Hermione was too busy with her studies and the big project that was due in Arithmancy a few days after Halloween, so Harry left her to stress out on her own and took to the grounds with Neville. He used the time they searched the grassy areas along the outer edge of the Forbidden Forest to quiz Neville on the OWL list for potions as he'd promised earlier in the term, and felt like it was a bonus that he was able to get out of the castle and away from Umbridge at the same time, despite not finding any shaggy inkcap in the two weeks they searched for it. What they did find was a patch of scarlet elf cap, which Harry thought he might like to grow because it was used in two of the chimaeric fire potions, and a patch of sulphur tuft which Harry could find a use for but didn't want to collect to grow as it was poisonous to the touch. There were numerous other common mushrooms and fungi that they found, and Neville grew more and more excited each time they went out and found something new. After their second trip out Neville started to bring a notebook and always-inked quill with him so he could catalog what they found and where. Harry was impressed with the quick sketches the boy made of each mushroom they found, though Neville also documented other plants and almost always had some information to give Harry on each.

As Halloween drew closer, Ron grew more and more nervous for his first ever match, which was against Slytherin. It would be Ginny's first match as well.

"You're going to be there, right Harry?" Ron asked, sounding nervous. "I mean, Ginny will be disappointed if you're not."

"What has Ginny said about it?" Harry asked. He'd made himself so scarce in the last few weeks that he'd barely seen her aside from at meal times. Sometimes he and Neville skipped dinner to get outside earlier as it was growing darker earlier now and they weren't allowed out after sunset.

"Nothing," Ron said. "But she would be, don't you think?"

"I'll be there," Harry said. "You'll be fine. The Slytherin Beaters aren't much good." Harry had seen them practicing the day before when he was out mushroom hunting. He and Neville had circled the outside of the Pitch looking for shaggy inkcap.

"Beaters?" Ron said, "It's the Chasers I'm worried about! They're wicked fast!"

"They're the same speed as our Chasers," Harry told him. "Is Ginny worried about going up against Draco?"

"She said she'd cob him if he was being a jerk." Ron paused for a minute and said, "If you ask me I think she's got a crush on him. She's been talking about him an awful lot lately."

Harry choked and spit out the mouthful of pumpkin juice he'd just taken a drink of. It sprayed all the way across Gryffindor table and onto Neville and his notebook of items they'd been foraging for. People around them burst out laughing and Neville sat there looking shocked for a moment. Harry stared at him for long moments, realizing what he'd just done. "Neville- I-" Harry was at a loss for words for a moment until he remembered what had made him choke in the first place. He turned to Ron next to him and said, "She has a crush on who?"

Neville took a napkin and started to dab at his notebook and Harry stood up and reached across to help, pulling out his wand to send a drying spell across the table. "Sorry Neville, really," he said quickly before turning back to Ron.

"S'alright," Neville said, "I just wasn't expecting a shower this afternoon is all."

Ron was staring at Harry and then grinned at him. "If she does or if she doesn't, I don't know. Funny that you were so offended by it though mate."

"What? Why?"

"Just sayin'," Ron said with a shrug and turned back to his food.

Harry relaxed a little and turned back to his meal as well. A minute later Hermione came down the table, late to lunch because she'd been talking with Professor Vector about the topic of her research paper. She sat down next to Neville, said, "Why is the table all wet?" and turned to see that Neville's shirt was wet as well and asked, "What happened to you?"

Neville and Ron both looked at Harry, whose face was red now, and Harry said, "Can we not talk about this?"

Ron burst out laughing again and Neville said, "It was raining pumpkin juice."

"I'll tell you later," Ron told her, grinning into his sandwich.

* * *

Harry wanted to go to the Gryffindor Slytherin Quidditch match on Halloween to support his friends, but found out the day before that his Potions Master had made other plans.

Severus had received an owl late Thursday night from Master Edric Edton asking if Harry would be available to help Soren collect a unique potion ingredient in a remote location in the north of Scotland on Halloween. Soren would be collecting umbra shade, which was valuable, and quite harmless as far as potions ingredients went, but was a two person job. Edric had an event he had to attend that day, and the collection of umbra shade was apprentice work in any case, so they'd requested Harry's help. If Harry could help Soren, he'd get half of everything collected that day.

Because of the unique position Harry and Severus were in as a master and student apprentice, Severus had the ability to take Harry off of school grounds at any time, even during the school year. He could even have Harry miss classes if there was work to be done towards the apprenticeship. Severus had decided as soon as he'd taken Harry on that Harry wouldn't be missing school for the apprenticeship because he should continue to be treated like any other student, or he'd grow even more full of himself. He had envisioned the boy lording his station as a student apprentice over his classmates, and didn't want the boy to have a bigger head than he already did being The-Boy-Who-Lived.

Since school had started however, Severus had to admit the child was having a rough term. He'd lost Quidditch, which Severus wasn't opposed to. He thought Quidditch was a waste of time anyway, though he understood how important it was to the children who played and watched the sport. Beyond losing Quidditch however, the boy had also been burned in the potions accident, and had been hounded relentlessly by Umbridge.

Severus had kept a close eye on the situation, as had the other staff. It drove Minerva mad to know that Umbridge had Filch following the boy when he was in the castle, and had practically banned him from entering the defense section of the library.

"She even had Filch throw the boy out of the greenhouses when he was there checking on Mr. Longbottom's extracurricular student project with him! It doesn't matter that Pomona doesn't mind Harry being in there," Minerva had ranted privately to Severus and Albus the week before, "she's determined that he should be miserable and he's spent most of the term inside Gryffindor tower. At least Mr. Longbottom has gotten him out of the castle some in the last few days."

Severus kept track of Harry's potions progress in class and in the Saturday labs the boy saw fit to attend, as well as his overall health, but he hadn't kept track of the boy's general wellbeing like Minerva did since he was one of her lions. He hadn't been aware that Potter and Longbottom had been spending a majority of their free time outside until Minerva had said something about it, but it was easy to see why he was with how closely Umbridge had been keeping tabs on him.

He supposed it wouldn't make Potter's head swell too much if he allowed the child a brief break from Umbridge by having him go to help Soren collect umbra shade. Edric had asked him as a personal favor, and it would benefit Harry in that he would get a chance to learn how to collect umbra shade and what it was used for, with the added benefit of getting him out of the castle for the day. He penned a quick letter back to Edric and sent it off late Thursday night, and then found Harry the next day at dinner and had him leave the Great Hall and follow him into the Entrance Hall so he could have a word with him privately.

"There is apprentice work to be done tonight and tomorrow," Severus told him, and was dismayed to see the boy's shoulders slump forward and his face fall.

"What are we brewing sir?"

"We are not. Master Edric and Soren have requested your presence to help collect umbra shade in a haunted location in the north of Scotland."

"Umbra shade?"

"Slime left behind by ghosts. It can be collected at any time, but is of the best quality and is the most plentiful on All Hallows Eve. This is a prime opportunity to-" he paused and looked around to be sure they were alone, lowered his voice and said, "keep yourself out of trouble and out from under the watchful eye of Umbridge."

Harry stood up straight. He was letting him out of the castle for a day to get him away from Umbridge? He must know something he didn't. Umbridge must have been planning to come down hard on him the next day on Halloween. If that was the case, Harry would probably miss the Quidditch match and the Halloween feast. He supposed it would be better to miss those events on his own terms then, though Ron would be disappointed. Harry was disappointed too. He'd been looking forward to the match and then to stocking up on candy. Every year on Halloween staff hid candy around the castle. It was spelled to stick to the underside of tables and benches, to be found floating in the air in corridors, and one year Harry even found a chocolate bar under his pillow when he woke up on the morning of Halloween. Harry never got candy at home and tried to collect as much as he could on Halloween while at school. It was like an Easter egg hunt for him, though he'd never been allowed to participate in that activity as a child either.

"After you are finished with dinner, go to your dormitory and pack your dragonhide gloves into your bag along with a change of clothes and a sweater. You will also need another sweater to wear. You are leaving at eleven tonight. You have permission for tonight only to be out after the nine pm fifth year curfew. You are to meet me here in the Entrance Hall at five minutes to eleven."

"Yes sir." Harry went back into the Great Hall and sat down with Ron, who was just finishing up his meal.

"I have bad news."

"What, you get detention or something?"

"I can't come to the Quidditch match tomorrow."

"What?" Ron's shoulders fell. "What did you get detention for?"

"I didn't. I'm being shipped off to help gather potions ingredients at eleven tonight and for all day tomorrow."

"But the feast," Ron said.

Harry let his shoulders slump forward too. "I know."

"What's so important that it can't wait til' after tomorrow?"

"Ghost slime," Harry said. "I'm going to some sort of haunted house to collect it. I have to pack after dinner and meet Snape in the Entrance Hall at eleven. I'll be there with another apprentice I met this summer and his master."

Ron set his fork down and stared at him. "Let me get this straight," he said. "You get permission to leave the castle during the school year, to go to a haunted house on Halloween, to hang out with another apprentice?"

"Yeah," Harry said, feeling bummed out about it.

"Are you crazy?" Ron said enthusiastically. "I'd kill to get to leave during the school year or to get to go check out a haunted house. You get to go to a haunted house on Halloween! I can't come can I?"

Harry shook his head. "No. I can leave school because I'm a student apprentice. There's different rules." Harry hadn't looked at it in that light. He was happy to be getting away from Umbridge, but he hadn't thought of it as an adventure like Ron seemed to.

"What's the ghost slime used for anyway?"

"It's called umbra shade. I don't know. I guess I'll find out tonight."

While Harry packed later that evening, Hermione sat at his and Ron's shared desk and searched through Harry's apprentice books to see if she could find umbra shade. Coming up the boy's stairwell and into their dormitory was the one rule she frequently ignored and didn't seem to mind breaking. Ron stood behind her and looked over her shoulder as she searched for it.

"Here it is," Hermione said. "Umbra shade. It's... oh. It's quite, um... interesting."

Harry looked up at them as he pulled a hoodie on over his t-shirt. "What? What is it?"

Ron laughed. "It's ghost poop."

"What?"

"He's not wrong," Hermione said.

"Let me see that," Harry said, holding out his hand for the book on ingredients, and she pulled the book to her chest as if it was precious to her. "I'll read it out loud," she said. "Then we can all hear it." Harry grinned at her. She preferred always being the first to learn new information and didn't want him to read it to himself while she was left waiting to learn what secrets the pages of his apprentice book held.

"Ok then," Harry motioned, and turned his back to stuff an extra pair of clothes into his bag along with another sweater and his new dragonhide gloves.

"Disgruntled spirits known as shades are known to emit a glowing white transparent gelatinous substance known as umbra." She paused and looked up at Harry and said, "That doesn't make any sense. Why not call it shade umbra then?"

Harry shrugged. "I dunno. I noticed some potions ingredients are named backwards like that."

"Umbra shade has many uses," she continued reading, "such as in potions that are used to emit light, to ward off darkness (including dark magic), and in potions used to alter moods in a fundamentally negative way." She looked up again, thoughtful. "Odd," she said. "It's used in potions that would make people feel depressed, but does the opposite in other potions as it wards off darkness." She shook her head at the mystery of it and kept reading as Harry double checked that his new gloves were in the bag and zipped it up. "Shades appear most frequently in densely haunted locations on All Hallows Eve, when the veil between realms thins, and they come to this realm to express their negative thoughts and feelings to us. In doing so their negative thoughts and feelings pass out of them and into this world as glowing umbra, which only lasts for a few minutes before sinking back into the realm of the undead if it is not collected into glass containers, which can hold the umbra here indefinitely."

"So Harry's gonna be out collecting ghost poop all night," Ron said.

Hermione kept reading as there was a diagram showing the umbra passing out of the ghosts, and didn't comment. It was this diagram which had made Ron call it ghost poop.

Since it was a Friday night most of the house was staying up late and was down in the common room talking and playing games. Since the other boys were down in the common room, Harry, Ron and Hermione were able to sit in the boys dormitory until ten thirty when Neville came upstairs to get ready for bed.

After leaving the dorm and chatting in the common room for a few more minutes, Harry told them he'd see them the next day and left to go meet Snape in the Entrance Hall.

"Try to be back for the feast at least!" Ron shouted after him as the portrait hole door closed.

Harry crossed paths with a pair of patrolling Prefects, one Slytherin and one Ravenclaw, but they didn't give him any trouble or question why he was out after curfew. He was only glad when he made it down to the Entrance Hall without running into Umbridge or Filch, who seemed to be taking the night off. He arrived a few minutes early and sat down on the steps leading up to the first floor to wait for Snape.

When Snape arrived, he didn't have a bag like Harry did.

"Potter," Snape greeted him. "Do you have the items I told you to pack?"

"Yes sir."

"Including your gloves?"

"Yes sir."

"I will be apparating you to Soren's location. Come, we must get down to the edge of the grounds."

He unlocked the heavy wooden front doors, and once they were outside locked them again with a spell Harry didn't know. The air was chilly as they walked down the dirt drive and Harry was thankful it wasn't snowing yet, or windy and raining as it had been off and on for the last few weeks.

"Master Edric will not be there, though he may check in with the two of you from time to time," Severus said. "Soren has no authority over you as you are both apprentices, but I am telling you now that you are to obey him as he is in charge of this operation."

"Yes sir."

"I will be back to collect you tomorrow at five pm, though if you are done early or if there is an emergency, Soren or Master Edric will apparate you back here, or to medical care though I do not expect there to be a need for that as umbra shade is not inherently dangerous."

"Hermione wants to know why it's called umbra shade and not shade umbra."

"The term initially came from another language, in which words came in a different order. It was called ‘umbra of the shade'."

When they had almost reached the school boundary Snape said, "You will do what Soren says in regards to collecting umbra shade. He has done this before and knows what needs to be done."

"Yes sir."

At the boundary Snape gripped his arm at the elbow and apparated him away appearing on a dark hill a moment later in the middle of nowhere. There was a breeze here and it chilled Harry as it hit his neck, causing him to pull his hood up over his head.

"Ho!" Snape called out into the darkness, lighting his wand so they could see.

"Ho! Here!" came Soren's voice, and they saw his wand light bobbing up towards them over the hill.

"Master Snape, Harry," Soren greeted them with a smile. His hair was wild and unbrushed just like the last time Harry had seen him, and Harry wondered if it was because it was so windy out.

"Has it started yet?" Snape asked.

"Not for another half hour still. The walls have been creaking something fierce as the veil thins," Soren said, and there's a glow spilling out from under the stairs."

"Will Master Edric be by tonight?"

Soren shook his head. "Perhaps by lunch tomorrow," he said.

Snape gave Harry a pointed look and told him, "As I said."

Harry gave him a nod to let him know he'd do as he was told and listen to Soren, and Snape apparated away with a pop.

"This way," Soren said, and led off down the hill. "You've got an extra change of clothes, right?" Soren asked.

"Yeah, in my bag."

"Good, you're gonna need em."

"Why?"

"You'll be filthy in no time," he said. He canceled his lumos charm and continued on in the dark. Harry followed him by sound alone for a few moments as his eyes adjusted. "Can't have wand light near the house," Soren explained. "That's why you had to apparate in a ways away. We can have a fire but that's the only light we get or it'll disturb the umbra shade. The umbra shade will glow enough for us to see inside the house when it's time to start collecting."

He led Harry to a fire ring which had a fire banked low. It was giving off just enough light for Harry to find his way to a folding camp chair. There was a small tent beside the fire, and another chair which Soren sat down in. Behind Soren, a wooden cabin in the later stages of decay looked ready to fall down as it creaked and groaned.

"Don't mind the noise," Soren said. "Veil's thinning and shades are trying to pass through. We'll know when they get here."

"How?" Harry asked.

"Trust me," he said with a grin. "We've got time anyway. Want a cup of coffee?"

"Sure," Harry said. Soren leaned over and opened a box next to his chair and pulled out two mugs. There was a pot of coffee in the box too and he poured a cup for both of them. When Harry took a drink his face lit up. It was mocha, hot and creamy and full of too much chocolate. Soren drank his coffee like Ron did. Harry reveled in the warmth and wrapped his hands around it.

"Master Snape explain to you about shades and umbra?" Soren asked.

Harry recounted to him what he'd learned from his apprentice book before leaving school.

"You'll wear your gloves to help keep your hands clean. The umbra shade isn't going to hurt you, but it's hard to wash off your hands. It won't stick to dragonhide though. Try not to get it in your mouth. It's got an awful taste and it'll make you feel a sense of doom like the world's about to end for about ten minutes afterwards if you do."

The dark cabin groaned and creaked and gave a shudder, but Soren ignored it.

"You'll use your gloves or the pitcher I'll give you to collect the umbra shade," he said. "Just get as much as you can into the pitcher. When the pitcher's full you bring it out here and dump it into the big glass jars." He pointed to a row of glass jars a few feet from the fire. They looked like they would each hold a gallon of liquid. "We've got more in the crates over there," Soren said, pointing.

"Biggest obstacle is going to be the shades throwing a fit," he said. "It's a two person job because they're like toddlers throwing a tantrum, or like older kids pulling a prank. They'll try to lift you up into the air or drag you across the floor. If you get into trouble just shout for me and I'll come get you. And if I get into trouble you come and get me."

At Harry's wide eyes Soren laughed. "You might get some bumps and bruises, but they won't really harm you. They won't drag you back across the veil or lift you high into the air and drop you or anything like that. This is one of the best nights of the year for apprentices. Apprentices across the aisles are gathering at haunted spots like this one to take advantage of all the umbra shade there is to be collected. Biggest harvest will be just after the shades break through the veil, that's why we start at midnight tonight. Harvesting will be good til' morning. Then we'll get a chance to rest and clean up a bit and we can start again around lunch tomorrow and collect til' it's time for you to go back to school. I think Master Snape said you had to be back by the feast."

"I didn't realize," Harry said.

The cabin gave a particularly loud groan and Harry thought he heard a woman scream in the distance, but couldn't be sure.

"Almost time," Soren said, looking at his watch. "There's not too much you can do to a shade with magic that will scare it off or make it leave you alone. There's a wind spell, you know it?"

Harry nodded.

"That'll push a shade away, but only for a moment. Best thing to do is keep in good humor about the whole thing. Most of the shades will like that. They'll mess with you, but if you're in bad humor they'll take it personally."

Even with all that Soren had told him in the half hour since he'd arrived, Harry had no idea what to expect once the ‘event' started. He just couldn't wrap his mind around what was being described to him.

Suddenly there was a loud shaking noise, followed by an explosive sound mixed with what sounded like a dozen screams, and a bright light flashed out of the rotting cabin through the windows and cracks in the wooden walls. Harry startled and almost spilled his mocha.

"See, told you you'd know when they were here," Soren said with a grin. "Come on, get your gloves on and put your wand where you can get to it fast."

They got their gloves on and Soren went and pulled the lids off of one of the huge glass jars. Then he handed Harry a plastic pitcher.

"You lose that one, come get another one," Soren said. "There's a dozen right here. Shades will try to get that one from you pretty fast. We'll collect the lost pitchers as we find em again. Got any questions?"

"A million," Harry said, and Soren laughed. "Let's go. Best collecting is right now as they're letting loose in there."

Harry eyed the cabin wearily. Lights were flashing and zipping around inside, there were screams and thumps and scrapes, and the broken glass in the window panes was rattling. It sounded like the ghosts inside were having a horrifying party of some sort. He wasn't keen on going in, and thought that if Ron were there he wouldn't be keen on it either.

"I'll step in first," Soren said. "Remember, be in a good humor about it and you'll be fine."

Harry followed him to the door, muscles tensed, and waited. Soren had barely stepped foot over the threshold when a ghost, barely visible, grabbed the front of his shirt and jerked him inside.

"SOREN!" Harry yelled, running to the door frame, but Soren had disappeared into the darkness and didn't answer back right away.

"It's fine!" Soren called from somewhere deep within the cabin. It sounded like he might have been taken upstairs. "I'm fine!" he called again, though it sounded like he was being dragged around as he called out to Harry.

Harry wanted to light his wand to go into the cabin, but remembered that he couldn't. There were flashing lights inside and he thought that might have to be enough light for him to go by until daylight.

He took a step over the threshold and noted that there were globs of an iridescent white glowing goop in random places on the floor and clinging to the walls.

"YEEEEEEE!" Something screamed with a female voice as a bright flash of light zipped in front of Harry's face and slammed itself into the wall next to Harry's head with a loud thud. He jumped and almost tripped backwards over some broken bits of wood onto the floor. Where the light had hit the wall, Harry found a glob of the glowing umbra shade. Remembering for the first time since he'd stepped up to the cabin that he was here to collect the glowing goop, Harry took the plastic pitcher and slid it up under the goop and scooped upward, allowing the goop to fall into his pitcher. It felt like nothing at all was inside as no weight had been added. A faint light was coming up out of the pitcher now as the sticky goop clung to the bottom of it.

"AHAHAHA!" Another female voice different from the last screamed in glee behind him and Harry jumped and spun around, only to see the empty door he'd entered through a minute before.

Heart pounding, Harry tried to breath and calm himself, and wondered if Soren was still alive as he took another step into the cabin, and then another. He stopped for a moment to scoop up a glob of umbra shade from the floor and then yelped as a hand grabbed his ankle. He spun to see what had him, but there was nothing there, not even a flash of light, and he couldn't feel anything holding his ankle anymore.

"Tryna get me," Harry mumbled, and backed up against a wall with a broken window. The fire was crackling in the fire ring outside.

"Hey!"

Harry startled as Soren appeared from the broken down wooden stairs, pitcher full of umbra shade glowing brightly.

"Calm down," Soren laughed. "Swap me pitchers and take this one outside and dump it in the jar. Put the lid back on the jar when you're done so it doesn't dissolve."

Harry traded him pitchers and practically ran from the house, only stopping to breathe again when he was back by the fire ring. All too soon he was back inside with the empty pitcher. He had barely stepped in when something grabbed the pitcher and yanked it out of his hands, throwing it across the cabin and into the darkness where Harry lost sight of it in a pile of rubble. "Ok, don't want me to have that one," he said, and went back out to the pile of pitchers by the fire and got a new one. He held tightly to this one as he stepped inside the cabin for a third time that night. He jumped a moment later when Soren shouted in surprise from his spot on the stairs where he had stopped to collect umbra shade. Something had grabbed him and was hauling him across the cabin at a quick clip. Instead of acting frightened, Soren allowed himself to be dragged along the floor and flipped his pitcher over so he could drag it along the floorboards and scoop up umbra as he went.

"Over there!" Soren said, and Harry was surprised when whatever shade had him dragged him to the part of the large room Soren had been looking at. When he had scooped up a massive blob of glowing umbra shade, it seemed the ride had ended as Soren stopped moving abruptly. He picked himself up and came to Harry and slapped him on the back. "That one's friendly!" he said, and left the cabin to take his haul to the glass jar.

Harry looked around at all the glowing umbra shade on the walls and took a breath. He could do this. He was creeped out, not sure when something would grab him or steal his pitcher or try to scare him by screaming as it flew by, but he could do this. It wasn't as bad as he had thought twenty minutes ago at the start of it all.

He made a dash for a large blob of umbra shade that looked like it alone would fill his pitcher, but something grabbed the back of his shirt, holding him in place, and then let him go abruptly as he pulled against it, so he went stumbling forward, landing face first inches from the blob. Not waiting to be grabbed again, Harry scooped it all up, using one gloved hand to hold it all in as the pitcher was overflowing, and got up and ran out of the house.

"Whoa! Good haul!" Soren said passing him on his way back in.

On his next trip into the house a female shade screamed again, "YAAAAAA!" and slammed into his back, knocking him forward, and Soren had to help collect the sticky umbra shade from the back of his hoodie before he could continue on.

There was a lot of thumping upstairs followed by a loud groan and then raucous high pitched laughter, and Soren and Harry looked up at the ceiling. "Most of them are up there," Soren said. "I'm going up to collect what they're leaving. You coming?"

Harry nodded and followed up the broken stairs, careful not to trip as he didn't want to slam his face into them. Upstairs was a single large room with two windows, one looking out towards the fire and tent, and another looking out to the back side of the cabin.

Several bright lights flashed past Harry and Soren as they entered the room and raced down the stairs.

"Over there," Soren said, pointing to the broken window looking out the back of the cabin, and Harry went to collect a large glob sliding down the wall. He looked up into the broken glass of the window and was surprised to see the face of a ghostly teal spectre. He turned quickly but didn't see anything behind him, not even a light. Goosebumps covering his arms, Harry looked back at the broken glass in the window and found the spectre still there behind him, watching him.

"I'm just gonna collect this if it's ok with you," Harry said. The reflection of the ghost didn't move and Harry filled his pitcher and went back downstairs and out to the glass jar. Curious, he went up to the window in the downstairs room facing the fire from the outside and looked in, trying to look through the shards of broken glass, though there were only a few pieces remaining in this window. What he saw surprised him. Through the glass he could clearly see the teal ghosts of two women and the white ghost of a man sitting at a ghostly table and having tea. They were right above the spot where there was the wreckage of an actual broken table in pieces on the floor.

Another ghost flew by, and Harry had to shift his position to keep it framed within the shard of broken glass. This ghost flew right at a wall, hit it, left a glowing splotch of umbra shade, then turned and flew up the wall into the ceiling and proceeded to zip around the room. Soren came down the stairs and Harry shifted to watch him through the broken glass too. Another teal ghost was following him down the steps and right as he reached the bottom it nudged him in the back with his elbow. Soren stumbled but caught himself and said, "Good one. Almost got me there," and came out the front door.

"All right there?" he asked Harry.

"That guy nudged you with his elbow and then laughed," Harry told him.

"Yeah, felt that," he said. "See you figured out the window thing. It doesn't work with all glass you know. Has to be a glass window. They say looking into a haunted house through a glass window is like looking into the soul of the home itself. You know, because the soul of a haunted home are the ghostly inhabitants."

"Who are they?" Harry asked. "Did they live here?"

Soren shrugged. "Maybe. This is one of the more haunted spots in Scotland. There are a dozen just like this in the highlands. Fact is any shades that want to can pop out of the veil in this spot on this night, or on other nights when the veil thins. Could be just one person that lived here and a bunch of their shade friends come to party and scare the pants off us all night." Soren grinned.

"But," Harry looked back through the large shard of glass. "They look pretty happy. I mean, they're having tea in that corner and chatting... smiling. I thought shades were disgruntled spirits."

"Sure they are," Soren said. "They're ornery to be sure. Most of them are disgruntled... unhappy to be dead, you know? Angry with the way they died, or maybe upset with how their life turned out. They're not just any ghosts, that's for sure, not like the Bloody Baron or Nearly Headless Nick. Those ghosts didn't come to term with death and so you see them pretty fully formed floating around the school since they're hanging on to this world. Shades are different. They know they're dead, they've come to terms with it, and decided to be ornery stinkers to everyone still living."

Harry gave one last look through the broken glass and then he and Soren went back inside. Now that Harry had seen some of them and what they looked like through the glass, and Soren had explained a bit more to him, he startled, but didn't get creeped out when a ghost loudly sneezed right by his ear and then blew across the hairs on the back of his neck, making them stand on end.

"I felt that," Harry told the ghost. It made a lot more sense to him now why Soren had told him to be in good humor about it all. The shades were out to scare them, startle them, and laugh at them, but not to hurt him. That knowledge made all the difference. It was like a house full of Fred and George Weasleys.

At three in the morning after Harry had called out to Soren to get him down from where what felt like two shades were holding him up against the wall close to the ceiling, they took a break and went outside to have some coffee and count how many jars of umbra shade they'd collected.

"Wow, ten, this is great," Soren said. "That's already five for each of us."

"The ghosts were busy in there," Harry said, sinking into his seat and pulling off his gloves so he could wrap his hands around his mug. A ghost screamed in that exact moment from inside louder than anything he'd heard that night, and Harry jerked and some of his coffee sloshed out over the side of his cup.

"Hey!" Harry said loudly. "Can't we get a break for a minute?"

The ghost screamed again in response and threw itself against the wall inside the house.

"See, not so bad, yeah?" Soren asked, sitting in his own chair. "Couple more hours and we'll have breakfast then go to bed for a while. He took a drink of his coffee and as he stirred the fire and added a log he said, "How's your apprenticeship been going? With Master Snape I mean."

"There was an accident. I got burned pretty bad on my hands."

"Caustic potion?" he asked, and Harry nodded.

"Master Snape bought me new master grade gloves made from the leather of a wyvern."

Soren whistled, eyes traveling to the gloves sitting across Harry's knee. "Bet that cost a pretty knut. I have high end apprentice grade gloves still. I have to buy my own materials. It's easier because I get paid since I'm over majority," he said. "Still, master grade gloves. Because yours are made from a wyvern they'll be good against caustic potions."

"Yeah, that's what the card said." Harry thought back to opening the gloves and remembered how it felt to realize he'd be safe from caustic potions in the future. "Why did they add to the card that no dragons were hurt to get the leather for the gloves?"

"Company that made yours harvested the leather from a dragon that was already dead from natural causes. It's actually illegal to kill dragons for any reason. Dragons are big and anything made from the leather of a wyvern would be expensive... not something average people would buy. The leather from a dead dragon would last a long time. It's possible your gloves were made from a dragon that died fifty, or even a hundred years ago. Who knows. Not too many wyverns about these days."

They stared into the fire for a few minutes and then Harry tensed up and said, "Soren."

"Yeah?"

"There's something touching my ear."

"Yeah," Soren said with a laugh. "It's Master Edric."

Harry let out a breath and relaxed and Edric came around and into Harry's view with a grin. His hair was messy like Soren's, and Harry wondered not for the first time if the two were related. Edric didn't greet them and instead went to look at the bounty of umbra shade.

"Ten jars, that's a good night's work," he said. He turned towards the fire and put his hands on his hips. "No broken bones? Just bruises and some good laughs?"

"They've had a grand time teasing Harry," Soren said. He offered Edric coffee but he held up his hand and declined.

"Just came to check on the two of you. Severus would have my head if I didn't and something happened to Harry." He gave Harry a close looking over, face stern and cast in sharp relief from the flickering flames of the low fire. Harry still couldn't get over how a person who always looked so grumpy could be friendly, but the man was. He let a small smile come over his face and asked Harry, "Been learning a lot? Not just here tonight, I mean from Severus. Been about four months now since you became an apprentice hasn't it?"

"I'm top of my class in potions right now."

Edric laughed. "I bet you are. First through seventh year potions really isn't that much to learn. You get through your first apprentice books and you'll have started towards a real knowledge of potions."

Harry had to agree with him. All the things he'd struggled with in potions previously seemed easy to him now, and he wondered frequently why he'd ever had difficulty with those things to begin with. He would have once blamed it on Snape, or even on Draco or other Slytherins throwing extra ingredients into his cauldron, but that couldn't explain why he'd never done well on homework or tests when all the basic knowledge was right there in his textbooks.

"The OWL examiner is giving extra credit for NEWT level potions this year," Harry said. "I've been practicing those."

Soren nodded. "I heard that happens when there's a student apprentice in any field. They want to gauge where the apprentice is at. If you're still an apprentice in your seventh year when you take NEWTs they'll have extra potions on that exam for you too."

"What do you mean if he's still an apprentice?" Edric asked.

Soren looked down into his coffee and Harry froze. After just a moment Soren looked back up though and said, "You know, not everyone continues after their first two years of apprenticeship. Some decide to head into a herbology apprenticeship or choose to study healing."

"Yeah, that's true," Edric agreed. "Takes a certain kind of person to keep on with potions until their mastery. Not nearly as many potions masters out there as healers, though there's not a lot of people with a mastery in herbology either."

"My friend Neville wants to do that," Harry said. "I told him he'd probably like potions, but he's struggled with it in school and is convinced he won't like it. He's been out cataloging all the fungus we find on school grounds the last two weeks. I've been helping him study for his potions OWL."

"Here's what you do," Edric said, finally reaching into a crate Harry hadn't looked into and pulling out another folding camp chair. "You get him to find and harvest and prepare all the ingredients for a potion that will really help him somehow... something he'll want, and then have him prepare the potion. He'll be hooked."

"Maybe," Harry said. He wasn't keen on pushing Neville into something he didn't want. Harry knew too well how that felt.

Master Edric and Soren chatted for a while longer, Master Edric asked Harry half a dozen questions about umbra shade, and then he told them he'd be back around lunch time the next day and walked up the hill and out of sight into the darkness so he could apparate away.

"Best get back to it," Soren said.

Harry stood up with him and said, "Erm... thanks. For not telling him I mean. You know."

"Yeah," Soren said. "Wouldn't look too good on your master if I told Edric how you came to be in this apprenticeship. Word gets around in the potions community." He gave Harry a close looking over and said, "I'm still banking on you coming to like this line of work. I think you'll stick with it. Leighton thinks you won't."

"I'm going to be an auror," Harry said, resolute in his desire to do what his father had done. Harry loved defense besides. He loved the movement of twisting and leaping and diving in a duel, and the adrenaline of blocking a spell before it could hit its target. As they went back into the house with their plastic pitchers though and a ghost startled him and then laughed only to get a short scream out of Soren, Harry couldn't deny that he was having fun there collecting ghost poop. For tonight he was a potions apprentice glad to be out of the castle and away from Umbrige. He was a potions apprentice who didn't have a worry on his mind other than that he was tired and ready for bed, and looking forward to collecting more glowing white slime again in the daylight.

* * *

They slept in the tent for six hours and woke just before eleven in the morning. It wasn't a particularly restful sleep as the ghosts inside the decaying cabin were still throwing a party, so the night was filled with thumps and bumps, creaks and groans, and wild flashes of light and laughter. Harry was happy to sleep in the borrowed sleeping bag however and to be protected from the wind by three sides of the canvas tent. The front of the little tent was open to the fire, and Harry had enjoyed the flickering and warmth from it as he'd drifted off to sleep.

When they woke at eleven they found cloudy skies, and what had been a spine chilling unknown to Harry the night before was now a well illuminated picture of rot and decay. Soren stirred the nearly dead coals of the fire and added new logs to bring it up to a comfortable crackling warmth, and he and Harry had a seat and stretched. There was a shout of glee from inside the cabin, and Harry, now used to it, ignored it.

"They're happy we woke up," Soren said, making a fresh pot of coffee and digging around in his box of food for something. He came up out of the box with two wrapped sandwiches and handed one to Harry. Some sort of stasis charm had been put on it to keep it fresh, and Harry happily accepted the ham sandwich and cup of coffee from Soren.

Master Edric returned to check on them just as they finished their food and had a seat by the fire.

"What time did you lads go to bed?" he asked.

"Five," Soren said. "Shades had settled down a little since the sun was coming up, so it was a good time to kip in the tent."

Edric nodded and reached into a bag he'd brought with him. "Not a proper All Hallows without something sweet," he said, and he pulled out two pastries filled with red jelly and cream and handed them to Harry and Soren.

"Thank you," Harry said. The pastry was delicious, and as Harry ate he took in the state of the cabin again. They were up in the hills somewhere and the cabin was nestled down between two hills that rose up sharply on either side. Tall overgrown grass and weeds surrounded their small encampment and pushed up against the rotting wood of the house. Some of the walls were slanted, the roof had gaping holes, and the front door was hanging on crookedly by one hinge. There were bits of busted up wood and broken glass all over the ground along the outer walls of the house. There were huge gaps between some of the wood planks that formed the walls, and moss and green mold or fungus had colored most of the wood green. As his eyes scanned the structure there was something else aside from rotting wood that he spotted. There in a pile of what looked like broken furniture outside one of the windows, covered in moss and grass, was a cluster of little ghostly white mushrooms with black around the gills. Shaggy inkcap. Harry was ready to leap up to collect the mushroom he and Neville had been searching for when Master Edric started speaking to him.

"Ever been to a place this haunted before?" Master Edric asked and Harry brought his eyes back around to their gathering around the fire.

"The Shrieking Shack," Harry said. "That's not really haunted though I don't think."

"Sure it is," Soren said. "Everyone who goes to Hogwarts knows that. Most haunted place in a hundred miles of Hogwarts."

"I was inside with my friends. They built it when my parents were in school so there was a place for a kid who was a werewolf to go on full moon nights. They told everyone it was haunted to keep kids and other people away from it so they wouldn't go out there when there was a werewolf transforming inside. Then on full moon nights when there were shrieks and howls it helped people believe it was haunted."

Soren and Edric both looked captivated to hear the story of it.

"How do you know?" Edric asked, taking a sip of his own coffee.

"My parents were friends with the kid who was a werewolf. I met him in my third year and he told me." Harry motioned towards the cabin and said, "This is way more haunted than we ever thought the Shrieking Shack was." A deep booming laugh came out of the cabin in response to what Harry had said.

When Master Edric began to talk to Soren about something they'd be collecting in a few days in the south of England, Harry rose and went to the pile of debris and carefully uprooted the little mushrooms. He stowed them in the outer pocket of his bag inside the tent and couldn't wait to get back to show Neville.

It was almost noon when they donned their dragonhide gloves again and went back inside to collect more umbra shade. The ghosts were delighted. Master Edric wasn't there to collect umbra shade, but had decided to go in for a few minutes to watch Harry and Soren work.

He'd only been standing in the entryway of the house for a few moments when he jumped forward and then turned and said, "Hey now, don't get fresh with me ghost."

Soren and Harry turned to look from where they'd been filling up four pitchers from a massive pile of umbra shade that had been accumulating in a corner, and Soren asked, "What'd they do?"

"I was grabbed. From behind," Edric said, tilting his head to indicate it had been somewhere down low. Soren and Harry both laughed and in response a shade pinched Soren's leg and he yelped, and then Harry was poked in the back of the shoulder. He had a feeling it was one shade that had been circling the three of them.

A shade tugged on Edric's shirt from behind and he said, "Hey, hey, I'm not here to collect. That's apprentice work. I'm just watching."

"Yeah but you're new and the most fun to tease and torment right now," Soren told him.

They carried four pitchers worth of umbra shade outside to deposit into the glass containers, and said goodbye to Edric, who had to leave for a Halloween gathering he was supposed to attend later that afternoon.

Harry and Soren chatted across the cabin as they collected slime that afternoon. The cabin wasn't well lit but it was a lot easier to see in the daytime and to work, despite that the umbra shade was harder to see and find in the light.

Harry lost track of time and was surprised when Snape called out to him from outside the cabin at five pm. Unlike Master Edric, he didn't appear to want to come inside.

Soren followed Harry out of the cabin, both of them with a pitcher full of slime, and they emptied them into the glass containers. The sun was just starting to set, and Harry wondered if Soren would be there all night collecting by himself since the ghosts would become more active after dark again. Snape seemed to be thinking along the same lines and said, "I have come to collect Harry. Will master Edric be returning to help you with the umbra shade?"

"He'll be back around midnight so we can transport all these jars back to the lab. My friend Isaac will be by around six to help me until midnight."

"Master Eadmund's second year apprentice?" Severus asked, and Soren nodded.

"Then we will take our leave. I would suggest not returning inside the cabin until Isaac is here."

"I'm going to have dinner until he arrives," Soren assured him. He turned to Harry, winked at him, and said, "Thanks for your help. Master Edric and I will be by in a few days with nine jars of umbra shade. You'll have to come back again to help me next year."

"Definitely," Harry said.

Snape let Harry change into fresh clothes before they left since he was filthy. His hair was messier than Soren's had been when they'd first arrived the night before, and he was ready for a shower and dinner. They apparated away and when they got back to the edge of the Hogwarts grounds, Snape asked, "How did it go?"

"It was good. I like working with Soren. Master Edric tried to scare me when he came to check on us in the middle of the night."

"He is well known for pranking those he likes."

"Huh," Harry said.

"Are you injured from the night's activities?"

Harry shook his head. "A few bruises maybe. The ghosts spent most of their time dragging Soren around the cabin because he seemed to be having fun with it." When they were picking on Harry it was done by loud screams which would make him jump, by trying to pull his hoodie or shoes off, or by taking his pitcher from him. Harry had spent half an hour in his socks collecting umbra shade because the ghosts had taken his shoes and carried them away. Soren had found one stuck to the ceiling upstairs in a sticky puddle of umbra shade, and Harry found the other under the decrepit old stairs.

When they got inside the castle Severus said, "The feast will start in twenty minutes. If you hurry, you may have time to shower beforehand."

"Yes sir." Harry hurried up through the castle and to the Gryffindor common room. Kids were sitting by the fire eating candy and talking and laughing together, or playing board games as they waited for the feast to start. Ron and Hermione spotted him as soon as he came in and came right over to him.

"Harry, we won!" Ron said happily. "Well, I didn't do so well, but Ginny caught the Snitch when we were up ten points and we won!"

Hermione winced and Ginny passed by a moment later on her way out to go to the Great Hall and said, "It was rather awful really. Ron let them score the first three goals and they were chanting ‘Weasley is our king'."

"Yeah but I got better after that!" Ron shouted out after her.

"He did," Hermione said. "He stopped almost all the rest of the goals and the Slytherins quieted down after that." She looked Harry and his messy hair and clothes up and down and asked, "How was it?"

"It was good. Interesting. Imagine ten or twelve of Peeves, but you can't see them, and they're all trying to knock you down or take what you're holding and throw it across the room while laughing manically about it because they think it's the funniest thing ever. It was pitch black and the moment Soren stepped into the cabin he was grabbed and hauled off up the stairs. That's how my night went."

Hermione and Ron just stared at him, and Harry wasn't certain they believed him. Perhaps he wasn't explaining himself well enough.

"If Fred and George ever get invisibility cloaks, you'll know what it was like."

They seemed to grasp this concept and both gave a nod. "That sounds awful," Hermione said. "It must have been scary."

"Actually," Harry said, "You were right Ron. Getting to leave for a day and visit a haunted house on Halloween was pretty fun." He wanted to tell them all about it, but before he could start telling them more about the night he'd spent in the cabin, Ron pulled his hand out from behind his back and Harry looked down to find a chocolate bar and a couple pieces of individually wrapped hard candy.

"Saved you some, since you were out dealing with ghost poop all night," Ron told him.

He grinned at his friend, appreciating that he had thought of him. "Thanks Ron."

"Well, you should go up to your dorm to get cleaned up," Hermione told him.

"Yeah, I gotta change," he said. He ran up the spiraling stairs and was glad Seamus wasn't inside the dorm when he got inside to hassle him. Harry opened his wardrobe and found a licorice wand sitting on the upper shelf. He smiled and pulled it out along with a fresh shirt and pair of pants. He sat down on his bed but something made a crinkling noise when he did and he felt with his hand to see what it was. It felt like another piece of candy under the covers. Wondering if there was anything else he lifted his pillow and found several handfuls of candy. Neville stuck his head inside the door and said, "Hey, you ready for the feast yet?" His eyes traveled to the pile of candy Harry had found. "We spent all day finding all that and then hiding it again for you," he said with a grin, then pulled his head back out the door and closed it so Harry could get ready to take a quick shower and change. Not such a bad Halloween after all when he'd got to spend it with a friend, and then came home to friends. It was the best Halloween in his remembrance.