All of you awesome readers have probably noticed that I'm referring to internet and computers in this story ("But Harry Potter happens too early for that!"). Well, sue me, I screwed with the timelines a little. I just wanted to establish that I am aware of this and it isn't some oblivious mistake.

I've just been rereading my earlier chapters (I've been writing this for more than five months! Definitely not as long as some of you authors out there, but a record for me!) and, wow, they were practically completely Harry Potter. Like canon canon, not just vaguely following the books. Sorry about that. I honestly believed I was avoiding the whole "rewritten book" fanfiction deal.

Oh, and one more thing: I'm warning you that this whole story is seriously plotty. I could send you a list of the hints and references I've already made and the timeline that's in progress and the whole shebang and you'd probably think "What the hell? Are you trying to write a book?". In other words, don't read this if you're sleepy.

Thank you for all your feedback on Chapter 7! I'm glad that you guys like Victor. I especially enjoy writing him because he's an OC and consequently a blank slate so OOCness is impossible. And to all of you who tried to guess who The New Guy is... you won't find out for sure for a bit. Carry on, however. Congrats to those of you who guessed correctly.

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 VIII


Ugh. God, his head hurt.

He shifted to find a more comfortable position and immediately regretted it. A spark of pain erupted from his side. He couldn't breathe, so he reached up blindly and groped at his chest.

Wires? No, tubes. What the hell?

His eyelids felt horribly heavy, but he forced them to lift.

Ow. Pain. Bright.

A wave of horror swept over him for no reason and he shut his eyes again quickly.

"Too bright."

His voice sounded a lot croakier than he remembered.

Wait... remember? Blank... nothing...

There was a brief rustle and clatter, and then he could feel comforting dimness press around him. Tentatively, he opened one eye, just a crack.

He was in a bed. A hospital bed, to be exact, with tubes going into his nose and a needle inserted into his arm (another wave of that horrible, vague horror swept over him and he suppressed the urge to rip it out). And it was cold. He shuddered violently and reached out to pull his blankets up higher. His fingers were too weak to take hold of them, but then someone was helping him.

"Here you go."

And he was warm again, finally. He snuggled deeper into the fleece before opening his eyes all the way. The Helpful Someone was a boy, with bright green eyes and tousled black hair and an eager look on his face. Funny. He hadn't expected to see a boy. Suddenly he had a flash of recognition.

"You're..." he struggled to remember (was he on medication?), "Harry. You're Harry."

A grin broke out on the boy's face, lighting it up almost inhumanly.

"You remember?!"

"Yeah." Everything was so damned fuzzy. "No. Not really. Just that your name's Harry. What happened?"

The boy – Harry – looked almost disappointed.

"I was hoping you'd tell me. I don't even know you. You just showed up on my doorstep."

Hmm. Problematic, that. He shivered, but mostly because the warmth was actually seeping into him for once.

"Oh." Another twinge from his side reminded him of his earlier physical state. "Sorry for fainting. I hope I didn't get blood all over your floor."

Harry laughed and swung his feet back and forth cheerfully.

"It doesn't matter. Just a little splotch. How's your head?"

He grimaced, lifting one hand to press his forehead. There was a neat, raised line of stitches on his temple.

"It aches," he admitted, sighing and letting his hand drop. "It's fine, though. Very bearable." He didn't really feel like talking about it. "So what's your whole name? Or is it just Harry?"

It came out sounding a little ruder than he had intended, but the boy didn't seem to take offense. He placidly kept swinging his feet. The old chair he was sitting on creaked with each swing. Creak... crik... creak... crik...

"Harry Potter," said Harry Potter.

For some reason, the name sounded familiar to him, but it was too much effort for him to dig through his tired brain and figure out why. He settled for a wordless nod. That was probably a little rude, too.

"And you?" asked Harry Potter.

Why did that name sound so familiar?

Evidently his brain didn't want a rest. He sighed.

"Sorry. I still have absolutely no idea. It's kind of strange," he added, thoughtfully but on a whim. "I'm just me. No name, no identity. I just sort of... exist. Don't know how. Don't know why. It's a whole new perspective. Not that I have anything to compare it, too, of course."

Harry looked vaguely skeptical but swallowed his weird philosophical speech without comment.

Creak... crik... creak... crik...

"We're in England, aren't we?" he asked, simply because there was an annoying staticky ring in his ears that he wanted to get rid of.

"Yes. Little Whinging."

"And I'm American."

"I expect so, from your accent."

"Right."

He fell into contemplative silence, scratching absently around the needle in his wrist, his fingers itching to pull it out. He suppressed the urge again.

"Has anyone called for me?" he asked, ignoring the little empty feeling in his stomach that told him there was nobody around to call.

Don't be ridiculous. Of course there has to be somebody.

"I'm sorry, but no," Harry confessed, looking genuinely apologetic. "It's only been a few days, though. There's every chance that someone will."

Hah. You think?

Well, if that wasn't a mean, cynical voice in his head, he wondered what qualified as one. He crushed it down and thought about his warm blankets some more, because they seemed to be fairly safe territory unlike his memory loss and weird pessimistic mental conversations.

"I can't stay long," said Harry, still apologetically. "My aunt wants me back by four."

He blinked slowly.

"Okay." Harry was staring at him as if he wanted permission. "I'll be fine... I'll probably just go to sleep again anyway. I'm pretty tired."

That was an understatement. He was completely, utterly exhausted. To tell the truth, he felt like he hadn't slept in weeks. His words seemed to do the trick for the British kid, anyway.

"I'll come back," Harry promised, sliding off his chair and landing with a hollow thump on the hardwood floor. "In a couple days, or a bit more if I can't get away. Maybe you'll remember something by then."

"Yeah, I don't think so," he replied without thinking, and then winced. That had definitely been rude. "But, hey, you never know."

His eyelids were starting to feel heavier.

"Bye."

Harry was sounding less and less like an actual person speaking and more and more like an echo.

"S'long," he mumbled, and once more he slipped into oblivion.


"So what have you got?"

Harry jerked his head up from his (Dudley's) old computer, automatically reaching up to close it. He had gotten far too many strange glances from passersby over the past hour or so. A twelve-year-old – because yes, his birthday had just passed, and no, he hadn't done anything to celebrate, but that was nothing new – looking up serial murderers in the library probably wasn't an everyday occurrence. It was actually a little disturbing that he didn't think it was disturbing. After looking at countless gory images, one did tend to grow immune to them.

"Victor."

The hunter flopped down on the chair opposite.

"The one and only."

Harry closed his computer, just in case someone passed while he was talking, and shot the aforementioned a suspicious look.

"How did you know I was here?"

"Victor sees all, knows all," said Victor wisely. He groaned at Harry's expression. "Why do you think I gave you a cellphone? Out of the goodness of my heart?"

"I did wonder," Harry replied flatly.

He pretended he knew why that had anything to do with it and resolved to look up "tracking cellphones" on the internet later. He liked the internet. It was incredibly useful. He'd just discovered Gmail, and was in the process of contacting Hermione, who'd given him her email address with a hopeful look since he was her only Muggle-born(ish) friend. He hadn't had the heart to tell her that he didn't know what an email address was and that he'd never touched a computer before in his life, and now he was glad he hadn't since he'd found one.

"So." Victor folded his hands expectantly. "Spirits? Serial killers? Haunted house? Oh, and I've been careless..."

There was a sharp click as he opened a gleaming switch blade and held it out, blade first. Harry stared at it blankly.

"What am I supposed to do?"

"This."

Harry winced as he drew it across his forearm, blood welling around the narrow slit.

"That can't be comfortable."

Victor shrugged and slid it across the table to him.

"It really doesn't feel like much. Too sharp."

Somehow, Harry decided, that was meant to make him feel better, but he had yet to figure out how. He picked it up gingerly.

"Remind me why we're cutting ourselves?"

"It's a silver blade," Victor explained, dabbing his cut quickly before pulling down the sleeve of his sweater. "If you're a shapeshifter or something nasty like that, it'll burn and I'll know you're not you. If not... well, a bit of a sting is a small price to pay for trust between comrades, eh?"

That was debatable. After some hesitance, Harry slid it quickly across his left index finger, careful to use the still unsullied side of the blade, and then shoved it back towards Victor, who gave a loud and unrefined snort.

"As we were saying," Harry said hastily, reopening his computer, which had frozen on the mug shot of a morbidly cheerful man. He stuck his still-bleeding finger in his mouth. "Um... yes. Well, I think that's him."

Victor leaned forward and examined the picture.

"Why do you say that?" he queried, apparently without much interest.

"I looked him up." Hiding the title, Harry clicked on the file labeled "Ghost Hunt #1" and with satisfaction watched the fruits of his labor pop up in front of them. "Julian Allen was imprisoned and executed back in the 1920s for kidnapping and murder. He would hang his victims so that it looked like suicide... that's why it took nearly a decade to catch him. I don't think there's a particular reason for him choosing that house, except that it's within half a mile of the cemetery where he was buried and looks similar to the houses he chose to use while he was alive. I think he came back and killed Darcy."

He made an annoyed noise as Victor turned the computer to face him, flipping rapidly through the stockpile of information he had gathered. Harry watched him through narrowed eyes.

"Good job," Victor said finally, standing up with a clatter. "You got nearly everything right. Better than I expected. Only the house does have some significance as it's built over the spot where his childhood home was. Gruesome, I know, childhood home of a murderer, but it isn't as if I choose these things."

Stunned, Harry stared.

"You mean I did all of this for nothing?" he exclaimed, too surprised to feel angry. Yet, anyway. "You already did everything yourself."

"Of course I did," said Victor, sounding offended that Harry would even suppose he hadn't. He straightened his probably twenty-some-year-old jacket. "It's not like I'm going to trust some kid I met a few days ago with my hunt and my life. I'll pick you up at one o'clock tonight. Make sure you have plenty of salt, and if possible a weapon made of iron. And what did I say about calling them ghosts?"


The most difficult part of the devil's trap was the... well, all of it, really, but the circle was especially hard to perfect. Harry licked the end of his pencil determinedly and tried again. He always drew it a little wobbly around the edges, and so that it resembled a oval (with tails where the ends met, because he wasn't very good at aligning them either) rather than a circle.

The pentagram was easier. The point dispersion was tricky but he got the hang of it quickly enough. He was just finishing his twenty-seventh mini trap (with one devil's trap per sheet of paper, his room was rapidly being filled with crumpled rejects) when Victor's phone started vibrating on the floor beside him. Hurriedly, he snuffed out his candle and answered the call.

"What?" he whispered.

"I've been waiting outside for ten minutes."

Victor didn't sound too happy. Harry winced.

"Sorry, I forgot. I got a little caught up doing... stuff. I'll be down right away."

"Please do."

Harry stuffed the cellphone into his back pocket and shoved all the papers and pencils into his Hogwarts trunk (he doubted his relatives would dare to look there; they probably thought they would turn into toads if they opened it). Armed with salt and what he hoped was an iron knife from the same place he'd bought his flashlight – he was starting to think the shop a little shady – he crept downstairs and through the kitchen window.

A sleek black Volvo was parked outside. Harry pulled the door open, feeling uncomfortably like he was entering a kidnapper's van, and slid inside.

"Finally," Victor huffed, slamming his foot down on the gas pedal before Harry could even buckle himself.

"I was busy."

"At one o'clock? You're eleven."

"Twelve, now," Harry corrected. "I just turned."

"Congratulations. Still, a twelve-year old?"

Harry shrugged.

"Why not?" he asked, playing with his knife. He clumsily nicked his already cut finger and winced in pain. Victor rolled his eyes.

"All right. If you're going to be all mysterious that's your choice, I suppose."

He swerved abruptly into a narrow lane to their left. Harry bit back a yelp and gripped the armrests.

The graveyard was dark and surrounded by a dense cluster of trees. Row upon row of upright tombstones gleamed almost white in the moonlight, only breaking for the occasional ghostly mausoleum. Victor stopped at the far end.

"Where's his grave?" Harry asked, following him out to his trunk and gawking at the arsenal inside.

Victor rummaged through the weapons, pulling out two containers. Kerosene and matches.

"It's somewhere in this cluster," he said, waving a hand vaguely around their general parameter. "We'll have to look through most of them on our own."

That might take a while.

"It'll take a while," Victor told him, as if he had read his thoughts. "But we have a while. So." He tossed him a shovel, which Harry very nearly missed. "Start looking."

If only graves were dug in alphabetical order. Harry hefted the shovel onto his shoulder and flicked on his flashlight. Feeling rather inclined to break the eerie silence (it was a graveyard after all), he cleared his throat.

"Is it just me or do you find it mildly disturbing to dig up a serial killer's grave at one in the morning?"

Pausing, Victor shot him a puzzled look, as though the thought hadn't ever occurred to him.

"No, not particularly," he admitted finally. "I think it's just you."

"Oh," said Harry doubtfully. The thought fled from his mind when he saw the name engraved on the next headstone. "Here it is... I think."

Joining him, Victor crouched nearer and read the worn words. He nodded shortly.

"Yes, this is it. I'll start digging. Keep an eye out for our friend Julian; he's likely to show up sooner or later."

Harry clenched his fingers more tightly around the hilt of his knife as the sharp slap of shovel against soil began. Noise probably didn't mean much to a spirit, but he still had an unconscious desire to muffle it.

"This..." Victor grunted, throwing up another clump of dirt, "is the... worst part..." splat, "of this whole damn job. Sometimes I wonder why..."

Harry spun around as he heard a faint crackle.

"Duck!" he yelled.

Victor ducked a second too late and went flying in another headstone several yards away. Harry lunged at the suited apparition, slashing upwards with his knife. It wafted through empty air.

"Dammit," Victor muttered, pulling himself up as well as he could. Blearily, he shook his head. "Hurry, he'll be back soon. And he won't be happy either."

"I don't think he was happy this time," said Harry, breathlessly.

With an absent-minded movement, Victor swiped at the trickle of blood running down his cheek. He stared at the smudge on his hand.

"Yeah, me neither," was all he said.

After another moment of silence, he snatched up the shovel and shoved it into the dirt. Harry's fingers twitched as he watched the area around him with nervous eyes. Victor made a satisfied noise from behind him as the shovel clanged hollowly against wood.

"Almost done."

Julian apparently did not like that comment because he flared into existence immediately in front of Harry, swiping him to the side in a careless manner. Harry slammed into the ground, air whooshing from his lungs in a way uncomfortably reminiscent of his encounter with the possessed Neville. He coughed and lifted his head.

Victor was being held in a chokehold by the angry ghost and was trying both to keep himself from getting killed and to sign frantically at Harry to burn the bones. Stumbling to the kerosene, Harry twisted open its cap, sloshing it over Julian's remains. He struck a match with trembling fingers. It didn't light. Not allowing himself to panic, he tried again and almost let out a sigh of relief when a tiny flame flickered to life at the end.

Julian screeched angrily as he was swallowed by a cloud of smoky blue flames. Hacking, Victor collapsed on the ground. He rubbed his throat vigorously.

"Agh," he grunted hoarsely. "I don't feel at all inclined to repeat that experience."

Harry very nearly wilted in relief.

"Not bad," said Victor, as they turned onto Privet Drive.

Harry yawned. There was already a faint glimmer of light near the horizon and he hadn't slept a wink.

"I hate ghosts," he told him, trying to hide the little thrill of pride that ran down his spine at the words of praise.

"Don't we all?"

Harry blinked as the hunter rolled his bruised shoulder ruefully. He hadn't even remarked on his use of gho...

"But it's still called a spirit."

Never mind. But Victor's lips had twitched.

"I'm heading out of the area now," he started. Harry's heart sank for some reason. "There aren't usually many jobs to be had around here. However, if you find anything suspicious, you can call."

"All right."

Victor shot him a shrewd look.

"Keep the phone," he said casually.

Harry frowned and stared at the above mentioned device.

"Isn't there service or something you have to pay for?"

Victor looked vaguely guilty.

"Don't worry about it," he assured him. "It's not a problem."

Harry shrugged.

"I'm not even going to ask."

"That might be a good idea," Victor agreed. "You'd better go before your aunt finds out you're gone. I don't think she'd be too happy."

There was something in his voice that made Harry looked up sharply, but the hunter's face was carefully blank.

"No, I don't think she would," Harry said slowly. He shoved his knife into his belt. "Goodbye, Victor."

"Ciao."


John was reading one of those damnably boring hospital health magazines when the boy came in again. He quickly folded it closed and sat up.

"Harry," he greeted.

Harry nodded and smiled, his face still somewhat serious, and seated himself in the same place as before.

"It's hard to find your room," he observed. "The lady at the desk downstairs said you were on level four, and that was fine, but the room numbers are all mixed up. For some reason nineteen's all the way on this end of the hall instead of next to twenty where it should be."

He seemed grumpy about the whole situation, which made John grin.

"Trials and tribulations, huh?"

Harry shrugged and then brightened.

"So have you remembered anything yet? Your name? Where you're from?"

John shifted uncomfortably.

"No, nothing."

Harry wrinkled his nose.

"Oh," he said, disappointed. "That'll be a bit awkward, won't it? I come in, and you say 'Hello, Harry,' and I just say 'Hi' and stare."

John pulled his blankets closer. He still felt a chill in his bones that wouldn't go away. The blankets really didn't do much, but they were for psychological reasons more than anything else.

"You can call me John," he offered. "Not for any real reason. Just, you know, like John Doe."

"You don't look like a John," said Harry, frowning, "but all right. Are they going to let you out anytime soon?"

"I don't think so. I've still got a hole in my side and the aftereffects of hypothermia – which is a pain in the ass, because I'm always freezing – and besides there's the whole amnesia thing."

"Hmm."

Harry fell into thoughtful silence.

"There's a reason I came today, actually," he said suddenly. "I'm leaving for boarding school soon."

"Oh?"

That was a depressing thought. John had sort of come to see the kid as a friend. His only friend, really, since his old ones didn't appear to care much about where he was.

"I have a cellphone, but unfortunately there are service problems," Harry explained hurriedly. "The school is in a remote area. I'll be back for Christmas, though. If you like you can ring me up then. Here's the number."

He shoved a piece of paper into John's hand. John stared down at the childish scrawl and felt a weird lump in his throat.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it," said Harry.


"Harry Potter!"

The loud squeak startled Harry and he promptly fell off his bed. He rolled to his stomach, straightening his glasses and staring in bewilderment at the strange creature that stood before him. It was small and spindly and had large, luminous eyes that gazed at him sorrowfully as if it was on the verge of bursting into tears.

"You're a house elf!" he exclaimed, suddenly remembering his conversation with Margaret at the beginning of first year. "What are you doing here? I didn't know we had a house elf."

Trembling, the creature shook its head vigorously.

"Dobby isn't Harry Potter's," it said tremulously. "Dobby wishes he was, but he didn't come for that. Harry Potter mustn't go back to Hogwarts! Very dangerous, very dangerous!"

It made another frightened squeak for emphasis. Harry felt like patting it on the head reassuringly (did house elves bite?).

"I'll be all right," he said... for after all he had come face to face with both a demon and a murderous, serial killer ghost and escaped relatively unscathed. "I won't be alone, anyway. I've got lots of friends – three, as a matter of fact."

His words didn't seem to reassure the elf (whose name was apparently Dobby, judging from the way it referred to itself in third person). It wrung its sticklike fingers in agonized despair.

"No! Harry Potter mustn't, he mustn't! Besides," a crafty look came over its face that immediately put Harry into high alert, "Harry Potter doesn't have friends, not real ones. They didn't write to him all summer."

Scowling, Harry tried to grab its arm, but it had evidently anticipated the movement and leapt agilely away, the little rag it wore as clothing flapping crazily. Harry scrambled to his feet.

"What do you know about that?" he asked suspiciously, because he had just realized that he really hadn't gotten any letters from Ron or Hermione. He hadn't expected much from Margaret, either, but to get nothing at all... that was queer.

The elf looked everywhere except at him and continued to wring its hands, muttering to itself. Harry caught the words "Harry Potter," and "danger," and "mustn't go to Hogwarts." It appeared to have a very one-track mind.

"What are you talking about?" he asked again, more harshly.

Cowering, it held out a crumpled, dirty pile of paper.

"Why you little..."

It gave a screech of dismay as Harry pounced on it and wrested the letters from its grasp. He flipped through them greedily. Five from Hermione, with increasingly angry handwritten addresses. Three with Ron's thin chicken scrawl all over the packaging. One with Margaret's loopy, elegant handwriting in neat rows on the envelope.

He half grinned, but remembered Dobby's presence and twisted his expression into a glare instead. Dobby looked so pitiful and weepy in a little ball of elf on the floor that his anger melted. He plopped down on his bed with a sigh, sitting on top of his letters (just because he'd forgiven Dobby didn't mean he trusted him), and began an interrogation of sorts.

"So tell me why you sneakily hid my letters from me," he said, staring very piercingly at the elf. "And why did you decide to tell me now?"

"Harry Potter mustn't go..."

"Yes, I got that," said Harry crossly. "I mustn't go to Hogwarts and all that rot. But why? And don't say because it's dangerous," he added before Dobby could open his mouth, "because I got that part, too."

"Dobby can't tell Harry Potter," Dobby whimpered, gnawing on his knobby fists.

"Don't talk nonsense."

"Dobby can't! He can't, he can't, he ca..."

"All right, all right," Harry cut in, alarmed, because the elf was starting to look really distressed. "Never mind then."

"No, no, no," Dobby cried, his eyes widening. "Dobby must! Harry Potter mustn't go to Hogwarts because very terrible things will happen and... bad Dobby, bad Dobby!"

He started to beat himself against the poster of Harry's bed, weeping copiously at his self-inflicted pain. Horrified, Harry pulled him away and restrained him.

"What are you doing?! Stop... you know what? Don't tell me! Honestly, I'll be fine."

Dobby sniffled, still wriggling his fists and trying to hit himself.

"But Harry Potter..."

"No," said Harry firmly but kindly. He let go of the elf warily. "Listen, I'm grateful for your concern," Dobby's face lit up so much at that that Harry wondered if he had ever been praised before, "but I'm really going to be okay. Don't worry about me, worry about you. Why do you keep hitting yourself, anyway?"

Sniffling again, Dobby twisted his hands together.

"Every time Dobby does something he mustn't," he whispered, looking around furtively before continuing, "every time, he must punish himself for disobeying his masters."

"That's horrible!"

"No, Dobby is bad, very bad," Dobby moaned. "But he doesn't want Harry Potter to be in danger, so he came anyway."

Harry pressed his temples, feeling the beginning of a headache coming on. The whole affair was a little beyond him.

"You'd better go now," he told Dobby, who opened his mouth again in protest. Fairly certain that whatever he planned on saying would include "danger," "terrible things," and of course "Harry Potter," with perhaps a "Dobby" or two dispersed throughout, Harry held up a silencing finger. "No... please, just go. I'll think about what you said, but I've got an aunt and uncle and they wouldn't be happy to find you here."

Dobby nodded mournfully and then with another loud crack he disappeared. Harry blinked at the spot where he had vanished. That was a rather neat trick.

A faint itch under his leg reminded him of his unread letters and he pulled them out from under him, wondering anxiously what his friends thought about his summer-long silence. It couldn't be anything good.


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