The Hogwarts Hocus Halloween Hextravaganza, Before Midnight.

[pumpkinpatchsir.livejournal.com]

((Okay, the party will be divided into two parts, one taking place before midnight, and one after the Halloween spell is starting to work. This is the first part, obviously. The other will be posted immediately afterwards but takes place roughly five hours later or so, in game time. Remember, this post is for partying only, and no people-turning-into-their-costumes crack!))

ASK NOT FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, IT TOLLS FOR THEE

Jack watched the words that were magically carved above the door to the Great Hall, in plain view of everyone entering it, and he smiled secretively. Everything was set. Tonight was going to be interesting. Who would have known magic could prove to be so useful? He made a mental note to investigate this even more for next year. Now that Sally was here, he'd be able to discuss it with her at great length. She always had such lovely ideas.

Since Jack was not exactly a beginner in the scaring people business he had carefully checked out the atmosphere of Hogwarts and gotten a distinct impression of what was considered frightening here. Outside the Great Hall the lights were out and shadows lurked in the corners. At irregular intervals (but always when one was least expecting it) the mad cackle of a deranged evil clown echoed through the Entrance Hall. Small cats black as midnight stroke around the walls, not speaking to anyone but constantly smiling evilly at anyone passing them, showing gleaming, pointed teeth. Also, because Jack never had it in him to resist the absolute classics, bats were hanging upside-down near the ceiling.

Inside the Great Hall, it was less dark and spooky, but still obviously Halloween. Cool white mist was trickling along the floor. Jack-o’-lanterns hovered in the air around an area cleared for dancing. Along one wall stood a large table with various Halloween treats: pumpkin pie, candy corn, toffee apples, hot cider, mini-cakes and a large bowl of punch.

The Halloween party could begin.

Comments

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen watched Susan eating, and did not speak against it. Enough people had partaken of the party food by now that had it been drugged or charmed, he would already have observed the effects, unless it were a charm that took some time to show an effect, and that had not been the case with any of the other charmed foods and drinks that had plagued the school in the past. Provided she did not allow the food to leave her sight or attention between taking it from the common platter and consuming it, there should be no harm done. All the same, he himself would not eat anything that was not given him by someone he trusted, not at Hogwarts.

"I have said the same myself," he reflected, happy to follow her line of reasoning into a purely abstract, philosophical -- and therefore eminently safe -- realm. "Curiously, the person who has taken the most umbrage at my saying so -- my saying that a man can be quite sincerely attached to two, three, any number of women -- is also among my acquaintances the most prone to straying from his marital bonds, and with the least trouble to his conscience at that. Monogamy is rather like monarchy: an imperfect system, but one to which I can see no viable alternative. In my youth I was given to revolutionary sentiments. The failure of the French taught me otherwise." Susan had likely been privy to Stephen's occasional vitriolic rants against Napoleon.

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

"There's a saying, and I'm not sure who coined it, that revolutions never do any good because they always come around again." One cake was enough, for now--they were almost unbearably sweet. "Ankh-Morpork has seen countless revolutions and one major civil war, and until Vetinari came it always wound up right back where it started."

She poured another cup of tea, not trusting herself to drink more punch. "It's not just men who can be attached to more than one woman, either," she chided him gently. "Several of the women I've run into--not counting the Seamstresses, our ladies of negotiable affection--have kept several men simultaneously." She couldn't help but snort. "I always wondered how they had enough energy--in my (admittedly limited) experience, one is draining enough." It didn't help that Imp and those who had come after him had all ended badly--if she was a little bitter, she had a right to be.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen chuckled. "I know very little of what women say among themselves, about such matters. It would not surprise me, sure," he allowed, remembering revelations his first wife once had made (http://estebanmd.livejournal.com/34372.html#cutid1) concerning a conversation between herself, Jack's Sophie, and Stephen's friend Clarissa Oakes.

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

"Well, to be honest neither do I, and I am one," she admitted. "I was never what you might call a social creature, back home--the people I saw most tended to not be 'people', in the classical sense of the word."

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Which was likely part of why Stephen and Susan got on so well. "I could never be called a 'social creature' either. I have been consulted in matters one would consider to be of a personal nature, mind, as a physician. A ship, too, is something of a floating microcosm, a world unto itself. One cannot live in such close quarters with such a press of humanity without learning something of their ways. That floating world is masculine in character, of course. I did once have a woman as loblolly-boy, a matronly efficient Polly who came highly recommended by a Dublin doctor I had known; and there are ships where the gunner will take his wife aboard. Captain Aubrey has always preferred not to have women aboard, when he had the choice." He thought of Clarissa again and smiled. Clarissa had been a stowaway, and Jack had not been pleased in the least to have her presence forced upon his ship as a fait accompli; Stephen, though, had found her most agreeable, though not in the way Jack might have suspected.

"I should understand women better than I do, now that I have been one. It was while you were popcorn; there is a potion that accomplishes the change." Suddenly a speculative look crossed his face. "Do you think Teatime would recognise you, were you a man?"

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

"Playgrounds are much the same," she said, shaking her head. "I took the children to several different parks, and I told them that if they could get the hand of playground politics, the adult world would hold no fears." The fears of adults were so pale in comparison to those of children...adults feared only the tangible, while for children the imaginary often held much more terror. "They really are a small cross-section of society, with everything that goes therewith."

Susan had to laugh at the idea of herself as a man. "Unless I could do something about this hair, he'd recognize me if I was a poodle," she said, indicating her veiled head. "I've never tried dyeing it, but something tells me it wouln't take. It's like the birthmark, I think; bits of soul genetics no magic can erase."

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

"Ah, yes, the hair. I had quite forgotten it, I confess. Next to the things one sees routinely at Hogwarts, hair that moves of its own accord seems so trivial as not to be worth mentioning. You are quite right; it would give away your identity readily."

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

"I suppose I could wear a scarf, but that would likely attract more notice than not." Bugger. "It's not even as if I could cut it off, either--it attacked the last hairdresser that tried."

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

"That does sound formidable," Stephen agreed, suppressing a chuckle. "It would seem you have a weapon besides the famous poker, then, at least."

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

"I can certainly see it trying to strangle him," she agreed. "Though I'm not sure it would be very effective."

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen grinned. "It might slow him down a bit." This was not a serious discussion of tactics. He hoped to keep the conversation light, or as light as it could be.