Part III: Ghost of Halloween Present
He started awake, panting hard, his covers twisted around his snakelike body. It took him a few minutes, but eventually, his heart rate settled down to normal. Well, as normal as it could get.
The clock chimed again. It was two in the morning. Voldemort groaned. His minions would be very lucky if he didn't Crucio the lot of them before he had his morning coffee.
There was a crash downstairs. Voldemort felt for his wand and was pleased to find it still lying on the dresser.
He crept down the stairs, amazed that no one else was up. In another room, he could hear a few Death Eaters snoring.
He slowly stepped into the kitchen, wand at the ready, and had to blink in surprise.
There, at his refrigerator, was a teenage boy with flaming red hair. His face was stuffed with sandwiches Narcissa Black Malfoy had made for the meeting, well, what was now last night. They had put the few leftovers in the fridge for later.
Voldemort was fuming. "Who are you?"
The boy straightened up, his mouth full. Now that he saw the boy clearly, he saw that he too was wearing Gryffindor robes, though only with a Prefect's Badge, but looked about the same age as the Ghost of Halloween Past. He swallowed about half the sandwich, slightly reducing his chipmunk like face.
"Wost o' o ween 'esant."
"Er, what?"
He swallowed the rest of the sandwich. "I said, 'Ghost of Halloween Present.' What are you, deaf?"
Voldemort stared at him. This pig was one of the ghosts?
"Mind if I take a few of these for the ride? Thanks."
And he grabbed the whole tray. The mustard too.
"Anyway," the Ghost said, biting into another (how did a ghost eat food anyway?), "I figure my job is to show you a few places that are preparing for Halloween. Magical, Muggle, I don't reckon it matters."
"Please tell me I don't have to touch your hand," said Voldemort, staring at the boy's food-laden hands.
The Ghost looked at him oddly. "'Course you don't have to hold my hand. I do have to tell you, though, that holding hands makes the landings easier. No telling what might happen otherwise."
"Anything but holding your hand," said Voldemort, disgusted.
The Ghost shrugged, freed one of his hands, and snapped his fingers.
They appeared in the living room of a very affluent household and one that Voldemort instantly recognized, despite his position flat on his back near the door.
"How's Draco doing?" asked Lucius Malfoy as a house-elf took his cloak, unknowingly stepping right over Voldemort and giving the Dark Lord a good view under his robes. With a disgusted grunt, Voldemort got to his feet.
Narcissa Malfoy was sitting on the couch by the fire, an envelope in her lap. As Lucius sat down, he gave his wife a welcoming kiss on her cheek.
"He's doing fine. Still insists on sleeping with that stuffed dragon you gave him for his birthday."
As the house-elf put the coat up in the closet, Voldemort could have sworn it looked right at them with its huge green eyes before shaking its head.
"Dobby be seeing things," they heard him mutter before he popped away.
"Soon, Narcissa, our child will be living in a world free of the filth that has corrupted it for so many years. Tomorrow night."
"Lucius, do you know what tomorrow night is?"
"Halloween, of course. Though, after tomorrow night, it may be renamed accordingly."
Narcissa fingered the envelope. "I've heard from my sister," she said quietly.
"Bellatrix? What has she to say now? More songs of worship for the Dark Lord?"
Narcissa shook her head. "No. Andromeda."
Lucius's face dropped. "The one your mother disinherited for marrying a Mudblood, correct?"
Narcissa nodded. "She sent me a picture of her daughter. She still sends me cards for holidays and such."
She showed the picture to Lucius. The child was about six or seven years old. Her hair was long and black. As she waved, it because curly and pink, copying the exact color of the Muggle princess gown she was wearing.
"A Metamorphmagus?" questioned Lucius. "Rare, those."
"Yes, very," agreed Narcissa. She sighed. "Lucius–"
"No, Narcissa," he said, cutting her off. "One child is enough."
She stared longingly at the picture of the girl. "But if it's a girl–"
"No," he repeated. "I cannot run the risk of having two sons. The lines of inheritance are quite clear on that. One son to carry on the name, and that is all."
And he left, leaving Narcissa alone with the crackling fire. Finally, the woman stood and, taking one last, long look at the picture, threw it and the envelope in the fire to burn.
"Wonder if they've got leftovers too," muttered the Ghost as soon as Narcissa had left the room.
"Aren't you supposed to be warning me of my impending doom?" said Voldemort sarcastically.
The Ghost scratched his head. "Yeah, I do have to do that, don't I?" He frowned. "Fine, next place then."
He snapped his fingers.
This time, Voldemort was a little luckier, considering his last landing place. When he appeared, it was right in the middle of a toddler's tantrum. Food was everywhere, including where he landed, so that he ended up flat on his back again from slipping. How was it that he could slip on food when he wasn't even real to them?
"Harry!" said an exasperated James Potter, who was trying to feed his son.
"No!" the boy declared, his bottom lip stuck out as he pouted.
This was the child that would defeat him? A baby that refused to eat his carrots?
"C'mon, Harry, if you eat these, maybe you won't need glasses like Daddy, hm?"
All that earned the man was another well placed throw to his face, splattering his glasses with orange mush.
"James?"
Lily Evans Potter walked in and had to laugh. Her poor husband had managed to take most of the damage from the attempted meal. But at least he was grinning.
"Hey, Lils, you missed that! Harry's got an arm on him! Maybe he'll take after his old man and play Quidditch, eh?"
"Quidditch!" repeated Harry excitedly.
Lily frowned. "You know I'm never going to forgive you for teaching him how to say Quidditch before he said Ma-ma, right?"
"Hey, blame Moony! He's the one that gave Harry a children's picture book on the players!"
Lily frowned. "Where is Remus?"
James shrugged. "Probably getting ready. Tomorrow is the full moon, you know."
Lily sighed. "And on Halloween too. Poor Remus. He was telling me how he hates when Halloween and the full moon line up. Makes all those Muggle stories seem more realistic to him."
"Unca Moo-ey!" shouted Harry. "Unca Moo-ey go awooooo!"
"James, how is that our son can do an exact imitation of a werewolf's call?"
James had the good grace to look embarrassed. "Well, he asked what sounds his uncles made. I told him Unca Pa-foo goes woof-woof, Unca Wormy goes squeak-squeak, and Unca Moo-ey goes awooooo!"
Lily shook her head. "And what sound does Papa Prongs make?"
James grinned cheekily. "Sounds not meant for his little ears."
As they laughed, the Potters dissolved into nothing. The Ghost was leaning against the bare counter, the kitchen now sparkling, enjoying a jar of carrot baby food with a spoon.
"Carrots are good, you know," he said. "Peas are better, though."
"Ugh, just take me to the last place already," muttered Voldemort.
The Ghost shrugged and tossed the jar into the air, where it dissolved into nothing.
"Have it your way. Oh, a burger would be nice about right now…"
When Voldemort landed, he was surprised to see people walking upside down. Wait, then why were they walking on the floor? He looked down and realized that it was he who was standing upside down, his feet anchored to the ceiling.
"Wait, you might want to–"
Too late. Voldemort had already withdrawn one foot and promptly crashed as gravity took over, landing headfirst on the carpet.
"–flip over when you do that," finished the Ghost lamely.
Fortuitously for Voldemort, being immortal meant that if one landed on one's head and broke one's neck, it wasn't necessarily a fatal blow. With a sigh, the Ghost moved Voldemort's head back in line with his spinal column and a minute later, Voldemort sat up, his eyes crossed.
"Anyone get the name of that floor?" he muttered, popping his neck as it finished "healing." "Ow."
"Yeah, you're telling me," said the Ghost, rubbing the back of his own neck. "That hurt just watching it."
"So, what are we doing here?" said Voldemort lazily, still rolling the kinks out.
"You tell me," said the Ghost, wincing at the various cracks. "I'm gonna go find the fridge."
"How can you eat?" said Voldemort exasperatedly. "You're a ghost!"
The Ghost shrugged. "Beats me."
And he left Voldemort standing there. From what Voldemort could see, he was in a perfectly normal, perfectly Muggle household. There were photos on the mantle of what looked like a pink beach ball, though further inspection showed the ball to have a head, two arms, and two legs.
At that moment, the front door opened and four people walked in. Well, one walked in, two waddled in, and the last and smallest limped in. With a start, Voldemort recognized the child as none other than Harry James Potter. He wondered why he had failed to kill the child and why he lived with this family instead of his parents. The fat child was grinning at the thinner one.
"I have just about had it with your freakishness!" spat the large man all over the child.
"I'm sorry, Uncle Vernon!" pleaded the child. Uncle? "I just thought the teacher would look nicer if she had different colored hair! And it just went, boom, white to blue!"
Ah, accidental magic, then. The boy had simply wished his teacher's hair to be a different color.
"Go to your cupboard!" spat the man. "No meals for a week!"
"Yes, Uncle Vernon," said the child meekly, scampering away. From his position, Voldemort could see the child unlock, then crawl into a cupboard under the stairs. His entertainment lost, the fat boy waddled off to his own room.
Cupboard under the stairs? Even he had had a bed at the orphanage. What in the name of Merlin was going on here?
"I swear, Petunia," said the fat man, Vernon, as he accepted a large glass of wine from his skinny wife, "your nephew will one day push over that line and we'll have to resort to beating it out of him."
Nephew? Petunia? Ah, this must be Lily Evans's sister, then.
"Vernon, you know what will happen if we start doing that. That – that old man has things set up here. If the boy is seriously hurt, they'll alert him and the last thing we need it him showing up at an inopportune time."
The large man grunted. "Well, if your sister and brother-in-law hadn't gotten themselves killed, we wouldn't have been saddled with him in the first place!"
Voldemort felt a small stirring. So he had killed James and Lily Potter, but failed to kill their son. Come to think of it, why had he killed the Mudblood? Hadn't that been Snape's request to bring her to him alive?
He shrugged as the Ghost reentered the room and froze it.
"Oh, and here I thought it would only be the Halloweens of your present day," he said, staring at Vernon and Petunia, the former frozen while chugging down his wine. "Never thought it would be this Halloween."
"What happened on this Halloween?"
"Well, apparently Harry did some accidental magic. He had been thinking about the candy he might get when Halloween came round in about a week and got distracted when the teacher called on him. Turned the teacher's hair cotton candy blue. But because he's stuck in his cupboard all that time, by the time he gets out, it's the day after. His cousin, the fat whale of a boy you saw, lords it over him that his parents got him a couple of huge bags of candy and Harry was not allowed one piece. They don't celebrate Halloween, you see, it being so closely linked in their minds with magic. Funny, how according to my girlfriend, it actually started out as a religious holiday."
The Ghost shrugged and popped a crisp in his mouth.
"Your girlfriend wouldn't happen to be also known as the Ghost of Halloween Past, would she?"
The Ghost shrugged. "Well, why not?"
"She seems a little…nerdy."
The Ghost laughed. "Well, she's a Muggleborn. So she was obsessed when she learned about magic."
Voldemort grimaced. "I need some soap and warm water."
"Oh, relax, it's not like if she holds your hand long enough your blood turns brown. Besides, aren't you a half-blood to begin with?"
Voldemort was steaming. "Why you–"
The Ghost shrugged again. "I wouldn't if I were you. I'm a pureblood, if it makes you feel better, but the Ghost of Halloween Future is a half-blood and he doesn't take too well to insults."
He brushed imaginary crumbs off of his robes. "So, my part here is done. Did you learn anything?"
"Somehow Harry here survived, but his parents didn't. And Bellatrix will love to know she has a little half-blood niece to practice her spells on," Voldemort reeled off.
The Ghost frowned. "Not really what I was aiming for. I'll leave you in the care of the last Ghost."
And with a snap of his fingers, Voldemort was again plunged into complete and utter darkness.
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