In Between Two Worlds (HP/PJO Crossover)

Chapter 50: The Deathday Party.

"A deathday party?" said Hermione keenly once Harry had joined me, Bailey, Hermione, and Ron in the common room. "I bet there aren't many living people who can say they've been to one of those-it'll be fascinating!"

"Why would anyone want to celebrate the day they died?" said Ron, who was halfway through his Potions homework and grumpy. "Sounds dead depressing to me..."

Harry was at the point of telling us about Filch and a Kwikspell course he was gonna take when a salamander that Fred and George were putting fireworks in suddenly whizzed into the air, emitting loud sparks and bangs as it whirled wildly round the room. The sight of Percy bellowing himself hoarse at Fred and George, the spectacular display of tangerine stars showering from the salamander's mouth, and its escape into the fire, with accompanying explosions, drove both Filch and the Kwikspell envelope from all of our minds.

<<>>|<<>>|<<>>

Halloween arrived and we were all regretting Harry's rash promise for us to go to the deathday party. 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 rumors that Dumbledore had booked a troupe of dancing skeletons for the entertainment.

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

So at seven o'clock, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Bailey, and I walked straight past the doorway to the packed Great Hall, which was glittering invitingly with gold plates and candles, and directed our steps instead toward the dungeons.

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 our own living faces. The temperature dropped with every step we took. It was getting hard for me to stand the cold temperatures. As we got closer we heard what sounded like a thousand fingernails scraping an enormous blackboard.

"Is that supposed to be music?" Bailey whispered. We 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 us inside.

It was an incredible sight. The dungeon was full of hundreds of pearlywhite, 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. Our breath rose in a mist before them; it was like stepping into a freezer.

"Shall we have a look around?" Harry suggested.

"Careful not to walk through anyone," said Ron nervously, and we set off around the edge of the dance floor. We 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. I 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," I said stopping abruptly. "Turn back, turn back, I don't want to talk to Moaning Myrtle-"

"Who?" said Harry as they backtracked quickly.

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

"She haunts a toilet?"