38 Second

The blinding light slowly fade away, like a gradually dying fire. Hermione squinted her eyes.

"Why is his head still on?"

Nick had come out looking as though he was still perfectly normal, albeit a bit paler than a ghost should be. In fact the only abnormal thing about him was his face. Nick wore a bright cheerful smile.

"It's alright! Actually, I am amazed!"

"Did your head come off?"

"No! It didn't!"

"Then why are you so excited?" Asked Hermione.

"Because-" Nick grabbed his left ear and pulled causing his head to fall off and dangle. "I got the amount of skin still holding my neck together to reduce by half a millimeter!"

Arth frowned.

There was half a inch of skin remaining on Nick's neck. Half an inch was about thirteen millimeters. Thirteen divided point five is twenty six. Nick had to repeat the process twenty five more times. And by the sight of how tired Nick seemed to be, he wasn't going to finish in a long time.

"Hermione... plan B."

"What?"

"I'm going to decapitate Nick."

"What!"

"His head will fly off."

"I know what you meant! Why?"

"It's inefficient to let Nick sever his head by himself. I'm going to help him."

"You aren't going to let him cut his own head off?"

"He's going to take too long. I'll make it happen faster."

Arth grabbed the pendant on his neck and stared at Nick like a lion stalking his prey. The pendant grew into a four foot long sword and the blade started to glow with a menacing glare.

"What is that!"

"It's polymorph metal. It can change into any shape I want it to."

"That is classified as a weapon! That's against the rules! Where did you even get it?"

"It was a gift from my parents. Anyways, it's going to help a lot when I behead Nick."

"Didn't you say there might be unknown consequences?"

"But then again, there might not be any."

"Excuse me, may I offer my opinion? It is my head we are talking about after all."

"Instead of a week of spending effort to get rid of half an inch, I can finish it today."

"Arth! You aren't being yourself! Stop it now!"

"Nope, I'm perfectly fine. I'm just curious of what would happen if I did cut his head off though... it's never been done before. It's absolutely fantastic."

"... never mind. You are Arth."

"Ummm, can you not ignore me please?"

"So will you allow me to cut off his head? I'll show you my notes and you can compare."

"!!!"

Hermione gave in.

Arth smirked before turning to face a somewhat scared Nick. He never knew there would be a time where he would see a ghost scared. They were dead after all.

"Now look here boy, you can't just go around cutting off other people's heads. It's very disrespectful-"

There was a flash of steel as Arth sheathed his blade in a nonexistent sheath.

"...wait a minute, why are you putting away your sword before you even swung it?" Exclaimed Nick with a received expression. "I thought your were going to cut off my head-"

"おまえ わ もう しんでいる."

"What?"

However, before Nick could ask what Arth had just said, his head fell to the floor. Nick's face froze in surprise as it phased through thefloor. His headless body also fell towards the floor but stoped right before it hit the ground.

Hermione checked the headless still body of Nick with a worried look.

"... do you think we killed him?"

Arth had a guilty look on his face.

"Oops."

Hermione glanced at the body with a scared look.

"What are we going to do Arth! Is it murder if the victim was already dead? Will we get sent to Azkaban? Should we hide the evidence?"

Arth stared at the body before deciding.

"Let's hide the body by shoving the body into the floor and hope that it doesn'tfloat back up."

"Oh no, what do we do."

Arth prepared to shove the body into the floor when he saw the body move ever so slightly. Arth changed his mind and decided to punch Nick in the gut.

The body flew away as a head appeared from the ground, indignant.

"Now why did you do that? Now I'm going to have a hard time fetching my body back."

"Why did you pretend to be dead?"

"Well... I wanted to teach you a lesson for cutting off my head, and I wanted to see your reactions. Plus, it was funny."

Arth grabbed Nick by the hair and squinted down the hallway that was opposite towards where the body had flown off too.

"...Ahaha... my friend, it was my mistake, a friendly joke. Come on my friend please have mercy-"

Arth threw the head in the air and covered his leg in magic. When the head floated down near the floor, Arth let loose a hard kick causing the head to disappear almost instantly.

Arth dusted his pants off and grabbed the confused Hermione's hand.

"What just happened."

"We got played."

"... I feel as though my emotions have been cheated."

"I know, it's alright. At least we know that he'll have a hard time finding his body-"

A small circular object went past them with a mind boggling speed.

"Thanks Arth for assisting me! Do you want to come to my death day party? I want to thank you for helping me achieve in of my dreams. I've always wanted to finish the job-"

Nick's head went through a wall, blocking off all sound.

Hermione and Arth froze while staring at the spot where Nick had disappeared into.

"..."

They glanced at each other before simultaneously sighing, which caused them both to giggle.

"I never knew sir Nick was such an amusing fellow."

"That half a inch of his must have caused him to feel terribly itchy. It's like he is an entirely different person."

Hermione giggled.

"So are you going to his death day party? He did invite you. What even is a death day supposed to be like?"

"... I really don't want to go but I also want to know what a death day party is like... would you mind accompanying me to a party, mademoiselle?" Asked Arth doing a charming little bow while extending his hand.

"...it would be my greatest pleasure, monsieur." Replied Hermione with a graceful curtsy while taking Arth's extended hand.

The both of them laughed while they made their way towards the library.