The next month passed by in a blur, James had successfully selected and trained new team members, it was a gruelling couple of weeks as nobody he saw at trials was up to the Gryffindor standard, but eventually he settled on their new chaser; Katie Smith – a fifth year, she was small and agile, but not very good with the quaffle, the new beater – sixth year Ferris Canton was a great flier but useless with the bat. These two had been the best of the lot – with the rest being kept on in the squad as reserve players, in case of the likely event of an injury. James and Scott had trained Katie up to be a pretty good chaser over the past 4 weeks, and Ben had taught Ferris all he knew about being a Beater. The rest of the new squad had been taken through weeks of fitness training with Ellie and Albus. James was proud of all they'd achieved – They'd taken a sorry bunch of players and turn them into potential champions, James' plan was to not just set Gryffindor up for a win this season, but for seasons to come as well.
James, Albus, Scott and Ben all walked back up to the castle after training, they passed a ground of girls by the lake, which were looking at the boys and giggling. James laughed and kept walking – though he noticed the boys were no longer with him. He turned around to see them sitting with the girls. James rolled his eyes, laughing, and continued the walk up to the castle.
"James!" He heard from behind him, he turned to see Ellie walking towards him. He waited for her to reach him, she smiled and said,
"Not going down to the lake with the boys then?"
He laughed and shook his head. "Are you excited about tonight?" he asked her
"Oh yes, I just hope everyone else enjoys it"
"After all the effort we've put in, they bloody better enjoy it... Want to go have a last look at the hall?" James said, Ellie nodded – and they made their way to the Great Hall.
Of course today was Halloween, meaning that tonight was the night of the Ball. James and Ellie had spent weeks organising music, food and decorations – and the hard work had paid off, the Hall was beautiful. They had McGonagall help them charm the ceiling to a black night sky, littered with bright stars. They had moved the house tables to the edges of the Hall for food and drinks to be stationed, a stage for the band 'The Banshee Sisters' was where the Staff table usually sits at the end of the hall and a dance floor was in front of the stage. The two had set up many tables of 6 by the entrance of the hall, everything was covered in silver and orange, silver candles floated about 2 meters above James' head, the food was still being prepared in the kitchen so the tables were empty, but Ellie and James had requested almost every kind of food and sweets possible, and numerous drinks; butterbeer, pumpkin juice among others.
The room sparkled, and the sun was still up. James had a good feeling about tonight.
"It's wonderful" Ellie said,
"It really is" James agreed.
They took one last look at their work and headed back to the common room. The hall had been off limits to students all day, so it would be a surprise for this evening. Ellie and James had made a condition of entry for tonight that you had to be in costume, no costume... no entry. This had earned some complaints from some third and fourth years who thought they were too cool for costumes.
They reached the common room, and Ellie's friend Ashley Hastings spotted her,
"Ellie! C'mon we have to get ready!"
"It's 5 o'clock, The Ball isn't until 7.30?" James questioned,
"Exactly!" Ashley responded, quiet clearly holding back from saying 'Duh'. She grabbed Ellie's arm and dragged her up the girl's stairs, James laughed and mumbled, "Girls" and he went upstairs to see if the boys had returned from the lake.
He reached the room to see only Matt, on his bed reading. Matt didn't play Quidditch, he enjoyed the game but he had injured himself as a kid after falling off his broom, and could never bring himself to go much higher than 20-30 feet off the ground. He played in the summer with the rest of the boys, but never played at school.
"Hey mate" James said, flopping onto his own bed.
"Hey" Matt said, closing his book and sitting up, "How was training?"
"Good, I think we might have finally gotten somewhere with the new recruits" James grinned.
Matt smiled, but James could tell something was wrong.
"You okay mate?"
Matt looked at his friend, and realised there was no point lying,
"Holly." He said, shrugging and lying back down on his bed
"Just ask her out already dickhead!" James said, lobbing a pillow at Matt. At that point, Scott and Ben had returned from the Lake,
"Oh here we go, how'd you fellas get on then?"
"Phwoar those girls are fit" Ben said with a cheeky grin, "6th years"
"Dibs on Blondie!" Scott said, shoving Ben slightly,
"Fine by me, had my eyes on the brunette anyway" Ben said, still grinning. Matt and James rolled their eyes.
"By the way fellas, I have a way to kill a few hours before tonight's festivities" Scott said, opening his trunk and digging around, before pulling out a large silver bottle.
An hour and a half later the boys had demolished the better part of the silver bottle of Firewhisky, playing a muggle drinking game Ben had learnt from his neighbour. A game called 'quarters' in which you have to bounce a coin into a glass, whoever gets the coin in gets to choose who drinks. It was James' turn, he bounced a sickle off the ground and it hit the rim of the glass.
"Damn it!"
"Unlucky mate, what's that... the 9th one in a row" Ben asked as James passed him the coin and the glass
"Piss off"
The boys laughed as Ben got the coin in, and then once again chose James to drink.
There was a knock at the door as James was taking a swig from the bottle.
"Come in!" James called rather loudly, the door opened and there stood Ellie, dressed in a short lime green dress and green flats to match, her hair was up in a bun and she had white wings attached to her back.
"James, why aren't you ready? It's six thirty." She asked, but then saw the situation in front of her. Sighed and said, "You lot, have showers and sort yourselves out. Make sure you're dressed and ready by quarter past seven. James you and I have to be down at the hall by then so hurry up."
"Okay okay, I'm going" He laughed, passing the bottle to Matt he stood up... or tried to. He stumbled slightly and fell onto the nearest bedpost, holding himself up, he was grinning from ear to ear.
"Come here" Ellie said, walking over to him and putting his arm over his shoulder, and walked him into the bathroom. "Shower." She said. James smiled and sat himself up on the counter. "James Potter, shower" she said with a slight smile, she couldn't help but think he looked adorable. The door shut behind her. She could hear the boys laughing on the other side of the door.
"Really mature." She called, trying to twist the door knob, to no luck however. She sighed.
"You look beautiful" James said from his seat on the counter. It wasn't the firewhisky talking, she really did look gorgeous. She had turned to face him. A blush rose in her cheeks. James stood up, and walked towards her, she looked nervous but smiled. James reached into the shower and turned the tap. He smiled. Things were still spinning. Ellie tried the door again; it seemed they had given up. She opened the door just as James was taking off his shirt,
"Don't drown" She said to him, he laughed as she shut the door. She turned to face Ben, Matt and Scott.
"I'm going to come back at 7, you guys better be ready by then" she said, "Oh and Matt – Ask Holly out already."
"Did James tell you to say that?!" He asked as she was almost out the door,
"No, Holly did."
Once James was out of the shower he was could tell he was still pretty drunk, but he was at least able to get dressed and ready no problem. He pulled his costume on. He'd lost a bet with the boys and been made to wear a Peter Pan costume, a character from a muggle children's story, but this had required him to wear tights for this evening.
"So, on a scale of 1 to flaming, exactly how gay do I look?" James asked,
"I'd say about a nine" Ben laughed as he pulled his Superman cape on.
"Oi, you're in tights too mate" James retorted, he looked around, in fact they all were; Ben was going as Superman, Scott as Batman and Matt as Spiderman – They'd gone for the hero's theme.
"Yes, but yours is the least masculine"
"I hate you guys so much" The door opened again to reveal Ellie.
"God, Knock much Williams?" Scott asked, pulling his pants up.
"Sorry boys – good to see you're all ready. Good to go James?" She asked
"Mmmhmm" James said, smiling. "See you guys down there"
The pair walked down to the Great Hall, James stumbling every so often and being caught by Ellie.
"You do realise our costumes match don't you?" She asked him out of the blue as the descended the stairs to the entrance hall.
"They do?" He said, taking a step back to look her over. She was right, he hadn't noticed before – she was Tinkerbelle, and he was Peter Pan. He grinned. "Have I told you that you look beautiful?"
"Once already, yes" she laughed and continued to walk down the stairs. "We have to meet with McGonagall, act sober"
"You must think I'm an idiot" James said, grabbing her arm, "I'm sorry."
"For?"
"Being irresponsible"
"Nobody is perfect James; Even the Head Boy has his flaws. Plus it's okay, tonight's a party." She smiled.
"Ahh Mister Potter, Miss Williams – How lovely to see you, and in matching costumes nonetheless!" The headmistress called. They ran through the night's proceedings, emergency procedures, and took one last look over the hall, the food and drinks were all in place, by the time they were finished, most of the school had gathered outside the hall. James was thankful that Ellie took over the welcome speech. He wasn't really listening, but more looking out over the crowd. He saw Albus dressed as a dragon trainer and later spotted Lily, dressed as pirate.
"...So on behalf both of us please, enjoy the night!" He caught the end of Ellie's welcome and the students cheered, and as they opened the doors, a chorus of 'oohs' and 'ahhs' ensued as they all piled into the Hall. James and Ellie stood at the back of the hall and watched as everyone began dancing and eating and celebrating. Ben jumped up onto the stage after the band's first song and said,
"Before we get this all going, how about three cheers for our wonderful head girl and boy?" The school responded with gusto after each one of Ben's 'Hip Hip's. James and Ellie grinned. James looked over to his left to see Matt and Holly Anderson, Ellie's friend and roommate and the girl Matt was crushing on holding hands.
"Finally" Ellie said, "I'm gonna go get a drink, I'll see you later" she said, smiling at James.
"No worries" James said, he spotted Lily dancing with Rowan. He decided to go find the guys. He decided not to worry about Quidditch or NEWTS for one night. He was just going to enjoy his night. He looked over to see Ellie laughing with the girls as it seemed like they were teasing or congratulating Holly, he smiled. He spotted the boys,
"Fellas, it appears we have a real Casanova on our hands here" James said, slapping his hand on Matt's shoulder. Matt was grinning from ear to ear.
"Celebratory drinks boys?" Scott said, pulling out a flask containing the remaining firewhisky. They all grinned cheekily. It was going to be an interesting night.
A/N: Longest chapter yet... Let me know! Ideas/Thoughts/Comments!? Thanks lovely readers - please review!
