A/N: Thank you for taking the time to read and/or review my story. I'm hoping to have time to write more over Thanksgiving Break so that the next chapter will be out soon.

Disclaimer: If it sounds familiar then I probably don't own it. Please don't sue me.

As soon as Charms ends, I try to find Nico. I don't know what got into Ron and Harry, but I can't believe them. There's no way all Slytherins are evil. Look at Nico, he's a hero and Draco, sure he's a little mean, probably a little depressed, but not evil. At least I don't think he is.

"Wow, I never thought I would see the day when William Solace isn't smiling," Nico says from somewhere to my left. With all the students changing classes, it's hard to find him among the blur of black cloaks. "What cloud covered up your sunny disposition? Do I need to duel someone?" Nico practically materializes next to me. I realize that for once Draco isn't shadowing him. Actually, I don't see Adrian around either. They must have gone on ahead to our next class.

"What? No. No!" Then in case he doesn't understand, "Don't go getting into duels with anyone."

"It would be a wizarding duel."

"That doesn't make it better. Actually I think it makes it worse." I stress.

Nico shrugs innocently. "What do we have next? You still have my schedule," he changes the topic without agreeing.

"Oh, right." I riffle through my stuff to find the piece of paper. " We have," it takes a moment for my brain to make sense of the cursive wording, "Defense Against the Dark Arts." Oh.

Nico's eyes narrow and a shadow looms over him. "No," he decides.

"Nico," I warn

"No. I refuse to go to that class."

"We can't skip," I insist, though it sounds unconvincing even to me. "The class is important." It must be.

Nico rolls his eyes. "Will, I am the dark arts. What do you think she can teach that I don't already know? Or maybe you want to know how to defend against me?"

"I think I can handle you perfectly fine, thank you very much." I cross my arms, a little offended that he would think of such a thing.

"Great, so we don't need to go then." Nico smirks.

No, that's not what I meant. I can't believe I walked right into that. "Fine, what do you want to do instead?" I give in with a sigh. I'll have to make sure he goes to the next class, but maybe keeping him away from the teacher will be a good thing for now. What am I thinking?

"Hmm," he considers it for a moment. "You could tell me what happened to make the sunny Will Solace annoyed. Honestly, I thought only tough patients could make you get frown lines." Concerned, I poke at my face to see if he's right before quickly realizing that he was joking. I want to be mad, but his small smile of amusement makes the slight humiliation worth it.

"You mean patients like you?" I tease. The hallway has emptied besides one or two students lingering around and a cat stalking behind a suit of armor.

"Whatever," he mutters, rolling his eyes. "We're going this way." he nudges me towards a side hallway that leads who know where and, like an idiot, I let him.

I don't know how he learned the lay out of the castle, but he ends up directing me until we make it outside. The air is crisp with the beginnings of fall and the sky is over cast as if we're still in London. Honestly, it's all rather depressing. The little sunlight that peaks through the clouds is weak and there's more dying grass than living. This doesn't deter Nico from making a bee line toward the forest, the dark one that I'm pretty sure we aren't supposed to go in.

"Nico," He stops right at the tree line. "I don't think we're supposed to be here. What if someone sees that we're skipping class?"

"Simple, I'll blame you." the corner of his lips twitch up into a smirk. "Though that might not work. Who would believe an evil Slytherin?" He glances at me before something turns his attention to the ground.

"How, but, why," I stutter. "You're not evil."

Nico shrugs, still searching the ground.

"Who even said that?"

"Harry, Ron, you when complaining about Harry and Ron," I try to hide my surprise that he noticed. "You talk to yourself when people annoy you," he tells me before I can even ask. "Quite loudly too."

"I don't think you're evil."

"Of course you don't. You don't think anyone is evil. You're too nice for that." He says that, but he still doesn't lift his head to look at me.

"Wait, if you knew about that then why did you keep asking?"

Nico considers this for a moment, "Maybe because someone once told me it's better to talk to people about what bothers you instead of keeping it bottled up. Though, that person is a little messed up in the head. I don't know why I thought listening to him was a good idea."

"One, rude. I'm perfectly within the parameters of a sane person. Two, you can't use my words against me when you refuse to abide by them yourself. Three, I'm your doctor a," I'm cut off by Nico when he places his hand over my mouth. It's callused from countless hours handling a sword and cold, really cold. I want to wrap him is blankets and set him before a fire until that coldness melts to warmth.

"Shh, if you don't want to talk about it then let me concentrate." He slowly removes his hand then waits to see if I'm going to say anything. I don't. I don't know if I even could if I tried. My mouth is still buzzing where he touched it.

He waits another moment before closing his eyes to focus on who knows what. "Found it." His eyes fly opens. He walks three paces and bends down to ruffle through a pile of fallen leaves.

"What is that?" I ask when he discovers what he's looking for and holds it up to the light.

"Death."

"Please tell me you're be dramatic."

"Only slightly." Nico passes his discovery over for me to get a look.

It's a rock, very shiny, black rock, but a pebble none the less. First sticks that cast spells and now a rock that apparently has a connection to death. I can't tell if he's messing with me or if tomorrow we're going to find a tree that beats people up.

"This is Death? I thought Percy said Death had wings and, you know, was a god."

Nico huffs and snatches the stone from my hand. "It's not really Thanatos, but it was blessed by him. It's supposed to summon ghost without needing the hole or an offering."

"And by offerings you mean Happy Meals, right?" I interrupt.

Nico isn't impressed. "Maybe."

"But what is it doing here? This is a school, not the Underworld."

"How should I know? I didn't realize it was even here until I felt it's presence when I got bored in class."

Class! "How long have we been out here?" I ask. We need to get back or we might miss our next class.

"I don't know. I don't have a watch," Nico defends.

Well he's no help. "We're going to be late for class. How do we get back?" He raises an eyebrow in confusion and points back towards the castle. "Come on then."

I speed walk back to the school, leaving Nico to follow or be left behind, and pick a random direction, hoping that our class is the same way. I probably would be running if I didn't think no running in the halls is a universal rule.

By the time we make it to Potions, I'm out of breath and Nico is reasonably annoyed at being dragged around half of the school. It's his own fault for not helping though. Even then, we're the last ones to make it.

"Where have you been? Do you know you missed last class?" Adrian questions as soon as we're through the door.

"Yeah, we got a little lost. Sorry," I explain.

Even though Harry and his friends are also in the class, thankfully they don't try to wave me other again. Though it doesn't stop Ron from staring when I take the empty seat next to Nico.

Adrian nods in understanding. "Okay, but why didn't you ask the ghosts for directions. They're usually willing to help new students."

I don't know if Nico was paying attention to the conversation before, but he sure is now. "Ghosts?" He hums, thinking.

"Yeah, Hogwarts has a ton of them," Adrian states as if souls of the departed wondering the halls isn't weird at all.

"A ton?" Nico repeats.

"Maybe a little over a hundred, though I've never seen more than twenty at a time." Adrian doesn't seem to notice Nico clenching and unclenching his fist underneath the table.

"Are you sure? I haven't seen any ghosts," I ask. Maybe Adrian's mistaken. Or it's some kind of prank instead of a problem for the Ghost King.

He nods. "There's definitely ghosts. One of them's even a teacher. I'm surprised you haven't run into any yet."

"Yeah, really surprising," Nico agrees blandly.

Adrian shrugs, accepting that the conversation is over and turns to talk to his partner.

The way Nico's trying to stare holes in the table really makes me regret not sleeping in this morning because there's no way I'm going to make up for it tonight.