I hesitantly peered around the corner. The strained morning sunlight filled the shadows of the apparently empty corridor. Fortunately the sharp angle let the light reach into the places more likely to hold traps. It was one of the less frequented walkways, but one could never be too cautious, especially at that time of year. With that in mind, I double checked it, just to be safe, "It's all good!"

"We agreed on 'it's all clear', where'd the 'good' come from?" Reece muttered, following me into the corridor, twirling his wand idly.

"Why does it matter?"

"Details, Jen, details." A particularly careless flick of his wand sent purple sparks flying in all directions. He gave a surprised yelp as some hit the stone at his feet and explode into miniature red and blue fireworks. I barely dodged a whizzing purple thing in time. Instead of mutilating my eyebrows it flew over my shoulder and startled a portrait.

"… Sorry, complete accident, I swear!"

My eyes narrowed, fingers twitching towards where my wand rested in my robes. Had it happened a few weeks ago I would have hexed him without question, and had it been anyone else I probably would have thrown them from a window. But I realised, with no small level of surprise, that I wasn't even properly angry, not really.

I watched him cower under my glare for a few seconds longer before snorting. I allowed my lips to break into an amused grin, "Come on, we can't keep the malicious pranksters of Hogwarts waiting."

I dare say I should probably explain. Simply put; Halloween at Hogwarts was a difficult time for the traversers of the school, but it was downright nasty for the little people.

For me, it was a time to bunker down and hide. From experience, I knew I'd have to sneak through at least the sixty hours preceding the feast unnoticed to avoid being part of the day's attraction. We'd made it by safely, for the most part, even though the small tasks of walking into the Great Hall was nigh on suicidal, and strolling down the corridors was a chore.

It was Halloween morning, which would usually mark the point of only twelve or so more hours of being attacked by biting cutlery, chased by motion activated and very persistent gargoyles, and jinxed by idiots hiding behind tapestries.

If only that were all.

Every decade or so, the teachers took leave of their senses and the first Quidditch match of the year fell on or around the Dreaded Day. The Quidditch match happened to be the next day, so while the tension between the Lions and Snakes was already at boiling point, it could only get higher. Both houses had steam to let off, but, strangely enough, it was the only time of year where I was more likely to be caught in the middle of a house spiff by accident, rather than on purpose. It was only my unfortunately well-developed encyclopaedia of counter-jinxes that kept my out of that Madam Pomfrey's evil lair.

Maybe Reece didn't fully comprehend the severity of the situation (he was occasionally blissfully naïve) but he soon would if we stumbled into a serious Marauder trap. I even made room for 'Get Brutally Bludgeoned By Four Berks' in my agenda.

After days of sneaking around it was coming to an end. We just had to survive the day and the feast, sleep in to avoid the final attempts at Quidditch related sabotage, and things would hopefully be back to normal soon after the game.

That is still a very long time when you're fleeing from every shadow, including, at times, your own.

We'd just entered no-man's-land, alternatively known as the invisible circle with a radius of approximately 150 metres around the Gryffindor common room. Definitely forbidden territory, but it was the fastest way down to the kitchens. Any other mildly safe route would send us past the Ravenclaw tower, and we'd already discovered that they set up precautionary charms to get rid of intruders. Apparent they figured a talking doorknob didn't quite cut it as a security system.

Muffled scuffling sounds emanated from a broom closet not far from our position and we both froze.

"The Otter to mission control, The Dark Night, requesting permission to investigate. Out." He whispered.

I stared at him oddly, seriously questioning his sanity and wondering where he picked up the lingo, along with the bad puns on our names. All I could think to say was, "You know what Batman is?"

"Nothing beats muggle comics. Isn't that how people talk in these kind of situations?"

Clearly he read fiction too often. "Only if you're determined to appear brain damaged. Come on, let's get out of here."

"The Otter repeating request to check it out. Er… Out."

I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose, before reverting to sarcasm, "Does the Otter wish to be flattened in a battle of epic proportions and made into a furry hat?"

"Fine, be that way. You go ahead; I'll just take a look." Reece said as he took a step towards the sound.

That set alarm bells ringing. "No, I'll do it. I still remember the last time you tried to check a corridor for traps."

Stupid boy. There were times to be curious, and Halloween wasn't one of them.

I gently opened the door, aware that Reece was trying to sneak a glance over my shoulder. It was much worse than I'd feared, even worse that a Dementor: a couple snogging. Gross. My poor, scarred-for-evermore eyes took in the scene in seconds. They were crushed into a corner and therefor completely violating all that I hold holy in regards to personal space. They pulled their lips apart with a squelching plunger-out-of-toilet sound as they turned to face me. Both supported mattered nests of hair and makeup smudged on their mouths, cheeks, even their noses somehow, and their clothes were crumpled but thankfully still on their bodies. Their distinctively peeved expressions would've been almost hilarious if they'd been aimed at anyone other than me. I shielded my eyes before I could sustain permanent damage and failed to confirm their identities.

I backed away quickly. When I failed to supress a snicker I decided that it would be better for my health if I was to just run away.

I almost crashed into Reece, but I managed to grab his shoulder and pull him after me, "Abort the mission. Retreat!"

"What's the problem?" He asked, not quite matching my eagerness to escape. Maybe my laughter was misleading. That was excusable, I guess. He'd only known me for just over a month, he probably hadn't really noticed my unparalleled ability to identify the worst possible way to react to a situation and then execute it in full force.

"Angry bloke and an annoyed girlfriend." I struggled to find a way to convey the sheer shitiness of the situation in a way he would comprehend.

Then, inspiration struck, "Code red!" I hollered in his ear. It got his attention, and it also served as retribution for the damage to my eyes he had inadvertently caused.

I glanced over my shoulder, seeing the guy stagger out of the closet. Beneath the layer of lipstick and foundation, his face was turning from pink to a satisfying shade of crimson. It wasn't a blush, I'd learnt enough about recognising emotions to recognise he was livid. Nevertheless, of course we had to stop and laugh at him – that was out of the question – but it slowed us down and Reece had to pull me out the way of the curse that followed. Then we ran for our frickin' lives.

We sprinted down the corridors, right through Lion territory, giggling like the idiots were so obviously were. Luckily there weren't many people about, and those that were had to flatten themselves against the walls to avoid being bowled over.

"I think we'll have to bypass lunch, head for the grounds!" Reece shouted.

I groaned, my stomach protesting when it realised he was right. Balls.

"No, not that way!" My yell stopped him in his tracks, I pushed him through a tapestry and we legged it down the winding set of stairs instead, "That's the long way, and I'm a lazy sod."

We left the castle in what had to be record speed. The grounds were far more crowded than I would've liked, but no matter. "Where now?"

"Hagrid's," he said, taking my hand and towing me along before I could stop and rest.

"You… know… Hagrid?" I said, slightly in awe, but otherwise just out of breath.

"Yep!" That meant more exercise. Great.

We finally stopped at his doorstep after very nearly falling down the hill.

Reece nocked on the door, and a reply of "Won' be a moment," was heard through the wood.

My joins protested as I flopped onto the grass, barely missing a particularly large pumpkin.

"Well, that was certainly entertaining." Reece said sardonically.

I opened a bleary eye, tempted to kick him for that comment, but that would require effort. Revenge would have to wait.

It was very nice down there on the grass. I could see strange birds playing in the canopy of the nearby forest, they made the strangest noises, not at all like the birds back home. They seemed more… exuberant, somehow. Perhaps it was the country, or maybe it was the magic, I didn't know.

"What are you doin'?" Reece announced his presence with his usual noise flair. I opened my eyes to see his face overhead.

"Regenerating," I sighed. It wasn't even a frustrated get-out-of-my-personal-space-bubble sigh. I didn't know why he cared, maybe it was that 'making conversation' crap he'd introduced me too, I wouldn't have a clue.

"I like grass, it's very cool and fresh." I admitted. Again, not sure where that came from, I don't usually do the whole chat thing. Must've been the birds.

Reece smirked and raised an eyebrow. "Riiight."

I shrugged as best one can while lying down. "I know I'm strange." There was a clump of small blue flowers conveniently close to my hand. Then, with unaccounted revenge in mind, I quickly picked them and magically banished them so they stuck in his hair.

Thankfully, Hagrid chose that moment to open his door. I say thankfully, because, although just inside the doorway there was a loaded crossbow almost taller than I was and a dog that probably could have had me for breakfast, after looking at Reece's expression, it was almost comforting in comparison.

Still damn amusing though.

We were happily ushered in, Hagrid seemed thrilled to have guests, which was a great relief because, despite my earlier comments, a huge man with a crossbow and a bloodhound was not the type of person I'd want to go out of my way to annoy.

I felt even smaller than usual sitting at the abnormally large table and chairs, probably because my feet barely brushed the ground. Hagrid rushed around to make tea and cakes –bless his soul– while I felt strangely out of scale.

But Reece fit right in. "Hi, Hagrid! I want you to meet Jenny, she's a friend of mine, bla bla bla-" Ok, so maybe he didn't really say exactly that, but that's how I interpreted it after I zoned out. The cabin was amazing, there were all kinds of incredibly interesting looking items I couldn't put names to. One clump of slivery stuff almost looked like horse hair.

But I digress. I tuned back into their conversation when they reached the point of discussing the positive aspects of owning a pigmy man-eating porcupine.

Of course, I was bursting with questions to ask, did they even exist? Was that what the crossbow was for? Should I be concerned? But I couldn't ask all those, or even some of those. I didn't have the social skills of Mr Social-Chameleon over there. Hence, I found myself sitting there, shifting uncertainly, with my feet swinging ridiculously. Reece attempted to drag me into the conversation a few times, but his words just bounced off me. I'd never done well in crowds. Two other people definitely classifies as a crowd. Sometimes, if the person or their accompanying ego is large enough, even one person is a crowd.

As testament to how much I'd changed, it took me the best part of twenty minutes, but I just couldn't help myself in the end. "Do pigmy man-eating porcupines have teeth? Are they native to Britain?"

'Reece is a bad influence.' I thought immediately after snapping my mouth shut, 'That was, what, two whole sentences? I'm turning into a regular chatterbox.'

After that marginally disturbing revelation, I had to wrestle my concentration back to the matter at hand. I saw Hagrid's kind dark eyes light up and I realised I must've missed the standard 'wow, she can speak' moment while I was dealing with my own surprise of the same kind. But that was that; suddenly it wasn't hard to speak to him at all.

The hours wasted away. Soon the tea was ready and it was delicious. I even made a noticeable dent in one of the aptly named rock cakes after some time chiselling away at it. It was easier once I dipped it into the drink and it gained the consistency of muddy gravel, a significant improvement over what previously felt like first grade cement.

I decided I liked Hagrid, unique cooking and all.

...

Reece insisted we go to the feast. Not that I listened. It was really only thanks to my stomach, which prevails over all, that we found ourselves seated at the Hufflepuff table steadfast ignoring the strange looks we received and the occasional glares from Reece's dorm mates. He still wouldn't tell me what he did to so thoroughly piss them off.

The Hall looked brilliant. The glowing jack-o'-lanterns grinned down on us from where they floated. Occasionally they were knocked by Peeves as he bounced around the room and popped up behind first years, scaring the life out of them. Hoards of bats occupied the ceiling, and a skeletal orchestra played eerie music on bone instruments. The ensemble acted as a barrier between us and the teachers. The table was less crowded there, probably due to the eerie racket, so that's where we found ourselves sitting.

Food appeared, and the sound barrier was breached. The term 'food' is used loosely here. It was really just a gross assembly of all manner of sweat things the health minister of Scotland would doubtlessly frown upon. I repeat: delicious.

I don't know how long I spent gorging myself, and the food just kept coming so there was no sure way to tell, but eventually I packed my stomach to the max.

Or, the apparent maximum, anyway. I was staring at the chocolate pudding trying to mentally calculate whether anymore would fit, when I looked up the table and met the eyes of some guy. Dark hair, pale skin, slightly shorter than average stature. I recognised the scowling face and I probably should've been able to put a name to it, after all we'd had Herbology with the Hufflepuffs since first year.

He met my eyes for a second before being reeled back into conversation with a mousy haired girl, Tracy, I think her name was.

"Hey," I muttered, nudging Reece to get his attention, "Who's that?"

He made a face. "His name's Tony Branxton, doesn't like me much, and I guessing that now includes you by extension. Just ignore him, or pelt him with nuts if you're feeling particularly malicious, he's allergic."

"Is he the guy you had a fight with?" I blurted out, breaching the Touchy Topic. My brain-to-mouth filter was malfunctioning. I figured it was because my limited brain power was diverted to the massive task of managing digestion.

I waited for the dark look, for him to clam up and descend into one of his moods. I shouldn't have pried, it was a royally stupid thing to do.

"How'd you know we fought?" He was guarded, certainly, but mainly just confused and wary.

"Guessed."

He sighed, "Look, I'll tell you, a'right? Just not tonight."

I nodded quickly. Honestly, I was just glad Prissy Reece was still at bay, Merlin knows we certainly didn't need a visit from him.

The conversation slowly got more comfortable after that. Our food-addled minds even decided that, although it was part of the reason we'd spent the last few days living like front line marines, we were still looking forward to the ensuing Quidditch match. I was cut off while saying I was particularly anticipating seeing Potter, the smarmy git, fall off his broom, but only after we'd been ensured victory over the other greener smarmy gits, by the headmaster. I had to settle for picturing it, but it was no less satisfying.

"I hope you have thoroughly enjoyed yet another magnificent feast, and now, before we conclude the evening and most of us retreat to our beds, we once again have the presentation put together by the staff for your enjoyment."

For the last twenty years at least the professors had put together a sort of… magical laser show, if you will. Apparently it's originally a spooky-fied story involving the heritage of the school or something similar, but it hardly even stayed that way. I'm lead to believe that it's quite easily tampered with, because the Prewett twins got their claws into it during my first year, and before them I'm sure someone else would've messed with it.

The previous year was kind of disappointing. I heard the some sixth years tried to sabotage it, but it was poorly planned and only smoked somewhat hazardously. It was most definitely not at all up to par with the Prewett production.

The start was ordinary. Giant, three dimensional starry figures, each at least ten metres high, formed from the swirling cloudlike mist. The skeletal orchestra started a mournful tune to accompany the battle scene that began to play out. It involved the four founders, or at least that's what I assumed, as the guy who clearly liked red and another bloke in green started having a go at each other. They carried weapons along with their wands. Gryffindor's sword left a trail of sparks in its wake and turned anything it hit back into mist, like Slytherin's eyebrow, for example. Our old mate, Salazar, had some sort of scythe, I think, along with his now slightly improved bad looks. Hufflepuff had a staff, which she used to try and break the two apart, and the last, Ravenclaw, had a bow she looked tempted to use. It was probably a re-enactment of some important fight containing some message, but I sleep through History, so it all went straight over my head.

But then there was a bang –the well-known precursor to all things bad– and then everything went unnaturally quiet. Gryffindor glanced around, confused, Helga scratched her head, Ravenclaw only blinked, and Salazar picked his nose idly, then the phantom Founders froze, as if stunned. The hall erupted into a chorus of mutterings, many were tossing up between apprehension and anticipation.

The murmuring reached full force, Dumbledore made to stand, but he never even reached the edge of his seat. The main lights in the hall flickered out, the doors creaked and closed with a decisive thud. The dimmed light from the jack-o'-lanterns only allowed me vision enough to faintly make out the closest Hufflepuffs. In the strange glow and deep shadows, their faces looked gaunt and pale. Reece made an effort to look brave, but only wound up pulling off some vaguely constipated grimace. Someone screamed.

McGonagall called for us to remain calm, but her request was largely ignored.

Some sound joined the fray. It started deep and low; an undertone to the whispering of the Hall. It intruded on the back of my conscious and seemed to get under my skin. The hairs on the back of my neck rose. I fidgeted, trying unsuccessfully to locate and identify the source. It grew in volume, morphing until it was distinguishable as laughter. Harsh, insane, cruel. You know the kind. All other noise was forced into the background, soon everyone fell silent, holding their breaths.

The groan of the door split the silence, the laughter died down. The temperature dropped at least ten degrees. I think something slipped in, but I couldn't be sure. My eyes met Reece's, he looked downright ill. A slight gust stirred the air and brushed against the skin on the back of my neck. I whirled around, wand drawn, trying to see anything in the gap between the house tables. Something passed there, I swear. Whatever it was, it blended into the shadows well, but the glow revealed the black material of the cloaked figure as it moved down the aisle. It made next to no noise, besides the faint rustle of cloth on cloth, and it seeming to hover centimetres above the stone floor. Those surrounding me froze. They saw it too. At least I wasn't hallucinating.

Each second took an age too pass. I wasn't stupid enough to want anyone's undivided attention at that moment, but I was also surely tempted to use Lumos and just figure out what the hell was going on.

One of the Puffs around me let out a light squeak, resulting in me nearly jumping out of my skin. I let out a shaky breath and decided to sod the consequences, I was sick of the unnerving turn of events.

"Lumos." My whisper was deafening, but it did bugger all. Really, I don't think I'd even expected it to work, otherwise surely the professors would have had the place shining like an afternoon in July.

Suddenly, blue sparks whizzed from the four corners of the hall and up into the ceiling where they struck the projection of the Founders and burst almost like lightning, silhouetting the eerie frozen figures momentarily.

I didn't have time to ponder this, however, as the Hall's lights returned. I was momentarily blinded by the sudden brightness. I tried to blink the dark spots out of my sight, and then set my reclaimed vision on the scene. Nothing notable had changed. Odd.

Someone crawled out from under the table not far from where we were sitting. I rolled my eyes; it hadn't been that scary. I'd almost dismissed the matter as unimportant, but a hiss from the Gryffindor table drew my attention to Lupin, who obviously failed in an attempted subtle warning for the person, a boy, to stay down. When instead that person deftly jumped onto the table, Lupin groaned and head-butted the bench, just barely missing an innocent bowl of ice-cream. McGonagall rose from her seat at the disrespect for school property, her glare sharp enough to cut diamonds.

That boy was hard to mistaken for another. "… Black?" He turned at the call of his name and gave me a sly wink, which usually would've provoked a hex on my part, but my muddled thoughts had short-circuited my brain. All I did was blink, but give it a minute or two.

More sparks, orange this time, whizzed through the doors and straight to the ceiling where they met the frozen projection of the Founders, instantly triggering their motion once again. Poor buggers look mighty confused with the turn of events. Helga shrugged, and they started their act from where they'd left off, but not for long. Ravenclaw changed first. Her hair thinned and lost its shine, her skin wrinkled and turned a most unpleasant shade of green, her head fell to an unnatural angle, and she shuffled awkwardly. The newly formed zombie brought a petite (and half rotten) hand to her lips and gave little un-zombie-like giggle. She turned to face the house of her name, put a hand on her hip and stated in a faux stern manner: "Girls and gents of Ravenclaw, for the sake of all eyes, study a little less and grab your selves some sleep, would you? Just eat everyone else's brains."

At this point, all hell pretty much broke loose. Some laughed, and the blue and silver house wasn't overly pleased, but really, that imitation of some of them around exams was uncanny.

Further teasing commenced. Salazar was soon turned into a vampire and made some shrewd comment about how his house needed to crawl out of their dungeons more often to lest they risk "acquiring a most displeasing pasty completion".

Helga had a go at Hufflepuff next. She tripped, and when she managed to get back up her head had taken the shape of a bull, she was a minotaur and told her house it was fine to be a bit of a cow sometimes.

I was expecting special patriotic treatment of Gryffindor, so excuse me if I was a little surprised when Godric gave a little squeal and turned into the most ridiculous looking monster I'd even seen. It had the front half of a lion's body and mane but a crocodilian face and the back half was the wrinkly butt of a hippopotamus.

The Godric beast ignored the instantaneous laugher, stood on his awkward mismatched legs and shook his mane. "Gryffindor, you must aspire to be like me. Brave as a lion, obviously, and as-"

The collective roar of laughter from the Hall rose to a level Godric couldn't ignore. The creature scowled, or at least I think it did. The expression had an amusing effect on the crocodile face and pulled it in unnatural angles, only making it look even stranger. "Silence! I am Ammit the Devourer, the Egyptian gods' pet soul eater." He paused to let his words sink in, but it didn't have the desired effect, apparently, "Stop laughing at me!" He all but whined, his eyes watering, a hurt expression on his face.

Those crocodile tears did it; even I couldn't hold back a giggle at the absurdity, which naturally meant that quite a few people were approaching the point of falling off their chairs from mirth.

The moment the new and improved Founders cleared out of the figurative spotlight, Black gave a whistle, took a bow, and started extravagantly conducting the skeletal orchestra, waving his wand like a muggle conductor. Skeleton One began the piece with a drum solo, bashing anything in sight –the chairs, floor, and other skeletal heads– everything was fair game. Skeleton Two jumped down from the back, it's fingers a blur, wielding what was previously used as a violin in an interesting interpretation of a guitar. A cello player adopted the base guitar, another abandoned its flute in favour of singing instead, and the last handed it's triangle to Dumbledore (who hummed along to the music, striking the instrument every so often) and then it took to the floor with surprisingly good dance moves. The skeletal orchestra was transformed into a rock band playing a slightly distorted version of 'Bad to the Bone'. They were alright, so far as the un-dead go anyway, especially when exercising a terrible pun.

The projection of the ten metre high dancing zombie, vampire, minotaur and Devourer danced in time. The zombie was a little slow, but the vampire was smooth, the minotaur was buff and the Devourer was uncoordinated but otherwise lively and bounced along happily.

The music got louder and faster, and soon the skeleton's singing was more aptly described as screaming. Just as things reached fever pitch, the stray smoke from the apparitions gathered above the door in the far end of the Hall. The billowing plume folded over itself. Wisps would stray from the mass before getting sucked back in. It got darker and larger, until it filled over half the ceiling and orange lightning flashed within. The mutant thundercloud got denser still, the flashes more common, until the eerie orange light lingered and the dyed smoke manifested into a giant jack-o'-lantern. That thing was the epitome of pure evil: dark and angular empty pits for eyes, and a giant gaping fanged mouth backlit with yellow fire which occasionally flickered out from between its teeth. The monster screeched and surged forward, trailing plumes of the near-black smoke and orange sparks; the whole thing resembled a nasty giant orange comet. It's fully open mouth spanned most of the room, the Founders never stood a chance. They were all swallowed in one mouthful and reduced to mist. But the jack-o'-lantern remained, hovering in the centre of the room. It settled for glaring around the place.

The skeletal rock band struck the final notes, and they rang out over the talk and tentative applause filling the Hall. People were hesitant to believe it was over, and rightly so. The note faded, and all eyes turned to the pumpkin, which began smoking more than before. It looked slightly agitated, but not for long. The presentation finished with the usual flair that almost literally had 'Marauder trademark' written all over it. The phantom manifestation of smoke and fire exploded. Sparkly pumpkin guts rained down everywhere. It was really quite pretty.

Stuff landed on my head, only it wasn't mushy pumpkin innards, but all manner of chocolates and lollies. Orange wrapped sweats covered every surface, including Mrs Norris's nose.

"Black! Get down from that table. You'll see me afterwards to serve the first in a very long line of detentions." A very disgruntled McGonagall attempted to bring the situation back to reasonable levels of control.

Black looked positively delighted at this outcome and took a bow to what somehow escalated to thunderous applause, "Thank you, I'd like to thank a few very special people for making this momentous occasion possible-"

"Quiet, Black." McGonagall's lips were as thin as I'd ever seen them.

"And you!" Her frown landed on the other grinning ¾ of the Marauders. "Don't think your involvement will go unpunished."

They didn't seem to mind either.

And that, my friends, is how the Marauders hijacked Halloween before essentially bribing their way to applause through a sufficient downpour of lollies.

Perhaps that was too harsh a judgment. It was the first of their pranks that didn't isolate a victim in pure bullying fashion, I'll admit I found myself clapping as well. They looked significantly too pleased with themselves.

Everyone left the Hall carrying armfuls of goodies, we Gryffindors were down a few points thanks to you-know-very-well-who and co, but it was some consolation to know that they were up quite a few detentions. Due to the nature of the prank, no one was really too miffed with them. Not even me.

I parted ways with Reece, but not without arranging to meet him at the Quidditch pitch in the morning.

I was ready to drop, but sleep would be hard to come by, as it turned out. The other girls had important business to attend to, namely planning their outfits for the following day. From what I gathered from their feverish conversations, there were many difficult choices one had to make before an appropriate guise could be assembled. Choices that would take hours to resolve.

First and foremost, there were the most pressing questions addressing the use of colour. It would have to be chiefly comprised of red items, or course, but the shades had to best suit the tone of one's skin, not to mention flatter the contours of one's body, and it couldn't clash with the assembled choice of gold accessories.

Of course, the lesser priority was the matter of the weather, and the threat of pending frostbite had to be balanced against appearance. Sacrifices had to be made. They were probably all going to die.

I didn't hang around for the final verdict, and chose instead to vanish into my four-poster and reinforce the curtains with strong muffling charms. They were barmy, the lot of them.

...

"Ladies, gentlemen, and those in between, let's hear it for Gryffindor!" Ben Cullen, sixth year Ravenclaw and commentator, waved off McGonagall's glare before continuing with his job. "It's Rivers, Shacklebolt, Longbottom, Prince, Potter, Gully and Arroyo!"

"Captain Rivers has put together a young team this year. Potter and Arroyo replace last year's chaser Wood and renown seeker Stevens, they have their work cut out for them, especially against Tredony's experienced team where he'll play with McLaggen, Nott, Goyle, Pine, Rosier and Doherty!"

"Yeah, Ben's got that right! Everyone on the Slytherin team is old. They're toast next year when they lose Tredony and Goyle, then Nott, Pine and Doherty are next!" Reece cackled delightedly, leaning over the railing to watch the teams enter the pitch. He looked funny with hexed red hair, though I don't suppose I looked much better. The hexed hair was a rite of passage, of sorts, and anyone who refused the treatment wasn't permitted to enter the Gryffindor stands. Looking out across the stands was bizarre and more than a little blinding, I could just imagine how it would look from the air.

Ben gave a whoop: "And they're off!"

"It's Slytherin with the quaffle; Nott to Tredony, back to Nott, then to McLaggen –quick fingers from the Slytherin chasers today– back to Tred- ooh, that's gotta hurt, fantastic bludger from Shacklebolt, and the quaffle is in Gryffindor possession!"

Insert much cheering here.

"It's Longbottom to Potter, Potter to Prince, and there's a bludger shotting around there, I have no idea who that was aimed at, probably Prince, but she hasn't been on the team for three years for nothing, though I am questioning Tredony's choice of beaters. Longbottom with the quaffle now, approaching the rings, he shoots... and, ah, tough luck. Rosier passes it off to Nott."

There are many, many people who take Quidditch and all it entails very seriously and those dutifully followers produce a certain contagious atmosphere that was impossible to resist. If you were in the stands you were part of the screaming, occasionally dancing, near hysterical crowd. The seats were there only to be stood on, everyone had their wands out and were prepared to do anything from sending up red sparks to sending silencing spells at the opposition cheer squad to gain a leg up in the unofficial screaming contest. People got all dressed up for these events, and I've already mentioned the hair. You can't escape it.

For example, I had my own personal Quidditch expert/fanatic/commentator going by the name of Reece.

Me: "Get a load of how Prince dodged another one of those wayward beaters rather than the bludgers, what game is Goyle and Pine watching?!"

And then the expert: "Bastards! They're trying to knock out our best chaser. Beaters aren't there to gang bash players, how come they get to be stupid enough to get away with calling it an accident! Yeah, you bash them with bludgers, go Shacklebolt and Rivers!"

The Slytherins flew the quaffle up the field, our keeper, Gully, had to dodge a bludger at the worst possible moment. It became inevitable, "Slytherin puts the first points on the board!"

The noise level doubled at least. Some groaned, others hollered encouragement, and Slytherin positively erupted. A few of the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws supporting the colours of silver and green could be seen to cheer, but they were soon put in their place. The first match between the Lions and Snakes was always brutal. You so much think of the colour green and several hexes were flying through the air towards you. It's plain out perilous and bordering on predatory.

It's bloody brilliant.

An hour further on, and the scoreboard sat at 70 all. Damn Potter wasn't half bad. His ego was bound to be simply insufferable after that.

There had been no sign of the snitch and Slytherin was really beginning to play dirty. Broom tails were yanked, elbows were being rammed into heads, ribs, and other painful places, among other things. If Slytherin hadn't awarded us so many penalty shots we they would've been miles ahead.

"Arroyo has seen the Snitch!" Ben announced, and at once every eye in the stadium turned to the two seekers.

"Of course it's winner takes all here, this is the first test for the new Gryffindor seeker, she's got a few metres on Doherty but he's gaining!"

The small girl deftly dodged and flipped over and around bludgers and team members in her pursuit of the tiny golden ball I could hardly see. Her hand darted out as the Slytherin seeker drew level, and-

"GRYIFFINDOR WINS!"

I dare say a description of the moments following that announcement isn't necessary, which is just fine and dandy for me because, honestly, I just don't remember most of it.