Chapter 103: The Skeleton Dance Troupe, and Clean Walls

On Halloween, the entire castle seemed to be drifting with a sweet, pumpkin fragrance.

Harry was immensely relieved that he could attend the Halloween feast with everyone else, rather than spending it in a gloomy, cold underground classroom with ghosts.

So at seven o'clock, he made a point of calling for Silven to head to the Great Hall together for the banquet.

When Harry came knocking, Silven was gripping Tom by the scruff of his neck, warning him to behave himself today.

"Either you go back to the Forbidden Forest, or you stay in the dormitory — in any case, don't wander around the castle today."

Tom didn't look very obedient, kicking and squirming in Silven's grip.

Silven wanted to say more, but just then Harry appeared at the dormitory doorway.

"Silven, the Halloween feast is about to start."

"I'm coming." Silven said, casually tossing Tom onto an empty bed nearby. "Remember — the rest of the time is up to you, but tonight you don't go anywhere."

Only then did Silven finish putting on his school robes, don a pointed hat, and walk out of the dormitory, tapping the door lock with his wand as he went.

With a soft *click*, Silven finally nodded in satisfaction.

"Surely there's no need to lock the door?" Harry said, a little puzzled. "Everyone's about to head to the Halloween feast — the common room will be empty."

"That's to keep Tom from getting out," Silven said. "That fellow can pick locks from the inside."

Only then did Harry recall that Silven seemed to have a pet cat named Tom, though he had barely ever seen it.

If he remembered correctly, the last time he'd seen that cat was at the start of last term, when Hagrid was ferrying the first-years across the river — it had been perched quietly on Silven's shoulder.

"A pet cat should be fine, shouldn't it?" Harry asked. "I've seen plenty of pets in the corridors — the professors tacitly allow them to roam the castle freely."

"If Tom gets out, you might not be seeing those other pets again," Silven said offhandedly.

Perhaps it was because the name itself carried too much killing intent — although, under Silven's insistence, Tom had long since stopped eating his "colleagues," his temper was still foul, and his territorial instincts were growing ever stronger.

Mrs. Norris had already developed a psychological shadow from him — the moment she caught sight of Silven, she would instinctively veer away.

Even when an owl flew over Tom's head, he looked ready to leap up and slap it across the face.

That was one of the reasons Silven wanted to keep him shut in the dormitory.

But what Silven hadn't expected was that, the moment he and Harry had only just left the common room, Tom had used his front paws to pry open the window and hopped out onto the outer ledge.

The ledge along the eighth-floor outer wall was only a few inches wide, but Tom walked along it as easily as flat ground, and soon he had found his target — with a powerful kick of his hind legs, he nimbly leapt through an open window.

By then, however, Silven had already entered the Great Hall, staring in astonishment as Hagrid set down a pumpkin bigger than himself beside the High Table.

"Tonight's programme is wonderful — I hope you all enjoy yourselves."

Once Hagrid had finished speaking, he left.

Normally, he rarely came to the Great Hall to eat with everyone; Dumbledore's invitations had been turned down several times.

When the Halloween feast officially began, all those enormous pumpkins lit up, and at Dumbledore's direction they drifted slowly up into the air.

Several thousand bats had long been waiting in midair — the moment the jack-o'-lanterns rose, they swarmed together at once, a dark mass like a colossal thundercloud, and charged headlong toward a stage that had been set up in advance at the front.

The students in the front row shrieked in fright, and the entire thundercloud burst apart into countless streams of colored smoke — twelve skeletons, gleaming with a pearly sheen, materialized out of thin air amid the haze.

"Look — it's the Skeleton Dance Troupe!" An excited scream erupted from the crowd.

Silven looked over as well.

The twelve skeletons arranged themselves into an oval beneath the enchanted ceiling.

Moonlight fell upon a skeleton holding a bone violin; using a tibia as its bow, it drew out the first note.

Then violas, cellos, harps, flutes and other instruments joined in one after another.

Six skeletons moved into the center of the oval, and then they began to dance.

It was a waltz. Their fleshless bodies made them all the more agile — every movement was impossibly precise, at once macabre and graceful.

Silven could hardly believe he was actually seeing elegance in a troupe of skeletons. And clearly, he wasn't the only one who felt that way.

Hermione was utterly transfixed, staring at the stage without blinking; Harry was pouring pumpkin juice, but so absorbed in the sight that he didn't notice his cup had long since overflowed, and most of the drink had spilled across the table.

At the High Table in the front, Dumbledore was tapping out the beat for them with his hand.

After one piece, the Skeleton Dance Troupe launched into another, more lively tune, lifting the atmosphere of the entire Great Hall to its peak.

"This is absolutely brilliant!" Harry shouted, taking a hearty bite of pumpkin pasty.

Last year, because of Quirrell, the Halloween feast had ended abruptly not long after it began — thank goodness he'd come this year; missing such a spectacular performance would have been a real regret.

Silven nodded as well — the Skeleton Dance Troupe truly lived up to its reputation; no wonder it was so famous.

It was said that every Halloween, they received several hundred invitations from across the entire Wizarding World; probably only Dumbledore could have coaxed them to Hogwarts to perform at a time like this.

Silven clapped and cheered along with everyone else.

Setting other factors aside, this Halloween was genuinely lovely — and the pumpkin pasties were delicious too.

But every feast must come to an end.

As the Skeleton Dance Troupe made their exit, the last slice of pumpkin pudding vanished, and the plates became shiny and new once more.

The still-reluctant students rose to their feet and began filing out of the Great Hall.

Silven left the Great Hall with the crowd and headed up the staircase.

Just then, Hermione suddenly called out to him in surprise: "Silven, aren't you going to the Deathday Party for the ghosts?"

"I want to go back to the dormitory to grab something," Silven said, and the other two didn't suspect a thing.

Hermione discussed with Harry whether they should go too — she figured they had nothing on right now, and it wouldn't hurt to broaden their horizons a bit.

And perhaps because they had just seen the Skeleton Dance Troupe at the Halloween feast, even Ron didn't feel quite so averse to the so-called ghost party.

But Silven couldn't have cared less about what they were thinking — as he reached the second floor with the crowd, his mood grew tenser and tenser.

The staircase to the third floor turned the other way, forcing them to head to the opposite side; when the crowd pushed and jostled their way into a corridor, Silven immediately looked up.

Then he suddenly let out a laugh.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked, bewildered.

"Nothing," Silven said with a smile, looking thoroughly pleased.

He was in a genuinely good mood, because the walls on either side of the corridor were spotlessly clean—no red writing, nothing at all.

Later on the fifth floor Silven ran into Filch on patrol, and Lady Lorries did exactly as before—spotted him from afar and fled—but Silven still caught sight of a tail.

That made his mood even better.

Going further on, they also ran into a crying ghost, who flew past them with her face covered.

Peeves chased after her, pelting her with mouldy peanuts while giggling merrily.

"That's Moaning Myrtle, a ghost from the second-floor girls' lavatory," Hermione said. "She and Peeves are probably the two ghosts I'd least like to run into."

Luckily the two ghosts came and went quickly, vanishing in the blink of an eye.

The group reached the middle of the corridor.

"Oh, no—this staircase goes down. We still need to find another one…" Before Harry could finish, he saw Silven step onto it.

"Silven, you're going the wrong way. That staircase leads to the first floor."

"Exactly. To get to the Wangdixia Sect, I obviously have to go to the first floor first," Silven said.

"Weren't you going back to the dorm to get something?"

"I just noticed it's been in my pocket the whole time." Silven casually pulled out a piece of parchment. "Do you want to come along?"

The three exchanged a glance and hurried up the staircase after him.

"Do you think ghosts like to dance too?" Ron asked, and a waltz performed by the Skeleton Dance Troupe immediately sprang into his mind.

That really had been the most brilliant performance he had ever seen.

"Probably," Hermione said uncertainly. "Nick likes being called Sir Poppington, which means he was a nobleman when he was alive, and nobles should all dance at balls, right?"

"I think so too."

Chatting animatedly, the group walked from the first floor to the staircase entrance leading down to the Wangdixia Sect.

However, once they got there, they all fell silent.

The air clearly carried an extra stench of rot, and a sound like a thousand saws grinding against each other bored into their ears from deep within the Wangdixia Sect.

At that moment, their fantasies about the ghost ball began to crumble rapidly.

What was going on? The music played by the Skeleton Dance Troupe had been so lovely—so why was the ghosts' music here… no, this couldn't even be called music; it was noise, pure and utter noise!

(End of this chapter)