AN: Inspired by a certain scene in the last Harry Potter book.

Halfway Points

The first thing Danny became aware of was the stars.

The whole universe stretched out before him. All the stars were in sharp contrast with the black background, and the Milky Way crossed the sky in an explosion of colour.

After a moment spent marvelling at what he was seeing, Danny noticed that he was lying down on something hard and cold. Metal.

He carefully sat up and looked around. He was at the top of the OPS center.

A single thought echoed through his mind. 'How did I get here?'

The last thing he could remember was badpainstop-

He was shaking, even though he wasn't cold. (There was a nagging feeling in the back of his mind. He should have been feeling cold. He was just dressed in a t-shirt on top of the OPS center in the middle of the night. He should have been cold.)

(Except he wasn't dressed in a t-shirt. He was dressed in a HAZMAT suit. It was burning, melding to his melting skin. Why would he be cold, when his insides were on fire?)

He didn't want to think about it, so he leaned back again and looked up at the sky. (The nagging feeling returned, stronger. The OPS center was in the middle of Amity Park. Light pollution wouldn't let him see this many stars.)

Still, he could let himself get lost in the sky. The darkness between the stars felt alive, liquid. It could drip down inside him and hide all his pain. No more Dash, no more being the only disappointment in a family of geniuses, no more getting forgotten by his parents on account of beings that didn't even exist. No more pain. Instinctively, he knew the inky blackness could soothe the fire running through his veins, if only he would let it.

There was the sound of footsteps coming from behind him. He could feel the way the metal underneath him vibrated.

Danny sat up again.

He had been expecting Jazz, but the other person on the roof was a stranger.

Ordinarily, this would have made him worry. Shyness and self-preservation making him question why someone he didn't know was in his house. Or on top of it, as it were.

However, the stranger seemed to radiate... something. It was calming, and all of Danny's instincts said that this stranger could go wherever he wanted and belong there fully.

The stranger was middle-aged, with no real distinguishing features aside from a scar that ran across his left eye. He was dressed in a normal, nondescript suit. (He flickered, and his suit was a cloak. Danny both noticed it and didn't, like his mind refused to acknowledge what was right in front of him.)

"Hi." Danny gestured towards the roof beside him. "Sit down. It's a nice night."

The stranger nodded, but didn't say anything. The only sound in the night was his footsteps as he closed the distance between them. (Even though, when Danny looked at him from the corner of his eye, he didn't have feet.)

Danny looked up at the sky, letting the beauty of it overwhelm him. If he got lost in stargazing, he wouldn't think about what was happening.

He leaned his right hand against the roof, but quickly pulled it away as static electricity sparked. Danny looked it over, a long ingrained habit of checking for injuries whenever he got hurt not caring that static electricity didn't actually leave injures.

There was a scar on his hand.

The middle of it was raw and red and round, but growing from it was a jagged scar. The name Lichtenberg echoed in his mind, but he couldn't say why. It must be something he'd read somewhere, a long time ago.

The scar looked like a tree, branches stretching out. The way trees represented life felt wrong. Like looking through a broken mirror.

How had he gotten a scar?

The last thing he could remember was pain and light and green and darkness.

He turned back to the stranger. An old man was sitting next to him on the roof. His long white beard trailed over his suit-that-wasn't-a-suit. The scar across his eye ran counter the wrinkles and crows-feet that decorated his face. No part of Danny thought it was odd that his companion had aged thirty years in a few seconds, not even the nagging feeling that kept pointing out other inconsistencies.

"I'm dead, aren't I?"

"Yes... and no."

Danny frowned. "What does that even mean? Either you're dead or you're not. There is no middle ground."

The child next to him smiled the smile of someone in on a joke they weren't sharing. "And you would know all about that, of course. After all, you're all of fourteen years old. You know all of life's mysteries. Death's too."

Danny crossed his arms and looked away.

The stranger seemed to take pity on him. "You're not dead. Not yet, anyway. You are... at a crossroads, of sorts."

Danny leaned forward so that he could see the street outside his house. There was no street, no crossroads. It was as if FentonWorks was hanging all on its own, in the middle of space.

"A metaphorical crossroads," clarified the old man.

"How was I supposed to know that?" huffed Danny.

The stranger smiled.

"If I'm at.. a crossroads. Does that mean there's more than one way I can go?"

Something akin to pride flashed through the man's eyes. "Yes."

"Are we gonna have to play chess or something?" Danny pulled up his knees and wrapped his arms around them. It was hard to get words out past the lump in his throat. "I don't want to die, but I don't think I could beat you... or anyone, at chess. Can we play Doomed instead?"

"While I played chess against the last person I made this offer, that was just for enjoyment. It calmed him down. I doubt it would work the same for you. I won't stand in your way, no matter which path you choose. Consider me... a guide."

"If I don't die properly... I'd be a ghost." His voice shook. "Mom and dad gave me pamphlets about accepting death and moving on."

"That so?"

Danny nodded, lost in thought. He had leafed through them before throwing them away. He hadn't actually believed in ghosts. Now, he wasn't so sure.

"Those aren't your only options."

Danny's eyes shot open. He turned towards the stranger with sudden urgency. "Really!?"

"I told you already, you're not dead. Not fully, at least."

Danny could only blink in silent confusion.

"You're at a crossroads. Three paths stretch out before you. You can take this OPS center and turn it into a blip, sailing away into the great unknown." The old man gestured towards the sky.

Danny couldn't suppress the shiver that went through his body as he thought about that.

"Or, you could stay here. In the FentonWorks that exists here and now. It has your room, your kitchen, living room. Everything you need is right here, in your Lair. Everything that makes your house your home." The middle-aged man gestured towards the house.

"Except the people." Danny's lips thinned.

"Or, you could go back home. To the real FentonWorks. To your family and friends." The child gestured towards Danny himself.

The night sky stretched out before him, reminding him that he hadn't fulfilled his dreams yet. He wasn't an astronaut. There were three paths, and only the one behind him let him do all the things he still wanted to do.

There was a memory of pain, of all his hairs standing on end, of fire running through his blood, of electricity. Even the mere echo of it was enough to make Danny gasp.

His parents said ghosts didn't feel pain, but humans most certainly did.

Danny was afraid.

"It's your choice. I won't judge you for deciding either way." The old man ran a hand through his beard.

The night sky was a comfort, but it felt hollow. (He wasn't cold. There was no light pollution.) It wasn't real.

"I want to go back." The words came out as a whisper. "I want to live."

The man smiled. "If that is your choice-"

"It is." Danny nodded with growing confidence.

All the stars in the night sky went out.

A giant crack spread across the sky, like broken glass. The darkness collapsed in on itself, chunks falling down and turning to dust before they could hit a ground that didn't exist. The black was replaced by a toxic, glowing green.

Danny had seen that colour before.

The building underneath him churned, shaking as if during an earthquake. Bricks fell out of the outer walls, glowing and burning like falling stars. The metal of the emergency OPS center turned into fireflies, into glowing green embers. The world was collapsing around them.

A scream escaped his throat, which felt sore, like he had been screaming for a long time. The world twisted around, and he was dragged away. He could see the stranger standing on what remained of the OPS center, getting further and further away. As the green light hit him, he was no longer human.

Something pulled at a Danny, and it felt like he was pushed through the eye of a needle. A purple door slammed shut in his face.

Danny stumbled out of the newly opened ghost portal.

Sam and Tucker caught him as he fell. Their worried voices filled his ears.

A smile twitched at his lips. 'I'm home.'

He couldn't make sense of the thought, couldn't remember the context where it made sense, and he didn't have time to think about it because he was busy panicking about his odd white hair and glowing and was he a ghost?

Danny felt like screaming, again, when rings of light formed around his waist. They travelled across his body, and suddenly he was alive. His heart resumed its beating, his lungs gasped down air as he fought back his rising panic. Danny was human.

Or as human as he was going to get, at any rate.

He felt cheated, but he couldn't put his finger on why.