Better Be Slytherin!

'Which was?' Harry asked, although he was almost sure he knew, and he was almost equally sure he was going to sick up all over the classroom floor, right now. He shivered, remembering, the odd, squicky feeling of the ghost running through him, and the cold, clamminess afterwards . . .

'You are a Slytherin, boy, no matter how surprising the fact is, and I could not allow any harm to come to you.' He flicked a glance at Snape and quirked a ghostly eyebrow high. 'Rule number one, correct?'

Snape grunted a reply which could be a, 'Yes,' or could be a, 'Get on with it before I hex you into next week.' It was hard to tell.

'What did you do?' Harry asked again. His hands were formed into fists, clenched by his sides, and the pain of his fingernails digging into his palms was almost enough to steady his voice.

'I assisted you, my boy.' The ghost smiled faintly. 'I have never done such a thing before as that, you understand, and was not sure it would actually work—'

'WHAT DID YOU DO?!'

'I took over your body. Briefly. Until the danger passed.'

Harry sucked in a breath. Though he had known, somehow, what the Baron was going to say, his admission still hit Harry in the gut like a kick from an overweight cousin. 'And it broke the Binding?' he asked, his voice flat.

'It did. So I turned us around, and we set up blocks and counter curses and sent a few hexes of our own.'

'We?' Harry asked, feeling a little faint.

'My knowledge, your power. And your wand,' he added, as almost an afterthought. 'It worked far better than I could have imagined. You have a great deal of power.'

He was definitely going to be ill. Somewhere, in the back part of his brain that wasn't freaking out, he realized this explained why he had been so sore and tired after losing his way that night, and maybe even explained the wound he had received. 'Can any ghost just do that to me?' he asked, hating the way his voice cracked on the question, but needing to know how much danger he was in from possession – for that was what it was, pure and simple – in the future.

'I would not care to speculate,' the Baron started, but then said anyway, 'But, no, I do not believe so. You are Slytherin, as I said, and it is only through my affinity to your House that I was able to stay in your body without being instantly repelled.'

'Instantly . . .'

'Repelled.' The ghost's face sparked brightly, and he gave a slight bow. 'You put up a fight worthy of a Gryffindor, Harry Potter, if you'll pardon the slur. Against me. And my power on this plane is far superior to most others you will ever meet.'

The words were said without any trace of arrogance, yet Harry believed him wholeheartedly. But maybe he just wanted them to be true. They had to be, right? Oh, god.

'Once I . . . overcame your objections, we were nearly unstoppable.'

'Who was it?' Harry whispered.

'Ah, that . . . I have not been able to piece that together yet.'

'Why not?'

'One of the spells that did manage to get by our defenses was the Confundus Charm. It scrambled my memories quite nicely.'

'And mine.'

For the first time, the Bloody Baron looked uncomfortable. 'Yes, quite.'

Harry's eyes narrowed. 'What else? Did you do something to them?'

A snort from the side reminded Harry that they were having this discussion in front of the Potions Master, and he barely suppressed a flinch, as he'd been hardly respectful through the entire exchange. But worse than the snort was the droll voice saying, 'You might as well confess. He'll figure it out soon enough. The Brat's not as stupid as he looks.'

The Bloody Baron gave Snape a baleful look, to which Snape merely sneered. The Professor really did have a full array of sneers. Quite impressive, really. Harry wondered how Uncle Vernon would respond to this one, and almost wished he could see it in action, and then realized his mind was wandering and cleared his head with a vicious shake.

'You were saying?' he prompted the Baron.

'Ah, yes. After we'd driven off the criminal who attacked you, and I was about to leave your body, I was concerned you might find the experience a little . . . distressing, and so I removed your memory of the event. A bit ham-handedly, I admit, as I had little time and was still Confunded. In the process, you expelled me from your body and I found myself adrift, with no idea how to return to you. Or to anywhere, really.' The last bit was a low mutter that Harry wasn't sure he was supposed to have heard.

Harry stared. 'Why would you want to get back to me?'

The Bloody Baron gestured to his own chest, where a gaping wound oozed silvery blood in a constant stream. 'I inadvertently left you a memento of our joint endeavor.'

Harry put a hand on his robes, where they had been soaked with blood. 'My chest.'

'Yes. I learned later that you had sustained damage from the encounter. I must apologize for that, and for not alerting the staff to your location. But I was . . . not myself for several days.'

'I . . .' Harry's head hurt, with spinning, whirling thoughts, but one thing was perfectly clear: the Bloody Baron