Chasing Ghosts // Seb x MC One Shot

Chasing Ghosts

Actually, I don't really need Halloween. After being trapped in this Scriptorium with Ominis and Sebastian, I actually had enough horror for a whole year.

By the way, I don't mean the Scriptorium – that was exciting. What was scary was Ominis' and Sebastian's mood, especially towards the end.

I still feel exhausted from last night. The boys are basically no help in solving puzzles, and the running around finally wore me out. Today I had a hard time getting out of bed, yawned profusely in every lesson, and dragged myself to the evening feast with little enthusiasm.

The Great Hall is bustling as usual, with the added sparkle of the never-ending flames in the pumpkins that adorn the hall's endless ceiling. They float like silent reminders of our magic, and I get goosebumps as  I look back and forth between the pumpkins and candles floating above my head.

It took me so long to finally get to Hogwarts. I missed four years of these events, four years in which I should have celebrated here with my classmates, laughing. Now I'm like one of the first years, dazzled by the impressions, while my classmates sit unimpressed at the table, impatiently waiting for the feast to begin, as if they hadn't noticed the magic of the situation at all.

A little uncertainly, I linger at the front end of the Slytherin table. I see Sebastian and Ominis, both silently gazing in different directions, and debate with myself whether I should join them.

Of course, it has nothing to do with the fact that I felt a shiver run down my spine when Sebastian looked at me intently in the Scriptorium last night. Or that I noticed my stomach fluttering.

These strange flushes were most likely triggered by the absurd situation and have nothing to do with his brown eyes, which shimmer gold in the warm light.

Definitely not.

No, I'm not sure if I want to sit with them because they obviously haven't settled their squabbling yet. Being with them is like being the fifth wheel on a cart that you never wanted to be part of anyway. They're constantly bickering – and at the same time it's too amusing not to thoroughly enjoy.

With a sigh, I sit down, at least for the moment, next to Grace Pinch-Smedley. She is reasonably well-mannered towards me because I pulled this astrolabe out of the lake for her – and she has apparently forgiven me for pretending to want to keep the damn thing. I had briefly considered it, to be honest – but then thought that I haven't got a clue what to do with it anyway.

So, I just gave it back to her but asked for money.

I'm not stupid.

'You're late,' Grace says when I sit down. People are still walking around the hall all over the place. Somehow, I get the impression that she is a very proper person.

'I'm a little tired,' I say curtly. 'Did I miss something?'

'The Bloody Baron traumatised a few first years,' Imelda replies unimpressed. 'Otherwise, nothing.'

I have seen little of our house ghost so far. Once he caught me on my way to the toilet at night in my pyjamas and immediately insulted me for my attire. Not everyone can be a ghost and run around day in and day out in their blood-soaked clothes. After all, it's not red blood in the traditional sense, but shimmering silver on his transparent robe. But still.

'Why does he look like that?' I ask, just as the food appears on the plates. 'So... smeared.'

Imelda shrugs. 'No idea. He doesn't like to talk about it.'

Why am I not surprised that Imelda has obviously already tried to get this information?

The feast is a culinary delight. I ended up eating my body weight in pumpkin pastries, and when dessert arrives and I want to stuff myself with another equal amount of pumpkin pie, my insides threaten to turn inside out. Because I really don't feel like having my dinner go through my head, I decide against the third helping.