Chapter 16: All Hallow's Eve

Disclaimer – Most of it is J.K Rowling's. Some of it is Lamia's. Some of it is Hepsa's. The rest is probably mine.

For Author's Note/Review Reply, see bottom of chapter.

Previously: James was now sitting, alert, on his bed.

'I think… Lily Potter works best.'

The screams from two of his best friends could be heard in the girls' dorms.

'Wonder what that's about?' asked Lily, 'Now, Caroline, what were you saying about you and Sirius?'

It was strange, thought Lily, as she checked a fact in James' Potions essay and watched her friends sit round the fire, eating chocolate frogs and chatting, that only a little over a month ago, she had hated James, or rather, Potter, to the point of fearing lessons with him, Caroline had just fancied Sirius, and she had had no idea that Remus was a werewolf. Of course, not much was different on the Peter-Suzie front, but she couldn't see any way that their relationship would change.

'This is fine, James, but the other naturally found antidote is a bezoar. I'm surprised you didn't remember that.'

'Sorry, my Lily-Flower-Potions-Genius. I shall drown myself in the lake in my chagrin at not knowing.'

'That's not funny.' She didn't comment on the nickname, but passed him back his essay.

'What's the date?' asked Caroline.

'Er… the eleventh,' replied Suzie, unwrapping another chocolate frog and popping it into her mouth.

'What of?' insisted Caroline.

'October, stupid,' said Suzie, swallowing and frowning. Her mouth empty, she took another chocolate frog and ate it.

'El-ev-en… ten…' Caroline muttered as she wrote. She had finally pulled a roll of parchment towards her, and was starting her essay.

'You're only just writing the date, Caroline?'

'You're such a goody-goody! There's no shame in starting it now. You just think that because you always finish your homework practically before we've left the lesson.'

'I do not!' gasped Lily, outraged.

'Do too,' replied Caroline, scrawling the title.

'Do not.'

'Do too.'

'Not not not.'

'Too too too.'

Sarah put her quill down and looked at them.

'Guys, shut up. This isn't funny.'

'Meanie,' moaned Caroline.

'You have an essay to write,' Lily reminded her with a grin.

'You're a meanie too,' Caroline grumbled, but she turned back to her essay. Sarah passed her completed essay to Lily to check it. There was silence for a while, except for the popping of the fire and the scratching of Lily and Caroline's quills, until,

'All Hallow's Eve.'

Lily paused in her checking, and looked up at Suzie.

'What?'

'All Hallow's Eve, you know, Hallowe'en. It's coming soon.'

'Well, yes, if you definition of "soon" can stretch to twenty days from now,' said Remus, his eyebrows raised.

'Mmm,' said Suzie, shrugging and eating another chocolate frog, 'I know, but it's October already, which is close enough.' She sighed, and continued, dreamily, 'I love Hallowe'en. Especially the feast.'

'That's because you get hyper off pumpkins,' pointed out Peter, smiling. Suzie grinned at him.

'Oh, I get hyper just thinking about pumpkins!'

'Does that mean you're hyper now, then?' asked Peter.

'Maybe,' said Suzie, stretching out the syllables. She turned her eyes to Peter, and flashed him a cheeky smile, 'My yummy Petey-Poos.'

'Ah,' said Peter, as the others began to laugh, 'I think it is safe to say you are hyper then, right?'

Suzie mumbled something.

'What?'

'I said, it's not my fault chocolate frogs are so yummy.'

'Are they as yummy as Petey-Poos?' teased Caroline. Sarah and Lily giggled.

'Oh, don't be mean,' pouted Suzie. Lily went over to her, picked up the pile of chocolate wrappers and sat down.

'She's not being mean. You're just being silly.'

It was Suzie's turn to be outraged. 'I am not!'

'Yes, you are,' said not only the seventh-years, but a couple of other people who were in the common room at the time.

'Fine,' she muttered, and she started throwing the origami Lily had been making out of chocolate wrappers into the fire, where it blazed green for a few seconds, and then crumpled into ash. It was a comfortable scene; all eight of them were content, but Lily already felt a pang as she swatted Suzie's hand away from her latest folded birds, a pang that this moment couldn't last.

Before they knew it, they were well into October. The air was cold, and their breath steaming as they walked across the grounds, frost crunching underneath their feet, which brought to them yet another reason not to want to get out of bed in the mornings.

'Go 'way,' moaned Lily as her alarm clock rang shrilly in her ear. ''S too early. Not…no.'

'Lily…' groaned Caroline's voice from the other side of the dorm, 'shut up. Now.'

'Come on, guys!' chirped Sarah, who, it had often been commented, was the most awful of all of them in the mornings, somehow having energy for the day ahead. 'Get up!'

'Sarah!' groaned all of the others as she opened the curtains and started singing 'Oh What a Beautiful Morning' at the top of her voice.

'Wake up, my little chickabiddies! Rise and shine!'

Caroline looked at Sarah strangely, a complicated manoeuvre which involved her reaching out an arm to twitch the curtains open, nearly falling out of bed, and stretching her neck out to see her. 'What's up with you?'

Sarah paused in the middle of a twirl, which was a slightly silly thing to do as one of her feet had been off the ground at the time.

'Nothing,' she muttered, not looking at Caroline.

'Yes, there is, Sarah. Don't lie to us,' said Lily.

'No… there isn't…'

Caroline, who had been holding onto the duvet with increasingly white knuckles, fell out of bed and rolled underneath it.

'Sarah…' came Caroline's voice, muffled by the bed, 'You've been at my stash, haven't you?'

'It was too good an opportunity to miss. I mean, you were asleep, and I just crept under the bed, and ate some. It's yummy.'

Lily looked amused. 'I knew you were a heavy sleeper, Caroline, but not THAT heavy.'

There were general noises of amusement, until they heard Suzie's voice, from the inside of her robes.

'It's Friday, guys. We still have classes.'

'Damn! We have History of Magic first!'

'Yay, snooze time!' cheered Caroline from under the bed.

There was general chaos involving the finding of robes, the needing of the loo, and the stealing of underwear, but before long, all four Gryffindor seventh-year girls were eating a calm breakfast in the Great Hall.

History of Magic passed in a dozy haze, with all of their quills taking notes. Lily had given in to pressure and told them all the spell, and before long, they were out.

Lily, Sarah, Remus and James all had a prefect's meeting, but Remus needed to go and put his books away, and Sarah decided to go with him,so Lily and James went on alone, in companionable silence. When they arrived in the classroom, Professor McGonagall was already there.

'Miss Evans, Mr Potter. I'm so glad you're here early. As you know, there will be the normal Hallowe'en feast at the end of the month, but there appears to be a problem with the number of pumpkins – Hagrid hasn't been able to grow very many, and I beg you to see if you could grow some in your spare time.'

Lily looked at Professor McGonagall with suspicious eyes. Was she joking? Grow pumpkins? In their spare time? But McGonagall seemed sincere, and so they both took the packets of seeds that she was offering them.

'Miss Evans, I know you will be able to charm them, Engorgio should work well, and Mr Potter, you'll be able to take care of any misshapen ones. Now, back to the meeting…'

Having been given their strangest prefect assignment ever, Lily and James put the seeds away and started talking about the meeting.

'Grow pumpkins? McGonagall wants you to grow pumpkins for the feast?'

'Yes. The only trouble is, the only thing I've ever grown was a pansy, and it died before it flowered.'

This prompted giggles from the girls.

'No, seriously, I mean it! And I doubt Evans here has had better luck!'

Lily looked down at her fingernails modestly. 'Well, actually, I had a kitchen garden back at home.'

'Really?'

'Really really.'

'Oh. So… how do you grow pumpkins then?'

'Well, putting the seeds in soil is generally considered a good start…'

Woot! Another chapter, another good bit of goodness. Well, I think, but I'm biased. Subject: Bias.

CazTehFrog: Forbidden cats? Well, my mum hates cats, and my dad thinks they're really hard to train, and so they won't let me have one, even though my mum wouldn't have to go anywhere near it; it would be mine, and we could get one from Battersea Dogs' Home, and it would be trained and stuff. Oh, and my mum thinks it would eat the guinea-pigs, which it wouldn't. This is a blatant LIE. Ahem. Yes. And, for fear of sounding stupid, what is a cat-turbo?

Larka :)