It was Halloween at last. Lily was excited to see how their decorations turned out, and nervous to see what everyone thought of them.
McGonagall had been impressed with their ideas for Halloween. She even thought Sirius' idea of a pumpkin parade was a good one. So, with more vigour than Lily had ever seen, McGonagall recruited all of the staff – including Dumbledore – to set up the school appropriately.
As James and Lily descended from Gryffindor tower, they admired their handiwork. The portraits were rusty and covered in cobwebs. Fake spiders (thankfully) crawled over the walls. The stairs looked seemingly harmless, but each stair creaked loudly; this meant that with the influx of students heading off to classes, a horrible, scratchy, moaning sound was heard constantly throughout the castle. The higher up the castle you got, the higher pitch the creaking was.
Peeves was causing mischief, though Dumbledore and the Bloody Baron had restricted him to usually unused hallways. For instance, the corridor before the Divination classroom – Peeves had thrown an armful of grapes at the third years' heads without missing a single target. He also happily dragged the ends of canes and walking sticks along the walls, adding to the creaking of the castle. Filch was none too pleased with this as Peeves left scratch marks on the stone.
Hagrid had grown pumpkins as large as the first years and had carved them. The largest three were placed in the Entrance Hall, with the next two largest guarding the doors to the Great Hall. Dumbledore had bewitched them to talk; James changed it so they screamed insults in deep voices. Professor Flitwick charmed them to look rotting and black, despite their cheerful pink, orange, green and red demeanours.
Many students paused upon entering the Great Hall, fuelling James and Lily's ego immensely. Skulls were floating in the Great Hall with tiny candles stuck to them, replacing the usual gold candles. Their light was dimmed, giving the hall an eerie atmosphere. The ceiling was dark, grey and cloudy, with a bit of mist. It would remain like this the entire day. Nearly Headless Nick was floating about with his head unattached to his neck, revealing his horrific beheading. Small and hollow orange pumpkins were floating along the house tables, filled with either candy or creatures. Lily was very proud of this idea, as it reminded her of the muggle "trick or treat" tradition. James thought it was brilliant.
"Maybe we should do the creatures for the Slytherin table," he had sniggered. "Roaches and maggots sound good to me!"
The owl post was transfigured upon entering the Great Hall. Each parcel, letter, object, or newspaper carried by the owls was transfigured into a tiny pumpkin, colour-coded for each house. When the owls first flew in, murmurs of confusion could be heard throughout the Hall. Lily watched as a tiny red pumpkin dropped in front of her; upon landing on the table, it immediately returned to its original state of the Daily Prophet newspaper. Pleased with the crafty spellwork, Lily opened up the paper and began reading. James thumped down beside her.
"We did really well, didn't we?" Lily nodded her agreement.
"Has anyone seen the statues yet?" she asked. James shook his head.
"Remus and Sirius are finishing them now."
Lily nodded again. She had complete faith that whatever they were doing to the statues; it was sure to look great.
Suddenly, out from the Entrance hall, a giant shout was heard. The Great hall silenced almost immediately.
"Piertotum locomotor!"
That was Sirius.
McGonagall, James and Lily immediately jumped up from their seats to see the show. The deputy headmistress, however, was not happy. "Black!" she screeched. She hitched up her robes and almost ran the length of the Great Hall. "I thought I was going to have the benefit of casting that spell!"
McGonagall was still shouting as she threw the doors open wide. By doing do, she allowed the rest of the school view to the school statues, which were leaving their usual places and landing on the floor with a small earthquake one by one. The disgruntled statues were precariously balancing gaudy wizard hats on their armoured heads. Many of the hats (looking remarkably like the Sorting Hat in all but colour) were bright red, pastel blue, neon yellow and grass green to represent each school house. A few other hats were pink, purple and gold. Each hat was decorated with real bats that flapped their wings and screeched.
To everyone's delight, the statues began marching into the Great Hall. James and Lily backed away to let the younger kids admire their handiwork. Each statue had a basket of Halloween gifts and candy to hand out throughout the day.
"I guess you didn't need my help after all," Hestia grumbled from behind Lily, making her laugh.
"Of course not, Hestia! I think we did remarkably well."
Marlene was nodding her head enthusiastically. "Yeah you did. A perfect last Halloween at Hogwarts, if you ask me."
A wave of sadness flowed through Lily. "Guys," she murmured. Her low tone immediately got her friends' attention. "This is actually our last Halloween at Hogwarts! This is it!" Lily felt like bawling and Hestia could tell. She pulled her fiery friend into a quick hug. "Hey, the year isn't over yet," she encouraged Lily. "There's still plenty of schooling left before you need to get all emotional!"
Lily sniffed. "I suppose you're right. Come on, we'd better get to class."
The trio turned to leave the Great Hall, smiling at the first years who were amazed at the magic and the other seventh years that seemed to had come to the same realisation Lily did.
"Hey, Evans! Wait up!"
With a smile on her face, Lily almost snapped her neck looking back at James, who was approaching her quickly. Telling her friends that she'd meet up with them in class, and ignoring their suggestive winks, she waited for James patiently.
"Not a bad show, eh?" Lily said conversationally. James shrugged.
"Got something better planned for Christmas," he said. "Anyway, that's not why I'm here. I have something important to ask you."
Lily waited, but when all James did was run a hand through his already messy hair, she said, "Okay, shoot."
James was nervous. He promised himself he wouldn't do it but Merlin this seemed like the perfect time and Merlin she looked beautiful and Merlin "Will you please be my girlfriend?" James bit his lip while he waited for his immediate rejection.
"Um."