The Colour of Death
The Death Chamber in the Department of Mysteries was as cold and dark as Danny remembered it. He wondered idly if people who studied death generally believed that such studies should be conducted in dreary environments.
Danny's parents were of a differing opinion, if the amount of candles they had brought were any indication, but they had always been the odd ones out. Danny didn't pay much attention to the altered decor.
The Veil called to him.
As close as he was to it, he could nearly make out its whispers. The cold that radiated from it chilled him to his bones, but Danny found that comfortable.
"Sweetie, be careful." His mother's voice broke through the nearly hypnotising haze, making Danny turn around.
"Of course." He smiled at her before turning back to the gently fluttering fabric.
The whispers quickly returned in the silence of the room, but Danny paid them little heed. He was close enough to it that the shifting fabric caressed his face. The touches sent chills down his spine. Exhaling slowly and closing his eyes, Danny took a single step forward through the Veil.
It was as exhilarating as it was disorienting. The world spun and reshaped itself. Or was it Danny that changed?
When he opened his eyes again, he was met by a grey room. The Death Chamber looked exactly the same, except that his parents were nowhere in sight.
The Veil behind him glowed faintly in a neon green colour.
Taking his attention away from the room, Danny quickly examined himself. Everything seemed to be as it should. His feet weren't touching the floor, his arms were slightly silver and translucent, and he felt cold to the core.
Danny stretched his ghostly arms, getting used to the lack of gravitational influence. Walking through the Veil was always an interesting experience, but he was getting used to the changes a lot faster than he had that disastrous first time.
Which was good, because he was a half-ghost on a mission.
At the end of the chamber was a door, which sat in the same place as the door in real life. The door was grey, but if he looked at it from the corner of his eye it appeared to be a deep purple.
Danny walked through the door, taking the time to open it. Ghosts couldn't just walk through stuff in the Infinite Realms. That had been one of the first things he learned about the place, as he had tried passing through a wall. That ghosts could feel pain had been a discovery he could do without.
Unlike in the real world, the door lead directly outside.
He was in a city, which simultaneously looked exactly like London and nothing like London. The buildings were all in styles he'd seen in the capital, some of them were actual buildings he'd walked past, but the layout was different. The Leaky Cauldron, which was usually found on a busy street filled with cars and the like, stood directly facing the river. The street outside it was cobblestone rather than asphalt. Still, it was no denying that the feel of the place was the same, like a spiritual successor.
Danny laughed at his own joke. His voice echoed.
He took a second to orient himself. This wasn't his part of the Realms, and any knowledge of the real London would be less than useless. Not that he had any knowledge of the real London.
Really, the only viable option was to ask for directions.
The first ghost he saw was an aristocratic looking woman dressed in Victorian clothing. She was as grey as the buildings and trees surrounding them.
"Excuse me, I'm looking for the train station."
She looked down her nose at him as she directed him towards King's Cross.
The ghostly realms were interesting to look at. Everything was in a silvery greyscale, except the sky, which looked like a swirl of different toxic greens.
The colour of the killing curse was no coincidence.
Danny found the train station without much fuzz, making sure to remember the way back to the alternate Department of Mysteries. If he got lost... well, he'd be in trouble. He wouldn't be stuck, per se, he knew the way to the other two Veils. However, going back to the one at FentonWorks would reveal a lot more to the authorities that had taken over his old house than he wanted to. With his luck it would cement their idea that his parents were Dark.
The other other Veil was not an option for different reasons.
Finding the right train when he'd made it to the station was easy. After all, every single train went where you wanted it to. It was an unexpected bonus to being dead.
One might think that staying in London would be ideal, since Danny's purpose was to ask about Voldemort. However, that meant that he'd need to ask around until he found someone who had the knowledge he was looking for... and the vast majority of ghosts were muggles that had died long before the Dark Lord's time.
He'd much prefer it if the task didn't take the entire year. Especially since he'd be going away in a week. (Just a week!? Where had all the time gone?)
Danny got off the train in the ghostly counterpart of Amity Park.
The most interesting feature of the town was a tall clock tower that didn't exist in the city he'd grown up in. It stood right next to the school, in which he'd met his sort-of-friend Sidney little over a year ago.
Danny would be back to talk to Sidney some other time, for the moment he had stuff to do. It wasn't like the ghost really noticed how long time passed between visits – time in the Realms was a fickle thing, mostly due to the lack of change in the place. Every single day was just like the one before, barring the inclusion of new ghosts, and the lack of a sun made dividing the time into days an iffy affair at best.
Danny didn't knock on the door to the clock tower, he just opened it and entered. He was expected, that was the beauty of being friends with somebody who could see the future.
The stairs made him appreciate his ability to gently float above the ground. Actually climbing them would have been a nightmare.
However, the view from the top of the tower might have made it worthwhile. It was so tall, it felt like you could see everything from there.
Of course, one ghost could.
"Mr Work." Danny smiled. "How's it going?"
Clark Work was... hard to place. He had the sort of face where you couldn't tell how old he was. His one memorable feature was a scar that stretched across one off his eyes. He wore a wizarding robe and cloak that was so simple that Danny couldn't use it to figure out which time period Work had been alive.
Clark Work was in many ways an enigma, but there was one thing Danny knew about him. He was the strongest Seer the world had ever seen. Somehow, despite wizards losing their magic in death, he had only grown stronger in the Sight as a ghost.
"I'm fine, but you... I hear you'll be taking Divination." Mr Work smiled. There was something sardonic about it.
Danny fidgeted. He hadn't been sure of how Work would react, but it wasn't like he'd had many options.
"Forget everything I taught you about time and you'll do fine." Work was still smirking, but he always looked like he was in on a joke that he wouldn't share.
Danny nodded, relieved. Not that the instruction made any sense, but conversations with Work usually didn't. That was how the ghost amused himself.
"So, about the real reason you decided to visit me... I'll tell you this, you're more dead than Voldemort ever was. There are actually some similarities in how you survived. He's too afraid of death to realise it, but..." Something passed over Works eyes and he stopped in the middle of the sentence. "That's not important to you. What's important is that he has returned."
By force of habit and nothing more, Danny sucked in a sharp breath. "That's dangerous."
"Indeed."
"Any tips?"
"I would say 'Don't get killed,' except that hardly seems to matter to you."
Danny smiled. "No, I've got that part under control."
To pass through the Veil into the Infinite Realms, you needed to die.
To walk back to the world of the living, resurrection was the key that opened the metaphorical door.
For most people, it was impossible. For Danny it was as easy as willing it. He was the master of his own death, and decided himself when he turned ghost or when he went human.
Danny sighed as his body gained flesh and gravity once more pulled him down. Colour returned to his world as he blinked in the dreary darkness of the Department of Mysteries.
Once again alive, he smiled weakly at his parents. "The Weasleys were right."
AN: Yeah, Danny is still half-ghost. It just means something different in this fic as compared to DP canon. Having half of one's soul turning ghost is kind of similar to a horcrux, but not really... The pieces of Danny's soul are still intimately connected and inside his body. Clockwork realised that Danny wouldn't find it as interesting as he'd find it completely terrifying. CW isn't as all-knowing as in DP canon, so he almost said it, because he finds it fascinating. It's not often someone like him runs into an unique situation.
So yeah, Danny is not a necromancer. I don't think I could write a good-aligned necromancer without the story turning into either angst or parody.
I wanted to take the concept of a ghost realm but make it for HP ghosts. As such, the Infinite Realms is a combination of the Ghost Zone, the Limbo where Harry met Dumbledore in Deathly Hallows, Harry Potter ghosts and a general mixture of afterlife myths.
The ghost Danny asks for directions isn't supposed to be any specific DP or HP character.
