The stone corridors of Hogwarts were cool and dimly lit, the torches flickering softly as Echo made his way toward the Slytherin common room. His dark hair, currently threaded with tired grey streaks, reflected his utter exhaustion. Between the Triwizard Tournament, the Ministry meetings, and the sheer mental gymnastics required to navigate the social minefield of the castle, he felt like he was running on fumes. Suddenly, a cheerful, booming voice echoed from the wall to his left.
"Ah, young Echo! Just the wizard I was hoping to float into!"
Echo stopped and turned, a flash of dull orange briefly crossing his hair as a wave of annoyance washed over him for being interrupted. Emerging from the stonework was the Fat Friar, the resident ghost of Hufflepuff house. He was beaming, his pearly-white form practically glowing with bonhomie. He held a tankard in one hand (though Echo knew it was empty of any real drink) and waved enthusiastically with the other.
"Friar," Echo greeted, forcing a tired but polite smile, which helped settle the grey back into his hair. "Good evening. How's the afterlife treating you?"
"Oh, splendidly, my boy, splendidly!" the Friar chortled, drifting closer. "Though I must say, you're looking a bit peaky yourself. The tournament weighing heavily on your shoulders, I presume?"
Echo sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. His hair took on a faint, stressed-out lavender hue. "You could say that. It's been... a lot."
"I can only imagine," the Friar said sympathetically. "And the students haven't been making it any easier, have they? All that gossip and staring. Dreadful manners." He shook his head, his chin wobbling. "But that is precisely why I wanted to find you! I have a proposition that might cheer you up."
Echo raised an eyebrow, and a sliver of cautious anticipation—a pale green—flickered in his hair. "Oh?"
"Indeed!" The Friar puffed out his chest. "I am hosting a little soirée this coming Friday. A gathering of friends, old and... well, mostly old. It's my five-hundredth Deathday Party!"
Echo blinked. "Deathday Party?"
"Yes! A celebration of the day I shuffled off this mortal coil and embraced the spectral plane!" The Friar beamed. "It's quite a milestone, five hundred years. Nearly a millennium half-done!"
Echo frowned slightly, and the lavender returned to his hair, darker this time, tinged with confusion. "I didn't know the dead celebrated that. Isn't it... Well, a bit sad? Or painful? I mean, it is the day you died."
The Friar's smile faltered for a moment, his expression turning thoughtful. "Well... I suppose for some it might be. Sir Nicholas always gets a bit morose about the whole 'nearly headless' business. But for me? It's a day to remember the life I lived and the friends I've made since. It's about perspective, my boy! Choosing to find joy even in the end."
He drifted closer, his voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper. "Besides, I thought you could use a break from the living. They can be so... loud. And demanding. The dead are much better listeners. And we certainly don't care about Triwizard Tournaments or Ministry politics."
Echo looked at the ghost, seeing the genuine kindness in his translucent eyes. The Friar wasn't just inviting him for the sake of numbers; he was trying to help. His hair softened to a neutral, appreciative beige.
"I see," Echo said slowly. "So, you're inviting me to a party in a dungeon full of ghosts to cheer me up?"
"Precisely!" the Friar beamed again.
"It sounds... gloomy," Echo pointed out, the beige immediately becoming a skeptical mint green. "What with it being a Deathday party and all. Cold food, rotting decorations, mournful music?"
The Friar's shoulders slumped slightly. He looked a bit downtrodden, like a kicked puppy. The sight made Echo's hair shift from green to a quick, sympathetic coral pink. "Oh. Well. I suppose when you put it like that... perhaps it isn't the most festive atmosphere for a living boy. I just thought... perhaps a change of scenery..." He trailed off, looking at his spectral feet.
Echo felt a pang of guilt. The ghost was only trying to be nice. And honestly, a room full of people who physically couldn't ask him for autographs or hex him did sound appealing.
"Hey," Echo said softly. "I didn't say no."
The Friar looked up, hope rekindling in his eyes. "You didn't?"
"No," Echo smiled, and the coral pink of his hair brightened. "I think a bit of gloom might be exactly what I need. Matches my mood perfectly." He straightened up. "I'd be honored to come, Friar."
The Friar clapped his hands together, delighted. "Wonderful! Simply wonderful! It will be this Friday, at midnight, in the spacious dungeon usually reserved for Potions storage—don't worry, I've cleared it with Professor Cleen, or rather, I haunted him until he agreed. Do come! We shall have a grand time!"
"I'll be there," Echo promised.
"Excellent! I must go spread the word! Toodle-pip, Echo!" And with a joyful wave, the Fat Friar vanished through the wall, humming a merry tune.
Echo stood alone in the corridor for a moment, the silence returning. His hair had settled into a thoughtful, dark indigo. He chuckled softly to himself, shaking his head.
"A Deathday party," he muttered, resuming his walk toward the common room. "Well, that's a new one." As he walked, a new thought struck him, causing him to pause mid-step. He frowned, staring at a suit of armor, his hair turning a questioning, sunny yellow. "Wait," he whispered. "What on earth do you get a ghost for a present?"
He couldn't exactly wrap up a box of chocolates—they'd just fall through the Friar's hands. Flowers would wilt and die, which was thematically appropriate but practically useless. A book? Can ghosts read physical books? He honestly didn't know.
"Think, Echo, think," he murmured, pacing in a small circle, his hair shifting rapidly through shades of yellow and orange as his brain worked. "Something tangible but not. Something meaningful for the dead."
Suddenly, he stopped. A slow grin spread across his face, and his hair turned a triumphant, electric blue.
"Of course," he whispered. "The one thing everyone craves, dead or alive. A memory."
The dungeon was freezing. Not just 'chilly basement' cold, but a bone-deep, soul-numbing chill that seeped through robes and skin alike. The air was thick with the smell of damp stone, sulfur, and—strangely—rotting meat. The only light came from hundreds of thin, black taper candles burning with an eerie blue flame, casting long, wavering shadows against the rough-hewn walls.
Echo stood near the entrance, wrapped in his thickest winter cloak, his breath misting in the air. His hair was a polite, muted silver, blending in with the spectral guests. The room was packed. Ghosts from all four houses drifted through the space, their pearly-white forms illuminating the gloom. The Bloody Baron sat in a corner, clanking his chains and looking miserable. Nearly Headless Nick was loudly recounting his own botched execution to a group of bored-looking nuns. Moaning Myrtle was sobbing into a tapestry. And in the center of it all, floating above a table laden with blackened, moldy food, was the Fat Friar. He looked happier than Echo had ever seen him.
"Echo!" the Friar boomed, spotting him instantly. "You came!"
He drifted over, beaming. "Welcome, welcome! I am so glad you could make it. Come, have some... refreshments?" He gestured vaguely to a platter of maggoty haggis. "It's quite... pungent. Helps us taste it, you see."
Echo politely declined the rotting food but offered a warm smile. "Happy Deathday, Friar. Five hundred years. That's incredible."
"Thank you, my boy, thank you," the Friar sighed happily. "It has been a good run. Or float, rather."
Echo reached into his pocket. "I brought you something."
The Friar looked surprised. "A gift? For me? Oh, Echo, you shouldn't have. We ghosts don't have much use for material things..."
"It's not material," Echo said softly. He pulled out a small, crystal vial. Inside, a silvery, gossamer substance swirled and danced like smoke. It glowed with its own inner light.
The Friar's eyes widened. "Is that... a memory?"
"Not just any memory," Echo explained. "I did some research. I found an old cookbook in the library—one from your time. It had a recipe for a specific kind of honey cake that was popular in the monasteries back then." He held up the vial. "I made the cake this afternoon. And then... I extracted the memory of eating it. The taste of the honey, the warmth of the oven, the smell of the spices. It's all in here."
He carefully uncorked the vial and held it out. The silvery smoke drifted up, swirling around the Friar's face. The ghost closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. For a moment, the dungeon was silent. The blue candles seemed to burn a little brighter. A look of pure, unadulterated bliss spread across the Fat Friar's face. He let out a long, contented sigh that echoed through the room.
"Oh," he whispered, his voice trembling with emotion. "Oh, my. The honey... the saffron... it tastes just like home." A single, pearly tear leaked from his eye and vanished before it hit the floor. "I haven't tasted that in five centuries. Thank you, Echo. Thank you."
Echo smiled, his hair turning a soft, warm gold. "You're welcome, Friar. Happy Deathday."
As the party continued around them—gloomy, cold, and filled with the chatter of the dead—Echo watched the Fat Friar drift back to his guests, a renewed spring in his spectral step. And for the first time in weeks, amidst the freezing cold and the rotting food, Echo felt a genuine warmth settle in his own chest. Maybe the dead weren't so different from the living after all. They just wanted to be remembered. And sometimes, they just wanted a really good piece of cake.
Echo stood awkwardly near the refreshment table, trying to look comfortable while actively avoiding eye contact with a plate of moldy cheese. He realized with a start that he had absolutely no idea how to behave at a Deathday party. Was he supposed to mingle? Compliment the decay? Ask people how they died? That seemed rude, even for the dead.
Shimmer, still perched invisibly on his shoulders, was radiating tension. The Demiguise's grip on Echo's cloak was tight enough to bruise, his small body rigid. Echo could feel the creature's unease; surrounded by beings that defied the natural laws of life and death, Shimmer's precognitive senses were probably going haywire, seeing futures that didn't make sense. In his pocket, Sniffles was curled into a tight ball, refusing to budge. The Niffler had poked his nose out once, taken one look at the rusted sconces and tarnished silver platters, and decided that this place was a wasteland devoid of joy. To a creature driven by shine, the dull, corroded world of the ghosts was essentially hell. Even Nugget, tucked into the crook of Echo's arm under his cloak, was miserable. The Cockatrice's snake head hissed softly every time a ghost drifted too close, frustrated that its deadly bite passed harmlessly through them. The chicken head, meanwhile, was clucking softly in dismay at the buffet. It had tried to peck at a ghostly beetle earlier, only to get a mouthful of freezing mist. Neither head seemed to know what to do with itself when violence and hunger were both off the table.
"So," Echo muttered to himself, his hair turning a confused, mottled grey. "We're all having a great time."
Suddenly, a piercing wail cut through the low murmur of conversation. A ghost woman with long, stringy hair and a face etched with eternal sorrow drifted toward him. She wore robes that looked like they had been soaked in water, and she dabbed at her eyes with a translucent handkerchief.
"You!" she wailed, pointing a spectral finger at him. "You are the boy! The tragic one!"
Echo blinked, taking a step back. "Er... hello? I'm Echo."
"Oh, I know who you are!" the woman sobbed, floating closer until her chilly aura made Echo shiver. "I am the Wailing Widow of West Ham. I have heard all about you! The Triwizard Tournament! Trapped in a deadly contract against your will! Forced to face dragons and mermaids and likely death!"
She clasped her hands together, a look of rapturous delight on her tear-stained face. "It is... exquisitely tragic! Oh, the misery of it! The hopelessness! The sheer, crushing weight of your inevitable doom!"
Echo stared at her. His hair shifted from grey to a bewildered, pale lime green. "Uh... thanks? I think?"
"I just love it," she sighed, wiping away a fresh tear. "It's so wonderfully grim. To be so young and yet so cursed! It reminds me of my dear husband, who choked on a fishbone the day before our anniversary. Such beautiful, poetic suffering!"
She drifted closer, leaning in as if to share a secret. "Tell me," she whispered eagerly. "Do you wake up screaming? Do you feel the cold hand of fate tightening around your throat every morning?"
Echo looked around the room. Several other ghosts were watching them, nodding in solemn agreement. It seemed misery really did love company, especially when that company had been dead for centuries.
"I mostly wake up hungry," Echo admitted honestly. "And sometimes I have to pee."
The Wailing Widow looked disappointed for a split second, then brightened. "Ah! The mundane torture of the living body! A prison of flesh! How dreadful! How magnificent!" She let out another wail of appreciation and drifted off to tell a decapitated knight about Echo's bladder woes.
Echo watched her go, shaking his head. "Right," he muttered, patting Nugget to soothe the hissing lizard head. "Note to self: ghosts are weird. And apparently, my life is their favorite soap opera." He sighed, his hair settling into a resigned, dark blue. "Well, at least I'm entertaining someone."
The Wailing Widow drifted back, her spectral eyes wide with anticipation. "Oh, please!" she begged, clasping her translucent hands together. "Do tell me everything! From the very beginning! Spare no detail of your exquisite torment!"
Echo opened his mouth, stammering. "I... uh... well, it started when... I mean, I didn't exactly choose... it's just..." His hair flickered nervously between anxious yellow and panicked orange. He looked around for an escape route, but the Widow had him cornered against a tapestry depicting a troll attempting ballet.
Suddenly, the temperature in the room plummeted. The blue candle flames flickered and died down to mere pinpricks. The conversational murmur of the spectral guests cut off abruptly, replaced by a terrified silence. A heavy, rhythmic clanking echoed from the dungeon entrance—the sound of chains dragging on stone. Every ghost in the room froze. Nearly Headless Nick actually tried to make himself smaller by sinking partially into the floor. The Wailing Widow let out a terrified squeak and vanished through the ceiling.
Framed in the doorway stood the Bloody Baron. He was a terrifying sight, his robes stained with silvery blood, his gaunt face a mask of eternal, brooding fury. His blank, staring eyes swept the room, scattering ghosts like frightened fish.
"Oh dear," a small voice whispered behind Echo.
He turned to see the Fat Friar cowering behind him, using Echo's thirteen-year-old frame as a shield. The Friar was trembling so hard his edges were blurring.
"Friar?" Echo whispered back, watching the Baron slowly glide into the room. "What is he doing here? I thought this was a party for... You know... friendly ghosts?"
"I don't know!" the Friar hissed, peeking over Echo's shoulder. "He never comes to these things! He prefers to brood in the Astronomy Tower and rattle his chains at first-years!"
"Did you invite him?"
"Well, yes!" the Friar squeaked. "As a courtesy! One must be polite! But he hasn't accepted an invitation in four hundred years! Why tonight? What changed?"
The Baron stopped in the center of the room. The silence was deafening. Even Nugget, sensing the apex predator of the spirit world, had tucked both heads under his wing and gone silent. The Baron turned slowly, his gaze locking onto Echo with unnerving intensity. He didn't speak. He just stared, the silver blood on his robes seeming to shimmer in the gloom.
"Uh oh," Echo whispered, his hair turning a distinct shade of 'I'm about to die' white. "I think he's looking at me."
Echo's initial spike of fear, cold and sharp, began to dissipate as quickly as it had arrived. A familiar, simmering annoyance replaced it. He stared back at the Bloody Baron, really looking at him for the first time. Why was he scared? He was Echo. He wrangled dragons. He raised a cockatrice for fun. He had told the Minister of Magic to his face that he was an idiot. And this... this was just a dead guy in a dirty shirt.
He straightened up, shrugging the trembling Fat Friar off his back. His hair shifted from terrified white to a bored, unimpressed slate grey.
"Can I help you?" Echo asked, his voice cutting through the silence like a whip crack.
The room gasped. Several ghosts looked like they might faint again, if they could. The Bloody Baron didn't move. He just continued to stare, his sunken eyes boring into Echo.
"Seriously," Echo continued, stepping forward until he was face-to-face with the terrifying specter. "You're ruining the party. Everyone's terrified. Is that the goal? To come in here, stand around looking grumpy, and kill the vibe? Because if it is, congratulations. You've succeeded. Gold star for you." He looked the Baron up and down, his expression dripping with disdain. "And honestly? The blood? It's a bit much. We get it. You had a bad day. Four hundred years ago. Maybe it's time to change your outfit? Or at least get it dry-cleaned. You look like a walking health code violation."
The silence stretched, taut as a bowstring. The Friar was peeking through his fingers. Then, slowly, incredibly, the Bloody Baron's mouth twitched. The corners of his lips pulled upward in a stiff, rusty movement that looked painful. He wasn't snarling. He wasn't screaming. He was smiling.
"You," the Baron rasped, his voice sounding like two gravestones grinding together. "You are... amusing."
Echo blinked, taken aback. "Amusing?"
"You have... spine," the Baron continued, his voice gaining a strange, dark warmth. "Most of my house... cowards. Sycophants. Whining about blood purity and power while hiding behind their fathers' robes." He leaned in closer. "But you... You embrace the darkness. You walk with monsters. You challenge kings." The Baron's smile widened, revealing teeth that were, thankfully, not bloody. "I like you, boy. You remind me... of me. Before the... unpleasantness." He straightened up and turned to the room, spreading his arms wide. "Well?" he bellowed. "Why is everyone staring? Is this a party or a funeral? Play the music! Eat the rotting food! Celebrate!"
He turned back to Echo, his eyes glinting. "And you, little snake. Come. Tell me about the dragon. I hear you made it purr."
As the spectral band struck up a wobbly tune and the party tentatively resumed, Echo found himself standing next to the most feared ghost in Hogwarts, who was currently laughing at a joke about a headless hunt. Echo's hair turned a bemused, slightly smug purple.
"Well," Echo thought, patting Nugget's head. " Didn't see that coming. But hey... at least he's not boring."
The corridors of the dungeons were always cold, but tonight, the chill seemed to have teeth. The Deathday Party had finally wound down—or rather, the screeching of the musical saws had stopped—and Echo was making his way back to the Slytherin common room, his breath misting in the damp air. He was tired, his robes smelled faintly of rotten salmon, and he just wanted to sleep.
A heavy, metallic rattling echoed off the stone walls. Echo didn't flinch, didn't even break his stride, even as the Bloody Baron materialized directly in his path, silver blood shining on his spectral robes. The ghost hovered there, staring down at the boy with hollow, gaunt eyes, his chains clanking ominously.
"Distinct lack of terror," the Baron rasped, his voice like grinding stones.
Echo stopped, looking up at the terrifying specter with mild curiosity. "Evening, Baron. Good party?"
The Baron narrowed his eyes, drifting closer until his translucent face was inches from Echo's. "You do not recoil," he observed, sounding genuinely perplexed. "First years scream. Seventh years cross the street to avoid me. Even the poltergeist gives me a wide berth. But you... You look at me as if I am merely a piece of furniture."
He tilted his head, the chains around his neck shifting with a heavy clink. "Why? I am not complaining, merely... curious. Why do you not fear me?"
Echo shrugged, adjusting his bag on his shoulder. "Honestly? You're scary, sure. But compared to what I live with?" He gave a short, humorless laugh. "You're practically a nightlight."
The Baron frowned. "What do you live with?"
"Let's just say I've seen things that would make a ghost hide under the bed," Echo said vaguely, his eyes darkening for a split second. "I wake up to things that want to eat me, dissolve me, or burn me to ash. A grumpy ghost with some chains? That's just... atmospheric. Like a weird cloud in the sky. Unnerving, maybe, but not dangerous. Not really."
He stepped around the ghost, continuing down the corridor. "Have a good night, Baron."
The Bloody Baron watched him go, floating silently in the middle of the hallway. He felt a strange mixture of insult and intrigue. *A weird cloud?* he thought indignantly. *I am the terror of Slytherin House! I am—*
Suddenly, the torch closest to him flickered and died. The Baron paused. Then the next torch went out. And the next. A wave of darkness rushed down the corridor, not just an absence of light, but a physical, suffocating weight. The temperature plummeted, far below the usual dungeon chill, down to a freezing point that even a ghost could feel. The shadows on the walls didn't just deepen; they began to move. They writhed and boiled, detaching themselves from the stone like oil separating from water. They poured onto the floor, coalescing into a mass of absolute, void-like blackness.
The Baron drifted back, his chains rattling not from movement, but from a sudden, instinctive tremor. "Who goes there?" he demanded, trying to inject his usual authority into his voice.
The darkness didn't answer. It rose. It swelled upwards, taking on a shape that was vague and shifting, a nightmare sketched in smoke. Massive, hunched shoulders formed. Long, spindly limbs unfolded from the mass, ending in claws made of solid shadow. And in the center of where a face should be, two eyes snapped open. They were glowing, burning red. And they were hungry. This was no creature of flesh and blood. This was the Dark Beast—the raw, sentient manifestation of Echo's dark affinity magic, usually kept tightly leashed within the boy's core. But here, in the dark, away from its master's immediate control, it had come out to play.
It stared at the Baron not as a person, not even as a ghost, but as a snack. A morsel of soul energy. The Baron gasped—a sound he hadn't made in centuries—and turned to flee. He tried to phase through the wall, a trick that had never failed him. But before he could merge with the stone, a tendril of shadow lashed out. It didn't pass through him.
The shadowy claw wrapped around the Baron's spectral ankle with the solidity of iron. The Baron yelped, a high, undignified sound, as he was jerked back violently. He stared down at the limb gripping him, his mind reeling. *It touched me. How can it touch me? I am dead! I am immaterial!* The Beast dragged him closer, the red eyes narrowing with predatory delight. Another shadow arm materialized from the wall itself, pinning the Baron's arms to his sides. He struggled, he thrashed, but he was helpless. For the first time since his death, he felt the crushing weight of physical force.
The Beast's face—or the void where a face should be—leaned in close. The Baron could feel a heat radiating from those red eyes, a heat that threatened to consume his very essence.
If it can touch me, the terrifying realization struck the Baron like a thunderbolt: *It can hurt me.* It can tear me apart.* He looked into the abyss of the creature's maw as it began to open, revealing rows of jagged, shadowy teeth. *If it eats me... do I pass on? Or do I just... cease to exist?*
Terror, absolute and primal, flooded him. He wasn't scared of pain. He was scared of oblivion. And in that moment, as the jaws of Echo's darkness widened, the Baron's thoughts didn't go to his reputation or his bloodstained robes. They flew, with desperate, agonizing regret, to a tower on the other side of the castle. To Helena.
No* he pleaded silently, staring into the red eyes of his demise. *Not yet. I haven't apologized. I haven't fixed it. Please... not before I tell her...*
The Baron closed his eyes, bracing for the end. The heat of the beast's breath was on his face, a dry, scorching wind that promised annihilation.
"AND JUST WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?"
The voice didn't come from the corridor. It didn't come from behind him. It came from everywhere at once, resonating from the stone walls, the floor, the very air itself. It was Echo's voice, but magnified, distorted, and layered with a power that shook the castle to its foundations. The Dark Beast froze. Its red eyes widened, not in hunger, but in sudden, abject panic. The shadowy jaws snapped shut with an audible click.
Suddenly, the grip on the Baron's ankle vanished. He slumped against the wall, intangible once more, gasping for breath he didn't need. The Beast let out a high-pitched whine, sounding less like a monster and more like a puppy caught chewing a slipper. Invisible chains seemed to wrap around its massive, shadowy form. It dug its claws into the stone floor, scrabbling for purchase, but it was being pulled back. Dragged, kicking, and silently screaming, toward the entrance to the Slytherin common room. It thrashed, it reached out, but the force pulling it was irresistible. With a final, pathetic yelp, the mass of darkness was sucked through the stone wall like water down a drain, disappearing completely.
Silence returned to the dungeon corridor. The torches flared back to life, their orange glow banishing the unnatural chill. The Bloody Baron slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, his chains piled around him. He stared at the empty space where the monster had been. His spectral hands were shaking violently. He had spent four centuries cultivating an aura of fear. He was the Bloody Baron. He was the terror of the dungeons. He was the nightmare that kept first years awake.
But in that moment, shivering in the aftermath of near-oblivion, he realized a terrifying truth. He wasn't the scariest thing in the world. He wasn't the scariest thing in Hogwarts. He wasn't even the scariest thing in that room.
Compared to the darkness that lived inside that boy... he was nothing. He was a bedsheet with holes cut in it. The Baron looked toward the Slytherin common room wall, a newfound, profound respect—and horror—dawning on him. That boy walked around every day with *that* thing inside him. A monster that could eat ghosts. A darkness that terrified the dark itself. And yet... Echo smiled. He made jokes. He baked cakes for friars. He petted dragons.
How?* the Baron wondered, his mind reeling. *How does he stay sane? How does he not shatter into a thousand pieces?*
The Baron looked down at his own bloodstained robes, the eternal reminder of his one moment of madness. It had taken one bad conversation, one moment of rejection from the woman he loved, to break him completely. To turn him into a murderer and a suicide. He had snapped like a dry twig. But Echo? Echo carried a hurricane in his chest and treated it like a mild breeze. He held a leash on a nightmare and took it for walks.
"He is... better than me," the Baron whispered to the empty corridor, the realization humbling him more than four hundred years of penance ever had. "He is stronger than any of us."
Slowly, shakily, the Bloody Baron rose to his feet. He adjusted his chains. He smoothed his robes. And for the first time in centuries, he felt a flicker of hope. If a boy could tame such darkness... perhaps, just perhaps, a ghost could eventually find peace. But first, he decided, drifting swiftly away from the Slytherin dungeons, he was going to go find the Fat Friar. He suddenly had a very strong urge to be around something bright, cheerful, and decidedly not hungry.