HH_mirror

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.