Autumn Leaves

"I seek the splendour in thy fair face stored;

yet living man such beauty scarce can learn,

and he who fain would find it first must die."

-Michelangelo

Autumn Leaves, Part One.

***

He knows himself a strange boy by the standards of many.

His thoughts, the rare occasions he chooses to divulge them, runs random and disquieting. His eyes and face, so like his father's, are much paler, glowing, as if the boy has lived his life in fear of the sun.

Stranger still his fixation with the Slytherin Ghost, although having been born in the magical world, he should by now be weaned of the sight of a ghostly spectral or two.

A very strange interest indeed, for one from Gryffindor. But then he was never the Gryffindor that his father had been. He never felt for instance, that legendary honour or courage that common wisdom dictates he be imbued with, coming from the house of Lions. He feels not the nobility of its Gold, remains untouched by the blaze of its passionate Red.

No, his colour is the Grey of his name, the grey-green of his eyes. It has always been thus.

His name is Ash, and he is the utterly flawless copy of his father.

But many gaze at the slender limbed youth for extensive periods, searching for answers to why Harry Potter's son seems so perfectly natural, yet remain in the end nothing of what one may expect.

The average witch or wizard will look at Harry's son, and feel that what they should be thinking is; 'this is as right as is good, such likeness to his upright father.' They would try to summon a feeling of approval, but it would always end up with the slightly discomfited feeling that his is a likeness made eerie by its lack of features, an unsubstantial, shadow-like tracing of the real thing.

Even the most astute would be hard pressed to explain the difference, perhaps noting that there is something vaguely hollow about this pint-sized copy of the famous man, as copies are apt to be.

Perhaps there is such thing then, as a copy being made to be too perfect. But no, his forehead is too clean, too smooth; inexpressive of scars, telling no stories. The jade eyes, two soft green jewels set upon a snow covered landscape, does not sparkle with the fire of a thousand suns like that of his father; it glows instead, with the strangely wintry light of the moon.

A light which seems to reflect itself from other sources, as if he was born with none himself.

This was why on some cold autumn nights, amongst the rustle of the leaves, you could hear the student's whisper that he looks almost like a Ghost.

Such comments would inevitably lead to some attention being devoted to another Ghost, albeit a real phantom. The boy called Ash only met the Slytherin Ghost late in his first year at Hogwarts, when Fall had wreathed the castle in the colours of Autumn. Slytherin had two House ghosts instead of one, and it was the one who used to be a student of hear at Hogwarts that had caught what little awareness he has for the world around him.

He had first seen it when walking up the stairs that lead away from the dungeons, and somehow the predictability of this setting had made their meeting lack the usual sense of serendipity that such events usually precipitates. The sunlight was slowly waning and the cold was creeping up from dank floors, but despite these discouraging circumstances the dying sun's valiant red rays spilled over the windows and threw themselves on the stone walls, painting everything in shades of red and grey.

His arms full of scrolls, a solitary, tiny black figure, he had ascended the stairs, looking rather like a ghost himself when he had looked up and saw the real thing.

It was an unremarkable sight, this elusive Slytherin Ghost which had so long successfully evaded public scrutiny. A small, slim boy with fair hair and sharp, delicate features, it appeared as surprisingly young, perhaps only a few years older than Ash himself. The Ghost had strangely not been floating but walking down the stairs, clad in Hogwarts attire, and Ash had, for one brief second, mistaken it for some senior who's been made victim of a magical prank which left him translucent.

Then the sudden cold stabbed through his skin and entered his veins, leaving him with the unmistakable realisation that this boy was dead.

The Ghost did nothing, merely staring vacantly at him out of its glassy, glowing eyes. At some point it parted its lips in an indiscernible movement, as if about to speak, but then it merely swept slowly past him and continued walking slowly down the stairs, and one would almost strain to hear the footsteps that would never fall.

Ash didn't see the Slytherin Ghost again until the following autumn. Then he saw it again hear and there at odd moments, a presence that lingers more in his subconscious than it does in his sight.

And in the four years preceding his meeting with the Ghost he would only ever see it a handful of times, and only in the fleeting moments which would leave him feeling bereft and in a strange disquietude.

Through the visions that remained siphoned in these memories he studies more intently the features of this seldom seen spectral. He finds that the Ghost does not possess much pleasant looking features; a small sharp face with small sharp eyes, and a thin slash of a mouth, a face defined more by hollowness than flesh, whose skeletal frame could not be blamed on its phantom state.

It was all too easy to visualize the sallow skin and limp, colourless hair; even with the most optimistic of imaginations, it looked as if it had been a wan and unhealthy being even whilst alive.

What he couldn't tell, failed to visualise despite countless attempts at imagining them, was the colour of those ghostly eyes.

***

Thus the seasons come and go, following each other like a constant, irreversible wheel. The seasons peeled away the years and the years peeled away the childlike physique from Ash, although it couldn't peel away the face of his father.

A magical mirror, they tell him, could not have envisioned such flawless imitation.

Although, perhaps he would look a little less pale, if only he would join the Quidditch team as they feel sure that he would be able to fly as well as his father. Perhaps he could speak out a little more in classes, or visit Hogsmeade even once, but then they hastily assure him that his father would have been a quiet child as well if he had not been called upon to save the world from evil at such a tender age. There couldn't be anything wrong with him, no. Not if Harry Potter is your father.

As he hears these words, he hears the things that they do not speak aloud as well; words set aside for to be spoken in whispers: about how quiet he was, how withdrawn. The years of living under the long shadows of his father's towering reputation had done this, they were sure. Made him into some sort of shadow himself, they sigh wistfully, and affected a melancholic air.

Ash himself feels none of this wistfulness. He often feels nothing, and remains unquestioning of his own lack of response onto the stimuli of laughter and play that usually works so well for others of his age. Noises only seems to reach him through a sieve who's nets were cast far and wide around him, muting everything else to a hum so that it did not disturb the silence he seemed to be such fast friends with.

Why, he could not discern, and neither could others around him. It was all that he had known, and all there was about him that others knew.

They would love to call him dreamy, but dreams seemed the prerogative of those who fully lived, who acted and reacted in life, and then proceeded to replay these in realm of rest, beyond the boundaries of reality.

So he remained to them the only thing they could call him: Harry's son. At fifteen years of age, he remained a half awakened child, beautiful as a porcelain doll.

But such a strange beauty it was, because porcelain dolls have no real lips but painted ones.

Porcelain dolls have eyes made of beautiful glass, but silent and still, like a motionless pond.

Porcelain dolls have no real expressions, save for what its maker had imbued it with.

***

In his fifth year, there was suddenly a new girl in his Double Potions class. She came two months late into the term, and she came late for the first class he saw her in. She walked lazily to a seat at the back of the dungeons and sat down, chewing something in her mouth, the words 'delinquent' written all over her smirking features. She didn't look to join a partner despite being told to do so, and after class she had strolled off yawning in Headmaster Snape's face.

Her potion was flawless.

Within an hour the whole of Hogwarts was agog with the news that Snape's daughter had come to Hogwarts. In corridors, in classes, in common rooms, conspiracy theories bloomed, as did the odd wager as they scrutinised the thick shock of black hair, protruding nose, and thin lips of the new girl that was Slytherin's novel addition.

The first one to find out, however, was the one who didn't go looking for answers.

***

Ash likes neglected places. He feels the presence of the past in these abandoned walls, and it was somehow soothing. If he discovers a deserted area, and if this place accepted him, he would stay comfortable in the silence and the peace. He would keep their secrets.

Perhaps he is not the loner that everyone thinks he is. Perhaps he simply prefers the company of Ghosts.

Thus, the corridor at the third floor is appealing to him, wandering around the dusty and derelict remains of his father's first brush with the fallen Dark Lord Voldermort all those years ago, and it is this place where nobody could find him that he met a strange sort of angel.

"Greetings, Gryffindork."

It was the Slytherin girl from Potions, the one he had not seen before. He turns his head as she approaches, her hands folded over her chest, her robes flapping like wings.

She looks quite sinister, he thinks, like a raven. He waits patiently, until she hovers over him, several inches taller than himself.

She scrutinises him, and when she speaks, he notices an odd mixture of accents in her voice. "You don't look at all like your father. I don't know why they say you do."

He blinks once at the unusual observation, and she sees his pupils shift. She doesn't seem to care about his lack of response. She transfigures a stuffed armchair with seemingly little effort, and doesn't bother to share the fruits of her conjuring.

Then she begins to talk.

She regales him with stories, uncaring or indifferent to his lack of response. She tells him of her childhood, living alternate summers in muggle London and wizarding London, the years spent at Durmstang when her mother moved to Russia for research into arcane arts. The jell-o-jinx spell which earned her a week's detention when it hit Headmaster Snape, coming round the corner on her first day at Hogwarts. How dumbfounded her parents were when they found out that she had been sorted into Slytherin.

"...and they just sat there working their jaws and looking as if I'd just announced that I wanted to give a shot at becoming the next Voldermort or something, the loony pair..." she continued, and was rewarded when Ash finally stirred, the first movement in the hours they sat together, and she realised that the sun must be waning from the way their shadows had scooted over to the other side of the room.

"My father..." he hesitated for a moment, and his face took on a vacant expression, as if he didn't know quite what he was talking about. Then he continued, and she was highly interested to observe that his voice was slightly hoarse, as if it had never been used.

"...was similarly surprised... when he found out that I did well in potions."

So the spawn of Harry Potter likes Potions, and avoided Quidditch and his own housemates like the plaque. She couldn't decide if it Ash was really intriguing or really predictable, but decides to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"My parents want me to be friends with you," she tells him with a sigh. "They say you are lonely. But from what I hear the more appropriate term would be loony."

"Am I?"

The Slytherin rolled her eyes. Self obsession would run deep in this particular family, she thought dryly to herself.

"I really don't care, Griffindork."

Another long silence ensued, and they both stayed as still as stone. Finally he stirred again, turning round to face her for the first time, and she was pleased to see finally a vague sort of acknowledgment in his eyes.

"What's your name?"

Ever the daughter of a Granger, she didn't bother to hide the smile of triumph.

"Angela Weasley," she grins, and Ash had never met anyone with a less angelic expression.

***

Angela turned out to be an odd sort of acquaintance, appearing and disappearing whenever she pleases. She seems to be able to locate him with seeming ease, and he wonders if she carried some version of his father's old Marauder Map with her. Almost all of their conversation, if could be called such, consisted of her narrating and him listening silently to her.

She must deem their occasional sessions as sufficient to fulfil her parents expectation, although he was certain that their instructions would probably not count for as much as they could hope. Angela seems the kind who would only do as she fit, or if it intrigued her enough.

For some reason, keeping up a running commentary on Durmstang, dark magic, and 'Slytherin losers who would probably have Salazar rolling in his grave' was sufficient to keep her amused enough to continue their strange relationship. Although in all honesty, she does tell him something interesting about the Slytherin House Ghost which caught his attention.

A murder in the school, she says, added the second Ghost to Slytherin.

When?

How the hell should she know? And don't bother to ask, because nobody else in Slytherin knows as well, not that he'd ever open that mouth of his, would he?

He stays silent after this, but either from pity or because she finds the topic interesting, she continues telling him that since the Ghost either does not recognise or refuses to divulge the name of its murderer, nobody can help absolve it to its rest. In any case, it never takes part in the affairs of the living world, unlike the other House Ghost, and seems a boring, harmless thing. She tells him she only saw it for the first time yesterday, near the dungeons where the old Slytherin dorms were reputed to be.

Old Slytherin dorms?

So they say, she answers. Maybe it got too cold down in the dungeons so they moved it upstairs like the rest of the Houses. In any case nobody knows where it is anymore, and Slytherin students have had a betting pool going for more than ten years now, to be given to the first person who locates it. Since Slytherin students were disproportionably more wealthy (an upshot of being terribly ambitious) than any other House, the money had by now snowballed into a ridiculous amount.

Nobody would be foolish enough not to claim the thousands of Galleons to be offered, which is why she feels certain that nobody knows the location. For all you know, she finishes, the dorm doesn't exist. Certainly none of the teachers has ever acknowledged anything like it, have they?

But the look she gives him is furtive.

***

At night, he walks with the shadows.

Not in the shadows, because he does not feel himself eloped by it, while all around him the normal signs of life hid from the darkness, as if afraid they would be swallowed up by its gaping maws, insubstantial as they may be.

He was undisturbed by the sheer, unadulterated loneliness of silence which so many were afraid to look at least it made them mad, or perhaps, least it made them aware of themselves.

Tonight, as he often does when he has lain for long periods on in his bed alone, he wanders the castle grounds. If the weather permits it he would have wondered out of the castle, slipping easily along the shadows as if he was incorporeal as well to wonder the grounds, watching the silvery etchings of the moon along the lofty, imperturbable castle walls or waiting for the mist to wash his feet with curly wisps of smoke.

But this autumn night was a cold one, and the winds vicious beyond the wards of the walls. As he walks along the hallways he suddenly sees one of the autumn leaves crushed by the wind against the window panes, the frail, spidery pieces crumpling away under the relentless pounding of the howling wind, tearing piece by tiny piece.

He shudders when he sees the first veins of the leaf be comes expose, watches as it flays and trembles wildly as if it knew of the death which awaited it on the unforgiving ground.

Rooted to the spot, it is like watching a rape.

The leaf, clawed to pieces, is abandoned by its capricious adorer and spirals away. Its decent is sluggish, and he watches the maligned form until it disappears from sight.

He thinks of the soft winds which a few hours ago was ruffling his hair, cooling the heat in his face, merrily showering him in red and gold confetti. How impossibly cruel that same wind seems now.

How strange the thought, of something which died, only to be destroyed again.

In such a state of awareness, the flash of silvery light which seizes his sight is almost like a divination. In the darkness and distance, he cannot make out its form, and the silvery shadow moves slowly on in its muted, ghostly glow. He strains his eyes as the pale light dims and fades away, leaving him in surreal, wavering disequilibrium. The vision of the eviscerated leaf play through his mind again and again, seemingly to suspend him in a frame of time where he was no longer in the reality that he was used to, and it is in this other, suspended tempo of time that he now walks slowly towards, pace by pace.

His footsteps lead him to the dungeons, and it is a place so cold that chilliness radiate out of the very stones. Below the grounds, the howling winds are dulled into a mummer behind him. Still he moves, slowly, silently, a human imitation of the ghostly light which his eyes could bare discern.

The walls and staircase materialise and melt away, as if it is his surroundings that move rather than his legs. His journey finally ends when he senses that he had walked into an enclosed space. Ash could not see much of the chambers, only the largest and most solid of furniture's were prominent enough to be tolerably discerned in the inky pools of shadows which melted away all other objects into general obscurity.

He could confirm objectively that from the unnaturally cold air present that the pale flicker he had been following is a Ghost, and that it must be nearby. There is a fainter cast of shadows on a stairwell on his left, where the room is coldest, and it is those steps he ascends.

He searches for a source of light which might indicate the pervasive grey-white glow which the Ghost exudes, finally discerning the lighter shadows from one corner the end of the room. He walks forward, although for some reason the lesser darkness suddenly seems more threatening than the darker, more smothering shadows around him.

His eyes own eyes are like a cats: grey green and round; glassy and limpid so that it seemed to reflect the eerie light which emanates from the indistinct illumination which slowly becomes the Slytherin Ghost, radiating its clear white and blue form before him.

Ash had never before experienced trepidation, and wondered if he was feeling it now.

"Are you haunting me?" the Slytherin Ghost asked him in a low voice, and one would have been sure that the Ghost was amused if the evidence of great sadness was not so palpable upon it.

Suddenly, he needs to know what this spectre's name was in its previous life, because as he looks upon its timeless face, he is struck by how the ghost still conveyed the freshness of youth even through the ghostly spectral of its transparent flesh, and how he might have been staring into a mirror, looking into his own mute eyes and waxed flesh.

He couldn't help thinking how human it look.

He couldn't help thinking how ghostlike he looks.

The suddenly moon slipped out from behind the clouds, its beams pouring themselves into the long windowed room, revealing it to human eyes for the first time in more than a score of years. Rows of bed illuminated, their dust covered drapes like velvety grey petals. Dust particles shimmered like miniscule fairies in the gentle lashes of moonlight.

The Slytherin Ghost does not look at him, although a low voice speaks into the silence.

"I was once know as Draco Malfoy."

All around him, the old Slytherin common rooms revealed themselves from the languishing obscurity they had hidden in for so many years.

"This is the place where I died."

***

"What will now become of my formal thoughts of love, empty yet happy,

if I am now approaching a double death?"

-Michelangelo, poems, 1547.

***

A/N: thank you to the following reviews left for the Prologue:

Yvonne de Groot: if not for you I wouldn't even know my link was spoilt! Thank you for taking the effort to contact me.

Esired: its enigmatic all right! ;) more mysteries around the corner...

Miyako: I intended to mislead my readers into thinking that the story was about Harry, so you definitely weren't blur about anything.

Kikeai, FangedHinkiepunk, Edition 1013: awwwww, you're too nice. *flushes* there are plenty of superb fics on FA, but I'm so glad you stopped by to review mine.

Kamakazi Lentil: thank you for all of your mails and reviews in my other fics, I should send you flowers! I think the real stars (read: Rhyssen, Fearless Diva etc) are wayyyyyy above me, but I'm a tryin.. and if I get anywhere it would be due to supportive readers like you. *glomps Kamkazi*

DrAcos HoNey: Yuppers. Its strange even to me. Mine is a strange and capricious muse...

Daphne23: Thanks for your suggestions! Didn't know I was using difficult language.. *hides*