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***
The first time Pansy Parkinson had seen a Beltane ritual, or at least part of one, had been when she was five and three quarters. She didn't understand why at the time, Mrs Bulstrode already had Millicent and certainly that had to be handful enough. So why she would want another child, was not something that Pansy understood. But Mr Bulstrode was so angry and so very old and Millicent was not the boy that he had wanted.
So Pansy attended her first Beltane.
Her task, along with Daphne, Millicent and Tracey, was to dance the maypole and maybe it was her missteps at the beginning that had caused the issue with the rest of the ceremony. No one had seen, the bunch of spring flowers at the very top of the pole hid all her mistakes, but she had known they were there. She just kept the words tight behind her lips and said nothing and because no one had seen it or said that accuracy was important, Pansy had decided that it couldn't be all that bad. It made the woven ribbons around the maypole unique and special. That had to count for something.
Or so she thought.
Months later, Millicent's little sister, who was decidedly not a boy, slid into the world only to leave it just as quietly as she had arrived. Mr Bulstrode had been furious and there was not a party or simple gathering that wasn't subject to his grumblings. Millicent had withdrawn into herself, her mother refusing to see guests or even open the curtains around the enormous house. Pansy found herself disliking Thursday teatime at the Bulstrode house because it was nothing but sadness and stale biscuits. And when she heard that Mr Bulstrode found himself at the bottom of the chalk white cliffs that lined the far end of the property, it seemed as if no one was actually all that sad.
At least the flowers at the funeral had been pretty.
***
"Can't you find something better to do with your endless time," Pansy sighed, turning the page in her book and writing a few notes on a roll of parchment. She flicked her fingers. Fred Weasley's face hovered above her, poking out from between two volumes of spell books. "I hear that going into the light at the end of the tunnel is all the rage these days."
"You promised you'd try," Fred said with almost a whinge to his echoing voice.
Pansy sighed and looked up at the transparent figure above her. She'd returned to Hogwarts to redo her seventh year along with so many others. The disdain for her was palpable, of course, and she wasn't exactly surprised, but she also didn't quite care because all she wanted to do was sit her NEWTs and find some sort of career that would take her far from England and the black marks of her past. So she'd kept to far corners of the library or a secluded alcove near the stairs where she wouldn't bother anyone or be bothered by anyone.
That had not lasted long.
The first time she'd felt his presence had been close to Halloween. When the veil thinned on Samhain, the school had found itself the residence for a number of new ghosts. It was eerie to see a few faces of those that had actually wandered the halls the year before and some of them returned to the other side before the veil closed, but there were a few that stayed behind. Fred had been one of those spirits, though it had taken him nearly until Christmas holidays before he had managed to manifest himself into something more corporeal than a wisp. And while she had expected him to spend all of his time with his younger sister who had returned to finish her last year, Pansy found that he was more often choosing her company than not.
Maybe because she was more familiar with the darker magics than others.
"I didn't promise," she said with a frown. "I said I would think about it."
He dipped out from between the books and circled around the candle floating above her study spot. He'd been at her for weeks to try and leave the school. He didn't want to spend the rest of his days interacting with people who he had known in life and bugged her almost every chance he got to find a way to get away. She had tried to explain that he was attached to the place where he died as well as it being the place where he crossed through the thinned veil between life and death, but he was determined and she didn't know if it was actually possible. To try and move a ghost too far from their anchor could cause irreparable damage. It could possibly even dissolve the spirit completely.
"And what did you think about?" he prodded.
Pansy felt the muscles on the back of her neck start to tighten and she pulled in a breath to keep from letting them knot completely. "You're asking a lot of me," she said, closing her book. She watched as Fred faded out of view and then returned, strolling around the ceiling. "It's dark magic, Weasley. Restricted section magic. They already think the worst of me."
He vanished and appeared in front of her, his face so close that if it were solid, their noses could almost be touching. "So you have nothing to lose."
"That's not fair," she said with a frown.
"It's also not wrong," he said, shrugging his shoulders.
She didn't like to admit it, but he was right. No one would be surprised at her using dark magic. No one would think it out of character because she was Pansy Parkinson. She was the girl who called for someone to turn Harry Potter over to the Dark Lord. She was the nasty Slytherin who stood on the Inquisitorial Squad and watched as marked Death Eaters came into the school under the guise of teaching only to torture students for fun. And she hadn't done anything to stop it.
"I don't even know if it will work," she said after a long moment.
Fred sat up from the backstroke he was doing across the floor and looked at her. Suddenly a grin appeared on his face and it changed the brightness of his glow. "You did more than think about it, didn't you?"
Pansy flushed and leaned over the side of her chair, flipping back the top of her rucksack. She pulled out a book with no title and set it on the table. The markings on the cracked leather flashed in a strange blue that almost matched the glow of his skin. A flicker of magic sparked from her fingertips as she tapped the marks in a careful order before a ripple of light shuddered from the pages, allowing her to open to the ribbon that marked the middle.
"Do you know anything about the magic that was here before Hogwarts or the reason why they chose this spot in particular?" she asked, not surprised when he shook his head. "Rowena and Helga chose the location of Hogwarts because of the Celtic magic that ran strong throughout this whole area. Godric and Salazar just followed their advice. The old magic was here before the school and the threads of it are why the magic didn't completely disappear after the..." She paused, not wanting to really speak of the battle the year before.
"So you can use it?"
Pansy sighed. "Not exactly." She looked at him, not knowing why she wanted to help him. She had no affection for his family. But of all the people, both alive and dead at this school, he seemed to be the only one that wanted to interact with her on a regular basis. She supposed that had to count for something. "If I try to do anything this close to the school, it won't work because it won't sever your attachment." Her finger traced over one of the blue symbols on the book's cover. "How far have you tried to travel from the school?"
Fred floated up toward one of the candles overhead and let it travel through his body, the flame flickering strangely within his torso before he rolled over and looked down at her. "The other end of the lake. I got to the shore and it felt like I was pushing against a current moving in the other direction."
Pansy took out her wand and pointed it at the shelves, summoning a book. It was large, but not thick and she pushed aside her other parchments when it appeared, opening and flipping through the large pages until she reached a map of the school grounds. Her fingers traced over the lake and then down to the scale and she wrote down a few numbers before using her wand to measure across the map. She pointed to a loch on the other side of the dark forest, a small island situated in its middle.
"Loch Maree?" Fred asked, peeking up through the middle of the map, his nose resting on one of the crooked lines that wound across the page.
She didn't answer him. Instead she closed the book and sent it floating back to wherever it had been shelved and turned to the other book that had been in her bag. She wasn't sure if he wanted to hear what she had found and she wasn't sure if it would even work. Pushing her hair behind her ears, she pointed her wand at the bookshelves that stood on either side of her little table, watching as a shimmering barrier cascaded down around them. The very last thing she needed was for someone else to overhear.
Sucking in a deep breath, she returned to the page that she'd marked and set aside the ribbon before turning it so he could read.
"Do you know anything of Beltane?" she asked.
***
"You believe in all of this?" Fred asked, weaving around one of the few trees still standing, his hand passing through the coins embedded in its trunk.
"I don't have any reason to not believe in all of this." Pansy spread out a rectangle of purple cloth and carefully arranged the candles. "But you are more than welcome to let the pull of the school's magic take you back." She looked over at the ring she had closed and the chain of runes she had laid upon it. "I can break the circle, if you'd like."
He shook his head and Pansy couldn't help but allow herself a smile. When she'd set the circle, it had created a break in the connection tugging him back to where he was anchored.
She was surprised that he had agreed so easily to this. Ritual magic was old and considered by most of the wizarding world to be dark and she'd expected him to balk at the whole idea of it all. But it was the only thing she could think of that would change his situation. Of course it would change hers too and somehow she didn't find the idea so repulsive. Strangely enough neither did he. All he wanted was to escape and he would do anything to make that a reality.
And he'd even said yes when that involved creating a new anchor.
Of his blood.
"I don't exactly have blood, Parkinson," he'd said, shaking his head with a laugh and pushing his arm through a bookcase.
"And that's where Beltane comes in. Beltane and Samhain are the same holiday in the pagan calendar. It just depends what side of the world you're on. So while not every spirit or ghost in existence can come through the veil in the spring in the Northern Hemisphere... we can draw on that power. And you'd be... solid. For a night."
"All of me?"
"All of you."
Pansy ran her hands over her upper arms and started tracing characters in the air with her wand. The candles at the little alter she had created started to burn brightly and with each new character, the light changed from yellow to white to blue and then a soft purple. Slowly Pansy brought her hand to where the flame flickered low against the wax and then quickly drew her wand across one of her fingers, cutting deep enough to draw blood. The flame made a little hiss as the blood dripped from her fingertip into the wax, but didn't extinguish. The blood magic rippled through the circle and washed up against the barrier and the temperature jumped a couple of degrees as life seemed to fill the space around her.
She heard a yelp and a thump from behind her and turned to see Fred wincing in an undignified heap on the ground.
"Holy shit," he said with a wheeze. "It worked. And that bloody well hurt." He let out a cackling whoop.
Pansy couldn't speak. There he was, looking as solid and not dead as any other person and her mouth had gone completely dry. She hadn't expected any sort of success and she was almost at a loss for what to do next. Glancing at the candle, she sucked in a breath and then looked at him again.
"It'll last as long as the candle," she said, sounding almost as amazed as he looked. "And you can't step beyond the ring. You'll disappear and I don't know if you'll be pulled back to the school or if you'll be pulled beyond the veil."
Fred looked at the front of his hand and then the back before sliding it over the grass. For a moment Pansy thought that he might start to weep and she really wouldn't have blamed him if he had. It wasn't reincarnation. Not really. It was just a temporary change of physical state and only for this one night. Only for this one purpose. Pansy fumbled with the frog clasp at her throat and let the cloak she'd been wearing slide to the ground. Fred looked up from his place on the ground, seemingly revelling in the concept of being solid, and gaped at her.
Pansy leaned over and carefully picked up the circlet of flowers she'd put together. There hadn't been much; they were so far north that all the blooms were at least a month and a half behind the rest of the country. But she'd managed to find enough heather and snowdrops to make a passable spring crown. Carefully she set it on her head and tucked her hair around the woven stems. The thin nightgown that hung loose from her shoulders rippled around her thighs and when she turned to face Fred, Pansy felt herself blushing at his stare.
She sucked in a breath and closed her eyes. "Beltane is a time when the land is turning green again and everything is new and life is brought into the world," she recited, trying to remember all the words that were needed. "It celebrates fertility and life in a way that Samhain honours death and the afterlife." She opened her eyes and felt her cheeks go even warmer when she realised he had not stopped staring. "The only way you can leave Hogwarts is by having a new anchor..."
"You can't be serious..."
"I wouldn't have offered this option if I wasn't."
Fred ran his hands through his hair. "But why? You don't even like my family."
Pansy lifted a shoulder. "This isn't for your family. It's for you."
"But I'm dead, Parkinson!" Fred waved his hands around and then gestured to himself.
"And just as trapped as I am." Pansy looked down at the ribbon that held together the neckline of her nightgown. She tugged at one of the loops until it came undone and the shoulder slipped down to her upper arm. "You don't make me feel worthless, Fred. Let me do this..." She let out a dry laugh. "It might not even work."
"You obviously didn't consider Weasley history," Fred said wryly.
"I did," Pansy said, twisting the ribbon around her finger. "It was the first thing I considered and why I thought this would work. Of all the options available, this was the least soul damaging."
"It's a baby, Pansy."
"It would be a Beltane child." She looked up at the sky. "There's power in that."
"And love?" Fred looked at her.
A thin laugh rose up in Pansy's chest and she couldn't stop it from bubbling out. "I hardly think that you need to be in love with me in order for this to happen."
She felt her shoulders drop and a hot feeling crept up her neck. The way he was looking at her and the way he was protesting suddenly made her feel like she had gotten it all wrong. Of course he wouldn't want her. Who did? Not even a ghost, it seemed. Crouching down, she picked up the fallen robe and held it to her chest, hot, embarrassed tears burning behind her eyelids. She looked up and blinked a couple of times to keep them from falling. She felt a solid weight land on her shoulder and looked to see his hand and drew in a slow breath.
'
"I can look for another way since this doesn't appeal to you," she offered. "I just wanted to, I don't know, actually do something that mattered and wasn't such a terrible thing. I was an awful person and there's so much to do to make amends."
Surprisingly, he touched her cheek and she couldn't keep herself from turning her face toward his fingertips.
"Offering your future to a baby that came from a strange spell to solidify a ghost just so that ghost could stop swirling around the u-bend with Myrtle is more than you need to do," he said.
"So what do I do?" she asked. "Or would you rather my past follow me around for the rest of my life?"
He lowered himself to the grass in front of the alter she'd created and patted the spot next to him. "You said Beltane was for things to be new. So... let's start with a new friendship."
She gave him a rather skeptical look, but eventually dropped to sit beside him. The candle keeping him tethered and solid flickered and she could feel the magic buzz over her skin and tickle at the soles of her feet. This was not how this night was supposed to go and she chewed on a thumbnail, worrying about what would happen to him when the candle burnt out and the night was over. She hadn't planned that far in advance and she realised that she was worried he would be lost to the ether if she didn't do something to stop it.
But if he noticed her worry, he didn't say anything. Instead he spoke of his brothers and the joke shop that they had opened and what they'd planned to do after the war and how much he hoped George was still trying to make a go of it. He spoke of the one brother that had been estranged only to come back right when he was needed and how he hoped that Percy wasn't blaming himself for what had happened. At her confused look he explained the details he could remember of his death. He asked her questions about her childhood and stories of growing up. He made faces when she mentioned Draco and Theodore, but she smacked his stomach lightly (because she could) and told him that they were trying to change just as she was.
The sky started to shift from dark to light and the candle flickered along with Fred. The tips of his ears started to shift in transparency and he lifted his hands to look at the fingertips doing the same. He wiggled them and then stretched his arms up over his head.
"I'm probably going to end up back at the school," he said thoughtfully. "Can't say that I'm looking forward to the u-bend."
"You don't have to spend time with Myrtle. There are plenty of other places in the school to haunt." She looked at him. "I'm sorry this didn't work out."
"There's always another Beltane," he said, leaning over and kissing her cheek just as the candle hissed and went out in a puddle of wax.
***
The alter she created a year later was far more elaborate with purple velvet and a chalice of wine. Antlers curled around flowers that were blue as robin's eggs and Pansy lit each of the candles with a wave of her wand. A wind blew across Loch Maree and tangled her hair around the circlet of blossoms that adorned her head. She crouched on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest and watched the flame dance on the wick.
She felt him before she saw him. Just as she'd felt him when he'd first crossed over.
Extending her hand over the flame she let the heat warm her fingertips before cutting one with a small knife instead of her wand. The blood welled up and sizzled when it hit the flame.
She heard him hit the ground.
"Gravity is a thing," she said.
"It sure is. A beautiful and bruising thing."
"I didn't think you'd come." Pansy didn't look to where he was, but smiled at the flame wobbling over the puddle of wax.
"I got tired of the u-bend." His voice was closer, directly behind her.
"Well I'm glad to know that I'm better company than the plumbing," she laughed.
"Much better." Fred lightly tugged Pansy to her feet. Before she could say anything else, he kissed her until her knees felt like steamed pudding. "That's much better too."
"You've reconsidered?" she asked, stifling a sigh when his mouth pressed to the skin below her ear.
"Seems so," he said, skimming his hand over her waist. "But only if you promise to take me far, far away from here."
"If it works, then that was always going to be the plan."
It did indeed work.
And Pansy did indeed take the ghost of Fred Weasley far away from Hogwarts.