.

Final Note

That businessman was Lucius Malfoy.

That's another story to tell, however, and I know, I know, it's been a long time in coming. Just have a little more patience for me, Eliza. I've guessed at Vlad's thoughts here - knowing that fruitloop a little too well - in hopes that it will clarify the situation for you and the sequence of events that lead up to my death. Half-death. Whatever.

So it wasn't Quirrell or even Voldemort who killed me in the end. As you already know, it was my own parents. Mom and Dad. And their ghost portal.

When I had begged them not to build the portal, the day before Quirrell's kidnapping, they hesitated. When they came and rescued me, and realized how deeply I had really been scarred, they were adamantly against the idea of pursuing their previous invention.

But time passes and reality sets in.

FentonWorks was able to survive in Amity Park for so long by capitalizing on small-town tourism, American government funding, and other smaller contacts. While the move to England had been taken with the loss of sponsorship in mind, my parents had still been optimistic because they had actually detected a large ghost presence nearby London. A presence which turned out to be Hogwarts, whose ghosts only contained bare traces of ectoplasm and whose existence they could not reveal to other Muggle scientists.

Over the summer, the situation had taken a turn for the worse. Ectoplasm, which they regularly bought from strange collectors all over the world for their research, had taken a sudden price hike for whatever reason. They had always had to be sparse with their supply, since ectoplasm bleeds into the human world so slowly, but now it put their research at a chokehold. Even the defensive shielding for Hogwarts project - which did promise a return investment but required completely infeasible quantities of ectoplasm - was put aside in favor of studying for papers that they could publish.

Stunningly, at this time Vlad offered them - or rather, to Maddie - again a very large sum of money to spend for their research. They had gone to the States to confer with him, their old college labmate who had worked with them on their first attempt at a portal, and I suppose that he saw it as an opportunity to entice Mom's attention.

As if you could buy love with money.

For whatever reasons, my parents refused. Again. I think they just didn't want to bring money between them and a friend, even if the situation was getting more desperate.

At this point, they were already getting worried, and our ectoplasmic turkeys disappeared from the dinner table, to be replaced by, more often than not, by pasta and rice dishes that could be bought cheaply in the bulk. Jazz had realized what was going on immediately and railed at their parents to 'get a real job' again, though even I could see the worry in her voice. The next day, Mom had begun working as an EMT and Jack had begun applying for jobs in other labs. He had no luck. Fourteen-year-old Jazz suddenly grew very serious and dedicated herself to her studies tenfold.

The next very wealthy man who approached them was Lucius Malfoy, who had heard of the ghost hunter's presence through his son, Draco Malfoy, who had apparently claimed to be excellent friends with me… and, of course, through Vlad Masters, who had so foolishly contacted him. Senior Malfoy had acted exceedly polite, actually troubling himself to come to our home and visit our very Muggle lab personally. He offered a deal: build the ghost portal, give him a 50% share on all future profits, a say in what they produced and to whom they sold, and he would invest half a million pounds into their business, a quarter million upfront and a quarter million after the portal was built.

The terms were outrageous, and the amount of money even more so. The Fentons had never thought of FentonWorks as a business, per se - more as a research company - but both Mom and Dad bargained like seasoned marketing veterans. Lucius Malfoy would get a 20% share for 20 years, they would heed his counsel for that time, and they would build the ghost portal. They had no other choice.

… Those were actually still pretty terrible terms. I take back what I said about them bargaining like seasoned marketing veterans.

At some point, I got it in my head to destroy the machine they were building. I was so scared of it, almost to the point of irrationality. I actually sabotaged the machine, by replacing one little MOSFET - which is, erm, a little transistor, or switch, that operates off of boolean logic to create an AND or OR condition depending on the transistor…

Nevermind that. The point is, I had actually studied this in my own time, with some help of Tucker, and had my parents show me a few things in the lab, so I switched up their circuit diagram, so that they had to power up their signal cord and press the button inside the portal for it to work. It was as simple as redrawing a little triangle symbol to a little half-curved symbol. I expected them to notice, but it was such a little change, and such a large project that they… didn't. In retrospect, it was stupid.

It was stupid because when I watched them put the final pieces together and press together the spark plug, the machine's console only flickered on and my parents' had the most heartbreaking look on their faces. They had tested everything beforehand, and I mean everything. They had checked every little component that they could, other than the actual 'on' switch, because that was so stupidly simple and of course neither of them would have messed that up.

Of course, there was still uncertainty in every engineering project, but… Mom and Dad decided that the mistake must have been with the theory. With the fundamental assumption that the Ghost Zone could be breached, and that it even existed.

And I realized, shoot, I really did it this time. I really messed up their careers. Not only that, their dreams. Who were Maddie and Jack Fenton if they weren't overly enthusiastic ghost hunters?

I went into the portal that night, to fix my mistake. My parents had left the signal cord plugged, and like every amateur electrician (I wasn't even that much), I forgot to check that everything was powered off. I had assumed that it was fine, and started messing around with the ON button casing inside the portal, the correct MOSFET in my hand, thinking I could just solder it on quickly like Dad had shown me once. I had even looked up which metal bit meant what for this specific MOSFET, so that I could get it working again properly.

This wasn't my brightest idea.

I, of course, with my legendary clumsiness, accidentally hit the green ON button. A green light sparked and I was caught in the middle of it. I died, was sustained by the ectoplasm, and became half-ghost.

And lost my humanity.

Even so, I was still alive. It was different from being possessed by that ghost. My will was my own. I had no strange voices or strange emotions that were not my own. I was still able to find my friends, speak with them, laugh with them, and live, even if I was no longer fully human.

That's enough about myself and my mistakes.

You know now, what happened in my first year at Hogwarts. There is more to tell, but for now, this is enough. This day isn't supposed to be about me, anyway.

It's about you.

Brilliant, wonderful, great, granddaughter.

You share my blood, and have a sliver of this ghostliness inside of you. This is one reason why I tell you all of this.

I want to tell you. It doesn't make you any less you.

The day you were born was one of the greatest days of my life. All of the bad that happened, all of the terrible things that I spoke about in this book, they pale in comparison to the vibrancy of friendship, of family, of true bonds.

So cherish life. Cherish this day, take it tenderly, because this is the day that we celebrate your birth and your existence. My granddaughter. I am so proud of you. I am so proud of how you grasp life so ferociously, how you take the bull by its horns and live. I could have learned a lesson from you in my youth.

I hope that you have found something of value in this little story of mine in turn, and I hope that this only provokes more conversation between the two of us. I have been a bit of a distant figure to you, but I want you to understand me and for me to understand you, as you have grown up to be.

Though by Wizarding standards you have already long since been an adult, and by my own standards too, take this further step into adulthood boldly and with your shoulders raised high. Lose not your passion, but temper it with wisdom. Savor every happy moment that you find, and learn from every sadness. You are strong, and brilliant.

Remember that.

Happy birthday, Eliza.

End of Book One: Humanity.