Wow, I can't believe I got this one out so quickly. It hasn't even been a full month, might be my best record yet. Man, I hope that doesn't say anything about quality though...it's just that I got really excited to finally finish another case! Jokes on me, this chapter ended up being so busy I kept inserting calm moments to even it out and it kept getting bigger and bigger and now my final chapter is going to be the NEXT one.

Oh well, first world problems right?

Anyways this one is a bit on the horror/gruesome side, okay? Not total nightmare material, but I'm honestly not sure how old people in the Ghost Hunt fandom are. Consider yourself warned!

And here's our OC lineup!

Misao Hiruma and Jou Suguro- The hosts of the Eastern Manor Bed and Breakfast.

Mayako Izuhara- The late owner of the house who died of natural causes in a hospital. She was from a branch family of the Hata clan.

The Hata family- A wealthy family who had the house built for them in the late eighteen hundreds.

Yoshimi Hata- Someone apparently from the Hata family.

I'm going to start writing the next one after this, but fair warning- might be a bit. The next semester is coming up and I'm taking a part time job as well. So I'll be super busy.

Oh and one more thing- I put this up on ao3 under the same title and author name if anyone is interested. I'm not done putting everything up, but this is just a heads up.

Alright enough about me, enjoy!

Edit 8/5/17 This site messed up a lot of my paragraphs when I uploaded it, I'm just cleaning up.

"You should room with me tonight." Harry decided, unable to tear his gaze away from the tiny strip of singed wallpaper that separated the new scorch marks from John's bedroom door.

The fire had been so close to his room, could they escalate to the point of trapping him inside? To burning inside his room, where no one would notice?

"What?" John blinked at him, startled.

"This confirms our theory, doesn't it? The spirits are reacting to your exorcisms. It's too dangerous to leave you alone for that long."

John grimaced, looking back to the black stain. The walls were still dripping foam from being put out mere minutes ago, leaving smudgy trails like finger paint right down to the floor. "I suppose you're right. This does look rather threatening."

"It would be safer for all of us to sleep on the first floor too." Suguro pointed out. "Easier to get out fast."

Harry nodded, toying with the runebind hanging from his neck. "That's a good idea, there are two guest bedrooms in that hallway, yeah? We could split them between each other."

"I'll get our stuff together." John volunteered, pinning him with a chiding look. "You should check on your injuries, you must be in some pain now."

Harry's eyes narrowed. "I rewrapped them before I came down, I have some medical equipment in my bag. It's only my hand, you know, I'm not an invalid."

John hummed neutrally, neither of them willing to resume fighting so soon. He ducked into his room first and Harry let him do what he wished. He hadn't unpacked, there was only a duffel full of clothes at the foot of his bed so John wouldn't be too unduly burdened.

Instead, he examined the walls, which were much less damaged than the hallway downstairs. The fire had only spread along one side of the hallway, covering a few feet and just barely reaching John's door frame. It ruined a floral oil painting and most of the wallpaper surrounding the scorch was singed and curling, but it didn't look too dramatic.

Suguro tracked his gaze and sighed. "That old painting was ugly anyways, it hung crooked too."

"Why hang it then?" Harry asked in bemusement.

Suguro knocked the painting right off the wall with a sharp rap, it clattered to the ground in ashy splinters and canvas. Behind it was an old wooden panel.

"We didn't have the money to replace all the wallpaper so it's not as thick up here after the first fire burnt through it. Misao hung the painting up to hide the bumps the dumbwaiter hinges make underneath now."

Harry straightened. "Oh! I forgot I wanted to ask her a question, do you know where she is?"

Suguro jabbed a finger toward the stairs. "Her throat started hurting again so I made her take a break and drink some of that tea. She should still be in the kitchen."

"Thank you." Harry trot down the stairs and back to the basement to pick up the portrait of Yoshimi Hata he and John found earlier.

He didn't know if it was even worth bringing up, as he was more and more certain the disturbance he felt had been the fire starting and not John's discovery, but it couldn't hurt to find out more.

He looked at the woman for a moment, wondering if she had been the daughter who died alone. She might've been pretty, in a classical sort of way, if she hadn't looked so sick and miserable. From the pinch of her lips to the rigid line of her bony shoulder, she looked like even posing for the picture had been a distasteful chore.

He carried it back up to the first floor and found Hiruma sipping tea at the dining table.

"Harry, is everything alright?" She asked anxiously, scanning him for more burns.

"Everything's fine, the fire was small like you said." He assured, striding over to place the portrait on the table next to her.
"I was just hoping you recognized this woman. John found her picture right before the fire happened, her name is-"

"Yoshimi Hata, yes I recognize her." Hiruma confirmed excitedly, placing her tea before eagerly looking over the frame. "I don't know how Jou and I missed this! We went down there so many times, I thought I found all of the Hata's belongings."

She smoothed a hand down the inky writing on the back. "1880...I have a picture of her too, but it's when she's much older. She was pretty."

"So this is the daughter Izuhara inherited this house from?" Harry guessed, and Hiruma nodded happily.

"She was really hard to find past her first couple years, her parents kept appearing at social gatherings and were well documented but she was a complete hermit."

Hiruma darted out of the room and came sprinted back with a thick binder, she flipped through buttons, letters, and more portraits before stopping near the end. "Here's the only picture I could find, it's a copy I made from the library."

She pointed to a larger picture, the camera is clearer and the photograph was much newer than the one John found. In the corner was the year, 1920.

The woman forty years later was nearly unrecognizable. Yoshimi Hata at only sixty looked another thirty years older, with deep wrinkles, filmy eyes, and scraggly thin hair. She stood imperiously before her door, so thin a strong breeze might take her away, but planted firmly with what only looked like hatred in her cheerless face.

She was still wearing fine clothes, a fur draped across her rigid shoulders, but the rest of her was more fit on wrathful banshee than on an heiress.

"She died not soon after this article was published, her house just became a century old." Hiruma mumbled, examining the younger photograph of Yoshimi Hata.

"Did she have some sort of disease? A mental illness?" Harry wondered, what an odd way for a clearly successful family to disappear. Why settle for a single child, especially one so obviously troubled? Were there genetic health problems in the family?

"I believe so. I've read a few business interviews with Yoshimi's father and he always deflected whenever someone brought up his daughter, though that rarely happened. I couldn't find any documents from a private doctor though, so I don't think it was physical."

"Do you know how she died exactly?" Harry asked. If she died so early it had to have been the result of her illness, right?

"All I could find was an obituary in the paper. A maid reported that she died in an accident in the home and since Izuhara was her closest living relative, she handled the funeral arrangements."

"I don't suppose Izuhara wrote about that somewhere." Harry sighed. He might have found one of the spirits, but she was so undocumented it felt like trying to catch smoke.

"She didn't keep a journal." Hiruma confirmed with a wry laugh. "Reclusiveness must have been a Hata trait! Even Yoshimi's parents, rich socialites, were sent to a highly private institution for their education from eleven onwards."

Harry froze.

He'd...never heard of a spirit that could...but was it possible? No way it was so simple…

"B-both of her parents? What an odd coincidence." He said hoarsely.

"Isn't it? They met there so I suppose it isn't so unlikely that they married, but it's a little odd for high-class families to send their children to school with almost no prestige. I doubt many people even know about it."

"Hiruma, could I see your guest book please?" Harry burst out, ignoring her startled look. He couldn't remember where his phone was and John was busy and he needed to see the names now.

"Of course, let me get it." She placed the portrait of Yoshimi Hata back on the table and bustled for her desk.

Harry stared down at the dead heiress' image. Try as he might he couldn't stop thinking about it, connected all the dots, tying all the loose ends. It fit so perfectly it was a little maddening. The education level of the guests made sense, the fires going on even now made sense, the periods of quiet made sense, but why?

Hiruma placed her book in front of him and he wasted no time flipping to the guest names specially marked for their presence during a fire.

He couldn't tell with the Japanese names, he would need to ask Hiruma or Suguro, but not yet. He found the European names and began tallying up one similarity both he and John had missed.

Orla Bode

Tenebrus Timms

Nolan Curd

Icarus Brookstanton

Eudora Swann

These were all old-fashioned names.

"Is everything okay?" Hiruma asked a little timidly, and Harry slid the book over to her.

"I think I figured something out, but first- is there something odd about the names of your Japanese guests?" He demanded.

She peered down at the list, worrying her lip. Slowly, she scanned through a few pages while Harry stared, feeling as though he was about to crawl out of his own skin.

"Hmm...I can't really find anything too strange." She mumbled, and Harry's heart sank. Was he wrong again?

"I mean, besides being a bit old-fashioned. Naming your daughter Shimo is a little...but I suppose it can be stylish when done right."

Harry looked back up, buzzing excitedly. "So they're old-fashioned? Out of style?"

Hiruma pursed her lips, looking very confused. "I suppose so." She allowed, tilting her head. "But what does that have to do with the ghost? Surely they wouldn't care about something like that."

"It's not their names that really matter," He explained absently, reworking all his theories to figure out what the spirits wanted. "I believe they might have all come from the same community. It's a trend to name your children a certain way."

"Thank you for your help." He said sincerely, before Hiruma could respond. He turned on his heel and fled to the first bedroom assigned to him without looking back. He couldn't explain any further and wanted to figure out the case before another fire lit.

Sitting on the bed, he thought about what he'd learned.

The spirits were attacking witches and wizards. Every time a wizard stayed the night, a fire chased them out. They were attacking even now not because John was exorcising them, but because Harry hadn't left yet. The Hata family had been magical, but Izuhara hadn't. That's why Izuhara hadn't experienced any fires in the decades she lived in the house, that's why Hiruma and Suguro hadn't experienced fires even throughout the entire renovation process. It was only when a wizard was present in the house.

A curse? But that wouldn't explain the three signatures he detected.

Maybe spirits with a grudge against the Hatas incapable of distinguishing their magic from others? But how would they get in? Only one person ever died on the property and that was Yoshimi, and she was a witch so-

Wait, was she?

Yoshimi never went to a boarding school, she never left the house. After her first few years both her parents stopped bringing her to events and avoiding speaking about her in public. Could she have been a squib?

If she was a squib, resentment might've been a good enough motivator for-

"Ah!"

A short shout had Harry off the bed in half a second. He lowered his center of gravity, hand twitching for the wand hidden in the sleeve of his sweater. His eyes sliced through the room for danger, but all he found was John at the door.

His eyes were dark and his face was still. Both his arms were raised, palms up, as he tracked Harry's movements as though he were a dangerous animal.

"I didn't mean to startle you." John murmured softly. "You just surprised me, I didn't notice you were in here at first."

Cheeks heating, Harry straightened out and wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans. "It's fine. I just...thought something was wrong." He said, carefully avoiding John's gaze to stare down at his own feet. Honestly, he was lucky John was the forgiving sort. Anyone else might've thought he was a lunatic with how quick he was to overreact.

John remained somber, padding into the room to place the last of their luggage by the bed before shutting the door, closing the two of them off from the rest of the house.

"John?" Maybe Harry had overestimated John's capacity for lunacy.

John didn't immediately turn back to him, the line of his shoulders was tense.

"I've been meaning to speak to you about this for a while, I just wasn't sure how to approach it without coming off...confrontational." He began ominously.

"Is everything okay?" Harry asked nervously. What could have possibly wound John up so tightly? Hadn't they made up already? "Did I do something wrong?"

Harry watched, wide-eyed, as John actually wound tenser, coiled like a spring. "Not in the least." He said in a falsely light voice. "Truly, I'm not angry with you. I wasn't even sure I wanted to bring this up, but..." And here his tone returned to its darker pitch. "It's hard to ignore."

This didn't put Harry at ease at all. He remained quiet, studying the priest as he turned to face him.

John's were eyes filled with something grim and his hands had come together to clasp at his rosary. He looked both sad and determined and Harry had no idea what was going to come out of his mouth.

"Harry, you know that I've been appointed to serve at churches before, during my training to become an exorcist." He began rather randomly.

Harry didn't dare respond so John continued. "Many people confessed to me, being so young I was considered more approachable to certain people. Some asked me for advice and blessings for specific reasons."

"One of those reasons was unhappy homes. Religiously-minded children who were being hurt by their loved ones would come to me and ask for my help. I helped as many as I could, but some fell from my reach." Grief swam over John, making him appear smaller than he was. "A few ran away."

Harry was beginning to suspect where John was going with this and suddenly felt an incredibly strong urge to smash his way through the window to escape. Was this worse than being kicked off the case? He honestly wasn't sure.

"You're an adult and I'm not your priest." John allowed, creeping closer to him with caution one might use for a scared dog. "But I am your friend, and I want you to know that I'm here for you if you want to talk about it."

"J-John, I think there was a misunderstanding." Harry protested through numb lips. "I- I'm not-" It wasn't abuse, it was war.

John reached out and plucked his wrist. "I'm not blind." He told him, turning his arm around to trace a line through his cotton sleeve, down from his wrist to his elbow.

Directly over the scar Wormtail gave him in his fourth year.

"Nor am I deaf. When you had a concussion you thought you were homeless and living in the woods."

"It's not what it looks like!" He protested, yanking his arm away. "My relatives never hit me, I was never abused or anything." Harry was mortified. He'd acted like such a freak over the course of getting to know John that the priest actually thought he was some poor abuse case.

There was no lost love between him and the Dursleys, and he still felt the repercussions of their treatment to this day, but it was never physical. He was never slapped around like he'd read in books and heard rumors about.

John stared at him somberly, eyes far too sharp and knowing. It felt like he was looking through every lense, examining every particle that made up Harry's secrets and shames. "Harry, you have far too many scars to convince me no one's hurt you."

"Harry, you have far too many scars to convince me no one's hurt you."

Harry flushed, opening his mouth to protest further but John cut him off.

"I understand that you're uncomfortable talking about it, I just meant to tell you I'm here if you need me, I'll listen whenever you want to talk about it. "

Harry looked away, his whole body squirming with discomfort. He wanted to leave so badly he could almost feel his magic itching to apparate, he didn't want to have this sort of conversation ever. Especially with a friend.

"Though...I suppose there is one thing I'd like answered."

Harry stiffened, eyes squeezed shut.

"Whoever hurt you, they're not doing it any longer are they? You're okay now?"

Harry blinked up at John, who looked so melancholy and empathic Harry was hard pressed not to feel another surge of self-loathing just for putting that expression on his face. But if that was all he wanted to know...not who they were or why someone might try to hurt him...It wasn't a question muggles asked when they saw his scars.

Unbidden, one of Harry's hands rose to press lightly against the center of his second lightning bolt scar. "...they're gone now." Harry hadn't had to fight for his life in three years

"Then I'm glad." John said, but he didn't smile. Instead, his blue eyes slowly softened like a sunrise to beat back the night.

Harry sucked in an unsteady breath, calming himself in the quiet aftermath of one of the most awkward conversations of his life.

"Good!" He piped with false cheer. His voice was deafening in the silence between them. "Then how about we go back down to the basement and move some more stuff around?" He wanted to leave the room so badly he was fighting a nervous twitch.

John dropped the rest of his sober manner to give a comical groan, misery in every pore. His shameless display dragged a genuine smile to Harry's lips, which he suspected was the goal.

The two trudged back down the steps and into the basement to resume their grueling, thankless bid for more information.

As far as Harry was concerned, he welcomed the chore. Anything to throw himself into so he didn't have to think about what just transpired. He actively began thinking of something else, anything else.

If Yoshimi Hata was a spirit who hated those with magic, would he find the heirlooms of other bitter squibs in the basement? Were all these spirits squibs or just those snubbed by theHatas? He supposed only time would tell, but what were odds of three squibs haunting the same house?

They moved objects around the dark, stuffy basement for another three hours before finally calling it quits. Not a single thing Harry or John touched made his glyph react, the spirit remained firmly on the edge of his triad.

Grouchy and sweaty, they both retreat for showers before joining the equally exhausted hosts for dinner. Suguro made a stir fry spread that smelled wonderful, but the way the couple was eating it might as well have been plain toast.

There wasn't a lot of conversation over the dinner, mostly planning safety precautions for the night and plotting out other places to search for objects tied to the spirits.

"But you're sure no one ever dug under the house?" Harry pressed tiredly. It was his only other theory for where the spirit in the basement might be.

"The flooring there has always been cement and I can't find any documentation proving that any of the former owners hired anyone who wasn't a maid or an occasional plumber. I don't think there was ever an opportunity to break through the floor." Hiruma shrugged, an apologetic twist to her lips.

"You've been down there all day too. Didn't see any marks where the cement was refilled, did you?" Suguro pointed out, and John let out a discouraged sigh.

"How about the ceiling of the basement? How thick is the wood paneling on the first floor?" Harry switched.

"I put down most of that wood myself. I didn't find anything pulling up the old floors, just spiders." Suguro shook his head.

"We can always look on a different floor." John suggested, picking at his food. "It doesn't have to be that specific level."

Harry finished his last steamed carrot and placed his fork back on his plate. "I suppose…"

The conversation, as unmotivated as it was, dwindled into silence after that.

Harry retreated to his shared room, frustrated and tired in equal amounts.

He shouldn't expect to have solved the case in under twenty-four hours, that was an arrogance hardly anyone dealing in spirits could plausibly boast. But to not have any real leads by the second day with constant spiritual activity was hard to swallow, especially so soon after the contradicting mess that was the old schoolhouse case.

"Cheer up, Harry. We've only just started." John urged half an hour later, looping the last button of his flannel pajamas together on his way into their bedroom.

"I know." Harry sighed and rolled onto his side to face the other. "It's just- they're right there."

He could feel all three spirits, frustratingly static and right out of reach. There were right outside his grasp, a hair's breadth from providing a location. The three spirits might as well be laughing at him

"Well, at least we can rule out arson." John pointed out, sitting a polite distance away on the other side of the bed.

"Do you think so?" Truthfully, Harry had stopped suspecting them as soon as he saw how hard Suguro worked on repairs. There was no way the hosts could get even half of what they put into the bed and breakfast if they burned it down for insurance fraud.

"You felt the spirits set that last fire, right? So now we know without a doubt it was them."

He had a point, it wasn't like they weren't making any progress. Maybe Harry was just being impatient.

"Sorry, I'm just being moody. You're right. " He murmured, scooting over to provide the priest with more room. They were using different blankets, but the bed wasn't so large that they could ignore each other's presence.

John accepted the extra space and laid down beside him. It was a little awkward if Harry was being honest, but he'd been in a dorm before and this wasn't so different. "Ah, thank you. You don't need to apologize, I just think you're being a little hard on yourself."

Harry hummed non-committedly and shifted to reach for the lamp. "You want the lights out?"

"Oh, yes please. I'm going to read for a little bit, but I brought a reading light. I hope you don't mind."

Harry turned to peek at John, spying a wrinkled letter and a small plastic light. "Is it another client?" He wondered.

John's cheeks pinked. "O-oh, no. It's my family. Long-distance calls can get a little expensive, so my parents write more often."

Harry wondered what John's parents were like for a moment. Where they proud or ashamed that their son went to college to become an exorcist? Did they tell people what he does when they ask? Do they know about every single case he'd been on.

The closest he came to understanding what writing to parents might be like was through Ron and Hermione, and he hardly ever talked about his cases. They were usually updates on how he was and asking after Teddy, which suited him fine.

But Harry had pried enough, so instead of asking any of his questions he turned the light off and rolled away from the priest. "Then I'll leave you alone, good night."

John wiggled around a bit to get comfortable, and with a faint click, their shadows stretched across to the wall. "Good night."

Harry shut his eyes and slept.

Harry had an uneasy rest, constantly disturbed by every shift and twist John made. Even the click of him turning off the light pulled Harry directly from a vague dream and back into reality without a lick of drowsiness. So when John went up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, Harry was wide awake again and growing less and less tolerant of the priest's antics with each passing minute.

He didn't bother trying to go back to sleep, instead waiting with his eyes closed for John to return. He didn't have to wait long.

John came skidding back in, breaths a little quick and steps a little loud. Harry opened his eyes to find him staring down at Harry with wild eyes and a manic grin.

"I think I figured it out." He barely whispered, face flushing with excitement.

Harry pulled himself up and blinked at John. "Figured what out?" He asked confusedly.

"The ghosts! I think I figured it out!" John danced away nodding toward the still lit hallway. "Come look!"

With a sigh, Harry shuffled out of bed, biting back a shiver as his bed-warmed feet touched the cold, wooden floors. He followed the still grinning John out into the hallway where he stopped right in front of the burnt wall.

"It's the dumbwaiter!" John declared, pointing a finger rather dramatically at the locked panel on the wall.

Harry was just getting more confused. "Yeah...it is." He agreed slowly.

John shook his head, pointing again. "I was thinking about the fires on my way back and saw the dumbwaiter and figured it out! The fires start in the dumbwaiter!"

Harry sucked in a breath, eyes wide. John continued triumphantly, clearly pleased by his reaction. "A fire has appeared on every level of this bed and breakfast, but they all have one thing in common- they all start on the same wall as the dumbwaiter. It makes perfect sense! It was traveling inside the wall, that's why nothing we moved touched the spirit! They're inside the wall!"

Harry felt as though he were struck by lightning. It did make sense, it was the only correlation between locations. How could they all have missed it for so long...No wonder his glyphs could barely find the spirits, they were literally just out of reach! And- Harry felt his own smile stretch across his face.

"And who's to say it's three spirits? There could just be one, but stretched across the entire dumbwaiter. All three spirits were almost too weak to display activity, but if it's one combined…"

John nodded frantically, his hair a ridiculous mass of yellow curls that bobbed with every movement. "That spirit would have plenty of energy to light fires whenever it pleased! But why would it be so tall? Is the dumbwaiter the cursed object?"

Harry frowned and thought about it, drowsiness flushed so far from his mind he practically felt hyper. Why would a spirit be stretched across three levels of a house? He doubted a dumbwaiter shaft could be cursed or haunted, it was mostly a device for servants and was hardly used by the nobility who owned them.

Unless...unless the ghost was Yoshimi Hata, who was discovered by a servant after some sort of accident…

Harry was already heading for the basement door before he realized what he was doing, heart thudding and mind racing. John wasn't far behind, having apparently guessed what he intended to do.

The only dumbwaiter that was open was the one in the basement, the one Hiruma pried open. The one that released a blast of fire so violent it sent Suguro to the hospital.

It all made sense now.

Harry barely remembered to turn on the light before he was face to face with the panel to the dumbwaiter, scratched and dented from being opened without a key.

It was a medium size, big enough for a lunch spread to be safely transported but not a human. It was made of the same musty wood as the rest of the house, save for the hinges and lock. But it seemed so menacing now, like the gateway to a black hole.

"What do you think is inside?" John whispered, shifting from foot to foot with his rosary clutching tight.

"Hiruma said Yoshimi Hata was the daughter and she died in an accident in this house." Harry reached out and grasped the knob of the dumbwaiter, fingers tingling.

"I think Yoshimi Hata is still inside."

Screwing up his courage, Harry swung the door open, flinching when it cracked against the wall but he kept his eyes open, straining to see anything. Both Harry and John stared inside the shadows of the dumbwaiter, but there was nothing. Just a rusty chain that might have been a lever and cobwebs. This is what Hiruma found.

Harry pulled in a deep breath, heart in his throat as he stepped closer and closer, until his chest bumped against the edge of the dumbwaiter. John squirmed behind him, quick prayers falling from his mouth like breaths.

Harry stuck his head inside the dumbwaiter shaft, holding his breath. Nothing happened, not a shift or creak of the entire house.

Everything was still, so he looked up.

The shaft of the dumbwaiter was pitch black, only a sliver of light from the first floor hallway leaking through from the dumbwaiter panel on that floor to help beat back the absolute darkness. Harry waited for his eyes to adjust, and began to his search.

Some parts were harder to distinguish than others, was that a radius or was that a piece of rotting wood? Were those thick cobwebs or decomposing hair? Was this a forgotten tea towel or shredded lace from a dress?

But what was staring at him from the tangled mess of chains could only be a decades old skull. The bone wasn't bleached white yet, but the eyeless sockets were unmistakable. The gaping jaw was skinless, but still hanging by the last strands of muscles and fats to the rest of the skull to make for an eternal silent scream.

"Yoshimi." Harry whispered, eyes traveling past the skull to spy an undeniable femur bone jammed further up the shaft. She really was stretched across all three levels of the manor.

"W-what? You found her?" John squeaked.

Harry opened his mouth to respond, only to notice precious seconds too late that it was oddly warm inside the shaft.

A blinding explosion of bright, bright fire slammed directly into Harry, tossing him like a ragdoll with fiery, searing heat. Harry smacked against something and landed hard on the ground, his ears were ringing and his skin was burning and he hurt.

And then, in the same rapid fashion, all of it fell away like gravity, then he wasn't anything at all.

"Get out! Getoutgetoutgeoutgetoutgetout! Go!" The inhuman shriek was piercing, laced with malice and ferocity.

Harry opened his eyes to find a hideous, twisted creature not inches from his face.

Harry scrambled away, dodging a sharp-nailed swipe of a wrinkled hand.

"You're not welcome! Get out! This is my house and you aren't welcome! Getoutgetoutgetoutgetout! You're in my house!"

The creature was contorted and disfigured, with thin, ragged hair and emaciated grey features. It might have been wearing something expensive, but the dress was stained and torn to rags. The only spot of color on the thing before him was the fire licking at every pore like a hellish halo.

"Y-you're Yoshimi Hata." Harry stammered, dodging a scrambling lunge as the creature howled wordlessly in rage.

"You h-hate wizards?"

"Unnatural, evil, demonic, abominations!" Yoshimi screamed. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! This is my house now! You're not welcome anymore!"

Harry blinked. He had expected Yoshimi to correct him, tell him it was halfbloods or mudbloods she hated. She was most likely a squib, but shouldn't she have made an exception for her own parents?

"A-all wizards? W-what about the Hatas?"

He barely ducked a vicious punch, rolling away from the frothing...spirit? Why was he wrestling with a ghost again? Where was he for that matter?

"Mother and Father can burn in hell for eternity, where demons belong!" Yoshimi spat, absolute hatred in her filmy eyes. "Were so sure that demons were superior that they never thought their disgusting disappointing squib mistake could ever put them back."

Harry shuddered, backing away from the disfigured creature. "'Put them back?' In hell, you mean? You killed them?"

"I'll kill you too." She swore savagely. "I'll kill you all! You aren't allowed in my house! Not ever!"

"Wait, I'm here to help you!" Harry yelped, blocking a wild punch and kicking Yoshimi away. "Don't you want to be put to rest? Give your body the resp-shit!"

She almost landed her pounce, glancing off his shoulder at the last second and sending him skidding away. He wasted no time leaping to his feet and jogging to increase the distance.

"Help?" She snarled. "Help get rid of the embarrassment? Help put me out of my misery? It's too late now! I'm the Hata heir! I'm in charge! This is my house! And in my house demons die!"

Harry watched in horror as Yoshimi raised a wrinkled, clawed hand and let flame climb up her skin and settle on her palm.

"Die-" "-Harry!"

"Harry!"

Harry jolted upright, eyes burning and lungs tight. He coughed harshly, blinking to clear his eyes of tears. The basement was hazy and crackling with fire. All of Izuhara's old things were fueling a huge blaze. A burning mass of red flame that was so hot he could feel it against his skin.

"Harry! Can you hear me?" John's face ducked into view, smudged with soot and trembling with fear.

"I know it hurts but I need you to pay attention." John begged, and the raw panic in his voice steeled Harry's insides.

He shook his head, hoping to clear the haze, and pulled himself into a slumped sitting position. His whole body throbbed and his burnt hand was searing agony right into his core. Glancing down, he grimaced.

His rune had done its job and protected him from the brunt of the blast, but it hadn't protected what he was wearing and that included the gauze bandages on his hand and arms. It was fairly obvious that for several moments he had literally been on fire, and there was only so much a triad runebind could do.

His bandages were ash and in their place were reopened burn wounds and oozing blisters. There were swipes of new pink burns under his hole-ridden sleep shirt too, he could see them. He didn't lift it up to inspect for more burns though, the slick, sickening way parts of his shirt stuck pressed against his skin told him it would be a bad idea.

"Harry, please!" John coughed raggedly, giving him a jolting shake. "We don't have time, we're trapped in here!"

Harry frowned, peering under John's head to survey the fire. It reached from one end of the room to the other, effectively cutting the basement in half with flames too high and bright to jump through or over. And they were on the opposite side of the exit.

So this is what happened when an unwelcome wizard stayed in the bed and breakfast after the first fire.

"T-trapped." He agreed hoarsely. Fear trickling into his stunned system. He left his runic material in his bedroom and the floor was cement, so there was no way he could make a ring of fire repellant glyphs to pull John into. His wand was still under his pillow as well, so he couldn't douse the flames like he had before.

"Help!" John shouted loudly, his voice sounded raspy and painful. "Misao! Jou! We're trapped! Fire!"

Harry doubted they would hear him if they hadn't heard the deafening roar of the fire yet, and even if they did hear the fire, there's no way they could hear voices over it. No one knew where they were, it was the middle of the night, and they were on their own.

"Jo-ohn, you're wasting your breath." Harry chided, watching in concern as John sucked in several wheezy breaths of air after shouting.

The oxygen was dropping fast in the basement, and every inch of space was choked with ash and smoke.

"What else can we d-do!" John cried, dragging the both of them further away from the fire. He must've been doing that while Harry had been unconscious, he didn't even seem to register that Harry could limp away too now. It also didn't escape him that they were rapidly running out of room to retreat.

Harry blinked, his head was pounding and he wasn't sure if it had been hurting this entire time and he just hadn't noticed over his other hurts, or if it started right that instance. He felt fuzzy and weak, but he couldn't abandon John like this. John was hurting and scared. Harry needed to help.

"Harry? Harry, stay awake! You have to stay awake" John shook him again, until Harry lifted his eyes and stared up at red-ringed blue.

"John." He coughed, using his good hand to wrap around the priest and tug him flush against his chest.

"Wha- Harry? No! We can't give up! Let go! We can still make it!" John protested, struggling to get out of his grip.

Harry grit his teeth against the pain of glancing blows to his scattered burns and wrapped his other arm around too, hand carefully unclenched.

"John, close your eyes." He hissed, head swimming but heart steady. Harry knew what he had to do.

"Harry no. Let me try a little longer, we still have time! Misao! Someone, anybody! Hel-!" Harry pressed his unburnt palm against the priest's mouth and sucked in a breath of strength. He needed to stay awake for this.

"Hold y-your breath and count to three." He instructed, crushing John against him to keep him from wiggling out of reach.

"One, two...three."

And he apparated with a muggle.

As soon as Harry landed, he gathered himself up on shivery, sore limbs and stumbled to his bed. John was sucking in air desperately, coughing and gagging and panting all at once and sounding completely miserable.

"You're fine, John. Breathe." Harry rasped between his own coughs. He couldn't care for John right then, so he would have to hope the priest calmed down on his own.

In the meantime, Harry grabbed his wand and limped out the door and to the locked dumbwaiter panel.

He pointed the wand at the lock. "Reducto!" With a flash of red light a little too similar to Yoshimi's fiery explosion, the panel burst to pieces, shattering to the ground.

Harry conjured a large tub and filled it with water while smoke from the basement began to rise from the newly accessible dumbwaiter shaft. Once it was filled, he turned his wand back to the opening and let himself cough for a few moments before sucking in enough fresh oxygen to rid himself of spotty vision.

"Accio Yoshimi Hata's remains!" He cried, and bits of hair, dust, and bone flew from the dumbwaiter and into the tub of water. It took a while for all the tiniest of particles and wedged bones to come loose and all that was left was the skull tangled up in chains.

It must've been caught tight because he had to wait several minutes before the sound of metal shrieking came from the shaft and a burning skull wrapped in quickly warping steel flew toward him like a demonic fury.

He flung the skull into the tub as well, and the fire was doused, sending bubbles of boiling hot water to the surface.

Harry sagged against the wall and pointed his wand one last time to the shaft. "Aguamenti!" And he waited for almost a full minute before canceling the spell, hopefully soaking everything in the basement until not a single spark could remain.

Finally finished, Harry barely remembered to pocket his wand before toddling back over to John, who had thrown up and was now lying huddled on the ground.

Worry thumped hard against Harry's chest, and he fell onto his knees to get a better look at his friend.

"John?" He asked softly, pushing sweat-soaked locks out of the priest's face. "Are you okay?"

John opened his eyes to stare blankly at Harry, breath a deep wheeze in his chest. "I-I don't know- I…" He sounded so lost and confused, Harry would've sighed if he didn't think it would send him into another coughing fit.

"I know." He comforted a little uncertainly, rubbing John's back to assist his breathing. "It's fine, we're both okay. I'll explain everything to you." He promised, hoping to wipe away the fear still in his eyes.

"But first, do you want to bless Yoshimi's remains? I've gathered them up and once you do, I d-don't think she'll be able to hurt anyone ever again."

John followed his gaze, eyes a little clearer, to rest on the boiling tub of water in the center of the hallway. He chewed on his lip and pressed a shaking hand against his rosary.

"H-how? We were...we were in the basement-" He began, but Harry shushed him.

"I know, you're right. But we'll deal with that later. I don't know if Yoshimi can get the water hot enough to make it turn to steam or simply melt out of the tub, so we have to be quick."

John blinked a little listlessly, but thankfully trusted Harry enough to follow his no doubt bizarre instructions.

He climbed to his feet with all the grace of a newborn deer, and Harry led him to the rim of the tub, carefully having him sit so he didn't accidentally fall in. Then Harry joined him, because standing was getting harder and harder to do.

John whispered his prayer in a painfully raw voice, filled with coughing stutters and breathless gasps, but when he placed his rosary in the water and onto Yoshimi's skull, it burnt a black mark into the yellow bone and the water abruptly stopped boiling.

John did it, he exorcised the spirit. The bed and breakfast was free of Yoshimi Hata's ghost.

The air actually felt a little lighter, and a quick check on his two surviving glyphs told him the 'three' spirits were gone as well. She had finally moved on and away from what sounded like a life hellish enough to fit her favoured attack.

Harry let all his breath out in a whoosh and dearly paid for it when he couldn't beat back an aching, vicious coughing fit. He ended up sinking to the floor, gasping like a fish and desperate to keep awake.

John was too tired to anything except rub his chest like Harry had with his back, and eventually the hacking tapered off into silence.

"What happened?" John asked finally, shifting to stare at Harry in total confusion. "D-did I black out?"

Harry shook his head, almost a little glad he was so beaten and exhausted. It was hard to feel stressed when he'd already been attacked by a vengeful squib's spirit and locked in a burning basement. The smoke in his head made it hard to focus on the consequences of his actions right then, and he appreciated it.

"You didn't black out, I apparated us out of t-the basement." He said bluntly.
"Apparate?" John echoed.

"It's like teleportation. I willed u-us into our bedroom, it's something I can do."

"Oh." John said, sounding as though Harry had whacked him over the head with a frying pan. "I-I had no idea Runemasters can do that."

Harry gave a weak chuckle and pulled his wand from his pocket. "Not Runemasters, wizards. People born with magical powers, I'm both those things." He gave a halfhearted wave and let his wand light with glittering sparkles.

John stared, mouth hanging open at the sparkling wand. But there still wasn't a connection being made, Harry could see it in his distant eyes. "I-I don't understand."

"You're not supposed to, it's supposed to be a secret." Harry explained. "It's sort of like psychic abilities. People are born with them, it's a power. But it's...not psychic." God, he was so tired.

"Not like witchcraft, surely."

Harry shook his head, shutting his eyes against the wave of vertigo he gave himself. "Nothing like the biblical sense. J-just a power that we're not allowed to tell people about, plenty are Christians actually."

"I...see...How odd." John still sounded dazed, but Harry had yet to find anything but shock and exhaustion, it was confusing.

Harry peeked an eye open and studied John's slack expression. The priest looked just as tired as Harry felt. "Why aren't you freaking out?" He couldn't help asking.

"I'm...too tired." John sighed, slumping to the floor next to Harry as though his spine had turned to jelly. "We should probably be calling an ambulance."

"But besides that," He continued. "I'm an exorcist, it's my job to explore things rarely discussed in the Holy Bible. I just saw the remains of an old woman try to set me on fire- send you into a table. I'm...a little too shaken already."

Harry gave a gravelly hum, patting the priest's shoulder with his good hand before letting it flop somewhere between them.

"I like you, John." He murmured tiredly. Later he might freak out about this, but for now he'd bask in how kind and accepting John was. How many priests would be nearly this calm about magic, even while debilitated? Quite a few would've probably tried to drown him in the tub by now if Vernon's warnings held any weight.

"Heh, I like you too." John huffed easily.

"Though we will be discussing this later."

Before Harry could reply, John raised a leg and gave Suguro and Hiruma's door a shattering kick.

"Call an ambulance." He called softly, giving another loud kick before dropping his leg and shutting his eyes with a groan.

Hiruma threw open the door, sleepy and tousled still. It was hard to fight back a wave of resentment. They hadn't heard a thing while sleeping directly on top of the basement. If nothing else, they better install fire alarms before guests arrive again. Their heavy sleeping was frankly unsafe.

"Oh my God!" Hiruma screeched upon laying eyes on Harry and John strewn across the hallway and a tub of water holding the gruesome remains of a former homeowner. She turned as white as a sheet and ran back into her room to give Suguro what might've been a wake-up kick of her own before snatching her cell phone and running back outside.

"Hold on you two, I'm calling an ambulance! Please be- is that a body? What happened? Oh my God, oh my God." Hiruma cried, hopping back and forth like she wished she could sprout wings and fly away. Harry was too tired to calm her down and it seemed John was too, both of them remained quiet.

Suguro plucked the phone from her hand and explained Harry and John's state to the dispatcher in a slow, steady voice. He wasn't unaffected, though, his eyes were transfixed on the tub and he was steadily turning green as time went on.

"I-is that...r-real?" Hiruma stammered fearfully, turned to face away from the tub.

"That is Yoshimi Hata." John confirmed, drawing a horrified squeak from Hiruma.

"She fell down the dumbwaiter and Izuhara decided to was too much of a h-hassle to open up the walls for her remains. She was just sealed off." Harry croaked, shutting his eyes again.

"I-is she...still here?" Hiruma demanded shrilly, while Suguro hung up.

"An ambulance will be here in ten minutes. How are you guys? Nothing bleeding out or anything right?" Suguro asked quietly, terror a subtle note in his voice.

"I-I'm fine. I don't want to move until I have to." John moaned. "Harry?"

"M'good."

"And Yoshimi is no longer haunting this place, Misao. Iexorcised her remains directly. It was a success." John breathed and Harry didn't hear the rest, he finally passed out and into the much kinder arms of Morpheus.

So how was that reveal? Not gonna lie, I'm honestly pretty proud of myself for making this case from scratch. A lot of people guessed, and a lot of people came pretty close in the reviews (I think tigergirl1723 was almost completely spot on)! So did I catch anyone off guard?

And that was what was up with John! He was just super uncomfortable that one of his friends obviously isn't coping too well with 'the trauma'. Don't know if his little heart-to-heart was the best way to go...but I knew if John was ever going to have a serious discussion with someone, it would sound pretty sappy and uncomfortably sincere. He's just too sweet.

And of course he'd notice. Harry's not as sly as he thinks and John's a lot more sensitive than, say, Mai. (To people being troubled, not spiritually or anything. Mai's the scent hound of the group on that front.)

Sorry, this note is all over the place. I'm tired.

You all knew I was gonna reveal the yer-a-wizard-Harry bomb on John sooner or later, but I'm surprised at how many people thought he'd be in the know. Idk, maybe it's a vibe you all picked up, but I didn't get it. That's not to say there aren't other people who are in the know…

I know that particular reveal might've come off as flat, so hear me out. John is a Catholic priest who works with a priestess and a monk regularly, compliments their pagan rituals, and battled a literal pagan god in the last case of the anime. Lin has spirit animal demon servants! John doesn't say a word about it.

So I consider him an extremely chill Catholic who is very open minded. Magic exists? There'll be a freak out (and there's a freak out in the midst), but it's not gonna be a bible-thumping tantrum or right in the middle of an emergency like a basement burning fire-ghost. And no matter what, he's certainly not gonna ditch his bro who just saved his life again, even if things go badly.

Anyways that's it for now! Thank you so much for being awesome readers and I really appreciate all the wonderful reviews I've received!

I seriously read every single one, they're a major inspiration for writing more.

Hopefully I finish this case sooner than I'm estimating right now...pray for my free time.