The Search and Rescue unit took over the operation after the fires were put out. They weren't sure why they had been summoned at first, but with the destruction in front of them, it wasn't hard to figure out. They searched for hours before coming to the same conclusion that Danny had come to when he had first landed; they were not looking for survivors, but for bodies. The crew continued to dig through the burnt wreckage, but stopped when it became too difficult for manpower alone. Heavy machinery would be needed in order to remove the rest of the rubble. Danny watched them work from his spot below the Ops Center. It was a good place to see the operations while providing him protection from unwanted eyes.

Unwanted eyes which belonged to Vlad, who was pacing back and forth in the center of the ruins. When the man had first arrived, he had broken down in devastation. It was a sight not meant for the public so much so that the search team had stepped back to give him room to grieve. Danny, however, hadn't budged. No one had given him the same courtesy.

It had been unsightly to say the least. The man who was notorious for inducing fear and pain amongst the fiercest of ghosts had been on his hands and knees, begging for Danny's mother to be alive. It was a relief when he had finally regained enough composure to return to his semi-dignified self.

He was now scouring the rubble. Danny knew he was looking for him, having discovered that he was the lone survivor, but he didn't have it in himself to do anything about it.

Normally, the older half-ghost would hunt him down using his ectosignature, but with the ectoplasm saturating the snow, Danny surmised that he was pretty difficult to find right now. Not that he was in a rush to be found, but it was only a matter of time. Plasmius always got what he wanted in the end. Danny looked at the remains of his parents' bedroom. Well, not everything.

He wasn't looking forward to talking to Vlad… or anyone else. He just wanted to be left alone. He watched the operations though his mind was elsewhere.

Torture. The only method known to break a memory curse… Every other way had killed the victim.

Slowly, the Search and Rescue team left the site. Visibility was low due to the snowfall and the heavy machinery was clearly not coming today. They'd start their search again tomorrow when the snow would hopefully let up.

In a quick couple hours the victim would remember everything. Every memory that was shut away. The memories they never knew they had. The solution was easy, simple. Impossible.

The snow continued to fall in its silent descent as a calmness fell on the site. The glittering surface of the snow on top of the destruction reflected the orange glow from a nearby street lamp. Danny watched a snowflake land, expecting to hear something, but no noise broke the silence. He glared at it and released a huff to disrupt the pleasant calm that had settled.

He had been so worried about the dangers of his friends knowing about magic that he hadn't considered the dangers they'd be in from not knowing.

If he had just told them about magic back in Egypt, they would know that it wasn't just ghosts they had to look out for. If he had told them what wizards looked like, they would have recognized them the moment they walked into Nasties. If he had told them of their bias, they'd know the dangers of being in their presence as normal human beings. They could have escaped before those awful people had the chance to open their vile mouths.

Danny sighed miserably. He could play the 'what if' game forever and it wouldn't change what had happened. Besides, knowing his friends, instead of lying low, Sam and Tucker would have brazenly stood their ground while letting the others flee. It was just how his friends were. Had been. Ugh, he didn't even know anymore.

He mulled over his options. He could try to recreate their friendship. Pretend the incident at Nasties was some sort of fit and reintroduce himself properly. He could get to know them all over again.

Another relationship based on lies.

Danny slumped and wiped his eyes. Not only did he not have it in himself, but he also couldn't put them through the burden that was his life again. At least they were happy in their ignorance, if their lack of cautious glances when he had first entered the restaurant was anything to go by.

Danny knew the life they had had was stressful, but he hadn't realized how bad it was until he had spotted Tucker's relaxed goofy grin at Nasties. The tension that was ever present in case he'd needed to take action had been nonexistent, that is, before Danny slid into the booth.

And Sam. The smile Sam had worn was one he hadn't seen since before his accident in the lab. He had known she had still blamed herself for convincing Danny to walk into the broken portal. That guilt never left, and had remained with her throughout their years together. As excited as she had gotten in learning about ghosts and defending those who needed her, the guilt was ever present and was slowly eating her from the inside. The smile she had back at Nasties, however, was carefree, guiltfree. Nothing could hold her back anymore. Her life was now free to do with whatever she wanted and Danny never wanted to see that smile disappear again. Even if it meant never seeing his friends again.

They were probably still at Nasties preemptively celebrating the possibility of a snow day. Leave them to their celebrations. They were happier this way. Safe. They didn't need to feel the loss of a broken friendship. Not like him.

Danny had never felt more alone.

A hoot distracted Danny from his thoughts. He watched Hedwig land on a piece of foundation. Their eyes met and in that gaze, a lot was shared causing renewed tears to pool over. Danny blinked and looked away. They sat in silence as the tears and snow continued to fall. The normally proud predator rested her head on Danny's knee and waited for him to finish. When Danny had no more tears to shed she nudged his hand and offered him her foot. Harry's familiar handwriting faced him.

"It's addressed to Jazz," Danny said sullenly. He knew how particular owls could be with their deliveries. Hedwig only nudged him again.

Danny untied the letter. Staring blankly at it, he came to a realization. Until this moment he hadn't thought of Harry. What would he tell him?

With shaking hands, he opened the envelope. Two pages fell out: an article from the Daily Prophet and a letter. Danny started with the letter.

Jazz,

Don't bother sending me any more letters. I haven't read your first, and I don't plan to read any of the others that come in. I'm severing my ties with the muggle world and asking that you do the same with the wizarding world. Stop sending flyers. It's not helping anyone.

Tell Jack and Maddie I'll be staying here over Christmas. Even if the Yule Ball didn't require my presence I wouldn't be going to Illinois. Unless I'm forced to, I will try my best to stay here.

P.S. I hope with this article that you finally get into your head that what I said over the summer was real. You are not my real family, and I don't plan to ever go back to Illinois.

Harry Potter

Wordlessly, Danny moved onto the newspaper article: Triwizard Tournament: Meet the Champions! A frown began to form the further he read. When he got to the line about Harry crying at night for his parents, Danny had had enough. He let the papers drop with a heavy sigh and looked back at Hedwig.

"Looks like he's not reading his mail from us anymore," he informed her. Danny watched the moving pictures from its place on the ground. "Not like I knew what to say anyway…" Still, Harry should know what had happened. Even if he didn't care.

A pair of dress shoes came into his peripheral.

"Daniel."

Danny ignored him. Let the man wait. Maybe if he ignored the man long enough, he would walk away like the rescue teams.

"Daniel."

Not likely. Danny looked up and met the eyes of the billionaire. Grief and heartache returned his gaze before they were hidden behind a smooth impassive mask.

"What happened." He demanded more than asked.

Danny looked away, uninterested. He didn't want to talk. He wasn't sure whether he should answer anyway. Or if he could.

"I deserve to know what happened to my oldest friends, Daniel."

Anger rose and he couldn't be silent any longer. "Do you?" Danny seethed, standing up. "You, the man who's been trying to rip my family apart for years!? You've tried to kill Dad hundreds of times! What gives you the right?"

Vlad ignored the accusation, and threw one of his own. "Then let me make my own conclusions," he shot back. "Based on the radius of the explosion, it appears someone forgot to do their chores and clean the ecto-filtrator."

"Are you saying this is my fault?" Danny shouted as his chest tightened with pain. He winced and clutched his shirt.

Vlad watched the boy falter with a calculating look. This was going nowhere, and if Vlad wanted answers he'd have to tread carefully, which admittedly, was not one of his strong suits. "No," he finally answered. "Your mother was home and would have heard the alarms in time to fix it."

How would he know - A frown formed on Danny's face. "Nice to know the last of your sick cameras were destroyed in the explosion. Why don't you check the rest of the data for the answers you're so desperately seeking. I'm sure they'd tell you everything," he spat.

"I heard from the emergency services, boy," Vlad stated with exasperation. "You destroyed all the plasmius beetles within 24 hours of my last installment."

Danny narrowed his eyes. Was that a note of pride in his voice? Disgusting. "Goodbye, Vlad," he said and began walking away. Where he was going, he wasn't sure.

"You have nowhere to go," Vlad called back, pointing out the very thoughts Danny was thinking. "Legally speaking, I amyour godfather."

Vlad smirked as Danny stopped. To Danny, flashes of red eyes and flaming hair flooded his thoughts. His worst nightmares were playing out and there was no Clockwork this time to fix it. I'm inevitable. He couldn't stay here. He couldn't live with Vlad. It was where it all had started.

Danny turned around and jabbed a finger in Vlad's face. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

Surprised by the turn of events, Vlad lowered his brows. "Why not?"

"Where should I start?" Danny stated sarcastically. "Child endangerment, illegal experimentation, or attempted murder?"

Vlad sighed. "Listen, Daniel. I know our past has not been the best, but I'm willing to give it a chance."

"Of course you are. It's only what you've wanted for years," Danny snapped back.

"What I'm doing is offering you a stable place to live so that you can figure out what you want to do. I doubt your little friends could provide you with the same support."

A stab of pain went through him at the thought of Sam and Tucker, but he didn't let it show. He wouldn't back down. "Your support comes with an ectoblast in the morning and electricity in the evening."

Vlad faltered before looking Danny in the eyes. "Daniel, I haven't attacked you for months," he stated seriously. "Can't you see? I've been trying to bury the hatchet and move on. We can call a temporary truce if that's what you need. Whatever happened here… I have the power to protect you from it."

Danny laughed humorlessly. "You can't protect me from the people who got the one-up on you years ago. The worst part is, they screwed you so much that you can't even remember them doing it!"

Vlad paused. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

Danny released a heavy sigh. "Nothing, Vlad." But his chest hurt. He needed to tell him something. If they came back and Vlad didn't know then… "But… if you see any strange people. Like people dressed weirdly, don't approach them. Turn around and don't look back," he spouted against his will.

Vlad furrowed his brow in thought. "I had two women in my office today who claimed they were from the FBI but wore private school uniforms. Then there were two cult-looking people who were walking up to my house when I left to find you… Are you saying these are the people that-that…" he trailed off, not able to finish.

"The culprits are dead," Danny spat. "but their kind still remains." He shifted before coming to a conclusion and adding, "They wiped your memory about a year ago. It, uh, wasn't the Fenton mind scrambler like I told you."

Vlad let the information sink in. Danny waited for the man to say something, but when he didn't, Danny asked, "Do you remember everything that happened with the people who came to you today?"

"I didn't spend much time with either party before I departed," Vlad answered, deep in thought. "If they wanted to do something, they wouldn't have had time."

Danny nodded. "Then you were lucky." He looked in the direction of Nasty Burgers. "They were erasing every aspect of ghosts from the town's memory. You probably would've forgotten you were a ghost."

"That explains their questions." He gave Danny a serious look. "Who are they?"

"Monsters." Danny hugged his shoulders. He felt cold. Why did he feel cold?

Vlad was taken aback by the spite in Danny's tone. From his experience, Daniel never threw words like that at others. He knew the sting of being called such things to use it so flippantly.

"Daniel, please," he begged.

Danny finally looked up. His eyes were filled with hatred. "They're a cult who can wield magic and frequently use it against people that can't. They like to think that anything out of the norm is theirs and shouldn't be public knowledge." He looked down at his hands. "They found out about Amity Park's ghosts and decided it was their knowledge." Tears began to pour as Danny finally admitted what happened. "They tried to take our portal…" He couldn't finish, but Vlad was able to fill in the gaps.

"Those arrogant bastards!" he seethed. If Danny wasn't so miserable, he would have been shocked the man hadn't used a different pastry-filled word. "When I get my hands-"

Danny looked up. "No! Vlad you can't!" he shouted desperately. He had to understand. He was the only one who hadn't been- If he couldn't protect Vlad, then -

Danny cried out in pain and clutched his chest.

"Daniel, calm down," Vlad ordered, understanding what was happening, but unsure of how to handle it. Well, he wasn't one to skirt around the issue. "Your core is destabilizing, you need to calm down."

"Vlad, don't look for them. Promise me you won't look for them," Danny whimpered desperately.

Vlad frowned. "Fine." he said, if only to appease Danny. Still, relenting left a bad taste in his mouth. "But it won't stop me from doing my own research." Danny gave a pleading look but knew that was the best he could get. Seeing the fight die, Vlad continued, "Back the matter at hand, your core is destabilizing. I know it hurts, but you need to refocus it."

"Are you telling me to just forget about my family and what happened to them?" Danny asked angrily.

"You know as well as I do that this blizzard is not normal. Your powers are escaping and you can't control it because you are breaking. People will get hurt if this continues." He knew Vlad was playing on his obsession, but the knowledge didn't stop the pain that went through him. And to make matters worse, the power went out in the street. The world was trying to prove his point.

Danny grit his teeth. "Sorry, my bad. I didn't realize my reaction to the death of my family was putting everyone else out. I'll make sure to keep my distance from everyone."

"Daniel, that's not what I-" But Danny had disappeared and flown off. "I'm trying to help," he muttered to the air. He looked around until he spotted the snowy owl. Vlad could tell that the bird was intelligent in the way it cocked its head and watched him. Eventually, she hopped to the ground and nudged a letter and old newspaper with her beak. Once she was sure Vlad noticed, she spread her wings and took flight. Where she was going, only the owl knew.

Vlad grabbed the papers and began reading.

Danny dropped from the sky and grabbed his chest in pain. It was a bad idea to use his powers right now. He had known something was wrong, and Vlad had just confirmed it. He was destabilizing, fading. If he didn't do something, he would die.

Every thought he had neglected to ponder about core destabilization came out from the abandoned recesses of his mind. He just had to find the right one.

- "Ghosts are formed from a particularly malevolent post-human consciousness, usually with a drive or obsession it must complete-"

No. That wasn't it.

- "You guys only have one need and that is to fulfill your obsession. Well, we won't help you!"-

Hurtful and unhelpful.

- "His obsession drives him to fight other ghosts, and he doesn't care who he hurts in the process. Every time, he ends up causing more damage than he's worth."-

Danny winced. Images flooded his mind.

-Sam's burnt arms as she fought off Skulker, Tucker's charred fingers and devastation at the destruction of his PDAs, Jazz's blood-stained face as she defended herself from a skeletal army-

If his parents were right about anything, it was this. Except for the part about caring. It hurt too much not to.

It hurt too much to.

Danny curled up in a ball as the thoughts continued.

- "Obsessions are what motivates ghosts to stay in this plane of existence. It's the drive that keeps them going. It has to do with how they died."-

- Flashes of green and crackling electricity. Unrelenting pain that triggered every neuron in his body. -

Danny cried out at the memory.

- "Welp, your obsession is one of the easiest to spot and frankly, the easiest to manipulate."-

- He knew he was dying, but the screams of his friends were what he focused on. The thought of leaving Jazz alone with his neglectful parents. He needed to be there for them. There to pro-

-"I couldn't stand by and do nothing. People were getting hurt!"-

-"Your obsession is protection. Though I have to admit, it is more geared toward protecting your friends and family."-

He already knew all of this. None of this was helping.

- "What will happen when you can't protect the ones you love? Or anyone else for that matter?"-

-"What happens when your core cracks from the strain of knowing you weren't good enough?" -

-"You'd be nothing more than an empty shell."-

-The tears running down her face expressed the truth of the statement as well as the weight of her decision. "I'm sorry."-

-"Seriously, though, who are you?"-

Danny truly felt empty. What was the point of this? Of anything? His friends were defenseless when their memory was taken from them. He had failed to protect them and now everything they had fought for, all the trials that they had overcome together, were gone. As if it had never happened.

His family was-was dead. There was no use denying it any longer. He couldn't save them. They were buried under piles of concrete. Nothing he could do would change that.

- "A broken obsession is not easily fixed for it is easy to dwell on the failings of it."-

He couldn't help it. It was all he could think about. He was supposed to save them. He had one job and he couldn't even do that. How could anyone expect differently from the no good lazy Fenton freak? Everyone knew he was the worst Fenton around. The only one now.

It was with these thoughts that Danny cried silently in his curled up position on the ground. The dark thoughts swirled around each other like the snowflakes that fell from the sky. The night was long, sleepless, and cold. One inch had quickly turned into three feet. As the first reaches of light hit the glittering expanse, it was clear that no one would leave their homes today.

Hidden in an alley underneath the snow, Danny sat. A homeless boy with no more tears to give. The thoughts were still present, but had no new insights to share.

- "While a soul fragment is doomed to dwell on what it's missing, a cracked core has the ability to rise above it and transform its obsession into something new."-

He couldn't forget about his friends and family. They had been the ones that were there for him when no one else had been. Who would he be without Jazz's wisdom or words of encouragement? She had been so determined to improve Danny's self esteem that she took it upon herself to work through his problems with him despite the other priorities she had. And Sam. Her passion for activism and unyielding stubbornness in the face of injustice helped Danny see the ways he could help people without the need of violence. And Tucker's easy going attitude could diffuse the tensest of situations. He would lighten the mood with a goofy comment or pun. These people all helped form who Danny was today. He couldn't just move on. The pain of loss would never leave. He refused to let it leave.

-"People will get hurt if this continues."-

Vlad was right. As usual. Danny had nothing left here anyway. What was the point in staying, if the only thing remaining was to wait until they uncovered his family from the wreckage? He wasn't ready to say goodbye. He wasn't ready to see what remained. He wasn't ready for a lot of things, but he was ready to leave. He couldn't be here any longer.

Snow fell as Danny stood up. He'd risk using his powers just until he was out of town then he'd find his way by foot. Without a second glance, Danny jumped into the air and flew away.

.

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A/N - The letter from Harry was harsh. At first, I thought it was out of character from my version of Harry, but when I reread it with his section in chapter 28, it made sense. When Harry wrote it, he was angry and wanted to get his point across before Jazz sent out another flyer out. It's easy, when someone's not face to face, to say things you'd regret later on. Harry's on a path to enlightenment, but he's not quite there yet.

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Next chapter will feature Harry and some familiar old faces.