They sat on the bus, their minds grappling with the decision to turn around and go back to Manson Manor to bother Sam about the amulet, or to just get off the bus in the next five minutes at Danny's.

"Maybe we can just check on the portal and call it a night. If the ghost doesn't come back looking for her necklace tonight, I'll consider myself lucky until tomorrow."

"This will really put stress on your pre-homecoming acne," Tucker joked.

"Hey, I don't have acne! Not since I went all super-human."

"Half-human. Just another reason for me to hate you," Tucker said, mock-punching Danny's arm.

The bus arrived at Danny's stop and the two got out. When they entered Fentonworks, Maddie Fenton was almost done making a late dinner, and Jazz was sitting at the kitchen table with a psychology textbook in front of her.

"Welcome home," Maddie Fenton said. "Tucker! Are you staying for dinner?"

"Depends, what are we having?"

Maddie laughed and Danny rolled his eyes. They had just had pizza and already Tucker wanted more.

"We're having pork chops."

"Oh, heaven," Tucker sighed. "Count me in. Where's Mr. Fenton?"

"Dad's 'fishing' in the basement," Jazz said with a groan.

"I told him not to get too sucked in before dinner," Maddie said, shaking her head.

Danny shot Tucker a panicked glance. "We're going to go hangout with Dad," he said quickly.

"Alright, but food will be ready in fifteen minutes!"

Danny's stomach lurched at the thought of more food, but he didn't say anything to disappoint his mother.

"Come on," he told Tucker.

The two raced down the stairs and sure enough found Jack Fenton in his chair, the Fenton Fisher in his right hand.

"Boys! Care to pull up a seat and shoot the breeze while I rustle us up a ghost? I saw on your keycode that you closed down the portal last night, son, but don't worry about that in future. I prefer to keep it open."

"Oh, okay... Um, Dad, Mom says dinner's ready in fifteen."

"Dang. I'm always losing track of time down here. Guess I'd better wash up and take out the trash like she asked, huh?"

"Probably," Danny agreed, his eyes flitting back and forth between the Fenton Portal and the Fenton Fisher in his father's hand.

Jack reeled in the line and stretched. He then closed the portal doors but didn't shut it down.

"We can always fish after dinner," he said with a grin. Then he bounded up the basement stairs to go wash up.

Danny looked at Tucker with a sense of unease.

"You're supposed to use the encrypted ghost code I gave you to turn off the portal," Tucker hissed. "That will prevent your dad from realizing you shut it down."

"I know! I forgot but... what happens," he asked, "if my dad keeps opening up the portal every time that I turn my back?"

Tucker cringed. "You're gonna be hunting ghosts every hour of the day."

Danny groaned, covering his face with his hands. "I'm so screwed, aren't I?"

"Doubly-so if your dad keeps finding out you are the one who is impeding his ghost hunting."

"Fine," Danny said. He stepped forward to look at the keypad.

"What are you doing?"

"Shutting it down with my ghost code."

"You can't do that now!"

"What? Why not?"

"Your dad just said he would be back down here after dinner. If you shut it down, ghost code or not, he's going to get suspicious and start digging."

"This is my dad we're talking about, not my mom. He'll just think the thing is wonky."

"Or he'll mess with the portal system, and I'll have to re-learn the code to get you secret access again."

Danny wanted to curse. "What do I do, then, Tucker? Leave it unsupervised so that any ghost dragon can come waltzing back in whenever it wants?"

"I mean... for now, yeah."

"Great. Keeping my secret has been killing my GPA, ruining my sleep schedule, and now, letting ghosts run free."

Tucker reached out and put an arm around Danny's shoulders, pulling him away from the portal and back toward the stairs.

"Yeah, but you also un-haunt houses and protect people from scary lunch ladies and waterpark demons."

Danny cracked a half-smile that didn't meet his eyes. "Can't someone else do all that?"

"Oh, I'll gladly take your powers. It'll grow me a few extra inches tall and really fill out these muscles!"

Tucker dramatically flexed his wiry arms and Danny finally laughed with him. They climbed the stairs and closed the basement door behind them.

.

.

.

Sam hadn't meant to be upset with the boys. It just felt like everything was coming apart at the seams that week. She threw her AP English textbook across the room in her frustration, and it landed with a thud on the hardwood, as well as something next to her which clattered to the floor by the bed.

"Oh, no."

Sam reached down and picked up the ghost amulet. Danny must have left it behind. Luckily it wasn't broken. It was still cold and sleek and totally not her style.

She thought about all the studying she had to do, all the essays she had to write, and decided to put them on hold. How could AP English compare with a supernatural mystery? Her little goth heart sang.

Another ten minutes of Googling later and she finally found what she was looking for.

"Oh, wow," she whispered as she clicked through an archive page. It was a history graduate student's thesis paper discussing Draconia Verde, a painting by a medieval artist that depicted a young noblewoman with long, golden hair wearing an emerald amulet around her neck.

Draconia Verde, the paper said, is the last painting by the artist known as Titus Montego, who tragically passed only weeks after its completion. A turn-of-the-century piece commissioned by the Draco (pronounced Drahk-Oh) family in 1201, Draconia Verde is a portrait done in primitive oils. The painting was meant as a bridal advertisement for the still unwed seventh princess, Dorathea Ebeta Draco, in the hopes that a young noble lord would finally show interest in the girl.

"That's both insulting and depressing," Sam said, looking at the poor girl's hopeful, painted expression as she wore her amulet proudly.

It was no secret among the Draco family that Dorathea's inability to find a match had become a burden for making advantageous political connections. Though not directly in line for the throne, the Draco family was of royal blood on their father's side. Their most famous connection to the royal family was their collection of rare emerald amulets – the issuance of which was akin to a royal seal, establishing their nobility. Emerald was also the official color of the Draco household crest, which bore a pair of twin fire-breathing dragons.

"Well, that might explain things." Though it didn't clarify how the amulet would give the ghost magic powers after death, of course.

Sam kept reading.

Dorathea was the only sibling to Aragon Godfrey Draco, fifth prince of the then-named Avalonia kingdom. He was later infamously known as the "Userpent" for his attempts to push himself further up the line of succession by murdering the fourth and third princes of Avalonia. He, and subsequently the entire Draco family, were executed for his crimes. Dorathea was only twenty years old, and still unwed at her death.

Sam sat back in shock. The paper went on to say that Dorathea left behind several journals, all listed in a deeper archive on the web, but she couldn't bear to read what the poor princess had written.

"What the actual hell," she said, wanting to throw something else. She thought she had problems. "What a complete freak. How could he get his own sister killed? How could he humiliate her with that painting to marry her off? What a monster!"

Sam felt the weight of the necklace as it sat balanced on her knee and wanted to cry for the poor girl. It was hard to justify crying for someone long-dead, but that powerlessness that the girl had felt – her family's disdain for her being single and unwed, for not meeting their exact expectations – it nearly brought her to tears.

How often had she also felt like a societal black sheep? A disappointment to her parents?

"I can't look at you anymore," she said to the amulet. Then she dropped it into her backpack. "You're going back to Danny's where you belong."

Sam spent the rest of the night studying, but not absorbing any of the information. Her light purple highlighter dragged over her notes. Her pen tapped, tapped, tapped against her knee.

Her mind kept drifting to the ghost dragon and her evil brother. She thought about her parents and their nagging, their desire for her to do something "useful" with her life.

The worst of it all, though, was when she thought about Danny and Paulina's phone number. About the dance that she had never been invited to. Not even once.

Everything rattled around in her head so loudly that it was impossible to study at all.

At one in the morning, she gave up. Closing the laptop and turning out the light, Sam finally went to bed.

Thanks for reading and reviewing!

I decided to put in my own lore. I always thought there was so much potential for the dragon siblings. Especially when there was an actual photo of Dora in the show that showed her as a living person in medieval times.

There is a lot of debate in the DP community about whether or not the ghosts were actually real people once, and I know that BH stated that they are "monsters" which doesn't make much sense in the canon. I decided I liked that they were living people once. They should have backstories and interesting arcs!

I hope you agree!

I'm going to try to post a second chapter this month, so watch for it!

-Song