A/N: Uh, warning? For... things. That may or may not be mildly disturbing.
I'm not quite sure how this chapter worked out. I feel like it could have been cleaner, more effective, but, well... Tell me what you guys think.
(Sorry about the long wait.)
Last updated 12/29/2019
Chapter Ten
Reprecussions of Trust
I was naive. So, so naive. I hear many people urging others to live without regrets, but for me it's impossible to look upon my past and not think "If only I had been smarter. If only I had known more. If only I had been wiser. If only, if only."
Why has this story turned out this way? I thought it would be a tale of heroics, the way Tucker told it. Now I am only dredging up my past, like a beggar sifting through mud in desperate hope of finding some nugget of wisdom.
Tucker… I hope I'm doing the right thing by writing this.
Growing Up
Danny began a shaky letter to his parents. He didn't mention the incident – he knew his parents would only obsess over it if he did – but it had reminded him that he had barely sent word to them in his two months at Hogwarts. Only once, really, after he arrived, to let them know he had gotten to Hogwarts safely.
Dear Mom and Dad,
After a brief moment of hesitation, he added "and Jazz."
I'm sorry I haven't been writing much. I've just been so busy, and the owls here are always so finicky and
He crossed it all out. They were excuses, nothing more. He didn't want to begin his letter like that.
I'm scared. A ghost attacke
An intense shiver wracked his frame, and the quill whipped wildly across the page, blotting ink across the parchment. After only a slight hesitation, he crumpled the paper into a small ball, tore it into little pieces for good measure, and threw it away. He sighed and began anew.
Dear Mom, Dad, and Jazz,
I've been having a lot of fun at Hogwarts, he began, not untruthfully. I've been making friends in Gryffindor, and some even in the other Houses. The Hufflepuffs are nice, and sometimes the Ravenclaws – the smart ones – will help us out without homework if we ask nicely. The Slytherins are not as nice though, but that's because as a rule, Slytherins and Gryffindors just don't get along. Sometimes I like the House rivalry.
He took a deep breath. It was all safe stuff, something any other normal first year would write about.
I'm sorry it took so long for me to send another letter. School's been busy, but I honestly forgot until now. I hope you didn't get worried. If you want to send a reply, you can tie it to the owl and it should get back to me.
He sighed, and stared at the parchment, feeling suddenly unable to write anything else.
The day had passed miserably. He had kept feeling chilly, shivering at the most random of times, and a depressive gloom seemed to hang over him. Danny was starting to wonder if he had caught a cold. (A more paranoid part of his mind wondered if it had to do with the incident, but he dismissed the thought as ridiculous.) Hermione had been acting skittish around him, and he had almost forgotten (how could he have forgotten something so important?) that she had been attacked by a troll the previous day, so preoccupied was he by his own thoughts. In Defense Against the Dark Arts, she hadn't deigned to sit next to him, instead opting to be with her "saviors," Harry and Ron.
At least Neville didn't seem to have anything against him.
He sighed again, and signed off the letter with a simple "Love, Danny." He stood up and started for the Owlery.
On the way, he passed Hermione, carrying far too many books and heading in the direction of the library. She didn't look at him as he walked past.
He tried to recall what he had said to her, and found that the memory just wasn't there. He had been so distracted, he might have said anything and he wouldn't know.
A horrible feeling of guilt arose within him. He stared after her, torn, the letter in his hand. His indecision had cost him precious time, however, and soon she was gone, rounding the curve.
"Mi-mister Fenton?" A voice startled him, and he whirled around, heart pounding. Yesterday's incident was too quick to rise into his thoughts for any such surprises, and for a moment, he found himself genuinely afraid of this stranger's voice.
It was Professor Quirrell, wearing his turban, stuttering and looking nervous as usual. Danny breathed out softly, then smiled crookedly, shakily at the man.
"C-can I sp-speak with you?" the professor asked.
Danny nodded, curious, and followed as the man led him to a secluded office. He sat down at the offered seat, and an entirely different sort of tension overtook him as he stared at Professor Quirrell. It suddenly dawned on Danny that there must be a reason he had wanted to talk to him, and usually these things didn't turn out well.
"Is this about my grades?" he asked nervously, his fingers tightening around the letter he gripped in his hands, and was awarded with an expression of surprise on the professor's face.
"Y-your grades? N-no, th-this is about something else ent-entirely." Professor Quirrell cleared his throat, his eyes flitting to somewhere behind Danny. He craned his head to look, but found nothing there. He met the nervous man's eyes, bewildered, and found that rather than looking away, the professor met Danny's blue squarely.
"Mr. Fenton," the man began delicately, "a-are you aware that a g-ghost has been following you?"
Danny froze.
"A ghost?" he squeaked.
The professor nodded.
"A m-malevolent sp-spirit. N-not like th-the –"
"How do you know?" Danny asked, impatiently speaking over the man. He felt himself shiver again. An ominous suspicion gripped him: the chill was more than just a cold.
He tried his very best to not turn around, to where Quirrell had been looking earlier, but couldn't help but sneak a few nervous glances to where the ghost must be.
"I-I am a D-defense Against the Dark-k Arts professor," Professor Quirrell said. "I c-can recognize th-the signs."
"Can you do anything about it?" Danny hissed, bringing his voice to a whisper despite knowing it wouldn't help.
The man hesitated, and Danny felt a chill run down his spine that had nothing to do with the ghost.
"I-I can try sp-speaking to the sp-spirit, but –"
"Then try it!"
"Mr. Fenton." The professor's voice in that moment sounded calmer than Danny had ever heard it. "We must first figure out why the ghost is f-following you."
"I don't know!" he said, frustrated, alarmingly feeling tears spring to his eyes. Why was this happening? The letter to his parents had long since been crumpled in his hands. "It attacked me yesterday, but –"
"Yesterday?" Quirrell seemed alarmed. "And you're still alive?"
Danny stared at him wide-eyed. Never, before that instant, had he considered how close he had come to dying.
He remembered his fear, on that night. The primal terror that that creature had drawn from him.
To his eternal shame, he could feel tears leaking from his eyes. In front of his teacher.
"I, I –" Now he was the one stuttering.
"T-tell me what happened," Professor Quirrell said, like a rock in a drowning ocean.
And so he did. About the portal, and the monster that had come through it. About the possession, and how he had fought it off. Professor Quirrell listened with an avid fascination.
"You fought it off?" he breathed, almost in awe.
Suddenly, a voice that was neither Quirrell's or Danny's spoke. It was a voice that had not belonged in this room, weak with disuse, almost inhuman.
"Let me… ssspeak to the boy."
Professor Quirrell's face underwent a radical change. From sympathetic and awe stricken, to panicked and almost worried.
Danny, too, felt his emotions flip over, to startlement, to shock, to a thin panic. His right to privacy had just been abused. He had just spilled out the most terrifying thing that had ever happened to him, in private, and Quirrell had brought someone in with him?
"But master, you're still weak!" Quirrell protested, at the same time Danny asked urgently, "Who is that?
"Show… him," the voice whispered, labored and heavy.
Reluctantly, Quirrell began unwrapping his turban. Danny stared on in a sort of stupefied bewilderment.
When Quirrell turned his head, however, all he felt was dead cold fear.
His feet did not feel glued to the earth this time, and he made quick use of his legs, rushing to the door in an attempt to flee this monster. He was just about to turn the handle when –
"Wait. Please." It spoke the second word as if it pained it.
He stopped. Slowly, he turned back and looked at what should have been the back of Quirrell's head, and quickly averted his eyes.
There was another face there, a face so monstrous he felt himself shudder at just the sight of it.
"What are you?" he whispered.
"Ssomeone who can help you," it replied.
"How?" he asked cautiously, hand still lingering by the door knob.
"Your ghosst. It hass… an interest in you."
Danny turned to leave, feeling sick.
"I could make it go away."
He paused.
"Or we... could usse this... to your advantage."
He couldn't stop himself from asking. "How?"
"You… sssaid you… remained aware while possesssed. Could this… mean that… if you and the ghost were to… work together, you would perhaps… gain sssome interessting abilities?"
Danny didn't want to consider it. Still, his traitorous mouth spoke.
"Like what?"
"Invisibility... perhapsss. Flying... without a broom. Passsing through… wallss."
He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. It was true; these were supposed to be the abilities of ghosts. It was only a coincidence that these were the abilities Danny had most craved on his daydream ventures of superheroism. This… creature could not have known.
Still. He was worried. This was weird. This felt… dangerous.
"Why would you want me to have abilities like this?"
"Asss you... can ssee… I lost my… body. A ssstone... in the castle can… help me... with this."
"You're human?" Danny blurted. He couldn't help the abrupt guilt at having assumed that this person was a strange, alien monster.
"Yesss," it – no, he – said.
"I, I don't know what to think," Danny confessed, feeling somewhat more at ease knowing that this wasn't some inhuman creature like the ghost. "How would the ghost and I even cooperate? And why? I don't understand."
"We… can help… with that."
He blinked. "But –"
"I am… weak. Quirinus can… explain."
Indeed, he sounded much more breathless than at the beginning of the conversation (a remarkable feat in its own right). Taking his cue, Professor Quirrell turned around so that his true face was showing again. He slowly rewrapped the turban around his head with adept, practiced fingers.
Danny stared at him in stunned silence. He realized he had forgotten the presence of the ghost when a shiver made its way up his spine.
"Umm," he said, "can you do something about the ghost?" He gestured to behind him, a sort of jerking motion.
"No," Professor Quirrell said, shaking his head without taking his eyes from Danny's face. "I cannot."
"Oh," Danny said faintly, and feeling as if he needed some sort of support, fell into the chair that sat opposite to the professor. The man observed him quietly as he wrapped his arms together in an effort to contain the shivers.
"I can, however, help you... work with the ghost. Now, if you'd prefer," he said, seeming bemused.
"Now!?" Danny squeaked, then coughed to clear his throat. "I mean… I guess that's what that… man said… but I don't really understand…" He trailed off, his voice turning quiet, the last words only a soft mumble.
"It's fine," Quirrell said, his head cocked quizzically to the side, a small smile playing on his lips as if he were trying to figure a out a particularly strange puzzle. Then his face stilled, a strange quiet, intense look taking the strange expression's place. His voice grew more soft, more forceful and his eyes took on a sudden gleam.
"These types of ghosts," a quick jerk of the head to a spot of space behind Danny, "are typically unintelligent creatures, but powerful. Intangibility, invisibility, flight – they are powers that are difficult for even wizards to match up to, since we must have certain objects in order to perform these feats, while to a ghost it is natural. You know Sir Nicholas, yes?"
It was strange, watching Quirrell like this. Usually, he was stuttering and stammering over his words, unable to utter a single comprehensive sentence. Now he was a man transformed; passion leaked through every word, a scholarly eagerness as he spoke. Danny stared at him, marvelling at the change.
He remembered that the professor had asked a question, and hastily nodded.
"Good. Ghosts like Sir Nicholas are unable to change planes to become tangible on this one, appearing translucent and unable to touch physical material. This is because of their low ectoplasmic density – there is something about magic that causes a less powerful ghost after death. Ghosts formed from Muggle souls or pure ectoplasm, however, are much more powerful and are able to choose when their abilities are in effect."
Danny's eyes widened in sudden comprehension.
"And those are the types of ghosts that my parents hunt?"
Quirrell cocked his head to the side in confusion.
"Your parents?" Danny realized his mistake and cleared his throat self-consciously. His hand flew up to rub against the back of his neck.
"Er, yeah. They're ghost hunters." He smiled awkwardly, hoping that Professor Quirrell wouldn't find it strange.
"Ah." A pause. Danny waited in nervous anticipation. "Well, it may be best if you don't inform your parents of this… incident."
"What?" He hadn't been expecting that response. "Why?"
"Have they ever even seen a ghost like this one?" Professor Quirrell asked pointedly, eyebrow raised. Danny grimaced; that was answer enough.
The professor resumed his didactic, lecturely tone. "I believe that involving more people in this – especially those who believe they know what they are dealing with when they do not – would only cause more trouble."
Danny nodded. It sounded reasonable. He hadn't really been planning on telling them anyway.
The professor smiled.
"I'm glad you understand." Quirrell took a deep breath, and eyes flickering to the side and back as he cast his thoughts back in memory.
"Ah, yes. As I was saying, these powerful, ectoplasmic ghosts tend to be less intelligent." The professor's stream of speech slowed, as if he were choosing each word with great care and deliberation. "It has been observed that these ghosts naturally gravitate towards human hosts. Possession provides them with the instincts… and knowledge, necessary to survive in a human environment. They are able to, access information from the mind of the human they are possessing.
"This does not make them more capable, or more clever, but allows them to survive.
"However, if a human will, aware of the possession, were able to channel ghostly abilities to achieve a purpose… Well, that would be a force to be reckoned with." The strange half-smile returned to the professor's face.
Danny jolted up, his spine ramrod straight as he stared at the professor in shock. He understood the implication.
"You want it to possess me?"
The professor shook his head, and he felt a chill from behind him. He scowled, hunching his shoulders back in and instinctively making himself look small, the reaction of a prey to its predator. Quirrell looked unperturbed.
"No, not quite."
"Then what?" he demanded.
"You would be the one in control," Quirrell reassured him. "The ghost would only be, well, inside of you, providing you the abilities that it naturally possesses."
Danny's face twisted at the thought. A small thrill ran through his body, thinking of the "abilities." He pushed it down. He had magic. Wonder, already in his grasp. He didn't need this.
(It still called to him. The idea of it. Flying. Free, unhindered. The ability to go anywhere, without consequence.)
Something didn't seem right, though.
"But why would the ghost want to do it, if it's not in control?"
The smile on Quirrell's face widened, then disappeared a moment later. Danny felt unnerved, but dismissed the feeling as one of the ghost's effects.
"Think of it as a symbiotic relationship. Mutually beneficial. The ghost will also receive something from the arrangement."
He couldn't help but notice that the professor wasn't looking at him when he said that. His skepticism grew.
"Receive what?" he asked. Now Quirrell's attention returned to him.
"What a ghost regularly benefits from possession," Quirrell said mildly. "Experience."
"Experience?" He didn't bother trying to hide his disbelief.
"It is what they feed on."
He frowned. His thoughts snagged onto another thing that didn't seem quite right. Something he had noticed before in the conversation, but hadn't made anything of it at the time.
"Professor Quirrell…" he began cautiously. "Why aren't you stuttering anymore?"
The look of surprise on Quirrell's face was enough to tell him that yes, there was something wrong going on here. The long silence afterwards confirmed it.
Danny stood up from the chair.
"I'm sorry, professor. I just… I'm just not sure I want to do something like this. Does… does Professor McGonagall know?"
Still silence.
He felt a lurch in his stomach, a mix of trepidation and disappointment. What had he almost gotten into?
This time, his walk to the door was not inspired by fear. It was wariness, an urge to not be mixed up in things before he knew what they were. Jazz would have been proud of him.
He was stopped by the ghost materializing in front of him.
"Argh!" He found himself pressed against the floor, eyes wide and reflecting greengreengreen. The entire room seemed to warp, now malicious and cold as opposed to the warm and cheery interior that has presented itself to him earlier. Details sharpened. Everything felt so cold.
He was face-to-face with the ghost.
The sight of it sent thrills of terror running down his spine. An instinct to runrunrun. But now, now that he had a greater understanding and had faced it before and won, he could shut down the primal urges and look.
It was floating, green like toxic waste. Gleaming red eyes, hazy in the glowing mist surround it. Tentacles that rippled in every direction.
Ectopus, his mind whispered, and he couldn't help it. He giggled, a strange sort of hysteria and inanity rising in his mind.
grEeTInGS, a voice whispered.
Then the world flipped sideways.
.
.
.
"Wait, wait! Stop!" The voice was his own, shrill and terrified.
.
.
.
.
.
He was on the ground, clutching his chest as if there was something there that pained him.
.
There is, he realized a moment later. Something cold and intrusive, spilling everywhere inside of him. He could feel it spread from his heart to the very tips of his fingers, flowing sluggishly like a thick pool of blooddelightfear –
"What…" His voice was hoarse.
Images flashed eagerly through his mind. Of nightmares, of death, of horrors previously unimaged. All accompanied by a sense of satisfaction, of crooning delight.
He turned onto his side and threw up.
The flow of images slowed down, halted. His mind was no longer bombarded. He could think. Could see. Could place himself as being in Quirrell's office, still alive, still breathing, still existing.
What just happened?
wE aRE TOgEThER, a voice cried out triumphantly in his mind. A brief glimpse of riches, awards, deliciouspainmisery flashed through his mind, quickly tugged away before he could fully process the thought.
He recognized the voice. He felt a sinking feeling in his gut.
"I… the ghost…"
"Are you alright? Mr. Fenton?"
The presence of another voice, real, physical, reverberating through space, was the final push towards reality. Sensation returned, blindingly bright and vibrant. He felt the scrape on his arm, from the carpet that had burned against him as he fell. The aches in his bones and muscles. The pounding of his head, the texture of wooden table against his hand and the soft cotton of his robes against his skin, the smell of something rotten in the air –
yEs, the ghost whispered in his mind, pleased.
A hand touched his arm, and it was overwhelming. Skin upon skin, contact of the most direct kind possible between humans.
Embracelovelustlustpain –
He recognized, dimly, that that was the ghost's memories, thoughts. They were accompanied by senses that he himself could not experience. They were alien to him, foreign, yet also disgustingly familiar to the same primal part of him that had urged him to run run run from the ghost.
When he recognized the foreignness as separate from himself, he mentally pushed it away with all the force he could muster.
It was like a heavy block had been removed from his chest. He gasped in relief, suddenly feeling as if he could breathe. Other sensations stopped being so overwhelming, the effect having been magnified by the newness it had held to the ghost.
"Daniel?"
"I'm… alright," he managed to say. Then, realizing what had happened,
"The ghost possessed me!?" he shrieked.
He remembered walking to the door. The sudden manifestation of the ghost. It approaching, approaching –
A strange feeling of fascination overtook him as he recalled the sensation of fear, of terror. He pushed it away, desperately ignored it for his own sanity. That's not me, that's not me.
That was the ghost.
The ghost that was possessing him.
"No, not possessed," Quirrell said from above him. Despite everything, he still held the tones of a scholar enraptured. "You can still talk and move with your own will."
Oh. So this is what they had been talking about, earlier.
But he hadn't wanted to actually do it!
(The feeling of bemused fascination that accompanied his heightened emotions unnerved him.)
"But I… ugh…" The hand on his arm suddenly yanked him upwards, and his limp body followed the motion. It made his head hurt worse. "Stop that!"
Quirrell set him back onto the chair, presumably so that he'd be more comfortable. He kept imagining the ghost hovering behind him, before repeatedly realizing that no, it wouldn't be behind him because it was inside of him.
It was disturbing on many, many levels.
The professor sat back into his seat behind his desk, across from Danny. He watched him quietly for a few moments before speaking.
"How do you feel?"
"Awful," was the short, curt answer. Danny was upset with him. He hadn't given his goddamn permission for this to happen, and Quirrell was treating it like some… scholarly experiment!
Something more sympathetic flashed across the man's face.
"I'm sorry this happened. If I had known…"
The sour thing curdled in Danny's gut loosened somewhat, and he felt slightly less angry.
(The thing inside of him watched in avid fascination.)
"Could you… remove it?" A horrible thought occurred to him. "Is this permanent?"
The man opened his mouth, then closed it. Then shook his head grimly.
"I don't know."
"Oh."
Suddenly, he felt rather small. Helpless. The ghost inside of him reared in pleasure at his weakness. He shivered, a nauseous feeling broiling in his gut.
He sat in Professor Quirrell's office for a while, after that. Quirrell explained some things to him. They didn't do any experimenting with what had happened. The professor was perfectly sympathetic to his misery. He obliquely warned him about the consequences of what might happen if he told anybody what he now housed inside of him – the ghost might become upset with him if he did so, after all.
Then Danny left.
He didn't know what else to think about all that had transpired in that room. He left dizzy, his head spinning with new knowledge.
He was accompanied by a passenger, a parasite, that saw his every emotion as something new and fascinating.
A passenger that saw him as prey.