Goosebumps formed on her skin as the ghost of Elizabeth Eckins stepped towards her, looking at her so very curiously. "I don't understand," she murmured, voice still crackling horribly. Harriet wondered if the new skill which had just been revealed levelled up, whether her voice would grow more audible. "How can you, of all people, see me?"

"Honestly, haven't you guessed?" another crackly voice spoke, and Harriet looked around, eyes wide as a new ghostly form came into existence, black-haired and green-eyed as the pair of them.

A flicker of another pale, translucent form caught her eye. "She's only been dead for a few days, leave off, Charly," the newest ghost told the aforementioned Charly. "It's not like she's been able to talk to many other remnants like us."

"Hmph." Charly folded her arms, and Harriet could only stare at the near-identical wounds that all three ghosts had. Washed-out black hair shifted with their movements, and Harriet could only flinch as three sets of ghostly green eyes fixed on her. "So you're her," Charly said, voice crackling with static as she stepped closer, circling her like a shark. "The reason we're all dead."

"Charly!" the third ghost girl hissed. "It's not her fault – so don't you dare blame her! He's the one who killed us. It's hardly Harriet's fault that the maniac has an obsession with her!"

Charly huffed again. "Whatever, Rose," she muttered.

Harriet didn't think she liked Charly. She didn't think she liked the reminder that it really was her fault. Her hands shook, guilt and fear eating at her. The fact that she was surrounded by red petals and flowers – red like the shade of blood – didn't help.

"I still don't get it," Elizabeth said, frowning as best a ghost could, peering at her as she stood there, the only living being among ghostly shades. "Why is Harriet the only one who can see us?"

"Because she's, more than likely, a necromancer," Rose explained, folding her arms. "Which is lucky – because now it means we can end this once and for all."

Harriet blinked. "A necromancer?" she echoed, frowning at that word which had only bad connotations. In books necromancers were generally the evil enemy. She wondered if that, somehow, made her evil too.

"Well, yeah," Rose said. "That's what all the other remnants have said – that those who can see us are generally necromancers. Though they claim your type, the ones who see us without divining catalysts or tools are the 'true necromancers', whatever that means."

"Well if she is this necromancer thing, then I'm sure she can figure it out," Elizabeth muttered. "The main thing which matters…" Her visage grew distorted, her words becoming a garble of static which made her wince and cover her ears.

[ALERT! Whispers of the Dead has levelled up to Lvl.3!]

[Your Subclass has been revealed!]

The blue box which popped up was so very familiar by then – but one of the sets of question marks had vanished, leaving the cold hard truth of exactly what subclasses had been chosen for her. Harriet could never forget how she hadn't been able to select them. Part of her wondered why that was.

Harriet Lily Potter – Lvl.9 – Age: 7

Race: Elf Sponsor:?

Class: Arcane Archer Subclasses: Druid, Necromancer

Title(s): The Last Druid (Other Titles Available)

HP: 100/100 MP: 170/170

Exhaustion: 76/500

Another soft ding startled her, even as a ghostly conversation crackled in her ears, the three ghost girls talking and arguing amongst themselves. As it probably was supposed to be. The dead weren't meant to talk to the living. It was freakish that she was able to, and it was probably a rather bad sign. Necromancers tended to be evil, dragging dead back from their peaceful afterlife to do their bidding. Necromancers tended to be the evil enemy – the one in the path of the hero of a fantasy novel. Though Harriet supposed she might as well have been the furthest thing from a hero by that point. A real hero probably would have defeated the mysterious enemy before Elizabeth Eckins had met her fate.

[ALERT! The Conditions for the unlocking of the HIDDEN QUEST: DUAL NATURES have been met!]

Harriet blinked.

"Oy, living girl!" Charly's static-filled voice crackled in her ear, making her wince. "Pay attention, unless you want to become one of us." She folded her arms, glaring at her, and Harriet flinched at that, ever reminded that the girl had been killed in place of her. "Listen, that bastard—"

"You said a bad word," Elizabeth stated, pointing accusingly at her, earning herself a glare from the other ghost girl.

"Oh, knock it off!" Charly hissed, voice only becoming more crackly, the sound of static ratcheting up. "We're dead – we're remnants of living things bound to follow in the footsteps of the bastard who killed us! Mummy ain't here to scold you." She sneered, gritting her teeth, and Harriet stumbled back as those green eyes locked on her. "Stop bloody well flinching, you dolt! How do you expect to end this when you're scared of your own shadow?"

"Calm down, Charly," Rose broke in, somehow not managing to flinch under the other green-eyed girl's glare. "We're all gonna try our best—"

"And get a medal for trying?" she spat.

Rose scowled. "Stop being a Negative Nancy!" she yelled, and Harriet winced at the volume and the high-pitched noise which grated against her eardrums. "What else are we supposed to do?" she muttered, ghostly hands curled up into little fists. "What else is Harriet supposed to do?" she questioned, spitting the words out as she glared at the ground. "Lie down and let him… do that and end her life, the same as ours?"

Harriet glanced down, risking a glance at the translucent coating of white and blood which was smeared down their ghostly legs, shivering and wrapping her arms around herself as she remembered Ian Strange and his hands touching her.

She didn't want to remember that.

Teeth sunk into her lip, the taste of coppery blood tainting her tongue as she stood there, desperately trying not to think about those too big hands and how they'd roved over her skin, taking what they had wanted.

Until the tree had stopped him.

"Potter?"

The sound of her surname had her glancing up, finding one of the residents of Verker Drive looking at her with suspicion and concern – of all things. She wasn't used to concern being directed her way. Scorn and suspicion she was familiar with, concern less so. "Uh," she mumbled, acutely aware then that nobody else could see what she was terming as the ghost girls. "Can I help you?"

"You should go home," the lady said. "I don't know what you're thinking, skulking around here after what happened to poor Elizabeth in that grove…"

"Uh," Harriet mumbled, scrambling back from the lady who was staring at her and making her feel as though she were being examined under a microscope. "I'll, um, be on my way," she said weakly, feeling the lady's stare burning into her back even as she nodded to the ghosts and wandered back towards Privet Drive, wondering all the while just how much that lady had seen. Harriet was all too aware of how she must have looked – talking to thin air.

"Harriet," Rose's voice came, and Harriet was acutely reminded of how she hadn't turned off the skill; Whispers of the Dead. "Hurry up. He's here," she said, and Harriet felt ice freeze in her veins as her mouth moved with barely a thought.

"Detect Enemies," she muttered.

[ALERT! Enemy Detected!]

Her heart was in her throat as she broke into a run like her life was dependent on it. "Observation," she panted, keeping her eyes peeled for any red letters over nothingness in her path. Terror kept her from looking behind her, not wanting to see red letters chasing after her. Not wanting to see how close she was to being caught.

Dimly, she wondered why an emergency quest hadn't popped up. One would definitely pop up if someone there intended her harm. Which meant her enemy didn't currently mean her serious harm. The thought was no comfort to her. After all, Harriet knew better than most how very whimsical and fickle adults could be. Her aunt had proven that to her enough times for her to be certain of such a thing. Her teachers had time and time again proven to wear a similar façade.

[Your struggles make you more durable +1 VIT!]

The box appeared almost mockingly in front of her, and Harriet could only ponder on how similar the ways and exercises to improve DEX and VIT were. And which one would be of more benefit to her to improve. She didn't know, and dimly, Harriet wondered if she truly was too stupid to know and figure it all out.

She reached Privet Drive in record time.

[Practice has made you faster +1 DEX!]

Evidently whatever metric her stats were measured on held the same thoughts, Harriet mused to herself, sliding into her cupboard beneath the stairs without a sound.

"What's this?" Rose's, by then, familiar voice crackled in her ear, and Harriet could only blink as her ghostly form appeared in the small, cramped place. "Are you hiding in the cupboard under the stairs? It's not like that'll stop him… but I suppose it's a less obvious place than your bedroom…"

Harriet felt her mouth turn dry, and she wondered why that innocuous question had her so stumped. She wondered why it was so hard to turn around and tell a ghost that the cupboard under the stairs was in fact her room. "He's hanging around outside," Charly's voice sliced through the awkward, thick silence which had fallen between her and the other ghost girl. "But he's not coming any closer than that."

Relief settled in her stomach, and Harriet felt her shoulders slump at the fact he wasn't coming any closer. It would be better if eyeball guy and Mr Shacklebolt caught him, but she would take what she could get.

"Elizabeth's keeping an eye on him – she'll let us or you know if anything changes," Rose said matter-of-factly. Maybe it was supposed to be reassurance? Harriet wasn't sure. Though she supposed it gave her a sense of comfort. Only rather than trees surrounding her, blanketing her with their comforting presence, she was surrounded by the dead. She wondered if, one day, they would give her the same sense of comfort which the trees always gave her.

She wondered what being an 'evil' necromancer was supposed to be like. Harriet swallowed, the truth of her newly revealed subclass gnawing at her insides.

"We need to try and get those red robe guys to catch him," Rose spoke, slicing through the silence which had settled – as it too often seemed to be doing those days. "It's not like we can. Unless you somehow know some awesome magic?" she asked, tilting her head as she looked at her. "You know – like that stuff those red robe guys said you used to defeat this Lord, uh, Moldemort?"

"It's Voldemort, idiot," Charly muttered.

Rose's cheeks turned pinker, or so Harriet thought. It was a bit hard to tell what with how translucent she was and the poor lighting in her bedroom.

[ALERT! Whispers of the Dead (Novice) has levelled up to Lvl.4!]

"Who's Lord Voldemort?" Harriet asked, brow furrowing as she tried to figure out exactly what Rose was going on about. "I haven't… defeated anyone," she mumbled, thinking then on Ian Strange and how a tree had defeated him. Admittedly, it had been a tree sort of controlled by her, but… Harriet shook her head, shivers wracking her body at the thought of that headmaster. Part of her wondered if there'd ever be a time she wouldn't think of him and flinch. Despite the fact that Ian Strange had looked absolutely terrified of her the last she had seen of him.

Harriet pondered then, on what it meant to have a big grown adult afraid of her. It had given her a thrill to have Ian Strange flinch back from her and her smile. Yet how many adults were scared of children? Harriet wondered what that made her, if anything, beyond the freakish girl she already was. Aunt Petunia had already drilled it into her thick skull how abnormal she was. Harriet didn't want to be abnormal.

Then again, she didn't think anyone else had that strange gaming interface of hers – so normalcy was probably well and truly off the table for her. Harriet wondered how she was supposed to feel about such a fact.

"Well – I don't know if you've figured it out yet, but those red robe guys posing as… well, I suppose they're not technically posing as policemen. They're just a different sort," Rose rambled, evidently spying the confusion scrawled across her face as she stared at her, thinking then on those unusual red robed police officers. "Did you know that magic exists?"

Harriet blinked, flinching at the use of that world – the one banned in the Dursley Household. It almost felt as though Uncle Vernon was about to pop out of nowhere and scream at her, red-faced and menacing, for daring to listen to that blasphemous word. "I…" Harriet trailed off, wondering where the feeling of disbelief was. It wasn't there, and instead, all Harriet felt was cold realisation.

Part of her had known, she realised belatedly. Magic existed.

"I guess," she mumbled a bit pathetically.

"You guess," Charly muttered, and Harriet swallowed nervously.

"Charly," Rose hissed. "Well, before we were interrupted, I was going to say that those red robe guys are Aurors, which are the magical equivalent of the police force."

"Um. Okay?" Harriet said, trying to piece things together. The magical police force would obviously be chasing after a magical criminal – which was what her mysterious enemy and stalker had to be. Which might have explained how he was able to be invisible. "Magic is what's making him invisible, then," she murmured to herself.

"Can we go up to your room already?" Charly asked. "It's cramped in here."

A blush rose in Harriet's cheeks, hands fidgeting in front of her as she tried to muster up the courage to tell them that the cupboard under the stairs was her room. She wondered why it was so embarrassing to her. She had lived there for so long that it was normal to her. It was normal that Dudley had two bedrooms, and that she was stuck with the cupboard under the stairs. She was supposed to be grateful for even having a roof over her head. Her aunt and uncle had taken her in out of the kindness of their own hearts. "Uh, well," she mumbled, figuring it was better to get it over and done with – like ripping off a plaster. It wasn't like she'd be able to hide it from the two ghosts who didn't seem to be fazed by things like walls and doors. "This is my room."

"You live… here?" Rose asked, looking around her tiny cupboard.

"Problem?" Harriet asked, glaring at the ghost then.

"Uh. No…" she trailed off. "There's just not much space here…"

"I don't really have that many people over," Harriet said flatly, thinking then on how she had no friends to come over. She'd never had a sleepover before. The closest she'd gotten to such a thing had been books and when Dudley's friends had come over. None of them had thought anything of how she slept in a cupboard beneath the stairs. In fact, they had only jeered at her and told her of how it was a fitting place for an urchin like her to live.

Where and how they had learnt a word like urchin was another question entirely, though.

Harriet blinked, pondering on the scathing thought which had just raced through her brain. In her mind Dudley had always been the smarter one – the proof was in how Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon gushed over him and how smart their Duddeykins was. Harriet wondered when exactly she'd started to think of that as nothing more than a big fat lie.

"Well, I suppose that doesn't matter…" Rose trailed off awkwardly. "Given…"

"Given we've got a murderer on her doorstep?" Charly cut in, arms folded, even as she sat down cross-legged on her tiny carpet. "I thought we were supposed to be brainstorming."