𝐈 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 [𝐇𝐨𝐠𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬]

Chapter Six

𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐃:

𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐎
- THE MESSAGE ON THE WALL

     𝐁𝐘 the time Halloween arrived, Harry was regretting his rash promise to go to the Deathday Party. The rest of the school were happily anticipating their Hallowe'en 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.

   "Well a promise is a promise" [y/n] reminded Harry. "And you said you'd go to the Deathday Party" Hermione added in.

   So, at seven o'clock, Harry, Ron, Hermione and [y/n] walked straight past the doorway to the packed Great Hall, which was glittering invitingly with gold plates and candles, and directed their steps instead towards 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 their own living faces. The temperature dropped with every step they took. As Harry shivered and drew his robes tightly around him, he heard what sounded like a thousand fingernails scraping an enormous blackboard.

   "Is that supposed to be music?" Ron whispered. 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 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 to [y/n] trying to brighten the mood. She smiled sweetly at him nodding in agreement which made Harry blush a bit.

   "Careful not to walk through anyone" said Ron 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" said Hermione, stopping abruptly. She turned to [y/n] who knew exactly what Hermione was thinking the moment she looked at the direction Hermione was looking at.