Steph: Well, once again, this is another sick coupling. Less strange than some of the other fics on YouCan'tBeSerious, but strange nonetheless. This one, if you didn't read the summary, is Gregory Goyle x Nearly Headless Nick.

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That's That

Crabbe and Goyle guffawed, clutching cupcakes shaped like pumpkins as they tumbled down the dungeon steps. Everyone heading up to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast moved quickly out of their way. Despite being mere second years, they were some of the most feared students in the school.

As they came to a halt at the bottom of the stairs, Crabbe grunted something about going back to the common room to grab some more food. Goyle mumbled something in response, and Crabbe left. Goyle now had an hour or two free time while Crabbe found the common room, found what he needed and found his way back, so he decided to investigate a rather loud party seemingly taking place in the dungeons.

He entered the first dungeon he saw, but finding only Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey inside, he quickly backed out. Being too involved in what they were doing, they didn't notice. He continued onto the next dungeon. Inside was Snape stirring a bubbling cauldron, muttering "Double, double, toil and trouble". Goyle closed the door and moved along.

Finally he reached the final dungeon, and pushed open the door. Inside, there seemed to be some sort of ghost congregation taking place. A game of polo, using a severed head for the ball, was taking place in the middle of the room; onlookers cheered from the outskirts. Tables of rotten food were set up in aisles. One ghost, however, did not seem to be enjoying the party. He hovered glumly on the outskirts, sighing pitifully whenever a goal was scored. Goyle, having nothing better to do, approached him.

"Hello," grunted Goyle to Nearly-Headless Nick. Nick turned his head slowly towards the large boy, and then groaned.

"Another human at my party for the Headless Hunt to make fun of. Brilliant."

"Headless... Hunt?" questioned Goyle, a troll-like expression of confusion accompanying his troll-like grunting.

"Them," answered Nick irritably, gesturing towards the polo game as another massive roar rose from the spectral onlookers. Goyle nodded, although his face still maintained a befuddled expression. As a form of apology, Goyle picked up one of the rotting cupcakes and offered it to Nick. Nick stared at Goyle.

"Cupcake?" asked Goyle, interpreting Nick's stare as one of confusion. Nick simply gave Goyle a withering look, and drifted off in the direction of the exit. Goyle shrugged and bit into the cupcake. It had a rather interesting taste, particularly the mottled pink sparkles (little did Goyle know, but these were actually maggots).

After he had spent a considerable amount of time slowly eradicating the entire table of any scrap of food, he ambled slowly out of the dungeon, feeling rather content. He strolled along, omitting foul-smelling belches every so often so that people soon warned other people not to take that route down to the dungeons.

Soon he came across a room from which a strange noise was emerging. Goyle cocked his head, looking rather like a large troll who had just cocked his head. He walked into the room, remembering the interesting experience of walking in on Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey in a compromising position, and wondering if he could luck out like that again. As he entered the room, a choked voice cried out, "Don't come in!"

Nevertheless, Goyle pushed the door open and took in his surroundings. The room was one of the dungeons, and was therefore rather bare and cold. But it wasn't this that made him feel so chilled. It was the person in the room. That is, if you can call a ghost a person. But person or not, inside the room was Nearly-Headless Nick.

Nick was emitting a rather strange sound, something that Goyle couldn't quite put his rather large finger on. If you or I had been there at the time, however, we would have immediately recognised the sound to be sobbing.

"Whatchoo doin'?" asked Goyle, approaching the saddened spectre. Nick's head shot up immediately.

"What are you doing?" screeched the spirit, wiping his tears away angrily. "I specifically told you not to come in! Do you make it your business to ignore other people's requests? Do you make it your business to walk in on people who are obviously upset?"

"Up… set…?" repeated Goyle unwittingly. He tried the word out a couple of times, and, after finally dredging up the memories containing failed vocabulary tests at the age of 10, he realised what it meant. "Why're you upset?"

"Why do you think?" said Nick glumly, anger ebbing away as he realised the intellectual wreck that this boy was in. "Nobody wants to talk to me. Nobody wants to listen to me. Nobody cares about me. Why wouldn't I be upset?"

Goyle, not really knowing what else to do (or, indeed, anything else at all), leant over and patted Nick on his shoulder, not noticing when his hand went right through. Nick sniffed a word of thanks, placing his hand on Goyle's shoulder (also not noticing when his hand went right through).

"It's sad. The only person who cares is a dim-witted moron from Slytherin. Just what would the Bloody Baron say about this?" moaned Nick pitifully.

"Who cares?" grunted Goyle, before leaning in to grasp the ghost tightly in his arms in a bear hug. Nick hugged back, tears flowing freely down his semi-transparent face.

Many things happened in the room after that, none of which had previously been thought possible. For example, nobody thought that anybody could find a half-severed head attractive. Nobody thought that anybody could find a half-witted head attractive. And certainly nobody thought that they could find each other attractive. But they did. And that's that.

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Steph: And, as I just said, that's that.