I

Prince Draco gazed out over the city from where he stood at his bedroom balcony. The pale sun was climbing incrementally higher in the grey sky, bringing another day to the Land of Halloween. He had been there since dawn, his hands resting on the wrought iron railings, peering down like a gargoyle at the twisted tips of the city's buildings.

He had awoken with something in his chest unsettling him, although he couldn't say exactly what, and it was with an absent mind that he'd dressed and readied himself an hour or so before. But even after so long in contemplation, he still had no idea of the source of his melancholy.

The people were starting to rise, and a gentle hubbub was mounting as they went about their business. After the thrill and excitement of the previous night's annual festivities, the cobbled streets gave off a sleepy air, of a general sense of a job well done.

Coming to the conclusion that he wasn't going to find any answers watching the world go by, Draco decided to vacate the royal castle and mingle amongst the masses. It would do him good to hear their stories of how their hauntings had gone in the Land of the Living, and maybe he could shake the strange feeling that had settled in his heart.

He crossed his large bedroom, nodding to the spiders as they remade their webs around his four-poster bed. "Good morning sirs," he said, tipping his head and fetching his black top hat and tails in order to head outside.

"Good morning Prince Draco!" the spiders squeaked back in unison.

He took himself onto the landing, past the broken mirrors and muttering suits of armour. "Good morning Beatrice," he said to the translucent maid at the top of the sweeping staircase.

"Ahh good morning Your Highness," she said happily. "It's a wonderful gloomy day in the kingdom. Are you going into town?"

Draco inclined his head in affirmation as he slipped his arms through his morning coat. She was always a dear, old Beatrice, and he felt his spirits lifted a little just to have her fussing over him.

"Well, I'm glad to see you've bundled up. Breakfast is served if you're hungry before you go?"

He wasn't, but he thanked her anyway, and complimented her on the dustiness of the banisters.

"Oh," she said coyly. "Thank you Your Highness, I do try." She sprinkled a little more down as she floated on by, before vanishing through the wall.

The Weeping Queen was already seated in the breakfast room when he entered, sipping cold tea from under her black veil. "Draco, darling," she said, noticing his attire. "Will you not eat?"

Draco shook his head as he kissed his mother's cheek through the lace. "I'm feeling rather restless, I thought I might walk down to the hanging tree, see what news the skeletons have of last night."

The queen frowned, or so Draco could tell through the material over her face, and shifted beneath her skirts. "I'm sure the mayor will release a full statement later," she assured him. The mayor had held all the real power in Halloween since The Twilight King's demise several years ago, and although Draco knew that as well as the next citizen, he resented the idea of having to wait for his say-so on anything, let alone the All Hallows Eve report.

"I didn't sleep well," he said by way of an explanation. "I fancy a stroll to clear the bats from the belfries."

"Very well dear," she sighed, and waved him off.

The air was wonderfully dank as he crossed over the drawbridge, and as he breathed in deep he counted how many sharks he could see in the slimy moat below. "Morning ladies!" he called down. They snapped their jaws playfully and growled a chorus of hellos.

Pumpkins lined the pavements, gossiping idly as Draco strolled into the city centre, and he listened to the buzzards as they cawed and swooped overhead. He had half a mind to pop into Rag Doll's and grab a bloodshake for breakfast, but he was still feeling out of sorts, and he figured too much iron might upset his stomach. So instead he walked through the abbey, nodding a greeting to the headless monks as they tended to their ebony black horses. The heads were perched in the window sills above them, shouting down instructions. "No!" one cried down to its body. "How many times – you're brushing the wrong end!"

The prince chuckled to himself, slipping his hands into his trouser pockets and minding his polished boots as he skirted around the horses' droppings on the cobbles. He still may not feel quite right, but at least walking around other people was giving him something else to think about.

"Get!" a witch screeched to his right, lunging out the front door of a terraced house, brandishing her broomstick above her head. "Get OUT you troublesome pest!"

A small, stocky dog shot out from between her legs, followed closely by a ginger cat that stopped at the witch's heels, hissing and arching its back. The dog barked back up at the woman, whose pointy hat was askew as she shook her broom again.

"If I catch you sniffing around here again-" she began to threaten.

The dog was black with huge bat-like ears and a squashed up face. He was wearing fake bat wings on a harness across his back, and looked wholly unconcerned by the old hag's words. Instead, he gave her a toothy smile, then lifted his leg and started to pee on the cobbled stones in front of her house.