leswarts | (no subject)

(no subject)

Who: Danny Fenton and YOU
Where: All over Hogwarts, and maybe the grounds
When: The Sunday after Spider Friday
Format: Either!
Open/Closed: Open like you do not know

Once was a nasty joke. Twice was ominous. Three times was more than enough to inspire outright dread, like a low murmur in a hallway where no one was speaking. The question 'will their be more' was bandied about after Friday's excitement, but it was not the one on everyone's minds. The real question was an understood 'when', and there was a sense of anticipation wafting around the castle.

Whoever the culprit, they had achieved their immediate goal: muggleborns and sympathizers were afraid.

Danny couldn't decide if it made him want to curl up in his dorm and hide until things were (comparatively) friendlier, or march out and toss his support in with le' ABC association. The second seemed particularly drastic, so he avoided his common room, and other crowded places with the eyes in them that had begun to watch students like him, and took to exploring the castle with his hand near his wand.

"This is stupid," he announced later on Sunday, glaring at a locked door that resisted his tugs and 'Alohomora's. It was the third that afternoon, and there had been a pressure of anxiety building all day, much of the same sort that had urged him to act on something, anything. He seized the door in one last mighty (? ) tug, before stepping back and glaring. Danny's eyes slid to his hand, and he considered it before making the appendage vanish from sight.

It promptly reappeared when the paintings nearby fell silent, and he stole glances at them as he clasped that hand with the other one. Still--this gave him an idea. Danny drew in close to the door, hiding his hand with his rucksack and body, pressing the hand against the door's hard surface.

It slipped through.

Danny's face split into a toothy grin, and he pivoted on his heel back the way he'd come.

Hours later saw him wandering freely, unhindered by mere things such as walls or gravity. He avoided places he knew would be full of people, but even if he stumbled across anyone, he was confident that they wouldn't be able to see him. And if they did?

They wouldn't, but the idea that if someone DID see him, and connections were made and letters sent home to the wrong eyes... The consequences of such a thing made him fretful, and eventually he simply cast a hasty glamour over his face. There. Problem solved.

Time to explore.

OOC Note: The ghosts of Danny Phantom are portrayed differently in the show than the ones in the Harry Potter world (they have more color, more eccentric, able to interact with the physical plane, are almost invariably dangerous and violent), so I will headcanon that there is actually an offshoot type of spook in the Harry Potter world known for these sort of discrepancies. Depending on whether your character would know these things, feel free to have them be aware of this or not.

Also, for the time being I would like to say that Danny isn't particularly recognizable as any particular student attending the school, though y'all may use your own discretion in the potential IC question of why a dead person would be using a glamour, and how.

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Ever since the poisoning on Monday, Gagnon has patrolled the hallways with even greater attention and intensity. Running on next to no sleep, sustained by coffee and a handful of questionable charms sold down in Hogsmeade to students planning all-nighters, he gives little sign that he's reaching the end of his stamina. A few days more of this, and he'll have to delegate some hours to house elves, ghosts, and members of the kitchen staff he can bribe to take extra hours.

But not yet.

He's stalking through a rarely-used wing near Ravenclaw Tower—quiet since, years ago, some of Kreiger's experiments turned up in secret rooms here—when Cane bounds off around a corner and starts barking his head off.

Gagnon bounds around the corner after him. Instead of barking, he slips a hand in one magically-enhanced pocket, feeling for the heavy black walking stick he keeps there. Not something he would ever use unless provoked, but whatever's been 'pranking' the campus, it has harm in mind. Better to go lightly armed.

Edited 2013-02-11 01:32 (UTC)

By the time Gagnon rounds the corner, Danny has had exactly enough time to give the dog an astonished look at the sheer intensity of its entrace, shy away from the dog's range, and nothing else. The motion of the caretaker's arrival catches his eye at once, and he throws a wild glance in its direction, ready for anything dangerous--

--Except, absurdly, what he should have been ready for: the caretaker. Danny is stricken by the same terrible guilt that everyone feels when they see the caretaker rushing towards them with intent, though he knows he's technically responsible for nothing but wandering further than he should. Was this section out of bounds? He suddenly can't remember.

"Easy, boy! Down!" His voice is almost lost in the braying, and the dog (of course) does not listen. Danny pitches his voice louder, this time at the dog's owner.

"Call him off!"

Gagnon leaves his hand in his pocket, wary of anyone with a concealed face, even what seems to be a student. He ignores the boy's plea to call off Cane.

"Ten points from whatever your house is for violating hallway air traffic regulations. Down, this minute. If you can manage it."

Cane, taking his cue from Gagnon's wariness, stops barking but remains at attention, staring up at the floating, faceless boy, stub wagging slightly as he whines, intent and anxious.

Edited 2013-02-11 02:34 (UTC)

Danny goggles at the caretaker, trying to reconcile the man's response with what he'd come to expect from home. After a moment he scrapes his thoughts in an attempt for his bearings.

"Air traffic? What air traffic regulation?" Nonetheless, he's lowering in the air, touching down as gingerly as dandelion fluff: if he sees the dog so much as twitch, he'll sweep up into the air again.

"I don't know how else to put this, but your ceilings aren't exactly getting clogged up, here. And--what makes you think I'm a student?"

"You have your face concealed, you're of a student's height, build, and voice, you've done something absurd to yourself with magic, and you're obeying my orders. Remove the mask."

Gagnon's posture doesn't change. Whomever this is, he doubts the boy's a threat, but no point taking his hand out of his pocket until he's certain.

Cane does twitch, an eager step forward, curious to sniff at Danny.

Danny winces. He takes a step back: flight is much more preferable to fight.

"Um--left over habits from life?" It won't help him, he's finally realized: not only has Danny probably set the man's baloney-sensors blaring, the caretaker for whatever reason doesn't seem to realize that the kid looks dead, at least by Fenton terms.

"Look, how about we just--call it a day, no harm done, with everybody happy..." He takes a step back, stealing a glance over one shoulder--looking for exits, or lack thereof. The caretaker occupies the only way out.

Not a problem. Danny's feet just barely leave the ground, split seconds from making a break for it: with a squib caretaker and not an ecto-shield in sight, what ways does Danny not have available?

Danny's comment—'leftover habits from life'—makes Gagnon's eyes narrow, sharp and unamused. During his earlier life in Paris, he'd made the passing acquaintance of a few ghosts: a casual almost-friendly rapport with a mute ghost in his uni dormitory, and a few encounters with the nosy dead making themselves useful on a case or two in his police career. At Hogwarts, the poltergeist loves to irritate him, and the other ghosts aid, frustrate, and needle him in equal measure.

But the last thing the school needs is the ghost of a child. Particularly now and particularly if it means they have a dead student on their hands.

"Cane!"

The dog whips his head around to look at his master, and Gagnon makes a sharp gesture towards Danny. Grab him.

Cane leaps toward Danny—into the air, if he has to—to try to grab the boy's foot in his mouth. Not bite, of course; whenever he detains a student, Cane's grip is always firm but careful.

"AH, no! Bad doggie!"

Danny flings his arms up in defense, seeming to do nothing but flinch haplessly in place. The truth of the matter becomes apparent when the dog's teeth close straight through his boot, and nothing stops him from landing on the other side. Unpolished powers bleed in to each other more visibly then, and invisibility gnaws at the edges of his form, even as intangibility claims all of it.

With a flight pattern unlike any bird, Danny kicks off and shoots towards the hall's dead end.

"So much for calling him off! Next time just train him to roll over, like a normal person!"

He reaches the far wall and dives straight through, terribly startling a house-elf on the other side. Then he vanishes through another wall, and invisibility takes hold.

"Or, you know. Normal-ish. It's all relative..."

Danny takes a moment to orient himself, and then heads for the far end of the castle. Note to self: avoid the caretaker and his dog at all costs.

This school is fucking insane. No more stable than being on the outside, really, and Phil's almost beginning to wonder whether he was sent here as some kind of joke (maybe something worse, even, though he isn't letting that one hang around his mind for long). Either these kids were particularly malicious with their pranks, or somebody had a plan for this school. And who knew what would be next? Thus far, Phil had remained untouched, but luck like that doesn't last forever. If this shit keeps up, if somehow it brings up anything related to his more-than-checkered past, he's going to have a lot of explaining to do or a quick escape to make.

So he hasn't slept much. So he's been smoking more than usual, alternating between cigarettes and joints. And he's spent altogether too much time pacing the hallways, keeping an eye and an ear out. Much as Phil would rather stay holed up in his office, the best way to be ready for an attack is to be on the watch. Besides, it must keep him in better standing and therefore under less suspicion with the Headmaster. Look like you're doing something to help defend the children and you just might be safe.

It's while on one of these circuits that Phil catches sight of a kid, all alone and--

Is that smoke?

Shit, some little bastard's enjoying a cigarette in the hallway, cool as can be. Phil can hardly fault the desire, but what the hell, couldn't they find somewhere better, somewhere more private to have a smoke? It's a stupid kind of audacity, and Phil approaches, ready to draw his wand in case the kid tries to run.

"Last I checked, students aren't supposed to be smoking in the corridors."

Edited 2013-02-11 06:45 (UTC)

When Danny had walked past the tapestry of a very hairy ice creature, he'd thought nothing of his ghost sense going off. There were ghosts all over the castle, and one was probably just passing through. When he walked past it on his way back, and the sense activated again, he shivered, glancing up automatically. To his surprise, the chill in his chest lingered as he paused, finally fading after a breath or so more.

Well, that wasn't normal. Danny focused on the freezing feeling as he stepped back the way he came--the feeling vanished. His eyes found the tapestry, and the chill returned as he approached again.

"Weird..." he muttered. Maybe it was made from something ghostly? Ghost hair? How would that keep his ghost sense activated if full fledged ghosts never lasted that long? He blew out the fading traces of frozen breath from his lungs, and was wrapped up enough in the question that he didn't hear the teacher approach.

The voice startles him out of a year of life. Danny whirls around to face him, and the words sink in.

"S-smoking?" Crud! He must have seen Danny's ghost sense. "I wasn't smoking!" If Danny's parents found out about this, they wouldn't need a howler to let him know what they thought.

Think fast, Fenton. Damage control. "I mean--I can see why that probably looked like it was smoking, but I wasn't. Smoking. It was just--smoke from a pepper imp."

Danny wished harder than ever that he actually still had any of the wizard treat left. This wasn't good, and everything suspicious about his situation was screaming in his mind until he was half expecting the professor to shout 'GHOST' and expel him on the spot.

Edited 2013-02-11 15:33 (UTC)

Yeah, wow, nice fuckin' try, Fenton.

All right, there's no sign of any cigarette. All right, it isn't the right smell. But the kid's covering for something, and Phil's intuition screams that there's more to this than candy. Sounded like a bullshit excuse if ever there was one. It certainly doesn't help that Fenton's still high on the watch list after the Incarcerous incident and the news of his parents' work.

"Calm down, kid. This isn't an interrogation." Not in any strong sense of the word, anyway. Watching the kid as he speaks, Phil tries to get a measure on what's happening here. "If you weren't smoking, you weren't smoking. Though really, it seems to me there's every reason you should." Between the way this school is run and the past week's pranks, Phil isn't entirely certain why everyone hadn't taken up the hobby. And it's almost disappointing that Fenton wasn't smoking; it would've been well within Phil's rights to confiscate the cigarettes, and just like that, he'd have another pack of his own. Which he could sorely use, the ways he's been going through them recently.

"You like those pepper imps?" He poses the question without a smile, simply keep his eyes on the kid and allowing a hint of sardonic disbelief to slip into his voice.

Edited 2013-02-19 07:19 (UTC)

"I... should?"

The professor gets a look that wouldn't have been out of place if the man had grown an extra head with tentacles somewhere in the conversation and not noticed. A teacher, saying anything positive to a student about smoking? Where was the 'if you look at one you'll die' spiel? Where was the thinly veiled threats of consequences?

Sometimes, Danny wondered if this guy was even really a teacher.

Thoroughly off guard, Danny rubs the back of his neck and tries to regain his bearings.

"Y-yeah, um--they're really good. I've got this big box of them back in my dorm." He pastes a smile across his face. Then he shivers and breaths out a cloud, which stops by the next breath. He plows on. "They make you breath smoke like that, and a little bit of fire. That's because of the pepper. Since they're 'pepper imps'."

Paintings behind him greet someone. Danny throws a glance down the hall and his eyes widen a fraction of an inch, before looking forward: he'd been just in time to glimpse the disappearing form of the Fat Friar.

Danny turned forward again, babbling. "I don't have anymore on me, though, that was the last one. In fact I was about to go to my dorm to get more but then I got distracted, and then you came along, so..."

Edited 2013-02-23 23:56 (UTC)

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