A/N: I've been in shock for the past couple of days, because I never knew how bad having a broken toe could screw with you. Never underestimate the importance of having all ten toes functional.

Also, someone caught the nod at Howl's Moving Castle, which is awesome. I was staring at it for the longest time while writing the last chapter. Whooop.

.

.

.

'Men show their characters in nothing
more clearly than in what they think laughable.'

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)

.

.

.

.

~ v ~

The Waking of the Ghost
Last of the Cornucopia

~ v ~

.

.

.

.

.

.

Dear Mr. H. Potter,

While I'm rather... displeased with the turn of events, I suppose it is in my best interests to attest to the Minister's wishes, after all, he is doing a horrid job at choosing representatives when dealing with the vampires. Poor Marcus Andres — alas, his Jocelyne is now a widow and her children have no father. And for what reason? A poor slip of the tongue. Pity, really. You can't deny that Normand White was right for what he did; Andres had no right to say what he did. Have you heard, Mr. Potter, what Andres said to the vampire? Probably not, considering that the Prophet is doing its darnedest to keep the real reason behind the 'unprovoked' attack. If you don't wish to know, though I hope I know you well enough from the campaign to say that you do, feel free to skimp over the rest of this letter. Truly, I hope you read it. It's a strange mimicry of events that have no doubt happened in history, but no one cares enough to pay attention to the past.

The story started off with Normand White and three of his fellows (Hero Pallas, Jonathan Muta, and Sylvan Cruik) greeting the diplomats, including Andres, in the foyer of the Manor Inamorata — a place that should be famous for its herald banquets between various magical creatures for peaceful delegations, but is often forgotten in the wake of war and bloodshed — so that they might continue negotiations over dinner and fine wine. Wine which was, apparently, too fine. Andres became a blundering drunkard after, I presume, his fifth glass or so, considering his weight, and began to spew off anything that came to mind. A talkative drunk, if I ever. There were many things said during those times, most of which were easily ignored by the agitated vampires — until, of course, Andres said the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Sylvan Cruik himself told me what Andres said when I sent a letter requesting it of him, more than happy to give the words to someone who might spread them to the right people.

"A vampire is good for one thing, and one thing only: murdering innocents."

Which was a downright tactless statement to make in the presence of a vampire.

But I digress, that this is not the point of my letter... yes, I shall meet with our dear Minister, but only if you agree to accompany me. A united force stands a better chance than a.. not-so united one. Pen 'way your reply, Mr. Potter, and if you say you shall join me in my front, then I shall gladly take over for the current head of the Department of Relations with Magical Beings and Creatures. In any matter, I am confident that I will do a better job than the man in charge now.

Signed,

H. Jenkins

Harry rested his cheek on the cold wood of his kitchen table as he stared at the offending letter with a good deal of unrest. He remembered, vaguely, meeting the vampire Sanguini at one of Slughorn's "parties" for upcoming and already famous witches and wizards. The vampire had been polite enough, but had seemed fairly uncomfortable around and about his 'caretaker' whose name escaped Harry. He absently sucked on the inside of his cheek as he fostered a reply, which was against his sense of self-preservation, because he had no doubt that Hermione, or even Mr. Weasley, would be asked to accompany Shacklebolt, but he knew that he would have to face his friends at some point. Never mind that there was the slightest, almost terrifying chance that he would run into an unhappy Ginny. A Ginny who would still be upset over their break-up or even a Ron who would be furious that Harry 'broke his little sister's heart'. Idly, he wondered if Ron would ever stop being so fickle as fame in his friendship, but supposed that that was part of the novelty that was Ronald Weasley.

For what felt like the umpteenth time that week, he found himself sighing. Somewhere in the other room was a bizarrely polite and slightly amiable ex-Dark Lord's ghost laughing as it poured over some work of fiction, while he was trapped in the whims of that ghost (who had felt the need to convince him to go back into politics — and had succeeded, much to Harry's distress) and the threat of his less than pleased friends. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place, ad infinitum.

He could just picture Hermione's frown, her need to point out the ridiculousness of his unplanned vacation, before she would stop, tilt her head back and laugh, before offering to show him her latest letter from Viktor Krum. He didn't know the reasons behind Hermione's continued, and frequent, communication with the Bulgarian seeker, but it had lead to an argument between her and Ron. While he hadn't been there to witness the catastrophic event, he had been there for the aftermath. It hadn't been pretty, and it had brought him that much closer to Hermione, and that much farther from Ron. Ron was still a good bloke, don't get him wrong, but he was a bit of an emotional roller coaster. Ron and Hermione had made up at some point, but their relationship had still been tense and awkward the last time Harry had seen the two of them together.

But it could have been worse, much worse, Harry figured.

Shaking his head, he sent off the reply to Jenkins before thumbing through the remainder of the letters scattered across the table. He set aside the two from Ron, and observed the one from Ginny with a wary eye before discarding it entirely. One envelope in particular caught his attention due to the formality and genuine unnaturalness of its presence amongst the envelopes containing letters from friends or — ugh — 'fans'. It was addressed to a 'Mr. H. J. Potter' and written elegantly in deep blue ink.

It was from Gringotts, and appeared to be highly confidential, if all of the protection charms set over the envelope were anything to go by. For Harry, though, the seal broke without any resistance.

Mr. H. J. Potter,

It has come to our immediate attention that whilst there have been no attempts to get into the vault of Tom Marvolo Riddle, alias Lord Voldemort, or even the vaults of Salazar Slytherin, in the past two years since his untimely defeat, that he had laid out specific instructions and enchantments upon the vaults. While it against Gringotts policy to break client confidentiality, or even to submit the contents of vaults to the Ministry of Magic, we believe the following information would be of great... interest to you, Mr. Potter. However, if you choose to relay this information to any other living being, it would be in your best interest to never come to Gringotts personally unless you are fully prepared to pay the consequences of your actions.

We have ways of telling if our clients are truly dead, and just as Salazar Slytherin's vault — just as Merlin's does — proclaims that there is a living heir, Mr. Riddle's vault states that he is still 'alive'. Or rather, in a state which is neither dead or alive. This means that essentially, that the Riddle vault is still fully accessible to any soul who might have Mr. Riddle's permission to enter and remove the contents of his vault. As such, we are working to prevent anyone who would have had permission to take objects from his vault from doing so, since he either had no will or it had not been placed into the most reliable of hands. As you, ah, were the one to bury Mr. Riddle, that you venture to his grave and see if, perhaps, his spirit lingers there yet. The peculiar thing is, curious as it is, he was well and good listed as 'dead' just two years ago, and only recently has it been brought to our attention that he was 'dead-alive'. Curious, curious, isn't it, Mr. Potter?

If Mr. Riddle's spirit does, indeed, linger yet as we suspect he does, then we ask you to bring him to Gringotts, where he and I can discuss the matters of his vaults and properties further.

Thank you for your consideration,

Urick R. Templeton

"Curious indeed," Voldemort muttered right behind Harry's ear, causing him to jump and twist around uncomfortably in his chair only to find himself almost face-to-face with the ghost. He brought a hand up to his chest in an attempt to sooth the stuttering beat of his heart, so shocked as it was to find himself so close to his mortal enemy. Faintly, he speculated that he might have been that close to joining the ghost in death via a rather simple way to die, but nonetheless horrible.

"Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" Harry accused the ghost, watching it as it moved to perch upon the table.

It stared blankly at him, before giving a wry smile, "As pleasant as it would be to see you dying at my feet, you have your uses, Potter."

"So," Harry paused for a moment before he continued on, fairly unsure about the whole deal, "do you want to go to Gringotts? They seem pretty fixed on meeting your 'lingering spirit'."

Voldemort tilted his head to the side in a manner befitting a curious beast, "Ah, are you sure you aren't offering because you want to see what lies inside my old vault? Nothing interesting, I assure you — I never did trust the goblins with anything but money and the more... informational texts at my disposable. You'll be hard-pressed to find any dark artifacts or shrunken heads to turn into the auror department."

"What? Shrunken heads, why — ? That's bizarre — you have shrunken heads — enough that it warrants — ?"

"'Aio, quantitas magna frumentorum est*'," the ghost informed him barely suppressing a rather obnoxious grin breaking across his face, "But, yes, I would like a venture in visiting the goblins."

"We'll go after the meeting with Jenkins and the Minister," Harry replied, trying to stifle the sinking feeling in his gut.

"No, no — I would prefer if we went now, thank you very much," the ghost asserted, smiling what might have been a pleasant smile on any other face.

Grimacing, he tried his darnedest to convince the ghost otherwise, or very well just prove to be that stubborn, "Oh, but it's only two days, not even, Tom."

He did know how to push Voldemort's buttons, that was certain.

Voldemort snarled, "Don't call me that name! It isn't — it isn't my name!"

"I won't call you Tom if you agree to wait the two days and not pester me," Harry said, almost slyly, if he did say so himself.

For a second, Harry thought that Voldemort was about to lash out and strike at him (however poorly that would turn out), but instead, the ghost leaned back, a speculative expression its face. Or rather, what Harry could consider a speculative look, because he was unsure as to whether or not such a tame emotion could pass on that hideous face.

"Well, well, Potter," the phantom muttered, eyes alight with some hidden pleasure, "It looks like you have cunning in you yet."

"I — I do not have Slytherin traits — " A memory flitted to the surface, of the Sorting Hat telling him that he would do great in Slytherin.

The ghost rolled its eyes, and waved a hand in a dismissive gesture, "Every human can be cunning, no matter if they were sorted into some House or another by a talking hat, fool — don't think that because you have a trait worth using, that it makes you like all the others who just so happen to have that trait. Think, are you at all like your muggleborn* friend? She is cunning in a different way than that Malfoy brat, or you — isn't that so?"

"How do you know about Hermione?" Harry asked, eyes narrowed as he pinpointed that tidbit of information.

"'Know thy enemy,'" Voldemort answered politely, now that he had successfully taken the course of conversation away from his given name, "And also, as much as I loathe the Malfoy's brat, he was often nearby complaining of 'Harry Potter's muggleborn friend' and how the only reason he didn't do better than her in his classes was because all the professors, except Snape, favored Gryffindors over Slytherins, or some such nonsense. He didn't complain so much after tasting the cruciatus curse."

"Is that why Malfoy was so — er — twitchy? Because you tortured him?"

"No, that was because I gave him a box of chocolates, of course it was, fool," Voldemort quipped sarcastically.

Harry skipped over the odd moment of humor in favor of bringing the conversation back on track, "Well? Are you going to wait the two days, or am I going to have to keep calling you Tom, Tom?"

"Fine," the ghost hissed, "fine. Two days, any more and you will suffer."

"I'm sure," Harry assured it.

A/N: A lot going on in this relatively short chapter, but uh, for some reason it flows. Unnaturally so, but it does. Any who, some interesting notes;

'Aio, quantitas magna frumentorum est,' — 'Yes, that is a very large amount of corn.' A sort of nonsense Latin phrase, sometimes used to prove mastery or skill in Latin. For some reason, I interpreted the English translation as something that would follow a rather befuddled statement of some sort. You know how if someone messes up the pronunciation of a word or some such, it's almost habit to make fun of them? Yeah, well, Voldemort pulling the nonsensical Latin as his way of making fun of Harry without Harry realizing that the big bad Dark Lord has an interesting sense of humor.

Muggleborn v. Mudblood; for some reason I can never remember Voldemort referring to 'muggleborns' as 'mudbloods' in the books, it was always his followers. Aversion to a word that could be taken as offensive to himself, no doubt, or something.

I, also, personally find the 'House' thing, where they sort children based on personality, ridiculous. Ah, well. It is only a story after all. (;