People Watching.

Chapter Nine.

"I can't believe this," (Y/n) said as Hermione dragged her away from the Great Hall. She wore a short black dress that had a floral pattern and tights with it. She had golden earrings with emeralds and she had three strings of pearls, some of which were splattered with red and from them hung red gems, giving the illusion of splattered blood. (Y/n) felt like a 50's housewife who just murdered her husband. "I can't believe this! Are you seeing how much fun we could have had! I decorated that, you know!"
The rest of the school was happily anticipating their Halloween feast; the Great Hall had been decorated with the usual live bats, Hagrid's vast pumpkins had been carved into lanterns large enough for three men to sit in, and there were rumours that Dumbledore had booked a troupe of dancing skeletons for the entertainment.
"Decoration committee was considering bringing back Fall Festivals, too! Thank goodness we couldn't find the funs otherwise I'd be missing that!" (Y/n) cried.

"A promise is a promise," Hermione reminded the three bossily. "You said you'd go to the deathday party."

They continued their walk and directed their steps towards the dungeons.

"You know, 'Mione," (Y/n) said. "Today's a special day for us, too. It's the day you actually started liking me." Hermione clicked her tongue, pushing (Y/n) away.

The passageway leading to Nearly Headless Nick's party had been lined with candles, too, though the effect was far from cheerful: These were long, thin, jet-black tapers, all burning bright blue, casting a dim, ghostly light even over their own living faces. The temperature dropped with every step they took. 

"Guys, are deathdays supposed to be a day of celebration or mourning?" (Y/n) whispered as she shivered, regretting not bringing a jacket or cloak.

"I don't know," Harry whispered back. "I was too scared to ask." As he shivered and drew his robes tightly around him, there was what sounded like a thousand fingernails scraping an enormous blackboard.

"Is that supposed to be music?" Ron hissed. They turned a corner and saw Nearly Headless Nick standing at a doorway hung with black velvet drapes.

"My dear friends," he said mournfully. "Welcome, welcome... so pleased you could come..."
He swept off his plumed hat and bowed them inside.
It was an incredible sight. The dungeon was full of hundreds of pearly-white, translucent people, mostly drifting around a crowded dance floor, waltzing to the dreadful, quavering sound of thirty musical saws, played by an orchestra on a raised, black-draped platform. A chandelier overhead blazed midnight-blue with a thousand more black candles. Their breath rose in a mist before them; it was like stepping into a freezer.

"Shall we have a look around?" Harry suggested, wanting to warm up his feet.

"Careful not to walk through anyone," Ron answered nervously, and they set off around the edge of the dance floor. They passed a group of gloomy nuns, a ragged man wearing chains, and the Fat Friar, a cheerful Hufflepuff ghost, who was talking to a knight with an arrow sticking out of his forehead. Harry wasn't surprised to see that the Bloody Baron, a gaunt, staring Slytherin ghost covered in silver bloodstains, was being given a wide berth by the other ghosts.

"Oh no," Hermione said, stopping abruptly. "Turn back, turn back, I don't want to talk to Moaning Myrtle—"

"I like Myrtle!" (Y/n) object. Hermione shot her a look.

"Who?" Harry asked as they backtracked quickly.

"She haunts one of the toilets in the girls' bathroom on the first floor," Hermione explained.

"She haunts a toilet?"

"Yes. It's been out of order all year because she keeps having tantrums and flooding the place. I never went in there anyway if I could avoid it; it's awful trying to have a pee with her wailing at you—"