A/N: I'm so sorry that I'm awful at updating. It's been a really busy summer and it seems like I never really had time to sit down and write. No, wait – that's actually a lie. I've had this chapter 80% done for a while now, and I just didn't write the last 20% for a looong time. But, well. I'm so awful at updating that I don't even feel guilty anymore. (Sorry.)

I think I'm a bit squeamish. It makes the squeam come on harder when writing things.

(When it's not a oneshot it gets sort of scary.)

Tell me what you think~! (It's probably very rough – I'm too close to it at the moment to tell for certain and so any honest reviews would be greatly appreciated.)

EchoesInTheNight: Well, uh, I do knit. I'll take your word about all the other things though, like "regularly updated" or "complex puzzle." You know, the things that make me all bubbly inside even if I'm not entirely sure they're entirely true.

(But I'm just joking here. Honestly, thank you for all the kind words. Don't worry; you're not crazy – it's nice to hear that you appreciate my story. I'll try to live up to your expectations with it. ;) )

KidGenius: Oh, wow. Thank you so much! I feel all warm and squishy inside now. :)

Last updated 12/29/2019

Chapter Eleven
The Ghost

I… don't think I ever really got over what happened then. Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to stir up old memories.

This morning I woke up breathing heavily. Heat and heart pounding. Body soaked in sweat.

But they all say that these kinds of memories need resolving, that they must be processed and understood, so that they stop manifesting in the form of nightmares. So with this hope, I forge onward.

... We humans are such fragile creatures.

Humanity

"Ow!"

Danny quickly snatched his finger back with a pained hiss. The owl had bit him. He was seconds away from reflexively putting the bitten finger into his mouth, where the blood would be cleaned away and the injury soothed, before he remembered.

(images, memories of the sweetmetallictangofblood sogoodneedmore–)

He glared at the creature.

hOw DAre it –

No. No, that wasn't him. He couldn't think like that.

The owl was shaking. It had burrowed itself into the recesses of the Owlery, because it was scared. No, not just scared – it was terrified. Of him.

He felt sick.

He wished Professor Quirrell had never taken him to that room, all those weeks ago.

He wished –

No. That was another thing to avoid, he knew. If he became caught up on thoughts like this, of "what if's" and distance possibilities that would never be, it was too easy to fall into despair.

Despair fed the ghost inside of him.

When the ghost grew stronger, it had more influence. It could cause him to think more erratically, stray from his usual patterns. Now, when he could barely differentiate the ghost's thoughts from his own, preventing this was more vital than ever.

In the past month, he had learned many similar lessons when it came to dealing with the ghost.

Besides. He had more immediate task at hand.

He had to send a letter to his parents, telling them his plans for Christmas Break.

"Please," he begged the owl, trying to put the familiar slouch back in his shoulders, crouching down to look less threatening. "Just let me send this one letter. I promise I'll try to find another school owl to ask next time if you do."

It wasn't the first time he had to plead with an owl. After the incident, he had kept up a running correspondence with his family, but it seemed to only get more and more difficult as it went on. The number of school-appointed owls he could bargain with was running out.

(Still, it was worth it. It wasn't like he could talk to many others, when he was like this.)

After more coaxing, he was able to tie the letter to the owl's foot. The poor animal was shaking the entire time, and Danny had to work to keep the painful jolt of guilt from affecting him. Finally, the owl was off, flying free to send word to his parents.

He breathed a sigh of relief, then slumped against the wall of the Owlery.

This was becoming a problem. He should probably tell Professor Quirrell. He had no doubt that the man would be absolutely fascinated.

Bitter feelings arose within him at the thought. It was hard to push them away; he knew that Quirrell had only been trying to help. He didn't know it would have ended up this way. It wasn't his fault.

Still, it was hard.

The Professor was the only thing that the ghost was oddly quiet about, it seemed – a small mercy. Danny was free to feel anything about him. He had no doubt that if he carried these thoughts so freely about anyone else, he would be gleefully presented with images of their ruined, mangled corpse –

A remembrance of one such occasion flashed into his mind. He gagged and hunched over. The floor of the Owlery was painted fascinating colors of green and yellow.

A flash, a remembrance of that night, a memory entirely his own –

greengreendeath

His head spun.

Everything inside of him screamed getoutgetoutgetout.

He dashed down the tower stairs, leaving the Owlery behind him as fast as his feet would carry him, breath too fast and light. When he reached one of the main corridors, he slowed down, trying to calm down before anyone saw him and could ask him what was wrong.

(Everything was wrong. Everythingeverythingeverything.)

There had been too much of that recently, kind and worried faces asking after him. He –

bastardpitynoiamSTrONG

– was scared what he might accidentally do to them.

No, he corrected himself firmly. What the ghost would do to them.

He wished he could make himself believe that the distinction still existed.

Humanity

Danny was nervous. He knocked on Quirrell's door, simultaneously hoping that it would and that it would not open. His hands were shaking; he was exhausted. He hadn't slept, not the night after that happened.

The usual silence of the first years boy's dorm after lights out had been replaced by the insidious whispering impressions of the ghost. Danny had barely dared to move, or even to think. It seemed that any miniscule action of his sparked the ghost's fascination and so he had spent the night staring blankly at the ceiling.

It wasn't merely a parasite-host relationship, however. Something… had happened, earlier.

This was why Danny was knocking at Quirrell's door.

The door opened. Trepidation beat a rapid tattoo in his heart, and he tried to ignore the feeling like a unique specimen under close inspection.

"Mr. Fenton? Are you alright?" The Professor sounded concerned. It made Danny feel slightly – slightly – better.

Wordlessly, he raised his left hand.

Or, at least, he raised what he thought was supposed be his left hand.

There was nothing there. Nothing where the sensation in his hand told him where his fingers were, nothing moving even when he wiggled his fingers.

Nothing, at least, to where his elbow was.

It was a gruesome sight. Where the top half of his arm was missing, here you could see all too much. Bones and muscles were displayed for all the world to see, a stump with living tissue beating and moving with every subtle twitch of a muscle.

There was no blood. The arm was not severed. The top half of Danny's arm was simply… missing.

"Fascinating," Professor Quirrell murmured. "When did this start?"

A flash of hatred, so intense it almost made Danny take a step back, ran through him.

This was his reaction? "Fascinating?" It was his fault, his fault, that this had happened in the first place –

He struggled to calm the anger that had nearly overtaken him.

Quirrell was the only one who could help him.

The only one who was helping him.

He couldn't be angry at Professor Quirrell. It had been an accident.

The ghost hadn't responded to the outburst of emotion. Danny steadied his breath, blessing his luck. He constantly felt like he was walking on sharp shards of glass, never a good place to step. Never a good thought to think, damn it.

"A few hours ago," he said. His eyes drifted down to the stump of an arm he was holding up.

Humanity

It was the weekend. He had no place to be, now that he had completed his task. No classes to go to, no errands to run.

He considered the problem.

Maybe he could go onto the grounds by the lake, or to the library –

(The ghost reared at sensing the barest edges of the idea, eager. That was enough to deter him from even considering it.)

No. What was he thinking? Of course he couldn't go to the library. She might be there.

He tried to calm the sudden hitch in his breathing.

He supposed he could go to Professor Quirrell. He was at least safe, if nothing else. Danny could mention the problems he had with animals, and maybe even learn something about whattheheckisgoingon while he was there.

Yes. That sounded reasonable. It was decided, then.

His feet led him to the Professor's office. It was a familiar place now, so familiar that he thought he could find it with his eyes closed, even within Hogwart's elaborate fortress corridors. He knocked smartly on the door five times, a distinguishing signal that would let Quirrell know it was him.

The door, unsurprisingly, did not swing open in welcome. It was always an unsafe bet whether or not Quirrell was in the office; it seemed that he was almost always elsewhere.

He stood there for a moment, blankly looking at the door.

Then sighed, and turned around, making an attempt to clear his head. So he'd head to the lake out on the grounds afterall. He took a step forward in the direction of the fastest route out of the castle.

Someone crashed into him. A running, blurry figure.

Danny fell to the ground. The hard stone ground hurt. Anger rose to the surface, hot and boiling red, and he was pushing himself off the ground to his feet before he even realized what he was doing.

WHo? they demanded indignantly.

When Danny caught a glimpse of the other student's face, he immediately did his best to quell the burning self-righteousness and anger that had risen far, far too rapidly.

It was Dean Thomas.

"Danny?" He was startled. "What are you doing here?"

Danny found himself unable to find the correct words. He was already struggling to hide the conflicting feelings within him, the nausea that he knew would soon build within him.

–strungupburneddeliciousfear–

It was a good thing he had already thrown up everything that he had eaten that morning.

"Mate, you look awful," Dean said. "Are you okay?"

Desperately, he tried to think of anything that would turn Dean's mind off of his state of being. His eyes searched the hall for inspiration, only to realize what – or who – was missing.

"Where's Seamus?" he asked. The two seemed like an inseparable pair, and it was strange to see Dean alone.

uNproTecTEd. He pushed the thought away.

Dean blinked. "Oh!" he said, as if startled into suddenly remembering something. A grin burst out on his face. "He's already at the Quidditch match. Would you believe it? He got there before me! Just left me, just like that!"

A small silence. Danny realized he was supposed to say something.

"Oh," Danny said, feeling a bit disoriented. "There's a Quidditch match today?"

Had he really been so distant from the rest of Hogwarts that he hadn't even known that? Now it made sense, the looks of excitement that had been clear on every student's face, the sharpened House rivalry that permeated the castle.

Something within him, something that he knew belonged to him and only him, fluttered to life.

"Of course! How did you not know? Here, you can come with me."

Grinning, Dean Thomas, a boy who Danny had barely talked to for the past month, led him to the Quidditch pitch, a place that set Danny's heart pumping and dreams soaring every time he laid his eyes on it.

Humanity

Danny left the room an hour later.

It just didn't feel real.

His arm was missing, a stump in its place. No blood, no pain. He could still feel the chill prickle at his fingertips.

He didn't go back to the dorms. He walked, walked, walked until he didn't know where he was. At last, he slumped against one of Hogwarts' marble walls, too tired and too confused to worry about if anyone found him.

So it was that when a voice spoke up, from above and behind him, he didn't have the energy to be startled at it.

"Are you alright, boy?" the voice whispered.

An unexpected rush of pure gratitude flowed through Danny. Here was a person who actually asked how he was. Here was a person who genuinely cared. Here was a person who actually bothered to realize no, he might not be all right.

It was enough to make him lift his head to look at the speaker. For a brief moment, he wondered how someone could possibly be behind him.

When he realized why, he couldn't help the sharp stab of disappointment.

It was only a portrait.

Not a real person.

"I'm fine," he muttered angrily. "I just…"

To his surprise, he felt liquid fall onto his arm. He looked – it was the arm that had been gone. Now it was completely back, just as if nothing had happened.

And he was crying.

He thought about Halloween, of seeing the almost majestic green creature floating from the terrible chaos of the portal. Of the sheer terror he had felt.

He had stood on the edge of a precipice at that moment, teetering from safety to death, death to safety. It had been close.

Too close.

He could have died.

And then the tears were uncontrollable, snot pouring down his nose and sticky wetness from his eyes.

Danny hated crying. But whenever something happened, whenever he was hurt or fell or anything his body acted on its own, tears leaking and sobs coming without prompting. Jazz had called him a crybaby for it.

He wanted to see Jazz. He wanted to see his sister smile. He missed her.

He missed her so, so much.

"There, now," the portrait murmured, "It'll be alright."

Humanity

Danny was surprised to discover that Harry Potter was part of the Quidditch team. Seeker, no less.

If it had been a month ago, he might have been resentful, or jealous. How come Harry Potter got to fly in the Quidditch team when he couldn't? But now he was far too taken with the simple joy of being outside, with friends, cheering for his team for all he was worth and acting like a normal human being.

It had been too long. He had a feeling that the ghost didn't know how to react to these new, brilliant feelings welling up inside him, and that was why this hadn't been spoiled yet.

He remembered his first flying lesson, when he fell and saved Neville. Since then, flying had been nothing like that – instead, a dream come true. It was close enough to his dream of becoming an astronaut that it sent his heart palpitating with excitement, and even simply watching was enough to thrill him.

Even better, Gryffindor seemed to be winning over Slytherin. This was a pivotal game, and House rivalry was at its climax. Gryffindor and Slytherin were ruthlessly competitive against one another; everybody knew that. It only made the game even more tantalizing to watch, the stakes in balance resting precariously along a single thin branch.

He knew that in this game, that branch was most likely Harry Potter. The Snitch was what practically determined victory, and Gryffindor was betting hard on a first year being up to par to catch it. He had heard things about the previous Seeker, however, and hoped that Harry would surpass the expectations for a Gryffindor Seeker.

Harry's innate talent for flight had been clear to Danny ever since his second flying lesson, when he first saw his classmate on a broom.

He watched as Quaffles and Bludgers flew across the pitch and as Harry remained still, searching patiently for the Snitch. He knew, also, that however good a flier Harry was, he would also need to have good eyes to spot the Snitch.

Numerous fouls were called: cobbling, blurting, blagging. Most of the names were unfamiliar to Danny. Still, he reveled in the intense spirit and tension floating around the spectators in the pitch.

Gryffindor will win, he thought, fierce pride swelling in him.

Things only started to go wrong when Harry's broom started jerking from side to side.

Danny was immediately on his feet, standing on the benches provided for the students of each House. His hand gripped the wooden board in front of him, feeling the plastic of the Gryffindor banner nailed onto the spectator tower.

What was going on?

It looked like the broom was trying to buck Harry off, like a stung horse gone wild. But he knew that brooms couldn't do this.

Was it a curse? Was someone trying to kill Harry?

Falling from that height would be fatal.

(He knew. It had dropped people from that height before, seen the gross splat that they became at the bottom. And it had been only too eager to share.)

He whirled around, searching for answers, a solution, a way to help. He couldn't stand there and watch it happen, watch someone he knew become that.

He couldn't be helpless like that.

Not again.

He caught sight of Hermione slipping away through the crowd of Gryffindors, heading towards the tower's exit.

… What is she doing?

If anyone, Hermione would be the one who knew what to do. She probably already had a solution in mind, and that was why she was leaving. Danny took a step forward, thinking he could somehow help –

And stopped.

His stomach lurched.

What am I doing? I can't… The ghost…

The thing inside of him perked up. He got the feeling that it was paying close attention.

He glanced backwards, towards where Harry was dangling from his broom.

Crap.

Crap.

He ran after Hermione.

Humanity

On Halloween night, Danny had stood on the edge of a precipice. He had pulled himself back to safety.

On the day of the incident, on the next day, he had been cast over the cliff with no chance of turning back.

Now, he was hanging on by a loose tree branch, struggling to protect what remained. Struggling to preserve himself.

With the portrait's crooning reassurance, he felt the branch, the tether to life and sanity, snap and crackle.

A strange mixture of angry pain, hurt, and discord raged within him, a tempest with no direction. A small push sent it whirling to the speaker. Danny found himself on his feet, turned to face the portrait.

"It won't be all right," he half snarled, half wailed. "It won't won't won't –"

Mindless static filled his mind. A disconnection. He wasn't sure what happened next.

The next thing he knew, he was staring at a torn portrait. His hands were shaking, and he stared at it with blank eyes.

But… he thought, unable to comprehend what had just happened. It had only been trying to help…

Then he realized. His gaze fell to his own hands.

He was too tired, too confused, too upset to feel any horror.

Yet a persistent guilt gnawed at him deep from within. Guilt, and something else. Something alien. He didn't understand.

He understood too much.

He ran down the hall, suddenly desperate to get back to the dorms. Anything, anything, to just pretend that nothing had happened and that everything was normal.

The branch snapped.

He hung only by a thread.

Humanity

It was dark inside the dusty tunnels that connected the towers. Danny felt strangely silent, not nervous, not confident, not happy. He felt as if he stood in the calm of the storm, a strange tension arising that told him he couldn't stay in the storm's center for much longer.

His heart thudded painfully in his chest. He could feel it beat, its frequent palpitations. He knew that usually he couldn't, that when he tried to listen or feel the heartbeat was elusive, but now it felt as clear as day.

He caught up to her on her way back.

She had already finished what she had left to do.

It was a strange moment, when he saw her for the first time in a month. The silence expanded, became the whole world and time slowed down as if it had become thick syrup. His senses were hyperactive, everything was magnified, the outside world sluggish and detailed and too clear.

He had been her first true friend.

She had been the friend that meant so, so much to him.

That was the reason he had avoided her the entire month.

At that moment, when he stared at her face and saw her startled recognition, the storm jerked away; he was not in the epicenter; he was terrifyingly revealed in the open and he knew knew knew that it had been waiting for just this.

Suddenly, he could see colors. No, not colors; scents, impressions, vague tastes. They were in the air everywhere, faint trails with emotions and pain and bright joy and fun. The brightest, the most vivid, was in front of him. Fresh. The trail, no, the source was there.

Full of resplendent colors and bursts and emotions.

dELiCioUS

It would be so easy. So, so easy. There was a line, a connection drawn already. All it would take was tappIng THaT lINe –

A hunger that had rested quietly inside of him flared.

– wouldfeelsomuchbetter –

– foodsubstanceemotion –

Yes.

Then the colors flared, expanded, took over his vision. It was too much, too much. Dimly, he heard a thud, felt splinters dig into his skin. A voice.

"Danny?"

It hurt. It hurt so much. Everything had been so clear, so crystalline a moment ago – now it was the opposite. The world was muddled and confused. Random streaks of light, of vague impressions he couldn't grasp, filled the empty space around him.

What happened?

Where am I?

(Dimly, he recognized the sound of footsteps.)

Who…

Mercifully, the lights disappeared and he was cast into darkness.

.

.

.

Humanity

Growing Up

Danny woke up in the hospital wing.

It was silent. No body was nearby. He stared at the ceiling briefly, then closed his eyes again.

An instinctive knowledge rested itself inside him, knowledge far beyond any doubt. He had been told this by nobody, but he knew it as a fact. The roots of it nestled in his core and its branches sprouting, wrapping themselves around his body like a comforting cocoon.

Something had changed.

For the first time in weeks, he felt warm again, no icy tinge spiking at his core at the slightest thought. He felt balanced, normal. Content. He shifted in the warm blanket, feeling utterly relaxed and he reveled in the feeling.

Something had changed.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he drifted back into a peaceful sleep, into dreams undisturbed by gruesome visions.