Chapter 6: Halloween

Soon enough, Halloween came to Hogwarts castle. On the morning, the hallways were filled with the scent of baking pumpkin and everyone seemed to be talking twice as loud as usual. Padma sat at the Ravenclaw table at breakfast, eating a slice of toast. She watched as Hagrid carried an enormous pumpkin up to the teachers' table.

"Potions and Charms today," Mandy said, not looking up from her copy of the Daily Prophet.

Lisa rolled her eyes and groaned. She still hadn't forgiven the Potions master for causing her cramp doing his homework.

"I hate Snape," she said venomously.

Terry nodded in agreement.

"Did you hear the rumour about Harry Potter?" he asked.

At the mention of the Boy Who Lived, Mandy looked up from the newspaper.

"What's the rumour?" she asked eagerly.

"That he's got onto the Gryffindor Quidditch team," Terry said. "According to Hogwarts: A History he's the only first year to play for a house team in a hundred years."

Mandy looked terrified and stretched up in her seat. She strained to get a better look at the Gryffindor table, checking that Harry hadn't been beaten to a pulp by a Bludger.

"But it's such a dangerous game!"

"We know," Terry said slowly and deliberately, "that's why it's the most popular game in the wizarding world."

Mandy rolled her eyes and folded up the Daily Prophet, stuffing it into her bag. She stormed off to Potions. Padma got up from her seat.

"We'd better get going," she said. "Snape'll kill us if we're late."

They had Potions with the Hufflepuffs. In Snape's dungeon classroom it was bitterly cold. When she entered the room, Padma's breath clouded before her face. She rubbed her hands together and sat down next to Lisa at the back of the class.

As soon as Professor Snape entered the classroom all conversation stopped. He strode up to the blackboard, black robes billowing around him as he moved. He looked around the students. His eyes were dark and cold.

"Today we are going to brew a simple Cheering Draught," he said. "Copy the instructions from the blackboard," he tapped the blackboard with his wand and writing appeared on it, "and then set about creating the potion."

Padma lit a fire underneath her cauldron with a poke of her wand. After copying down the instructions, she set about preparing the ingredients, finely shredding a bat's wing. The class worked in silence. Padma was very aware of Snape watching them all carefully as they prepared the potion.

Suddenly there was a large explosion at the front of the class, on the side where the Hufflepuffs were working. Padma had ducked down behind her desk at the blast and now peered up over the edge, glancing around and finding many of the students doing the same thing.

Hannah Abbott, a plump blonde Hufflepuff, was covered from head to toe in yellow potion that dripped from her robes and pooled around her feet. The boy working next to her, Justin Finch-Fletchley, had managed to avoid most of the potion by cowering behind his bag. Snape stormed over, pulling out his wand.

"Scourgify!"

Now everyone could see that Hannah and anyone else who had been hit by the potion had broken out in a nasty yellow rash. Some of the Hufflepuffs had patches of yellow here and there, but every visible part of Hannah's skin was yellow and blotchy. Padma put her hand over her mouth. Next to her, Lisa was trying hard not to laugh, her shoulders shaking.

"You stupid girl!" Snape said icily. "You forgot to add the horsetail before the daisy roots, didn't you?" Hannah nodded dumbly. "Get up to the hospital wing, Miss Abbott; you and anyone else who's come out in a rash."

Hannah gathered up her bag and hurried out of the dungeon, tears in her eyes. She was followed by a handful of Hufflepuffs who'd been sitting near her.

"Don't pay attention to them!" Snape snapped. "Get on with your work!"

The rest of the class carried on working in silence. It came to the end of the lesson and Padma stirred her potion, watching as green fumes drifted from the surface.

"We'll see if you've done this right, unlike Miss Abbott," Snape said. "You will take some of the potion; not too much, though, or you may become hysterical. It should be a green colour." He paused, looking around at the class. "Come on, then."

Across the classroom, Terry was looking worried. He held up a vial full of potion and looked at it with concern; instead of being green it was a dark, muddy brown. Padma poured a little into a vial and swallowed it, pulling a face at the taste.

Soon enough, the entire class was filled with the sound of laughter. Padma laughed heartily for a couple of minutes and eventually stopped, looking around at how her friends were faring. Lisa only laughed for a little longer than her, but Terry was laughing so hard that he had tears pouring down his cheeks. He was in a better state than Michael, who was laughing at everything in sight. He clutched his ribs and was hardly able to breathe.

"I see you two managed to get it dreadfully wrong," Snape said, swooping over to them and pulling a vial of purple liquid from his robes. He gave them some. "The antidote should work in five minutes or so. Seems that Ravenclaws aren't all that intelligent," he added with a sneer.

Snape walked into his office, slamming the door closed behind him. Anthony and Kevin had to drag Terry and Michael from the dungeon; they were both giggling hysterically at a pickled frog in a jar. The Ravenclaws headed straight to the Charms classroom.

By the time they reached the room, Terry had stopped laughing and was rubbing his ribs.

"I've never laughed so hard in my life," he said, slumping down in his seat.

"It's your own fault," Padma said, sitting beside him.

"If you're so clever," Terry snapped, "you tell me what I did wrong."

Padma smiled triumphantly.

"You forgot to add the bindweed," she said.

Terry made an annoyed sound and folded his arms over his chest, glaring at Padma. Tiny Professor Flitwick walked into the classroom, smiling cheerily at them. He was their Head of House but refused to treat them favourably in any way, unless he was sure it was for the right reason. He clambered up onto the pile of books on top of his chair.

"Good morning, class," he said brightly. "Now, today we're going to continue our work on Levitation Charms. Last lesson we learnt the incantation and wand movement, so now we're going to put it into practice."

He looked around them, gesturing to the feathers that were on the desks.

"Mr Entwhistle," he said, smiling at Kevin, "if you would be so kind."

Kevin pulled out his wand and rolled up his sleeves. He cleared his throat.

"Wingardium Leviosa!"

He waved his wand. Instead of his feather floating up into the air, Kevin sent his ink bottle flying across the room. It narrowly missed Professor Flitwick's head and smashed against the blackboard. Kevin sat down, blushing furiously. Everyone laughed.

"That's enough," Professor Flitwick squeaked. "The incantation was fine, Mr Entwhistle, but you need to remember the wand movement; swish and flick. I'd like you all to try now."

The classroom was filled with cries of the spell. Padma retrieved her wand from her bag.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" she cried, tapping the feather and waving her wand.

The feather in front of her twitched for a moment, and then floated up into the air. Padma smiled, continuing to concentrate and keep the feather floating. Next to her, Terry managed to do the spell correctly and his feather floated up next to hers.

"Well done Miss Patil, Mr Boot!" Professor Flitwick said, smiling. "You can work on heavier objects for the rest of the lesson. Miss McDougal, swish and flick, don't jab your wand or you'll end up levitating something else."

Padma laughed as a textbook flew across the room, hitting Professor Flitwick in the stomach and knocking him off his feet.

"Watch this," Terry said. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

He tapped his bag. Slowly and steadily, it began to rise up off the floor until it floated at desk height. Terry grinned at Padma.

"Beat that," he said.

Padma rolled her eyes.

"You're pathetic," she said, but she pointed her wand at a spare chair at the front of the classroom. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The chair floated up off the floor. Padma made it float over to her desk and set it down in front of her. Terry lowered his bag onto the chair.

"Let's call it a draw," he said with a smile.

"Deal," Padma said. "Nobody likes a show-off, after all."

They talked for the rest of the lesson and played noughts and crosses on the corner of Terry's parchment. The only other incident was that Michael managed to set Professor Flitwick's hat on fire and the tiny Charms teacher had to dunk his head into a fire bucket.

"Your homework is to write one scroll on uses of the levitation spell!" Professor Flitwick cried over the noise at the end of the lesson. "And don't forget to practice!"

They headed down to the Great Hall for lunch. They had that afternoon free and went up to the Common Room, spending their free time doing some more work while Terry and Anthony played wizard chess by the fire.

At dinner, the Ravenclaws headed downstairs for the Halloween Feast. Padma stared wide-eyed at the decorations that had been put up over the afternoon. Pumpkins with candles inside floated in the air above the house tables, live bats swooped around the ceiling and excited chatter filled the room.

Padma sat down as the feast appeared on golden plates. The Ravenclaws chatted enthusiastically, eating warm stews and steaming pies. Padma glanced across the table to Terry and Kevin who were having a competition to see how many sausage rolls they could cram into their mouths.

Everyone in the hall turned in their seats as Professor Quirrell, the stuttering Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, bolted down the middle of the tables. All of the students fell silent. Quirrell's face was filled with terror, his eyes were wide and his turban was askew on his head. Padma watched as he reached Professor Dumbledore's seat. He clung onto the wizard's sleeve, mouthing silently for a moment.

"Troll in the dungeon," he managed to say eventually, "thought you ought to know."

He collapsed onto the floor. It was suddenly as though the volume had been turned up in the Great Hall. Everyone seemed to be shouting and screaming. Terry and Kevin sprayed sausage rolls across the table, while Mandy was screaming at the top of her voice.

"We're all going to die! We're all going to die!"

Padma felt numb; she didn't know what was going on, and she just stared at Professor Quirrell's unconscious body. Dumbledore got to his feet, raising his wand and firing purple firecrackers from the tip. The Great Hall fell silent and several people stopped getting up from their seats, hovering midway.

"Prefects, lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!" Dumbledore cried.

Edward, Penelope and the other Ravenclaw Prefects quickly got to work. They split the pupils into year groups and began escorting them up to the Common Room.

"First years, follow me!" Penelope said. She stood up straight and waved them over. "Come on now. Keep close to me!"

As they hurried up the marble staircase, Padma looked up at Penelope. The older girl was clearly trying to remain calm for their benefit, but fear shone in her eyes and her hand was in the pocket of her robes, gripped tightly around her wand. She ushered them all into the Common Room where Professor Flitwick was standing on a table.

Padma pushed her way through the crowds of Ravenclaws who gathered around their Head of House.

"We must all remain calm!" Professor Flitwick cried. "At this very moment, Professor Dumbledore and other members of the teaching staff have gone in search of the beast."

"How could it get into the castle, Professor?" a fourth year asked.

"I truly don't know," Professor Flitwick said. "But I advise you to remain in the Common Room. I ask the Prefects to watch over you and you will obey them as if they were me. Understand?"

The Ravenclaws nodded silently. Professor Flitwick jumped down from the table and drew his wand before leaving to help with the search for the troll. As soon as the door of the Common Room shut, the Ravenclaws burst into immediate discussion about the troll. Padma found the other first years standing by the fireplace and she made her way towards them.

"So," Lisa was saying, "how do you think the troll could have got in?"

"Maybe the Slytherins let it in for a Halloween prank," Terry suggested.

"I don't think so!" Lisa snorted.

"It was just an idea," Terry said huffily. "I'd like to see you come up with a better theory!"

"Where would they have brought it in, anyway?" Padma asked. "It's not like they could just lead it through the main doors without the whole school noticing it. Trolls aren't exactly hard to miss!"

"Someone could have levitated it through a window," Michael said.

Anthony laughed.

"It's highly unlikely," he said. "Anything that size would take a large number of wizards to levitate it. And I don't think there are any windows big enough to fit a troll through."

Padma sat down in a high backed chair as Michael hurried over to the other side of the Common Room, climbing up a ladder and trying to find a book to prove that his theory could work. Kevin and Stephen, bored of the debate, started to play Gobstones on the rug before the fire. Padma watched, trying to distract herself from thinking that there was a troll on the loose in the castle. Terry, who had disappeared upstairs, returned with his entire collection of Chocolate Frog cards.

"What're you doing?" Padma asked him.

Terry looked up from flicking through the cards.

"I'm sorting them into alphabetical order," he explained. "I had them in order of the date that I got them at first but…"

Padma held up her hand.

"I don't want to know any more than that," she said with a quick smile.

Terry rolled his eyes and turned back to his collection. The Common Room was quickly emptying. As there was nothing else to do, most of the Ravenclaws decided that they might as well head up to bed. A few remained; some were writing letters and one read a miniscule book using a magnifying glass.

Padma sat back and stared into the fire, letting the last couple of months run through her head. Life at Hogwarts was good; she'd made friends, managed to understand the lessons and hadn't ended up with any burns or rashes like poor Hannah Abbott. She and Parvati were talking again after the birthday present fiasco, so everything was back to normal. Well, as normal as her life could ever be.

She eventually got up from her chair as the clock struck midnight, stretching and stifling a yawn. Padma glanced over to Terry.

"How're you doing?" she asked, yawning again.

"I'm up to 'T'," he said. "That's saying something, though. I do have seven hundred cards, after all."

"Fantastic," Padma said with a smile. "Goodnight then."

"Goodnight."

Padma smiled at him one last time and headed up to the dormitory. Everyone seemed to be asleep except for Su Li who was reading a letter in bed. She smiled briefly at Padma before snuffing out the candle on the table and closing the blue drapes around her. Padma didn't feel awake enough to get changed, so she crawled on top of her bed fully dressed and fell asleep almost immediately.

Her first Halloween at Hogwarts had definitely been interesting.