He Who Walks Between Worlds

My Father is Definitely Not a God

Beginning Notes

Warnings: Swearing

All characters (except Thomas) are owned by Rick Riordan and J. K. Rowling.

Nico

As Nico walked down to the Slytherin table, he glanced over at Ginny and Hermione. He immediately wished he hadn't. Ginny just shrugged at him and mouthed 'too bad', but Hermione wasn't looking at him. She was looking at Harry, and Nico could tell by the expression on Harry's face that he had nothing good to say about Slytherin.

Nico sat near the end of the table. He was greeted by a boy who looked around seventeen. 

"Welcome to Slytherin," the boy said, "You're Nico di Angelo, right?"

Nico nodded. 

"Name's Thomas," he said. "Say, you look a bit older than eleven."

"I was homeschooled," Nico explained.

His curiosity sated, Thomas turned away from Nico. Nico was quite glad of this. He could sit and eat in peace. His eyes drifted around the hall and alighted on several pale, translucent bodies. Ghosts.

Shit.

Wizards were weird. They weren't a pantheon, exactly, and didn't have a specific afterlife which they went to. They, like most mortals, got dispersed among the other afterlifes as long as no particular god of death took special interest in them. However, some wizards who possessed both exemplary strength of will and did not want to face the unknown of the afterlife could come back as incorporeal spirits. Ghosts. His father had long since accepted this. The ghosts had nothing to fear. But they could definitely sense the power he held over them. As soon as one of them spotted him, they would make a scene.

He glanced around, looking for the Slytherin ghost. He saw it just a few paces away, a solemn-looking ghost. He appeared to be making his way down the table greeting the new Slytherins. There was no way to avoid him. Sure enough, the ghost looked up and his eyes met Nico's. He startled, and a momentary look of alarm flashed across his face before he arranged it back into a perfect poker face. 

Before either of them could speak, however, a short woman dressed in a pink dress came to the pedestal and signaled for the hall's attention. As everyone turned to her, Nico whispered to the ghost, "I'm not here for you. Spread the word."

The ghost nodded silently and drifted over to the other tables. Nico turned his attention to the speech, but couldn't focus. A quick glance around the Great Hall showed that it wasn't just his ADHD kicking in, though. The majority of students weren't listening. Harry and Ron were talking, and Luna had taken out her magazine again.

". . . because some changes will be for the better, while others will come, in the fullness of time, to be recognized as errors of judgement. Meanwhile, some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited."

She sat down. Dumbledore clapped. The staff followed his lead, though Nico noticed that several of them brought their hands together only once or twice before stopping. A few students joined in, but most had been taken unawares by the end of the speech, not having listened to more than a few words of it, and before they could start applauding properly, Dumbledore had stood up again.

"Thank you very much, Professor Umbridge, that was most illuminating," he said, bowing to her. "Now, as I was saying, Quidditch tryouts will be held . . . "

Nico didn't listen to the rest. He didn't really care about Quidditch, and the ghost had drifted back towards him. 

"I don't believe I introduced myself," the ghost said. "I'm the Bloody Baron."

"Nico di Angelo. A pleasure to meet you."

"Indeed," the Bloody Baron said, "I am eager to continue our acquaintance."

What he really meant was who are you and why are you here?

"As am I."

I'll tell you what you want to know. Later.

The speechmaking being over, the students rose and followed the prefects to their dorm rooms. The Slytherin common room was a long, low underground room with rough stone walls and ceiling from which round, greenish lamps were hanging on chains. A fire was crackling under an elaborately carved mantelpiece ahead of them. Not exactly homey, but Nico thought he would like it. Nico followed the other boys his age up to their dorm room, and found his trunk already waiting near an empty bed. 

"So, Nico," one boy said, "Are you any good at quidditch?"

"No," Nico said.

"Shame," the boy said. "We're all on the Slytherin quidditch team. It was cancelled last year, absolutely awful, fourth year, but I think that this year, we're going to have an excellent team. I'm planning on trying out for chaser."

"Same here," another boy said. "I'm Valerie Vaisey, by the way."

"Henry Urquhart," the first boy said.

"Harper Gold," the last boy said. "I want to be seeker."

The other two laughed. "Good luck beating Malfoy!"

As they dissolved into a puddle of laughter and shoulder-punching, Nico lay down on his bed. He didn't bother to take his clothes off. They wouldn't notice. Sure enough, they asked once if he was asleep already, and then got ready for bed. He waited for their breathing to steady before pushing back the blanket and rolling out of bed. 

He crept down to the common room. Trying something new, he called out to the Baron. I'm ready for you. Bring the other ghosts. He couldn't be sure whether the Baron had received the message, but he felt him drift away. 

Some minutes later, a multitude of ghosts drifted through the wall and door. He took one glance at them and walked out the door, beckoning to them. "Come on. I can't be seen with all of you."

Nico didn't need mist. If anyone saw a fourteen-year-old boy robed in black walking with an entourage of ghostly figures, he was pretty sure they wouldn't believe what they were seeing. He ducked into the closest classroom that was large enough and turned to face the assembled crowd. The Bloody Baron stepped forward. "Lord -- Sire --"

"Just Nico is fine," Nico said.

"Nico," the Baron said as if the word was strange on his tongue. "I, that is to say we, I mean, we --"

Nico cut him off. "You want to know what I am."

"Yes." The Bloody Baron looked relieved that Nico had said it for him. 

Nico looked around. He couldn't tell these ghosts the truth. They were just mortals. Dead, magical mortals, but mortals all the same. But he had to tell them something.

"My father is a wizard of extraordinary power, specializing in necromancy. He has taught me many of his arts. But I would appreciate if you didn't tell the other students this. They have nothing to fear from me, so there is no reason they need to know. You should all treat me like any other student."

Many of the ghosts looked unconvinced, but they nodded. Nico slipped back to his dorm and collapsed on his bed, exhausted.

End Notes

Sorry this took me so long, school is awful.

Yes, Nico's roommates are actual characters. And no, you don't want to know how long it took to find Slytherin students that might be in his year. I made up first/last names for all of them, so you won't find them if you search.

Bye, peeps. Vote and comment, please!