Disclaimer: Is this really necessary?

Notes: Two weeks exactly! (That should not make me as happy as it does… but hopefully it makes you happy.)

They were so irrationally cautious when it came to her learning magic (which she was actually supposed to be doing), but when it came to walking through the hallways at night, they assumed she'd return to her dormroom like a good little girl.

Which she would. As soon as she could find it.

And she told herself she would have been able to find it, had they not blindfolded her while escorting her to the conference room. Not while leaving it, though, which made the entire affair pointless. No surprise there.

At least she had a permanent wand now, since the upperclassmen evidently actually used theirs. Not that it would do her much good, since it was only her measly training wand. Since she could obviously use her training wand, Umbridge reasoned, Ginny should do fine with it. The headmistress was setting her up to fail. With any luck, Ginny would. That would probably be the path of survival. Survival by death, that was. Living death, she meant, not survival as a martyr… God, so many ways to survive. And all ways to die.

"…come on, just this one favor…"

Ginny stopped abruptly (and, she hoped, silently). That voice… She couldn't pinpoint it, but it was certainly and eerily familiar. Well, eavesdropping was as good of a way as any to die.

"…It's not like you can die."

"Everyone can die," the other voice hissed, and for some reason, it seemed familiar too, though Ginny was certain she didn't recognize it.

"Well, you already have," the first voice put simply. "So it can't hurt."

"Why should I help you?"

"Put it this way," the first voice replied, "why would you help them?"

"Why do I have to help either?" The voice giggled mischievously.

"You're either on one side or the other," the first voice answered irritably. "Either the side that gave you the fashion sense of the Bloody Baron-" In the background, chains clinked as the first voice demonstrated his meaning. "-or the side where you choose the fashion sense. Even if it is cracked eggs on students' heads, or pants on fire, or…"

"Fine," the voice sneered. "But don't get any illusions I'm doing this for you."

"Are you kidding? You're doing it for all of us who can't." The first voice chuckled. "Give 'em hell from me, Peeves."

"Fine, but you're the one who'll be living in it." Without warning, the second voice- Peeves?- zipped around the corner, knocking Ginny against the wall and cackling for it. She couldn't quite describe him. He might have had tinted blue skin or been translucent- or he might have been perfectly ordinary, save for the chains that wrapped around his body. One thing was for sure: he wasn't the way he used to be.

Then again, who was?

"Student out of bed!" Peeves declared gleefully. "You're not safe."

"Peeves!" the voice came. "Who is it?"

Ginny ignored the voice, rather intrigued by this odd man-thing. "Of course I'm not safe. I'm at Hogwarts."

"…they needn't know it was me who sold you out…"

"Peeves!" the voice called again. Ginny felt a shadow pass over her. Turning, she found something darker than the shadow.

"Should have known it was you," she muttered to the figure in back.

"She's with me, Peeves." Harry glared at the creature. "And I wouldn't be so fast to sell her out. From what I hear, she's created more mischief than you have in just this month…"

"Not as much as you have, I take it," Ginny countered.

"You'd be surprised," Peeves replied dryly.

"I'd have been more successful if I hadn't spent the past two weeks tracking down you," Harry grumbled.

"You'll never be successful," Peeves sneered, gesturing at Harry. "Isn't that why you're wearing a mask?"

Harry looked away. "I least I can take mine off. Can you?"

Peeves hissed.

"Then show me!"

Peeves zoomed forwards, stopped near Ginny's ear. "Careful with him," he muttered, though Ginny was unsure he was offering genuine advice or merely making mischief. "We may both make mischief; but, difference is, you don't know what's behind his mask."

"Do you?" Ginny questioned as Harry grunted in irritation at being purposefully excluded.

Peeves eyes twinkled. Yes, at a literal level, he did know. But really… "Does anyone?"

Without hesitation, he zipped away, laughing faintly as he kicked up dust in his trail. Then, silence.

"What'd you ask him to do?" Ginny asked.

"Help me," Harry answered evasively, "which was probably a mistake."

"I'm not dumb you know," Ginny protested angrily.

"I know," he said coolly. "You're just uneducated."

"Not for long," Ginny vowed, recalling her promotion.

"Depends," Harry replied. "How long do you plan on going to school?"

"How long do you?" Ginny countered. He didn't answer. "You've got to be a student; you look like you're sixteen…"

"I'm seventeen!" he protested. "But I'm older than my age."

"You were born to be bad?" she suggested wryly.

Harry paused. "Yeah," he said slowly, "yeah, I think I was. Only, through the badness, I was bred to be good."

"You think what you're doing is good?"

He shrugged. "It's not what I'm supposed to be doing, so by all definitions, it's bad. But what I'm supposed to be doing…" He paused, leaving it hanging. "Well, I aim to misbehave."

"So you are a student?"

"Well, they teach me most when they don't know they are." Never a straight answer with him. Ginny sighed. He glanced at her and noticed the wand. "So, you've been promoted? You've got to be- it's the only reason they wouldn't have killed you, since you'd be a bad example to the underclassmen if you always succeeded."

"It's still a training wand," she explained.

"Even better. They can't trace those."

"What about your wand?"

"Well…" he hesitated. "I've got one of theirs, but…" He glanced around anxiously before pulling out another. "I made my own."

"You what?" she gawked incredulously. "How?"

"I'm not going brag- well, yeah I will- it was hard. It's not just a stick, you know." He examined hers. "Even yours."

"It's as good as," she sighed.

"You'll learn to use it."

"Right."

"Well, not from them." Harry handed her back the wand. "There's a phoenix in here, you know. At Hogwarts, I mean."

"Can't figure why."

"A good bird never leaves its master," Harry sighed wistfully, gazing up at the ceiling, as if he'd find it there.

"It's yours?" Ginny questioned, joining his gaze.

"Oh- no, not mine," he said quickly. "Belonged to a better man. He- the bird- mainly hides now, but occasionally, he'll come out for special people."

"For you?" she guessed.

"And you," he added. She glanced at him quizzically. Almost embarrassed, he lowered his head. "The night I met you, he led me to you."

Ginny couldn't find the appropriate response to that, and she too looked away. "Where does he hide?"

Harry grinned. "In the pipes."

"There's a story there, isn't there?"

He winked. "Oh, there's a story everywhere." Suddenly all business, he glanced around for a clock. "Speaking of which…"

Ginny couldn't help herself. "I could help you know."

Harry grinned sympathetically. "Not to be rude, but no, you couldn't."

Her smile fell. "You think I'm dumb, don't you?"

"No, no, I didn't-"

"Of course you did! Forgive me- I'm just a stupid, amnesiac girl who never had a filthy rich father, or a coddling mother, or rebel brother! It's only the world I live in- why should I are about it?"

"No- Ginny, please…"

"Why do you know everything?" she asked helplessly before sinking against the wall. He joined her silently.

"I really didn't mean it that way."

"Sure."

"You're not dumb, Ginny. You're… kinda like me, actually."

"Would you quit insulting me?" she snapped.

To her chagrin, he chuckled. "That's what I mean. I'm not smart. I just use my mind, and I speak it. Which, granted, is usually pretty dumb to do around here. I guess I just know how to survive."

"That's such a big deal here," she grumbled. "Seems to me the dead are a might bit happier."

He shrugged half-heartedly. "I don't have a filthy rich father. Don't even have a father. Or a mother, any more."

"Join the club," she offered bitterly.

"Ginny, what I meant before is… if I could, I'd let you… that is…" She decided that letting him finish would make even more of a fool of him that anything he could say. "It's nothing to do with you, it's just… well, you're not dead."

"What?"

"God, that sounded stupid… you know that Hogwarts has a pretty decent security system?"

"Except for when it comes to Muggle security cameras. Do you know how much more effective wizard defense systems could be if they combined technology and magic?"

"I know. It'd make things around here a bit more fun. 'Course, even Muggle cameras couldn't catch Peeves. There's the whole invisibility part, you know."

"Can't you just… I don't know, throw an invisibility cloak over yourself and be done with it?"

"How'd you know I had one of those?"

"You do?"

"Well, no." He admitted. "I know a guy who has one though." Harry shrugged. "He'll die someday."

"That's sick."

"Yeah, well, we can't all share a fairy tale fatherly-son relationship. Else the whole lot of us would be related… though, come to think about it, most of us are… I should really look into that, just in case…" He trailed off and had the sense to look away. "A cloak would be nice, but it's the ability to move through solid objects that's really handy."

"What are you having him do?"

"Well…" He hesitated.

"Let me guess- you can't tell me."

"I might as well, since you already know."

"How…?"

"Remember the dog?"

"I could forget?" she questioned dryly.

"I want to know what it's guarding."

"I thought you said you had a pretty good idea."

"I was being an arrogant twit. Surprised?"

She laughed. "No."

"Good." He sprang up. "Then you won't be surprised I have to mysteriously disappear in the night to go perform a necessary errand?"

Ginny started to speak before biting her lip. Harry helped her up. "You were going to ask if you could help."

"And you were going to say no."

Harry glanced away. "I'll be blunt. You'd probably get us killed."

Ginny didn't protest this time. She couldn't, come to think of it, since she knew his words to be true.

"I'll tell you what though," he continued. "I'll show you something later. I mean, you might not have to risk your life, but…"

"I'm in," she said before blushing. "I mean, what is it?"

"A surprise."

She grinned. Telling the truth was the best way to lie. "Fine. Then when?"

"You'll know."

"How?"

Harry grinned. "I have my ways." He started off, but her skeptical snort stopped him. "I named you, Ginny Weasly!" he called back in her direction.

Her face fell. "What do y…" She trailed off, recalling just how much of a coincidence it had been for the woman to pull her very own name from the list. Man of mystery indeed…

His grin haunted her as he slipped into the shadows. She realized she had so very many questions about him, about his work, about Hogwarts, all of which seemed to slip away the moment she saw him, replaced with endless other questions, and any answers were all but a million more questions.

She recalled Peeves warning. What was behind the mask?

A person, she thought before chiding herself at the simplicity. Then again, people were more or less rare in this society. Maybe that simple answer was enough for trust.

Or at least enough assurance for her to keep the mystery alive. Boredom didn't suit either of them well.

Or, she amended as she glanced down from an upper level, all three of us.

Peeves, obviously taking his dear time on Harry's ordeal, was playing with a chandelier on the wall, attempting to steal one of its limbs. He was going at it the wrong way, Ginny could see.

She also saw another figure approaching from behind, a taller and grimmer shadow. She almost cried out to the poltergeist, stopping herself before she could incriminate herself as well.

But, like always, the only constant here was contradiction.

Professor McGonagall didn't whip out her wand in attempts to expel Peeves, nor did she acknowledge Peeves in any manner until she was directly perpendicular to him. And, when she did, it wasn't a threat, just a small whisper in an almost familiar manner.

In fact, Ginny swore she heard McGonagall mutter without looking, "Twist it counterclockwise."

And she swore she saw Peeves grin as he switched directions and yanked the chandelier until it came undone.


Catch the RENT or Firefly reference, anyone?