Luscious Pumpkin Jam (dated to Halloween night)

[ugly-old-hat.livejournal.com]

The party was not intended to celebrate Halloween, actually, but to celebrate the existence of pumpkins. It just seemed Halloween would be a good time for that kind of a celebration.

Wizarding culture had a special regard for the pumpkin, making it into tarts and juice and savories, forcing it down the gullets of every magic-user from such a tender age as to form a lifelong habit. The Sorting Hat, being steeped in magic, had also steeped itself in many a vessel of pumpkin juice over the centuries of its storied existence. Pumpkin juice, pumpkin ale, pumpkin hooch. Gooey pumpkin-gut strings, luxurious nutrient-rich slime studded with pale seeds. Oh pumpkins, glorious gourd of wizard's delight!

The Hat had dubbed this party after one of its favorite recipes: the LUSCIOUS PUMPKIN JAM.

The huge doors of the Great Hall were open. While magic kept the chill seasonal drafts from the Great Hall itself, party-goers who wished to enjoy the crisp autumn air could do so from the luxury of a pumpkin carriage. These were quite literally hollowed pumpkins that the Hat's magic had transfigured into full-size carriages, capable of carrying several occupants. Each was lit from within by enchanted candles, and studded with gleaming black jewels, with carved faces in lieu of windows. Several of the enchanted wonders were lined up outside the doors, with their house-elf coachmen ready to whisk students around the school grounds in slightly-gooey, pumpkin-scented comfort.

Indoors, all was warm and merry, and candlelit, and mostly orange. Instead of bobbing for apples, guests could bob for miniature pumpkins, the sort Martha Stewart might have used to decorate a mantelpiece, their tub filled with pumpkin juice in lieu of water. A pumpkin-carving station took prominent position near the doors, with paints and yarn to bedeck uncarved gourds for those students uninterested in pulling out pumpkin pulp. Tables had been moved to accommodate a dance floor, with a karaoke machine placed nearby. Golems inspired by Arcimboldo, wholly composed of autumnal fruits, did duty as waiters and DJs.

From the vantage of the head table, elevated above the main body of the hall, the Hat could take in all at once the entire spectacle. Satisfied, it rapped a self-congratulatory pastiche/homage:

"There ain't no party like a Sorting Hat party 'cause a Sorting Hat party don't STOP!"

The Hat felt most coolio itself, extending a strap to caress languidly the sequined sombrero that lay beside its place at the Great Hall's head table. The sombrero did not respond, of course. It was rather like the hat-equivalent of a RealDoll. Inert though it might be, the sombrero was velvety AND blingy, and that was what mattered.

Comments

[arrogantmage.livejournal.com]

He lowered his eyes, as if in respect or in remorse. "You have time now," he remarked quietly.

[engravedonsouls.livejournal.com]

Well... Lenneth eyes widened slightly and she actually turned to look at him. Of course she realized she had time now but to hear it so plainly from him- she just wasn't prepared for that.

"I suppose I do now, don't I?" For all he'd done, and with how he spoke now, she just couldn't bring herself to be sharp just yet. "I've been practicing with the instruments you left me with some of my time."

[arrogantmage.livejournal.com]

If he'd been invisibly spying on her and had seen her playing the musical instruments, now would not be the time to say so. Even Lezard knew that.

"Have you indeed?" He sounded surprised, pleasantly surprised. "It gladdens me that you would not disdain a gift offered in good faith, whatever you may feel toward the giver."

[engravedonsouls.livejournal.com]

Very bad indeed. Lenneth's mood would turn most foul if he had mentioned it. For now though, she nods and reaches into her robe because her mun is a loser neglected to mention what she was wearing and pulls out the panpipe he'd left her. Her favorite so far. The moog synthesizer might still be giving her trouble.

"The instruments never did anything harmful before. I wouldn't take anything out on them."

[arrogantmage.livejournal.com]

"I remember reading at school, in Flenceburg, a treatise in which the author was arguing that music and poetry are harmful unless subordinated to a higher cause. He'd have restricted all music to Odinic hymns." Lezard snorted. "The idea was that certain kinds of music, frivolous music and ballads of love or vengeance, would turn the mind toward wrongdoing and away from virtue. If that author were to be believed, then all the musical instruments I gave you carry within them the potential for harm." A light laugh. "And yet there is no such danger, and never was. Only the curmudgeonly scribblings of some old man, dignified by the name of philosophy."

[engravedonsouls.livejournal.com]

"And he never considered that perhaps the music might sooth a weary soul? Music can influence people either way." Lenneth sighed. While some mortals could be so incredibly intelligent and valuable, others spouted off nonsense in a way that may them seem intelligent. She knew a couple gods who enjoyed music and they hadn't turned out worse than they ever had been.

"I suppose music could influence someone. If they were weak-minded enough to let it or already had a tendency for wrongdoing or otherwise."

[arrogantmage.livejournal.com]

"Your observation has the ring of truth, goddess. How many other pleasures, I wonder, are only what we make of them? Only when we see harm is there real harm."

[engravedonsouls.livejournal.com]

"I've had many years to observe, while serving as a Valkyrie. There really is no telling how many... pleasures can do harm." And Lenneth can see harm in plenty of things, except she's starting to see more good lately.

[arrogantmage.livejournal.com]

This was the time for Lezard to pretend he cared about Valkyrie morality in any sense beyond its effect on his chances of getting into a Valkyrie's pants.

"If you have the time —" a modest pause, downcast eyes — "I should be interested to hear of these observations. I have much to learn. The learning process never ceases, no matter how high one's level of attainment."

[engravedonsouls.livejournal.com]

That honestly surprises Lenneth more than anything else he's done before. And she's just going to stare at him for a long moment before clearing her throat.

"I'm not sure what I could tell you that you haven't known yourself but... I don't see much harm in it."

[arrogantmage.livejournal.com]

Mwahahahaha ... ahahaha .. ahem.

"Perhaps over a glass of pumpkin elixir, then? It contains no intoxicants, and I am assured it is dispensed fresh when requested directly from a house-elf."

Even Lenneth might know about Hogwarts' tradition of enchanted food-tampering.

[engravedonsouls.livejournal.com]

Oh she was warned about it but she hasn't experienced it, thank the gods. And if luck stays on her side, she won't ever. Although, being nice to Lezard, she probably ran out of luck, huh?

"That sounds nice, actually." Nice and Lezard, in the same line of thinking. Lenneth's world has flipped upside down.