Chris, Harry, Ron, and Hermione walked straight past the doorway to the packed Great Hall, which was glittering invitingly with gold plates and candles, and directed their 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 their own living faces. The temperature dropped with every step they took. As Harry shivered and drew his robes tightly around him.
Chris 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. . . ."
"Hello, Nick!" Chris said. "Harry invited me here, do you mind...?"
"Of course not. Harry Potter's friends are always welcomed."
He said then 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," 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.
"Oh, no," said Hermione, 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.
"Really? I saw that the bathroom was out of order." Chris said.
"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."
"Yeah, it'll be really weird."
Harry looked at Chris to Hermione, and Hermione went pink, thinking about what she just said. Chris just rolled her eyes.
"What?" Chris asked Harry.
"Er... nothing," Harry replied and hurried after Ron, who was already walking towards a table.
On the other side of the dungeon was a long table, also covered in black velvet. They approached it eagerly but next moment had stopped in their tracks, horrified. The smell was quite disgusting. Large, rotten fish was laid on handsome silver platters; cakes, burned charcoal-black, were heaped on salvers; there was a great maggoty haggis, a slab of cheese covered in furry green mould and, in pride of place, an enormous grey cake in the shape of a tombstone, with tar-like icing forming the words,
SIR NICHOLAS DE MIMSY-ORPINGTON
DIED 31ST OCTOBER, 1492
Chris watched, amazed, as a portly ghost approached the table, crouched low, and walked through it, his mouth held wide so that it passed through one of the stinking salmon.
"Can you taste it if you walk through it?" Harry asked him.
"Almost," said the ghost sadly, and he drifted away.
"Ok, so, right now, I'm really regretting this," Chris said looking at the food. "I just missed my first Halloween feast. I'm really hungry, you know."
"Me too." Ron sighed. "Can we move? I feel sick."
They had barely turned around, however, when a little man swooped suddenly from under the table and came to a halt in midair before them.
"Hello, Peeves," said Chris.
Unlike the ghosts around them, Peeves the Poltergeist was the very reverse of pale and transparent. He was wearing a bright orange party hat, a revolving bow tie, and a broad grin on his wide, wicked face.
"Nibbles?" he said sweetly, offering them a bowl of peanuts covered in fungus.
"No thanks," said Hermione.
"Heard you talking about poor Myrtle," said Peeves, his eyes dancing. "Rude you was about poor Myrtle." He took a deep breath and bellowed, "OI! MYRTLE!"
"Oh, no, Peeves, don't tell her what I said, she'll be really upset," Hermione whispered frantically. "I didn't mean it, I don't mind her — er, hello, Myrtle."
The squat ghost of a girl had glided over. She had the glummest face Chris had ever seen, half-hidden behind lank hair and thick, pearly spectacles.
"What?" she said sulkily.
"How are you, Myrtle?" said Hermione in a falsely bright voice. "It's nice to see you out of the toilet."
"Hello, Myrtle," Chris said quickly. "I'm Christina Norton. Nice to meet you."
Myrtle sniffed.
"Miss Granger and Miss Norton, here was just talking about you —" said Peeves slyly in Myrtle's ear.
Hermione frantically looked at Chris, who smiled at Myrtle.
"About the ghosts' Hogwarts houses. Which house you were in, Myrtle?" Chris asked politely.
"Me?" Myrtle looked slightly surprised, then stopped sniffing and said proudly, "Ravenclaw. Why?"
"Oh, that's great," Hermione said. "I didn't know."
"We were just curious," Chris said. "So I guess you must be really smart?"
"You're making fun of me," she said, suddenly silver tears welling rapidly in her small, see-through eyes.
"Of course not Myrtle," Chris replied seriously. "It's my first time meeting you, why would I do that?"
"Really?" Myrtle stopped crying but still looked suspicious.
"Honestly," Hermione added.
"Well, people don't usually call me smart," Myrtle said.
"Right, that call you Fat Myrtle! Ugly Myrtle! Miserable, moaning, moping Myrtle! Pimply Myrtle," Peeves hissed in her ear.
Moaning Myrtle burst into anguished sobs and fled from the dungeon. Peeves shot after her, pelting her with mouldy peanuts, yelling, "Pimply! Pimply!"
"Oh, dear," said Hermione sadly.
Chris sighed.
"Poor Myrtle."
"Thanks for saving me there Chris. I really wasn't sure what I was going to say to her." Hermione said.
Chris smiled.
Nearly Headless Nick now drifted toward them through the crowd.
"Enjoying yourselves?"
"Oh. Yes." Harry lied.
"Nick, can I ask you something?" Chris asked.
"Yes. Yes. Ask." Nick answered.
"Well. Harry told us about the Headless Hunt thing. Is that very important to you ?"
"Yes. You see, it's a very prestigious thing. I want to participate in the Hunt activities. However, according to Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore, I don't fulfil the requirement for huntsmen because of half an inch of skin in my neck." Nick said furiously.
"Oh!" Hermione gave a confused it's-a-good-thing-or-a-bad-thing look.
Nick sighed.
"That is my I want Mr Potter to mention in front of Sir Patrick how very frightening and impressive he finds me." He said.
"Umm. Nick, I think, you are pretty impressive. I don't think, there is any need to prove that. You are a very good-hearted person... er... I mean ghost." Chris said and Nick smiled broadly.
Suddenly the orchestra stopped playing and everyone else in the dungeon was looking around in excitement, as a hunting horn sounded.
"Oh, here we go," said Nearly Headless Nick bitterly.
Chris, Harry, Ron and Hermione also looked around. Through the dungeon, wall burst a dozen ghost horses, each ridden by a headless horseman. The assembly clapped wildly; Harry started to clap, too, but Chris nudged him and pointed at Nick's expression which was not so good. Harry abruptly stopped clapping.