A/N: Uh, I'm sorry?

Chapter Twenty

Ghost Fruit

"Is that all you're eating, Kid?" Shanks asked, eyeing Harry's half-empty bowl of chicken soup doubtfully.

"I did just wake up from several days' worth of unconsciousness," Harry replied, getting up from the table. "I don't know what you insane pirates eat after something like that, but my stomach can't handle much after being starved that long."

"Cheh, your stomach certainly seems strong when you're drinking."

"Idiot Shanks, it's not my stomach that keeps me drinking."

"Yeah? What then?"

Harry grinned, before ducking into the kitchen. "I told you already. Trade secret!"

With a dramatic flourish, Harry brought out a tray into the dining room of stuffed pirates.

"Flan for dessert today, since Spaz was so successful in collecting eggs these past few days."

A cheer rang through the room, despite the confused looks on a few of the pirates' faces who probably had never heard of flan before. Apparently the last few days had been hard on them, or more specifically, their stomachs, with their cook laid away.

"You and trade secrets," Shanks sighed, accepting his plate of flan. "Well, I don't suppose our resident magician can make this dinner and a show? Maybe translate that conversation you had with the Yuda? Man, he looked pretty damned insulted."

Harry startled and shot a quick glance at Greg, but the man was focused on eating his flan, absentmindedly fighting off his friend – Al was it? – from stealing it.

The other pirates, having heard Shanks' comment, were looking at him with curiosity, and Harry gave in.

"Well, as a magician, I picked up some basics in snake charming. As for the show, I suppose I could."

"Oh, oh!" Spaz bounced in his seat and waved his hand frantically in the air. "Can I be the magician's assistant? Oh, please oh please oh pleeeeeassse?"

Harry laughed. "Sure," he agreed, and promptly turned the boy's brown hair an electric yellow.

The look on everyone's faces was priceless, and Harry took advantage of the time to scoot out of there.

"Magician, huh?"

Harry turned around from the dishes he was washing. Greg had walked in, carrying his empty dishes. He had probably left the pirates under the guise of bringing his dirty plates and silverware to Harry.

"Well," Harry replied, turning back to his scrubbing, "there're not a lot of professions that fit so appropriately with my power."

"Hmph," Greg snorted, "all powers fit the title of pirate."

Harry paused, then, eyes flickering unsurely up to glance at the pirate, put the dishes down and turned around to face him fully.

"What do mean to say, Greg?" Harry asked, curious by the strange remark.

Greg stared blankly into open air for awhile before appearing to come to a decision.

"I'm going to teach you to fight. Tomorrow afternoon."

And with that, the pirate dropped his dishes into the sink behind Harry before sweeping out the door.

What in Merlin's name was that about?

Clanging.

Explosions.

Blood.

Harry woke with a start, tumbling from his cot in the sleeping quarters aboard the ship, breath short, eyes frantically darting around at the shadows, and sweaty palms clenching his wand and his robes.

Nightmare.

Inhaling deeply, Harry let it out slowly and raised himself up to his feet.

Bare feet padding quietly against the floor, Harry went onto the deck for some fresh air.

A soft night breeze ruffled Harry's hair, and the tired wizard closed his eyes, reveling in the refreshing coolness against his feverish head.

It seemed the nightmares had finally caught up. Perhaps he was stressed out today. He did, after all, just wake up from a shallow coma, watched a bloody battle – though Shanks' crew apparently didn't find their opponents worth killing at least – and revealed a tiny bit of magic – and Parseltongue which resulted in more than enough trouble in the past world – to a ship of pirates, all of whom could kill him under the right, or wrong, circumstances.

Or perhaps, the novelty of this new world had worn off already. That's how it's been the past three years. He'd find some hobby, throw himself into it, trying to accept it as his new life, leave behind the war like everyone else, be normal like he'd always dreamed.

Dreamed. Ha. The only constant in his dreams were that as soon as his abrupt obsession with the new activity wore off, the nightmares came back.

Harry stared down at his hands.

"So much blood," he whispered into the darkness.

"They look clean to me."

Harry jumped. Leaping backwards, Harry dropped into a crouch, wand out and ready, its tip glowing as a spell balanced precariously on the tip of the wizard's tongue.

"Calm down," came the voice again, "I'm already dead."

Out of the shadows stepped out a young man, tall and lanky, a large grin splayed on his face as he held his hands out in the universal sign that he meant no harm.

Harry looked at him a little confusedly. He couldn't remember anyone this young in Shanks' crew.

Replaying the person's words in his mind, Harry's eyes widened as he glanced down on the floor below and saw no shadow.

"Ghost."

"Yep," came the cheery reply. "Gotta say, it's nice to be able to talk to someone again."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, replacing his wand into his robe sleeve.

"No one else can see me, unfortunately. It's ever so boring sometimes."

Harry quirked an eyebrow. Boring. Anyone on this ship complaining of boredom had to be a ghost.

"So why can I, then?"

"Eh," the ghost shrugged, "you ate the devil fruit, you tell me."

"H-how?" Harry stuttered. He was pretty sure he never mentioned to anyone, even Spaz, that he had eaten a devil fruit.

"Pff," the ghost huffed. "I'm a ghost and the fruit you ate gave you ghostly powers. I'm pretty sure most of the older ghosts would be able to tell just by getting close. Guess I'm the first you've met though, yeah? You probably don't even know how to use your power yet"

"Yeah," Harry easily admitted. It was odd, but he hadn't been able to turn immaterial – er, into a ghost – since leaving the island.

"Try it now," the ghost prompted, leaning forward at an impossible angle, his legs lifting off the ground until he was practically lying horizontally in the air, still at eye level.

With a dubious expression, Harry concentrated on his desire to use his fruit power, to lose substance. No. Rather, to turn into a ghost, to die.

A tingle at his fingertips alerted Harry to his success, just as he realized the irony of his fruit power.

Rakma, that bastard. He was probably incredibly pleased with his smart-ass decision to stick Harry, who had died, with the devil fruit that could turn him into a ghost.

"Happen to have one to give to me, he says," Harry grumbled, "my ass."

"Awesome." The ghost perked up, dropping back to his feet and sticking a hand out.

"Nice to meet you."

Harry stuck his own hand out and grasped the ghost's in a firm handshake.

"You too." Harry cocked his head in question, "who are you anyway?"

The ghost grinned his silly smile, showing off his teeth in a playful manner.

"I follow the hat."

Harry was up early the next morning, gazing mournfully at the food in the storage.

He hadn't been able to get anymore information out of the ghost about who he was other than the follower of Shanks' straw hat. He didn't seem to have any malicious intentions though, so after an hour trying to figure out how to float and another hour just flipping back and forth between his ghost-state and living-state, Harry gave sleep another go.

It didn't work well, much to Harry's disappointment. He gave up soon after and decided to get to work with preserving things as necessary. Greg was coming by later after all, to do whatever it was he meant when he said he'd teach Harry to fight.

It wasn't looking good. The apples would be easy. They were a bit too ripe for jam, so he'd recruit Spaz – who seemed quite happy with his new hair color – into making bucketfuls of applesauce instead. As for the veggies…

Harry didn't know much about preserving vegetables. The potatoes could probably keep another week, but the rest? It would take ages to bake various vegetable breads and then there would be the problem of storing so much bread!

He'd have to get Greg to teach him pickling. For now, he'd bake and boil before breakfast. Maybe he could get use some of the greens in omelets?

"Omelets to order today," Harry announced, setting the table with baskets of fresh bread. "Grab a plate and line up," he told the pirates, "and head into the kitchen. You'll find a bunch of stuff on the counter. Just take whatever you want on your omelet and hand the plate to me when it's your turn."

Armed with a large bowl of whisked eggs and a tall bottle of oil, Harry quickly served the pirates their breakfasts, their second helpings, and the occasional thirds.

"And you Spaz?" Harry finally directed towards the younger who was easily mashing apples into sauce with his unnatural strength.

"Cheese and bacon!" Spaz ordered brightly around a mouthful of cucumber bread, replacing the apple sauce in his bowl for the last of the not-yet-mashed apple segments.

The last of the egg was easily made into a cheese and bacon omelet for Spaz, and another omelet of leftover fillings for Harry.

"Here you go," Harry placed Spaz's breakfast on the now empty kitchen counter. "Thanks for the help with the apples."

"No problem, Harry," Spaz replied cheerfully, "I like making applesauce. Good memories."

Harry smiled sadly. "That's good. Memories are important."

A shadow flickered across Spaz' face.

"Ano… Even the bad ones?" Spaz asked quietly, mashing the apples a little more vigorously. "Even the tainted one?"

Harry blanked his face, then reached over and squeezed Spaz's shoulder. "Don't ask me to be a hypocrite Spaz."

Harry and Spaz worked quietly in the kitchen the rest of the morning, preserving what they could and cooking lunch.

Harry was trying to figure out some other meal he could make that would minimize the amount of time he'd have to spend in the same room as the whole pirate crew. Omelets to order as breakfast conveniently provided Harry the excuse to stay in the kitchen, but for lunch, he'd probably have to sit down with everyone again and hope they wouldn't ask questions he didn't yet know how to answer.

He needn't have worried. Lunch came and went with little mishap. The pirates ate with their usual appetite, Spaz bounced around asking random questions about their heading, and Shanks was planning their new route now that they were on the complete opposite side of East Blue they had originally planned on visiting.

It was a relief but also very confusing. Everyone seemed so carefree on this ship. No one seemed to care about the power he's demonstrated so far – except for Greg but even they managed to come to an understanding. Were they all just stupid? Naïve? Or maybe, Harry thought to himself, remembering that last image of Shanks' Haki, just jaded to it all.

He was tempted to just come clean.

Harry snorted. Yeah, right. Hey guys, I'm a wizard and a devil fruit user and I have enough power to kill you all if I felt like it.

Maybe he'd just stop actively trying to hide it and let the pirates draw their own conclusions. Shanks wasn't his captain and the Red-Haired pirates wasn't his crew. Spaz had clearly announced he had no plans to become a pirate. If things got messy, Harry would just leave.

"Ready?"

Harry looked at Greg a little warily. The pirate had taken him after lunch to the back deck behind the cabin that held the kitchen, map room, and Captain's quarters.

"For what, exactly?"

Sudden, Greg rushed forward, fist raised.

"Merlin!" Harry exclaimed, falling to the floor, then sprinting backwards and using a few piled up water barrels as steps, scrambled onto the deck's roof. He perched on the edge and glared at the pirate who had watched it all with an amused look on his face.

"So you've been attacked before, though climbing rooftops isn't the most strategic evasive action. If your attacker had a gun, you'd be stuck or dead."

Harry though that over a bit. The climbing was an instinct from his childhood when Dudley and his gang went Harry-hunting. They mostly left him alone if he hid in trees or climbed on top of the roof of the public restroom in the park and while occasionally they threw rocks, their aim was quite awful and Harry was nimble enough to duck most of them while perched up high.

Being attacked physically had brought out those strange reflexes and Harry had to admit, they were probably quite dangerous habits to have in this new world where combat was just about anything goes.

Harry jumped down to face Greg once more.

"So are you going to teach me the proper way to react to punch, then?"

"Yep."

Maybe it was the change in pace, or maybe that one day was an exception due to the pirate battle, but Harry didn't have any more nightmares for a week. His days were spent cooking at meal times, preserving food in the mornings, learning hand-to-hand basics with Greg in the afternoons, learning about ships from Spaz and Beckman in the evenings, and interacting with the ghost during the twilight hours before dawn.

The ghost was a mystery. Always cheerful and grinning, he reminded Harry a lot of Shanks. He never talked about himself much, though, and most of their time was spent learning Harry's Ghost powers and seeing just how many things the ghost could do that Harry could do as well.

"Why can people see me and not you, though?" Harry asked, once.

"Ehhh," the ghost hummed, flipping upside down and crossing his arms over his chest, "you aren't exactly normal."

Harry started. "You think it's my magic?"

Harry had confided his magical abilities to the ghost the second night, since it was unlikely to do any harm and he needed someone to bounce ideas off of who actually understood Harry's situation in its entirety. The ghost didn't know his whole history, but he did know about Harry being from a different world and having a power with almost limitless capability.

"That actually makes some sense," Harry thought aloud. "Back home, witches and wizards who came back as ghosts were visible to at least all the other living witches and wizards. Maybe them having magic is why."

"What limits do you think there are to this Ghost power?" Harry asked another night after watching the ghost float several times around the boat.

"What do you mean?"

"Like, motion-wise, how high can I go? And, when I turn into a ghost, my clothes follow, but just how much can I take with me into ghostiliness and is it possible to leave anything behind?"

"Pff," the ghost huffed, turning on side and sinking down into the planks until only the right half of his body was visible. "There aren't any limits to how we move. We don't have a body, so anything you can think of, you can do, unless you're an anchored ghost."

"Like you," Harry stated.

The ghost grinned. "I follow the hat."

Shaking his head, Harry chose not to pursue that topic as the ghost tended to be quite closed-mouth about it, and thought more on his own power.

"If physical limitations don't exist, why do I feel tired when I climb around as a ghost?"

"'Cause you still thinking like you have a body," explained the ghost. "You gotta think you don't have anything to get tired."

Harry scowled. "Mind over matter, huh? I'll manage. Being a wizard makes it easier to accept to impossible. But…"

Harry dug around in his pockets and removed a fruit. Placing it on the ground before him, Harry switched back to being "alive." Reaching out with one of his conjured fake wands, he poked the fruit and smiled when the stick went straight through.

"Wicked! Just think; if I can bring it back, then I have the best way to hide important stuff from being stolen or even seen."

"Wow!" The ghost floated over to take a look. Reaching a hand out, he plucked the fruit up and took a bite.

"Mmm, it's been ages since I've tasted anything."

Harry watched a little warily. He still remembered the Hogwarts ghosts having similar sentiments about eating and was a little worried about the implications of ghost fruit. Could they even digest it?

The ghost quickly polished the fruit and tossed the pit at Harry in jest.

It bounced off his head.

A/N: And the story continues! Man, I'm so excited for the next chapter - this one is a bit of a transition chapter into my first major arc where they'll be lots of stuff happening :)

Thanks for sticking with me so long. I am very hopeful that it will only get better from here. And, of course, it's thanks to my new beta, PyromanianBlackWings, and my old beta RedValentino sticking around as a story advisor.

301 reviews as of today, March 12 2011!