Harry giggled with glee, bouncing up and down as he stood in front of the altar of his parents. The photos he'd received of them alongside a grave-robbed bone or two and a dash of blood was all he needed to call forth his parents from the dead permanently as ghosts. His mama had initially been quite against the idea. It was very common for budding necromancers to lose their minds obsessing over the ghosts of loved ones. It was only after several tattoos, numerous long lectures about ghost theory, and her understanding of Harry's rather apathetic outlook that finally granted him permission to summon them.
His insistence that he wanted to call forth his parents so they could haunt an annoying teacher rather than cry over what was lost was very reassuring to Alabasandria. She trusted that her apprentice was mature enough to handle the situation properly, and her divinations gave no inclination her protege would go mad (plus her disdain for the incompetent professor and his terrible potions books made her biased, how dare he ruin the fine art of potion making?) so when another letter filled with complaints about more detentions with the awful man arrived, she'd finally relented.
And thus Harry slowly spoke through the long incantation, dripped blood onto the bones and watched the hazy forms of his parents slowly appear before his eyes.
"Harry! My darling son, is that you?" Lily said. "But, you were just a baby when I last saw you, I'm confused. What year is it?"
"Hi mum," Harry said. "I'm eleven, not a baby. You've been dead for a while, sorry."
Lily burst into ghostly tears and tried to hug him which made him uncomfortable. He had never really been hugged as a child except by Luna and more recently Hermione, and ghost hugs just felt weird but he suffered through it with grace because it seemed rude to tell his dead mum to stop. It made his skin feel cold and dry and prickled at his senses until she finally released him. Then he suffered through one from his dad.
It took a few moments for his parents to be more grounded in reality as Harry fed more power into the ritual. Lily began to cry again when she remembered her own death. It took some time for ghosts to form and regain all their memories and feelings, but their bodies finally became more and more corporeal, their ghost-ness only noticeable if you saw they had no shadows, were not breathing and their footsteps made no noise.
"You're alright, aren't you Harry? How is it that we've appeared here?" James finally asked after his dead parents had calmed down. James picked at the corner of his bloodstained sweater, fascinated that he could somewhat feel the fabric beneath his fingers.
"I'm alright dad. There's no need to worry. I've been adopted by a wonderful mama and I've been doing well at Hogwarts. I'm in Gryffindor and I made the Quidditch team. I actually brought you here because I need you to haunt Professor Snape."
"Oh hell yeah!" James said. "Bloody brilliant idea!"
"James!" Lily said, glaring at him. "Absolutely not! Harry, sweetheart, please tell us about what's happened after we died. And do explain how you managed to raise us from the dead?"
So Harry quickly went through his life's story, then went through it again with more detail after his mother almost burned down the empty classroom he was hiding in through the intensity of her rage. Had the Dursleys still lived, she would have chased them down and haunted them viciously for the rest of their very short lives.
Ghosts were not the same as their human counterparts, with a more limited range of emotions and cognitive function. They often became a heightened, simplistic version of their final living moments. Thus, Lily having died with her maternal instincts on haywire, was not a regular ghost at all, but instead a violent, vengeful revenant. She had some control over the elements but couldn't interact with objects.
James, on the other hand, was clearly a poltergeist. A ghost brimming with unresolved anger and justice and a dash of mischief. Not like Peeves - Harry reckoned Peeves must have been a student when he died due to the nonviolent nature of his pranks and the fact that the professors had never exorcised him. No, James was a more traditional poltergeist. One that could interact with the world and did so out of malicious, mischievous intent. He would not just pelt people with water balloons or steal library books, he could kill if he wanted to.
And the two overwhelmed parents, taken before they could ensure their newborn's safety, very much wanted to get some revenge on behalf of their very strange but alive and healthy child.
"… so yeah, that's about it." Harry finished his tale. "Things haven't been very exciting once I got to Hogwarts. I haven't even been able to do much necromancy besides this and also when I exorcised Lord Voldemort out from my Professor's head. But really it's been quite boring. So if you could help me by haunting Snape that would be great."
"Harry, sweetheart, I think we might have other priorities like how you just said you exorcised You-Know-Who?" Lily complained.
"It's fine. I'm not worried about Voldemort. I just want to pass my potions exams. Mama's been teaching me but there's no point if Snape fails me anyway." His mother still looked uncertain, her instincts telling her to go after Voldemort or any of the other Death Eaters who could pose a threat to her son. "If you don't want to," Harry continued. "Then I could do it myself, I just don't want to expose my Black magic and get expelled from school or sent to Azkaban."
"Lily!" James begged, bouncing on his heels in excitement. "Please please please please please please please - "
"Christ," she muttered. "Alright, fine. But once we're done with Severus I'm going to find out who left you with my sister and I'm going to throw them off the astronomy tower."
"Yes dear," James agreed easily.
"And I would like to meet your mama, Harry love."
"Yes dear," Harry said. James cackled with delight as Lily shot him an unamused look. Then she rolled her eyes and smiled, leaning over to press the lightest imprint of a kiss onto Harry's forehead. Despite its cold feeling, Harry felt his face break out into a warm blush at the simple affection.
"Just like your father," she said in a wistful tone. "Alright boys, I'll show you a proper prank. I'm going to make Severus cry by the time I'm done with him!"
....
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