"Nick!  Where'd you go?"

            "Calm down, you fool."

            "Where are you?"

            "I'm right here."

Sirius looked around the lift for the source of Nick's voice, until his eyes came to rest on the watery disturbance in the corner.

            "Boo."

Sirius gave a decidedly un-girly shriek.

            "But…  But where did you /go/, Nick?  Where's your body?"

            "Under a strip mall outside London.  There's a  Sharper Image there, y'know with the massage chairs?  Not quite a mausoleum with a view, but it will have to do, eh?  At least I'm not buried in some horrid lot in New Jersey, like Peeves is."

            "New Jersey?"

            "Yes, there was a frightful misunderstanding when he was interred.  Why do you think Peeves is so grouchy?  You would be too if you had to spend eternity in New Jersey."

Sirius was terribly confused.

            "Okay, but where is your, umm, ghostly body?  Why don't you have any form, like you did a few minutes ago?  And why didn't you say anything to me when we were on the lift earlier?"

            "I'd been at the Department for several hours already when you arrived, we couldn't have been on the same lift.  Must have been someone else."

            "I don't understand…"

Nearly Headless Nick sighed.  "Newbie ghost.  Okay, quick tutorial.  Right now, you look just like me.  And all other ghosts.  We all look the same to one another."

            "But back in the Department before, there were dozens of different ghosts!  How would I have recognized you, and you me, if we all looked the same?"

            "It's different in the Department of Ghosts, Sirius.  Oh, this is our stop."  Sirius followed the wiggling light that spoke with Nick's voice out of the lift and into the main lobby of the Ministry.  No one took any notice of the two ghosts, who floated to an empty corner to continue talking.

            "As I was saying," Nick continued, "ghosts rarely take on their human forms.  What you see right now, the shimmery bit of air in front of you?  That's me.  That's the form my soul takes to other ghosts.  And you look exactly the same.  We're completely invisible to the living, and we have no solidity.  We can't pick up a solid object or feel the temperature of the air.  If we walk right through a living person, they have no idea.  Go ahead, try it."

            Sirius looked down at what should have been his body.  There was nothing there, just a bit of haze.  He lifted his arm.  Sirius felt his arm move, but there was no change in the shapeless space where his body should have been.  He leaned against the wall, and started to fall right through it.

            "Why don't they see us?  I was able to see you when I was alive."

            "Ahh, but that was only at Hogwarts.  Did you ever see a ghost outside of Hogwarts' grounds?"

            "I think I might have seen a few in Hogsmeade."

            "Then those ghosts must have died there.  Sirius, we can only take on our old human form in certain circumstances.  First, you may haunt the location of your death.  Where did you die, may I ask?"

            "Downstairs, in the Department of Mysteries.  I think."

            "Oh that's a shame, it must be very lonely down there.  Second of all, you can haunt the location of your body.  Hence, there is a haunted Sharper Image outside London.  The proprietors are quite frightened by me," Nick's voice swelled with pride.

            "I… I don't know if I was… if there was a body."

            "Really?  Blown to smithereens, eh?  Well that is also a shame, you're just as bad off as the poor ghosts who were cremated.  Pity."

Sirius was growing anxious.  "Where else could I haunt?"

            "You can apply for special dispensation at the Department of Ghosts to be allowed to haunt somewhere besides your locations of death and burial.  However, usually this is only permitted when the ghost was, say, tortured to the brink of death in some antagonist's lair, but ultimately died in St. Mungo's."

            "That's it then?  The only place I can be a real ghost is in the Department of Mysteries?"

            "No, not quite.  There are many safe spots for ghosts around the world.  Hogwarts is one of them.  Us four house ghosts, Professor Binns, and a few others are on staff there.  Dumbledore's doing, of course.  So we're allowed to stay at Hogwarts during the school year, and we can invite friends on special occasions, like Death-days."

            "What about Moaning Myrtle?"

            "She actually died in that bathroom stall she haunts.  Poor girl; she chose to come back to haunt some little witch in her year who had taunted her.  But now the bully has long since graduated, and Myrtle hasn't anywhere else to go."  Nick coughed lightly.  "And there are some other places, too.  Hundreds of "haunted houses" allow real ghosts on Halloween.  The Department of Ghosts, Ghouls, and Poltergeists, of course, lets all ghosts take form there, to prevent confusion.  There's some monastery in Indonesia that accepts ghosts by the dozen.  Opera houses sometimes like to employ resident ghosts too."

Sirius, however, was not interested in haunting an opera house. 

"Do you think I would be allowed at Hogwarts?"

            "I don't know.  I suppose you could apply to Dumbledore for a position; did he perhaps favor you while you were a student?"

Sirius laughed.  "No, you remember, Nick, I was quite the troublemaker.  But I think he likes me now.  I think."

            "Then perhaps he will try to find a spot for you!  But remember, Sirius," Nick softened his tone confidentially.  "Even if you do come to Hogwarts.  All the students do eventually graduate.  In a few years, you will be just as alone at Hogwarts as you would be in that monastery in Indonesia."

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