Harry frowned but took a second to parse what he'd heard. Ghosts couldn't attack, not to his knowledge. He wasn't a master of the field, but he'd been stalked for a good eighteen months by a persistent, doddery ghost who always sounded disappointed. Then there was Peeves. He could hurt by throwing things, but Harry had never heard of him drawing blood or trapping people.
Wraith? Something else. Harry was trying to remember what spirits he'd read about in different books. He'd never gotten into the Restricted Sections at Hogwarts, so he knew his knowledge was incomplete.
A spirit...
Harry diverted from the path to the Orangarie and ran to his tent and picked up an item from his trunk, his anti-spirit medallion.
He guessed it did have a range.
Maybe Harry's token in his tent had already driven the spirit from the main house to the Orangerie?
It was time to drive it further away.
Harry knew enough from the Trimble books, and others, not to attempt to dispel a spirit near to anything of value. The curse that resulted could inhabit the land, any buildings, and the people who were there at the time...
And Harry had already been around for several odd interactions, like twice being attacked with a killing curse by something that was no longer quite human. That was something for later consideration.
Harry didn't take the shortest path to the Orangerie, just the path he'd used before to get there. The grounds were massive and overgrown and there were known dangerous plants present. Sirius had arranged for a team of herbologists to come and deal with the madness, but they weren't arriving until the following Wednesday.
Harry got to the Orangerie and found the tension breaking. Those trapped were released. His little bit of steel had charged ahead of him and pushed the ghost or wraith away. Guillaume Castar was now one of the ones who was bloodied. In the time between when he was gathering people and when Harry arrived with his medallion, Guillaume had gone in to help. It hadn't worked, but this was a braveness Harry hadn't seen before in the foreman. Harry had mostly thought him a kind of bully, an asshole. It seemed he also cared about his people - or his reputation.
The difference? One made him sound more humane - and one proved him a huge jerk. Harry was torn about where the truth lay.
Harry began ferrying water to and from those who needed it. The injured could have been levitated away, but no one was pushing hard on that idea just yet. Nor would they, given that Guillaume Castar looked to have taken the most damage out of anyone on the grass. He would normally be the one to call off any slackness or gossip.
The people who had come to fight the wraith clung around, though they didn't venture deep into the surrounding woods.
They found it to be a poor idea as the wraith returned when Harry was away from the building – or, more precisely, when Harry's anti-spirit medallion was away.
It was nearly dark when seven witches and wizards managed to catch the thing, and what an ugly thing it was. It didn't resemble any ghost or poltergeist Harry had heard of. The closest comparison Harry could think of was a Dementor sans cloak. It was that awful.
Sirius ran into the area, noticed Harry, and shot him a panicked look demanding he leave.
Harry retreated from the chaos a bit and the ghost-like thing stopped thrashing so much. But Harry didn't leave completely. He had as much curiosity as anyone else. He realized his medallion was causing problems. Harry dropped the anti-spirit medallion behind a big stone that had been placed at the junction of two walkways. He stayed away, until Sirius began sobbing.
Harry had never seen his godfather sob, not even over the deaths he had known or his maltreatment at Azkaban or anything... Here he was sobbing, and over the ghost-thing.
Harry snuck closer.
"We need to move him...," one of the cursebreakers said. Harry didn't know his name, but had seen him sitting at the table with some he did know.
This one had taken over from Guillaume Castar maybe?
"His name was Regulus," Sirius said.
"You know this ghost. Why didn't you say anything about a house ghost..."
Sirius looked furious. "He was my brother before his death and whatever else happened to him."
Harry teared up hearing those words.
What a way to find a sibling.
Harry couldn't imagine what his godfather was feeling right now. Being an orphan was one kind of hell. Being a brother to a tormented ghost... There were no words fit for service.
"We've been in the house for weeks. In the Orangerie for a few days. He wasn't at any of them until today."
"He joined Voldemort. We assumed he died. Someone must have summoned him here and forced him to stay."
"Are there necromancers in your family?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. Has he been stuck here all this time?" Sirius demanded.
"We don't know."
"Merlin," Sirius said. "My crazy mother did this or had it done. I never... I don't see how... I curse her. I damn her."
Sirius stopped crying. Harry walked slowly to his godfather and stood next to him.
"I thought you were supposed to be away from here," Sirius said to Harry.
"I was," Harry said. "You look like you needed some help."
Sirius was more lost now than when Harry had first met him in St. Mungo's. "I knew Reg was dead. Dead, not this. We can't leave him in pain... Now I'm going to have to find a way to kill him again."
They stood and looked at the horror in the distance. The cursebreakers were talking or shouting amongst themselves. For all their experiences and training, they were baffled.
These masters of the craft, some of whom had apparently dabbled in necromancy though they were coy about admitting it.
Harry watched, listened, and learned. His main revelation was disquieting: no man was infallible. Harry had gotten that recently from some mournful words from Headmaster and Professor Flamel who had felt guilty for Harry being attacked at Hogwarts more than once – then again from his impetuous godfather.
Everyone wished to protect the world, the impossible dream; all good people felt the sting when their aspirations fell short of their actual capabilities. That was the way you knew to split the good from the bad. The bad failed and drowned themselves in drink or pretended they didn't care or laughed at the chaos. The good ones got up and tried it again and tried to do it better.
Harry would do what he could, if he were allowed. At the least, he would assist Sirius with this new devastation. He would listen and learn. He wouldn't let this stand.