OOM: the Muggle sort of ghosts

While the break from his mother and the expectations she brings with her has certainly been nice, Regulus can’t deny he’s getting a bit restless. He’d really like to be getting on with the school year by now.

Still, one works with what one is handed. At least he’s got a head start on some of his summer homework and a little privacy to get ready for bed.

“I do hope you weren’t planning on a restful night.”

Regulus spins around; he knows that voice – when your ancestors commission portraits with a certain degree of magically-imbued sentience, you get to know them. “Phineas? I wouldn’t have thought this would be your sort of place.”

“Oh, I’m not actually here,” Phineas says, folding his arms. “The winter solstice is an odd time of year. There are spirits about.”

“Aren’t there spirits about all the time?”

“Not of this sort. Some sort of Muggle thing, evidently.” Phineas is clearly dubious, but Regulus can’t blame him for that; it’s not as though the family’s ever gone out of its way to associate with people who lack magic. “They intend to come calling. Under the circumstances, I thought you could do with a warning.”

“A warning? Just what sort of ghosts are these?”

But Phineas is gone, so Regulus shrugs it off and goes to bed as he’d planned.

That lasts an hour or two, until a light in the room starts bothering him. He’s sure he’d turned off the electric light in the room (how that hasn’t shorted itself out in the presence of his magic, he’s not sure; either the Ministry was lying when they said the two won’t mix or it’s down to Milliways), and sits up to look into it.

And then he sees the stranger in his bedroom.

“Ah. You’d be one of the ghosts Phineas mentioned, then.”