"Where is the thing you promised me?"
The icy question, delivered with a look of pure menace. Rey stared at the Bloody Baron floating outside the window, his chest heaving, his breath coming in short gasps.
Seeing a ghost at Hogwarts was perfectly normal. But being interrogated by the Bloody Baron like this? It felt like being haunted by a vengeful spirit. Rey felt a chill permeate his entire body, as if he had been plunged into a frozen lake.
That glare at the start-of-term feast... I wasn't imagining it.
Thinking back now, Rey realized the Bloody Baron had been watching him since the moment he stepped into Hogwarts. It was as if the ghost knew him—as if Rey had made him a promise a long time ago.
"WHERE IS IT?"
Another roar. The Bloody Baron pressed his hands against the glass, leaning forward until his face was almost mashed against the windowpane. His expression wasn't just fierce anymore; it was frantic, maniacal. Rey felt that if he didn't answer, the ghost would kill him.
He truly felt like his life was in danger.
The Hospital Wing was one of the few places in Hogwarts that ghosts couldn't easily enter. If not for the protective enchantments on the ward, the Bloody Baron probably would have already lunged at Rey's throat.
"Where is the thing... you promised me?"
The question came again, but this time the voice was much quieter. It sounded less like an interrogation and more like a plea. The Bloody Baron's terrifying aura suddenly deflated, as if that last roar had drained all his energy.
A look of profound agony crossed his face, as if he were fighting an internal battle.
The question was heart-wrenching. Rey suddenly felt a wave of pity for the ghost. The voice was filled with such helplessness and despair.
The Bloody Baron was arguably the most mysterious ghost at Hogwarts.
He was rarely lucid. You could tell if he was "sane" just by looking at his eyes.
During the angry interrogation, the Baron had been lucid. But now, as his voice cracked with a sob, his consciousness seemed to be blurring again.
Rey had no idea what "thing" the ghost was talking about. He stared blankly at the Baron, who now looked no different from a madman, unsure of what to say.
---
A moment later, the Bloody Baron fell silent. He turned his head to look at the moon rising in the sky, staring at it intently, ignoring Rey on the hospital bed.
After gazing at the moon for a while, the Bloody Baron finally drifted away.
A man who must have been someone significant in life, now trapped in eternal madness, rarely finding a moment of clarity.
It was a tragic fate.
The glare at the feast and the interrogation tonight told Rey one thing: the Baron knew him. Or rather, he knew someone who looked exactly like Rey.
Perhaps this look-alike had promised the Baron something critically important. And because that promise was never kept, the Baron had been driven into this state of madness.
This time, the Baron was lucid, but the Hospital Wing's wards kept him out. What about next time? Would Rey be so lucky?
Peeves wasn't a ghost; he was a poltergeist, a spirit of chaos. He could move solid objects and hurt students. And everyone knew the Bloody Baron was the only one Peeves listened to. If the Baron ordered Peeves to attack...
Rey shuddered. The Baron seeking him out wasn't a coincidence. It happened once; it would happen again. If Rey didn't figure this out, he might face the ghost's wrath.
"Maybe I'm overthinking it. Once I'm out, I'll ask around. If other students have been interrogated by him too, then I'll know it's not just me."
Rey tried to comfort himself. He lay back down, staring at the intricate patterns on the ceiling, lost in thought.
"By the way... how did the Bloody Baron die?"
Rey vaguely remembered an explanation from the movies or books in his past life.
Rowena Ravenclaw's daughter, Helena, stole her mother's diadem and ran away. When Rowena fell ill, she sent the Baron—who was in love with Helena—to find her. He tracked her down, but she refused to return. In a fit of rage, he killed the woman he loved, then killed himself out of remorse.
And thus, the Bloody Baron was born.
The story was simple, incredibly melodramatic, and honestly... the logic felt a bit off.
The Baron loved Helena. She refused to go home to see her dying mother. So he stabbed her? And then killed himself?
"Impossible!"
Rey immediately rejected that narrative. For a normal person—even a passionate one—that sequence of events made no sense.
A daughter refusing to see her mother one last time doesn't usually trigger a murder-suicide from a suitor who is just the messenger.
In the modern world, crimes of passion happen, sure. But usually, the killer doesn't feel guilty enough to commit suicide immediately after, especially not over something like this.
The Baron didn't seem like that kind of psychopath. He just wanted Helena to see her mother. He was a third party. He had no logical reason to kill the woman he loved.
And how could someone who felt enough remorse to kill himself commit the murder in the first place while lucid?
The logic didn't hold up. The official story had to be missing massive chunks of context.
Besides, there was one detail Rey never understood. Why was the blood on the Baron silver?
Human blood is red. When it dries, it turns black or brown. It shouldn't be silver.
The Bloody Baron was undoubtedly human—at least, he was before he died.
"Where did the silver blood come from?"
Rey's heart skipped a beat. He felt like he had grabbed onto a crucial thread. Silver blood... he had seen that in the Harry Potter movies.
Unicorns. The purest creatures in the world. Their blood was silver.
---
Rey's mind was a mess. These historical mysteries were full of strange contradictions.
Without seeing it firsthand or finding historical records, trying to reconstruct the truth from these scattered clues was impossible.
His brain feeling like mush, Rey drifted off to sleep. When he fully woke up, it was the afternoon of the next day.
Madam Pomfrey removed all his bandages, except for the one on his right hand. The abrasions on his chest had healed completely. Madam Pomfrey's skills were incredible; the new skin looked indistinguishable from the old.
Magic is truly miraculous, Rey marveled again.
Agnes had visited earlier, but seeing Rey fast asleep, she hadn't disturbed him.
He had slept deeply because Madam Pomfrey had cast a Sleeping Charm on him to make the bandage removal easier.
After eating the meal provided by the nurse, a bored Rey sat in bed, staring blankly again. occasionally glancing out the window—the spot where the Bloody Baron had appeared.
He didn't come today. Or maybe he wasn't lucid at this time of day.
There were two other students in the ward yesterday, but they hadn't heard the Baron's roar. Rey found that strange, but explainable.
A lucid Bloody Baron likely had special methods to keep his conversations private. Otherwise, he wouldn't be the most feared ghost at Hogwarts.
The quiet day passed slowly. Early the next morning, Madam Pomfrey cleared Rey for discharge. His injuries were fully healed.
In the Muggle world, broken bones took months to heal. In the wizarding world, it was a minor inconvenience.
Back in the swing of things, Rey threw himself into his studies. He hadn't missed much, and with Agnes's notes, he caught up in less than a day.
School life continued, a mix of curiosity and intense study.
Professor Dorry's Defense Against the Dark Arts class had returned to normal after that bizarre first lesson.
The only difference was that Professor Dorry's smile seemed even stiffer, and his face even paler.
As for the Bloody Baron, after that night at the hospital window, he seemed to have vanished. He never sought Rey out again.
But he should have come back. especially given the desperate longing in his eyes that night.
Rey spent the next few days thinking about it. He even tried to find the Baron or Peeves around the castle.
He found Peeves once, tormenting some Gryffindor first-years. But the moment Rey appeared, Peeves bolted.
"Peeves is avoiding me!?"
After testing it a few times, Rey confirmed it.
But why?
Why was the poltergeist avoiding him? Did it have something to do with the Bloody Baron?
---