She was considering what name she might choose for herself. All the ghosts had special names, after all. There was the Bloody Baron, and the Grey Lady, and even Cedric’s silly Spectre of Silence.
She thought she might call herself the Crimson Thread. It wasn’t a phrase that had any meaning in this world anymore. That story had never officially happened. Nor, technically speaking, was her thread crimson anymore. Now it was the pale, pervasive blue of her eyes. But still. It had a nice ring to it. People would probably respond well to it.
It was memorable.
The new Gryffindor house ghost considered these things for a long moment, and then drifted back into the shadows, planning, musing, considering…
She had plenty of time to decide. Her schedule was empty. Her tasks were done.
Her conscience was clear.
The End
Except possibly not.
James was well over a year into his tenure as Headmaster when an idea came into his head. It was almost as strong as the ideas that had preceded his feverish fugue during the days of the triple-six enigma, except that this one, he knew, was no alternate dimensional intrusion.
For one thing, he really had spent a holiday with Millie Vandergriff, back during his seventh year of schooling. He remembered very clearly sitting at a formal Christmas table with her grandmother, the countess Eunice Vandergriff, who was, quite remarkably, still alive and, if only metaphorically, kicking. In truth, James didn’t think the countess had deigned to do anything so undignified as kicking even when she had been a young woman, sometime during the beginning of the previous century.
He remembered, very clearly, their discussion about the significance of the House of Black.
It is more than a landholding and title, she had told him. More than a mere name.
The colour Black meant something. It protected and regulated some elemental human force, just as the Greene Barony had once been charge of the force of jealousy and ambition, and the Marquess of Rose had moderated the fickle tides of love.
But the Countess had refused to tell him what the House of Black was the charge of. Or perhaps she had been unable to tell him.
Because perhaps she did not herself know, or remember.
The idea had come back to him many times over the years as a mere curiosity. Something he might one day choose to investigate on a whim, should he have the time and the inclination.
Until the dreams began in earnest.
Except that they weren’t dreams, exactly, as much as they were simply an ill-defined sense of urgency, like the echo of a loved one’s voice, calling out in need, or some important but forgotten appointment, nagging at memory. Even during daylight hours, in his office or seated at the head table at meals, James would be overcome with a shock of directionless panic, as if he himself was a student again, a nervous first year waking up and realizing that class had already started, the exam was about to begin, and he had barely enough time to struggle into his robes and dash, hair mussed and shoes untied, as fast as he could to the classroom door before it shut him out, too late, doomed to fail.
He had no idea what was behind it all. He only knew that it had something to do with Countess Vandergriff’s odd suggestions about the dusty title he would one day inherit, and the significance of the name Black, and the responsibility of some ancient, fundamental stewardship.
The answer came from the least of all expected sources.
“You should go to Grimmauld Place,” one of the headmaster portraits said with a sniff.
James at first didn’t know which one had spoken. He had been sitting in his office that late fall evening staring at a book, reading the same line over and over, his mind completely distracted and driven by phantom urgency, making both concentration and sleep impossible.
Somewhat irritated, he glanced over the portraits and asked, “Who said that?”
“I did,” a portrait in a high, cobwebbed corner answered in a nasal drawl. James squinted into the dimness above. It was the portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black. He didn’t think he’d ever actually heard that particular portrait speak, although he did know that the same portrait of the dodgy old headmaster sometimes occupied an empty frame back at the Black estate.
James considered the portrait. “Why should I go to Grimmauld Place?”
“Because you are clearly agitated to the point of near complete uselessness here. I recognize the signs. Go and spare us your frustrated sighs.”
“But why there, exactly?” James pressed suspiciously.
But Phineas Nigellus merely crossed his arms and leaned back, his face dropping into flinty-eyed shadow.
“You’ll get no more answers from him, methinks,” the portrait of Dumbledore suggested, peering up and out of his frame. “But I expect his counsel, limited though it is, may prove fruitful to your current state.”
“Do you know anything about this?” James asked, lowering his eyes to the nearer portrait.
Dumbledore shrugged enigmatically. “I only know that we are all obliged to assist the sitting headmaster in whatever way we can, via our own unique perspectives. Phineas Nigellus’ perspective might arguably be the most unique of all.”
From the cobwebbed shadows, Phineas Nigellus harrumphed haughtily.
The portrait of Severus Snape feigned sleep, unconvincingly.
“Go,” a woman’s portrait sighed, speaking in a high Scottish brogue. “I for one can’t bear to watch you sigh and squint at the same page in that dratted book for one more minute.”
James nodded. Even if the old headmasters (and headmistress) had no clue what they were talking about, a short trip might well clear his head. And he hadn’t been to Grimmauld Place in years.
He left that very night.
Even as headmaster, there was no apparating out of Hogwarts castle, apart from examination times, when, as he well knew, the restriction was temporarily lifted. Thus, he donned his cloak and his new black peaked hat and left the office briskly, leaving the door to creak shut on its own behind him.
The halls were nearly empty, despite the lack of any Argus Filch or Mrs. Norris to strike terror into the hearts of wayward students across the campus. Mrs. Norris the cat had died nearly fifteen years earlier, at the tender age of forty-nine—ancient even for a Kneazle. Filch had outlived her unhappily until only three years previous. James still remembered Hagrid’s long eulogy at Filch’s funeral. The event had packed the country church outside Hogsmeade, much to James’ surprise.
He’d wondered at the time how many of those attending were former students who half expected the irascible old caretaker to climb back out of his casket, possessed of sheer stubborn ill-temper, and amble back to the school, zombie-fashion, to continue his cantankerous duties from the afterlife.
That didn’t happen. But the sight of Hagrid crying openly during the eulogy, blowing his nose noisily while a huge framed portrait of Filch’s scowling visage looked on, rolling its eyes in disgust, was perhaps an even odder sight.