Come To Know Yourself
by Teka Lynn

Things seemed so tenuous these days. Which made no sense. There were always facts to hold onto, facts to organise and set in place, facts as solid as the Hogwarts walls.

How odd that the walls seemed so misty nowadays.

Professor Ambrosius Binns pulled his parchment more closely to him with an emphatic, petulant twitch. Eyes must be getting old. His familiar, crabbed writing, solidly black against the creamy vellum, didn't seem to want to focus properly. Must see the matron — what was her name? Pompey? Pomegranate? Some fruit or flower name — about that sometime. Not now, certainly, when there was work to be done. His quill felt light in his hand. Too light, almost insubstantial. More frustrated than he cared to admit, he gripped the quill so tightly that it should have left ridges in his fingertips. Perhaps he'd been sitting in that chair too long. His hand must be numb from cramp. He dropped the pen and flexed his fingers. The trail of ink left when the quill-tip struck the paper seemed as pale and insubstantial as the grey fog outside his window. Or the fog which seemed to shroud solid granite block.

He blinked his eyes impatiently against the encroaching grey mist, and blinked again when he saw the so-called "Bloody Baron" before him. Or at least the Baron from approximately the waist up. Half the ghost's body was directly in front of him, the other half evidently under the table. Binns could reach through the Baron for his quill and parchment, but for some reason thought he'd rather not.

"Consultations on alternate Thursdays, from half-past one to three, by appointment only," he said absently, then mentally kicked himself. The Baron would hardly deign to go by some mortal schedule. But old habits died hard.

The Baron said nothing. Binns glanced up and met the ghost's piercing grey eyes. A bead of silvery blood trickled down the nasal of his Norman helm, dripped at the end, then vanished to nothing as it fell.

"What do you want?" Binns asked. He spoke in Frankish, one of the few languages the Baron deigned to speak aloud, though he understood many more.

The ghost never took his eyes off Binns. He stripped off the ethereal gauntlet from his right hand, slapping it down on the table. The ghost leather and metal made no sound. Binns tried to catch his breath.

The Baron put his bare hand through the table — most disconcerting and unmannerly that, but who would argue with a thousand year old warrior? — and Binns jumped in his chair when cool but oddly solid-feeling fingers deftly slipped their way up his robe.

"Baron, this is most irregular!"

The Baron said nothing, only holding Binns to his chair by glance and presence. He firmly grasped Binns' penis, an organ which Binns had not troubled himself with unduly for many years. His penis, evidently happy to have some attention after so long, sprang to attention. Binns wondered at that. Surely a man of his years should not be quite so energetic there?

Binns, both embarrassed and aroused, tried to squirm out of the Baron's grasp without enraging the ghost. All it did was arouse him further. He found himself rubbing hard against the Baron's experienced touch. Did he feel like a sword in the Baron's hand? he wondered absently. Five-finger exercise? He restrained himself from sniggering inappropriately.

The suppressed snigger turned into an unsuppressed groan when the Baron began to milk him. The fingers gripped solidly around the base of his penis, slid upward firmly, and... ohh... slipped over his head in just that way that had always made Binns bite his lip and whimper when he was younger. The Baron's hand slid down again, firmly but without crushing, with just enough velocity to keep the motion smooth and effortless. The tips of the Baron's callused fingers pressed against Binns' ridge just... like... that, then tightened around the base again to start the dizzy moving staircase again. The Baron's other hand, also presumably ungauntleted, though Binns had his eyes squeezed too tightly to tell, reached under and up to grasp his balls. Oh... he'd always liked that. However did the Baron know?

He shuddered. He felt the trickle of fluid gather at his tip, fresh and lively and so so real. It was so long since he'd felt anything so immediate. His balls ached and he could feel the rumble inside them, the spurt held back for years and ready to burst forth. He gripped the table but could feel nothing but the Baron stroking him and his own body struggling like a mad thing.

"Look down."

He opened his eyes with effort, but obeyed the Baron's command. He was too close to the edge and too highly strung to be surprised that he was looking straight through the table to see his erection, firm and frantic as a teenager's, gripped by the Baron's hand. There seemed nothing ghostly about that hand now. It pulled and stretched his penis with that same dogged, breath-catching rhythm, now speeding up as Binns involuntarily rocked his hips and body faster. His own hands fell through the table, through parchment and feather quill and solid mahogany, and felt nothing, only the Baron seizing him.

He wailed, rocked back in his chair, and squeezed his eyes shut. It wasn't just his penis but his whole body that was surging to climax. He didn't know why the Baron was doing this, but he couldn't stop, it would kill Binns if the Baron ever took his hand away, he was a respectable teacher and respectable teachers didn't do this like undisciplined children, but it didn't matter any more, none of it mattered but the Baron and his eyes and his hand.

"You must look, Ambrosius. Do not shy away."

Binns marshalled what little discipline was left to him, and stared fixedly at his lap. Mesmerised, he watched the Baron's hand slide up his shaft once more as Binns' entire body trembled. He gasped through his clenched teeth as his own semen spurted up and out with unnatural energy. So long — how long? — since he'd seen it, white and sticky and getting all over everything with messy glee.

"Watch, Ambrosius. Remember."

But it wasn't white and sticky and spurty. It sprayed, opalescent, like a rainbow caught in a mist cloud. It should have splattered against the table, but it jetted through as though solid mahogany meant nothing to long-overdue sexual climax. It drenched the Baron, who blinked serenely and seemed to take no notice, it flecked on Binns' glasses to his delighted shock, it even seemed to suffuse the room with sex and energy and marvellous feeling. But it landed on nothing.

Binns began to tremble, not just from release but from a fear he couldn't acknowledge. He glanced up to the Baron, his eyes wide and pleading.

With more gentleness than Ambrosius Binns would ever have expected from the Bloody Baron, the ghost stroked his face. His fingers tingled coolly against Binns' cheek.

"Ambrosius. You must come to know yourself."

"I don't... Baron, I don't understand."

"Do not be afraid. I will be with you."

Feeling like a child, frightened and reaching up for an adult's understanding hand, Binns nodded. He focused his attention on the insubstantial manuscript in front of him, until he felt the Baron vanish from his room.

The world felt more misty and unreal than ever. The only solidity was the memory of the Baron's touch, and the glove that lay on the fading table before him.

Written by Teka Lynn
November 5, 2003

All rights to the characters and setting are held by J K Rowling and whoever else holds them, including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, and Warner Bros. This fanwork was created solely for fun and has no legal or financial connection to the Harry Potter novels.