A/N So this wasn't actually the finished chapter, but I hit 10,000 words so I thought it would be better to split it up. I'm still not completely back to my normal writing schedule, and that might actually slow down in the next couple weeks too, but I'll do my best to get the next bit out soon. I'm also not entirely sure what the title to this one is, with how I wrote it when I was super tired and all, but I'm just going to leave it. Thanks to everyone for the support and comments, and for waiting so long. Sorry again.
As always, unbeta-ed, sorry if I miss any errors.
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Harry Potter or Supernatural, or anything belonging to J.K. Rowling or Eric Kripke, I'm just using the characters for fun. I receive no money off of this story. Don't sue me.
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Chapter 22: The Context of Spectres
Harry woke up late the day after the dance. She came to to the sounds of giggling entering her dorm, and the witch sat up to see Lavender and Parvati disappearing behind Lavender's bed curtains, likely discussing some new piece of gossip from the dance.
She contemplated opening the egg, their shrill voices upsetting her aching head. Someone must have spiked the punch the night before, and she could feel something pounding behind her eyes. Harry groaned, grabbing a pillow and pillow it down over her eyes, the sudden absence of light soothing. Nonetheless, she couldn't get back to sleep, so she stood and got ready before heading to the library. She figured she'd check there first for Ron and Hermione, as the bookworm wasn't sitting on her properly-made bed.
Harry strolled through the corridors, the dim torchlight wonderful for her current dilemma. Glancing out the windows, Harry paused as she saw a pair of redheads and a brunette on the castle grounds. She abandoned the library, heading instead for the group lounging outside. They'd said they needed to speak with her.
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"So what's this about?" She asked as Cedric turned after shutting the door to the classroom they'd led her to. Fred held up a hand to silence the Hufflepuff, waving his wand a few times with George before nodding. Harry raised an eyebrow.
"Can never be too careful." The witch shrugged. "As for your question…"
"It's the first meeting of the New Marauders!"
"We're not using that name," Harry rejected immediately.
"What's a marauder?"
"Why not?! It's perfect!"
"No." George rolled his eyes. Cedric turned to Harry.
"What is a marauder?"
"It's not important. Anyways, I'm assuming that was your way of letting me know that you guys are ready to start working on the tournament again in groups."
"Yes."
"Alright then."
"Harry, are you sure we're okay to be doing this? The rules did say-"
"I know that fairness is in your blood, Cedric, but there's probably also a survival instinct somewhere in there, yes?" He nodded. "The first task was dragons. I understand they needed to make a spectacle, but really, dragons? And who knows how much worse it's going to get. I think at this point, survival is a little more important than rules."
"Bloody right it is."
"And it's not like we'll be sharing our ideas on how to get through the tasks, just making sure that we aren't completely unprepared."
"If you say so Potter."
"I do, Diggory." She held eye contact with him for a moment before looking away, a slight blush on her cheeks. Harry cleared her throat, looking at the twins. "Anyway, have you guys heard anything about what the second task might be? Unraveled any secrets of the egg?"
"No."
"Nope."
"Maybe." The twins snapped their heads to Cedric, jaws dropped.
"What?"
"The Hufflepuff?!"
"Now, now, boys, remember that talk we had about workplace discrimination?"
"Harry!"
"Yah, okay. What've you got Cedric?" His eyebrows were furrowed as he spoke to the group.
"Well, I was taking my egg with me on patrol-" He stopped at the weird looks he was getting. "I think better when I'm moving. Anyways, I ran into Professor Moody and I thought he was going to yell at me for carrying the egg, but he just asked me how solving it was going. When I said it was alright, he sort of grunted, and mentioned that I should take a bath with it, to help me think, rather than walk around with it."
"A bath." Fred looked unimpressed.
"Yes! I thought it was just him being crazy, but there was this stress he put on the idea. I don't know, it might be worth looking into?"
"Whaddya think, Fred? Salts or bubbles?"
"I don't think we've properly considered oils."
"Boys." They shut their mouths, watching Harry. "The thing is, Moody asked me how I was preparing for the first task. He seemed oddly concerned about it. Him and Ludo Bagman."
"Bagman?" The twins were interested then.
"Yah. What's it to you?"
"Nothing, just a little disagreement."
"I'll find out later."
"Probably."
"So two officials, one of which is helping with the tournament directly, asked you about how you were doing with it? It sounds like they're just concerned because of your age," Cedric offered.
"But see, Moody asked you too, and you're old enough. And when they were prying, it didn't seem like it was because there was something in it for me."
"And you think something's wrong?"
"Not necessarily… It's just odd, that's all." And odd things tended to get odder around her.
"So, surveillance on Moody and Bagman, check."
"Leave that to me, just focus on your eggs. Try the bath thing maybe."
"You should try it too. You can use the prefect's bath, up on the fifth floor. The password's 'pine fresh'."
"Inviting our Miss Potter to bathe with you, are we?"
"I think he invited us too, Freddie, although I think we'll have to decline on account of us wanting to avoid murder by Harry."
"Shut it, you two!" Harry's ears were burning along with her cheeks, and she saw the flustered face of Cedric as turned to glare at the twins.
"I didn't mean-"
"I know, it's fine." There was awkward silence for a moment or two, made worse by the twins' pleased grins. Harry couldn't stand it any longer, and she clapped her hands together, making everyone jump. "So," She started, clearing her throat, "I think that's enough for today. Meet back soon?" They nodded, and she turned to leave the room. "Oh, and boys? I won't forget this." She heard Fred's muttered 'shit' as she walked through the door, causing a smirk to slip onto her face.
As she slipped into the Great Hall for lunch, her mind was alight with plans, specifically those to slip into the prefect's bath later that night. Also troubling her was the attitude of Moody, and how to find out the cause. But that could wait until after the egg. She had time, after all. He wouldn't leave until the end of the year.
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After a few hours filled with homework while she waited for everyone to slip out of the common room, Harry left through the portrait hole, and began making her way to the prefect's room with her egg. After a few close calls with Mrs. Norris, who seemed to be tracking her, she made it safely behind the door.
Harry set the egg down at the edge of the bath, grabbing a towel from the stack to muffle the sound of the metal against the marble. She had to admit that she was impressed by the decor. The bath was more a swimming pool than a tub, with hundreds of shiny pipes with different nozzles and handles to turn and experiment with. It took a while to even fill up the bath, which she thought might be an enormous waste of water, but it gave her time to examine the room further. After deciding on bath salts and some opaque bubbles for the hell of it, Harry sat by the tub and looked around the space. Taking up the majority of the wall in front of the tub was a portrait of a mermaid sunning herself on the rocks. She was asleep at the moment, twists of her blonde hair fluttering as she snored. There was a row of stalls behind her, and she got lost in her memories of second year, only coming out of it when the pipes automatically shut off and she found herself staring at a full bath.
Harry slid into the water, her clothes lying in a pile next to her towel. After a few minutes of just treading water and staring at the egg, she put her mind to work. There was something specific about the bath that would help her, if she was to believe Moody's whims. She tried tossing some water at the egg to see if it would do anything, to her disappointment. Harry tried again, grabbing the egg with her slippery hands and pulling it into the water with her, trying not to drop it. She almost did let it go, because of its weight. Her legs were working overtime to keep herself afloat, and for nothing, as the egg sat silent and still. She was attempting to set it back on the edge of the pool when it slipped out of her hands like a wet bar of soap, the clutch catching on her fingers as she tried to grab it. The egg burst open as it sank to the bottom of the pool, a burst of bubbles trailing away from it. Harry rolled her eyes, thinking about how hard it would be to get the monstrosity back to the surface.
She took a breath and dove under the water, and then choked on the water as she breathed in in shock. Her head shot up, breaking the surface as she gasped in lungfuls of air, coughing out the soapy water. Harry took another breath when she was ready, sinking back under the water with an expectant ear, one that wasn't disappointed. The egg wasn't screeching, or just gurgling as she had expected it too, but it was projecting the notes of a song.
Come and seek us where our voices sound;
We cannot sing above the ground,
And while you're searching ponder this;
We've taken what you'll sorely miss,
An hour long you'll have to look;
To recover what we took,
But past an hour, the prospect's black;
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.
She kicked her legs, swimming up for another breath of air, then diving back down again. She repeated this until she had the song memorized, and finally she shut the egg, using a bit of magic to pull it up through the water, avoiding the splash when she accidentally put on too much speed. With the egg safely sat on the edge of the pool once more, Harry leaned back against the tile to ponder the message. What couldn't sing above the ground.
Unwittingly, Harry found herself drifting back to the night of the Yule Ball, Luna's voice sounding out in her head. It's hard to understand them above the water. Harry remembered second year for the second time that night, specifically her invasion into the Slytherin Common Room. The windows looked out into the depths of the lake, and Harry could remember silhouettes of things swimming by, things that, at the time, she'd thought were very weird fish. And Luna had mentioned Merfolk in the lake. Her eyes moved to the portrait of the mermaid, her loud snores droning on.
"Okay. Just a treasure hunt then, I can do that," She said out loud to herself. She nodded once more for measure, climbing out of the bath and drying herself off. Once dressed, Harry picked up the egg again and slipped on her invisibility cloak, making her way out of the bathroom quietly. Everything was going smoothly until she got to the staircases.
Harry was climbing the staircases, freezing when she saw movement ahead of her. Snape swept down the stairs, his black cloak almost brushing her invisible one. She watched as he moved onto the landing, only to be confronted by Professor Moody, who seemed to materialize from the shadows.
"Snape."
"Moody."
"What are you doing lurking around here?"
"In case it has slipped your attention, I am a Professor. I am on patrol."
"Doesn't mean you aren't lurking." Harry watched, quietly, as the men tensed. Moody's electric blue eye was flitting about, when it seemed to land on something near her. Not near her, on her. He was watching her, and he knew that she was watching him back.
"Is there another interrogation you would like to take part in, Moody? Perhaps you did not enjoy the first one enough."
"No," Moody growled. Harry was slightly panicking now. She clutched the map in her hands, trying to figure out some way to get out of the situation. She could apparate? But then Moody would know she could do that and she was pretty sure she wasn't allowed to. "You're safe for now." She reeled back slightly in surprise as Moody turned his head back to Snape. "Go back to your dungeon, Snape," The professor sneered at him, turning around and striding off, his cloak billowing behind him. "Potter." Dammit.
"Yes, Professor?"
"Are you out here so late working on that egg?" He nodded towards the golden capsule, still nestled under her arm underneath the cloak.
"Yes, sir." He waited. "It's going well."
"Good to hear. He paused, his eyes catching sight of the parchment in her hands. "What's that?" She forced herself not to glance nervously at the parchment.
"Arithmancy homework." Harry withheld her grimace. Of all the stupid excuses…
"Doesn't look like homework." The tilt of the page meant that from his angle he could probably see dots moving around the page, but nothing in incredible detail. She thought quickly, not wanting her map to be confiscated, and the look in Moody's eyes made her think that there was a good chance he was going to ask for it.
"Well, I suppose not. It's a copy of a muggle game, an electronic version of soc-, uh, football. The players are the dots and there are goals they have to kick the ball through. It's based on some arithmancy predictions and runes, but I messed it up somehow. See, the dots can't be controlled." She figured something muggle would explain anything strange to him.
"Mhmm." He stared at her for a long moment, before straightening slightly. "Well, best get on up to bed, Potter. And don't let anyone else catch you, they might not be as understanding as I am." Harry gave him a tight smile of thanks, hurrying away from the increasingly disturbing teacher as he turned to head the opposite direction. As she moved, Harry looked down and set her wand on the map to wipe it clear, only to stumble for a second. She glanced back to where Moody's lumbering form was limping away, before turning from his uneven gait. Hurrying along so as to not arouse his suspicion and get caught in another discussion, Harry fumbled through explanations for why the map was telling her that the man behind her was named Bartemius Crouch.
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"What?"
"His name was Crouch. Barty Crouch." Harry paced back and forth in the empty dorm room, Hermione sat next to Ron on his bed. "Why is it always the defense teachers?"
"Harry, calm down. Surely there must be a reasonable explanation for this." She stopped, turning to face her friends.
"Alright, what've you got?" They were silent for a second.
"Well don't look at me!" Ron burst out, breaking the silence. "I'm with you mate, there's something fishy going on here."
"Ronald!"
"Oh come on, Hermione. You're the smart one, why else would Crouch impersonate Moody?"
"Do you think he's up to something?"
"Moody?" Hermione asked.
"No, Crouch," Ron argued.
"Either of them." Harry started pacing again. "Maybe Moody suspects Crouch of something, and Crouch knows it, and he's trying to investigate what Moody knows so far?"
"Harry, although I don't exactly like Mr. Crouch because of his incorrigible treatment of Winky, he's an official of the ministry, and he was the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement during the war. He helped put Death Eaters away! Why would he be working with them now?"
"I didn't say he was working with Death Eaters, just that he was up to something. It doesn't always have to be connected to Voldemort."
"Right, it's just this time where it's some other evil thing that's going on," Ron stated dryly.
"Well it could be! Sirius wasn't really connected to Voldemort. Well, except for the part with Pettigrew. But Corbyn was only here for a non-magical organization."
"Ron has a point Harry. Statistically, you've been attacked by You-Know-Who or his supporters every year. Usually around May." Hermione paused. "That's rather convenient, actually."
"Yes, well let's thank them for the fact that they try not to interrupt my schooling, except for the endless paranoia and random accidents that happen all year."
"Yes, well…"
"Look, I'm trying not to jump straight to Voldemort, so let's just list out some possible motives or explanations." She summoned a notebook and a pen, facing them expectantly.
"I still say he couldn't be up to something after his job."
"There's corruption everywhere Hermione. And how do you even know what his job was?"
"It was in this book I was reading about the war last year when we still thought Sirius might be trying to kill you."
"But Hermione, Crouch isn't the head anymore. He's organizing the tournament now."
"That's a pretty big demotion. Maybe he's bitter about the fact that the end of the war meant him being shoved down the ranks." Harry jostled down the theory.
"That's ridiculous, Harry, he wasn't demoted because the war ended!"
"Well then why? Was he abusing his power?"
"I don't… I don't know."
"Bet that stings."
"Ronald!"
"Okay, so we need to find out why he was demoted. Any other theories apart from revenge?"
"He and Moody must have worked together because of the department overlap. Maybe he's working with him again to investigate the castle. Maybe he's polyjuicing himself as Moody so that Moody can go sneaking around in secret while everyone thinks that he's somewhere else, when really it's Crouch?" Harry considered it.
"Possibly." She wrote it down. "Okay, so I figured out the egg last night, so we can work on that when Cedric and the twins join us at the next group session. For now I think we need to focus on Moody. Hermione," The bookworm straightened. "Can you try and research Crouch and his job during the war and why he switched positions?" She nodded. "Perfect. Alright Ron, maybe write Percy and ask if Crouch has been acting oddly? He said at the ball that he'd been sick, but maybe that's just his cover for coming to the school. Maybe ask about anyone that he's been in contact with recently? Maybe we could find out what or who he's investigating, if that is the case. And don't be obvious." The red head agreed. "Alright, I'll track him with the map and see when he might be meeting with Moody."
"Be careful, Harry."
"When am I not?" She got two pairs of stern looks at that. "Alright, I'll try." Another thought occurred to her. "You guys need to be careful too. Moody's an auror, he'll know occlumency and legilimency. Crouch might as well. Just, try not to make direct eye contact with either of them, and try and work on enforcing those barriers using the strategies I taught you." She took a deep breath, trying to plan out the rest of her day. "Alright, let's get started."
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After spending half the day in the library researching Moody and his career as an auror, interspersed with glances at the map, observing that Crouch and Moody were still in the Defense office together. She glanced at her watch, and decided it was time to switch to her other research topic. She headed to the aisles dedicated to magical creatures, a subsection of it devoted to spirits. In that section, there were only three or four books purely written on ghosts. Despite the meager amount, she was happy with the content, especially when she saw that one of the books was actually a journal written by a ghost that had been transcribed by a human.
Harry settled back at the table, absently passing a snack to Ron when she noticed his face was getting redder and redder with frustration trying to word his letter to Percy. He took it, stuffing food into his mouth as quietly as he could without drawing the attention of Madam Pince, or more dangerously, Hermione.
Harry opened her first book, the journal, and she began to read, haltingly, as the translation spell built into the book made some of the sentences difficult to decipher. Although, it was better than attempting to translate it directly, as the original language appeared to be some sort of Gaulish, a French language ancestor. Mostly it was just the day-to-day recallings of the ghost, him reminiscing about his previous life, and the random introspections that you could only have with the separate perspective of death. However, about a fifth of the way through the thick book, she found something more useful.
The energies hast been stirring. Once moe mine liver pulls of the darkness. It scrambles mine mind, and I find that I shall wake 'i places I didst not join to rest 'i. Time, already so meaningless and bland, appears to stretch and compress further 'i a random pattern. I fear the rising of the dark lord hath affectioned mine kind. Herpo's interference with the balance of nature is skewing those fueled by nature's power, and mine being unwittingly influenced by his corrupt happenings. I fear this may be mine last entry, as I feel mine tenuous grasp on reality slipping, and I may anon be lost to the darkness of the ritual. I know not if I shall remember afterwards, so let this be known now. The darkness is coming, 'tis power is growing, and the orb shall pay for this upset of the natural decree.
She saw the cosign of the living scribe, and flipped hurriedly to the next entry. It was describing the ghost's observance of a flower in bloom, his wordy prose going on about it's petals dropping towards the Earth as if wishing for death, with no mention of the previous entry. Harry sat back in her seat, staring at the book, deep in thought. It appeared that the ghost may have gone through some sort of memory loss, after being 'affected by the darkness'. She read through the entry again, trying to make some sense over the panicked and resigned tone of the script. The rising of the dark lord referred to this Herpo. Harry supposed that Grindelwald and Voldemort couldn't be the only Dark Lord's that the wizarding world had ever seen. She glanced up at Hermione, who was paging through a thick tome on Wizarding law.
"Hermione?"
"Hmm?" She hummed, her eyes never looking up.
"Have you heard of anyone named 'Herpo'?" This time she did stop nher perusal.
"Herpo? That's a strange name."
"You're telling me."
"I swear it sounds familiar."
"Herpo the Foul?" Everyone at the table jumped. Draco Malfoy was peering out from behind a shelf near their table.
"Malfoy?"
"That's my fault, I need to remember the silencing charm even if we're just reading." Harry rolled her eyes at herself.
"Were you talking about Herpo the Foul?"
"What's it to you?" He looked uncomfortable.
"Nothing. Just wondering why you'd be talking about a dark lord from a thousand years ago. I figured you'd be more focused on recent evils, Potter."
"Are you looking to help us with that, Malfoy?" Harry asked pointedly. The blond seemed to freeze up, then his face closed off.
"No, I don't help mu- muggleborns or blood traitors, Potter," He said hurriedly, rushing off frantically.
"Well that was strange. He was almost decent for a second." Harry nodded slowly to Ron's statement, her mind mostly on the new information the blond had provided.
"Hermione is there a section for Dark Lords?"
"Yes! I remember now." She stood up, moving to a small corner in the back of the library to grab a dusty book from the middle of the shelf. She set it on a nearby table, flipping through before she pointed. "Here it is. I was reading through some books on the history of the Wizarding world, back in first year, and this one mentioned some of the more ancient events."
"How ancient?"
"Maybe a few years after Merlin's time." Harry nodded absently. Then her mind caught onto something.
"Back in second year, remember reading about the basilisk? It was a creature of Herpo the Foul. He made the first one."
"The footnotes cite some other books about him, but they're all in the restricted section."
"I guess I've got some more work to do then." She nodded.
"Why did you want to know anyway?"
"Side project. I think something's happening to the ghosts, and something happened to ghosts back when Herpo was around. If my dreams from the summer are right, Voldemort might be doing something that Herpo did, and I need to understand the connection." Hermione was silent, he teeth worrying at her bottom lip while she stared at Harry. "What?"
"Oh, Harry. Why is it always you?" She asked sadly. Harry smiled, a little brokenly.
"Would it be anyone else?"
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Her trip to the restricted section went well, and she retired back to her dorm room laden with a large book on the history of Herpo the Foul, who was apparently considered to be one of the worst Dark Lord's in history. Take that, Voldy. She spent several of the remaining hours of the night reading about all the gruesome things Herpo had done. Harry had decided to refer to him as 'Herpes' in her mind purely as some sort of private revenge against the dark wizard. She did love to give them degrading nicknames.
Something halfway through the book caught her attention. There was a gap in his history, one that appeared to be several decades long. Apparently he had been killed by a group of paladins during one of the Punic Wars, but there were sightings of him from decades after the last one. But there had been a body, confirmed by several wizards to reassure the magical population of his death. Almost sixty years later, he was seen during the Marsic War, heading a band of rebels fighting against Rome, only to disappear halfway through. There were other times where he'd been seen, backed up by the destruction of entire villages in the area of the sighting.
Harry checked the dates, her head tilted in confusion. If the book was right, then going by the date of the last sighting of him before he vanished definitively, Herpes would have been over nine-hundred years old. And he would have had at least one confirmed death on his record. The witch flipped back to the ghost journal. The date stamped on the entry was 663 AUC with another smudged date labeled as 'Coligny'. Harry remembered the books she'd read when she first got to Georgia, with some of the latin ones being dated using various calendars, including AD, BC, Ab urbe condita, and Coligny. She activated the translation spell again, her fingers crossed. Harry smiled when she saw that the date had translated again, this time the entry dating around 90 BC, which was in line with the first sighting of Herpes after his supposed death.
She sat back in contemplation, her brain a little fuzzy from the implications of what she'd read. Herpes must have come back to life, somehow, and that must have been what the ghost had referred to as an upset of the natural decree, or what Harry supposed must be the natural order. And now, the ghosts were acting up again, and Harry only knew of one Dark Lord who was supposedly dead but was still getting some action. Evil action, not… Harry's face cringed at the unpleasant thoughts. She'd have to check out the muggle ghosts soon and give a report to Ketch. She didn't like the Men of Letters, and she didn't agree with their means, but she needed help in confirming this, and help with controlling the fallout of what looked to be the rising of darkness in the form of one Dark Lord Voldemort.
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Harry left the old classroom, dissipating the silencing and security spells she had thrown up for her conversation with Fred, George, and Cedric about the egg and her discoveries. Cedric seemed to have discovered the same thing about a day after she had, and she spared a fleeting moment to imagine what would have happened if they had visited the prefect's bathroom at the same time.
Trying to dispel the blush that was creeping up her face, Harry had listened to the twins' exclamations and ideas on how to go about preparing for the next task. She suggested routine laps in the lake to get used to the temperature and swimming for extended periods of time, and the other issues could be solved at one of their group research sessions. The other champions agreed, and she left the room to get ready with Ron and Hermione for their Hogsmeade trip.
The carriage ride to the small village was good for Harry's state of mind, with just a few minutes where she could relax completely with Ron and Hermione. She smiled at the jokes that Ron was throwing around, especially when Hermione would find one particularly exasperating and she would smack him on the shoulder. Then, the rumbling of the carriage stopped, and Harry had to refocus on her mission. She said goodbye to Ron and Hermione at the Three Broomsticks, taking the back alleys to avoid hitting students while she was wearing the cloak. Once she reached the edge of the woods, she apparated, her mind focused on the destination she had researched.
Harry landed in an alley in Edinburgh. She straightened, heading to the house that she'd read about in one of the many muggle newspapers that Crowley had been supplying her, each of them detailing potential cases. She'd chosen the one that had sounded the most like a ghost. Two guys had moved into a house that was auctioned off after the man who'd owned it as part of his real estate holdings had died. Less than two days later, they'd been dead. One of them was strung up in the attic with an old fashioned razor blade in his bloody hand. The other was found dead on the floor with his throat cut open.
She slid the window to the townhouse open, slipping in before shutting it just as quietly. Harry crept upstairs to examine the attic, ignoring the bloodstained first floor for the moment. She saw the rope, no body attached, and tilted her head questioningly.
The papers labeled it a murder-suicide, but Harry had looked up the men and found nothing in their records that would hint at a violent outburst. Plus, there was no distinguishable way for the man to have hung himself, he was too short and there was nothing around the attic that could have let him reach the noose. The boxes that might have served as a footstool were pushed up against the walls, a five foot radius between any support and the rope. She crept downstairs to look at the bloodstains again. There was no trail of blood from the rope to the spot where the body had been, so the second man couldn't have cut himself after hanging the first, and the first couldn't have hung himself.
She supposed that the old man who had died was still in the house, but she wasn't sure how that could've been possible as no one had occupied the house for years and he was cremated.
Harry left the building, and walked up to someone who looked to be local, the cloak off of her shoulders for the time being.
"Excuse me, do you know where the public records office is?"
"'Scuse me?"
"The public records office? I'm doing a school project." The man looked at her strangely, before shaking his head.
"I dunno, maybe check the council chambers? It's a few blocks that way." He pointed past her, and she thanked him.
After walking for a few minutes, Harry found herself in front of an official looking building. She slipped the cloak back over her shoulders, entering the establishment. She wandered for a while before finding a dark hallway that led to a dusty looking room full of rows of filing cabinets. She walked through the aisles, looking for a section labeled housing or development, and found what she was looking for. The house used to be owned by a Mr. Arran Smith. It had been sold to Mister's Logan Morrison and James Murphy in a public auction with Smith having no next of kin designated in his will.
Harry noticed a note in Smith's file, the house being occupied by him and his wife, Maisie Smith, and his daughter, Allison. And apparently something had happened to them, because he'd acquired another property a decade after the house, and they didn't show up in that record. She closed the file, replacing it, and apparated to the coroner's office, the location she'd researched beforehand. The coroner was in the middle of the room, standing over the body of who she assumed to be either Morrison or Murphy.
She cast a small charm on him, and he set down the entrails of the body, moving to his office for an early lunch. She hoped he washed his hands, unsure if the spell would stop that train of thought.
The official safely out of the way, Harry moved forward and grabbed the files on the two of them. Flipping it open, she saw that the body in front of her was Morrison, the one who had been hung. There were deep bruises around his neck, with what looked to be a rope pattern branded into them. Scanning the file, Harry saw that the coroner had noted that his neck was broken, but not in line with how a broken neck from a hanging might look. There were the postmarks of a hanging, but the neck itself had been broken cleanly, which wouldn't have happened with the slow hanging he appeared to have experienced. There was also no sign of asphyxiation, meaning it was quick, which was also out of line with the appearance of the location of the murder itself, with no tipped over chairs or supports anywhere nearby.
She shut the file, moving to the Murphy's notes, and saw that his death was much more natural, at least with all signs pointing towards the razor definitively being the murder weapon. Harry set down the folder, now intrigued by the hunt. She left the coroner's office and headed over to the police station, just down the street. The detectives were busy with the files on the recent victims, so Harry looked back into Smith, trying to see what might have happened to his wife and daughter.
The backlogged cases were in a separate room, allowing Harry to drop the cloak around her shoulders so she could get an uninterrupted view of the information. She found the files she was looking for relatively quickly, pulling out the folder detailing the case of the murder of Maisie and Allison Smith. The current case was somewhat cleared up when she saw that the two of them had been murdered in the house, one of them cut up on the floor, and the other hanging in the attic. The police had stamped murder-suicide on the bottom of the report, with the thought that the mother had murdered her daughter then hung herself. There were some investigation notes, with Arran Smith having been called in for interrogation a few times as a suspect. No real proof turned up, however, and the case had been closed with the original suspicion and the official cause.
Harry had a feeling that the notes about Mrs. Smith being too short to hang herself without a box support mirroring the recent death wasn't coincidental, and she closed the file, pulling the cloak back over to her, and leaving the police department. She pulled out a map of Edinburgh, finding the house quickly, then looking for the closest cemeteries to it. She found one, and apparated there, before spending an hour looking for headstones labeled 'Smith'. There were quite a lot of them, and it took her a while to find the correct Smiths, something that was helped by the fresh plot of dirt next to an older looking headstone. Maisie and Allison Smith were buried next to who Harry assumed was their murderer. She spent a moment in silence, sending her condolences to the long dead girls, before casting a charm over the area that would hopefully deter any direct attention coming her way while she dug up the graves. She debated pulling out a shovel and doing it manually, as she preferred in respect for the dead, but she had to get back to Hogwarts soon, so she just waved her hand, two piles of dirt rising and settling down like heaps of freshly fallen powder. Another wave, and the caskets unlatched, opening up to show two degrading bodies dressed in what she assumed to be their best church clothes. The cloth bow resting on the head of the smaller skeleton turned her stomach for a moment for some indiscernible reason.
Harry pulled out the lighter fluid and salt slowly, waiting for the ghosts to appear to her so that she could complete the research section of the hunt. Just as she was pouring the liquid on the bones, the air flickered and her breath came out in a small cloud of condensation. The spectres appeared in front of her, looking some mixture of sad and murderous, but not out of the normal for a ghost. Harry salted the bones with one hand, holding a floating shotgun with the other. With a flick of her wrist, the gun loaded and then released, spraying the spirits in rock salt. They disappeared with wails, then appeared again, one behind her and one in front. She loaded again, swiveling to shoot Allison as the small child rampaged towards her. She flickered and disappeared, letting Harry turn and shoot Maisie just as she finished with the salting of the graves. Harry sent a ball of fire into the caskets just as the ghosts appeared again, and watched as they shrieked and burnt up, as ghosts do.
Harry sat back, trying to resist warming her hands on the fire in the cold air. When the flames burnt themselves out several minutes later, she waved her hand and let the dirt settle back into the holes. Harry stood, brushing herself off, and apparated back to Hogsmeade. She found herself walking into the Three Broomsticks, and headed to a back table where Ron and Hermione were sitting, joined, surprisingly, by Neville, Ginny, and Luna. Harry gave them a tired smile and slid into the booth beside Hermione on the end.
"Hey, everyone."
"Hello."
"Hi, Harry."
"Hello Harry." Luna tilted her head, her wide eyes shrinking as her brows furrowed slightly. "Why do you smell like woodsmoke?" Ron choked on his butterbeer, leading Ginny to smack him on the back as Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Oh, no reason." Luna accepted that easily enough, and the conversation moved back to whatever topic they had been discussing before.
Some time later, Harry caught sight of someone with dark hair entering the pub, and she stood up when the man caught her eye. "I'll be right back, guys."
"Where's she going?" She heard Ginny say as she moved away.
"To talk to her alphabet man," Luna replied.
"Oh, Luna."
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"Report."
"Um, no, that's not how this works. Yes, I'm working with you, but I'm not an agent, so don't order me around." Ketch rolled his eyes, got up, and moved to the bar. He came back a moment later with two mugs of butterbeer. He set one in front of her, and after doing the appropriate tests, she took a sip.
"Report. Please."
"Was that painful?" He stared at her. "Alright. You're making progress, I can tell." Harry took another sip, then settled in. "I did some research, and I found another time where ghosts acted up like this, at least in the magical world. I'm not sure how the muggle ones responded back then." Ketch nodded, and Harry explained about Herpes and the unnamed ghost's journal.
"Herpes!?"
"Well, Herpo, but he was bad, irritating, and hard to get rid of going by the fact that he apparently died and was dead for a few decades, but came back."
"You make my official reports very difficult to write."
"Just part of my charm." She continued to explain, and at the end, he sat back in thought.
"Resurrection."
"Well, yes. Specifically, of a dark lord. And I did some hands-on research with the muggle ghosts. They seem to be normal for the most part, except for some slower reaction times, although that might just be the one trial I did. I think it's mostly the magical ghosts who are experiencing the imbalance, maybe because the 'rising of the dark' refers to an increase in dark magic, which might affect some magical balance, and ghosts sort of rely on latent magical energy? Or it might just be that they are sustained as ghosts with personalities because of a magical connection, as opposed to muggle ghosts, which generally tend to go batty within a few years of their deaths."
"So you're saying that this rising of the dark might be affecting the magical connection of the magical ghosts and, what, turning them into muggle ghosts?"
"Now that you say it like that, yes? Something is upsetting the balance of life and death, inherent light and dark magics, and it's affecting how the magical ghosts remain on this plane. It's a good thing that the concentration of ghosts is at Hogwarts, because that building has a lot of latent magic on its own, and could probably help decrease the, well, craziness of these spirits. But outside of Hogwarts? Depending on how long this takes, you guys might be seeing an increase in the death rates of civilians, especially around magical towns. If these ghosts are reverting to the temperament of most muggle ghosts, then we could be looking at a mass murder event, especially if they all start murdering defenseless muggles in droves. And they aren't tied to their death place, not really, so it would be almost impossible to stop them." There was silence at the table as the two of them digested it. Ketch looked at her seriously.
"Potter, what you're saying, that would mean that Voldemort is returning." She swallowed nervously.
"I wouldn't put it past him." As soon as she said it, Harry knew that she meant it. She'd felt something coming for a while.
"Be serious! This would mean the start of a new war, mass murders, hysteria, panic, everything could come crumbling down. And with the news that Voldemort could come back from the dead, potentially permanently, then you're looking at a hopeless cause. The complete overthrow of the wizarding world, and us with it."
"I'm being completely serious. The odds have been stacked against me since birth, Ketch. I understand how bad this is, I get it. But that doesn't change the fact that it is going to happen. Soon. So you need to start preparing." Her face hardened into one of determination. "You need to alert your superiors, I don't care what you have to do, but make them listen. He's coming back, I don't know how, but he is, and he'll bring death and destruction of a magnitude we can't even begin to understand right now. This will spill over to the muggle world, especially with his views on them, so you need them to start preparing. Now."
"The Men of Letters doesn't like to involve itself in matters outside of their scope," He said, a tinge of regret in his voice.
"Bullshit. You were perfectly happy to involve yourself using Corbyn last year. Even so, this will spill into their scope. If they ever claimed to protect muggles, then they need to be ready to fight for wizards, because if we don't stop him here he's just going to look to you guys next, and then where will you be? I've given my report, you have the information you need to convince them, no go and get it done."
"He might not come back."
"Those are the words of a fool and you know it." He nodded, standing up, and stilling for a second while looking at Harry.
"I know we disagree on a lot, but you've been… useful. I don't envy your position."
"Neither do I, but someone's gotta take it." She extended a hand. "Good luck, Ketch." He shook it.
"Good luck, Potter. Until the next report." They nodded at each other, and his hand slid out of her grasp as he walked away. Harry stood still, considering the enormity of what she'd just suggested could happen in the coming months. She took a deep breath, steeling herself, and headed back to the table with her friends. She would have to prepare as well, and help make sure her friends were ready too, but for now she could laugh with them and drink butterbeer. She knew it would be the last time she would be allowed to be a kid for a while.
"What was that about?" Hermione asked quietly, the rest of the table busy watching Ron try to avoid being squirted by a gobstone in a game against Neville.
"Oh, nothing to be concerned about right now." Hermione smiled, reassured, and turned back to the game. Harry took a long sip of her butterbeer. It tasted bitter.
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The first day of term came quickly, and Harry was thrown back into classes, just another thing to worry about on top of the tournament, Moody, Crouch, murderous ghosts, and, oh, the increasingly likely possibility of Voldemort coming back. She wasn't even trying to hide her knowledge in class anymore. She just finished the assignment, then started reading about spells that could be useful in the tournament as well as useful to teach her friends so they would be prepared for the upcoming conflict. On odd days, she read about ghosts instead, trying to gauge how quickly things would decline to massacre level. She hadn't found any record of magical ghosts turning on people in a mass wave, but she was still looking. The Hogwarts ghosts were getting steadily worse as well, although they seemed to be declining in a Mad Hatter pattern, instead of, say, the Joker.
At the next meeting with the twins and Cedric, they discussed possible spells to breathe underwater. Harry suggested gillyweed as a safety option if they couldn't find anything more original, remembering it from one of the rants that Neville had gone on about it closer to the beginning of the year. Hermione had jokingly suggested scuba gear, and Harry's eyes had lit up with an idea. She'd left the others to their own plans, assured that no one would drown with the backup plans in place.
Her plans were interrupted when her focus was drawn instead to the large crowd outside of Hagrid's hut. At the center was Pansy Parkinson, gossiping to everyone. Harry got close enough to hear snippets of what was being said, and found that she was reading a news article to the class. The focus of the article, however, caused he rto storm forward, forgetting all subtly, and rip the article from Pansy's bony hands. Splattered over the front page was Hagrid with his hand in the camera, the headtitle screaming 'HALF-GIANT OF HOGWARTS'. The byline, spelled in fancy curled letters, read 'Rita Skeeter'. Harry's expression darkened, and she threw the paper to her left, the rag being caught be Ron. To the tune of twin gasps from Ron and Hermione, Harry stormed up to Hagrid's hut, trying to calm herself. Just as she was about to knock, the voice of an older witch ordered them to turn around and follow her. Professor Grubbly-Plank led the group away from Hagrid's Hut, the substitute looking expectantly at Harry. The witch's fist fell from it's spot above the wood, and she turned and followed, hanging back with Ron and Hermione to discuss the new development. Mentally, Harry added a name to her list. The tournament, Moody, Crouch, the ghosts, Voldemort, Reeta Skeeter.
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By February, Harry was feeling pretty confident about her idea for the second task. She'd modified a bubble head charm and tried to work in a warming charm as well, but decided to just cast it separately. With the pressure of the next task mostly relieved, she was able to devote her time to other research. She was still studying Mermish, but that took up less time than previously, and most of her efforts were aimed towards compiling a list of spells, potions, and other skills to teach her friends. She'd already started on that front, subtly with Neville and occasionally Ginny, not so subtly with Ron and Hermione. The previous two may not have fully understood the 'extra homework help' but they were grateful for it. Ron and Hermione were a little more suspicious, but she wasn't going to alarm them yet, just drill some defensive and offensive spells into them as well as insist on increased occlumency practice.
She was also still worried about the Moody and Crouch ordeal, especially with the new information brought to her by a tearful Hermione. Crouch had put his own son in Azkaban, for the permanent incapacitation of the Longbottoms. She remembered how Moody had tortured the spider right in front of Neville, and she suspected that Crouch Senior might still be bitter about the abandoning of his son, and was trying to get revenge somehow. She wasn't sure how often Moody was teaching and how often Crouch was the one teaching, likely Polyjuiced as Moody. She didn't want to check the map in class, as his electric blue eye was very observant.
For the moment, though, she was content with her investigations. It was only a matter of time before one of them would slip up and she'd get another clue as to what they were doing.
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Harry shook her head as she trudged through the snow, Ron and Hermione walking slightly behind her, taking advantage of the path she cleared. Sirius had gone mental, it was the only explanation as to why he'd risk coming back to Hogsmeade, a fairly populated village, when the last time he was in the vicinity of Hogwarts he'd almost been Kissed. After ten minutes, the group had reached the edge of town. They stopped and looked around. Sirius hadn't been completely clear in his letter about how they were meeting, but the little clearing at the end of the lane was far too exposed for Harry's taste. She was circling, looking for any sign of the man, when she heard gasps from Ron and Hermione. She whipped around, only to be tackled by a large black dog. Harry rolled her eyes as she shoved the excited mutt off of her, standing up and brushing off her robes.
"Really, Sirius?" The dog barked, wagged his tail, then turned and padded away from them.
"Are we supposed to follow him?" Ron asked. "And are we sure that's him?" The dog stopped, turned, and waved it's head in a 'follow me' motion. "Alright, that's bloody weird." The trio followed Sirius, walking for another ten minutes of so, before they came to the edge of a cave a ways away from the village. Upon entering said cave, the dog morphed into a thin man, and Harry got her first look at her godfather in almost a year.
"Harry."
"Sirius." She hugged him when he opened his arms, a little unsurely. "How've you been."
"Cold." He sat down on the floor, grabbing a newspaper from a stack in the corner of the cave. He gestured for the three of them to take a seat as well. "Hungry too. The villagers feed me scraps sometimes, but mostly it's been rats and the occasional bunny." Harry nodded.
"Sorry."
"Ah, it's alright. I decided to come here, didn't I."
"Yes, why was that again?"
"There's something off about Hogwarts. Trouble is brewing."
"Yes, I know that."
"Well, what've you got then?" Harry, with the help of Ron and Hermione, explained their suspicions, with Crouch and Moody primarily. Sometime during the explanation, Hermione passed Harry the shrunken bag she'd been carrying, which she passed to Sirius, shrunken, and he gorged himself on the food within it.
"And that's what we've got. So far, anyways."
"Hmmm…"
"You know something." He looked up at them, his face as grim as his Animagus form. They spent the next hour or two listening to Sirius condemn the actions of Barty Crouch, and left the cave feeling simultaneously downtrodden and mad at the man. Hermione was particularly upset about the lack of due process.
As the carriages made their way back to the castle, Harry was stuck staring at the frost on the window pane, remembering Sirius' face when she mentioned Karkaroff and his worry about his arm during her last potions lesson. His expression confirmed that she was correct that the older professor had been talking about his dark mark, and that Voldemort was indeed stirring somehow.
Her spirits were lifted when she led the other two to Hagrid's, and they had a good yell at him through the wooden door. The appearance of Dumbledore made things funnier, and Harry was glad to say that Hagrid looked better and less full of shame over his heritage.
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The air was sharp and cold, and Harry glanced over to the other contestants. Fred, George, and Cedric stood grouped together in their shorts and tank tops. She pulled at the uncomfortable one-piece that her and Fleur had been given, waiting for the whistle to sound. She was worried, as Ron and Hermione were both missing, and she was suspecting that the treasure that she'd sorely miss wasn't exactly inanimate. She glared up at the judges panel. Dirty move, Dumbledore.
Harry focused on the water, staring at the tiny waves lapping at the shore. A sharp whistle burst through the air, and she waved her wand, incanting the bubble-head charm, with some extra wand movements. A bubble appeared around her entire body, and she had a moment to feel like Glinda the Good Witch, before she moved her wand forward and propelled herself into the water.
Below the waves, the bubble turned cold quickly. Harry could see frost forming on the layer of energy, something she might have wanted to study if she hadn't been in such a rush. She cast a warming charm on the inside of the bubble, the protective layer powered now by the runes etched in darker energy around her. She moved her wand, causing the personal submarine to move deeper into the lake. It was dark, and the light projected by the bubble only lit up her immediate surroundings.
"Point-me hostages." Her wand swiveled in her hand, pointing in front of her, the tip drooping down, deeper into the lake. Harry took a deep breath, and moved further into the darkness.
At the bottom of the lake, it was eerily quiet. The only sound were the noises caused by her displacing the water. The bubble hovered over the tall grasses growing out of the lake-floor. There was movement inside of them, and all of a sudden, Harry found herself facing a Grindylow launching itself out of the grass and into her bubble. She reacted on instinct, freezing the Grindylow as it flew through the energy layer. The creature's arms locked up, and it fell, right through the bubble and back into the water where it's descent slowed. It was only the first through, and she could see others making their way towards her. Harry waved her wand again, carving protection runes beside the bubble sustaining ones, so the next Grindylow that tried to get through the bubble bounced off of it, spinning in dizzying circles through the water. She shot off some stunners at the remaining ones, warning them away from trying to break the barrier. Harry brushed off the incident, casting the point-me spell again, and moving deeper into the lake. After thirty or so minutes of searching, she finally found them. She thought the warming spell had worn off when the chills went through her at the sight of several students tied to a great mermaid statue, drifting in the water aimlessly. She got closer, avoiding the irritated looking merfolk, her heart skipping a beat when she saw the blue tones of their skin. She was reassured by the steady stream of bubbles coming out of their noses, but surely it couldn't be healthy.
Harry got closer to identify the hostages, seeing Ron, Ginny, Cho, Hermione, and a little blonde girl that she supposed might be Fleurs. When she got to the end of the line, she choked on her spit. Floating there, looking very dead apart from the apparent breath, was Dean Winchester.
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Mr. Heller: I think I got the poltergeists thing confused because of the episode with Mary and the poltergeist, but I remember now about them just being two different spirits. Sorry for the inaccuracies. As for Ginny and Luna, by 'together' do you mean dating? Because they aren't, I don't know if they will, but they aren't currently. As for why they're friends with each other, they both were pretty isolated first and second year, with Ginny because of the Diary and Luna because of her oddness, so it makes sense for them to come together even in this story I suppose. I am sorry about Hogwarts being boring. Honestly when I originally outlined the story, Hogwarts would be over pretty quickly, but then random ideas and ideas from comments started coming in and I don't know it got away from me.
setokayba2n: I suppose he could have gone back to check, and I just didn't think of it. It also might have been that it was too easy? I'm not sure it was a while ago that I wrote that part.
Guest: I like that. The gravity joke might appear.
Touka Satomi: I don't actually know what part you're referring to, but I write a lot of this on very little sleep so it's very probable that I subconsciously made that mistake. If you comment the part I could fix it.
Meep: Rita hasn't been entirely present this chapter, but in probably the next one she will be. And I'm not sure how the future is going to pan out, this story has gone so off the rails of the original ideas. I still have a few from the original outline, big idea things, but a lot of the details have been so skewed. The haircut will be cool, I have a vague idea for when it's going to happen. I think the nargles were described as almost gnat-like, with the brain going fuzzy being connected to gnats buzzing? I think most people have a good amount of them, and to the rest of the question I shall say Spoilers and leave it there. I could probably say something general about Hogwarts Mystery, but I really haven't been playing it that often. I'll play it obssessively for a month and then forget about it for like a year, so I'm not far in at all. Apocalyptic Harry is something interesting for me to think about, but I'll have to shelve that until we get closer. I think she uses race to mean more like species maybe? I'll be honest I'm not entirely sure to what part you're referring to. And yes to the normal history teacher. There can't be too many conspiracies per year, she needs a break. I'm excited to write the Cas and Harry interactions, other than that spoilers. I think Harry was a little socially awkward, but she also originally planned to be in and out of Hogwarts, then go on hunting, but her minions grew on her. It could be Gabriel or Loki I think, because I remember part of a Supernatural episode where angels had kids, it was only the part human offspring that were especially dangerous. Yah there's no way he accepted the ban, there's a sort of magical influence that stops him, like a shock collar almost. There was a part where that happened in the book, it just wasn't necessary for this story. There is also a later part of the book where they talk about it thought. Maybe on the club. I like the Mary Poppins reference though. The Men of Letters thing will hopefully be wrapped up before we get into season one. I don't know though, because this story seems to get out of control very easily. I'll have to think about the wards too, but that's a long way off. Also, I'm not dead or a hostage of the mafia, but thanks for asking. As for your Supernatural theory, I'm very tired and now I'm feeling existentially critical but also like powerful? So thanks I think?
Warpixie: Thank you, I try. A lot of them are from tumblr posts though, so I can't take most of the credit. Love the username by the way.
Karazik: Sorry you feel that way. I've responded to a comment with similar criticisms if you do decide to read far enough to see it.
Guest: (about the Lindsay thing) I'm pretty sure this is a real comment and not a joke or anything so I'll post some other stuff, but is there like a specific way I can help other than that?
AvidReader2425: That's a good idea. I haven't done it as of this chapter but I will before the next one, it's really hard to keep track of everything and keep the continuity continuous.
I think I answered everyone who had a question, and if not, just harass me through the comments. There was a lot to read through because I don't check the comments outside of when I'm updating and writing responses. Thanks again.