"You're walking so bloody fast." Draco complains through his strange grin, racing to match my pace. "What's the hurry?"

"Getting there and back before McGonagall finds out we've left." I explain, and he rolls his eyes.

"Please, it's not a big deal if we get another detention. McGonagall hands them out like Christmas cards, after all. It won't be the first, or the last time, we get a detention."

"If you're sure…"

"I wouldn't do anything to get you into more trouble than needed, Meiqi."

A frown forms on my face, but I decide not to question him, instead quickening my pace even faster than it had already been. "Even so, I'd rather not risk it."

"If you're sure." He shrugs, as he attempts to match my stride. "So, can you tell me why we're going to Hogsmeade? Or do you just fancy a butterbeer?"

"I want to speak to the bartender, at the Hogs Head. Abe."

"Okay, follow up question. Why do you want to speak to this Abe bloke?"

"He could see Cyril." I explain. "They even spoke to each other. If he can also see the dead, then I need to speak to him, and it can't wait until the next trip to the village. It needs to be now. I need answers."

"Makes sense. And your journey has to include me?"

I stiffen, instinctively reaching for my crow necklace, fiddling with it as a mixture of anxiety and dread builds in me. I'd assumed Draco and I were friends now, but maybe I had assumed wrong. Maybe he thought I was mad after all - or worse, pitied me.

"If you don't want to come with, you don't have to." I eventually say, my voice impossibly small. Pathetic.

"I didn't say that." He bites down on his lip, as though contemplating what to say. "If anything, I'm…pleased, that you'd include me in something like this."

"Pleased." I repeat his word, finding it feeling strange on my tongue. "Well, I'm pleased that you're pleased."

His lips curl up into his signature wry smirk. "I'm pleased that you're pleased that I'm pleased."

"Don't start that game, Draco. I could go at this all day."

"Oh, trust me, so can I." He flashes a wink at me, and I press my lips together to keep a smile from growing. Though it's impossible to prevent the blush that creeps across my cheeks, making my face go the same color as my vibrant pink hair.

Though as quick as it came, it leaves, replacing itself with a horrible sensation of dread.

I know what this is. I know this feeling. I've felt it before - fancying someone.

But the last person I fancied died in the bed next to mine, his heart giving out like mine was supposed to. I was twelve, and he was fourteen. We shared a hospital room together, for a while, and would play various card games, when we both felt well enough to. His name is one I refuse to think about, refuse to remember, but he was too young to die. Just like Cedric, just like Cyril.

Maybe the Chang family is cursed, with loved ones dying young, even if my feelings for him were most likely unreciprocated, unlike Cho's for Cedric.

Draco is perfectly healthy though, I remind myself. If I fancy him, if I allow myself to feel things for him, he won't go dying on me like my previous crush.

But then again, even if he does die, I'll still be able to see him.

Most likely. I don't see my old crush, after all. Maybe it's up in the air, who I do and do not see.

This is why it's imperative that I see Abe. So I get some bloody answers, before I go even more mad than I already am.

"Where'd you go off to?" Draco pipes up, jerking me out of my thoughts. "You got that funny look, where you go into your head."

"You sure pay a lot of attention to me."

"Am I not supposed to?"

"I didn't say that. It's just, I'm not used to receiving attention." I let out a dry laugh. "Not that I'm trying to make you pity me, so please don't take it that way. It's just…yeah."

"I don't pity you."

"Good."

"However, I do pity whoever thought it was a good idea to dye your hair pink. Clearly, they lack judgement."

"Oi, I quite like the way my hair looks." I cross my arms over my chest.

"You would." He shakes his head, letting out a laugh. "Pink does suit your personality, even if it is a bit absurd."

"At least I don't blend in, like everyone else."

"You don't want to be pitied, but you don't want to blend in either. That's interesting."

"Is it really, though?"

He nods, his eyes averting meeting mine. "It's rare, meeting someone like you."

"I'm going to interpret that as a compliment."

"It is, as much as I hate to admit it."

His hand brushes against mine as we continue our trek to Hogsmeade, sending a jolt of butterflies through my stomach. Part of me wants to reach over and grab it, be bold and make the first move, but something inside of me tells me to stop, to not get ahead of myself. Sure, Draco may be nice to me, compared to how he seems to treat others, but that doesn't mean anything.

Biting down on my tongue to prevent myself from saying anything stupid, the rest of our walk is spent in a general silence. Nothing awkward, like I usually find a quiet shared with someone to be, but the kind of peaceful silence you can have with someone close to you. Something I've never actually felt before.

Oh Merlin, I'm so in over my head.

It takes nearly an hour to reach the Hogs Head, which is, to my surprise, still open, though hardly anyone is inside. A group of men are crowded at a table in the corner, drinking out of shot glasses as they converse, and a lone woman is at the bar, sobbing her eyes out as she rants to the air about someone named Brian, but other than them, it's empty.

And there's Abe, of course, at the bar, and when we enter, his eyes slide over to meet mine.

"I expected you'd show up soon enough, Meiqi." He says through a gruff voice, as we approach the bar. His gaze moves to Draco, eyeing him up and down. "I see you brought a friend."

"This one is alive." I respond, and Draco lets out a snort.

"For now." Is all Abe says, and Draco's face falls. "Sit, you two. I imagine you have a lot of questions."

We do as he says, taking a seat at the bar, shifting uncomfortably on the old wooden stools. Abe pours two glasses of butterbeer, sliding them across the table towards us. "Drink up."

Placing the cup to my lips, I take a gentle sip, before setting it back down, and looking Abe straight in the eye. "Tell me what's wrong with me."

"You're a Speaker." Is his response, as if that explains everything.

"A Speaker?" Draco asks, not me, because I'm too befuddled to say a word.

"A Speaker of the Dead. Just Speaker, for short. You can see them, speak to them, speak for them. Just as I can."

"So Cyril, he is dead?"

Abe nods solemnly. "Unfortunately, yes. I don't know how it happened, or why, or when, but he is dead. He's been coming here for about fifty years now. He truly has no idea he's dead."

"They only see what they want to see." I whisper, more to myself than to him. The same words I had told Draco an hour earlier, when confessing my deepest secret to him. Shaking my head, I continue, "They won't believe me, when I say they're dead. The first man I saw, he had a knife lodged in his neck, and he didn't know. He thought he was alive. And Cedric Diggory, I've tried to tell him so many times, and he refuses to listen."

Abe nods. "They never know. It's best not to tell them. If you do, and they discover they're dead, they go a bit mad."

"What do they do?" I breathe.

He shakes his head. "It's nothing you need to worry about. You simply need to keep the dead happy. That's all that matters, Meiqi. Keep them happy."

"Alright…"

"How long have you been seeing them?"

"Since the day I came to Hogwarts. I woke up to a man in my room, the day I was supposed to go. What about you?"

"I've been seeing them a few months after my sister was killed."

I gulp, eyes widening. "Your sister was killed?"

He nods. "In front of me. By horrible, horrible people."

"I'm so sorry." I say, pushing away the horrible feeling in my stomach. I certainly can't imagine losing Cho, and in such a horrible way…

"And you? Have you seen anyone die?"

"Too many to count." Every single person I'd ever shared a room with at St. Mungo's passed away, most of them while I was wide awake, watching as their hearts stopped beating, as their chest stopped rising and falling with every breath, watching as the life slipped away from them. "I've been close to death for as long as I've been alive."

"People who have had brushes with death, be it nearly dying themselves, or witnessing a death so severe, sometimes are granted the ability of being a Speaker. It's the universe, restoring balance, a glitch in the system yet a gift at the same time."

Well, I've certainly experienced both - the touch of death still lingers on me, more than I had already thought it had.

"It doesn't feel much like a gift." I say with a sigh, running a hand through my hair.

"A curse, then. Whatever you want to refer to it as, it can be."

"Thank you, Sir." I give him a small, wavering smile, before turning to Draco. "We need to go back to the castle, before anyone notices we're gone. But is it okay if I come back again, if I have more questions? I don't know who else to go to, without getting myself locked in a mental institute."

The faintest of smiles grows on Abe's lips. "Of course. Take care, child."

This time, when we leave to return to Hogwarts, Draco's hand slips into mine. His grip is both gentle and tight, calm yet commanding, as though he's trying to keep me from flying away.

While I may not be flying away, I most certainly am floating.