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Wind shuttled through the corridor, brushed past armor reflecting flickering firelight, and passed elongated shadows cast by gentle moonlight. Several portraits huddled together whispering and discussed a knight beside them leaning against his frame and snoring. The knight's horse ate the oil-painted grass boredly.
Anthony, under a Disillusionment Charm with his cat, walked carefully through the corridor and tried not letting any portrait notice he was missing an arm. Until the cat's claws dug hard into his shoulder—he tried holding it higher and only then discovered he'd left an arm in his office.
Now the cat once again pressed cold against his neck with ears brushed his ear and whiskers swept his hair. Anthony finally felt his heart settle into place.
"You scared me," he said quietly to the cat and turned his head. Under firelight, its eyes shone brilliantly.
The cat tilted its head with front paws on his shoulder, closed its eyes and rubbed hard against Anthony's chin, and forced him to lift his neck.
Anthony laughed in this awkward position. "All right, all right."
The cat almost stood up from his arms and still rubbed its head messily against him. Anthony tried putting it down—the cat viciously clawed his arm and stubbornly climbed onto him.
Anthony had to sit on the floor and held the cat.
"I know, I know," he said quietly, afraid of attracting portraits' attention. "Don't be afraid, you're back. I'll never use that much Necromancy again."
The cat pressed tightly against him and almost curled into his arms. Anthony held it and saw its ginger fur plated with warm yellow light under firelight, nearly made one mistakenly think its fur was transparent and emitting such comfortable warm glow.
He closed his eyes, lowered his head, and pressed his forehead against the cat's cold fur.
In the night, he heard an occasionally awakened bird call once, then everything returned to silence.
A strange sound suddenly came from above his head.
Anthony and the cat looked up together. A ghost with chains floated with hollow eyes stared straight at the person and cat concealed under the Disillusionment Charm.
"The Bloody Baron?" Anthony asked questioningly.
He had little interaction with Slytherin's ghost—most of the time heard from Nearly Headless Nick and the Fat Friar how the Bloody Baron recently wandered gloomily in corridors again and made certain corners areas Peeves wouldn't haunt. But students seemed to prefer running past Peeves throwing paper balls at them with bags over their heads rather than approach the Bloody Baron's robes stained with silver blood.
The Bloody Baron said softly, "Magic has a price..." He floated down with clanking sounds, looked at Anthony's shoulder missing an arm, then stared tightly at the ginger cat. Transparent fingers passed through it. The cat arched its back with fur bristling, growled at him, and pressed tightly against Anthony.
Anthony hugged the cat with his remaining right arm and said, "Forgive my dullness, Mr. Baron. I don't understand what price you mean."
The Bloody Baron said quietly, "Necromancy... Very useful, isn't it?"
Anthony said calmly, "If you say so, then I guess that's the case."
"You don't need to pretend, necromancer," the Bloody Baron laughed hoarsely like a thousand cats scratching glass. "That's my journal."
This truly exceeded Anthony's expectations.
"Pardon?" he said.
The blood-stained ghost seemed amused by him, examined the cat carefully, and repeated, "The journal that disappeared from the library, that's mine... I was still wondering who took it..."
Anthony momentarily didn't know what to say and so apologized. "Sorry, I didn't know its owner still, um, existed. I'll return it to you right away, Mr. Baron."
"I discarded it," Baron said quietly. "Only price, only futility. Why... Why..."
Baron again reached out wanting to touch the cat. Heavy chains passed through Anthony's leg and the hand passed straight through Anthony's arm protecting the cat and the cat, explored all the way into his stomach. Anthony was amazed to hear so much anger, pain and jealousy soaked in his dry voice.
"What's wrong?" Anthony stood up holding the cat and looked around. "If you're willing, Mr. Baron, let's talk in my office. You can dispose of your journal as you wish."
This was destined to be a sleepless night.
The cat was greatly dissatisfied that the room had an extra Wraith Mouse, proudly ignored the rat, and instead vented all grievances on Anthony, the instigator.
It disregarded the Bloody Baron still floating in the office and in the bedroom tore Anthony's room to pieces. The rat poked its head wanting to hide in the office, looked up and saw the ghost in midair, and immediately shrank back to the bedroom corner.
Anthony calmly closed the bedroom door and heard a loud crash of breaking porcelain.
"I think that was the vase," he explained to the Bloody Baron and actually felt somewhat nostalgic and relieved in his heart.
After he took out the journal, he heard a long story from the Bloody Baron.
This haggard ghost told him in hoarse whispers that he was once a Necromancy apprentice. Because of noble birth, besides studying at Hogwarts, he also followed a necromancer friend of school founder Slytherin to study Necromancy... In fact, he knew the necromancer since infancy and then entered Hogwarts through his introduction.
"My mentor always said I was too irritable," the Bloody Baron said quietly. "I had difficulty controlling myself... And Necromancy made controlling myself even harder..."
Necromancers at that time were being hunted by witch-hunting activities. At Salazar Slytherin's invitation, the necromancer moved into Hogwarts and Baron also fell in love during his studies and began madly pursuing Rowena Ravenclaw's daughter, Helena.
In the Bloody Baron's narration, everything seemed full of hope.
"When my mentor was in good condition, he was a very charming person..." he said. "He was always calm and also liked students very much, very witty... The Headmaster and I always thought Peeves was summoned by him, but he never admitted it."
Then the situation took a sharp turn. His mentor's body deteriorated day by day and grew closer to dark creatures. In dreams would unconsciously make things beside him wither—Anthony deeply understood this point and there was a reason he didn't raise any living things—so they moved underground. Slytherin also moved his house to the dungeons for his friend and seized part of Hufflepuff's storage rooms.
Finally, on an ordinary day, his mentor quietly disappeared.
Then Helena—she also vanished. Her mother in serious illness entrusted Baron to find her. Baron pursued all the way and finally found her in a forest... But she refused to go home and said things Baron didn't want to recall.
Baron—too irritable Baron—stabbed her to death.
He desperately tried resurrecting her but no effect. Necromancy disappointed him time and again. Besides the side effect of difficulty controlling emotions, it brought him nothing. Her beautiful corpse could open its eyes under magic and walk around, but none of that was her—not Helena who looked down on everything with proud eyes, not Helena burning with ambition that moved his heart.
Baron in collapse completely abandoned Necromancy. He gave up this futile life-death simulation and followed Helena toward death.
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