Cedric turned and sat on the bed, making no mark on the blankets. James, who was closest, could feel a distinct chill emanating from Cedric's form. The ghost continued.
For periods of time, I started to feel more aware. I began to see people in the halls, but they were like smoke. I couldn't hear them. I came to realize that these periods of activity happened in the hours of the day right after my time of death. Each night, I'd feel myself awaken. I noticed the time, because that was the thing that meant the most, the sense of minutes and hours passing. I searched out a clock, the one just outside the Great Hall, and watched the time go by. I was most awake throughout the night, but by each morning, I'd begin to fade. Then, one morning, just as I was thinning, losing touch, I saw him.
James sat up straight. "The intruder?"
Cedric nodded. I knew he wasn't supposed to be here, and somehow I knew that if I tried, I could make him see me. I scared him away.
Cedric grinned again, and James thought he could see in that grin the strong and likeable boy that his dad had known.
"But he came back," James said. Cedric's grin turned into a scowl of frustration.
He came back, yes. I saw him, and I scared him off again. I started to watch for him in the mornings. And then, one night, he broke in through a window. I was stronger then, but I decided someone else needed to know he was inside the castle. So I came to you, James. You had seen me, and I knew who you were. I knew you'd help.
"That was the night you broke the stained-glass window," Zane said, smiling. "Kicked that guy through it like Bruce Lee. Nice."
"Who was he?" James asked, but Cedric merely shook his head. He didn't know.
"So it's almost seven o'clock, now," Ralph pointed out. "How are you making us see you? Isn't this your weakest time?"
Cedric seemed to think about it. I'm getting more solid. I'm still just a ghost, but I seem to be becoming, sort of, more of a ghost. I can talk more now. And there is less and less of that strange nothing time. I think that this is just how ghosts are made.
"But why?" James couldn't help asking. "What makes a ghost happen? Why didn't you just, you know, move on?"
Cedric looked at him closely, and James sensed that Cedric himself didn't know the answer to that question, or at least, not very clearly. He shook his head slightly. I wasn't done yet. I had so much to live for. It happened so fast, so suddenly. I just… wasn't done.
Ralph picked up Professor Jackson's case and threw it back into James' trunk. "So where did you go when you popped off, James?" he said, heaving himself onto the end of the bed.
James took a deep breath, collecting his memories of the strange journey. He described the initial feeling of holding the cloak, how it seemed to allow him to sense the air and the wind, then even the animals and the trees. Then he told them about the vision he'd had, of being inside Merlin's body, in his very thoughts. He shuddered, remembering the anger and bitterness, and the voice of the servant, Austramaddux, who vowed his oath to serve until the time of reckoning was come. He recalled it vividly as he spoke, finishing by describing how the blackness of the night had wrapped around him like a cocoon, shrinking and turning to nothingness.
Zane listened with intense interest. "It makes sense," he finally said in a low, awed voice.
"What?" James asked.
"How Merlin might've done it. Don't you see? Professor Jackson himself talked about it on our first day of class!" He was getting excited. His eyes were wide, darting from James to Ralph to the ghost of Cedric, who was still seated on the edge of the bed.
Ralph shook his head. "I don't get it. I don't have Technomancy this year."
"Merlin didn't die," Zane said emphatically. "He Disapparated!"
James was puzzled. "That doesn't make sense. Any wizard can Apparate. What's so special about that?"
"Remember what Jackson told us that first day? Apparition is instantaneous for the wizard whose doing it, even though it takes a little time for the wizard's bits to fly apart then reassemble at a new place. If a wizard Disapparates without determining his new center-point, he never Reapparates at all, right? He just stays stuck in nothingness forever!"
"Well, sure," James agreed, remembering the lecture, but failing to see the point.
Zane was nearly vibrating with excitement. "Merlin didn't Disapparate to a place," he said meaningfully. "He Disapparated to a time and a set of circumstances!"
Ralph and James boggled, considering the implications. Zane went on. "At the end of your vision, you said Merlin told Austramaddux to keep the relics and to watch for the time to be right. Then when the time came, the relics were supposed to be gathered again at the Hall of Elder's Crossing. You see? Merlin was setting up the time and circumstances for his Reapparition. What you described at the very end, James, was Merlin Disapparating into oblivion," Zane paused, thinking hard. "All these centuries, he's just been suspended in time, stuck in everywhereness, waiting for the right circumstances for his Reapparition. To him, no time has passed at all!"
Ralph looked at the trunk at the end of James' bed. "Then it's for real," he said. "They could actually do it. They could bring him back."
"Not anymore," James said, smiling mirthlessly. "We've got the robe. Without all the relics, the circumstances won't be right. They can't do anything."
As soon as James had heard Zane explain it, it made perfect sense, especially in the context of the Threshold Marker vision. Suddenly, his possession of the robe had become even more important, and he couldn't help wondering at the remarkable series of lucky circumstances that'd led to them obtaining it. From the briefcase Ralph had discovered in just the nick of time to Zane's remarkably effective Visum-ineptio charm, James had the strongest sense that he, Zane, and Ralph were being guided in their goal of thwarting the Merlin plot. But who was helping them?
"By the way," James said to the ghost of Cedric, once Ralph and Zane had fallen into an animated discussion about Merlin's Disapparition. "You said you were sent to help me. Who sent you?"
Cedric had stood and was fading a bit, but not much. He smiled at James and said, Someone I'm not supposed to mention, although I think you can probably guess. Someone who's been watching.
Snape, thought James. The portrait of Snape had sent Cedric to help him when he'd gotten sucked into the Threshold Marker. But how had he known? James thought about that for a long time after Zane and Ralph had headed back to their own rooms, long after the rest of the Gryffindors had climbed the stairs and plopped into their beds. No answer came that night, however, and eventually James slept.