Ch 57 – Death Day Party
Only, after McGonagall was gone, Harry came back running after talking with Nick, and declared something very intriguing, “We're going to a Deathday Party!"
"We're what now?" Lucifer said, not being heard of this party before.
"A Deathday Party?" Hermione asked, her interests peaked. "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?" Ron asked. He was grumpy because Hermione didn't help him in his homework while he ate, and he wasn't pleased, "It sounds dead depressing to me...”
“But, It's a personal invite from the host, Sir Nicholas De Mimsy-Porpington himself." Harry said cheerfully, as if this was the best thing in the world.
"Yay... can't wait!" Lucifer cheered sarcastically, after realised who gave the invite.
"Oh, come on Luci-" Hermione began.
“I'd rather you didn't...”
“I'm going to the bathroom...” she said with a blush creeping up her face and a bite of her lip.
“Whoops...” Lucifer mumbled as Harry snorted in laughter, knocking over an ink pot and spilling its contents all over Ron's half-finished Potions essay.
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By the time Halloween arrived, Harry had voiced his regret at agreeing to go to the Death Day party, "A promise is a promise," Hermione reminded him bossily, "you said you would go, so you have to go."
The rest of the school was happily anticipating the Halloween feast; the Great Hall had been decorated with the usual live bats, Hagrid's vast pumpkins were carved into lanterns with enough room to have three men sit inside, and there were rumors that Dumbledore had booked a troupe of dancing skeletons for entertainment this year.
Lucifer more than anything wanted to see the dancing skeletons, but he was stuck going to a Death Day party.
He voiced his discontent several times, but Hermione, who mistook his sarcastic answer, reminded Lucifer of making a promise to her several times.
Once Seven o'clock neared, the four of them walked straight past the entrance to the Great Hall,
which was glittering invitingly with gold plates and candles, and they directed their steps instead towards the dungeons.
Unknowingly, Harry now becomes a double agent in mixing his two groups of friends, in his debacles.
He just thought, it was a pretty good thing, for being able to decrease the bad blood.
The Passageway that led to Nearly Headless Nick's party had been lined with candles, just like the Great Hall.
These candles, however, were far from giving off a cheerful vibe.
They were long, thin, jet-black tapers, all burning bright blue, casting a dim, ghostly light, even over their own living faces.
Lucifer think they were actually pretty sweet. It didn't take long for a sound to enter their ears; it was like nails on a chalkboard, a thousand nails, but with the rhythm it seemed to have, it gave off an eerie feeling of someone thinking it to be music.
"Is that supposed to be music?" Ron asked in a whisper. 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 said, sweeping off his plumed hat and bowing them inside, his head flinging about as he did.
Lucifer had to admit that it was an incredible sight.
The dungeon was full of hundreds of pearly-white, translucent ghosts, mostly drifting around a crowded dance floor, waltzing to the dreadful, quavering and maddening sound of thirty musical saws, played by an orchestra on a raised, black- draped platform.
"The color black is popular among dead people....” Lucifer whispered
Hermione smacked his shoulder lightly, while giving him a side glare to behave.
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, shifting his feet back and forth slightly.
"Just be careful not to walk through anyone... it's a spine-chilling feeling," Ron said as a warning, and he nervously set off around the edge of the dance floor.
Only, Hermione was shivering and turned to the boys, “Think you can keep yourselves entertained for a while?” She asked.
Two boys looked confused but nodded, after that, Hermione turned her gaze on Lucifer.
“Come on?” she asked, while seizing his hand and pulled Lucifer out to the dance floor.
He placed a hand around her waist and wrapped his other in hers, “I thought you didn't dance?” Lucifer asked as they began swaying across the floor.
“I don't care,” She smiled up at him as he twirled her away, “Need to keep warm somehow don't we?”
They drifted slowly across the dance floor; the music wasn't the best but it was worth it to be there with him.
“Glad to see you're enjoying yourselves,” came Nick's voice as they waltzed past him.
“It's a unique experience,” said Lucifer smiling at him.
“Yeah, but it's a little bit chilly down here though....” Hermione just started to complain.
Nick clasped a hand to his forehead.
"Of course! I am so sorry my friends. Temperature has never been a concern for us!”
But Lucifer shook his face at him, not finding any difficulty with this temperature in the slightest.
Then his eyes told Hermione to be a little polite, who just sighed inwardly.
“We've managed fine Nick, if anything I'm getting a bit warm,” Hermione said, who was indeed quite pink in the face, “Thank you for hosting.”
Sir Nick bowed low again and moved off across the floor to speak to some of his other guests.
“We should probably find the others soon, ” Lucifer gave her a reminder.
Hermione groaned but nodded, went to move off but her legs wouldn't obey her, they just kept moving into the next dance step.
“One more?” She asked him, after a few moments of neither pulling away.
“...One more.”
After three more 'one mores', they finally moved off and found Ron and Harry hovering over a group of gloomy nuns, a ragged man wearing chains and silently saying that 'it wasn't him' on repeat.
Lucifer did wink at them, causing Gloomy-looking Nuns to brighten up their mood a bit.
Hermione looked disapprovingly at him.
They also passed the Fat Friar, a cheerful Hufflepuff ghost, who was talking to a knight with an arrow sticking out of his forehead.
"Do you ever just want to ask a ghost with an obvious cause of death just exactly how it happened? Would that be considered rude, in here?" Lucifer wondered out loud.
"I don't know, but don't go around asking these ghosts how they died, or we may be driven out of here," Hermione informed him and he sighed.
Lucifer caught sight of the Slytherin House ghost, the Bloody Baron, and saw that he was being given a wide berth by the other ghosts.
If anything, he could say with confidence that the Bloody Baron was the coolest looking Ghost he'd seen so far.
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