Snape really did look worse with a whistle.
I had not thought that was possible.
He stood in the middle of the pitch in black robes that flapped behind him with every gust of wind like an exceptionally displeased flag. In one hand, he held a whistle. The other was hidden inside his sleeve.
He looked like a man who had just been granted the official right to ruin Saturday for several hundred children.
And he intended to take the responsibility seriously.
"This is going to be beautiful," Malfoy said.
I looked at him.
"You have strange standards of beauty."
We were sitting several rows above the pitch. The wind was cold, but at least it was not snowing. Most of Slytherin had come mainly to watch Snape ruin Gryffindor's day.
I could not entirely blame them.
Malfoy leaned forward.
"I give Potter ten minutes."
"That long?"
He turned his head.
"You think Snape will get him faster?"
"I wasn't talking about Snape."
He frowned.
Blaise looked at me over his scarf.
"You know something no one else knows again?"
"Yes."
Malfoy stiffened.
"What?"
"How counting to ten ends."
Blaise snorted.
Malfoy turned back toward the pitch.
"One day, I'm really going to hate you."
"You've been working on that since September."
The teams came onto the field.
Gryffindor.
Hufflepuff.
Harry looked as though he would rather be anywhere else.
Snape looked as though that was exactly what he wanted to achieve.
Then I noticed Dumbledore.
He was sitting high in the stands, slightly off to one side, wearing robes so bright he could have been used as a landmark for lost airplanes.
Harry saw him too.
Even from this distance, I could see some of the tension leave his shoulders.
Sensible.
I looked at Quirrell.
He was sitting with the teachers.
Turban.
Hunched shoulders.
Hands clasped in his lap.
Nothing interesting.
Then I looked at Harry's broom.
Then at Snape.
Back to Quirrell.
And only then did I realize what I was looking for.
A curse.
A trace.
Something forced into the movement of the wood like last time.
There was nothing.
Good.
Even so, my left eye pulsed faintly.
Not with pain.
More like a finger tapping against a table.
Waiting.
I looked away.
"They're starting," Blaise said.
Snape blew the whistle.
The brooms shot into the air.
The match was exactly as absurd as I remembered.
Snape awarded Hufflepuff a penalty for something that, from where I was sitting, mostly looked like existing near a Gryffindor player.
The red stands exploded.
Malfoy was delighted.
"Fair."
"I didn't know you knew that word."
"There was a foul."
"What foul?"
Malfoy opened his mouth.
Stopped.
"I don't know. I'm too far away."
"Of course."
Several rows below us, Ron Weasley was shouting something toward Snape.
Hermione was trying to quiet him down.
Neville looked as though he was considering whether it was safer to cheer for Gryffindor or pretend he had arrived here by accident.
Then Malfoy noticed them.
Bad.
"Longbottom!"
I sighed.
"And here we go."
Malfoy pretended not to hear me.
"If Longbottom's brain were gold, Weasley, you'd still be poorer than you are now!"
Ron turned so sharply he nearly knocked Neville over.
"Shut up, Malfoy!"
Malfoy smiled wider.
Blaise looked at me.
"Intervening?"
"No."
"Sensible."
"I'm learning."
On the pitch, someone nearly fell off their broom.
Not Harry.
I did not particularly care.
Harry, meanwhile, was flying high above the rest.
Searching.
I knew what he was about to do.
That took some of the tension away.
Not all of it.
Just some.
Harry suddenly leaned forward.
His broom plunged.
Hermione stood up.
Ron stopped answering Malfoy.
Even Snape turned his head.
Harry hurtled toward the ground.
Malfoy laughed.
"He's falling."
"No."
Harry leveled out literally a few feet above the grass.
He reached out.
Closed his fingers.
A flash of gold.
The whistle.
The end.
For a moment, the stands seemed not to know what had just happened.
Then Gryffindor exploded.
I looked at my wrist.
I did not own a watch.
Pity.
"Almost," I muttered.
Malfoy turned toward me.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That was cheating."
"Already?"
"Snape didn't even get the chance to..."
He stopped.
I looked at him.
So did Blaise.
Malfoy's face twisted.
"You know what I mean."
"Yes," Blaise said. "That's the worst part."
Below us, Ron glared at Malfoy in a way that suggested someone would have lost a tooth if they had been sitting closer.
Malfoy returned a very similar look.
I decided not to help either of them.
Harry did not stay on the pitch for long.
I noticed that.
Most of Gryffindor was still celebrating, Wood was nearly strangling him in a hug, and Harry was already looking somewhere over the captain's shoulder.
Past Snape.
Of course.
The professor was leaving the pitch at a quick pace.
Harry waited perhaps half a minute.
Then mounted his broom again.
Rose into the air.
And disappeared behind the stands.
I watched him go.
The forest.
Snape.
Quirrell.
Yes.
I remembered.
I could go.
It would not even be difficult.
I knew roughly where he was headed.
And what he would hear.
Snape would threaten Quirrell.
Harry would draw precisely the opposite conclusion.
Then, for the next several weeks, everyone would be convinced that the most obvious suspect was obviously guilty.
History liked jokes like that.
I stood up.
Blaise looked at me.
"Leaving?"
"Yes."
Malfoy was still complaining.
"Where?"
"Back to the castle."
"Everyone's going in a minute anyway."
"Then it'll be crowded."
Malfoy looked suspicious.
"Is that the only reason?"
"No."
He waited.
I said nothing else.
"I hate when you do that."
"That's another thing you've been working on since September."
I went down from the stands.
Harry could play detective with Snape.
Something else had been bothering me for the last few days.
Actually, for the last few months.
I had simply been very effective at pretending otherwise.
The note was still where I had left it.
Between the pages of an old Transfiguration textbook.
Not because it was a good hiding place.
Simply because no one besides me had a habit of going through my books.
I sat down at the table in the dormitory.
The others had not returned yet.
I pulled out the folded parchment.
Yellowed.
Soft around the edges.
I read it again.
Not for the first time.
Not the second.
Probably not even the fifth.
He didn't see ghosts the way we did.
He said they weren't specters - just traces.
Further down.
Someone died here. But they didn't leave.
Further still.
He claimed emotions had scent.
And the final sentence.
I never joked about his eyes again.
I ran a finger over the paper.
Father.
For months, I had accepted that as the most likely answer.
Elias Peverell.
A man I barely remembered.
A man whose eyes apparently worked much like mine.
Maybe he saw more.
Maybe he simply knew how to look.
And that was where I had gotten stuck.
Because the note had no signature.
No date.
No location.
Nothing.
Only the memory of someone who had known a man with strange eyes.
I leaned back in the chair.
Read it again.
Then looked at the parchment itself.
Not the words.
The parchment.
I frowned.
No.
That was not it.
I did not need another experiment with my eye.
Something simpler.
Where had I found it?
The old room.
A corridor near the caretaker's former office.
Dust.
Desk.
Old books.
The note had been...
I stopped.
Inside a book.
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Of course it had been inside a book.
I had read the note.
Taken the note.
And left the book.
I stared at the wall.
"Idiot."
The dormitory door opened.
Goyle came in first.
He stopped.
"What?"
"Not you."
"Oh."
He kept walking.
I put the parchment away.
The match suddenly stopped mattering.
The room was still there.
That was a good start.
The door looked exactly the same as last time.
Old wood.
Worn handle.
No sign that anything behind it mattered in the slightest.
I pushed it open.
It creaked.
Dust had a particular talent for behaving as though its quantity were a personal achievement.
I went inside.
Bench.
Desk.
Shelves.
Stacks of books.
Almost nothing had changed.
Good.
For a moment, I stood still and tried to remember exactly where I had been sitting then.
Here.
At the desk.
The book had been open.
Right-hand page.
The note sticking out between the pages.
I approached.
Several volumes still lay on the desk.
One of them was open.
Not that one.
The second.
No.
The third had a cracked spine and a thicker layer of dust than the others.
I picked it up.
Observations on Persistent Magical Impressions.
Oh.
Alright.
That sounded promising.
The author had a name I did not recognize.
Publication date: 1897.
I turned a few pages.
The text was dry.
Very dry.
The first three paragraphs somehow managed to make the subject of residue left by violent spells sound less interesting than the history of goblin taxation.
A perfect school book.
I kept turning pages.
In the margin of one page was a line written in ink.
Not printed.
Handwritten.
Incorrect. Strong emotion can persist without spellwork.
My finger stopped.
A few more pages.
Another annotation.
Especially fear.
Then, lower down, in different handwriting:
You say that about everything.
The corner of my mouth twitched on its own.
Two people.
I turned the page.
The first handwriting appeared again.
Because fear is useful.
The reply underneath:
You are impossible.
I stared at the words.
I did not know that handwriting.
I had no reason to.
But something about it...
I took the old note from my pocket.
Unfolded it.
Placed it beside the book.
Compared them.
The letter t.
The way the g ended.
The long, slightly slanted f.
I was not a graphologist.
I did not need to be.
The same handwriting.
The person who had written the comments in the margins had also written the note about the man with the eyes.
My heart beat a little faster.
Good.
The first thing that was actually something.
I turned several pages back toward the beginning.
On the first blank page was a Hogwarts stamp.
Beneath it:
Independent Study Collection
Lower down, several faded lines.
Names.
Dates.
Loans.
Most were so old the ink had turned into brown smears.
I scanned downward.
Stopped.
E. Peverell
For a moment, I simply stared.
I did not need to guess.
Not with that surname.
The next line.
A. Selwyn
The air in the room suddenly felt strangely quiet.
Elias.
Aria.
I looked again.
The names were still there.
Of course.
I touched the first letter of my father's surname.
The ink had dried long ago.
Nothing happened.
Good.
I did not need anything to happen.
This was enough.
My parents had this book.
Or at least they had borrowed it.
Both of them.
I turned back several pages.
Two sets of handwriting.
One probably belonged to Elias.
The other to Aria.
And one of them had written the note.
Except the note described him.
So if "he" meant Elias...
I looked at the second handwriting.
A. Selwyn.
"Mother."
The word sounded strange in the empty room.
I did not use it.
Not really.
I had no one to use it for.
I put the thought away before it could become uncomfortable.
It still was not proof.
There could just as easily have been another A. Selwyn.
Statistically less likely.
But possible.
I returned to the margins.
Now I read more carefully.
Not the book's text.
Theirs.
It began innocently.
Corrections.
Arguments with the author.
Notes such as:
Too broad.
No distinction between curse residue and emotional residue.
Test this.
Beside one paragraph, someone had written:
Elias, absolutely not.
Underneath:
That sounds like fear.
The reply:
That sounds like not wanting to explain to Pomfrey why you're unconscious again.
I sat down.
Alright.
That removed several doubts.
I read it again.
Elias.
Clearly.
Not E.
Not Peverell.
Elias.
And whoever had replied knew him well enough to threaten him with Pomfrey.
Aria.
Probably.
Very probably.
I smiled briefly.
Not because it was funny.
It was, a little.
Mostly because, for the first time, I was not reading about my parents in a registry.
Not in a genealogy.
Not as two people who had died during some ritual.
They argued in the margins of a book.
It was...
Normal.
I did not know what to do with that.
So I kept reading.
On the page about ghosts, the comments became denser.
The author claimed that ghosts were the best evidence that part of consciousness could persist after death.
Someone had underlined the entire sentence.
Beside it:
Not the same thing.
Lower down:
Ask Baron again.
I frowned.
Baron.
I turned the page.
The next annotation:
He remembers the room.
Underneath, in the other handwriting:
He remembers everything. Getting him to speak is the problem.
Even lower:
You scared him.
He's dead.
You still scared him.
I almost laughed.
Almost.
Then I found another note.
This time, only a single sentence.
Baron says old stone keeps grief longer than magic.
I stared.
The Bloody Baron.
It had to be him.
The only Baron at Hogwarts whose ghost wandered the corridors covered in someone else's blood and made even Peeves remember his manners.
I closed the book.
Not sharply.
I simply knew what I was going to do now.
For the first time since finding the note, I had a question for someone who might actually answer it.
Finding the Bloody Baron was more difficult than it should have been.
A ghost without legs had far too much of an advantage when it came to moving around the castle.
I checked the dungeons.
Nothing.
The corridor leading to the common room.
Nothing.
The Great Hall.
Almost empty.
Peeves was hanging from the ceiling, trying to toss pieces of chalk into the goblet of an older Ravenclaw.
"Peeves."
He turned upside down.
"Pevverellllll."
"Baron."
Peeves immediately stopped smiling.
Interesting.
"Where is he?"
"Why?"
"I want to talk to him."
Peeves floated lower.
"About what?"
"Private."
"That's boring."
"You don't need to know."
"I need to know everything."
"That explains your academic results."
He stuck out his tongue.
"Probably in the dungeons."
"He's not."
"Then probably somewhere else."
"Invaluable help."
"Always at your service!"
He threw a piece of chalk.
I tilted my head.
It flew past me.
"Missed."
"I'll get you yet!"
"Sounds like a threat without a budget."
I left.
I found the Baron twenty minutes later.
Of course, exactly where I had started.
The dungeons.
Just not near the common room.
He was in a side corridor almost no one used.
Or rather, he was not standing.
He hovered several inches above the floor.
Silvery.
Silent.
Chains wrapped around his robes. The dark bloodstains looked almost black against the fabric even in his translucent form.
I had never spoken to him for more than a few words before.
Most Slytherins had not either.
The Baron was not the sort of ghost who appeared at the table and told stories.
He watched.
Passed by.
Sometimes answered.
Usually did not.
I approached.
"Baron."
He did not move.
Good.
"I need to ask you a question."
His head turned slowly.
He looked at me.
At my face.
Then my eyes.
Stopped.
It was subtle.
But I noticed.
"What?"
His voice was low.
Quieter than I remembered.
I took the book from under my arm.
Not the note.
The book.
"Did you know Elias Peverell?"
He did not answer.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then one of his chains shifted with a faint metallic sound that should not have existed for a ghost.
His gaze returned to my eyes.
"Peverell."
Not a question.
"Yes."
A longer silence.
"Did you know him?"
"I knew many students."
"That wasn't an answer."
The Baron stared.
If he had been anyone else, I probably would have added something sarcastic.
I did not.
Not because I was afraid.
I simply did not feel like testing whether it was possible to insult a ghost who had spent a thousand years wearing chains born of his own guilt.
Eventually, he spoke.
"I remember him."
My heart beat harder.
Yes.
Finally.
"What do you remember?"
"Too much."
I frowned.
"That's very imprecise."
"You asked whether I remembered him."
"Now I'm asking about the rest."
The Baron did not answer.
His gaze settled on my eyes again.
"He had the same."
Silence.
My hand rose reflexively to my cheek, just beneath my left eye.
"Like mine?"
"Yes."
It should have been obvious.
And yet hearing it from someone who had actually known him was different.
"He was the one who saw traces."
"That was the word he used."
So yes.
Really him.
The note.
The margins.
Everything.
"What did he see?"
"What remained."
"After what?"
The Baron looked somewhere past me.
At the stone wall.
"People."
"Emotions?"
"Sometimes."
"Magic?"
"Sometimes."
"Death?"
This time, the silence was different.
Heavier.
The Baron looked at me again.
"Longest."
My left eye stung.
Not badly.
Just enough to irritate me.
I did not look away.
"Did he search for it?"
"Not at first."
That was more than before.
I stepped half a pace closer.
"And later?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because he noticed some traces were older than others."
"That's obvious."
"No."
One word.
This time it sounded like a warning.
I waited.
The Baron continued.
"Some places remembered people no one remembered anymore."
That was...
Interesting.
Too interesting.
"What places?"
"The castle."
"Specifically."
Nothing.
"The forest?"
His face did not change.
That was enough.
The forest.
Of course.
"He went there."
"Yes."
"Alone?"
"Too often."
In the margin of the book:
Elias, absolutely not.
Something about Pomfrey.
Fear.
Suddenly those jokes looked a little different.
"And Aria?"
The Baron went still.
Good.
So I had hit something.
"Aria Selwyn," I added.
"Was she with him?"
For a moment, I thought he would not answer.
"She tried to be."
I did not like that sentence.
"What does that mean?"
The Baron drifted several inches away.
"Ask your book."
I looked at the volume under my arm.
"Did she write that note?"
He did not answer.
"Baron."
His eyes returned to me.
"If you've found their words, boy, read them."
Boy.
Not Peverell.
Not student.
Boy.
The first time he had ever called me that.
"I need more than a few comments in the margins."
"Your father used to say that too."
My fingers tightened around the book.
"What did he find?"
And then, for the first time in the entire conversation, the Bloody Baron did not look like Slytherin's ghost.
Not like someone Peeves fled from.
Just someone very old.
"I don't know."
"I don't believe you."
"That's your problem."
He moved.
This time, he passed through me.
Cold rushed beneath my skin so violently that I stopped breathing for a second.
I turned.
"Baron."
He did not stop.
"Did he tell you what he was looking for?"
The chains rattled.
The ghost moved farther down the corridor.
"No."
Another few feet.
"But?"
He stopped.
Did not turn.
"He told me what he didn't want to find."
I waited.
The Baron began moving again.
"What?"
This time, he answered from the far end of the corridor.
"Someone looking back."
And disappeared through the wall.
I stood motionless.
Staring at the stone he had passed through.
"That was unnecessarily dramatic," I said to the empty corridor.
No one answered.
Good.
Because my heart was still beating a little too fast.
I returned to the old room.
Not the Room of Requirement.
Here.
I sat at the same desk.
Opened the book.
Now I knew what to look for.
Not answers.
Their conversations.
Their path.
I turned the pages more slowly.
In the chapter about places strongly bound to emotion, I found a short annotation.
Elias's handwriting.
By now, I was almost certain which one was his.
Third floor - weak.
Further.
West tower - nothing.
Next page.
Forest boundary — stronger.
My heart sped up.
Below it, in the other handwriting:
No.
Underneath:
Very scientific.
No.
I almost smiled.
I turned the page.
Greenhouses - strange, but probably plants.
Brilliant.
Thank you.
Further.
Dungeon corridor near old storage - grief. Old. Very old.
Beside it:
Baron refuses to talk about it.
Elias had added:
For now.
Aria:
That is not a challenge.
Elias:
Everything is a challenge if you're irritating enough.
I stared at the sentence.
Okay.
That unfortunately sounded familiar.
I turned another page.
Nothing.
Another.
Nothing.
Then I almost missed a passage at the very bottom.
Small handwriting.
Different ink.
As though it had been added much later.
Do not follow the oldest ones alone.
There was no reply.
I ran my finger lower.
Blank space.
Even lower, right at the edge, an almost-erased word.
Elias.
That was all.
Not an instruction.
Not a theory.
A name.
I looked at the old note lying beside me.
I never joked about his eyes again.
Then at the book.
Do not follow the oldest ones alone.
I closed it.
I should have stopped for the day.
I finally had something concrete.
Father.
Mother.
Baron.
The forest.
Old traces.
Enough.
More than enough.
I stood.
Slipped the note back into the book.
This time where I had found it.
I walked toward the door.
Stopped.
Turned my head.
The book remained on the desk.
After three seconds, I went back for it.
Of course.
"It's only a book," I muttered.
I tucked it under my arm.
The Forbidden Forest was a terrible idea.
That did not require any particular intelligence.
I was eleven years old.
It was winter.
The forest was full of things a sensible person avoided after dark.
I looked at the book.
Forest boundary - stronger.
I remembered the troll.
How quickly its resistance had broken.
Not muscle.
Not strength.
Instinct.
That was what had reacted most strongly.
I stopped halfway through a step.
The forest was full of creatures.
Some intelligent.
Others considerably less so.
My left eye stung faintly.
I looked toward the nearest window.
Beyond the glass, far past the white grounds, the dark line of trees began.
Damn.