“I was just, um, I was crossing to the other side,”

“Ah,” said Nigel. Well. He supposed that made sense. But it wasn’t very exciting. How was Nigel supposed to brag to Nat about how much gossip he knew if she was just crossing to get to the other side? That was like the punchline to a lame joke, not good gossip. He sighed a little in disappointment. “Of course,” he said, nodding. “On your way to somewhere interesting?” Maybe that would garner something juicier. Merlin knew he wasn’t doing anything exciting the past… well, the past several months, if not longer. Thus, he had to live vicariously through other people’s gossip.

“Did you, um... do you want me to go?”

He shrugged. “It’s not my bridge. Do whatever you like.” The truth was that he was somewhat tired of being independent and self-sufficient and secluded and stuff… Of course, that didn’t mean that he was going to go around befriending firsties, or anything. He wasn’t that desperate for company. But if Lindsay wanted to hang around on the stone bridge, he wasn’t going to stop her. Lindsay was infinitely better company than any first years, even if he really didn’t know what to say to her half the time. “I didn’t mean that I was avoiding you,” he said, wondering if that was what she had thought. He really didn’t know her that well, so he didn’t have any reason to avoid her. Unless she was an agent of his mother’s, and if his mother was trying to get Lindsay to murder him, the old bat was getting more desperate than he thought.

“You can talk to them sometimes. They're nice. The fat friar is nice when you talk to him. I bet you could ask him,”

“Er… I don’t think so,” he said. He didn’t want to talk to any ghosts; they kind of freaked him out. It might be all in his imagination, but he had always felt like they looked at him funny. Sort of pityingly, as if they knew that he might soon join them. And that was scary. It was one thing for Nigel himself to be convinced that he was dying, but when other people started believing him, it became something entirely different. He didn’t want to talk to ghosts, or be around them at all, and he didn’t want to be one. However, the thought of haunting his mother and telling the Aurors exactly how she killed him and seeing her rot in Azkaban did have some appeal. He just didn’t want to stick around as a ghost after that. But he wasn’t sure ghosts could just choose when to move on, like some Muggles thought… when their unfinished business was taken care of and their spirit could rest, or something. Nigel didn’t know if it actually worked like that.

“Is everything okay? … Nothing... nothing happened, did it?”

Nigel almost laughed. Was everything okay? Was anything ever okay? “No,” he said. “Not yet. But I expect it to happen any day now.” He shrugged. Most of the time he went through phases of petrifying fear followed by lackadaisical acceptance followed by maniacal paranoia followed by black depression. Not necessarily in that order. At the moment, he was feeling rather accepting. After all, he had had years to get used to the idea, and he was doing all he could to prevent it. “Sometimes it’s just fate, I guess,” he mused. “If something’s meant to happen, there’s not much anyone can do to stop it.”