harry potter is gnomeface, king of gnomes (bravestheart) wrote in flippedrpg, @ 2012-10-13 00:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | ch: can: harry potter, p: annalisa |
Who: Harrycanon & Emily (ghost NPC)
What: meeting his ghost.
When: Saturday night.
Where: Harry & Ginny's room in Gamma.
Warnings: a creepy ghost?
Ghosts did not frighten Harry, no matter how scary they were intended to be. He had seen ghosts at Hogwarts, and in the forest, and he carried many more ghosts with him everywhere, just not the sort that everyone else could see. Even he couldn't see them most of the time, though he'd seen them in Hogwarts world, in flashbacks. That haunting had been far more crippling than this one, and he hoped that these ghosts would be easier to put to rest.
His idea to go to the cemetery hadn't worked; he'd found the graves marked with familiar names, and none of the ghosts were familiar. He had the sense that the smudging and talking to the ghosts had helped somewhat, but it hadn't solved the problem completely. The ghosts were still all over the block, shrieking and groaning and making Harry's skin prickle with the feeling of their eyes on him. When the sensation of being watched got truly oppressive, he stopped and closed his eyes and simply watched them back, breathing deeply until his heart rate slowed. It was less frightening, from his perspective, to have his eyes closed so that he could see them. The shrieks, while bloodcurdling, did not make him afraid for his own safety but rather grated on the nerves that were associated with worrying about others. The sound of so much pain and fear was nearly unbearable, and it was that which disturbed his sleep, more than the ghosts behind his eyelids.
But he'd managed it, in the end. He'd lain in bed, eyes closed, watching the ghosts behind his eyelids and listening to them and accepting their presence. Eventually, he'd been calm and tired enough to fall asleep. The ghosts were present in his dreams as well, and Harry was unsure whether that was part of the experiment or his own subconscious, but nightmares were a familiar, if not entirely welcome, nighttime companion.
He'd not yet gotten into bed for the night, but sat in one of the chairs in the room he shared with Ginny. His eyes were closed, and he watched the room around him from behind his eyelids. In his lap he was holding the bible he'd brought back from Salem World, fingertips tracing the texture of the binding and gently thumbing the pages without actually rustling them or opening the large tome. He did not really know how to use it in any sort of exorcism, but he had chosen to keep it as a reminder of the dead from Salem, thus its presence felt appropriate regardless. The dead wanted to be remembered. Even though current evidence was to the contrary, they wanted to be at rest. Harry believed that, even if they didn't believe it themselves. They could fight to hang on to life as much as they liked-- and he understood that sentiment all too well, so he could hardly fault them for it-- but ultimately, being able to rest peacefully was what they needed.
There were so many of them. So many dead not at rest, and Harry didn't know their names or their stories; he didn't know what to do to help them. Conversation had not gotten much of anywhere, so now he simply sat and watched, looking for some clue to their existence.
Most of them moved around, sometimes towards him and sometimes away, but after a little while one of the ghosts stilled in front of him. It was a young girl dressed in light blue, watching him through dark eyes. Approximately three-quarters of her face was grotesquely disfigured, but the upper left quarter of her face was very young and childlike-- fair skin, a button nose, a wet curl sticking to her forehead. At her side, partially hidden in the folds of her light blue skirt, she held a teddy bear, which was missing an arm and one of its eyes, and stuffing protruded from a gash in its stomach. Her gaze was far more intensely frightening than any child's should rightly have been, but Harry held it anyway. None of the other ghosts were so intensely fixated on him; it seemed significant, even if not necessarily a good sign.
Eyes still closed, he held out a hand to her, reaching into the empty space of the room. She didn't take it, so after a moment he lowered his hand again. Lest she disappear, he tried to memorize every detail of her-- the blue of her dress, the blonde curls of her hair that had gone dark from being wet, the scars on her face, the dirt and scrapes on her knees-- and had the strangest sensation that she was doing the same to him. They watched each other like that in silence for quite a while before Harry asked, "What's your name?"
He half expected her to startle at the sound of his voice. She didn't, but she broke eye contact to glare at the ground, her free hand fidgeting with her skirt. Her answer came to him in a whisper. Emily.
"Emily," Harry began, not sure what he was going to say, but starting to reach out again-- and then he opened his eyes, and saw only the empty room in front of him. He quickly closed his eyes again, but she'd faded back amongst the other ghosts, just a flicker of blue that disappeared so quickly he wasn't even sure he'd seen it. The moment was lost.
Harry opened his eyes again, and lowered his gaze to the bible in his lap. He sat quietly looking at it for a moment, barely hearing the raucous noise going on around him, and then opened it to the page where he'd listed the names of the dead in Salem. He ran a fingertip over them, then turned to the next page and began a new list with a single name, a single word.
Emily.