"Whoa." Danny said, removing his hand from the smooth exterior of the Fenton thermos to put his hands up in a quelling gesture. "You really don't need to do that. In fact, I would really appreciate it if you didn't. And if you tell me what the hell this-" Danny gestured at the elegant bows and curtseys the ghosts before him were frozen in, staring at him with an odd kind of shock"-is all about. I thought this world had no contact with the Realms?"
Looking somewhat wrong-footed, it was the Nearly Headless Gryffindor ghost who answered, head swinging slightly as he lifted from his elegant bow. "Not quite, sir. You see, we received a letter and message through one of our own from an Ancient of the realms last Samhain. A letter addressed to a Sir Daniel William Fenton-Phantom, Prince of the Infinite Realms. Lord Clockwork then told us you were no threat, and that you would be in our humble world at the behest of the Senate themselves. It was quite a shock to learn you are... alive."
Danny froze. That ripple in time when we entered the courtroom! Clockwork was stacking the odds for me! He knew he couldn't alter the path of time once the quest was established, and any noticeable changes to time-space close to my arrival would be immediately noticeable to whoever they had arrange my cover here. That was more than half a year before I arrived, and Clockwork even ensured that no information pertaining to myself outside of the letter name was released. By including the titles, he further tied the identity more closely to me specifically and prevented any connection to anyone holding a similar name. Only the weak shades of Hogwarts knew of me, and they're too weak to be noticed by a member of the Senate. Clockwork is a genius.
Even though he was well aware his mentor was near all-knowing and incredibly intelligent, it was this trait of his that Danny envied most- being able to plan ahead. Clockwork had what Danny lacked in spades.
"That's… me." Danny said, weakly. "But you don't seem to understand what that means. I'm not the Prince, but just one of the possible candidates for the throne. Last I heard, there are about twelve others somewhere. And I want absolutely nothing to do with the crown. So, no bowing. No scraping. No "your highness" nonsense. Just call me Danny, or Phantom. Um, please."
"If you say so, Sir Phantom." Sir Nicholas said uncertainly, casting a glance at his fellow ghosts as his head wobbled on its ruffled frills. "And your knighthood?"
"That's real." Danny said, reading the offence in the former knight's expression. "I'd prefer it if you didn't call me 'sir', but I have been knighted by a queen. And a ghostly queen. And then again by the same queen, but as a ghost the second time? It's a complicated mess."
Mutters broke out in the small crowd of about twenty ghosts, their pale silvery bodies drifting like fog.
"-a Prince, a true Prince!"
"-seeks anonymity for his quest, perhaps-"
"-simply scandalous, to disrespect a knight by not calling him by his proper due titles!"
"-Lord Clockwork-"
"-breathing, he's alive all right-"
"-as sure as a crup in a farmhouse! He's truly very young for such high achievements-"
"-guide-"
"-the warped gate?"
"-passage-"
Danny, whose internal clock was telling him he had two minutes to make his way to his next class, was getting more than a little irritated. "The letter? You said something about a letter?"
The muttering ceased. Cue shuffling around like embarrassed children. A ghost wearing a simple robe floated forward, his intricately braided hair rustling in the phantom breeze only the dead could feel.
"Sir Phantom-" Danny's eyebrow twitched up, but the ghost refused to acknowledge the silent reproach "- the ghost who holds the letter is.. not amongst us at this time. We will locate him soon, rest assured, and your letter will be delivered to you post haste!"
"You lost my letter?" Danny asked rhetorically, pinching the brow of his nose. "The one given to you to bring to me from the Master of Time? The one which may hold information that will help me save your world?"
"That is correct, Sir Phantom." The unnamed ghost said with a contrite expression, looking all the world like an embarrassed child.
Danny sighed. Long, deep, and low. "Just let me know when you can get it, alright? And as for your obvious inability to follow my naming rights -" a few ghosts flinched at the realisation that they had indeed ignored a direct self-introduction and called him by a name he didn't like, a serious no-no in ghost etiquette, "- I suppose we'll need a cover story. Well, the best lie is a half truth. If asked, you tell people you call me 'sir' because I've been knighted by a ghost, for helping the ghost community with issues in the past while working with my parents. You don't bring up Pariah Dark in front of the others, you don't bring up the Senate, and you sure as hell don't call me 'Prince Phantom' or any variation of that royal nonsense. Got it?"
That speech was a bit more direct and forceful than Danny's usual banter, but he only had a minute to get to his next class and he really didn't want to know how detention works in a school like this one.
"As you wish, Sir Phantom. We'll let you know, herm, discretely when your letter can be delivered. Do watch out for Peeves, he doesn't know about the Senate. He's a poltergeist, you see, and he lacks the instinctual knowledge of the Realms natural ghosts are formed with. Not that he would respect any of the laws, in any way." Another unnamed ghost spoke up, her perfectly coiffed curls drifting in the silver glow of her ghostly form.
"Thank you. I'll keep that in mind. I really have to go, but it was nice to meet you all!" Danny said, grabbing his bag and making a quick exit. As the heavy door swung shut behind him, his enhanced hearing picked up Binn's voice amongst the chattering dead with odd accuracy.
"The Thirteenth Prince, thrice knighted, just as the legends claim."
Damn. That sounds like Clockwork's favourite prank on humanity was about to extend to Danny as well. Danny hates cleaning up prophecy messes, and the paradoxes Clockwork makes for fun are always the worst to ensure a smooth timeline for. Sometimes it took centuries for the ripples in space-time to smooth out from the distortions. And yet the madman loves self-fulfilling prophecies with a passion.
He's probably laughing up a storm in Long Now right now. Danny thought bitterly, running through the halls and ignoring the protests from the portraits as he sped past at a barely-human speed. He's making me clean up messes even here, when I'm doing another job! The sheer audacity! The indignity! The… what's that word again? The GALL!
Danny stood in front of the Basics Academics classroom with less than five seconds to spare. Stupid shades losing my stupid letter. Stupid paradoxes. Stupid Clockwork. Stupid quest.
"Mr. Fenton-Phantom, so glad you could join us." The humorous tone of Professor Sprout drifted from the front of the room, as Danny made his way in the door just before the clock tower rang. "Do you have a reason for almost being tardy?"
"This is a big castle." Danny said, flopping into his seat. "A really, really big castle."
"I suppose that's a good enough answer." Professor Sprout laughed, and a few chuckles echoed across the room in response. "Wands away, children. This isn't a spellwork class, you already know that! Now, turn to page 17 in your grammar workbook and follow along as I describe the correct use of an apostrophe. Can anyone tell me the only four times an apostrophe should be used?"
Every Ravenclaw hand shot into the air. Danny also raised his tentatively, as this was a major pet peeve of Sam's, he knew the rules regarding apostrophes by heart after a few good long rants. Sam had a lot of things she tended to rant about, and Danny loved that, because it was a sign of just how passionate she is about the things she cares about.
I miss her so much, Danny thought, core prickling in slight discomfort. His heart ached, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it save finish his quest.
"Mr. Fenton-Phantom?" Professor Sprout asked, seeming surprised he had raised his hand at all. Danny had been rather irritated the first day when it became clear this class was mandatory, boring, and covered only what most students learned in elementary school.
"An apostrophe should only be used in contractions, to show ownership when not using pronouns, the omission of numbers, or to make symbols, letters, or numbers plural. They can only be used when symbols, letters, or numbers are being made plural. No other time should an apostrophe be used to make a word plural." Danny recited, feeling like a goddamn idiot for having to answer such a simple question at his age. It was like sitting in a kindergarten classroom, for Clockwork's sake!
"Five points to Hufflepuff." Professor Sprout smiled, her enchanted chalk listing the four rules on the board. The points smarted the already deep wounds on Danny's pride, it was like getting a sticker for knowing what two plus two was. "Can anyone give me an example of one of these four rules in action?"
The Ravenclaws, again, literally reached for the sky.
"Ms. Chambers?" Professor Sprout called to, and a Ravenclaw girl made her way to the board and wrote " Jacob's lyre has four strings. Cyrus's lyre has five. Alexis' violin has a missing string ." next to the second item on the list, showing ownership.
"Excellent. Five points to Ravenclaw." Professor Spout proclaimed, and the Chambers made her way back to her seat with an amicable nod towards the professor. "Anyone else?"
Neville answered the first bullet point, contractions, with " Don't, won't, shouldn't, shan't ."
Lisa Turpin answered the third, omitting numbers with " In the 1800s, a magical beast that could speak fluent French was hunted to extinction. This was the last French Bull until the '60s of this century when one was located in Wales ."
Anthony Goldstien answered the final bullet point, with " 1's, 2's, 3's = CORRECT; wish's, her's, flower's = WRONG " in angry block letters. It certainly got the point across.
Danny was feeling like he'd rather take another spin in one of Technus' ghostly washing machines of doom than live through this elementary age hell for an entire year.
"Excellent, class!" Professor Sprout clapped, and a sigh of relief echoed from Danny and a few Ravenclaws to his left. "Now turn your maths workbooks to page 23, and we'll begin working on adding and subtracting fractions."
Oh, what a time to be alive. Danny thought, At least with Calculus, I was too busy stressing out to hate breathing. Or thinking. Or being conscious.
I'm going to die of boredom.
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Horcruxes, Dementors, and Ghosts- Immortality's Failures
By Unspeakable Derelicht
A ghost's core is an inherently fourth-dimensional object, and an extraordinarily complex one at that. It is to energy as gas is to water. That is to say, it is another state of energy, similar yet totally alien in his mechanisms. From what little observation could be done, a ghost's core appears to be a physical representation of a soul. It is theorised, yet not proven, that all souls are fourth-dimensional objects and a ghost's unique biology allows for it to be physically present on a third-dimensional plane through mechanisms not yet understood with our current knowledge.
The core acts as a power generating, storing, and memory holding organ that can contain far more information far more efficiently than even the mind of the greatest living wizard. A ghost's core is a secondary memory unit for the sole purpose of surviving the infinity, a common problem for wizards in their old age alleviated by the near-infinite capacity of these round objects within the ghostly form. The truest challenge for real immortality is that of degradation, entropy, and decay. The core of a ghost is immune to all those factors, and as such are incredible in every imaginable form.
Unfortunately, a ghost does not survive long without the core and every test subject destabilised before extensive observation could determine the exact nature of these organs. More time will be needed to uncover their secrets.
Ghosts, like all sentient beings, have a base set of knowledge and information that comes from two sources: living memories and instinctual knowledge. A ghost retains nearly all of their memories of life, starting from a much younger age than most living wizards can recall. A ghost instinctively knows they are dead, and that there will be no rest for them for several centuries a least. A ghost will instinctively have knowledge of a place known amongst them as "the realms", which they are unable to articulate fully to those who don't share their knowledge as their knowledge of this place is incomplete. This had to be persuaded rather forcefully from the ghost in question, as the information seems to be a closely guarded secret amongst the dead.
There is no further information available on "the realms" that the ghost spoke of. More time will be needed for this mystery to unravel.
Forced attempts to create a core using fresh black ectoplasm, unenergized green ectoplasm, and fresh silver ectoplasm have all failed. All attempts to place a core within a living wizard have failed. Any attempt to remove the core from a ghost leads to near-immediate destabilisation. Attempting to break a core-
Danny closed the book with a sharp snap, tucking it away. He felt sick. His core roiled in protest. His stomach joined it, his guts twisting in dreadful knots. This is the record of a mad scientist, not the notes on other people's experiments. The author has done the things he writes about, and he used "fresh black ectoplasm", the kind formed by broken souls under immense pain, to attempt to create a core. Attempting to break a core-
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Danny cut off that line of thought, feeling sick.
This entire world is terrible. No wonder the Senate thought it needed intervention.
"You alright, Danny?" Neville asked, from where they sat in the library. Harry and Ron were frowning over a chessboard, Hermione was observing the differences between Danny and Neville's note taking styles with her own, and Callisto was in his pocket. And squirming, at the sudden chill he must feel in there.
"Yeah, Neville. Don't much like the author, but my mentor gave it to me so I have to finish it. Sorry, Callisto. There you go." Danny said, carefully removing the potoo from his inner pocket, who shook out his ruffled feathers and let out a gentle "Mwaa" of acceptance.
"What kind of book?" Neville asked, head tilted slightly. "It's not something dangerous, is it?"
"Nope, absolutely not." Danny said with a rueful smile. "Just boring. Hey, isn't it time for… you know?"
Neville checked his pocket watch, and nodded faintly. "It is."
"Do you remember the way?" Danny asked, standing and placing his silly little bird onto his shoulder. Callisto promptly snuggled under his ear, content to ride along. Potoos spent quite a bit of time sitting in one place pretending to be bark in the wild, and Callisto was a real lazy bird at least partially because of that. Danny didn't mind, he had super strength after all, the hollow bones of his feathered friend were no burden to him. If Callisto wanted to be carried all day, Danny would carry him.
"I think so." Neville replied, taking them down a dark hallway with dusty portraits.
At the end of the dusty hall, on the second floor, there stood a large portrait of a woman. The woman had a shiny, round, bald head and her warty nose had warts growing on her warts. She was dressed in a voluminous ball gown, a delicate diamond necklace glinting in the painted light of the ballroom she twirled in. Noticing she had company, she stopped twirling to give the two boys a patient look.
"Why hello there." Grimshelda the Bald asked, "Are you two lost?"
"No, we're not." Danny said with a grin, and gave Neville a little nudge forward.
"We'd like a bushel of lemons, please." Neville spoke, voice polite. The bald witch's grin widened, becoming mischievous.
"And the password, little trouble makers you?" Grimshelda asked, twiddling her thumbs and jumping a little in excitement. "No purchase without a password! No passing without the passcode!"
"Harvest moon." Danny answered her with a grin, and she let out a giggle as the portrait opened. Inside, a stone hallway turned out of sight.
"Thank you!" Neville said, already on his way inside.
"Good luck, you little rapscallions! May Loki bless you!" Grimshelda's voice echoed, as the portrait swung shut behind the two Hufflepuffs. With Danny in the lead, they set off down the corridor.
"How long d'you think.." Neville began, trailing off as they turned the corner. There, in the flickering candlelight of the passage, sat Albus Dumbledore beside a little round tea table draped in pink silk and snow white lace. The Headmaster himself was dressed in a resplendent lilac robe, silver ribbon twisting down his sleeves and bows dotting his lapel.
"Have a seat, boys." Dumbledore said cheerily, conjuring up two more pink chairs to match the one Dumbledore himself was sitting in. "I even managed to bring a few biscuits and a pot of tea, if you'd like a cup."
Danny plopped into his chair, highly amused. Dumbledore was insane, but in the best of ways. "Thanks!"
Neville sat as well, looking rather like he thought he was dreaming. "Er, yes. Thank you."
"Lemon? Chocolate chip? Peanut butter?" Dumbledore asked, drawing attention to the plate of cookies on the table. Almost all the lemon pinwheels were gone, and the crumbs dotting the older wizard's beard left no work for the first year's imaginations as to where they had gone.
"Peanut butter cookies!" Danny exclaimed, grabbing two of the treats and giving them a subtle once-over by force of habit to ensure they wouldn't come to life.
"Cookie?" Neville asked, taking a chocolate chip cookie for himself with a quiet word of thanks to their Headmaster.
"Oh yeah, you British people call them biscuits. In America, we call them cookies." Danny said, taking a bite of the crumbly treat.
"Why on earth would you call them something like that?" Neville asked, looking at Danny like he had said something ridiculous.
Danny shrugged. "Why do you call french fries 'chips'?"
"Really?" Neville breathed, looking between Dumbledore and Danny as though Dumbledore would suddenly frown at Danny for pulling such an odd prank on Neville. Dumbledore did not.
"It's true." Dumbledore said amicably, helping himself to another lemon pinwheel cookie.
"So, Dumbledore, what's up with the dog?" Danny asked, ignoring the teapot as Neville tried offering him a cup. Danny was more of a coffee guy, a side effect of being attacked at all times of the day and night since he was fourteen.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Dumbledore lied glibly, not quite looking at Danny yet not looking away either.
"You know, the huge one in the death hallway." Danny said conversationally, and Neville choked on his tea. "With three heads."
"Oh, yes. That one." Dumbledore said, trying and failing to put a stern expression on his wizened face. "I have no idea how you know about Fluffy, but I've half a mind to give you a detention! That was very dangerous, Danny!"
Danny gestured at their current location with a raised eyebrow, and Dumbledore's pretence of being a responsible adult faded like morning dew in July.
"Touche." Dumbledore said, somewhat grumpily.
"No, no." Neville cut in, setting down his teacup and waving his hands in front of Danny as though to catch his attention. "Dumbledore has a point. How do you know about Flu-" Neville rounded on Dumbledore, forgetting his lingering shyness in sheer incredulity, "- you named a Cerberus Fluffy?!"
"Well-" Both Danny and Dumbledore began, before pausing to look at each other.
"You first." Stated both in time. They frowned.
"Then I'll go first." Said both of them again in tandem.
"Enough!" Neville said, exasperated. "Danny, you go first."
"Well, you made it pretty clear that anyone who gets close will die a horrible death right?" Danny said, rhetorically, but Dumbledore nodded anyway. "So, of course, I had to take a look. Make sure it was safe, contained, all that jazz. The twins were there too, luckily for them, I yanked them out by the backs of their robes just before your dog ate them."
"Ten points to Gryffindor." Dumbledore stated, leaning back in his chair.
"Danny's a Hufflepuff." Neville stated, gesturing at the yellow trim on Danny's robes.
"I must have been confused in my old age." Dumbledore said simply. "Likely because that was plenty stupid and reckless enough for my own House to hail you as a hero."
Danny let out a small, suspicious cough that sounded like " favouritism!"
Dumbledore ignored him graciously.
"Fluffy?" Neville asked again. Dumbledore nodded.
"He's Hagrid's, as a matter of fact. Do keep all of this to yourselves, of course. I fully expect no more investigation of the third floor corridor after this, however. What lies in that room and beyond are far too dangerous for children to meddle with. Minerva guilt-trips me enough as is that it's even in Hogwarts, and I shudder to think what she would do if any of the students were injured or worse as a result of the third floor corridor." Dumbledore said, eyes earnest and a little desperate. Danny and Neville, knowing McGonagall enough to fear and respect the woman, gave empathetic nods.
"So long as the danger does not cause us problems, I will cause it no problems. I'll let you know in advance though, I can't help myself when someone else is in danger. I'll meddle as much as it takes to make sure everyone stays safe." Danny said, giving the older wizard a challenging look. Dumbledore smiled.
"You truly are a Hufflepuff to the core, Danny." Dumbledore said, and Danny threw an offended look on his face in response.
"Why do you call him by his first name?" Neville asked, and Danny once again realised that yes, British people tend to use surnames until they were good enough friends.
"We're friends." Dumbledore said simply, but the way his hand drifted to his robe pocket told a different story.
"You're trying to bribe me with friendship!" Danny declared, pointing an accusing finger at the wizened hand from where it lay over a bulging pocket. "You're hoping that if you butter me up, I'll keep Callisto from eating your lemon drops!"
At the sound of his name, Callisto wormed his way out of Danny's breast pocket with a confused "mwaa?". Dumbledore eyed the bird distrustfully, clearly remembering the way the bird had eaten almost as much of them as Danny had. The difference between them was that Danny had been given them, whereas Callisto had dive-bombed the elderly wizard and stolen them right from his pocket.
"That bird of yours is a menace!" Dumbledore shot back, both hands over his precious lemon drop pocket.
"Mad." Neville said, shaking his head. "You're both barmy."
"He is a fine bird of good taste!" Danny shot back.
"MWAA!" Callisto added, unbalanced eyes focused on Dumbledore's easily recognizable appearance.
"Now that's music to our ears!" spoke a new voice behind Danny.
"Don't you just love the sound of chaos in the evening, dearest brother?" Danny twisted in his seat to see Fred and George leaning on each other's shoulders in what was clearly a practised pose.
"Fred! George!" Danny cried, giving them both a wide smile. "Are you ready to get down to business?"
Two feral grins met his own, and they sat on conjured pink chairs on Danny's sides with a chuckle. Neville was smiling, if a little nervous, but Dumbledore was bouncing a little in anticipation.
"Born ready." Fred said, pulling from his pocket a rolled piece of parchment. As it unrolled, Danny saw with wide eyes it was the combined schedules of every House by year, and every teacher in Hogwarts.
"How on earth did you acquire that?" Dumbledore asked, looking delighted.
"We have our ways." George said with a grin.
"Now, we're going to need a nice, catchy name if we want our reputations to stick. I'm thinking we keep our real identities a secret for a while, if only for Dumbledore's sake, and it's going to have to be classy and easily rememberable. Perhaps a pun, but not overdone. Alliteration is always appreciated, as they say, but at times is a hindrance…" Fred began, as George pulled out another roll of parchment with a list of possible group names and the reasons behind their choosing.
Danny thought with a private stab of guilt that perhaps this quest wasn't such a bad thing after all.