Elaine let out a long, suffering sigh and shook her head.  Shouldn't the reasons have been obvious? 

"Because, it's not very ladylike," Elaine whispered urgently under her voice, as she hurried to collect her hair back on the top of her head and secure it back in place.  She wasn't even sure her mother knew she'd been taught that particular skill and she'd rather it stayed that way. 

Elaine followed Wesley into the darkened room and let the door close behind them.  Even though she was the first to speak, she did stay a half-stride behind Wesley as he took a few strides towards the specter.   

Wesley extended a grandiose welcome to the ghost, obviously trying to make the cute old man feel more welcome with sheer enthusiasm. 

She waited for Wesley to introduce himself before taking a tentative step towards the man to do likewise.  "Good evening, mister," she offered, using that charming voice that always worked on the sailors.  "My name is Elaine Bellamy and it is very much a pleasure to meet you.  Are you new ..."

Elaine faltered, briefly, glancing towards Wesley.  Was it rude to ask a ghost if they were new to being a ghost?  New to being, well, dead?  It felt awfully personal and not the type of thing one said in mixed company.  But, at the same time, wasn't that what a ghost was?  Dead? 

"Are you new to the castle?"  In the end, she opted for a safer approach. 

Elaine covered her mouth with her hand when the ghost turned towards them and then back towards the window.  He must not be in a very happy mood.  Though, she supposed, most people who were freshly dead wouldn't be. 

She glanced towards Wesley and shrugged before looking back towards the ghost.  "That's a very beautiful pendant you're wearing.  Has it been in your family for a long time?" she asked politely, hoping to engage the ex-wizard, again.  "It looks like one I saw a Moroccan merchant selling at a market in Casablanca.  Would you mind if I looked at it?"  She started walking towards the ghost, confident in its inability to do anything to her at the very least. 

Wesley didn't understand how picking a lock had anything to do with being unladylike, but he didn't dwell on it. Elaine spoke to the ghost very politely, like she'd spoken to the portrait in the corridor. Wesley shifted his feet, his smile faltering.

The ghosts at Hogwarts made death seem funny, like a joke. They floated through walls bantering with each other and helping or annoying the professors. He couldn’t quite connect their transparent forms to real people who had died.

Yet this man, this sorrowful old gentleman in his ordinary sweater vest who turned his back on Elaine's polite questions, felt a little too real to Wesley.

"That's a very beautiful pendant you're wearing.  Has it been in your family for a long time? It looks like one I saw a Moroccan merchant selling at a market in Casablanca.  Would you mind if I looked at it?"

"Miss Bellamy, is it? Yes I do mind, it's not a toy." The ghost's hand closed around the amulet protectively. "It's a symbol of protection," his voice lowered to a grumble that sounded like 'lot...good it did me'.

"A triskelion," he spoke clearly, then sighed at Wesley's blank face.

Wesley mouthed the strange word. Triske... triscuit? He pointed to the card in the ghost's back pocket.

"What's that card?"

The ghost stared at him, his bushy brow furrowing. Wesley gestured at his back end. The ghost pulled out the card and peered at it.

"Ah. It's from a tarot deck. Don't you know what a tarot deck is?"

He flashed the card quickly at Wesley, then Elaine, like a muggle magician showing them there were no tricks before the card disappeared in his pocket again.

The wispy shimmer of the card made it difficult to read, but Wes thought he saw a man upside down, the lettering beneath spelling 'Hanged'.

A clue! He glanced at the man's uninjured neck and still blurted, "Did someone hang you?"

The ghost paused. He put a fist to his mouth and bent his head in thought. A wheezing laugh escaped, and he shook his head and turned to the window again.