Chapter 11: The New Year's Party

                The days between Christmas and New Year's Eve passed in a blur of new toys, food and laughter, and annoyed exclamations from the more responsible Gryffindors who were trying to do previously forgotten homework. However, the forgotten homework of Sirius, James, Lily and Remus remained forgotten, though Peter could often be seen diligently working on his. It had snowed, deeply and thickly, on Boxing Day, and after James had transfigured a rickety table into a sled, they went sleighing on the hill just outside of Hogsmeade.

                They awoke on New Years Eve to a dull, overcast day, with black clouds threatening, meaning that the afternoon's celebrations would be held entirely indoors.

                Each year, Hogwarts held two New Year's Eve parties. The big event, on which all energies were focused, was the dance in the evening for 5th, 6th and 7th years, for which a band was hired, buffet food was laid on and which continued to one a.m., by which point most people had disappeared to more private areas. But earlier in the afternoon the younger students got their turn. A huge meal was set out, after which the tables were cleared away and games were played, prizes were given and even the oldest and most dignified of students usually managed to enjoy themselves. However, the last party had been the exception to this rule as five supposedly insignificant first years had created their own special brand of havoc in ways that were best forgotten, but had included several large spider-shaped creatures falling from the ceiling. Consequently, they were looking forward to making just as much, if not more, mischief this year, and with James' invisibility cloak, the possibilities were enormous.

                The party began at four o'clock, and by two, all the girls had disappeared to get ready. Lily personally couldn't see the point in this. "It'll take three minutes for me to get dressed and two to do my hair," she complained to the boys when Vicky called her.

"Just promise me you'll come up at half three?" Vicky compromised.

"Whatever," Lily agreed for the sake of peace, and returned to her plotting.

                That was why, an hour and a half later, she disappeared up the stairs to her dormitory. The boys decided that this would be a good time for them to begin getting ready and left as well.

"Why do I have to be here, Vicky? There's no point, I'm going in these clothes anyway. I'm not wearing my dress robes."

"Don't be silly, Lily. Anyway, we're going to do you up properly. There's four of us and one of you, so just shut it, ok?"

Lily growled, but obediently sat down on her bed. "Here, take these, and go and shower," she was told.

"I showered this morning, that's enough for one day," Lily said firmly.

"But you're covered in dirt. What have you been doing, anyway?"

"We were playing hide-and-seek, and I found this hidden cupboard…"

"If you don't at least wash your face, I'll get Esmerelda Black to do it, and you know she will," Vicky grinned. Lily did indeed know that Esme would delight in anything that annoyed Lily; mainly due to the pranks Lily had played on her the year before. Growling yet again, Lily picked up the robes and went to wash.

                She was most of the way back from the bathroom when she realised that the robes she was wearing were not hers. They were a bright royal blue, and while they were not her ideal colour, they most definitely did not look as bad as the dreaded pink ones. 

"Vicky, who's are these?" she cried, as she burst into the room. "Oh," she trailed off, "right." The sight that greeted Lily was Zoe in the pink robes, which looked stunning against her dark skin and hair. "You look lovely, Zoe," she finished lamely.

"You don't look so bad-," Zoe began, but Andrea cut her off.

"That's ok, Lily, Zoe doesn't mind you borrowing her robes at all. Anything for Golden Queen Lily."

Lily whirled around to face her. 'I've taken too much shit from Andrea,' she thought. "That is IT, Andrea. I've had enough.  I don't know why you don't like me, but as of now the feeling is completely neutral." With that, Lily hurled the 'Rhyming Couplets' curse at her.

"Oh Lily, woe upon thee,

That you have cast this curse on me," Andrea said. The other girls burst into laughter.

"Laugh at me not,

For I will kill you like a shot."

This was too much, and the four girls lost control completely, rolling onto the floor laughing.

"I'm going to leave that spell on you all night, just to teach you," Lily gasped out. Andrea opened her mouth to retort, but remembered in time and shut it with a snap.

                When they had calmed down enough, Vicky made Lily sit on the floor while she artfully wound her hair up into a bun, leaving a few tendrils to curl around her face, then applied some make up. None of the girls, who were all immersed in preparing themselves, (or in Lily's case, staying awake), realised that it had turned four o'clock until the door slammed open revealing three grinning (and one blushing) boys.

"AHH!" Vicky and Tabitha screamed.

"AHH-LAA!" Andrea screamed.

Zoe pulled the curtains shut around her bed.

"Why all the screaming?" James asked, bemused. "You're all dressed."

Lily grinned up at her friends, delighted that they had caused such a disturbance, one eye eerily rimmed with eyeliner.

"This is the realm of the girl,

That is why we are in such a whirl," Andrea explained.

"Pardon, Andy?" Sirius inquired, while the others stared in shock.

"Your friend true,

Was feeling quite blue,

So she hexed me with this curse,

And now I feel rather worse."

It was ten minutes before the boys stopped laughing, and Vicky could fix Lily's eyes, so they were more than fashionably late. As they ran down the stairs, James pulled Lily back. "I've got it," he whispered, pulling his robes open to reveal the Invisibility Cloak.

"Excellent," Lily grinned, "I can't wait."

********************

They were nearly half an hour late, but they didn't mind; they ate dinner twice as quickly as most people anyway, and the other girls tended to eat less. When everyone had finished eating (and Sirius had spilled pasta sauce down his robes, which Remus spelled clean with a grin), the tables flew to the sides, and many new chairs appeared. Professor Dunworthy was in charge of the party this year, assisted by Professor Headley, which amused the students, as they were not talking to each other. Since the incident at the end of the school year that had seen Sirius beaten up and his friends nearly expelled, the two Professors had barely exchanged a civil word.

"Musical chairs, everyone," Dunworthy called. "Prize for the winner." General applause greeted his announcements, especially the second one. Everyone who wanted to play lined up in a circle, and a chair quickly matched itself to each person before one was taken away. Music started over the Magical Megaphones and the game began.

                Magical Musical Chairs was not the same as Muggle Musical Chairs. IT followed the same basic principle, but the participants ran around the perimeter of the game area and there was one major difference: the chairs moved. When the game stopped, each person had to chase a still-moving chair. Unsurprisingly, the game often turned violent.

All five managed to stay in for the first few rounds, but then disaster struck as Lily and James ran for the same chair. There was a brief physical fight, and the whole hall laughed as James ended up on his rear end on the floor and Lily got the chair.  "Haha, Jamie, beaten up by a girlie," Sirius crowed, earning glares from both parties. Lily was not just an ordinary 'girlie'. James stalked out of the hall, apparently sulking.

                Peter lost in the next round, and that was when it began to happen. Chairs began to disappear from under people. As someone sat down, the chair would move into the path of another.  When this happened to Malfoy and then Snape in succession, Lily and Remus laughed so much that it made them loose concentration, and they soon lost, leaving just Sirius with third and fourth years. Sirius winked at them; he was enjoying himself thoroughly.

                Sirius first beat a Hufflepuff fourth year to a chair, literally sliding under him so that the boy ended up on his lap. He then beat a Slytherin girl in a sprint to the final chair, and moved a chair from underneath a third year himself, meaning that it was just himself and Robert Carrick, a tall, burly Ravenclaw Beater, left in it.

                The last chair was squarely in the middle of the hall, dancing happily. The two boys were running at opposite sides of the hall. When the music stopped, both legged it towards the chair, which began to move away from them both. As they were running, Carrick reached out to push Sirius over, and Sirius fell flat, but grabbed the other boy's ankle so that he too fell. They both scrambled up and raced neck-and-neck for the errant chair. As they reached it, Carrick whipped out his wand and yelled "Accio!" and the chair flew straight towards him. This didn't stop Sirius from launching himself at Carrick, and knocking him over, but the older boy rolled and fell onto the chair, technically making himself the winner.

"CHEAT! Cheat!" The Gryffindors in the crowd were screaming, Lily and Remus among the most vocal.

"Bastard!" Peter squeaked.

"I'm afraid that's cheating, Mr Carrick," Professor Dunworthy said.

"No one ever said 'No magic'," Carrick contested, and Dunworthy had to agree. It was just something that had been taken for granted; no one had ever thought to tell the students.

                As Sirius finally walked towards him, Remus said quietly, but gloatingly, "I would have beaten him."

Sirius glared, "Shut up you, with your super-human strength. Why is that, anyway?"

Remus visibly closed up and Sirius wondered why. "Nothing," Remus answered.

                The games continued, with Musical Bumps, Musical Statues, and a Dancing Competition, which Sirius won outright. Another Gryffindor won Musical Statues (though both Sirius and Lily lost in the first round) and a Ravenclaw won Musical Bumps, making the scores equal. All over the hall Slytherins were provoking fights between Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, whose shouts of "Cheaters! Cheaters!" rang on the air, and the Hufflepuffs were desperately trying to stop the violence. The last game to be played was an old Muggle favourite, Musical Laps. This time the chairs, (with all the boys seated on them) were stationary, and the girls were running. Not surprisingly, Sirius, James and Remus had made sure they were near the middle of the lines, so they would have to play for as long as possible.  

                As Lily ran in time with the music, she watched the other participants. The boys were watching the girls that ran by them, hoping someone they liked would end up on their lap, and the girls were doing likewise. As the music stopped, and Lily sat down (on a rather ugly Slytherin) she heard boys crying "Over here!" to girlfriends, and girls fighting over who got to sit on a particularly good-looking boy. Much of the latter controversy seemed to be around Simon Cleavy, the third year star of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, who had beaten James to the spot right in the middle of the line. 'Silly twits', Lily thought at the two currently arguing girls. 'It will last for all of two minutes.'

                However, the matter wasn't quite so simple. The two girls were a Ravenclaw and a Gryffindor, and when the Gryffindor girl, Aline, decided that words were getting her nowhere, she punched the Ravenclaw girl and took her seat. The resulting argument was barely restrained from becoming a riot, and James didn't help matters by reaching over to pat Aline on the back and publicly congratulate her. The game resumed, but the air was filled with an electric tension.

                Lily began to run again, but when the music stopped, she was at the end. She ran quickly to find an empty seat, and heard Sirius call out "Over here Lils!" Running towards his voice, she saw that there was one space left and it was James. Simon Cleavy was next to him, with Andrea on his lap. "Yuck," Lily groaned aloud. "I am not sitting on James! Andy, swap places with me!"

                Andrea, who had kept her mouth shut for the entire night, forgot her problem and began to insult Lily.

"For a bitch like you,

I would not move if I had flu!"

This had the opposite effect; everyone around her began to laugh, including Cleavy.

"You are not just a whore,

You are also a bore!" Andy shrieked.

Andrea's hatred of Lily entered new dimensions, because she was half in love with Simon Cleavy.

                Giving it up as a lost cause, Lily went to sit on James, but he pushed her off. "I don't want you to sit on me," he snapped.

"Better me than a Ravenclaw bitch," Lily said, glancing at the girls who were still looking for places, and sat down. The Ravenclaws around her glared, and began to mutter to each other.

                In the next round, Lily found herself seated next to Sirius, on a handsome, if brainless, Hufflepuff named Gilderoy Lockhart. "Why, hello!" Lockhart had purred as she sat down. Lily had silenced him with a glare. A rather large Ravenclaw ran up and sat on Sirius, and Sirius cried out, thoughtlessly, "Ow! Get off my legs, you bloody heifer!"

                There was immediate uproar. Robert Carrick, sitting behind Sirius, turned and punched him square on the nose. Sirius replied in kind, and within seconds the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins had scrambled out of the way as the other two houses engaged in trying to kill each other.

                Lily found herself facing the Ravenclaw Sirius had been rude about. She dodged as the girl threw a punch at her, and then threw one of her own. She was only vaguely aware of Professor Dunworthy shouting. James was fighting Simon Cleavy, and Lydia Matthews, the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, was facing off against two second years. There was no sign of Remus, but from shouts of "Ow, Lupin! You bastard!" Lily assumed that he was doing some serious damage.

                Several loud bangs went off and suddenly the fighting stopped. Dunworthy was glaring at the hall. "I will overlook this as you all being over excited, but if there is any more violence here tonight, then everybody here, I repeat everybody present, will have a months worth of detention. Now if anybody's hurt, they should go to the Hospital Wing."

                There were loud groans from the Hufflepuffs and the Slytherins, and Dunworthy turned to shout at them. "Don't think I haven't seen you stirring fights all around the hall tonight!" he yelled suddenly. This was so unfair t the peace-promoting Hufflepuffs, and he looked so fierce, that a tiny Hufflepuff first year burst into noisy tears. Dunworthy at least had the grace to apologise. "I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't mean the Hufflepuffs. I've actually seen you trying to stop fights." The Hufflepuffs continued to glare at him. "I really am sorry. Fifty points to Hufflepuff." The Hufflepuffs beamed. This put them ahead in the House Championships for probably the first time ever.

                The music started again for the last hour and a half of the party. The games were finished, and this time was for dancing. Sirius was just pulling a protesting Lily onto the dance floor when James tapped them both on the shoulder. "Do you want to do something really cool?" he asked them.

"Ok," Lily agreed immediately. She followed him out of the hall, much to her relief, for she had not wanted to dance. Sirius followed them reluctantly.

                Remus and Peter were already outside the hall piling up snowballs. "What's this for?" Sirius asked grumpily.

"We can bring these under my cloak, and two of us stand under my it and throw them at people. The rest of us are out in the crowd, so that we have alibis."

"And just how are we going to keep them frozen, Mr Good Ideas?" Sirius asked bitingly.

"A firm-a-freeze charm, you moron," James replied.

"And what exactly is that?"

"Something I just mad up," Remus answered.

"Ooh, look at Mr. Clever," Sirius sniped.

"Siri, stop being so damn grumpy. It's a great idea. Can I go first?" Lily asked.

"No, me and Remus are, it was our idea," James replied.

Lily pouted at him. "Change quickly, ok?" she said.

James took the cloak from where he had hidden it and he and Remus piled themselves up with as many permanently frozen snowballs as they could carry. Because they were permanently frozen, they could be carried everywhere.  Lily and Sirius made a few more snowballs, and then went back inside with Peter to act as alibis.

                The most comic scene imaginable hit them as they walked in. All across the hall people were shrieking as cold, wet snow hit them. Apparently, the boys were taking their firm-a-freeze charms off the snowballs before they threw them., because several people looked decidedly wet. As they watched, a snowball thrown with true chaser's aim hit Simon Cleavy on the forehead. "Nice one, Jamie," Sirius muttered. By now, people were beginning to look around for the source, and Lily and Sirius felt a breeze brush past them with a faint whisper of "Your turn."

                Meanwhile, both Professors that were in charge of the event had noticed the flying snowballs. "What is that?" Professor Dunworthy muttered to himself. Professor Headley, standing next to him, snapped, "How should I know?"

"I wasn't talking to you," Dunworthy replied coldly. "Anyway, it must be someone, I just can't work out who."

"What about your bratty second years?"

"Can't be," Dunworthy replied shortly. "There's Evans and Black, and I'm sure I saw Lupin and Potter just now." A few seconds passed, in which James and Remus re-entered the room. "See, there they are. It can't possibly be them."

Headley looked sceptical. "I'm sure they could find a way," she said bitingly. The two Professors glared at each other and turned around, walking off in opposite directions.  Suddenly, with perfect timing, snowballs hit them both on the back of the head simultaneously. They both spun around, each thinking that the other had thrown the snowball, and showed their maturity by making rude finger gestures at each other.

Minutes later, a fight broke out on the other side of the Hall. Apparently, the same thing had happened to Snape and Malfoy. Snape looked even greasier than normal with his wet hair and face, and there was a large, spreading purple stain on Malfoy's immaculate robes.

"Boys, no more play fighting or you'll get detention!" Headley shouted.

"Detention!" Dunworthy yelled.

"You do not have detention!" Headley argued.

"I'll expect to see you in my office first thing tomorrow morning."

"They do NOT have detention!" Headley shrieked.

"Well I say they DO!"

"I'm their House Master and they DON'T!"

"Fighting is against the school rules and I'm the Deputy Head!"  Dunworthy concluded with finality. Someone in the watching crowd wolf-whistled (someone conveniently hidden by an Invisibility Cloak) and the Gryffindors burst out laughing. Under the cloak, Lily and Sirius had to sit down, because their legs were weak from laughter, and James, Remus and Peter had also sank to they floor.

With bad grace, Professor Headley shouted, "This party is OVER!"