You are a ghost.
Once, you were a student in this prestigious place. But war came and traded your life for peace and now, you are a ghost. Perhaps you could be called a perpetual student: trapped in a place for education after being plucked from the land of the living too soon, an underripe fruit.
You wander, shadowed, uneasy in your eternal existence. Haunted, but not quite haunting. You are a ghost of observation, living vicariously through the souls that survived, battered as they are. You float, transparent, a flimsy, diaphanous entity with no barriers to hold you back. Except, there is nowhere for you to go.
When hostilities yield to peace, in those first few moments you blink into a new, different existence, you feel nothing. You understand elation. You expect it, but no thrill shoots through you at the first cries of victory. No burst of adrenaline, no wave of relief.
When rebuilding begins, you feel no nostalgia, you cry no tears. No ache opens in your chest as stones stack back into walls, classrooms, and dormitories: crumbling pieces of a castle reforming. The living though, they experience something, and you want to feel it, too. You watch as they swelter through a summer of rebuilding, of you are as static as ever, temperature controlled, preserved.
When summer cools, steadily approaching autumn, you become aware of time passing. Aware of how quickly it slips between dawn and dusk. How you are unchanged as it does so, feeling nothing. You avoid clocks and calendars, any reminders that time passes without you. But you cannot avoid the date on the first of September, because suddenly the drowsy, barely rebuilt castle becomes a bustling reunion hub, a place for hope in crisping early autumn air.
It's just inside the Entrance Hall that you see them, fresh off the Hogwarts Express and loitering with so many others. No protocol, no precedent, exists for students returning for an eighth year of study, matriculation delayed by forces that ended a school year too soon. Ended you, too.
"Should have known you'd be back." A half-insult as he brushes by her, making a home for himself by a coat of arms, too close to where you're watching, waiting. You know his tone, know how it sounds when he means it.
He doesn't mean it. He's just lobbed an insult of obligation.
He runs a hand through his white-blond hair, letting his bag of books slump to the floor.
She ignores him, perhaps doesn't even hear him. He exhales. His posture sinks, weight shifting from one foot to the other. He's sunken into the shadows with you, watching her, too.
She's famous. A war hero. But she does not seem to revel in her victories. Rather, she looks tired; she looks anxious; she looks like the sight of a ghost might send her toppling, so you stay out of sight.
She chews on her nails as she waits, as he waits, as you wait.
Students begin filing into the Great Hall. But she does not move.
He does not move.
You do not move.
"Granger," he says from his shadow, calling to her when they've been left alone but for you and the other ghosts still lingering, a castle exceeding its phantom capacity.
She turns, curls spinning wide around her, lids blinking rapidly as if she'd forgotten she was not alone.
In a castle of ghosts, she will never be alone.
He steps out of his shadow. From the other side of the coat of arms, you can only see him in profile, see as his jaw opens and closes, pointed chin dragging a line up and down in a way to suggest words meant to be spoken, but do not come.
"I—" he manages. She flinches. His jaw snaps shut again. He tries one more time. "I'm—" From where you hover, you hear his teeth come together with a click.
Several awkward silences pass. Growing in intensity. Unrepentant in their effect.
Finally, "Glad you made it, Granger."
And he brushes past her again, shoulders colliding.
She stumbles back. Breathing unsteady. But as she watches his back, striding into the Great Hall with a confidence seemingly conjured from nothing—a handy trick—something in her face softens, settles.
A peculiar reaction, you think. But what do you know of life after a war, of how to interact with those you fought with, fought for? You did not get a life after war. Or an afterlife beyond that.
—
They do not exchange a single word for two months. You know, because you watch. You watch a lot, not just them, but often them.
They are interesting. Odd. Icons for their respective war legacies forced into proximity in these hallowed halls for education. You've learned she came by choice, to complete her education. He came by directive, in lieu of a house arrest. From opposite sides of the war, they share classrooms, corridors, dining halls.
But they do not share words, not a single one for two months.
Then, he finds her as the Halloween feast wanes. She often sits by herself, nose in a book, in eternal dedication to the purposes of her attendance in this extra year of education. She waits until her friends drift away—towards other conversations or other places in the castle—before she pulls out her reading for the evening.
She seems content to sit at the end of the long tables, unperturbed by the eerie, orange glow cast from floating jack-o-lanterns as she reads.
The lighting helps him look less pale as he slides onto the bench across from her. You see her eyes flick up for a brief glance before she immediately averts her gaze, back down to her book. He drums his fingers on the table.
You cannot see his face so you drift, obscured by decorative cauldrons and conjured fog. In profile, you see that they are both looking down.
Her, at a book.
Him, at the table.
Something almost feels inside your hazy chest. An echo of anticipation, of interest.
The fog helps hide you, one of many ghosts still lingering in the shadows. Wars do that, populate dark places with errant souls caught in the in-between. There are others, the old ones, so many of them, that celebrate on this night, that mingle. You do not, you are not ready to face the horrified looks, the recognition. You are not ready to be seen: not as you are, inconveniently not living but left to linger with those who are.
They do not speak for a very long time. But you watch as his fingers drum along the wooden table, an alternating pattern, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. She ignores him, eyes on her book. But her shoulders tense, posture rigid. She's waiting.
You are, too.
It's strange. And perhaps you observe it differently because you observe everything differently. Through a gossamer existence, everything is tinted. But what you expect to look like animosity, like a simmering hostility cracking the woodgrain between them, looks more like resignation, release.
This time, when he looks at her, he does not drop his gaze. You watch him and he watches her, nose in her book. His inspection does not strike you as malicious, but rather, curious and cautious. There's something there, bottled up, trying to break free. You see the moment she realizes he's watching her, because her eyes still. No longer scanning the page in front of her from left to right, top to bottom.
Her grip tightens around the edges of her book, her shoulders hunch a little more. Briefly, her hair falls in a curtain, blocking her profile from view and all you can see is his expression: tight and almost pained. Like whatever he isn't saying, or is trying to say, has lodged itself somewhere inside his throat and refuses to budge.
His jaw opens. She tucks her hair behind her ear.
And for a moment, you wonder if you are simply too far away to hear. But no, you're plenty close. They sit at the end of a long table and you loiter in the adjacent shadows. His mouth closes without having formed syllables, without speaking any words into reality.
She looks up and meets his gaze.
"It's a holiday, Granger. Can't stop being a swot for one night, can you?"
His grimace is instantaneous, etched with regret, jaw clenched.
For her part, she doesn't look offended, almost relieved. Her shoulders roll back, spine a little straighter as she sits tall, abandoning her pretense of reading.
In profile, the drag of his Adam's apple seems comically prominent, a visual display of unease as he swallows, still scowling at her. He tries again, jaw unclenching.
You almost don't hear it this time, his voice has dropped so low.
"I—" he starts.
Her head tilts, genuine inquiry in her features. You feel similarly. His fingers drum aggressively against the tabletop and you can almost feel them, can almost imagine them as a beating drum inside your chest, memory of a heartbeat.
Valiantly, he tries again.
"I'm so—" And his mouth snaps shut, just like before. And even under the warm glow of jack-o-lanterns and the orange light they paint, you see him pale. He stands suddenly, rattling the table and the goblets atop it as his thighs connect with wood.
He steps over the bench, nostrils flaring through an enormous, strangled inhale. His jaw looks as if it's been spelled shut.
She watches as he leaves, eyes on his back just as they were two months before, the last time he'd tried to say the thing he clearly did not know how to say. This time though, her expression has already softened. Curious threads weave their way through her features, glittering strands in a larger tapestry of her understanding.
You wish you knew what she knows. But you can only guess, only imagine from your shadows.
—
You wonder if it should be considered unhealthy. Watching people as you do. But what else is there? In a castle of interesting, broken people trying to piece themselves back together while earning an education, observation is your only ally against eternal boredom.
But you can't think about eternity, not in earnest. Otherwise your head spins. You start to panic. You're reminded of your place outside time, unchanging as the world changes around you.
Perhaps the unhealthy part is that you've stopped watching the others so much, and mostly watch them.
You watch her reading the owl correspondence that ends a long distance relationship you didn't even know she'd been trying to maintain. This was early November.
You watch him bombarda his four-poster in response to an owl from his mother. He leaves it sitting atop his desk, so you read it in the moonlight, drifting between stone walls and concepts of privacy. His mother insisted he stay at school for Christmas, a mostly empty manor is no place for him, not with his father in Azkaban. This was early December.
By Christmas, the castle has mostly emptied, save for those souls bound to the place (yours) and those voluntarily remaining (theirs).
You find her first. She's reliable, predictable, routine driven. She treads a familiar path to the library after breakfast, where you find her, where you follow.
You explore the shelves far out of reach when you were bound by gravity. Who knew so many interesting titles, so much knowledge, lay shelved here this whole time?
She studies until lunch, as is normal for a day she doesn't have classes, but something about her demeanor is off.
You've observed enough to know that because she keeps switching between books, between subjects, she struggles to focus. She chews on her nails again: a nervous, idle habit she engages in on the eve of a deadline or when stress starts to pull at her frayed edges.
You follow when she packs her books into her satchel and leaves the library. You expect her to head to lunch, but she walks right through the Entrance Hall and pauses at the doors to the grounds. She pulls out her scarf, her gloves, transfigures her shoes into boots, and even tops herself off with a hat. In the next moment, she's outside, footsteps crunching in the snow.
You pause at the doors.
You've never actually tried it before. You've thought about it, obsessed over it on occasion, but never really wanted to learn the limits of your new eternal home. If it only extends to the exterior stone walls, well, you don't want to think about that. Fresh air might not feel like anything anymore, but the idea of it; you don't want to lose that.
You aren't going to do it.
But then, after what feels like hours but that—according to the enormous clock you try to avoid—has only been five minutes, you see him, too.
You drift into a shadow with enough time to watch him debate himself, standing at the dining hall doors. His head tilts back, towards the ceiling, before he shakes it.
He looks better than he did at Halloween, which was better than on the first of September. His skin has color, though still pale: fair, not ghostly. You know the difference. He's always been good-looking, but it strikes you here, now, that he might not look haunted forever. That his good looks and his post-war trauma, if that's the right term for it, aren't exclusively at odds.
The hair, especially, has always been so distinctive. He covers it with a hat, a few white-blond strands poking out around his temples. He layers on a scarf and gloves as well, then greets the outdoors just as she did, boots crunching on packed snow.
The impulse to follow pulls you before you can consider what the threshold between inside and outside represents, before you can ponder the existential questions that wonder at the extent of your purgatory. You cross easily.
The snow does not crunch under your presence, however.
The exposure strikes you first, not the cold, that means nothing to your diaphanous nature. The lack of shadows unsettle you, robbing you of comfortable hiding places. It's a bright day, freezing but crisp. The sunlight washes you out, a different kind of transparency. Looking down at your torso, you're nearly invisible, silver gauze against a white backdrop: simultaneously hidden and exposed.
You spot him easily, in all black against this white backdrop that camouflages you in an entirely novel way. You follow as he walks around the lake, further from the castle than you would have ever dared venture otherwise. But nothing holds you back, cages you in.
You don't know how he knew she'd be there, but you see her too late, already practically upon her. She's sitting on a sled beneath a tree with her legs crossed, a book in her lap, head down as she reads.
You watch his back as he approaches, see as his hands flex at his sides, as his pace increases. You hear him clear his throat.
"Reading your boring old books again, Granger?" he asks. And just like the last time and the time before, you see it for the reflex it is. You think she sees it, too. Because this time, even from her place sitting on a sled beneath a tree, she does not tense in the same way you've seen in the past. Instead, her eyes roll.
You drift by them, seeking shelter behind the tree. Transparent or not, an object to hide behind feels like safety.
He frowns, breathing deeply, and works his jaw. He drags his hand beneath his chin and you wonder what that must feel like. You miss touch.
When she doesn't respond to his jab, he almost looks embarrassed, pained, guilty.
"I didn't mean that," he says, and it's the first time you've heard him say something to her that isn't an insult or an aborted attempt at a sentence. "There's nothing wrong with your books."
"I know," she says. You can't see her face anymore, but you imagine it's a bit smug, a touch defensive, but also slightly amused. Perhaps a tiny smile forcing its way to the surface.
He's smiling, suddenly, wildly.
"You're in a sled, clearly you do more than read."
"I conjured it so I didn't have to sit in the snow."
"We're on a hill, you should sled."
"I'd rather not." There's a new urgency creeping into her voice. You see him step forward and you drift to peer around the tree, hovering close to the bark, then slipping down the embankment. As you drift towards the bottom of the hill, hidden by the snow bank, the last thing you hear from him is:
"Have some fun, Granger. Loosen up."
He's behind her, hands on her shoulders, shoving the sled forward as she scrambles to grab the steering ropes.
His is a look of pure joy, as if he's finally drawn breath and discovered oxygen for his lungs. Hers is a look of terror, as if the careful bounds by which she has controlled her environment have all unravelled.
And then, for a fleeting moment, their expressions flip. Her hair flies back, wild behind her. The chilly air nips a flush into her skin as her eyes widen, smile stretching into something like acceptance, giving into the rush of surging down the hill.
But his smile drops, and you can guess why. She's picking up too much speed, and her blink of joy seems to have stolen just enough time from her that she can't stop it now. When she realizes she's headed straight for the embankment, fear steals her carefree expression again. She only allows it a brief existence before it transforms into determination.
Her book is still open in her lap. You watch as she snaps it shut and holds it to her chest. You barely have time to wonder at her thought process before she tips, bailing from the sled. She hits the snow with force, powdery top layer pluming up around her, but you hear the impact from the harder, packed snow beneath. She rolls several times before she lands on her back, arms and legs stretched wide.
Her chest rises, falls, as she breathes, staring at the sky above her.
Then, a strangled sound erupts from her. You drift closer, expecting sobs, but finding laughter.
He stops in the snow beside her, sliding on his knees after having jogged down the hill.
You loiter behind them, out of sight, not trusting your natural camouflage enough to hover where you might catch sight of their faces, despite the temptation.
"I'm sorry—Granger, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—"
She swats his concern away; his frantic hands seem insistent on assessing her for damage.
"I'm fine, Malfoy, really. Just a little jostled."
But he's still apologizing: "Sorry—I'm sorry, I'm so sorr—"
His spine snaps straight and you watch as he leans back, sitting on his heels, back and shoulders solidified in tension, like solid stone.
She sits up, twisted towards him. She says it softer this time. "I'm fine."
"I know. But I'm still—I'm sorry."
"Yes, you've said."
"No, I mean for—"
"I know."
"I've been trying."
"I know. I figured it out around Halloween."
"I'm sorry."
"I know."
His shoulders shake and his head drops. For a moment, there is only silence. Then she stands and offers him her hand.
—
New Year's. A new year. A different one from that which ended you. Time keeps doing that, marching forward, forcing everyone in this castle, living or dead, to march with it. There's no abstention from time, no quiet protests to say no thank you. Instead, it's being celebrated.
And perhaps it's a celebration to have survived. You wouldn't know.
You catch sight of her as she exits Gryffindor tower. She's put work into her hair, not quite so frizzy as usual. It's impressive, considering how few students stayed behind for the holidays and how she'd likely managed it by herself.
She's pretty when she tries. She's pretty when she doesn't, too. But it feels more exceptional when she's polished out some of her roughness: the ink smudges, the frizz, the perpetual insistence on wearing the tired bags beneath her eyes as a sort of badge of honor.
There's to be a small party in the Great Hall, nothing extravagant, but something to give those students remaining for the holidays a way to celebrate the completion of one calendar year and the beginning of another.
They've not spoken since his apology in the snow, not even crossed paths as far as you can tell. She's spent most of her time reading, either in the library or in her common room. And he's spent most of his time on a broomstick, apparently indifferent to whipping winds and winter's chill. She takes her meals early, nearly as soon as service starts. He wanders in just before it concludes, if he makes it in time at all.
But they'll see each other tonight. You know it. She knows it. And you imagine he knows it, too. They're so interesting, so different, so similar. And even though you feel nothing, you still sense the thrum of something pulling them together. Perhaps it's nothing more than rebellion, a way to emphasize that they have nothing left to lose. Or perhaps their jagged edges bear similar shapes in complementary places, and together, they bridge the gaps.
He's waiting at the foot of the stairs, leaning against a suit of armor. It almost looks as if he's waiting for her. You think he is, but you can't know with certainty. Just the potential ignites a memory of something warm. You remember how anticipation can send heat barreling through one's body, even if you can't feel it anymore.
"You clean up nice without your nose in a book, Granger."
He cringes, but her brows shoot up, then she smiles.
"I suppose you can't jump straight from insults to compliments. It was a nice attempt."
Even in the Entrance Hall's dim lighting, punctuated ever so often by the bright spark of tiny fireworks popping in and out of existence near the ceiling, you can see the faintest creep of redness crawling up the back of his neck. It matches his grimace.
"What I meant to—"
She cuts him off. "I know what you meant, Malfoy." A pause as she reaches the foot of the stairs. He abandons his place by the suit of armor and walks to the bannister, leaning against it instead. You take a place in the spot he's just vacated. She glances up at him. A small smile. "Are you waiting for someone?"
She tilts her head back towards the stairs, as if someone else might emerge soon, someone else he might be waiting on.
"Ah—no, just—waiting," he says.
She turns her head back to him, gaze torn from the stairs. Her eyes track to the Great Hall this time. You can hear music drifting from between the cracked doors. Colorful light spills in splashes, casting long, interesting shadows. You could lose yourself in shadows like those.
He clears his throat, and something in your stomach almost feels like butterflies, like maybe you've drifted through a swarm in the greenhouses.
She looks like she might be experiencing something of the same as she drags her fingers along her collarbone as if it has irritated her in some way.
"The—uh, the dress looks nice," he says. And even though he's leaning against a banister, with his arms crossed in front of him and his white-blond hair falling over his brow in what must be a terribly practiced act of nonchalance, he sounds nowhere near as confident as he looks.
She tucks her hair behind her ear and then smoothes the lines of her dress, looking down at it with a sort of fascination, like perhaps she's only noticed it for the first time. Then she breaks from those soothing motions and looks back up at him, mouth curving to a small smile.
"A compliment without an insult?" A beat: of her heart, you imagine. Maybe his, too. "Thanks, Malfoy."
He can't seem to look at her, gaze averted as his eyes land on the colorful lights pouring from the cracked Great Hall doors.
"It looked nice fourth year, too," he says, as a firework cracks above them, washing them in pink light before it fades. "I always meant to tell you that."
He's still not looking at her, still focusing on the door to the party they haven't joined yet.
This tenuous sort of conversation having, of not saying quite what's intended, you remember how exquisite it could be, that feeling of finding real meaning beneath layers of meaninglessness. And they're so close, budged up right beside it, searching for what they're really trying to say. This is the payoff you've been waiting for, why you watched. Because you knew, you sensed it. Such complementary opposites can't stay apart for too long.
"Always?" she asks as her head tilts, watching him as he watches the lights across the hall.
"Longer than I care to admit." The confession seems to startle him, breaking his gaze with the Great Hall doors. His hand flies to the back of his neck, rubbing the same spot that splotched with red earlier. "It—that's what made it so difficult. Being stuck—watching what she did to you—I should have done—" His sentence fragments, bits and pieces forced through a jaw that looks unwilling to unclench.
"You've already apologized, remember?"
"Not enough."
"I don't expect more."
He exhales and his chest sinks with it. He finally looks at her and even though you can't see his face, you know it, because you see what it does to hers.
"It's weird," he says. "Isn't it? Being here and having it actually feel like a school? I don't think it's felt like that since—fourth year, maybe? And even then with the tournament…"
It might be the most he's ever said to her at once, with coherence. Her features are still soft, but inquisitive.
"Not fifth year?"
His laugh cracks like the fireworks above them. "With Umbridge?"
"You seemed like you were having a fine time." There's a tiny edge of bite, of their past not quite hashed out.
"I was having a strategic time, that's all. It had its advantages but all that—no, it didn't feel like school, not really."
Quiet falls, broken by pops and sparks from the fireworks, by the music in the Great Hall. But between them, not a sound.
She glances at the doors. "Did you want to go in? Sounds like they might be having fun."
He follows her gaze. "I—no I don't really want to go in."
"Why are you here then?"
"To see you. To see if I could apologize, properly, without potentially injuring you."
She swallows, and you watch the way her throat moves, a deliberate motion. "I told you, over the summer, by owl. It's so much easier to just—move on."
"It didn't feel right, apologizing in writing. It was just"—he exhales, head tilted towards the ceiling as he draws in another breath and looks at her again—"harder to do in person than I anticipated."
Her smile almost warms you, and you aren't even the recipient.
"Want to know something?" She doesn't wait for a response, though his posture shifts, as if he's waiting. She pats the side of her dress. "Extendable pocket. I do actually have a book with me."
His laugh is bright, hair slightly disheveled from where he ran his hand through it. "That's fantastic news."
"No insult?"
"I didn't want to go to this party, anyway. Clearly you don't either."
Her fingers tap at her pocket before she asks, boldly, "What should we do instead?"
"It'll be midnight soon." You almost miss it. His voice is low and he's taken a step closer.
You want her to say it. You can see it, imagine it. Almost feel it, battering behind your translucent chest like a heartbeat powered by want, and want alone.
She says it, because she's brave. Of course she says it.
"We don't have to wait until midnight. If it's just an excuse."
You can nearly feel his exhale, it practically cracks something inside you, fragile and inconsequential as it is.
You drift when he does, out of your shadow as he takes a final step closer to her, a careful, shaky hand finding her shoulder. And then it happens so quickly, his lips on hers, her arms around his neck, his hands at her cheek and her waist.
You wonder who makes the noise, the tiny whimper that sounds like yes. They have always been so different, but you were right. These jagged edges and unbound seams have sought complementary imperfections like water running downstream.
It's marvelous, watching them. They pivot, her back against the bannister, his hips pressed to hers. It's a little frantic, a little unpracticed, but it crackles and sparks like the fireworks above them. And you can nearly feel it, more than anything you've almost felt since you became a ghost.
They have moved on, or at least, are trying.
When midnight finally does come, they've long since wandered to the courtyards, and maybe from there, to their rooms. You do not follow.
You watch the clocks tick over.
You watch the fireworks.
You absorb the celebration via osmosis.
You are a ghost.
But perhaps you need not be haunted.
