THE POTTER'S GHOSTS

CHAPTER 3: MEETING DUMBLEDORE

Lily Apparated to James and told him him what Death had told her.

"Lovely," James responded, delighted. "To Hogwarts, then?"

"To the gates!" Lily agreed.

The both disappeared without a sound and reappeared at the gates of Hogwarts. They went in to the Headmaster's office.

"Lily, how much do you think ghosts could help the Order?"

"Well, we can't help in battle, aside from going through them, which admittedly would provide a nice distraction, but we can spy." Lily theorized. "I mean we wouldn't register on any stealth detectors or Homenum Revelio and ghosts can be invisible - it's an innate trait - so I'd say we hang around Voldemort's headquarters and listen in - I mean, I'd say we have enough acquaintance with him to find where he is - the only reason not to is that it would most likely blow Sev's cover."

"Is there any spell to harm a ghost?"

"There is one spell to force it to pass on, but that doesn't work on us because we came back as special ghosts, not your everyday sort."

"That's neat! We'll be untouchable!"

"Well that's the price of dying, I personally am glad I don't have to do it over."

"It didn't hurt, it was just dreadful knowing that you're dying and there's nothing you can do about it," James argued.

"Well it really doesn't matter, as Voldemort's gone anyway. I think you got up the stairs as a ghost in time to see that?"

"No...the curse rebounded off of Harry and hit Voldemort. Only thing is, he didn't collapse dead. A black mist escaped and hissed at Harry before going out the wall."

"We should talk to Dumbledore about that." Lily mused.

"Well, we're here. Now lets yell at Dumbledore." James grinned evilly. "Best prank in the world."

Lily tried to smack James, but her hand passed through him. "Merlin, we're transparent to ourselves as well!"

"Not much we can do about that," James decided. "Let's not knock. It will - "

"No. If we do knock, he'll think it's a student or somthing and say come in. He'll be startled out of his seat!"

"We can't knock anyway, Lily. See?" James demonstrated on the wall.

"Oh. Ok. Well if we can't do that, at least go invisible and float through him?"

"Good idea."

So they turned invisible. It really didn't take any more than a thought, just like James' Animagus transformation. He briefly wondered if he still had that form, and would it look like a Patronus? They drifted into Dumbledore's office and went through him. He startled up and glanced around, before James and Lily became visible again, sitting in the chairs his office contained. Dumbledore blinked a few times before regaining his composure.

"It is not every day that old friends drop by as ghosts and give an old man a heart attack." Dumbledore said in a tone full of laughter, but his eyes no longer held their customary twinkle.

"It's not everyday you're dead, Albus, or that your own son survives the Killing Curse. He'll be famous for it, Dumbledore, but that's one thing I don't want him to be famous for." James replied.

Dumbledore blinked again.

"How is Harry? Do tell me you didn't leave him in Godric's Hollow?"

"Of course not. Sirius and Lily brought him to the Longbottoms."

"Sirius?"

"Yes, why not?" James responded irritably. "The Longbottoms can look after him, he'll be happy with Neville."

"But Sirius Black is the Secret Keeper! He obviosuly betrayed you!"

"Never crossed your mind he might be a decoy?" James growled. "Do I have to explain this to everybody?"

Dumbledore blinked again.

"Look, Albus," Lily explained patiently, "Sirius thought he was way to obvious of a target. So we switched to Peter and didn't tell anyone."

"I see. Why did you tell the Longbottoms to remain in hiding? Voldemort is gone."

"The Death Eaters aren't! Look, when we considered becoming ghosts, Death let us have two weeks so that we could know if we really did want to. And listen here, Albus, never send Harry to live with Petunia!"

"Why on earth not?"

"Because she'll abuse him. I know two weeks is him being too young to judge, but the whole time she was loudly moaning and complaining about having two boys to look after and how she should be devoting all her time to her Dudders and leaving Harry on his own unless he needed feeding or a diaper change!"

"Lily - "

"Don't 'Lily' me!"

"Albus, you might want to run. She might be a ghost but there's no stopping her now," James advised. "And Lily, calm down and tell him all what we saw."

"Fine, fine." Lily grumbled. "The Longbottoms were tortured into insanity by the Lestranges and Barty Crouch - "

"Crouch?"

" - let me finish? - Jr. And Sirius was sent to Azkaban with no trial. And Crouch never made it to Minister, he was discredited by his son being a Death Eater. "

"Now, me and Lily supposed that, as ghosts, we could help out the Order some. We can got invisible, and - here's the scoop - we can locate anyone we knew while living. We could locate Voldemort's headquarters."

"Tell him what you saw with Harry," Lily whispered.

"Right. Well at least I didn't have to see Lily dying, but I saw Voldemort die. It didn't look like it though. A very dark, dense mist rose from the body and hissed at Harry before drifting out through the walls."

Dumbledore blinked again. Slowly. "Thank you for this information, it could mean very Dark things indeed..." he trailed off, muttering to himself.

"We'll go then," said Lily brightly, and then she disappeared. James followed.

Author's Note:

How do you like the third instalment of The Potter's Ghosts? I don't know what spurred Dumbledore to begin researching Tom Riddle's history in canon, but I do know that he never knew what he was looking for untl a) Harry got him Slughorn's memory or b) Harry gave him the diary at the end of his second year. This'll speed that up.