Title: Searching for Ghosts

Author: Pers Grayson

Summary: Sixth year brings strange ghosts, hidden rooms, perilous potions projects, and new understandings.

Chapter: 1 of ?

Disclaimer: Thanks so much to JKR for creating this wonderful world for us to play in. She and various publishers own everything.

Author's notes: My thanks to my wonderful betas Parke Ave Pirate and Maerda Erised, and to Alison Brown for Brit-picking.

---

CHAPTER 1: THE RAIN OVER PRIVET DRIVE

It began raining around midnight. It started as a drizzle, but by one in the morning it had escalated into a downpour fit to drown the whole world. It flooded the streets, flattened flowers in the garden, and pounded on the roof of Number Four Privet Drive with such force that it seemed enough to punch holes right through the shingles.

The wind picked up soon after the rain started. It blew through the garden to finish off what flowers had survived the deluge, sent several loose shingles skittering across the roof to fall to the ground, and howled in the chimney. Great gusts of it sent sheets of water through the broken window of the smallest bedroom at the back of the house, but the boy sitting on his bed using a small, battery-operated torch to hold the darkness at bay chose not to do anything about that.

Though he shivered with cold, Harry barely even noticed the wind or the rain. His attention was devoted to the photo album which rested in his lap. He turned the pages slowly and with great care, pausing longer and longer with each one as he moved on, as if reluctant to reach the final page.

But even the greatest of wizards can't hold back the passage of time, and all things must come to a conclusion eventually. When he reached the last page, it was time to open the envelope. He'd promised himself that he would tonight, however much he dreaded the prospect. He reached for it with an unsteady hand.

It really wasn't a very exciting envelope. It was plain white and thin with no writing on the outside, sitting innocently on his bedside table. Nothing about its outward appearance revealed why it inspired such fear, but Harry knew what waited inside. He'd dropped the envelope as if burned when he'd first read the accompanying note a week before. Since then, it had called to him just as surely as a heart buried beneath the floorboards, demanding that he deal with it now or slowly go mad.

He wanted to be brave, and he wanted to be courageous, and he wanted to be everything everyone expected him to be. Most off all though, he just wanted Sirius back, and part of Sirius lurked within the envelope. That's why it scared him so, and that's why he'd put it off.

But no longer. He took a deep breath and moved his hand again with more certainty to pick it up. It turned out that opening it wasn't nearly as monumental a task as he'd expected it to be. Soon he found himself pulling forth a small stack of photographs.

Sirius was asleep in the first picture. Harry wondered if this version of Sirius even knew that he was dead – even knew that Harry had killed him.

The album in his lap shifted, startling him, as new pages came into being. After five years of such things happening, he should have been used to it by now. He slowly let out the breath he'd been holding then carefully placed the picture in the very center of the first new page.

One by one, he examined each picture then put each one on a fresh page of the album. Even in sleep, Sirius looked so happy in most of them that it was almost enough to make Harry cry. He paused over a picture of himself garbed in a Christening gown – the first picture of himself and Sirius together – and wished that he could remember back that far.

The last picture held his attention the longest. He slipped down to his side to lie with his head on the pillow while still looking at it, watching his sleeping godfather drift in lazy loops through the sky.

His mother looked so very afraid as she stood on the ground. He could see her biting her lip and how tight her knuckles were on the hand that clenched her wand. He wished that he could tell her it would be all right, they would be all right, but he knew they wouldn't be. Nothing would ever be right again, and he was very tired.

His eyelids drifted lower with every lazy loop of the broom. As the rain slowed down to a soft drizzle, his eyes slipped completely closed at last and remained that way. His mother looked out of the picture at him, every now and then, her eyes pleading for him to help them both, but she had no voice with which to wake him.

Far away in Wiltshire, another boy lay awake in his bed, desperately trying to rid himself of the image of a broom tumbling from the sky.

---

Harry hadn't meant to fall asleep. He generally tried not to, though exhaustion made him feel more like a zombie than a human these days. He'd just meant to close his eyes for a second as a small reward for finally dealing with the envelope.

He really shouldn't have let himself go to sleep. Not this night of all nights, not with the album lying open before him and having just looked upon his godfather's face once more.

Just before waking with the dawn, he dreamed that he was flying on his own broom beside his godfather. They laughed and shouted as they tried to knock each other off their brooms just as his father and godfather and professor Lupin had been doing in the first picture.

You're getting more and more like your father every day, Sirius said as they grew tired and landed at last. Though Sirius didn't say so, Harry knew that he meant both Harry's father by blood and his father in life, James and Sirius. Harry knew he made Sirius proud.

Professor Lupin had tea ready when they came in. As Lupin poured, Harry smiled at him, wondering what great adventures Sirius had planned for the day. He was still smiling and wondering when he woke, stretching languorously and rubbing at his cheek.

Three seconds later, it all came crashing down. He gasped and jerked upright, then let himself fall back down to his pillow in despair. He never wanted to move, not ever again. He just wanted to lie there, not thinking or feeling or sleeping.

Harry hated sleeping because going to sleep meant eventually waking up.

---

As the clouds drifted away and the red dawn transformed into yellow daylight, Hedwig flew through his window and dropped the morning mail on Harry's feet. Morning had unavoidably and undeniably arrived.

Harry didn't want to deal with it, but the owl looked at him expectantly, so he put the photo album aside and sat up once more to sort through the small pile. Upon finding the Daily Prophet, he closed his eyes so as not to risk catching a glimpse of a headline and tossed it blindly into the rubbish bin.

Harry knew that the Prophet was reporting only good stuff about him this summer, but he knew that from Ron's letters, not from reading it himself. He hadn't read a single issue of the Prophet since he'd returned to the Dursleys' for the summer. He didn't even want to get it, but he'd been given a free subscription as a sort of back-handed apology for its earlier treatment of him, and it seemed like too much of a fight and effort to have it stopped.

He couldn't toss aside the letters from his friends quite so easily. He cared about them, and he welcomed the evidence reminding him that they cared about him too. Sometimes they seemed to be the only things separating him from a great darkness. He just wished that they would stick to inconsequential subjects.

Please Ron, just tell me about your latest quidditch game in the orchard or about how much Ginny is annoying you. Please don't tell me about… his thought trailed off as he stared at the envelope on top of the small pile remaining. Hedwig was still glaring at him, so he tore open an envelope and pulled Ron's letter out. "Dear Harry," the letter began.

Dear Harry,

I hope those Muggles aren't treating you too badly. You didn't say much in your last letter, but Tonks says that you are mostly all right.

Dad says that he doesn't know when you can join us. He's taken up muggle plumbing lately as a hobby. He has this great big box of strange tools including one he says is a monkey wrench but I don't think that can be right because it doesn't look at all like a monkey. Do you know what it might really be? The house is covered in pipes and mum is going spare, but I suppose it's a good thing really since it's keeping her mind off the trouble with the entailment and all. I'm glad that will be decided soon one way or another.

Hermione is here, but she might as well not be since I never see her. I do see a book walking around wearing her body quite frequently, though. She's got this new spell that she's trying to invent, and she won't think of anything else. She can't even test it until we get back to Hogwarts, but she's using this complicated arithmancy formula to simulate what it would do and tinkering with it constantly.

Let us know if those Muggles start giving you trouble. Fred and George have some great new products that they're dying to test on them.

Ron

Harry groaned at the thought of the Burrow fitted out with Muggle fixtures and hoped that Mr. Weasley's obsession with all things Muggle wouldn't cause too much trouble in this instance. A small smile found its way onto his face at the thought of Hermione actually having a book for a head.

Harry silently thanked Ron for writing the perfect sort of letter. He almost felt as if he could reach out and touch his friends. He wished that they were here, or rather, that he was with them.

Instead, Harry was alone with three people who hated him, and it was time to head down to breakfast. The smile faded from his face at the thought of it. The only good thing about the day ahead was that Tonks would arrive soon to sit with him, and Harry actually looked forward to that. He just wished that Tonks would quit trying to cheer him up. Harry desperately didn't want to be cheered up.

Forcing himself out of bed required all of his will and left none for a shower or clean clothes. He went down to breakfast in dirty pajamas, earning a sniff of disapproval from Aunt Petunia.

"Don't they believe in proper bathing at that school?" he heard her say to her husband in a low whisper of disgust as he sat down at the table.

"We use spells to keep clean," Harry told her, though she hadn't been talking to him.

The reaction this statement provoked was both violent and immediate. Aunt Petunia dropped her plate, Dudley whimpered, and Uncle Vernon let out a great shout:

"DON'T YOU DARE USE THAT FILTHY LANG-" he broke off suddenly with a nervous glance toward the front of the house where Mad-Eye Moody most likely still lurked under an invisibility cloak on the stoop.

"I mean," he corrected himself, "is that so?"

"Yes, it is," said Harry. He felt marginally better. It wasn't quite a lie. They did occasionally try to spell themselves clean when a bath wasn't handy or convenient.

"Have some breakfast, dear," said Aunt Petunia, heaping bacon onto his plate. The coldness of her voice made it perfectly clear that she considered him anything but dear.

"Thanks," said Harry. "But I'm really not that hungry."

"Nonsense, dear," she said, piling his plate still higher with a calculated smile in his direction.

His stomach lurched, and for a second he was certain he was about to be sick. He felt himself turn a pale shade of green, which didn't go unnoticed by Uncle Vernon.

"Give him some more eggs, Petunia," he said. He smiled as she scraped the burned bits off the bottom of the pan onto his plate. "Boy needs to keep his strength up. I expect you to eat all of that before you leave the table."

"I'm really not that hungry," Harry said, closing his eyes to the sight and pinching his nose so he wouldn't have to smell the food.

"I think the boy is sick, Petunia. Perhaps a doctor is in order," Uncle Vernon said as if he'd been given a special treat.

Harry just wanted to go back to bed. "I'm fine," he said.

"No, dear," Aunt Petunia said with a kindness like a million needles stuck in his eyes. "I really think that you're not well."

If they had to be nice to him, they seemed to have decided that they would do so with a vengeance. Harry's uncle and aunt had become adept at making Harry miserable in way about which he couldn't possibly complain to his protectors about without sounding like a fool. What was he supposed to say, something like, "My relatives are displaying great concern for my health; please make them stop?" He imagined the letter would go something like this:

Dear Moody,

Tonks comes in to see me when it's her turn on guard duty, and a few of the others do the same, so I guess that these letters are a little pointless. Still, I'm writing every three days as I promised.

I just wanted you to know that my aunt and uncle are indeed being very cruel to me. They express great concern over my welfare, which is both frightening and unnatural. In addition, they keep giving me food. Please make them stop.

Also, yesterday Dudley "accidentally" dropped a bowling ball down the stairs when he believed me to be asleep. I wasn't, but it would have been a rude awakening had I been. And Aunt Petunia "accidentally" spilled bleach over one of the very few decent shirts that I own the other week when she was doing my laundry.

I'm aware that people are currently fighting and dying in the world, but I feel that the state of my clothes should take precedence over that, and I'm pretty sure that someone has been going through my things. Please come get me or at least hex my relatives.

Sincerely and much abused,

Harry

That would go over well. He'd feel like a petty little fool if he wrote something like that. His Aunt and Uncle weren't giving him anything he could really complain about, and they knew it.

Not everyone at the table had caught on though.

"He's faking," Dudley whined, displeased at not being the center of attention. Dudley preferred to hit straight on and use his brain as little as possible. He had not been enlightened as to the more subtle forms of torture.

"No, I'm sure he's quite sick," said Uncle Vernon with a gleeful look in his eye that Harry feared meant he was fantasizing that Harry really was sick and about to die. "Boy, get ready to go at once."

"Just leave me ALONE!" said Harry, banging his fork down.

"Give me two minutes alone in a room with him," Dudley continued. "I'll show you sick."

"Yeah," said Harry, "you'd be sick on the floor the instant I pulled my wa-"

"HAVEN'T I TOLD YOU NOT TO MENTIO-" Uncle Vernon bellowed, then stopped again, his face turning a frightening shade of magenta from suppressed rage. Harry worried that something in his uncle's head might burst from the strain as his uncle somehow managed to sound calm when he spoke again. "I mean, it's not nice to threaten your cousin. Have some more juice. Oh dear, how careless of me."

In a parody of absentminded clumsiness, Vernon had tipped the juice pitcher into Harry's lap. Harry winced as the cold liquid soaked his pajamas and dribbled onto the floor.

"Good one, Dad," Dudley said with a snort. "Oops." He flung the contents of his glass at Harry as well, hitting him in the face. His glasses blocked the worst of it, but some still ran down his forehead and the sting of the juice in his eyes blinded him for a few seconds.

"Do be more careful, darling," said Petunia, taking another bite of eggs.

---

The doorbell rang as Harry trudged soggily toward the stairs. Vernon and Petunia both jumped toward the door, but it opened of its own accord before they could so much as tell Harry to hurry up and get out of sight.

"Wotcher, Harry," said Tonks from the doorway. She smiled at him so brightly that it hurt Harry's eyes.

Tonks's had chosen a rather brilliant shade of neon green for her hair today. It went well with her outfit, which consisted of dark green coveralls and a pair of rubber boots. In her left hand, she carried a large toolbox, and behind her Harry could see a Muggle van marked "Tough Clogs Our Specialty" parked in the street.

"A plumber, Tonks?" Harry asked.

"I borrowed the kit from Arthur Weasley. How do you like it?" She spun about like a model, knocking over a coat rack with her toolbox and coming only a fraction of an inch from doing the same to a rather ornate floor lamp that was a favorite of Aunt Petunia's.

"Very authentic," said Harry, picking up the coat rack.

"You think so?" she asked with a grin. "Thanks. Arthur has been showing me the ropes of Muggle-style plumbing lately, and he needs my help directly after I leave here."

Harry couldn't quite suppress a wince at the thought of Tonks near tools of any sort, but he tried not to let her see it. He predicted a dire fate for the bathrooms at the Burrow. Others seemed more worried about the fate of their own home and reputations.

"The neighbors are going to think we have clogged pipes," Aunt Petunia whispered as if it were a horrible sin and the last word in disgrace to have plumbing problems. Vernon responded with a pained groan.

"Had a bit of a spill there, Harry?" Tonks asked as she set her toolbox down heavily on the glass coffee table which promptly cracked. "Oops!" she added cheerfully.

"It's orange juice," Harry explained.

"I've been there a few times myself. Here, just let me," she opened her toolbox and pulled out her wand, ignoring the terrified shrieks emitted from Petunia and Vernon – Dudley fled the room without as much as a whimper. A quick scourgify later, Harry's pajamas were mostly clean. Tonks looked quite pleased with herself. Harry assumed that she had been practicing.

She completely ignored the broken coffee table.

"Thanks," he said.

"Don't mention it." Tonks closed the toolbox lid with enough force that the cracked glass under it shattered to pieces. "Game of Exploding Snap?" she suggested.

"Sure," said Harry, unenthusiastically. As much as he wanted to be left alone, how could he refuse with Aunt Petunia's prized coffee table lying smashed before him? It was almost enough to make him smile for real.

Uncle Vernon glared at him one last time then left for work before they'd so much as sat down at the kitchen table to play. Aunt Petunia's looks of longing in the direction of the door revealed her desire to escape as well, but the fear of leaving dirty dishes in her sink won out and she inched around the kitchen to clear them.

BOOM! Went the cards when Tonks neglected to discard fast enough.

CRACK! Went the plates in Aunt Petunia's hands as she jumped at the noise.

Aunt Petunia left soon after looking as if she were about to cry and muttering about her best breakfast dishes and that there should be a law…

"Any dreams we should know about?" asked Tonks once they found themselves alone.

Harry knew she meant the dreams where Death Eaters tortured his friends or random strangers – painful little gifts from Voldemort through the curse of his scar. The dreams had come pretty much constantly as Voldemort vented his rage after the Department of Mysteries debacle, but now they'd slowed.

"Nope. It's been ages since the last one. I've had nothing but good dreams."

"I bet that's a relief," said Tonks.

"It should be," said Harry, who would have given anything for a decent nightmare by that point. At least then he'd have the relief of waking up eventually. "It makes me worry a bit about just what it is Voldemort is up to that's keeping him from his favorite sport."

He didn't mention the possibly that Voldemort just had too much trouble finding Harry asleep these days. The dark circles under his eyes probably told that story for him, but Tonks didn't comment on it.

As the morning passed, they played several more games. At times they put down the cards and just sat and talked. Harry really enjoyed Tonks's company. Trouble left him for a time, and his mind forgot to dwell on loss and death and Sirius. This was why he sometimes wished that she'd lurk outside like Moody. He'd grown used to the dull ache of constant pain, but nothing could prepare him for the stab he felt as memory and awareness returned after each brief period of peace.

He couldn't imagine that it would ever be any other way.

When it came time for her to leave, Tonks paused in front of the pitiful remains of the coffee table.

"I could fix that, if you wanted," she offered, wrinkling her nose to show what she truly thought of the idea. .

"No, leave it how it is. They'd probably get rid of it anyway if magic touched it."

"Too bad they didn't get rid of that whale of a son after magic fixed him."

"You heard about that?"

"The twins took great pleasure in telling me about it at dinner last night. I gather they have a whole line of products lined up just to test on your cousin. I have to admit that I'm halfway hoping that they get the chance."

"I'm not," said Harry with a shudder.

"Are they treating you right?"

"They're being really good to me," Harry lied. "They couldn't be anything else after all the threats."

Tonks looked uncertain.

"People like that tend to find ways to get at you no matter what," she said.

There were many things that Harry could have complained about. He could have told her about the book he'd forgotten in the kitchen and come back to find singed.

"It's a good thing it was here, or that grease fire I used it to stamp out might have taken down the whole house," his uncle had said. "Didn't realize it would burn like that."

He could have told her about the other book he was certain he'd left in his trunk but had somehow appeared in the living room burnt nearly to ashes.

"Spontaneous combustion," had been his uncle's explanation. "I hear it happens from time to time with books of this sort."

He could have explained further about the orange juice or the stubbed toes or the leg accidentally stuck out just in front of him when he passed. He could have told her about all these things and more, but he didn't.

"I'm fine," he insisted instead.

"That's great," said Tonks, but her face remained creased with worry. "I'll see you tomorrow."

And then he was alone once more with only Kingsley Shacklebolt standing guard outside under the Invisibility Cloak.

---

Nighttime came at last, as it always does.

In another place, a boy flung a book into the hearth just to watch it burn, certain that nothing in the world was worth saving. In Surrey, Harry felt equally lost and alone though he could hear his cousin muttering in his sleep from the next room, and he knew that down the hall Aunt Petunia slept with her ears stuffed full of cotton next to her snoring husband.

In search of company, he pulled out his photo album once more and let it fall open at random. It opened to a picture of his parents dancing at their wedding while his godfather watched and grinned and clapped before capturing a lady to dance with.

He turned the page, and then turned it again and again, feeling as if he could breathe less and less with every page turned.

Perhaps Muggles had the right of it after all, with their still photographs which truly captured an instant in time and preserved it forever. It had been hard enough to look at Sirius asleep, but now it nearly killed Harry to see him laughing and flying and moving as he'd never again see in life.

Every page of his album contained a dead person. They might not know that they were dead, but Harry did, and he couldn't escape the awareness.

His parents' deaths were immutable. It was the way things had always been for as long as he could remember. He'd accepted it because he'd never known anything else, and as much as he'd tried to imagine what his life would have been like had they lived, it never seemed as if it could have been real. Their death was very far away.

From up close, though, the transition from life to death seemed like glass. He could see through it to where Sirius still lived. It seemed that he should be able to reach out and touch it as well, or take a step and be there. Sirius couldn't be a dead person yet, not really, not when he was still so alive in Harry's mind.

One by one, Harry removed the pictures featuring Sirius from the album and placed them back in the envelope.

Monday, July 11, 2005 - 4,332 words

When next we meet, this story will have been driven AU by the release of HBP. See you on the other side.