A Shadow That Grows

Chapter 1: A Boy Clad In Black

The great hall at Hogwarts was bustling with merry laughter and excited chatter as the school year began. It was Harry Potter's 5th year of attending Hogwarts and being a wizard, and subsequently, the Chosen One and his expectations for the year were tragic, to put it simply. The year before had been harrowing, and with the death of Cedric Diggory, and the return of He Who Must Not Be Named, Harry was not feeling great about the upcoming year. Especially with the ministry on his back. And there was this strange woman in neon pink at the table that Harry vaguely remembered from his hearing- no, he decided, this year was not going to be great at all.

Dumbledore stood to do his annual speech at the feast when suddenly the lights started to flicker and the shadows seemed to grow to loom over the students and staff alike. Fearful whispers broke out among the crowd as prefects tried to calm their houses and the professors all took out their wands and warily eyed their surroundings. Suddenly all the shadows lurched forward to the centre of the professor's table and swirled into a ginormous swirling mass before the lights came back to full brightness and a boy stood there in the place of the shadows. Crazed conversation on the logistics of apparition inside of Hogwarts made its way around the tables, the Ravenclaw table especially looking very perplexed.

The boy had a headful of long black hair pulled back into a ponytail, and had skin so translucent you could see his veins. His dark eyes scanned his surroundings and his hands played with the skull ring on his hand. Light seemed to be sucked away from him, his black suit was so dark it could've rivalled with the void.

"I assume this is Hogwarts?" the boy's Italian accent cut through the room. He pulled out a clipboard from nowhere- Harry heard Hermione mumble something about spatial wandless magic- and looked at it with wide eyes. "1995? Huh..." The boy suddenly looked up and his eyes squinted, the shadows at his feet seemed to swirl with his mood, agitated.

Dumbledore's inquisitively cautious voice asked, "May I ask who you are?"

Before the boy could speak up things started to fly and screams were heard as all of Hogwarts ghosts suddenly swarmed the room and all kneeled around the boy, forming a semi-circle around him. The boy looked up, and Harry could have sworn for a second a flash of an obsidian crown was on his brow before it was gone, "I'm Nico, the ambassador for Lord Pluto. I was told you knew I was coming...?"

Now looking significantly less scared, Dumbledore nodded and smiled at the boy, "Ah yes, I see it is time for inspection of our fine ghosts?" The lady in pink seemed to be less reassured than the headmaster because she cleared her throat to gain the attention of the room and looked at the boy menacingly with a smile on her face that left a sour taste in Harry's mouth.

"Who exactly are you, and why are you here?" She asked, her eyes hard.

"I just told you- di immortales" Nico quickly kicks away a ghost who was hanging onto his leg, making physical contact which confuses the students around him "- it's Nico. I am here under the orders of Lord Pluto." Nico looked at the lady whose soul was a midnight black- a bad sign surely. He quickly reiterated the story that most Wizard officials knew instead of the truth of the Gods, "My family line is in charge of the gateway to the afterlife. We use our affinity for costless dark magic to patrol the ghosts in this plane. I was sent to make sure Hogwarts ghosts were following their contractual rules, and if they aren't, then to banish and replace them." Then Nico, having a premonition that usually foretells disaster, quickly turns to Dumbledore and continues, "Her soul is black, I recommend removing her before irreversible damage is done..." Nico quirks his head and suddenly the shadows around him quake and before Harry can ask Hermione what is happening, an ink-black quill jolt from Umbridge's pocket to Nico's hand. "Dark magic huh? Thought your kind outlawed this object years ago..."

Nico simply twirled the quill in his hand before it disappeared in a puff of shadows and he turned to the nervous ghosts at his feet. "Back to the reason I'm here, however-" Nico looked at the clipboard still in his left hand and read aloud, "Bloody Baron."

Harry watched and thought, maybe this year will be different. Will be a good different. A different that doesn't end in disaster.

Oh, how wrong he would turn out to be.