A Ghost Wearing Skin.
The world had always been a little distant.
But lately, Harry wasn’t sure if he was even touching it at all.
He walked through the castle like a shadow, his presence barely acknowledged. People spoke to him, but their voices reached him as if through water—muffled, distorted. His name sounded foreign on their tongues.
Harry.
Was that really him?
He wasn’t sure anymore.
Food had lost its taste. Sleep was more like a blink than a rest. He felt cold, even when he sat by the fire, but he never shivered. A part of him wondered if his body had simply stopped reacting properly, as if it had given up pretending to be human.
Sometimes, he would look in the mirror and feel nothing at all.
His face was the same—green eyes, dark hair, the scar—but something was missing. The expression, maybe. The *life.*
Was this how ghosts felt?
He thought of Myrtle and understood her more than ever.
When people spoke, he responded, but he didn’t engage. His voice was quiet, detached. Not soft, not gentle—just *there.* An obligation.
Draco had stopped trying to get his attention. Pansy still hovered, but she seemed hesitant now. Even his housemates, who once found him fascinating, had started looking elsewhere.
That was fine.
It was better that way.
In class, he excelled, but only because it was mechanical. He did what was required. Memorized what needed memorizing. Brewed potions, flicked his wand, read the words in the textbooks.
But none of it mattered.
The professors kept watching him, and he hated it. He hated the concern, the murmurs when they thought he wasn’t listening. He wasn’t *ill.* He wasn’t *broken.* He was just—
Harry.
Whoever that was.
The nights were worse.
Sometimes, he stared at the ceiling for hours, watching the patterns of shadows dance across the stone. Other times, he roamed the castle in silence, moving like a whisper, unseen and unnoticed.
The world blurred at the edges.
Things felt less *real.*
His hands, his voice, his body—none of it felt like *his.*
Once, he caught sight of himself reflected in a window. He paused.
A boy stared back.
He looked like Harry Potter.
But the longer he stared, the more wrong it seemed. The more he felt like something else was looking through his eyes.
The thought didn’t scare him.
Nothing did anymore.
He visited the Basilisk again. Medusa.
She blinked at him with slow, cat-like patience, sensing something was off. She curled around him, warmth and muscle and breath, and for the first time in a long while, something inside him *stirred.*
It wasn’t comfort.
But it was *something.*
He curled into her side, closed his eyes, and let the weight of her presence keep him anchored.
Just for a little while.