This is a very quick attempt to reply to a WIKTT Challenge. No money was involved in the penmanship of this fic, or is intended to be gained. Severus Snape and other recognizable characters from the Harry Potter universe belong to J., the publishers of the Harry Potter book series, and Warner Brothers.

Challenge: (submitted by Ripper) Snape is dead. The High Authority orders him to remain as a ghost to protect Miss Granger, who will soon be murdered by Death Eaters. But then one day, Hermione spots the ghost . . .

This is intended as a short story, and won't be much longer than five chapters, if that.

IN THE GREY , by sethnakht

[PART ONE: Land of the Dead]

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Severus Snape died.

Died and somehow landed on a boat, where everyone but him was wearing a grey business suit. It was a very crowded boat, so that everyone's faces seemed to blur into one another, and no one could do anything but stand in one place. It seemed to him that everyone had grey briefcases and grey hair, and was reading a newspaper.

It was all very still and silent, except for the slosh of water against an oar, and the turning of newspaper pages.

He wondered at first what kind of nightmare this was, to be in such monotony, conveniently forgetting the cauldron explosion that had landed him on the boat in the first place. He tapped the man in front of him on the shoulder.

His hand went through the shoulder.

His eyes widened.

"My apologies," he stammered, as the man closed his newspaper and turned around. At first, Severus couldn't make out his face -- it was as if he had the exact same face as everyone else on the boat -- but then he saw that this particular man had almost no hair and rather sunken cheeks. He had dim, pale eyes, and the pupils jiggled, never staying in one place.

"If you're wondering, you're dead," said the man, very dully. He turned right back around and flapped open his newspaper, and began to read.

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The boat landed at the edge of a waterfall.

It hung with its front in the air and its back on the river. The center was balanced on the edge of the waterfall. The water wasn't moving; it was frozen in place. From above, the waterfall looked like a big glass wall.

The men in suits all filed off the boat. Severus decided to play along and filed off with them.

Not everyone was wearing a suit, he noticed. The women and children were in frocks and playclothes, although the frocks varied only in their shades of grey and the children's clothes looked exactly the same. The women led their children forward by the hand, but their hands looked grey, too. Severus wondered why his skin hadn't turned grey. His skin had never been colourful, but there were tinges of yellow to it that not even the children had.

Perhaps this was all just a dream. He settled for that explanation, and continued walking forward. ____________________________________________________________________________

They reached a gate. All the men began opening their briefcases and pulling out neat stacks of paperwork. The women opened their purses and took out papers of their own. There were five lines at the gate, and from what Severus could see, a person handed their paperwork to one of the guards sitting at the desks in front of the gate, and then was processed through.

He looked down at his hands and saw nothing but his wand.

His stomach took a sickening lurch. What would happen if he went up to a guard without papers?

"Excuse me," he said to the woman standing before him. She turned, blinking owlishly.

"I don't have any paperwork," he explained, holding up his empty hands. "Where do I get it?"

The woman looked him up and down. Her face was youthful and unlined, but in this grey, shadowed world, he somehow could not bring himself to call her young. She narrowed her eyes, which bulged unflatteringly from their sockets.

"Talk to the angel," she said shortly, and turned around, refusing to answer any more questions.

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"Very interesting," said the angel, when it came Severus's turn to be processed through the gate.

"I apologise," said Severus. "I don't quite know what happened and I don't have any papers."

"Well, that's a problem," said the angel, biting his nails off with his teeth. "You can't get through the gate without any papers. Say, Peter!" The angel stood, and beckoned to a man sitting two desks over. "I've got a case here that needs to go up to the High Authority. Would you mind escorting him?"

"Not a problem," said Peter, and he took Severus by the arm and led him through a side-entrance in the gate.

"This doesn't mean you've been accepted into Heaven," Peter warned Severus, as they walked past the long lines of men in suits and women in grey frocks and children in dull playclothes, who all had just been processed through the gate and now were being processed through the next one. "Although," he mused, giving Severus a shrewd glance, "I think I know what's going to happen to you."

Severus swallowed. "And what might that be?" he ventured, a tad edgily.

Peter smiled. "Let's leave that up to the High Authority," he said.

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Eventually they reached a golden palace. They walked up several wide marble staircases before turning into a brilliantly lit corridor with sparkling silver walls.

Peter slapped Severus on the small of his back, sending him tumbling into a ruby-studded door.

"In there," Peter said. "The High Authority is waiting for you."

"Thank you," Severus said, through gritted teeth.

He pushed open the door once Peter was out of sight, cautiously stepping past it, and found himself blinking rapidly to adjust his eyes -- in contrast to the extreme brightness of jewelled corridor, the room he'd found himself in was shady and dark. It was a small room, just small enough that he felt confined in it, with brown walls and floors of cold stone. There was a bare desk in the middle, under a single lamp that hung without swinging from the ceiling. A man sat at the desk and under the light, which lit up his long hair and made it glisten silver, scratching furiously at a piece of parchment with a feather quill.

Severus felt a stab of heartsickness at the familiarity of the scene -- it was almost as if he were back at home, watching Albus Dumbledore work through stacks of paperwork. He swallowed, and quickly -- knowing the High Authority wasn't watching -- wiped his eyes on his black sleeve.

The High Authority continued scratching away at the parchment, not once looking up.

Severus stood very still, letting time pass him by, and watched the High Authority work.

Eventually, the High Authority finished writing on the parchment, which had somehow grown far longer than it had been when Severus first stepped into the room, and put down his quill. He licked at his ink-stained fingers, and looked up at Severus.

"You," he said, mouth melding into a frown. He had a strangely mellifluous voice, one that was so tragic and deeply noble at once that there was no possibility it could be human.

"You weren't supposed to die this early," he said, the frown deepening so that crinkles appeared around his eyes, which seemed to be of all sorts of different colours. He looked down at his papers and shrugged. "I suppose it was another fluke in the system. Still" -- he jabbed a finger at a line on the parchment -- "you had unfinished business left on earth -- a lot of it. We have to send you back."

"Send me back?" said Severus, in a voice barely above a whisper.

"That's right," said the High Authority. "It's unfortunate, but in your world, it can happen. You'll be a ghost -- don't worry, you won't have to spy on Voldemort anymore."

"A ghost," Severus repeated. "I -- no. Absolutely not."

"You'll be a ghost," said the High Authority, as if Severus had never said a word. "Now, I've looked through the list of possible assignments for you, and have finally found something reasonable. Miss Hermione Granger --"

"Oh, no, no, no," said Severus very quickly, emerging from the thick stupor he'd been in from all of his hours spent on dreary grey boats and standing in lines and climbing staircases -- after all, he'd just died -- "that won't work at all. Granger and I don't get along, you couldn't be cruel enough to. . ."

He trailed off.

The High Authority actually smirked.

"Oh, but I am," he said. "However, my reasons for this are actually very practical. The Death Eaters will kill Miss Granger if someone doesn't step in and watch her back, and given the unpleasant amount of unfinished business she would produce if that were to happen, and the fact that you need a job, I see no better way to mend things than by assigning you to protect her. I assure you, your job will be over once she's finished everything Of Importance. Now as to the details of your engagement . . ."

Severus closed his eyes. Had he not already died, he probably would have killed himself right then.

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The High Authority sent him off in the care of a shoddily dressed angel named Michael. Michael was very cheerful.

Michael was absolutely insufferable.

"A ghost, are you? Well, you've got to know that most people here would kill for that sort of thing. Almost immortality, you know -- being able to haunt anyone you like, all the way till the end of time . . ."

"Angels are solid, aren't they," Severus said. "Tell me. . . is it possible for an angel to suffer bodily harm?"

Michael blinked. "What?"

"Actually," Severus drawled, "I've been wondering. Exactly what can and cannot a ghost do?"

"Oh, you'll find out later," said Michael, smirking. "I wouldn't want to spoil your fun."

"How inconvenientof you," said Severus in a very dark tone, flexing his ephemeral wand -- he'd noticed his body was a transparent silver the moment he'd left the presence of the High Authority -- between his fingertips.

Michael stared at him.

"Right," he said slowly. "Earth. We're headed to Earth." He looked down at his hands and began rummaging for something in his pockets. There was a lot of clinking noise.

Severus's eyes narrowed to slits.

"Ah," said Michael, red-faced with triumph and holding up a glinting golden key, "here we go. Absolute bugger, this key -- it loves getting lost -- all right now, let's open the door, stand aside please. . ."

He stooped over and pushed the key through the brass lock of a tiny door Severus hadn't seen before. The door, only about a foot high, opened with a click, and let in what Severus would once have considered a bone-chilling blast of cold air.

"Right!" Michael shouted -- for the wind was very loud -- "Just go through the door!"

Severus curled a lip, wondering how it was that the angels had gotten to be so incompetent, then dove. His silvery form somehow managed to swoosh through the door without any difficulties.

And the world went white.

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Thanks to Ripper, for creating such an incredibly fun challenge.