Chapter Three: Cries in the Night

A month later, Nick was up to his elbows in anything Hogwarts. Remarkably, the teachers had merely shrugged, said their equivalents of 'hi,' and treated him like one of the class, which, in all honesty, he was. Even Snape had merely said 'hmph,' and ignored him.

"Is the professor always like that?" Nick asked concernedly, and somewhat naïvely, as soon as they were far out of earshot. "Did I do something wrong?"

"You're new, and you're in Gryffindor," Ron reminded him. "Snape's always in that kind of mood. You're really lucky he didn't make an example of you. My advice is, keep your head down!"

"Ok," Nick agreed passively, much to their relief.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"He adapts," Hermione decided, watching Nick vanish up the staircase to the boys' dormitory one evening. "And whatever he can't adapt to, he charms."

The three of them, Hermione, Ron, and Harry, were sitting by the fire finishing their homework. That is, at least, Hermione was finishing her homework, and was beginning to nag the boys about theirs.

Harry shifted his weight uncomfortably. The Case of Nick was still bothering him. He fidgeted for a few seconds more, then decided abruptly to tell his friends about his suspicions.

"Yeah. But he's almost…too friendly, if you know what I mean."

"Too friendly? Harry, what do you mean?" Ron asked skeptically.

"I don't know how to put it. Does he seem strange to you?"

"Define strange."

"Strange, um, um, strange…Hermione, think back. Have you ever looked at him and gotten the shivers for a moment? Like he's someone else for a second?"

"Someone else? You think he's schizophrenic? Or possessed?"

"Skit-zo- what? Say that again in Greek and I might understand you better," Ron snorted.

"You don't speak Greek, and neither do I. It means he's got two separate personalities."

Harry shook his head. "Possessed is probably closer. Neither of you have felt that little shiver? No? Are you sure? Because either I'm going crazy again, something weird is going on, or I'm just the only one noticing it."

Hermione stared into the fire thoughtfully. "Maybe… wait a moment while I think…"

The boys duly waited as she sat rigid, her entire posture that of concentration, eyes narrowed as she looked intently into the depths of the flames.

"Got it," she said finally, looking up at them. "Ok, Harry, either you're right, or we're both insane together. I've noticed it too, but it's very subtle."

"Oh, well that helps," Harry muttered. "We're down to two options now. What did you notice?"

"Just one incident," Hermione mused. "He was standing out on the grounds, staring in the direction of the forest. I was some way off, so I couldn't see too well, but suddenly I could almost feel this" she shuddered. "wave of malice. That sounds really overdramatic, but I swear that's what happened. Does that sound ridiculous? It does, doesn't it?" she amended with an apologetic smile.

"No, it sounds fine to me," Harry said grimly. "Malice… yes, good word. That's almost exactly what I felt, though never so spectacular. I've noticed a sense of 'otherness,' something really alien about him, and not just because he's relatively new. It's something else."

"Whoa, whoa, you're saying Nick is possessed by something? You don't imagine that- that-V…" Ron continued to sputter pathetically, but his friends got the point.

"Could be," Harry said grimly. "Or one of his allies- remember this summer, Dumbledore warned us about that guy Shikar?"

"We could just be jumping at shadows here, you know- no, I guess not," she said hurriedly at the looks on her friends' faces. "So what are we going to do about it? Until we have proof of, well, anything, there's nothing we can do. And look what happened last time we took matters into our own hands!"

Instantly, Hermione knew she had gone too far. Harry rose from his seat, picked up his books in stony silence, and wordlessly went upstairs.

"Sorry," Hermione whispered belatedly after him, mortified.

"Smooth, Hermione," Ron said scornfully. "Smooth."

Hermione moaned and buried her face in her hands.

"I didn't mean to say that," she whispered over and over. "Oh, he's going to be so mad at me- I can't believe I said that…"

"Why did you?" Ron inquired.

"I didn't like hearing him accuse a friend of ours like that…but that was so thoughtless of me…"

"Yeah, it was," agreed Ron, Master of Tact, "He'll get over it though. I'll wait a while before going up to bed too. Then he can at least pretend to be asleep."

Hermione nodded agreement, and packed up her supplies, and set off for the girls' dormitories, leaving Ron sitting alone by the fire.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Harry pulled his covers over his head and sat in a blanket tent, pretty mad. How could she have said that? He seethed for a while in silence, but dropped off to sleep even before Ron came cautiously up.

He was dreaming, wasn't he? Darkness churned about him, above, below, everywhere he looked.

Alone.

Pain.

Grief.

Madness.

The darkness screamed in agony, crying out. The echoes faded to be replaced by a new sound, heart-wrenching, sorrowful.

The sound of someone crying; a boy crying, with no one to hear him, no one to hide his tears from.

He hung on the edge of hell itself.

Sitting up sharply, Harry woke, shuddering. The dream swiftly fled his memory, leaving behind only one thing.

He could still hear the crying.

Quietly, in case it was one of his friends, he peeked out through the narrow gap in his heavy canopies. All seemed well. Everyone in the dormitory lay asleep, and silent.

Wait. No.

Nick sat awake, knees drawn up to his chest, staring out the window with a look of sorrow on his face. Yet it had not been Nick's voice crying out in such pain.

"You hear him too."

Harry had no reason to assume that this was so. He had blurted it out without even thinking, but he was sure that Nick had, and was still hearing, the cries.

"Yes." Nothing more.

"Who is he? And why does he cry so?"

Nick shook his head slowly.

"How would I know? I cannot say."

Harry sighed. The dreadful sounds were fading away now, but the memory of them remained. "A ghost perhaps, though not one I've encountered here before. I feel sorry for him, whoever and whatever he is or was."

"A ghost. That is a good explanation. Perhaps."

He shuddered. What torment must he have gone through, to leave such an echo of his cries? I wonder what happened. I'll probably never know.

Harry pulled his canopies closed and tried to settle back down. But it was a long time before he could push the echoes of the boy's tormented weeping out of his ears long enough for him to go back to sleep.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Loose on the slopes of the empty hills surrounding the castle, he stood, the moonlight making him appear transparent. His hair shone with the moon's light, making his pale white mane glow with the moon's radiance. His eyes, however, burned with more than the reflection of the moon. They glowed with the very fires of hell itself. Had anyone seen him, not knowing what they saw, and escaped with their life, they would have said that one of hell's own demons ran loose from the Pit.

His already insubstantial form flickered and vanished as he lifted his tortured face up to the night sky and howled with grief like a creature of the wilderness.