Chapter 10 Who's Idea Was It?

James had managed to persuade Lily to get a group together; he had also managed to persuade her to wait for a while before starting the preparations. It was three weeks later that the Halloween Ball Board had it's first meeting. Lily and James naturally were in charge, but James had chosen to take a back seat and let Lily order everyone around. Lily had recruited the rest of their group, and unsurprisingly Ellis, Ciara, Mia and Isabelle were among the first. For James she had asked the rest of the Marauders, and she was already beginning to regret her decision. James and Sirius were playing around, laughing loudly when Lily was trying to speak to everyone. Finally she snapped, rolling her eyes at her friends she pointed her wand at Sirius and whispered:

"Silencio!"

Sirius, in the middle of telling a very loud joke, opened his mouth several times wondering what had happened to his voice. Glowering at Lily he sat back in his chair and sulked.

She thanked them for coming and began to explain what they had to organise. Lifting the spell on Sirius she asked them for any suggestions.

Ellis, smirking, innocently suggested a ball.

"A masked ball?" asked Isabelle.

"NO!" said Lily and James quickly.

Sirius, the only person at the table who understood their reaction, chuckled.

"Do we need a theme?" Lily asked.

"Films," suggested Mia.

"No," replied James, "Too mugglish,"

"Books?" proposed Ciara.

"Too mugglish," said James.

"What is that supposed to mean?" asked Lily insulted.

"It means that any muggle-hating wizards ("a.k.a Slytherin" Sirius interrupted) won't come, and we're supposed to be doing this for the whole school."

"Ok then, famous wizards?" Lily put forward.

"What about muggle-borns?"

They seemed to have hit a brick wall.

"The robe shop in Hogsmeade has a new historical range," Ellis told them.

"So make it history stuff," Sirius said.

"Good idea Sirius!" said Peter, practically applauding.

"Wizards or muggles?" asked Lily.

"Make it both," said Isabelle, "Then nobody gets left out,"

So the theme got decided.

The H B B had another meeting a week later to decide the decorations. It was decided that the decorations would go with the theme and would change every half hour.

"When are we starting?" asked Ellis, "Can we start with cave men?"

Starting with caves and ended at the end of the night at the sixties the Great Hall and the decorations inside it would change. Isabelle volunteered to find the spells necessary and (to her delight) Sirius volunteered to help her.

As that was soon decided they moved on to music, Mia and to her disgust Peter volunteered to sort it out and soon almost all of the party was organised.

Remus and Ciara said that they would go to the kitchens and find the food.

It was left to Ellis to tell the rest of the students.

All Lily and James had to do was to sit back and wait. James was delighted with this; he now had no work to do at all. Needless to say, Lily was less than pleased.

Time seemed to fly by for the group and soon there was only two weeks until the party.

"Have you told everyone yet?" Lily asked Ellis.

"No," she replied cheerfully, helping herself to mash potato.

"WHY? WE'VE ONLY GOT TWO WEEKS TO GO!" cried Lily, starting to panic.

"Dumbledore's said that we can go to Hogsmeade for the day tomorrow,"

"Everyone?"

"No, just the HBB," Ellis said, seeing the glow of pride from Lily as she mention the Halloween Ball Board.

"Why?"

"So we can 'prepare' for the ball,"

"So basically, we have tomorrow off so you can go and get the best costume?"

"Yeah,"



The group had a pact not to show each other their costumes until the night of the ball. They had to rely on the mirror in the changing rooms for an opinion, and since it wanted to sell them everything, wasn't always entirely honest.

It would tell them 'You look fantastic you should buy one in every colour' or 'You would never find anything like that in any other shop'. Two hours later and all the girls had their costumes.

The Marauders however, were an entirely different matter.

"Who's bloody stupid idea was this?" Sirius asked.

"Yours!" shouted the rest of the Marauders.

They were all having trouble finding their costumes, despite having a head start. They had spent three hours in a single shop, more time than they spent shopping the rest of the year put together.

"Why does everything look so crap?"

"That looks so great...."

"SHUT UP!"

Lily had arranged to spend the rest of the day with James, so she was really disappointed when he told her that he couldn't.

"Sirius still needs help finding a costume and I figured that you probably wouldn't want to come with us," he said not quite meeting her eye. There was more than he was telling her, Lily decided.

"Oh, okay fine. I'll see you back at school," she said, and went back over to her friends. They had gone to The Three Broomsticks for a drink carrying their costumes beside them. She took a seat between Ellis and Ciara, and opposite Mia.

"Where's Belle?" Lily asked.

"Don't know. She said something about going back to school," Ellis replied sipping her Butterbeer.



James hated that. He had lied to Lily, he never thought he would do that. To make himself feel better, he used Marauder logic to reason that all he was doing was bending the truth. Sirius did need a costume; he just would not be helping him find one.

Looking around Hogsmeade uneasily, he hoped no one would notice him. He hated waiting. Fortunately he wasn't waiting long.

"Hi James,"

"Hi Isabelle. Can we go?"