But Harry had no intention of going to the feast ...

But Harry had no intention of going to the feast ...

How could it be that the place was full of ghosts whenever you didn't need one, yet now ...

He ran down staircases and along corridors and met nobody either alive or dead. They were all, clearly, in the Great Hall. Outside his Charms classroom he came to a halt, panting and thinking disconsolately that he would have to wait until later, until after the end of the feast ...

But just as he had given up hope, he saw it—a translucent somebody drifting across the end of the corridor.

‘Hey—hey, Nick! NICK!’

The ghost stuck its head back out of the wall, revealing the extravagantly plumed hat and dangerously wobbling head of Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington.

‘Good evening,’ he said, withdrawing the rest of his body from the solid stone and smiling at Harry. ‘I am not the only one who is late, then? Though,’ he sighed, ‘in a rather different sense, of course ...’

‘Nick, can I ask you something?’

A most peculiar expression stole over Nearly Headless Nick's face as he inserted a finger in the stiff ruff at his neck and tugged it a little straighter, apparently to give himself thinking time. He desisted only when his partially severed neck seemed about to give way completely.

‘Er—now, Harry?’ said Nick, looking discomfited. ‘Can't it wait until after the feast?’

‘No—Nick— please,’ said Harry, ‘I really need to talk to you. Can we go in here?’

Harry opened the door of the nearest classroom and Nearly Headless Nick sighed.

‘Oh, very well,’ he said, looking resigned. ‘I can't pretend I haven't been expecting it.’

Harry was holding the door open for him, but he drifted through the wall instead.

‘Expecting what?’ Harry asked, as he closed the door.

‘You to come and find me,’ said Nick, now gliding over to the window and looking out at the darkening grounds. ‘It happens, sometimes ... when somebody has suffered a ... loss.’

‘Well,’ said Harry, refusing to be deflected. ‘You were right, I've—I've come to find you.’

Nick said nothing.

‘It's—’ said Harry, who was finding this more awkward than he had anticipated, ‘it's just— you're dead. But you're still here, aren't you?’

Nick sighed and continued to gaze out at the grounds.