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The great hall looked amazing. The ceiling was a dark stormy grey with bolts of lightening and rumbles of thunder flashing through it every now and then. The floor and walls were dark, not just black but huge pools of darkness so that you didn't know where they ended, in fact they could of gone on for ever. This was made all the more by the swirling mists of dark smoke covering the floor. It was like a huge pool of rippling ever changing steam rising from a boiling cauldron. I wouldn't like to know what potion was being made.
Looking over at Ginny I saw her nod contentedly at the progress we had made. It really did look wonderful and, of course, we had the floating pumpkins with their flickering yellowy flames inside to light the place. They hovered high above our heads but there were to few of them to be able to actually see much of anything around. You could just make out shadows and silhouettes of people though you couldn't see lower than their knees. It gave the impression that they were floating.
Of course all this, whilst looking fabulous and capturing the spirit of Hallowe'en perfectly made it rather difficult to judge the costumes. I had however already thought of this, we were going to have a catwalk. A parade of all the marvellous costumes that people had gone to such lengths to make unusual and convincing.
"Hermione, do you think we should start?" Ginny asked. She was talking about the catwalk.
"Yes! I can't wait. Oh this is going to be extraordinary!" I replied my face lit up.
The pair of us walked up to the raised stage in the centre of the room. It took up a lot of space, for the past hour or so the weird sisters had been playing on in. Now it was our turn!
Ginny walked up to the lead singer and spoke softly to him so that the rest of the hall couldn't hear. The rest of the band kept on playing softly for the dancing students. After a few moments the lead singer nodded at Ginny and turned to the rest of the band who all stopped playing to listen to what he had to say. Quite a few people turned as they realised that the music had stopped. They looked up curiously when they realised that the lead singer had been replaced by Ginny Weasley.
"Hey everyone!" She called out to the crowd. They all cheered and clapped.
"I hope you're all having a great time!" More cheers. "Now I know that all you guys know this is a fancy dress party. You've all dressed up as scary creatures or people according to the muggle costume tradition. Of course you also all know that this is a competition, a competition which you judge yourselves by voting for who you think has the best costume.
"If you look around which I'm sure most of you have you will see all the effort that me and Hermione Granger have put into making this place look really special. This means however that it is a little too dark to see anything much and particularly not inspect and judge everyone's costumes. Therefore we have decided to have a catwalk of everyone's costumes.
"To take part and be considered for winning the best costume prize will you please all form a circle that curls all the way around the stage so that you can all see. We will then notify you one by one that it is your chance to model your outfit. Just go over to Hermione Granger who is stood by the stairs on the left and she'll tell you what to do. If you don't wish to take part just tell her when you go over and needn't do it. Enjoy!"
I smiled and nodded at Ginny's speech. She really has a way with talking to people and getting them excited and to do what she wants. I could tell this was going to be a success when people started to come over to the stage. They jostled slightly trying to get nearer to me and the access to the stage however Ginny called out to them.
"Don't push, people! You can't vote for your own costume and unless you want to waste your vote you might want to see everyone else's outfit. You'll all get a chance and remember, people always remember the last one."
It really was amazing. One minute everyone was crowded into one space trying to get onto the stage, next they were dispersing around the great platform so that they got the best view of whatever was going to happen. Ginny could probably get them to do anything…!
A small cough alerted me to the presence of Lavender Brown. She looked fabulous in a tattered dress of black silk. It came down to about her knees but had long rips which made it a lot more revealing. The top was tight with one long flared sleeve, the other shoulder was bare from an artful rip across her shoulders. On her head she wore her best black pointy hat, her feet were bare with shiny black nails which matched her fingers. Her long dark hair was loose and her makeup was very gothic, huge black outlines around her eyes, very artfully shaped and dark lips with very pale skin.
"Hey Lavender. You look brilliant!" She gave me a week smile, obviously quite worried about what she had to do. Before she could ask however I began to explain.
"Right, when you go up onto the stage you need to walk from the stairs straight to the opposite side. Stand there for a second in a pose for your costume, everything will go black then lightening will flash. Walk to the centre of the stage after the first flash. It will continue until we decide you've had enough. When you're done the lights will go back to normal just come back over here and you can go back down."
Lavender looked very impressed at the idea though still slightly confused. She clamber up onto the stage and began to walk across it swaying her hips and tossing her hair as she went. When she reached her destination she held out her arms and waggled her fingers in a very witchy pose. After about a second I flicked my wand and muttered the incantation which would activate the blackout charm we had performed earlier.
Everything went black then a fork of lightening flashed across the sky illuminating lavender on the stage, she turned and began to walk back across the stage her movements staggered in the flashes of light.
(A/N Like strobe lighting I think it's called. Its stage lights that flash on and off dead quickly, used in theatres and concerts sometimes.)
Everyone was cheering and clapping. There was complete silence when everything went dark but when the lightening began it was deafening. Lavender looked wonderful she really did. When she came over to us after the lighting had returned to normal she looked ecstatic. I had just explained to the next person who came up (Neville; dressed as a werewolf) what to do. We were going to do it slightly differently every time so that people didn't get bored.
After the initial impact of Lavender's performance the audience cheered each person deafeningly, they all did it differently; the walk onto the stage and then back to the middle.
When it came to Harry and Ron's turn they asked if they could both go on together. Me and Ginny instantly agreed. They made a fantastically scary pair of dementors. I even made the some of the dark smoke which covered the floor follow them onto to the stage. It rose like a wall and seemed to cloak them more and more each time the lightening flashed then when the lights came back to normal it had receded to cloak their knees, fading out so you could see the floor of the rest of the stage that they weren't standing on.
About twenty people decided to model. They were notified by a tendril of the swirling dark smoke rising up before them and forming the words "it's your turn". It was a complex bit of magic involving a spell to make it pick people at random but not repeat their choosing. At last we came to the last person, Ginny came over and told me, she also said that we were going to go up after they had done their bit.
He emerged out of the darkness, a terrifying vampire. White face, dark eyes, sweeping back robes with a high collar and slicked-back white-blond hair. He was perfect. And terrifying.
I smiled weekly at the sight of him then repeated the instructions as to what to do when he got up onto the stage.
A/N Sorry about the time it took me to update and about the length of the chapter, but I really wanted to get something up. Thank you very much to madcat1 for your review. I'm sorry if this chapter is crap, please feel free to comment and make suggestions. Hopefully I'll update soon, thanks for reading!
Miss Moonshadow
