Zack Bryant: An aged man with an even more aged idea of how the world should work.
Hands, cheeks, eyes, neck... Everything seemed to broadcast his fading life, yet the spark still fizzled within his bosom. 60 years. 60 years it had taken him to believe in someone enough to take over the family. And that trust came in the form of a 17 year old woman who's ambition reminded him of himself. Which was typical of a daughter, he assumed.
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His Hogwarts career had been one to be remembered. Star Chaser of the Slytherin Team, Best Duelist in his Advanced Charms classes, and Head Boy his seventh year. He'd been somewhat a jock, should the muggle word ever have a place in Hogwarts terms. Though a jock he was, he had met some of the most fantastic friends a newly graduated boy could ever ask for. Nikeia had been his friend, and lover if you would care to know, but more importantly she had been his adversary. Where he was weak, she was strong, and it never bemused her to let him know it. She was his greatest competitor on the Quidditch field. Whereas he was a 'do it yourself' man, she led a team of well organized Gryffindors against him and his mates. It was hard losing to them. Especially since she was a girl.. Their love had sparked in secret among the cushions of the Room of Requirement. Apparently they both had a mind for studying in a well-comforted room.
It was a fierce and swift love, however, and over the course of a summer the life had sizzled and faded away into mist. Zack moved on, and Nikeia... Well he never saw her again.
Some years later, after he had traveled the world as many teenagers do and put down the life of Vampire chasing, he found that teaching was what he was good at. So back to Hogwarts he went, though this time he was there to teach the next group of leaders
and stalwart defenders of Wizarding kind. It was there that he met his future wife, Luna. She had the looks, the attitude, and definitely the mindset that he was so desperately looking for. You see, his parents had drilled into his pre-pubescent mind that men should look for a woman as ambitious as he.
And ambitious she was. Slowly but surely his decent into dabbling with the dark arts led him to Voldemort. Where he wouldn't fall far enough into becoming a death Eater, but far enough that he was among one of the trusted members of his intelligence group. She helped, guided, and supported Zack until that point.
"There had always been a doubt in my mind.", she had told him one night, "That you wouldn't know how to get out of this situation you've put yourself into." She had left the next day with his teenage daughter Skye.
It was then that Zack had lost all his hope for the world. He left Hogwarts and sat on his favorite bench on the lawn of his mansion in Ottery. It was many moments before he summoned what he called courage to cast the killing curse. His handsome and fit body was boarded up and placed in the ground with a prayer and eulogy, but his spirit remained tied to the material plane. Clearly something within his unsatisfied conscious had bound him to remain here on Earth as a Ghost before he could die in peace. There had been nothing left in England for him when he killed himself. No family, no friends, no anything really.
With left keeping him there, he determined that he was going to travel the world again in search of his meaning to life.
Columbia, South America, 4 years after his death.
Zack's Ghost, who had become known as the 'wandering traveler' throughout the world, had stumbled (or floated, rather) across an ancient voodoo woman living in a putrid swamp. It was said that the old, hunchbacked woman knew the secrets of a forgotten spell that could bind ghosts to a human body. He studied with her, and assisted her whenever possible, until it was known to him those secrets. Most people wanted their old, decrepit bodies again. Muggles called these resurrected souls "zombies" and apparently movies had been made about them. But Zack had an entirely different idea on the matter. He wanted a new face and a new body. It had been hard for him to spook an older gentleman into the midst of the voodoo woman. There wasn't much else besides older people around the swamp. Who other than the dying
would want to live near here anyway?
Zack's return to England wasn't well met. The headmaster at Hogwarts nearly refused him on the grounds that returned ghosts had no place in Hogwarts, but Zack won him over by telling them that if ghosts could teach and live in Hogwarts, why couldn't a ghost with a body?
His mansion was just the way it was when he left it, though a fine layer of dust settled on each and every ornate thing that was spread throughout the house.
The only thing left missing from his life was his daughter, and his wife....
