This is perfect timing. It's Halloween tomorrow! Are you excited? Sadly we don't celebrate Halloween where I live but a friend hosted a Halloween party which was awesome. As always, thanks for reviewing DSCWin. You rock :) Also I changed some thing from the previous chapter because apparently I can't remember what I write. Danus introduced Danny to Dominic and Dominic's last name is now Novak. Ugh, sorry.
The weeks went by and I slowly got used to magic. It didn't take me long to wonder how Muggles lived without magic. My new friends from Slytherin were making everything much easier for me as well. Danus and Marius were really cool and fun to hang out with. Janet, being the only one who knew I was raised by Muggles, explained things to me.
I learnt a bunch of interesting stuff from her. One of the first things she talked to me about was blood status. In the magic world, there were purebloods, like us, half-bloods and mudbloods. Purebloods were wizards from families who have always been magical, which makes us better than the rest. Half-bloods have Muggle blood mixed with magic blood. Mudbloods were all Muggle but somehow possessed magic. Muggles ad mudbloods are the worst you can be, as your blood is dirty.
Next, there are the Houses. Purebloods and a few half-bloods go to Slytherin, the House of cunningness and ambition. As far as we're concerned, a mudblood has never made it to our House. The brawnies go to Gryffindor, like Mel. The nerds go to Ravenclaw and those who don't fit anywhere, the idiots, go to Hufflepuff.
The boy Danus introduced me to, Dominic, was also nice and so was Janet's friend Zaria. The only girl I'd ever hung out with was Mel, but Janet and Zaria were really cool. They had only just met this year, but they made a great team. Zaria was a little shorter than Janet and she had black shoulder length curls and big grey eyes. Despite being eleven, I could tell that both Danus and Marius were kind of into her. The two girls also happened to be the best pranksters I have ever met.
I'd never participated in a prank. That is, unless being the person the prank was pulled on counts. The kids at the orphanage had played dozens of pranks on me. Zaria and Janet would have given them a run for their money.
On the third day at Hogwarts, they managed to convince the house elves, the school's servants, to put a potion in the Hufflepuff's glasses of pumpkin juice which turned their skin green. The professors had a pretty hard time fixing that up. Of course, they got caught and had got detention, but I'm pretty sure it was worth it.
Then, last week, they put some kind of jinx on Danus' shoes, causing the laces to get undone all the time so he would trip on them. After a while he understood what was going on after he saw them laughing like mad. He didn't tell on them though, I think he actually kind of enjoyed it.
I hadn't participated in any of their pranks yet and I was feeling a bit left out. But that was before my first Halloween in my new school.
"What should we do for Halloween?" Janet asked me at dinner on the 21st of October.
I was surprised she had asked me and not Zaria. Nevertheless, I didn't mind, I'd been longing to play a prank for ages. I put down my knife and fork and thought about it.
"Isn't the school doing some kind of party?" I asked. I'd heard Mel tell Lupin that she was really looking forward to the Halloween party while I was spying on them.
Of course I hadn't stopped that. It wasn't because I missed Mel or was jealous of Lupin or something. I just wanted to know what she had in plan for me and why they kept talking about me. I'd heard my name or 'the Slytherin' being mentioned a couple of times, the latter mostly by Lupin. It made me wonder what was so important about me that was the cause of so much talk.
"Yeah," Zaria answered instead "But pranking the Halloween feast is cliché. We have to do something new."
"And you want me to be part of it?" I asked her.
"We wouldn't be asking you if we didn't," she said and Janet nodded.
I was so excited when she said that. "But we have to invite Danus, Marius and Dominic too," she added "It's only fair."
Okay, well maybe they didn't only want me, but for the first time in my life, I felt so wanted and in some ways popular. No one had ever requested my company before. Mel doesn't count. She always stuck to me anyway.
"We'll have to think of something really good to be remembered," Janet said and we started thinking.
After not having come up with anything during dinner, I moved the conversation to the dorm with Marius and Danus. We thought of some stuff, but it wasn't authentic enough to be remembered and the condition we had of accepting an idea was that it will be remembered as the best prank that ever happened to Hogwarts. I'm pretty sure that I fell asleep somewhere before the conversation came to an end.
Luckily the next day was a Saturday. That meant that we didn't have any classes and we could do whatever we wanted to do. We told Janet and Zaria our ideas at breakfast and they agreed that they wouldn't make it to the next years or decades or centuries.
The idea actually came to me in the way I least expected, a need to pee. I excused myself from the group, promising to meet them by the lake in a moment. I went to the bathroom and looked for an empty compartment. I have to admit that it was disappointing that magic couldn't create an empty one for you.
I found one and went inside. After I'd done my business, I went to wash my hands. As I turned around to go to the sinks, I bumped into someone. I looked up to apologise but almost screamed.
I found myself face to face with the closest thing we called zombies in the Muggle world. The boy was taller than me, his face white, a purple bruise around one of his eyes and his bottom lip was split. At the moment, I didn't think of anything else but zombies. Later, I would realise how stupid I was.
"Did I scare you?" he asked me and I noted that his voice sounded pretty normal.
"Yes," I answered, trying to get my breathing under control "But I'm fine now."
"Sorry," he apologised "Got into a fight. Had to run here so that McGonagall won't catch me. I honestly don't want detention."
I chuckled. "I'm Danny," I introduced myself "Danny Odny. Slytherin. First year."
"Pleased to meet you Danny Odny, Slytherin first year," he replied and winked "I'm Ed Boyd. Gryffindor. Third year."
Gryffindor. No matter he got into a fight, that's what they were like. But I realised that he had scared me and the idea came instantly. "I have to go," I told Ed, hurriedly washed my hands and ran outside to meet the group.
The lake was big and it took a while to locate them. It didn't take too long though. "We thought you'd drowned in the toilet seat," Dominic informed me. I poked my tongue out at him and then explained my idea. I didn't expect them to be impressed, but they loved it. Zaria even hugged me while jumping up and down with excitement. I almost stopped breathing by the force of her hug.
We quickly sat down and organised everything for Halloween night. It was going to be great. I couldn't wait!
The big night came. Everything was so well organised that it was going to give everyone, well, whoever went to the boys' bathroom, the scare of their lives.
The trickiest part of the whole thing was convincing Marius to be what we called the messenger. He was going to go and tell people that monsters are hidden in the bathroom and every two centuries, on Halloween, they come out to kidnap young wizards and take them to their nest, where they would stay forever.
What I'd learnt throughout my whole life, was that when someone heard of something deadly and dangerous, they would try to prove that it's true. That's exactly what we wanted. We wanted someone to come. We would give him a scare, he would run out screaming and then even more people would come in.
Marius announced that he was going to quit the prank, but the backstory had been his idea and it was only fair that he told it. The other parts were to be played by me, Danus, Dominic, Janet and Zaria. On Halloween night we didn't go to the feast. Marius was the only one who went and he gave us a look of pure hate as he left.
When he was gone, we had to get changed. Zaria had asked her parents to buy everything we needed for this prank and they agreed to do so. Especially when she told them what they were for. From what I'd gathered, her parents were really cool. The only two people who wouldn't wear a costume were Marius, of course, and Dominic. Unlike Marius, Dominic liked that he would be the one to bring chaos.
Quickly, we got changed and went to the bathroom. We sat down by the sinks and resumed the plan, just to be sure. Then, we told Marius that it was time for him to go. He got up and went to the door. He turned around and looked at us, a look of despair on his face. We waved goodbye at him, smiling, teasing him and he stuck his tongue out in return before leaving.
It was about ten minutes later that we heard footsteps approaching. Those ten minutes were the price we had to pay to play this prank. We had to be quiet in case Filch or Mrs Norris showed up and we didn't have any food. Needless to say, I was starving. I hoped Marius would pity us and bring us some food from the feast. The moment we heard someone coming, we rushed to our places, ready to begin.
"I don't believe him, Donald," I heard one voice say "It's crap. My dad was at school here and he never mentioned monsters."
"But what if it is true?" the other replied "We have to see it, Fritz."
"Fritz?" Janet mouthed to me, while Zaria was trying to stop giggles from being heard. I turned to Dominic and he nodded.
Show time.
Dominic let out a scream so convincing, I almost jumped in fright. He ran out of his hiding spot. "The… the monsters," he exclaimed "They t… took Danny. We were o… only going t… to look. W… we thought it wasn't r… real!"
"Where are they now?" asked Fritz and I could hear panic in his voice.
"Down there," said Dominic. That was our cue.
Janet stepped out first. Our backstory for her, was that she had been from some kind of royal family, until she met this guy at a ball who kidnapped her and turned her into a monster. She was perfect for the part. She was wearing a long white dress with black lace. Her hair had been done by Zaria, who made it look great and then she made sure tufts stuck out and it looked like it hadn't been washed or brushed in centuries. To complete her look, we had cast a simple glamour charm on her face so that they wouldn't recognise her and so that it looked scratched and she had painted her hands with something that looked scarily enough like blood.
The boy named Donald screamed. I peeked out just to see what was going on. Janet was walking towards the three with slow, graceful and yet menacing steps. The boys were Hufflepuff second or third years and they had certainly peed their pants. Janet stopped in front of them. She smiled. "Well, well, well," she said, her voice sounding scratchy thanks to a spell Zaria's mum had told us about in her letter "I can't believe our luck. Four boys in one night."
Donald screamed again and ran out of the bathroom. No one tried to stop him. That was what he had to do, call everyone for help. Everything was going perfectly.
Danus grabbed my arm, it was nearly time for us to appear. Janet and Dominic were keeping Fritz busy until someone else came. It didn't take that long this time. In a matter of minutes, the bathroom was swarming with students. Janet stared at them, one by one. A Ravenclaw prefect was trying to get closer to her.
This had all been planned as well. If someone tried to hex her or something, Dominic was there with his wand to block it, make it look like someone else's powers. That was when the rest of us would appear.
Underneath her long black cape, Zaria wore a deep blue medieval looking dress. It was the most uncomfortable thing to wear from what I'd gathered, as she kept tripping over it the day her parents sent it and she tried it on. But with some practice, she was now perfect. She also had red cat eyes contact lenses one. When I told them what they were, Zaria begged her parents to buy some at a Muggle store. It was worth it. For finishing touches, she had the same paint as Janet all around her mouth, so it looked like she had been eating something alive, fake sharp teeth and a glamour on her face.
Danus supposed to be Zaria's husband, so he was dressed in almost the same. He had the same paint, eyes, teeth and cape. Under his cape he wore a deep blue button down shirt and matching trousers. In his trouser pocket, he kept a knife which had been painted with "blood". He also wore a glamour.
I was wearing what looked like my Slytherin robes, but they had been bought from Madam Malkin's so that we could tear them up and stuff. After tearing them, we put some "blood" and dirt on them. I wasn't wearing any glamours, as they were supposed to recognise me.
"Stupefy!" the Ravenclaw prefect waved his wand, shooting the spell towards Janet. Dominic cast a shielding charm and it didn't hit her, she did however try to look even more angry and deadly. Everyone looked around, looking for whoever had stopped the spell, and then Zaria, Danus and me walked out.
Zaria walked ahead of us, Danus behind her. He was dragging me by my shirt collar and I did my best to look almost dead. I heard gasps from the crowd and some girl screamed. Zaria had her hand outstretched, as if she had just cast a spell. "You are disturbing us," she said in a loud voice "Why?"
"Don't worry, love," Danus said "Think of it as more dinner." She managed an evil smile and licked her lips. Even I was getting scared. Danus pulled his knife out and supposedly stabbed me. I fell down.
Zaria held up her hand again and Dominic, who had managed to get to the back of the crowd and nearest to the door, closed it. "Now," said Zaria "Let's eat." She knelt down by me, her back turned to the others, and pretended to eat me.
Someone called "Get a teacher!" I didn't worry, we had a backup plan. When the teachers came, we would run and hide in a toilet. Not the ideal place to be, mind you, but it was better than being caught.
But it seemed like we were having too much fun, because we didn't notice McGonagall, Slughorn and Kettleburry enter. Luckily, they didn't stun anyone, but McGonagall realised this was a trick. I could hear her come closer, my eyes were shut. Zaria, Danus and Janet stopped acting the moment they saw them, but I couldn't. "Mr. Odny get up, please," she ordered me. I opened my eyes, saw the stern look on her face and did so.
"Finite Incantatem," said McGonagall and Zaria's glamour faded. Danus' and Janet's followed. "Care to explain?" she asked us, arms folded over her chest.
"We thought we'd play a prank," said Danus "For Halloween."
"A prank does not include terrifying your fellow students," she said and I thought that maybe we had gone a bit too far. "Twenty points from Slytherin," she continued "And you will all serve detention for two months."
"Oh, Minerva," said Kettleburry, the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor "You're being too hard. Let's say, five points for their creativity?"
"Six?" suggested Slughorn, he was our Head of House after all.
"Four points for the costumes," said McGonagall, but it was obvious she didn't really mean it. "To your common rooms," she told everyone else.
Leave me a nice review so I'll know you like this story. Also tell me what you're dressing up as for Halloween. I was the Hustler from "Escape The Night".