AN/AR: Sorry about the delay, I really am! FFNet's been having fits and is only now not logging me out when I go to upload the new chapter. - M.
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October 31 dawned as a crisp and cool Thursday morning over Hogwarts Castle. Angelica grinned as she woke up, and hurried over to the window, throwing it open. "Hello Mum, Hello Dad," she whispered. She may not be . . . happy with her parents for leaving her, but this was their day, and she was just fine to set aside the resentment she usually held toward them one or two days a year. "Happy Anniversary," she added. It really helped that one of those days was the anniversary of the deaths.
She stood like that for a while, watching the sun rise in the pale grey blue sky. Eventually she snapped out of it. Angelica stepped away from the window, leaving it open to get some fresh air into the dorm, and walked over to her be to get her clothes from where she put them in the bottom drawer of her bedside table the night before. The drawer was rather deep, and admittedly needed some organization, so it wasn't altogether surprising when the pre-teen's hand brushed a small, silk-wrapped package as she picked up her robe and jeans.*
So that was where her Tarot cards went!
Angelica smiled slightly to herself and pulled the deck from the drawer along with her clothes. Samhain was a good time for divination, and who knew; maybe the Goddess was trying to tell her something.
With that done, Angelica bundled her clothes in her arms, showered, and grabbed her satchel and book bag. It was time to find Chris and Hermione for breakfast.
Considering that it was only six thirty in the morning, the Great Hall was fairly busy. People below fifth year were up, for instance. Even so, it only took a second for Angelica to pick out Chris' head ducked over his plate, and she slid onto the bench next to him in a heartbeat.
"Morning," the boy said after swallowing a forkful of scrambled eggs. He twitched his lips up in a semblance of a smile. "What's up?"
Angelica rolled her eyes. "Happy New Year* to you, too, prat. I found my Tarot deck."
Chris' eyebrows went up a little as he turned back to his peanut butter covered pancakes. "Really? That's great, are you going to read them? Try the pancakes – they're blueberry chocolate chip today."
"Boys and their food," the girl snarked, but she served herself a few pancakes anyway. "And yes, actually, I am. I could read them for you, too, if you like. Do you want me to?"
The Slytherin boy glanced away from his pancake . . . sandwich . . . thing, and looked at Angelica when he answered. "Okay."
Angelica grinned. "Great!" she exclaimed happily. "I'll do it once we've finished eating."
Soon the two dark haired witches were sitting across from each other on the wide steps in front of the castle, and Angelica was busily shuffling cards while Chris looked on. One was already in between them, representing Chris as the querent. The Knight of Coins. After a moment, the girl slowed down her shuffling, and began placing the cards face down on the stone work. Once she had, she looked up at Chris, and began to read the cards.
No other students were around while Angelica read the cards for her friend, at Chris' insistence. The girl could understand that – why would anybody want everybody to know their future after all? It thankfully stayed that way until Angelica turned over the last card. Chris nodded thoughtfully, his eyes roving over the cards as he committed them to memory. Angelica watched him nervously.
"Did I do okay?" she asked. "I wasn't choppy when I read them, was I?"
Chris tore his eyes away from the spread and shook his head. "No," he said distantly, "you were fine." He seemed to come back to himself after a moment and added, "You know, my Aunt Paige reads Tarot cards. I'm not good at it, but you give her a run for her money."
Angelica blushed. "Thanks."
" . . . You're welcome."
The two sat like that for a second, until the castle doors creaked open and Hermione came into view with Neville. "There you are!" she exclaimed. "Hurry up, it's almost time for classes – what are you doing out here, anyway?"
"Nothing!" Chris and Angelica chorused, getting up and following their friend into the school. The normal day was about to begin.
The three students sat in the Great Hall for another hour or so, talking and slowly munching on toast until Neville arrived, half an hour before breakfast ended. With him came several other students, and the Gryffindor table quickly reached its usual noisy dull roar.
Conversation soon turned to the Halloween Feast that would be held that evening, and one of the Muggle-born students, Lillian Moon, sighed. "It sounds fun," she said, shrugging, "but I wish that we could trick-or-treat. I always loved doing that at home, and the sweets just aren't as good when you don't dress up for them."
"What's 'trick-or-treat'?"
"Why would you dress up for candy?"
Hermione, Lillian, Angelica, Chris and Dean stared at their wizard-raised classmates. "You've never heard of trick-or-treating?" Dean asked, incredulous. The others shook their heads, and Hermione quickly began to explain the tradition Muggle children followed. The pure- and half-blooded twelve-year-olds listened in fascination at the idea of dressing up as someone else in exchange for sweets.
"Oh, let's do that this year!" Lavender squealed, hopping in her seat. Chris hid a snicker, wondering if she realised her hair was dipping into the strawberry jam set out near her plate.
"That's brilliant!" Angewlica exclaimed, smiling from ear to ear. "We can wear our costumes to the Feast tonight!"
Watching his classmates eagerly hop up from the table to spread the word about dressing up to the other second years, Chris only felt confusion. Finally he shrugged. If they wanted to skip breakfast before Transfiguration of all classes, that was their loss.
More peanut butter pancakes for him. When did they start getting sent to the Gryffindor table, too?
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That evening, while rain pounded on the windows of the Great Hall and the enchanted ceiling above them swirled dark blue over the floating candles, bats and Jack O' Lanterns, the teachers of Hogwarts surveyed the students with confusion. Almost every student below fifth year, and several older than that was wearing strange clothing. Some had even used colouring charms on their skin, it seemed.
"What in the world . . . "
"What are they doing?"
"Is it a prank? DO they realise they look strange?"
"I say, is there something in the food, or do they all really look like that?"
Whispers ranged up and down the Head Table until they were interrupted by a single, loud snort. "Oh, for heavens' sake," the Potions Master drawled, "they're dressing up for Halloween. It's a Muggle custom."
"Oh . . . "
"And, oh look, the little Potter chit and her friends have decided they're too good to participate. How very like them."
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"Oh!" Angelica said softly, catching sight of her watch. It was nearly time to go to the Death Day Party. She and her friends had told Sir Nick over a week ago she'd attend . . . "Excuse me," she said, getting up from the Ravenclaw table, trying not to bump into anyone. "Pardon me, Need to leave . . . "
The small girl nipped over to the Slytherin table to drag Chris away from the pumpkin muffins – "They're almost better than my Mom's, Angie!" – and then the two of them pulled Neville and Hermione from the Great Hall as well. Quickly as they could the four second years dashed through the candle-lit castle halls until they reached the area of the dungeon where Sir Nicholas had told them the party was being held.
The light seemed different there . . . very much like a horror film. Fitting, for a ghost party. Thin black tapers with bleached blue flames sat in their holders along the walls, casting a ghostly look on the four living children's faces. The candles did nothing to warm the place – the hall was colder the closer they drew to the party. Angelica felt her ever present headache worsen slightly. It must be the cold . . . Angelica shivered and wrapped her arms around herself tightly. Perhaps she ought not to have dressed as Minnie Mouse, or at least she should have worn a costume with trousers.
"Oh, this is so exciting," Hermione beamed, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Her Marry Lennox* dress flounced while she moved. Angelica envied her friend her warm pettiskirts. "A death day party! You know, I doubt there are very many people living that can say they've been to one – it must be fascinating . . . "
"Yeah, Herms," Chris said, smiling slightly at her enthusiasm, "We get it. Can we go in?"
When the doorway came in sight, and Sir Nick floating beside it, there also came the loud sound of what must have been a thousand nails scratching at one enormous chalkboard.
"What the heck is that?" Chris muttered, wincing at the noise.
"Is – maybe it's music, I don't know . . . " Angelica trailed off when Sir Nicholas floated over to them.
"My dear friends," he said mournfully. "Welcome, welcome… so pleased you could come…"
He swept off his plumed hat and bowed them inside.
It was much roomier than the Potions classroom, Angelica thought, watching the many – hundreds of – ghosts roaming around. It was absolutely breath-taking, besides. She didn't know a dungeon could look so nice. The hundreds of pearly-white people floating around the dance floor and scattered elsewhere around the room left a sort of misty not-fog on the ground, making it hard to see one's feet as it wisped upward and out before fading into nothingness. A platform dripping in black velvet hosted a thirty-saw orchestra, and a wrought iron chandelier hung overhead, boasting a bat motif and thousands of ancient-looking ivory candles with pale blue flames. The four stunts' breath rose in front of them, obscuring the greyscale gauze panelling the walls. It was lovely . . . and freezing. The quartet huddled closer.
"Let's look around," Angelica murmured.
"We shouldn't walk into anyone," Neville said nervously, staring with wide eyes at all the ghosts. The other three nodded, and began moving around, somehow ending up by the food table. Quickly the three of them covered their noses – it smelled terrible. Angelica muttered the rose-smelling charm.
Bedecking the long, black velvet draped buffet table were large, rotten fish laid on handsome silver platters; cakes, burned charcoal-black, were heaped on salvers; there was a great maggoty haggis, a slab of cheese covered in furry green mould and, in pride of place, an enormous grey cake in the shape of a tombstone, with tar-like icing forming the words,
SIR NICHOLAS DE MIMSY-PORPINGTON
DIED 31ST OCTOBER, 1492
The four students watched in disgusted fascination as the ghost of a teenage girl passed through the table, tears running down her cheeks.
"Can you taste the food when you go through it?" Hermione asked curiously.
The ghost girl's head snapped to them instantly, and for a moment, Angelica thought she'd begin to wail again, but when she looked at them, she didn't. "Almost," the ghost said in a tiny voice, floating closer. "But not really . . . " As Myrtle came to float beside her, Angelica winced. Her headache was getting worse. She ignored the prickly pounding in favour of talking. Hermione was explaining about how Myrtle – known as Moaning Myrtle by most of the schoOl – haunted a girls' lavatory on the second floor, with Myrtle adding her two bits in every once in a while – "Bad for you? It isn't my fault people with to disturb my death by peeing!"
Angelica watched al the ghost floating around her. Were they closer than before? No, that was just the room. It seemed much tinier, now, and was moving . . . RIP . . . TEAR . . . KILL . . . What was that? Who was saying it? The pounding in her head grew worse and the ghosts seemed to huddle away from the walls. The whispering in the back of her mind spiked. A ghostly hand passed through her arm.
The last thing the girl heard was Hermione's shriek before she passed out.
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AN/AR: For those confused by the 'jeans' bit when Angelica is finding her Tarot cards – JK Rowling originally had no plan for the students of Hogwarts to have a uniform outside their robes and hats. Any other clothing, or lack thereof, the students wore under their robes was completely at their discretion. However, this look isn't very aesthetically pleasing for a film, which is where we get the full out uniform most of us Harry Potter lovers think of. Just so you know. : )
Samhain is sometimes called the Witch's New Year.
If you didn't know who Mary Lennox is, shame on you. The Secret Garden was my second favourite book growing up! *shakes head sadly at ye poor, story-deprived people* You must read that book! Actually, read anything by Frances Hodgson Burnett, all her works are classic.
. . .And Angelica's power will be flat out given next chapter. Those of you who guessed Necromancy – close, but no cigar. Her kind actually *hate* Necromancers. – M.