Characters, settings, and story relating to the Harry Potter series of novels are copyright J. K. Rowling, along with Bloomsbury Publishing, et al. "Spirit of Fear" is not an officially published work, nor is it in any cooperation with J. K. Rowling or Bloomsbury Publishing. "Spirit of Fear" is entirely (excluding the aforementioned characters, settings, and story) a work by Thomas Holman.

Chapter 5

Narcissism

The next day, as simple addition would provide, was December 25, Christmas day.

Chey and Minerva had an understanding: since they were both terrible at buying gifts for each other, they would both save their money for more meaningful gifts for other people. However, Minerva had received a few gifts from students.

"Working hard on that passing grade, aren't they?" Chey said.

"I try not to see it that way," Minerva said as she opened a glass vase. "Besides, none of their gifts affect their achievements at all."

"Well, damn my American cynicism, but assuming evil intentions prepares you for the worst cast scenario."

That evening, there was a small Christmas party in the Great Hall. Decorations filled the spaces where attendants didn't. Albus was leading them in carols, and a rather large man, who Chey suspected was half-giant, had apparently indulged a bit too much in the butterbeer (a drink Chey had never heard of, which tasted like neither butter nor beer), and was following along in a boisterous, inebriated Scottish accent.

Chey took a look up at the staff table and saw none other than Grumps McGurt. Yes, it was Severus, but he seemed to be in a less delightful (if possible) mood. He was speaking to another teacher, this one seemingly the polar opposite of Severus. Actually, it was less speaking to and more ignoring the blonde, wavy haired man with bold lilac-colored robes while being spoken to. But it mattered not, for anyone who could annoy Constable Crabby was a potential friend of Chey's.

"Trying to get something out of your teeth, Severus?" Chey asked while approaching. Severus made no effort to reply. Instead, the more talkative member of their one way conversation responded.

"Why, you're a new face!" he said with an annoying enthusiasm. He had really straight teeth. Really straight teeth that he couldn't help but show off.

"Visiting a relative," Chey replied.

"And who might you be visiting?"

"That would be Professor McGonnagal," Severus suddenly interrupted.

"So YOU must be Chey!" Suddenly, the man was much less pleasant. "Minerva has been giving you such praise, saying you would easily excel in even my seventh year class!"

Severus gave a look that said something along the lines of "Like that really means anything."

"Let's just say I test well." Now Chey directed a question towards him. "And you are?"

"AH! Of course! Oh, but how foolish of me, I haven't brought any photographs. Ah, I know!" He suddenly pulled out a scrap of parchment, and began scribbling on it.

"Uh, all I asked was your name." Chey corrected. All of a sudden, there was a flicker of life in Severus's face, the first Chey had ever seen in him.

"You don't know who he is?" Severus asked, as though this was unheard of.

"Nope. Not ringing any bells."

Now Severus's expression had turned smug, and Chey was spending half his cognitive ability decoding why this would be, and the other half figuring out who Mr. Teeth was.

"Perhaps you've read one of my books!" the magnanimous staff member suggested.

"Possibly. Fire away."

He began a reciting a list. He rambled off books with moronic sounding names that would never sell back in the States based on the titles alone. They went from Break with a Banshee to Voyages with Vampires, to each one Chey replied either a "no," "nope," "nein," or a "non." Finally, the man got to Wanderings with Werewolves.

"Now that I did read," Chey responded and the man was overjoyed. "Fascinating novel." The man's face changed faster than the blink of an eye.

"N-novel?" he asked with a slightly terrified stutter. He regained a bit of composure and continued "What do you mean by 'novel?'"

"Exactly what everyone means by 'novel.' Unless they've changed the definition, I'm talking about a work of fiction."

Severus's smugness turned into a sinister sneer. There was a dash of disappointment as the man got up suddenly, muttering some unintelligible excuse.

"That was Gilderoy Lockhart, our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

Chey groaned a long "Oh."

"Now you've heard of him?"

"Yeah. He may be famous over here, but he's a joke back home."

Chey came to the realization that he had just deflated an ego. And now Chey understood Serverus's sneer. He was just glad Lockhart's bubble had been burst.

Afterwards, Chey decided to wander the halls a little bit, just to get away from the noise. He heard a bit of commotion in the direction of what he figured was the dungeons. When he arrived on the scene, he deduced that two second years, (who looked burly enough to be mistaken for being a year or two older) had apparently been caught out of bounds by an older student with fire-red hair who clearly held a slight position of power.

"Well, get off to your dormitories," said the older student. Chey noticed a small pin on his robes with a stylized letter P. "It's not safe to go wandering around dark corridors these days."

"You are," pointed out the shorter and rounder second year.

"I," started the older one, building confidence, "am a prefect. Nothing's about to attack me."

In a startling instant, another second-year arrived on scene. His voice had a bit of a drawl, and his bleached blonde hair was slicked back so that his forehead resembled Minerva's hair in a bun.

"There you are. Have you two been pigging out in the Great Hall all this time? I've been looking for you; I want to show you something." He glanced at the so-called prefect and sneered "And what're you doing down here, Weasley?"

Weasley? Could this stuck-up, starchy kid possibly be related to Chuck? He had the red hair, but he acted nothing like him. But didn't Chuck say something about having three brothers and a sister attending this school?

"You want to show a bit more respect to a school prefect!" he said in a controlled outrage. "I don't like your attitude!"

The blonde brat (Chey's preliminary label for the little slimeball) sneered the greatest sneer of all sneers that Chey had ever seen sneered, motioned for the other two to follow, and led them away. Now only

"That was rather arrogant of you," Chey said, startling the prefect.

"What on earth do you mean by that?"

"You made the assumption that whatever creature this is that everyone seems to be terrified of will respect authority."

"I think I'm more capable of defending myself," he said indignantly.

"Let's examine that statement, shall we? What exactly is everyone so afraid of these days?"

"The creature that Salazar Slytherin kept in his secret chamber."

"And what sort of creature is this?"

"Well, no one knows for sure."

"Has this creature attacked before?"

"Yes, three times, four victims."

"And who has this creature attacked?"

"A cat, a first year, a second year, and a ghost."

"And what happened to the victims?"

"They were petrified." Now this kid (Chey's immediate description for him, despite him being a year older than Chey) was starting to understand the gravity of the situation.

"Okay," Chey began to summarize. "We are dealing with an unknown creature capable of petrification, which seems to attack indiscriminately, and can even inflict said malady upon the dead. You want to reconsider your previous statement?"

"You think you would do any better?" The prefect tried to turn the argument back on Chey. It was an amateur's arguing tactic, and Chey was a professional arguer.

"Seeing as I have a far greater comprehension of the situation, I'm pretty sure I'd stand a far better chance." Now Chey had an idea. "Where was the most recent attack?"

"Near the transfiguration classroom, a little more than a week ago. Why?"

"I want to check out the scene. You know, scope it out."

"Wait, do you even go to this school?"

"No, I'm visiting someone for the holidays. Now can we go check it out?"

"Okay, where was the kid and where was the ghost?" Chey asked when they arrived on the scene.

"Finch-Fletchly was lying over here," (Chey took note of this) "and Nearly-Headless Nick," (Chey gave a look of bewilderment) "yes, that really is his name, was floating just over there."

Chey took a moment to think about this, then pointed in the direction of Minerva's classroom door. "Someone set off a wand explosion over there."

"To settle the crowd," said Minerva, who appeared on scene, nearly startling Chey.

"You were here, Em?" he asked, and the prefect was shocked.

"Professor! You know him?"

"Ah, Mister Weasley. This is my nephew, Chey. Chey, this is Percy Weasley. He is a prefect in Gryffindor House."

"You got a brother named Charlie?"

"Yes! How do you know Charlie?"

"I work with him in Romania during the summer. So, Em, the kid was over here and the ghost there, correct?"

"Yes," she affirmed.

"And you set off a wand explosion over there, yes?"

"That's right. The crowd that had gathered had gotten to be a bit too excited."

"Any other spells been cast around here since then?" Chey inquired.

"I conjured a fan over here so that the ghost could be moved."

Chey stared at the spot for a moment, then said "Yeah, that's your spell all right."

"What are you doing?" Percy asked, with an understandably perplexed expression.

"You've never seen magical analysis before?" Chey asked.

"It's not exactly a part of the curriculum, Chey," Minerva explained.

"Shame. Okay, Percy, time for a crash course. Back in the States they're studying the very causes of magic, applying scientific methods to determine the inner workings of spell casting, and in an underhanded move to get more people into the cause, they've started teaching this stuff to students."

"What does this have to do with what happened here?" Percy asked. He seemed to be following so far.

"Well, casting a spell has two effects: the immediate and the lasting. All magic leaves a bit of residue, and a select number of people can see it if they know what they're looking for. Some of us can even tell what kind of spell it was and how long ago it was."

"What are you seeing, Chey?" Minerva asked anxiously.

"Gimme a minute." He slowly strolled around the corridor, tilting his head now and then.

When he analyzed magic, everything made sense. There could be a four thousand pound gorilla in the room, and it would seem perfectly logical. If one could imagine a visible, yet completely transparent cloud, that would accurately define what Chey was looking for. For him, magic was truly real. He could see it a mile away, feel is as though it were concrete, classify it by it's taste and smell, and even listen to it's whispers. In fact, there was a whole world of nasty little secrets Chey could reveal by using this method. He could even use it to find a specific person anywhere in the world.

This was not a skill Chey developed as a result of years of training. In fact, he had been able to analyze magic ever since his third year of schooling. He couldn't really explain to anyone, save for Minerva, what prompted this remarkable ability. It's not that he didn't know, it's just that no one would believe him. However, the more time he spent in this school in England, the more he thought certain people would understand. Certainly, this Albus character would understand the concept, and maybe even that Hermoine girl.

Suddenly, he came to a stop, and turned his back to the places where the boy and the ghost were found, the ghost's location being closer to him. "Right here."

"You found something?" Minerva asked.

"This is the point of origin. This is where the spell was cast. Although, it's more like a curse. A powerful one, at that."

"What can you discern, young man?" said another voice from behind Chey. A quick turnaround informed Chey that it was Albus. "Well, Mister McGonnagal? What kind of curse was cast here?"

After a brief moment of silence, Chey determined something surprising. "The victims got lucky," he said sounding uncharacteristically concerned.

"What do you mean?" asked Percy. "What could be worse than being petrified?"

"The curse was supposed to kill them." he replied.

"And you're sure about this?" Albus inquired in an unusually grave tone.

"Well, it's not quite the Avada, but it's close. I'd say you've got either an extremely dangerous creature, or an even more dangerous person in control of it."

"Any idea what it may be?" Minerva asked him, her tone matching that of her superior.

"Nothing comes to mind. Best advise I can give you is to look through a list of illegal magical creatures, because there's no way any government would legalize something like this." Chey started to walk towards them, then stopped at the spot where the ghost was found. What's this, he asked himself. "Something happened here, too."

"What? Where Sir Nicholas was found?" Percy asked. Chey would have been surprised by the boy's grasp of the concept had he not been preoccupied by his recent discovery.

"Yeah, definitely," Chey started. "Wait...no." Could I be wrong? It feels like the curse from before, but just a little different. "Maybe...yes!" Now I'm certain. The spell changed right here! "The spell was altered when it passed over this spot." A look of confusion warranted a response. "Spells can be altered after they've been cast. Usually, it's by a reflection spell, or sometimes a common mirror will do it. I think that the ghost modified the curse so it no longer had the power to kill."

Albus pondered over this for a moment, then asked "Is there anything else unusual here?"

"Come to think of it, yeah. There's a disturbance over near the windowsill. It's like a thousand small insects have marched in a line and disturbed the magical residue." Will insects do that? "Nah, it's probably nothing."

One further moment of pondering ensued, then finally Albus said "Thank you, Chey. Mister Weasley, it is late even for a prefect, so I suggest you retire to your dormitory." Percy took the hint, and headed off. Now, with the unconcerned party having left, Albus asked "At what time will you be departing, Chey?"

"Tomorrow morning. Any later, and Vipey will pitch a fit."

Author's Note

I suppose it's about bloody time I said something to introduce myself and the story. I'm Termite, and I'm a student learning to be a filmmaker. More on my profile page.

I hope you have been enjoying this story. It has been two years in the making, and spans from book two through book seven. I decided to do something a little different with this story. Rather than change the canon to suit my needs, like so many other writers in this community have, I introduced a new character, Chey, and his actions revolve around the events of the books (not the movies, I'm something of a purist). I actually have the main plot all figured out, save for the seventh book (which won't be long).

Enjoy the story, for there's a lot more to come (as of posting this, I'm working on Chapter 16). I appreciate any reviews and comments you may have.

Termite