After the first Quidditch match, Halloween quietly arrived as well.
The pumpkins Hagrid had grown in the patch by the doors were moved into Hogwarts. God knows what he'd done to them—those pumpkins looked at least six feet tall, and if you stuck four wheels under them they could be used as carriages.
Once the pumpkins were brought into the Auditorium, Professor McGonagall took charge of turning them into all sorts of shapes—eagles, lions, snakes, badgers, or some of the more famous Ghosts—and then Professor Flitwick sent them floating up into midair.
Nearly Headless Nick was striking wild poses beside his pumpkin statue, letting the Young Wizards take photos as a souvenir.
Hufflepuff's Fat Friar was grinning from ear to ear as well; he looked thoroughly pleased.
But the other two houses didn't get to see their house Ghost and their statue in the same frame.
The Bloody Baron had no interest in such things and hadn't appeared in the Auditorium at all. As for Ms. Grey—Helena Ravenclaw—she had been missing for quite some time.
Kael had looked for her many times, along with Dumbledore and all those portraits in the Headmaster's Office. They had practically turned the castle upside down, but still hadn't found where she was.
Later, Kael gradually gave up. There was nothing he could do—Rowena Ravenclaw was the one who had created the castle. If they didn't want others to find them, it really wasn't a difficult task.
"Hey, this is really nice."
Mikel, who had come from the common room to the Auditorium for the feast, looked around at the decorations and said, "It's just a pity there's no performance by the Weird Sisters or the Skeleton Dance Troupe this year. That would've made it perfect."
"Can't be helped." Ryan sighed. "Everyone's busy avoiding Death Eaters right now. No one's willing to come all the way to Hogwarts for some Halloween feast."
"But the dance troupe is a bunch of skeletons," Mikel said, puzzled. "Can the Killing Curse kill them twice or something?"
"Er…" Ryan was actually stumped by that, but he didn't know the answer either, so he could only mumble, "Maybe the Death Eaters have some other tricks up their sleeves."
That was the only explanation he could come up with.
…
They went over to the Hufflepuff table and sat down, just as the professors were filing in through the small side door on the other end.
"Oh, damn…" Conna said suddenly.
"What is it?" Kael looked at her.
"Professor Slughorn…" Conna said. "I just remembered he's throwing another ball, right after the feast ends. Froda brought me the invitation an hour ago.
"Oh, and there's one for you too, but you were in the library then, so Froda gave both to me."
"What? How many parties is he going to throw in a month?"
"This is already the fifth one this month," Conna said.
"All right." Kael was a bit speechless. "I'll just use the same excuse as before and turn him down. After the feast I only want to go back to the nice warm common room and kill time—sitting there in a daze is still better than going to some ball!"
"I'm afraid that won't work this time." Conna sighed. "Professor Snape has left the school on some business, and Professor Slughorn must have got wind of it in advance. He even had Froda pass on a message, saying I absolutely have to come."
"Professor Snape's left the school?"
"Yeah, about an hour ago," Conna said. "And I got the invitation less than five minutes after that."
"He really has impeccable timing," Kael said.
"So…" Conna blinked. "Can I invite you to go to the ball with me?"
"What's Snape leaving the school got to do with me? My excuse still works," Kael raised an eyebrow. "It's not like the Ministry of Magic gives people time off just because it's Halloween."
"But Professor Slughorn is insisting everyone find a dance partner in advance," Conna said. "If you turn me down, I'll have to ask Mikel to be my partner.
I heard Professor Slughorn has privately invited a Ghost Dance Troupe. I imagine he'd be thrilled to go to a Halloween ball like this."
"Actually, I'm quite interested in the Ghost Dance Troupe myself," Kael said immediately. "And Mikel manages to trip over his own feet just walking—how's he supposed to dance?"
Conna clicked her tongue softly.
Luckily, the feast began at that moment. Heaping platters of food appeared on the golden plates, and in an instant the entire Auditorium was filled with the rich smell of pumpkin.
The smell grabbed Conna's attention too. She stopped looking at Kael and reached out to take a piece of golden-baked pumpkin pie.
"I've been waiting for this… Outside of Halloween, the school kitchen only ever seems to turn pumpkins into drinks."
Kael took a slice of pumpkin pie for himself as well; he liked this less-greasy kind of flavor just as much.
But like Conna had said, you only got this sort of thing at Halloween. The rest of the time the only pumpkin-related thing on the tables was pumpkin juice.
"Oh, right." Halfway through the feast, Conna suddenly remembered something. "Make sure you write to Fred and George and tell them to stop sending Love Potion to the school disguised in Energy Potion bottles. They're just adding to our workload."
"What have they done?" Kael asked in confusion.
"You don't know?" Conna gave him a look. "I've already confiscated several bottles of Love Potion lately—they're all from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.
"They change the packaging to Energy Potion bottles and labels so they can slip past Filch's checks.
"You know this, right? Those Detectors only work on Dark Magic, and Love Potion is just a Magic Potion, not dangerous… so they're exploiting the loophole."