So here it is: the next chapter. Bit late. Critique question: Do you think the last part is too rushed? I'm going into more detail in the next chapter about… the incident. But be honest.
Oh, and remember to see PoA movie sometime. I'm going on Saturday. Even though we could have easily gotten tickets for Thursday midnight, my neighbor and I are going to be good girls and study and take tests so we can have a guilt-free Saturday. nod And we get to see it in a brand-new theatre! squee
"So you touched it?" Jillied asked, eyes wide and solemn. "You actually walked up to the thing, stuck our your little hand, and touched it? And you could feel it? It didn't pass through you?"
"Yes," Ron replied. His patience had never been strong, and Jillie's interrogation had gone on far too long. What had begun as a simple question had stretched itself into a full panic attack by way of Jillie's curiosity. "I could feel it. It was like. . .like just when I was alive." His fingers lit silver against the darkness of the flooded dungeon—no different from any other ghost's. And yet. . . something was wrong. Something had to be. He wasn't supposed to touch anything. That freak of a horse, lastly.
Jillie, too, was watching his hands, as if expecting them to burst into something. Perhaps flames, like Cornelia. "Ron, I apologize if its my fault this is scaring you anymore than it was."
"You nearly tore my arm off." And she had screamed when he had first told her—in doing so accidentally letting the living hear her voice and sending a group of third-year girls fleeing. Almost reminded him of Ginny. Why did girls have to overreact to everything?
Jillie smirked, remembering. "But I don't think I've ever heard of anything like this. But. . ." She bit her lip and stared at the black water beneath her. "But I've a confession. I've been dead almost 600 years, but I've been in Hogwarts the whole time, for the most part."
Exactly how much outside experience did the girl have? "What?"
"Well, Hogwarts is more interesting."
"I don't care about the school, I hate it. I want to know if you know what you're talking about." If that wasn't a stupid thing to say.
For a moment she looked ready to react, but with a pivotal shrug she continued. "I'm just saying that I don't know all that much about ghosts touching thestrals. They only started breeding them here in the last century. I had never even heard of them until then."
Ron wondered what else might be running around Hogwarts by the time he was free of Percy. "And you have never touched one?"
"I haven't even gone near one. They're scary."
"Tell me about it." He stifled a yawn. "I had to ride one a couple of years ago and I think I prefer it when I can't see them."
"Mm." She dropped down to the water and skillfully walked over its surface. "I'm not going to touch one to see. Ask around. Try Moaning Myrtle. She'll touch anything."
Moaning Myrtle. How long before she discovered him? "One probably would when living in a septic tank."
Jillie laughed and rose back into the air. "At least it was more appealing than your funeral."
"The funeral." All exhaustion fled. "Thank-you for bringing that up."
"How much time do you have before Percy has to return?"
"I don't. . ." Panic set in. The day had gone by much too fast! He stared at his wrist where the silvery rope still hung. Exactly what did one day mean? "But I haven't done anything to day!"
He had barely spoken when the rope gave a swift, burning jerk. He yanked his arm down to his side. Jillie gasped, a noise that quickly morphed into a shrill laugh.
"Percy's going to try and drag you somewhere again!" she said. "Drag him here! He'd hate that!"
Of course Percy would attempt to bring Ron to wherever he was as soon as the binding resumed its demand. Yet. . was Percy fully aware it was back? Flashing a grin at Jillie, Ron willed himself to remain in the dungeon room. The murky, spider-filled water beneath. . . how lovely it would be to have Percy enter that. Who cares if he couldn't feel it or get wet. . . Ron's wrist burned, resentful at being forced to remain when it was clearly wanted somewhere else. He could feel the room fading, could sense another place.. . .
"Come on," Jillie urged.
If he could hang on a little more. . . it was his turn to yank Percy somewhere, see how he liked it. He imagined the invisible rope between them and twisted himself into it until it went taut.
"Hey!" Percy popped in to the room, another spectral light suddenly blinding in the dark dungeon. "Ron!" He rubbed furiously at his wrist and readjusted his glasses.
The sight was even more satisfying than Ron had imagined. "Now you know how I feel."
Percy stared around at the molding walls and slipped out of the water. "Why this place? I hate this place."
"No interesting facts to share?"
"Oh, I've plenty."
"Where's Cornelia?" Jillie asked.
A smile slowly broke though as Percy looked to the rotting ceiling. "She's around somewhere. She enjoyed the funeral."
Why did the funeral have to lurk everywhere? Ron didn't want to know the morbid details.
But Jillie spoke first. "So how did that go?"
Percy's grin stretched further. "It was good."
"How can my funeral be good?" Ron heard himself asking.
At that moment, Cornelia appeared, doubled over laughing in a ball of flames.
"Cornelia," Jillie began.
Cornelia shook her head, unable to speak.
That couldn't be good. "What's going on?" Ron demanded. "What happened?"
"You were cremated," Percy said happily.
He nearly fell. "What?!"
Cornelia's laughter increased.
"Yes, Ron you were actually cremated."
Cremated. "You mean that I'm a jar of ashes?"
"I'm afraid so." The immediate news having passed, Percy wrestled his smile away for his usual sneer. "But it's not so bad. Mum and Dad found a really nice vase for you. Maroon."
Jillie snickered. "You're a vase?"
"That's not the best part," Cornelia managed to gasp. "Let him know what happened before that."
"Before?" Percy stared at her, seemed to remember something, and nodded. "Oh, yes. But I don't think Ron should hear about that."
"Hear about what?" Ron fought a sudden urge to strange Percy.
"When they were preparing your body for cremation.. . ." Percy sighed and shook his head, looking for all the world as if the Ministry had been bombed. ""Whey they were preparing your body, there was an accident. Somehow some floo powder got in there—"
"Floo powder?"
"Well.. . . your body was . . lost for a minute or two."
This couldn't be real.
"Somehow you wound up in that shop on Knockturn Alley. But Bill did manage to talk some sense into the fellow trying to buy you as a centerpiece—"
"What did you do?" Ron threw himself at Percy, knocking him back through the water.
Jillie was now laughing as hard as Cornelia.
Percy jumped back up, hardly perturbed by Ron's attack. "Now that's what you get for not attending your own funeral."
"Huh?" Ron's mind was still cemented in the chaos.
"He means we were joking," Cornelia said between giggles.
But Percy didn't make jokes.
"Honestly, Ron. You didn't think we were serious."
Ron cringed. He hated how Percy was watching him, with that awful holier-than-thou, you're such-an-idiot gaze. "That wasn't funny."
"I came up with it!" Cornelia exclaimed, high-fiving Jillie.
"Fred and George could have maybe done a better lie," Percy mused. "But apparently you still believed us. . . come on, it was actually a nice funeral."
"You told me I was cremated." Ron fought back another yawn. That excitement had weakened him more than anything.
Cornelia and Jillie watched him with fresh worry.
"Haven't you bothered to sleep yet?" Jillie asked.
"Sleep?" The most wonderful word there was. The past few days suddenly seemed a blur. "But I thought we couldn't—"
"The recently dead do!" Jillie shot him a withering look. "Ron, it takes a lot of energy to die. Most ghosts take occasional naps even then. You still exist! What idiot told you not to sleep?"
Percy faked a cough.
"Oh, brother," Cornelia muttered. "Percy, that was really mean!"
"I would have thought he would eventually fall asleep instead of forcing himself to stay awake. . ."
Which he had done. Ron could have kicked himself.
"You're both mad," Jillie said, throwing up her arms so the overlarge sleeves of her robe tumbled down past her bare arms. "I'm leaving before you kill each other again."
"Good luck," Cornelia said with a wave.
Percy waited until both girls Vaporated before continuing. "You weren't cremated."
The lies he could spread were unbelievable. "First you tell me I can't sleep and then you tell me I was cremated? So what disaster actually happened there?"
Percy picked at the rope, barely shrugging. "There were no disasters. Though Fred and George spoke of starting a mud fight."
"Why didn't they?" The cremation aside, the funeral suddenly seemed depressingly boring—a good mud fight would have been refreshing in the least.
"There wasn't any mud. But it was a bit windy. Really, everything was fine."
Ron stared down at the water, wondering if there were just as many spiders crawling through the cemetery dirt as swimming and spinning through the dungeon. "How could a funeral be fine?"
"What kind of question is that? Of course people were upset. Do you want me to assure you it was miserable?"
But he didn't want that. The image came, everyone in black. . . "How were Mum and Dad?"
Percy stared wonderingly at Ron. Then, shaking his head, he said "You were murdered only days ago. You're their son and they love you. How would you imagine they were? Even Fred and George were sad."
Ron fell back into the wall, inwardly burning. So it had been a stupid question. "And you think it would have been better if I had gone?"
"I don't think you get—"
"You're just on me about it because you didn't have a funeral."
"I was hardly on speaking terms with the family," Percy replied. "And I don't expect them to be willing to deal with another death."
Ron kicked back into the wall. The clammy smoke of the stones seemed almost to cling to him. "But you died first."
"They don't know what. They don't even know I'm dead."
"And they wouldn't care anyway."
Percy reeled back, glasses slipping from his nose. "And what's that supposed to mean?"
He shrugged.
"Just because you get the novelty of being murdered by the Dark Lord. . ."
Ron perked up. A clue to the mysterious death. "So you weren't murdered?"
Percy pulled off his glasses and habitually wiped them on his robe. "I didn't say I wasn't murdered. I—"
"So now you were murdered?"
He looked ready to throw the glasses at Ron. "You might say that. And I don't care to discuss it any further. Did you learn anything about this spirit council? Who the person out in the world might be?"
Oops. "I'd rather hear how you died."
"Ron!" Percy shoved his glasses back on and whirled toward the ceiling.
This time Ron wasn't prepared to jerk back. Scowling, he let himself be dragged, hoping it would be more strain on Percy. "Where are we going?"
"The library. Where you should have been."
"And what exactly are we supposed to find in the library?" Around him the dungeons merged and blurred and brightened into the familiarity of the library. Shelves of books surrounded him, and Percy plunged deeper into the shelves, going farther than Ron was sure Hermione had explored.
"Books, you moron." He stopped in before a shelf.
"We can't touch books." Ron hovered over a rickety bookcase, not caring what Percy looked at.
"Ever wonder where books go when they're destroyed?" To Ron's surprise, Percy pulled a book from the shelf before him. But not just any book. It was. . . he didn't know how else to describe it. A ghost book, that's what it was. Pale and transparent and utterly spectral. Percy flipped through it before placing it back on the shelf and selecting another one. "Where else do you think Professor Binns gets his lesson plans?"
"Er. . ." Ron had never particularly cared much about anything Professor Binns had done. Yet the old ghost always seemed to have notes. "I still don't while you're reading these."
Percy slammed the book shut and grabbed a third. "Research, Ron. Maybe you've heard of it. I don't know a thing about this council, and obviously no one is going to help us. But. . .it's got to be discussed in one of these books."
Ron stared at the books. They were just as heavy and thick as any Hermione could dream of. "I'm not reading those."
"Then don't."
That was perhaps the best thing Percy had ever said to him. Pulling himself the full fifty available feet away, he managed to find a comfortable hovering distance above the floor and fell asleep. But not before deciding that Percy would get definite revenge.
He wasn't sure how long he had been asleep when the scattered sound of footsteps jarred him awake. He sat up quickly, unsure of why exactly he was in the library. He had fallen asleep studying again.
No. He didn't have to study anymore. And he had been sleeping on the floor–actually somewhat above it.
The footsteps hesitated, then resumed the uneven pace. Something about the sound was oddly familiar. Curious, he walked through a shelf into the next aisle.
Hermione stood only feet away, absorbed in reading the titles of the dusty volumes lining the shelves. Ron could only stare. She muttered something under her breath and reached up to pull a particularly large book away. It threw her off balance for a moment, but she caught herself and marched right past him.
Why couldn't she see him yet? Could he follow her? He had no idea where Percy was.
It didn't matter. She sat down at a nearby table nestled among the shelves, the tabletop already scattered with her usual notes. Homework. Why was she always so wrapped up in homework? She opened the book and began reading. At least, that's what he thought at first. But she was a fast reader. After a few minutes he realized that she had thrown the book open to the middle and had so far failed to turn a single page. She wasn't going to start crying, was she?
Jamie, everyone, had told him it would take only a few days to adjust to the spirit world. A few days had passed. Why wasn't he yet visible? For heaven's sake, Hermione's cat could see him. Then there had been the moment when he thought he had nearly awoken Malfoy. Had he really tried to let anyone see him?
He wasn't that far from her, only the width of the table.
Concentrate, he told himself. How much work did it take to become visible? All the other ghosts could do it. If he just concentrated enough. . .
And then. .. He wasn't quite sure what happened. As it was, it only lasted for a one or two seconds. One or two too long seconds that seemed to stretch into hours. Hermione stared at him, eyes wide, mouth open in shock. He stared back at her, mind whirling. What had he just done?
Two seconds later, he was invisible again. He ducked beneath the table, just in case, scarcely daring to believe she could no longer see him. Stupid, stupid, stupid! She had seen him, that much was obvious. And yet he was perhaps more shocked than her. No wonder Percy had warned against appearing.
Hermione sat frozen in her chair. He could hear her breaths, quick and loud. He hadn't meant to scare her to death.
Her hand fell from the table to her side. He could see her fingers twitch in panic.
"Ron?" she whispered. Not a call, barely even a question.
He swore under his breath and darted back into the shelves. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Shout Outs!
Written in Stars: Good grief, no! I will not be pulling a Meiko with Binnichan! That's sick! You have a sick mind!
v-babe24: Danikins! I'm glad you like!
pIPPENpIRATE: I hope I can keep your addiction going.
nkittyhawk: Yes, your writing is slow. is impatient for more li'l Voldy
Jamie McFly: I'm glad you're actually reading it. Ooh! I got my "Series of Unfortunate Events" pack!
LJ Fan: squee romantic fluff! You're after my own heart. You'll get it. I hope you like the intereaction in this chapter.
Icy Dragon Claws: yes! That cat is hideous!
hydraspit: I don't think he says "me" all the time, either. I think I left an "I" in one of his phrases. But it was kind of fun for him to say. I kind of have to do all this research on Peeves' ways. curses
Hi Im Crazy: I just read your last chapter! Very cool! waves Blaise flag
HiddenFlame42: I couldn't resist embarrassing Draco in some way.
duj: I hope to never write a sickly-embarrassing apology.
Crystal Lightening: You're welcome. Your last chappie was a good one!
Amelia Glitter: Yeah, they are wasting their times, aren't they? Moronic boys.