7 The Haunted Guardian

Angelystor was dead. She'd been dead for a long time now. She'd been in love with a local muggle noble, who'd stabbed her when she'd told him she was pregnant. She wished she could have seen it coming, but she couldn't. Seers could not see their own futures.

And now all she could do was haunt this graveyard, in this tiny welsh village. There weren't any magicals around to talk to and the only fun she had was on All Hallows Eve, when the boundaries between this world, and the world beyond the veil, were at their weakest. Then, she could shout out who in the next year was going to die, and the muggles could actually hear her. It was a small joy, but it was all she had.

She floated around the graveyard's huge yew tree, its trunk split at the base in three, giving the impression of three separate trees growing from the same spot, and stilled.

Something had changed. Her sight wasn't nearly as good since she'd died, and she couldn't do any divination or scrying that needed a wand or other foci, but something had defiantly changed in the flow of time.

Movement attracted her attention. Despite it being near midnight, the full moon made it easy to see, although why that mattered to a ghost who technically didn't have eyes, she'd never wondered about until that moment.

The figure was hesitant and very cautious. It was small and crept from tombstone to tombstone, as though expecting to be attacked.

She floated over to the child, for it was surely small enough to be a child, and was shocked when the boy, and she could now see that it was surely a boy, recoiled from her. His chest was bare — the shirt he'd presumably been wearing hid his face. He made to bolt and she quickly held up a hand.

"Wait! I won't hurt you!"

The boy hesitated, but did turn to face her.

"You can see me right?" she asked. "Only magical people can see me. You're magical aren't you?"

The boy nodded.

"Who are you? There aren't any magical children in this village. I'd know. Why are you here? Why didn't I know you were coming? Did your parents move here? Are they magical? You can't be a muggleborn or you wouldn't know you were a wizard. Why…why can't my sight see you?"

The boy stood and watched her through emerald green eyes barely visible through his makeshift mask.

"Hello," he said, his voice was guarded, his stance still coiled for flight.

"Um… hello," she said, suddenly realising she must have sounded both silly and aggressive with her question monologue, but she couldn't help it! She hadn't spoken to anyone in over two hundred years.

"What did you mean by, 'I didn't know you were coming?' and, 'your sight,' …are you a seer?"

"Ahh, yes. I am, or rather, I was… I can still see a bit, but it's not nearly as strong as when I was alive."

"And now you haunt this graveyard? There must be a lot of ambient magic to support a ghost like yourself."

"The magic comes from the tree. It's called the Llangernyw Yew. It's the oldest Yew in the country, you know!" She visibly swelled with pride, although the slight baby bump under her ethereal dress might have helped give that impression. "It's among the oldest living things in the world, you know. That's what a muggle science person said."

"Really?" The boy seemed to be warming up to her. "How old is it?"

"Well, they say it might be five thousand years old, but no one really knows. It might be only three thousand."

"And how old are you, my fair lady?"

She mock gasped, "You don't ask a lady her age, young man," a hint of smile played across her lips.

The boy seemed to wince. "Sorry, I mean, how many years has it been since you died?"

"Over five hundred years… and I'm twenty-one, by the way," she smiled, "my name is Angelystor, and I am the ghost that calls out the names of those who will die in the next year on All Hallows Eve."

"The muggles can hear you?"

"On All Hallows Eve, yes."

The boy seemed to think for a moment.

"My name is… Harry."

Her smile was now summer and light and good friends around an open fire. "Pleased to meet you, Harry. So… what exactly are you doing here in this isolated village, at midnight, wearing your shirt on your head?"

Harry hesitated again.

"There aren't any other magicals around, right?"

"You're the first one I've seen in over two hundred years."

"And you can't actually leave?"

"No." Her smile was slightly sad now. "I am bound to the tree where I died."

Harry nodded. "I am here for a single branch of the Llangernyw Yew, to make a single wand with which to defeat Dark Lord Voldemort."

Angelystor felt her eyes widen almost comically. "I have seen the wizard you speak of with my sight. He is a terrible power in the world. How do you, a child, want to defeat him?"

"I am the child of prophecy — singled out by Fate herself — to do the job the wizarding world cannot. I will do it because I must, because only I can."

"And you have no one to aid you?" she asked, looking around as though expecting Merlin or the founders to suddenly appear.

"There are… forces in the world working against me. Forces that would see me incapable of fulfilling my duty. Forces that would risk the almost certain destruction of everything in favour of a plan with a comically low probability of creating an ideal peace."

Silence settled between boy and ghost for a moment.