Danny phased up from the kitchens after having breakfast. He frowned invisibly at the excited chattering. There were a number of Daily Prophet copies and a few Quibbler magazines were visible throughout the students. Danny raised a questioning eyebrow to himself and floated carefully closer to the Ravenclaw table and found Luna perusing a Quibbler, having gotten a copy from her father, the editor. He peered over her shoulder but she was more interested in an article about strange creatures Danny had never heard of. Not hard since he was no magical creature expert but he knew of Luna's tendency to believe in make believe creatures like nargles.
Deciding to remain unseen, he moved on to the next student he spotted reading a Daily Prophet and scanned the page over the student's shoulder. It was an article telling that Harry Potter had been spotted in the Ministry of Magic, escaping capture. There was a further plea for any information on Harry's whereabouts as well as Hermione Granger who was seen with Harry. Danny drifted upwards and frowned in confusion. The article had a quote from Umbridge that Harry Potter robbed her, stealing a necklace from her and freed a number of suspected muggle-borns. Danny bit his lip. The necklace had to have been important for Harry to risk so much in going into the lions' den that was the Ministry. Danny blinked in realisation. One horcrux had been a ring, why not a necklace as another? It suddenly made perfect sense.
Danny glanced at Snape at the head table. The wizard was frowning as he sipped at a cup of coffee. McGonagall and a number of the other teachers gave the new headmaster and the Carrow siblings hateful glances. Danny wouldn't be able to speak to the wizard until later. But at least the wizarding world knew there was someone fighting. Harry, despite how random it looked, was still fighting. That would give everyone hope.
Unfortunately as the news spread and reached the Death Eater teachers, things didn't get better. In fact they got worse. Students caught talking about Harry or questioning Voldemort or Death Eaters in general were harshly punished. After a week, morale was low in the school. Danny took a couple of days to visit Amity Park and to check in with the Malfoys, the family had offered to keep Danny updated while he was underground for Voldemort.
It wasn't until two weeks later that McGonagall gave Danny a tip off to visit the coast to find a secluded place called Shell Cottage. The next day, Danny teleported to London and flew to the coast, finding the cottage after four hours of flying. He memorised the location before knocking on the door. Bill Weasley answered the door and grinned at Danny.
"Danny! Great! Haven't seen you in ages. How are you?" Bill greeted the halfa.
"I'm fine Bill. What about you and Fleur? This your house?" Danny replied with a smile.
"Sure is. Fleur's fine. She's in the kitchen. Want anything to eat or drink? I assume you do need to since I've seen you eating before," Bill commented and gestured for the teen to come inside.
"Yeah, I do," Danny chuckled.
"Danny! It is wonderful to see you are well," Fleur exclaimed and pulled the teen into a welcoming hug and kissed his cheek. Danny blinked dumbly before shaking off the part Veela's spell.
"Nice to see you as well," Danny eventually replied.
"We just wanted to tell you that this is a secret safe house for the order. Just in case you need it," Bill explained.
"Or if you need attention pulled away from here. Don't worry, I'll do my best. It's lovely here. Real peaceful," Danny retorted. Fleur beamed.
"That's what I thought when we bought it," she told him happily. Danny smirked.
"Did Minerva or Hagrid get word to you? About the taboo?" Danny asked. Fleur nodded.
"Yes. We heard," Fleur confirmed.
"Just wish we could get word to Harry. He's always called You Know Who by name," Bill muttered with concern. Danny sighed.
"I could try and send some ghosts but I'd be afraid to draw attention to them, you know," Danny informed them with a helpless shrug. Bill nodded in understanding.
"And seeing as I'm so close to old Voldy-shorts, it's probably best I don't know," Danny added.
"Voldy-shorts?" Bill repeated. Danny shrugged.
"I hate calling him You Know Who and so on. So I decided to have fun with the taboo," Danny confessed.
"Don't tell Fred or George that," Bill laughed. Danny grinned.
"But speaking of him, I should probably report back with something. Got anything you don't mind losing? I've been trying keep them happy with old news so far," Danny asked. Bill hummed softly in thought.
"Sorry Danny. We've got nothing. Order are keeping quiet. But I think I heard that a few order members got to those muggle-borns Harry, Hermione and Ron saved," Bill admitted. Danny blinked.
"No, that's great. I can take that back with me. It'll tell them that the order is still going and those muggle-borns fell off the radar for them," Danny assured the wizard with a smile. Bill and Fleur smiled relieved to be able to help the halfa after all.
Danny reported that news to the Death Eaters a few days later. The news warranted a meeting where the Death Eaters reviewed how many known muggle-borns were uncounted for. It was horrible to hear how many muggle-borns, particularly young children, had already been captured and punished for simply being born with magic. But of course, Danny held his tongue and gave the outward appearance of agreeing. The next day, bands of bounty hunters known as snatchers were formed to find and round up the missing muggle-borns with a huge reward on Harry's head. Danny immediately informed McGonagall, Hagrid and Bill.
Danny returned to staying in Hogwarts in plain sight. Although, the Carrow siblings had taken to casting malicious spells at Danny whenever they spotted him, particularly after he intervened when they attempted to viciously punish a third year girl for commenting to her friends about her muggle neighbours being nice to her during the summer. He had barely escaped the numerous ectoplasm cleaning spells the new muggle studies Death Eater teacher screamed at him. It had shocked the entire school that a teacher had attacked the coloured ghost. News had spread that Danny was now the Ghost King as he had revealed the fact shortly after Dumbledore's death the previous year. Since he avoided their attack, Danny had to watch his back. It was worse than when Umbridge was around. Umbridge hadn't known about the spell being dangerous for him. And if things had happened to have gotten really bad, Danny could always have hidden and changed to human, relying on the uniform for camouflage.
However his blatant defiance and news of Harry in the Ministry of Magic had encouraged Neville, Luna and Ginny to rebel as well. Ginny even led her partners in crime in a raid of Snape's office to steal the Sword of Gryffindor, intending to send it to Harry somehow as Ginny knew that Dumbledore had wanted to give it to Harry in his will. How, even they didn't know. But the trio were caught and Snape revealed to Danny that the sword was a copy anyway, the real one was safe for when Snape managed to get it to Harry. Thankfully, Snape got to them first and punished them as leniently as he could get away with, sending them into the forest with Hagrid. It wasn't long before the fake sword was moved to a safer location, Bellatrix Lestrange's vault in Gringotts.
Unfortunately the trio didn't stop there. They openly defied the new Death Eater orientated rules. After a few days Snape had to interject with the punishment of hand cleaning all the school's dishes with toothbrushes for two weeks. All three students staying up well after midnight in order to complete the task. Danny did sneak in a few times to help them but he had to be careful not to get caught or all four of them would get in even more trouble. Danny understood that the students were just trying to help but they were putting themselves in unnecessary danger. But Danny really wasn't the person to tell them that. Here he was fighting a war that stopped being his when he became Ghost King. He wasn't a wizard. This was a wizard war. But these wizards were his friends. Dumbledore had asked Danny to ensure his final plan was completed. And that was what he was going to do.
This section is going to have rather large time skips as everyone is kind of doing the waiting game until Harry makes his move. Especially Danny.
And we had our first Voldemort taboo replacement name.
Let me know what you think.
Until the next chapter.
