Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Danny Phantom.
Back from vacation with my second largest chapter yet! I'm very pleased with how this chapter turned out and I hope you enjoy it =)
Chapter 14
Danny gazed at the town he'd once called home. The town he had taken his first steps, the town he had defended from ghosts. The place he was called villain and hailed as a hero.
Danny had lived in Amity Park for 14 years and yet he found himself as the person looking from the outside.
It was dark out; Danny didn't know what time it was. Neither did he care.
The streets seemed barren and cold. Leaves from the autumn have fallen onto the streets, giving a blanket on the sidewalks and gutters. The lights from street lamps and houses gave the city an enchanting glow that Danny could only see this far up in the air.
As Danny flew through Amity Park he could see the UFO shaped building in the distance. He headed towards it seeing familiar landmarks like the Park in the middle of town, Valerie's rundown apartment, the Nasty Burger and even Casper high.
Memories flooded Danny's mind as he passed through Amity Park. His childhood memories of playing in the park with his friends and family, Valerie's vendetta against his alter-ego Danny Phantom, hanging out with Sam and Tucker at the Nasty Burger and Mr. Lancer's boring lectures in English class.
'Come on Fenton, all you have to do is get the thermos and leave with Wulf. Simple!' Danny thought in frustration.
Danny continued to fly as self doubt kept on bombarding his mind. Argument and debate kept raging against his conscious like a battering ram, relentless and never ending.
'Why did I leave Amity Park? This is where I should have stayed for my family and friends. I should have been there for them.'
Danny slowed down his flight and thought some more. 'Maybe it was because I felt the need to help people in dire need, and the people in the Britain do need me.'
Now more determined than ever Danny pressed on. 'I've made my choice, and I can't just change my mind now.' Danny thought with determination.
Danny didn't even slow down as he barrelled inside the building illuminated by neon saying 'Fenton Works.'
Danny fazed himself into the familiar lab, even when it was pitch dark the young ghost hybrid knew his way through the lab. Danny walked over to the lab's staircase to get to the light switch. As he walked his foot went straight into an unknown object on the ground.
Danny howled in pain from the unexpected object. As the pain went away Danny continued to make his way to the switch, making his eyes glow so he can see better. Danny then noticed that the floor was littered with paper and a random assortment of objects.
When Danny finally made it to the switch he turned on the lights. The once proud lab that his parents had worked in daily was a complete mess. The floor was covered in papers, the lab tables were covered in scrap metal and were all crooked and out of place.
The weapon rack on the opposite wall had been neatly organized before Danny left, now it was almost completely barren. The weapons were now on the tables or littered on the floor. Most looked broken with dents and lack of maintenance.
As Danny looked over the lab he was completely disoriented. 'How did this happen?'
Danny started to walk around the lab, as he stared down into the large assortment of papers littering the floor. He noticed a common occurring one. A 'have you seen this boy' sign with a picture of himself smiling in front of Fenton Works. Underneath the picture was an under text that said 'Family and friends are begging for any information on his whereabouts.
Danny had tears start fill and block his vision as he continued to search around for the thermos.
'Just search, just search...' Danny repeated in his head, trying to not think of what he had found.
To disturbed by the missing signs for him, Danny had enough of the lab and wanted to go somewhere else in the house.
Danny floated towards the ceiling turning intangible to go through the lab's ceiling and now appearing in the family room.
Danny landed on the floor and started to search around the ground floor. Unlike the lab the house looked pretty normal, but a bit messier than Danny's accustomed too.
Danny came towards the familiar kitchen and found that it was perfectly clean. Danny started to inspect the kitchen, and felt an abnormity about it. 'It's...too clean.' Danny thought.
And he was, right. The kitchen was spotless. Nothing was out of place, no crumbs or misplaced bowl of fudge.
He came towards the fridge and opened it wide. The fridge only contained a few condiments, a small bowl of fudge, some bread and a lone carton of milk.
"Why is there so little food? There's not even an emergency ham." Danny said whispered to himself.
Curiosity sparked Danny, closing the fridge door and started to open the pantries for food. But like the fridge, they barely held any food.
Danny's thoughts were a whirl as he contemplated the reason for the lack of food in the house. 'Are they gone? Are they not eating?'
All these questions kept buzzing in Danny's head, pricking at his brain.
Danny kept looking in the kitchen for the thermos when he noticed the rapid rise and fall of his chest. 'Get a grip Fenton!' Danny thought tirelessly.
Breathing in and out deeply letting his stress and questions out, as he started to break down the rapid breathing and go back into a calm demeanour.
Once Danny got himself back under control he looked around the kitchen and the rest of the ground floor. Once it had become obvious that the thermos was not there he started to make the trek upstairs.
Danny levitated above the steps to not cause any noise. Once he made it to the top of the stairs he looked at the familiar lay out of the second floor of Fenton Works, a straight hall with two doors on either side of the hall. At the end of the straight hall was an intersection to left and right. On the left was his parent's room and on the right was the way to the Ops Centre.
"Might as well start with my room" Danny said quietly.
Danny slowly fazed into the left wall and found himself in his old domain, his room. The room seemed normal enough. The NASA collectables were still on the walls with Dumpty Humpty posters. Nothing seemed to be moved as well. It looked like it was preserved for a museum. Danny started to look around the room, making a mess of the perfectly aligned books on the wall. As Danny looked searched his desk he noticed a blanket of dust nested on the tabletop of the desk.
"Ugh!" Danny said gruffly. "It's not here either!"
'Now what?' Danny thought frustrated. 'I could either go to the Ops Centre, my parent's room or Jazz's room.'
Deciding he didn't want to risk being caught by his family, so Danny went intangible and went into the circular shaped Ops centre.
Just like all the other rooms Danny searched. He looked in all the cupboards and pantries in the Ops centre but couldn't find anything. He came towards the desk in the middle of the Ops Centre and noticed an assortment of papers and pictures of himself.
At closer inspection Danny noticed that it must have been some type of collage or data base of information of his disappearance. Danny looked over the collage intensely searching through all of the information about him and people's reactions. On the side was post it notes that were in his mother's hand writing which usually pointed out a certain detail in the information. Like 'always seemed so happy' came up when the article talked about Danny's emotional status before disappearing.
Danny looked at a large post it in the middle which said in block letters 'Why is there no trace?'
Danny couldn't keep his composure anywhere and tears started to leak from both eyes. The tears went slowly down his face, glistening under the glow of his ghostly skin.
A few minutes passed as Danny softly sobbed, thinking of the despair he must have put his family through when he left.
As Danny sobbed he heard a soft squeak from down below. Danny stopped and started to focus on any noise coming from in below the house. Danny listened intently trying to hear for any noise coming from below. Just as Danny was about to get back to work, looking for the thermos he heard anything creak, but this time it was much fainter.
'At least now I know I'm not imagining it.' Danny thought as he fazed himself back into floor and come out in the ceiling of the second floor hallway. Just by his room and Jazz's.
By the staircase steps was Jazz trying to be as light on her feet as possible as she climbed down the stairs. Jazz was wearing her signature black shirt and blue headband but instead of her cyan blue jeans she wore black sweat pants.
Jazz slowly creped down the stairs and made her way to the front door. Danny followed closely invisible but not too close for her to feel his ghostly aura.
Jazz went right up to the front door but instead of opening the door she tapped on the door three times, waited for a bit and then tapped it again. Danny couldn't understand what she was doing when two knocks sounded from the other side of the door.
Jazz turned to knob slowly and quietly opened the door. "Let's get going!" Jazz said impatiently.
"What no welcome?" An unknown girl's voice said.
Walking through the front door was a girl dressed in a black tank top with a purple oval in the middle of the shirt, a dark plaid skirt and black combat boots. The girl had her black hair tied up in a ponytail with purple lipstick on her lips. Beside her was a boy with dark skin and green eyes, he wore a yellow shirt with green pants and brown shoes. He wore glasses and had a red hat atop his head.
Walking into Fenton works was Danny's closest friends, Sam Manson and Tucker Foley.
Danny gasped at the sight of them; he hadn't planned for this, not at all. "Yeah what's your deal Jazz?" Tucker said.
"Shhhh, keep your voices down. You don't want to wake up my parents; they have a hard enough time falling asleep since Danny left." Jazz whispered urgently.
Sam and Tucker nodded in agreement. "OK, let's get going." Sam said confidently.
They all softly started to walk down the steps towards the lab. Danny followed trying to keep his distance.
As Danny followed he debated on what he should do. 'Oh man, should I follow them or start search for the thermos in Jazz's room...though they could have the thermos.' Danny argued in his mind. 'I should follow them, just in case they do have the thermos.'
Sam, Tucker and Jazz stepped into the messy lab situating themselves all around one of the out of place tables.
"Hey. Didn't I tell you guys to wear stealth clothing?" Jazz questioned.
"Oh please, my clothes are already dark." Sam answered nonchalantly.
"And, I just thought it was plain ridiculous." Tucker said with a laugh.
"But, what if we need to be stealthy?" Jazz said biting her lip in worry.
"Don't worry about it Jazz." Sam said with a sigh. "Tucker show Jazz what you found."
Tucker plugged his trusty PDA into a socket on a large computer on the table. Tucker started to riddle around with the PDA until he found what he was looking for and put it up on screen.
A map of the world was on the screen with a bold red line stretching across the Atlantic Ocean appeared.
"Ok, I checked where the Boooo-merang went with the tracer. It went all the way to Europe and then it got lost in Britain." Tucker said pointing to the red line on the screen.
"So, he must be in Britain." Jazz reasoned.
"Not exactly. See according to the data from the booo-merang. It malfunctioned..." Tucker said as he now zoomed in on the end of the red line. "...here."
The map was now closely zoomed up to somewhere in the British wilderness, with no civilization surrounding it.
'That must be where Hogwarts is. Must have malfunctioned because of the magic' Danny thought in wonder.
"So you're saying that Danny's not in Britain?" Jazz said confused.
"No, the tracer says that the booo-merang never hit anything. It might be someone disabling them before it gets to him. Or..." Tucker said with vigour.
"Or?" Jazz wondered.
"Or Danny might have disabled it himself." Tucker said.
After Tucker said that Sam got up furiously and protested. "I refuse to believe that Danny would do that, in anyway."
Tucker seeing Sam's anger quickly went on the defensive as the enraged Sam glared daggers into him. "No Sam, I don't believe that either. It was just." Tucker said stuttering at the end "I mean who else would know how to disable a Fenton invention? And since Vlad isn't responsible"
"We still don't know if he's directly responsible or not?" Sam said teething.
"Oh come on Sam, you saw him. He's just as desperate to find him as we are." Jazz explained.
There was a short silence between the three teens before Tucker started up the conversion again. "Since the booo-merang with the tracer had no results, I think we should go through with our plan."
"Well I packed up the spectre speeder with all the supplies we'd need." Jazz told them.
"What ghost hunting gear did you pack?" Sam asked Jazz.
"I packed some jack-o-nine-tails, spectre defectors for each of us, Fenton phones just in case we split up, wrist rays, oh and the Fenton thermos."Jazz listed
Danny instantly had his head perk up at the sound of Jazz saying the device. 'It's in the spectre speeder. I just need to get it without them noticing its disappearance.' Danny thought.
Jazz walked towards the corner of the room where a sheet was covering something large. Jazz grabbed on the bottom of the sheet and unveiled the spectre speeder.
'How could I have missed that?' Danny thought berating himself. 'Oh yeah, I left because of the posters...'
Jazz, Tucker and Jazz started to get set up with the spectre speeder while Danny searched for the thermos.
Danny fazed through the spectre speeder and found a bag beside one of the seats with the name 'Fenton' stitched on its side. Danny rolled his eyes at the obviousness of the ghost gears location.
Danny started to search the inner confines of the bag while being careful of what his friends and sister were doing.
Danny still intangible and invisible searched the bag keeping his hands tangible feeling around the inside of the bag.
"Come on guys let's find Danny!" Sam said with determination.
Just as Sam said that, she started to approach towards where Danny was invisible. 'Come on, come on, where's that thermos?' Danny thought frantically.
Just as Danny gripped the circular shape of the Fenton thermos he turned it intangible fazed through the ground. Just as Danny went through the spectre speeder's floor Sam walk right over where Danny just was and sat in the seat.
Her hand draped over the side of the seat where the bag was and it felt unusually cold to her. Sam started to move her hand through where Danny had just been, experimenting with the different temperatures in two different spots.
"What the-" Sam whispered as she continued to wave her hand through the cold spot.
"What could cause this?" Sam said to herself.
While Sam was puzzled by the cold spot by her seat, Tucker took out a booo-merang from his backpack and looked at the two girls already in their seats.
"Alright here goes. Find Danny!" Tucker declared as he threw the ghost weapon.
Danny floated high in the corner of the room rejoicing in retrieving the Fenton thermos when he heard Tucker loudly exclaim "Find Danny!"
Before Danny could move or react the booo-meang soared straight at his head. "OW!" he exclaimed as the metal device hit his head, causing enough pain to get him out of invisibility.
Danny rubbed his head on the now forming welt on his head and stared down at his now visible form. "Oh no" Danny said.
Danny looked at the spectre speeder and saw Tucker, Sam and Jazz all staring at him as if he wasn't real.
'What should I do?' Danny screamed in his head.
"Danny? Is that you?" Jazz questioned.
Danny floated down, his legs feeling like cement, unable to move or function. "Yeah—Yeah Jazz it-it is." Danny stuttered.
When Danny reached the ground Jazz ran up and hugged him tightly. Danny didn't expect this so he didn't return the hug at first but slowly wrapped his hands around Jazz's neck. Sam and Tucker approached as well but looked more angry than happy at Danny's appearance.
When Jazz finally let go of Danny and stared at his face she asked "Where have you been all this time?"
Danny didn't answer; he just looked away from Jazz's stare. As Jazz saw Danny's nervousness and reluctance of answering her she became angrier.
"Where have you been?" Jazz almost yelled.
Danny winced at the Jazz's anger, but still didn't answer as he tried to think what to say. Jazz, Tucker and Sam all looked extremely angry at Danny's lack of an answer.
"You left without a trace or a reason of why and then you sent a letter that gave little to no information at all! Do you know how much grief you've caused us? To mom and dad? To Amity Park?" Jazz said trying to break Danny's silence. Tucker and Sam both nodded their heads, agreeing with Jazz.
"I'm sorry, really! But I had to leave, just like I said in my letter, I got attacked. And I stayed with the people that saved me." Danny said pleading for them to see from his point of view.
Sam stepped in front of Jazz and said "Why did you not come back then? Why?" Sam said harshly.
"They need my help Sam. They need me more than Amity Park." Danny explained.
"Why can't you tell us who you're helping, why should we believe you?" Tucker questioned.
"I can't tell you. Their secret is greater than my secret of being half ghost." Danny said trying to make them understand.
Danny sighed and continued, "I need you guys to trust me, and I need you to believe in what I've decided. You may not like it but they need me."
Jazz now had tears glistening on her eyes as she started to cry, she looked defeated, as though she just got rejected by Yale or Stanford. "Then why are you back?" Jazz said, croaking from her upcoming sobs.
"I needed the Fenton thermos" Danny said, bringing the thermos in front of them from his belt. "The ghosts followed me, so I need it if anymore show up."
Danny looked at Tucker and Sam who both equally looked miserable. Tucker looked as though his new state of the art PDA just got smashed right in front of him while Sam looked like she was trying desperately not to cry.
"I guess that explains why there's so little ghost attacks. Except for the box ghost, he's the only one that keeps on coming back." Tucker said solemnly.
There was a little bit of a silence after but Danny started the conversion again.
"Look guys. I'm sorry, for everything. For leaving, for not telling you what I'm doing but believe me when I say. Once it's over, I'll come back." Danny said seriously.
The rest of the teens just looked at Danny and just nodded, accepting their friend's decision.
Danny started to float in the air, starting to leave when Sam quickly spoke up. "Danny wait!"
Danny stopped and turned around to see Sam step forward in front of Sam and Tucker. Danny floated down to her, "What is it Sam?" Danny questioned.
Sam looked at Danny and was about to speak when she turned around to Jazz and Tucker. "Can we talk alone for second" Sam said blushing.
"Fine" Tucker says with a sigh.
Jazz walks up to Danny and gives him another hug whispering in his ear "Be safe little brother"
Danny smiles at Jazz, "Aren't I always" he said smirking.
Jazz cracked a smile, "Yeah, sure you are." She said sarcastically.
She then turned away from Danny and started to walk up to the first floor of the house. When the door had closed at the top of the stairs Sam started to look down at the floor trying to start the conversion.
"Danny, I" she stopped and regained her wits. "Ever since you had left, I realized how much I need you."
Sam paused for second before she started again. "And, I guess what I'm trying to say is...I love you."
Danny was shocked, Sam one of his closest friends had admitted that she had feelings for him. "I understand if you don't feel the same way then..."
Danny had leaned into her and started to kiss her. He didn't understand why he was doing it, his mind was screaming at the implications of what was happening, but it just felt so right.
They both eventually disconnected from the kiss and started to blush profusely. Danny took his ghostly hands around Sam's cheeks and made her look eye to eye. "I promise I'll come back Sam. You can count on it."
Sam smiled, "You better, or I'll kick your butt!"
"Oh I'd like to see you try." Danny said floating up in the air.
"Oh, you can count on it"
With one last wave Danny turned himself intangible and flew out of Fenton Works. He then started to make his way back to Wulf for his portal back to Hogwarts.
Danny felt like he was on the top of the world as he flew, doing loops and sharp curves at fast speeds. "I just kissed Sam Manson!" Danny yelled to the sky.
Ok, hope you liked it. Hopefully my first try at romance wasn't to awful. And if I got any of the characters OOC, I'm sorry.
Also, the state of Jack and Maddie is supposed to be unanswered. It's all up to your imagination of how they're doing. ;)
Also please REVIEW, because I love to read what you think.
Till next time,
Prophet =P