they had felt weird cold chills before the attacks. He knew the ghosts at Hogwarts didn't do that, and neither were they aggressive... aside from Peeves, but he was a poltergeist so he didn't really count. He also couldn't remember ever seeing one actually interact with a physical object; they always passed through it. However, if people were being wounded or killed, the ghost must have some connection to the physical world.

It was puzzling. He wished he could ask someone about it, but he was sure they would either laugh at him or think he was crazy.

He kept researching. When he came upon the idea of using salt as a repellant, he jotted it down in the little notebook he was keeping to document his supernatural encounters. At the moment, it ran like this:

Demons:

-Use salt and holy water as repellants

-Exorcise

And he had written the exorcism. Now he wrote:

Ghosts (?):

-Use salt as repellant

-Other?

He disregarded some of the more outlandish ideas, like a silver dagger dipped thrice in the blood of a rabbit killed on a full moon, but salt sounded more plausible. He still religiously carried it around, along with holy water, but the utter normalcy of Privet Drive was starting to chip away at the fear that had been so deeply instilled in him at Hogwarts. So he didn't panic as much as he might have when he found himself in the garden weeding with pocketless trousers.

Only a few days ago, he'd found a ghost investigation in progress (at least so he assumed as it didn't seem to have reached any conclusion yet). That was interesting enough. But what made it even better was the fact that it was only about a mile away... a twenty minute walk, if he hurried. Of course he was going to check it out.

He didn't have much by way of protection, but he assumed that, after dealing with a demon, a ghost wouldn't be too difficult. Besides, he wasn't exactly sure if they really did exist. There just seemed to be a lot of coincidences, and he knew that oftentimes coincidences weren't even really coincidences. It wouldn't do any harm to take a peek.

While it would have been ideal to go during the day, he opted for night because it gave him more time and there would be less questions to answer. The supposedly haunted house was several streets away and it had been a favorite meeting place for Dudley's gang until a girl had hanged herself from the bannister several years ago. After that they hadn't been so keen on meeting there.

Now it was empty, the For Sale sign one of the neighborhood constants, and everyone agreed that it was, and well to be capitalized, a Disgrace.

Harry wasn't so sure of the soundness of his idea when he came up to the boarded house. The roof was sagging badly, and so were several of the steps that led to the front porch. Uneasily, he placed one foot on the lowest of these, pulling it back quickly as the rotting wood gave a protesting squeak.

This posed a problem.

The back of the house was pretty bad as well, but not quite so much as the front. He had to clamber over a wire fence, tearing his pants in the process. He suppressed a groan as he eyed the gaping tear. Aunt Petunia would be livid.

Fumbling for his flashlight (he'd spent four pence buying it at a liquor store), he pushed the back door open. It squeaked loudly and promptly crashed off its hinges. Startled, Harry jumped back, losing his balance and tumbling to the ground, his flashlight rolling wildly and casting its beam every which way.

When he looked up, he found himself staring down the long barrel of a shotgun.

"Who are you?"

Frightened half out of his wits, Harry gaped at the man who held it, and then back down at the shotgun, which was still being held motionless inches away from his head.

"P... please don't shoot!"

He threw up his arms for good measure and the bag of salt fell out of his pocket. The man shot it an odd look.

"Is that salt?"

Relieved that he didn't appear to be dying quite yet, Harry lowered his arms a little.

"Umm... yes. Yes, that's salt."

The man seemed to size him up sharply.

"They come awfully young these days," he muttered, his taut fingers relaxing on the trigger. Harry released a long, shaky breath. "You're a hunter?"

"What's a hunter?"

The man looked horrified, although the gun was withdrawn entirely.

"Oh, no. Not one of you!"

"One of me?"

Completely bewildered, Harry was dragged to his feet by the man, who looked annoyed and impatient.

"Next time go play your games somewhere else," he grumbled, pushing Harry towards the fence. "And tell your friends – or whoever dared you – that they're bloody idiots."

"I wasn't dared," Harry interjected indignantly. Did he think he'd come here for fun? But when Harry looked his scruffy, oversized pants and baggy shirt, he couldn't help seeing the man's point of view. But that didn't change the fact that Harry was here on business. "I came here to check out the ghost that's been terrorizing everyone who visits."

The man paused in his tracks.

"So... you are a hunter?"

It was that word again.

"I don't know what you mean by hunter," Harry admitted, scratching his head (it was funny how often people actually did do that when they felt confused), "but if that means someone who hunts ghosts, I suppose... yes, I am."

"How old are you?"

"I'm eleven."

"Ele..."

"Almost twelve," Harry added quickly.

"I'm stuck with a kid who wants to play hero," the man sighed, pressing his forehead wearily. "I'm getting too old for this. What's your name?"

He didn't look that old. He looked rather young actually, with a full head of light brown hair and shrewd bleached blue eyes. His dark blue jeans and military jacket both looked old and shabby and very well-worn. Harry blinked as he realized he'd been staring.

"Harry. I'm not a kid," he felt compelled to state. "Well," he thought about it a bit, "I guess I am, but that's beside the point. I did my research. I only found salt to keep whatever's here away, but I figure I have a better chance of doing that than those people who come in for a cheap scare."

The man gave him another one of those odd looks, and then grudgingly held out a hand.

"I'm Victor Weismann."

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Weismann."

"Victor."

"What?"

"Don't call me Mr. Weismann. Makes me sound like some doddering old professor."

"Oh. Sorry... I guess."

Victor seemed resigned to his presence. He grabbed a bag (Harry hadn't noticed it before; it was big and bulging, and made a heavy clanging sound when he picked it up) and headed through the door without a word. Harry followed, a little nervously as many of the wooden boards were cracked or even missing.

"Is this your first hunt?"

Victor seemed relaxed, although there was something in his step that suggested he could spring into action at any moment. Harry tried his best to follow his example, but every creak, rattle, and bang that shook the house sent shivers down his spine.

"Yes," he replied, deciding that "hunter," "hunt," and "hunting" were the assigned terms for this particular type of insanity. By whom they were assigned, however, he had no idea.

"And you're alone," Victor stated, with a certain air of exaggerated patience.

"Well, I didn't think anyone would believe me."

Victor nodded.

"A common enough predicament."

He pushed open the door and slowly but thoroughly checked every nook and cranny, gun at ready.

"Why do you have a gun?" Harry asked, determined to get as much as he could out of this most interesting character before they parted ways.

"Because I'm hunting a vengeful spirit and I'm not exactly eager to intentionally allow harm to my person."

"That's not what I meant." What was it with this guy and his dry sarcasm? "Do guns work on ghosts? I thought only salt did anything."

"First," said Victor, suddenly turning and startling Harry, "Let's get one thing straight. Stop calling them," he made air quotes, "'ghosts.' Call them spirits, or vengeful spirits, if only for the preservation of my self-respect. Only babies hunt 'ghosts.' And second, this isn't loaded with bullets, although I wouldn't have minded your thinking so. I filled the cartridges with rock salt."

"All right," said Harry, shrugging. There was no use arguing with him.

"All right, then."

Victor set up camp in the next room – if there was anything Harry had learned about his companion during their brief acquaintance, it was that he liked to expend as little energy as possible – which consisted of a circle of salt with the weapons bag, an "EMF detector" (some device that tracked ghost... no, spirit activity), and themselves in the middle.

At least two hours passed and nothing happened. Harry started to fidget in his place.

"How long does it usually take?" he asked finally.

Victor blew a long, whistling breath.

"Spirits don't run by a clock. For all we know, it's watching us right now. Nothing about this is predictable. We'll just have to wait."

"My aunt will find out if I'm not back tomorrow morning," Harry told him, a little anxiously.

"Harry," said Victor, "if you have an aunt and a curfew, I would suggest that you not take up hunting. It isn't a family-oriented activity."

This time it was Harry's turn to give him an odd look.

"I'm not worried about a curfew," he explained. "I need to be back in time to make breakfast and clean the house."

Somehow even Victor's sigh sounded sarcastic.

"It's a hard life, isn't it?" he said mournfully.

At that moment, a girl flickered into existence behind him. Harry sprang to his feet.

"There!" he exclaimed. Victor spun around, aiming smoothly and sending a spray of salt into the apparition.

"That'll keep it away for a bit," he grunted, reloading the barrels swiftly. "Did you recognize her?"

"I think it was the girl who hanged herself. Darcy Elcott. Does it matter?" Harry asked curiously, helping him to gather the few items he had spread out to pass the time.

"Why do you think I'm here?" Victor sounded exasperated. "I have to burn the right bones."

"That's how you get rid of it?"

Victor stopped what he was doing and turned very deliberately to face him.

"One day in the near future," he said solemnly, "you are going to get yourself killed through lack of information. I'm no Obi-Wan, but when we get out of here I'm going to give you a few helpful tips to ease my conscience."

"Who's Obi-Wan?"

Wordlessly, Victor shot him a very dark look and jogged over the salt line, looking rather like a pack mule with all the gear on his back. Unfortunately, once they had come within five yards of the back door, it slammed shut. Victor dropped his things with a groan and grabbed the handle, giving it a few half-hearted tugs.

"We're locked in," he announced moodily, kicking the door for good measure.

"A gh... spirit really has that much power?"

Harry tried to suppress the panic that was threatening to spill out.

"We should go back to the salt circle before discussing anything."

Once Victor had passed through the doorway, however, that door slammed shut as well. Harry banged on it as hard as he could, but the wood was depressingly sturdy.

"What do I do?" he yelled.

Victor's voice was muffled by the door. For once it was strangely calming rather than caustic.

"Do you still have your bag of salt?"

Harry groped around in his pocket.

"Yes."

"Spirits only have power within a certain area – usually where they died. If you can get out of the house, you should be safe. Otherwise, make a salt circle of your own and stay inside it. You got that?"

Harry licked his lips. They were very dry.

"I think so."

"Just try not to get yourself killed, okay?" Harry heard him grumbling to himself under his breath. "Look at me, all responsible. This is exactly why I work on my own."

Harry worked feverishly to set up a circle, but the small plastic bag he'd brought didn't hold enough to build one that was solid and complete. He felt cold fingers on his neck as he tried desperately to spread it as thinly as he could, and he froze. Barely daring to breathe, he turned slowly, as if he might scare the thing into action.

It was the girl. She withdrew her hand as he faced her and brushed a strand of light blond hair from her face. He swallowed.

"What do you want?"

If he kept her talking, she might not attack.

She opened her mouth as if to speak, but only a scratchy croak came out. Harry winced.

"H... elp."

He frowned.

"Help? Do you need help?"

Slowly and with great effort, the pale lips formed three more syllables.

"H... e'll g... et me."

She disappeared in a burst of grey mist. The doors flew open abruptly and Harry was left standing alone in the middle of the room, feeling confused but mostly thankful that he had lasted the night unscathed.

Of course, that left the puzzle of why she hadn't killed him on the spot. And who was he?


Harry wiped the sweaty sheen from his forehead, pushing his heavy, damp hair back. It was abominably hot. He sighed deeply and typed another search into the cracked keypad.

Victor had grudgingly allowed him to help on this hunt – he would have anyway, but that was beside the point – and so now Harry had to slug through piles of cyber files trying to find one they could use to identify the mysterious male that Darcy had referred to.

Basically, he had look through the history of the house, and if that didn't produce anything, then the history of the neighborhood, and if that didn't work out, then the history of local prisons and people that had been given the death sentence. He wasn't even very good with computers; he hadn't touched one until about four weeks ago.

Sullenly, he tossed away the pencil with which he had been scrawling notes and random links and threw himself back on his bed. Hunting seemed a lot less actual hunting and a lot more tedious research that resembled homework too much for his liking. But he was determined to get a handle on the supernatural, and if that meant doing Victor Weismann's dirty work for him this once, then so be it.

He sighed. It was still deathly boring.

A few moments later he realized that someone was knocking on the door... very quietly as it sounded as if it had been going on for a while before he'd heard. The Dursleys were conveniently gone again for the day – he tried to remember where but memory failed him (he'd been too absorbed in Darcy Elcott and the haunted house) – so he figured he would have to answer himself.

If it turned out to be Mrs. Smith from across the street, his day would end up ten times worse. Praying to whatever helpful angels might be listening, he pulled the door open.

What he saw and what he had expected to see were so vastly different that all he could do was gape stupidly with his mouth hanging open in a distinctly unattractive fashion. He snapped it closed when he registered what he was doing.

"Who are you?" he asked, realizing too late how rude the question sounded, however much justified.

The curious individual blinked at him. He was a young man and his clothes were nondescript, although Harry noticed that they hung on his thin body rather awkwardly. His face was streaked with dry, black blood that crawled up his forehead and disappeared into the roots of his shaggy blond hair, and his light eyes were bizarrely blank.

"I..." he said slowly, and stopped, looking confused. "I... don't know, I'm sorry. I honestly don't know."

His accent was clearly American. Harry stared at him for a few more moments in silence, and he swayed unsteadily on his feet. Harry couldn't very well leave him bleeding on the Dursleys' doorstep, so he stepped aside wordlessly and gestured for him to come in. He moved at a sluggish pace and he seemed to favor his right side. Harry took a closer look and was promptly horrified by the dark splotch that fanned out on his shirt.

"What happened to you?"

"I don't know," the man told him, sounding a little more sure of himself now. Harry couldn't help feeling he had no business sounding like that in the state he was in.

"My aunt and uncle are out," said Harry, trying to gather his scattered senses. "My name's Harry."

The young man nodded.

"Harry. I'm sorry, I can't... you know... tell you..."

His legs abruptly buckled and he slumped to the ground in a dead faint.


Oh, no! The dreaded OC! I apologize, but Victor is kind of necessary as I doubt Harry could learn much about the real supernatural world on his own. There would be too much for him to sift through and most of it would be useless crap. Personally I like Victor anyway, and he'll only be a side character. Tell me what you think.

Of course, if anyone can guess who our newest, unconscious addition might be, kudos to you.

Reviews – especially constructive criticism – are always very much appreciated! Thank you!