B.Q. Book Two: Black Princess Ascendant

Chapter 18: Sleep Like the Dead

Disclaimer: Did Umbridge go out of her way to antagonize the other members of the faculty? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.
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It was the cold that woke Jen. Despite the fact that the calendar had yet to reach October, for some reason her feet were absolutely freezing. She curled her legs up against her chest and pulled the sheet of her bed tighter around her to better contain her body heat, but that did not stop a sudden chill from sliding along the side of her thigh from knee to hip.

Is this some kind of prank or something?, she wondered sleepily as she started to stretch out her sonar. While she slept, her sixth – and still primary, despite having regained her sight – sense naturally shrank to only a few meters to keep nearby activity from disturbing her rest; at this range, all she could feel was the furniture, Luna's sleeping form, and a faint, almost haze-like distortion positioned at the side of her bed that became slightly clearer as her awareness widened. A suspicion forming, she opened her eyes and shot an unamused glare at the ghost looking down at her.

"I think I liked you better when you were avoiding me."

The female ghost shrugged. While her transparent pallor washed away all her color, what little of her figure could be seen from under her ever-present cloak made the dark witch believe that she had likely been a beautiful woman while she still lived. Normally she also wore a stern, haughty expression that most students found off-putting, but right now she looked almost... fearful.

Her interest piqued at what could possibly scare a ghost, Jen asked, "What brings the Grey Lady into my chambers tonight? And at—" She magicked her pocket watch open on her desk and felt the hands. "—just past three in the morning on a Saturday?"

Rather than say what she wanted – not terribly surprising; there were many, Ravenclaws included, who doubted she could talk – the ghost floated a few paces away before turning around. Raising a hand, she beckoned the girl to follow.

Jen was having none of that. "Look, I'm not getting out of this bed and going with you to who-knows-where without a damn good reason. I have stuff to do tomorrow, and unlike you, I actually need to sleep."

The Grey Lady glared at her for a moment or two, but just when she was about to close her eyes again, the ghost finally spoke in a stiff tone. "Your presence is required at the top of the Astronomy Tower, priestess."

"Say what?!"

The apparition took flight and slipped through the stones of the ceiling rather than answer. Her fatigue now gone, Jen leapt out of the bed. Her magic pushed the heavy window open while her body melted and crumpled, and a ink-black owl soon soared through the night sky. From her dormitory in the Ravenclaw Tower, it would have taken her nearly half an hour to catch up to the spectral woman by foot, and that was assuming that she threw caution to the wind and took no special efforts to sneak around. While staff and prefect patrols ended at one, the same time as the Astronomy classes, Filch was a well-known insomniac and could often be found skulking through the corridors at odd hours. Flying was safer, and on the wing she could reach her destination in only a couple of minutes.

Her sight in this particular avian form was better than what she had as a human, especially at night, and so she quickly spotted the pearly glow just barely shining from the top of the tower. As she approached, however, she was surprised. It was not just the Grey Lady waiting for her, but also a thin man in a ruffled shirt, a fat ghost in a habit, and a third man bound in chains with silvery blood splashed all over him. She flew over the railing of the tower and returned to her human shape, conjuring a loose black dress decorated with gleaming metal around her contorting flesh.