Ghost: Spectre, wraith, imprint of a departed soul left on the earth.
Can see. Can hear. Can speak. Cannot feel.
His unfeeling finger slid over the page, creasing the corner. The texture of the hundred year old parchment, almost crumbling but for the Stasis Charm, felt grainy, coarse under his skin. The fingers of his left hand were wrapped around the stem of a goblet, stone, a shimmering translucent gold of freshly-brewed rakia steaming from its depths.
They are the disembodied spirits of a once-living witch or wizard, though Squibs and families with magical blood/tendencies also sometimes produce ghosts. These fleshless spirits linger on in our world, unable to pass on through the Veil, either because they were afraid of death or because they have an extraordinarily strong connection to the places they haunt.
He flipped the page. The crackle was exceedingly loud in the muted air of the room. All the instruments, dusty, unpolished....unused for what seemed like ages littered its corners like ornaments, rather than the wells of sound they were- silenced.
On certain occasions, ghosts have been known to haunt people as well- dogging their every step, their every living and dying breath. This most frequently happens in case of murderers or tormentors, the ghosts avenging the crimes and vindicating grudges acquired during their erstwhile lifetime (refer to Case 10227: Olive Hornby filing restraining orders against ‘Moaning Myrtle’), or more rarely, clinging to their loved ones in their lifetime. Ghosts can turn invisible, can float through solid objects, cause disturbances in fire, water and air, cause an icy sensation when someone passes through them-
Something kicked him, very, very hard across the shin.
Breath hissed out through closed teeth, and slate eyes shifted upward, across the grand piano on whose worn, wooden surface parchments of all sizes and shades were scattered, and his current book propped. A black head of hair popped above the piano level, face pale, mouth pursed, small fingers curled around and upholding a sheaf of papers just below her chin, covered with ant-like font and a large word scrawled over the header: DONE
Temptation flickered for a second, the throb pervading through his knee deluding his common sense to prolong the spell a little while longer- but he’d be a dimwit of the highest order to keep this lumbering, insane fool within ten metres of him for any further duration of time. The familiar shaft of yew resting in his hand, eyes back to the library tome, his wrist flicked. “Finite.”
The girl cracked her jaw open, audibly, and let out a test croak. Reid’s eyes flitted across the handwritten words on the book, unerringly scrambling them up and turning them over and over in his mind, even as the idiot occupying the same pocket of air as him proceeded to travel the musical scale, up and down, with her less-than stellar voice, evidently checking if hour-long Silencing Spells had any adverse impact on ability to carry a tune. Any other considerate person, with useless, free time on their hands, would have considered the Hufflepuff’s musical talents a lost case long before Silencing Spells even entered the equation.
“My mouth feels dry.” She proclaimed, after damaging the eardrums of all those unwitting enough to wander onto this floor without earmuffs. The bunched up parchments in her hand, twenty inches on the history and usage of magical artifacts in the Goblin Rebellion, deposited itself on the little crook of space on the piano not covered by papers.
“I should gag you the next time then.” A wave of the wand, and the parchments vanished into thin air before they could even settle properly onto the wood, converted to non-being. He set down the goblet on the newly liberated space, condensation steaming his fingertips.
There should have been a gasp hitting the air right now, an indignant noise, an annoyed, half-cut off mutter at his blase Vanishing of the work he himself had assigned, the work that took her over two hours to complete. But it seemed that over a month of forced tutoring had enlightened Alisha Merchant already, for there was only a brief sigh before an elbow knocked into the vicinity of the goblet, dark hair and cheeky dimple intruding into his vision. “Oh, would you?”
Reid blinked at her, a number of times. At certain momentous occasions, patience gives out, even anger throws up its hands in defeat and one is only left to wonder how a few people manage to even reach their sixteenth birthdays, without plunging the world into war, setting fire to entire cities, and getting killed within five minutes of their waking up in the morning.
There wasn’t a drop of mocking in his intonation, not a single one. Serious wasn’t enough to covered it, he was almost bewildered. “How suicidal are you, exactly?”
The smile on her face didn’t falter one bit. Small shoulders lifted up and down in a shrug, “I was going more for recklessly audacious, but- aw, crap!” She’d apparently kicked up her ankle over the other at the last word, but only succeeded in hitting the heel of her shoe against the nearby stool, knocking off a book in the process, which she immediately dived under the piano to retrieve. Reid glared at the wobbling goblet on the piano, almost precariously overturned by the sudden movement, directed a last testy look at the girl currently scrubbing on her hands and knees under the instrument, straining for the tome, and returned to his own book; consciously relaxing his jaw, exhaling. Du Hunt would regret this to the last, miserable second of her life.
Apart from the sound of scrabbling on the stone slabs somewhere near his feet, silence reigned in the room. Enough for his gaze to flit over the first paragraph again and again, retracing the words with an almost tangible touch, echoing in the confines of his head. Ghost. Spectre. Wraith. Can see, can hear, can speak, cannot feel. Can see, can hear, can speak, cannot feel. Can see, can hear, can speak, cannot....
If he were literary. If he talked in metaphors and similes like authors....like Rika.....he’d call himself a living ghost. ..feel.
He missed the sound of the door opening, of footsteps resounding through the stone, of a voice calling his name. Just registered the abrupt sensation of something knocking against his foot, and his head turned: seeing Merchant brushing off the dust on the knees of her jeans, something narrow and shiny clasped in her right palm, rising to her feet- and three feet across, standing tall and only a little pale- Vivianna.
“Sorry.” Merchant voiced apologetically, then placing the -vial, it was a vial- on the little tray that generally held the sheet music. “Reserve ‘Puff keeper, can’t quite keep my hands to myself when things fling themselves through the air.” She darted two quick glances between the two of them, seated, raven-haired boy, standing redhead girl, both storm and cerulean glassy and fixated in surprise, and the corner of her pucker lifted a little in amusement. “Anyway, places to be, work to do, opera competitions to win, can’t keep either of you, so bye!”
She weaved her way through the narrow gap between Vi-Varnes and the door, and gave a last spirited wave back at him, hand almost blurring in the rapid movement. “See ya next week, Reid! I’ll be back with an axe!” And her ponytail whipped through the air, footsteps bounding past the corridor, and the words muttered in her wake were indistinguishable enough to be ignored. “-to saw through all the sexual tension.”
Several seconds of motionless silence preceded the creak of the wooden stool as he shifted forward, hand outstretched to pluck the vial off the stand. The glass rolled, back and forth on his open palm, thick potion that could conceal life, death, and dreams- the three most toxic things within its murky drops cradled, held captive in his grasp.
“While I do appreciate the honesty......” The vial rolled. Back and forth, back and forth. The glass felt feverishly warm to the touch. Can see, can hear, can speak, cannot... “You’d have been more successful in poisoning me if you snuck it into my food.”
by Vivianna Varnes Sun Apr 06, 2014 1:39 am
