Shadows and Ghosts
A week and a half after the murder of her family, Annie was going home. Her Grandpa William would come to Hogwarts and take her to the Portkey in Hogsmeade. That would transfer her to her house's basement. She would be in her house again.
'It will never be home again,' Annie thought. 'Home is gone forever. Home is where you feel safe. I will never be home.'
Sad thoughts for a girl of ten-and-a-half. A girl that age should be thinking of adventures, unicorns, candy and cake. That's what childhood is. Knowing you're safe and knowing that no matter what happens, it will always get better. Annie had lost her adventures, her family, her dreams. Even though she was ten-and-a-half, she was no child.
She looked at the stone on her necklace.
'Why me?'
~
Deep in the Forbidden Forest, Linan was getting ready to leave home for the first time in 600 years.
"I have been here a long time. I suppose it will do me some good to be somewhere else for a while."
She looked around her house. It was like her, based both in reality and in dreams. Built in a clearing in the woods, surrounded by the biggest, oldest trees in the forest. The house itself was made of wood, but that was only a skeleton. The rest of the house looked like it was made out of clouds of shimmering color. If you weren't prepared to look at Linan's house, you would stand there staring at it's hypnotizing swirls until you died.
Linan took only a few things with her; a box containing seeds of long forgotten plants, a pouch of various stones, metal and glass shards, for spells, and a white book with shifting pages, a diary of all the things Linan had seen in her long life.
Linan walked over to a pedestal set in the floor. On this pedestal she set one white candle that was burning with a black flame. The air around the candle shimmered.
"I'd best be off, then." Linan said. She gestured, and then she and her belongings were gone.
The shimmering air around the candle expanded. Soon the entire clearing was shimmering. Then, just as suddenly as Linan had disappeared, the clearing was gone.
Somewhere in the places between the worlds, a white candle burned with a black flame.
~
"Grandpa, I'm scared."
Little Alexia Phifer didn't want to go home. She wanted to stay in the Hogwarts hospital where the students would come and play with her. She wanted to watch the Hogwarts lake, walk in the halls, and eat the wonderful food.
Alexia wanted to stay with the nurse who gave her the Dreamless Sleep potion. She didn't want to dream about her parents being killed. She didn't want to dream about dragons, or Death Eaters, or broomsticks. Alexia didn't think she'd ever be able to ride a broomstick again. Not after being lifted from her home on a broomstick, not after looking down at her home, which seemed so normal, so strong, and so lifeless.
Hogwarts was safe. The students told her it was the safest place she could be. It wasn't fair that she had to leave. She didn't see why she should leave. Annie and William wanted to risk their lives going home, but Alexia didn't.
William had told her:
"We have to go home, Alex. Don't you understand? If we don't go home, it will show them how weak we are. If we don't stop cowering now, we never will! Listen, I'll be coming back here for school soon enough. Annie will be a first year next year, and you only have four more years till you can come to Hogwarts. When we've learned all we can, we can go and take our revenge on You-Know-Who. That's what we have left. Revenge." Will had walked away muttering to himself.
Annie had something else to say.
"Alexia, where else can we go? We can't be a burden on these people forever. They need to worry about important things, not about children like us. That's their job. Our job is to go home, rebuild what was destroyed, then learn as much as we can about everything we can. If we just know enough, maybe we can keep things like this from happening again."
Alexia wanted to stay at Hogwarts. She didn't want revenge like her brother, and unlike her sister, Alexia wanted people to take care of her. She just wanted to be safe. Was that so much to ask?
~
In the Hogwarts hospital wing, Andromeda Phifer picked up her stuffed dragon. She looked around at all the walls, the hospital beds, everything.
"I'll be back," she thought. "I'll be back soon."
~
The Portkey to the manor basement worked as well as it had for the past 400 years. No matter that the house would never be the same. No matter that the house was no longer a happy place. The gears of the house still turned, everything still continued the way it was supposed to. The only difference in the house itself was a new carpet on the floor in the front room, and a cleaner look to the stairs.
Annie looked at all this, and the first thought in her mind was:
'That carpet is ugly.'
She sighed. The house was too quite. No laughter ringing through the halls, no Pam crying, no bustle in the kitchen. The house looked the same, but the life had been sucked out of it.
Annie walked calmly up to her room, put her dragon on her bed, then sat down on the floor.
'What now? What do I do now?'
She got up and paced around the room. She flung the window open. The flowers on the apple trees were falling like snow. The sky was a clear blue, and the weather was perfect. All and all, it was a beautiful day.
Annie slammed the window shut so hard some of the glass broke.
"I HATE YOU!" she screamed to the sky. "I HATE THIS WEATHER! I HATE THIS HOUSE!"
"You shouldn't have slammed the window, child." Linan said from the door.
Annie stared. "Who, no, what are you?" she asked.
"Good question. I like people who can ask good questions. I am Linan Tashoki. I am sort of like a ghost. Currently, I am protector of your house."
Annie looked at the ghost. With a voice cold enough to freeze blood, she said, "If you are protector of my house, where were you when my life was ruined?"
Linan looked at the child in front of her. "For one thing, Andromeda Phifer, I have only been protector of this house for a day. For another, your life is not ruined. Finally, you will not speak to me in that tone until you have earned the right to call yourself my equal. I am here to protect your house, but mainly I am here to teach you how to use that stone."
Annie's nostrils flared. She was mad. The Death Eaters who had killed most of her family were far away and from what she had heard, Linan could have protected her family from it's doom. Annie needed somebody to blame, and this Linan seemed like a good candidate.
"If you knew how to use the stone, you should have taught my mother how to use it. Maybe then she wouldn't have died."
Linan blinked. 'The child has a point,' she thought. 'Perhaps I should have done something about Sophia. It may be that I have been isolated too long.'
"You're right, Annie. I shouldn't have let things go down the path they did. I am to late to save your mother, but I hope you'll let me help you."
Annie was shocked. She hadn't expected Linan to agree with her. Her anger was deflated like a balloon with a hole. All she had now was grief.
"Why did she have to die?" Annie wailed. The dam inside of her broke, and the tears poured down her face. "Why?"
Linan looked nervous. She hadn't been near a crying child in years. Her eyes shifted around, looking for a way out of the situation. Finding none, she built up her supply of magic until she felt semi-solid. She walked to Annie, bent down and embraced the child as best she could.
Annie yelped, then relaxed. The magic the ghost was made of felt like the magic in the stone around her neck. Annie wasn't sure, but she thought Linan and the stone were of similar origin.
Linan let go of Annie, letting some of the magic go so she was no longer solid, then said, "I don't know why, Annie. I don't know why Voldemort had to come into power, and I don't know why your mother had to die. All I can do is teach you how to use the power that fate gave you. Do you want me to do that?"
Annie looked into Linan's eyes. She remembered everything that had happened to her in the past week and a half, and she remembered something her father had once told her. He had said: "Sometimes bad things happen for no reason. Sometimes the world turns on you and leaves you feeling helpless and alone. When things like that happen, you have to take the situation and make the best of it. You have to look around and learn from the bad thing so they won't happen again."
Learn from it, he had said. Linan had asked if Annie wanted to be taught. She looked at the ghost.
"Yes."