Weeks flew by, and with the Weasley twins no closer to getting answers about the hump-backed witch statue, the four of them settled into an easy pattern. Monday through Friday Ever, Lee, Fred, and George went to classes—with the three boys getting reprimanded at least once a day, and more often during nearly every lecture—and ate lunch and dinner together before heading up to the common room to do their homework. The boys, Ever soon discovered, were exceedingly bright and made extremely high marks; they just happened to have the attention span of a goldfish. Weekends were spent exploring the castle, following the map, looking for more secret passages—all of which had passwords, much to the twins' chargrin—and talking over what they'd found out that night in the common room and four armchairs directly in front of the fire. The rest of September flew by in a blur, and most of October followed much the same...until the night before Halloween.
"So what do wizards even do on Halloween?" Ever asked, throwing her quill down beside her roll of parchment as she finished up an essay for Charms.
"What do you mean?" Fred—he'd been done with his essay long before now, though she suspected it was due to his comparitavely huge handwriting quickly covering the six inches of parchment they'd been assigned—asked from his position on the overstuffed armchair across from her, popping a piece of candy into his mouth.
"I mean, what kind of traditions do you guys have? Don't you do...anything for it?"
"Not really." George shrugged, scratching his nose. "I mean, people have parties and things like that, but mostly they just sit around and honor dead ancestors."
"Light candles and stuff like that," Fred agreed, nodding as he unwrapped another sweet.
"Why?" Lee mumbled, distracted; he had yet to finish his essay, though the parchment was almost full now. "What do muggles do?"
"Well..." Ever fiddled with her quill for a moment, wondering if they'd laugh. "The adults have parties too, but the kids go out trick or treating."
"We've seen kids do that at home!" George exclaimed, looking up at her. "They're always in funny clothes—"
"Yeah, and Mum would never let us ask why!" said Fred, looking equally excited. Ever could barely believe they'd even heard of muggle traditions, and wondered briefly why they hadn't snuck out to get a closer look—they certainly did it enough around the castle, now that they had the map to know exactly which professor and prefect they were running away from on any given night—but brushed the thought away.
"Well, they dress up and they go up to people's doors," she explained slowly, trying to pick her words carefully. "And they ring the bell, or knock, or whatever, and when people open the door they yell 'trick or treat' and they get candy."
"So..." Lee began slowly, sticking his quill behind one ear—his wand was behind the other—and turning to stare at her as he rolled up his parchment, "these kids get all dressed up in their Sunday best—"
"No!" the girl laughed, shaking her head. The boys blinked at her, confused, and she grinned; finally, she could teach them something that seemed obvious to her. "They dress up in costumes, like...brides, and fairies, and mermaids—"
"Why would anyone dress up as a mermaid?" Fred asked, eyes nearly the size of dinner plates. "They're green and ugly and they've got webbed fingers and—"
"They are?" All three boys nodded, bewildered. Well, Ever thought, so much for teaching them something. "Well, muggle mermaids are pretty, with really long hair and tails and tiaras and things like that. Anyway," she pressed on when the boys exchanged looks of disgusted disbelief, "they put on costumes that are pretty and scary and they get candy and try to scare each other."
"Why would they do that?" George asked, thoroughly engrossed now that the girl had gotten started with her tale.
"I don't know," she admitted, shrugging as she drew her wand from behind her ear and twirled it between her hands. "It's just been like that for as long as I can rememeber. Now you've got to be careful though, 'cause there are mean people who go about putting razor blades into apples and dropping them into kids' bags—"
"Why would anyone do that?" Lee demanded, sitting straight up in his chair. Ever shrugged helplessly, staring at the fire crackling merrily in the fireplace to her right.
"I dunno that either. Some people just do. My dad said there are men and women out there who just like to see other people hurt."
"That's mad!" Fred shouted, slamming his fist down on the table; some fifth years a few tables away looked at him tiredly before returning to their own homework. "Somebody should do something about it! Don't you muggles have those things, like aurors, those poh-leese men—"
"Oi, what do you mean 'you muggles'?" Ever demanded, her temper flaring despite herself. Fred hadn't meant that, he couldn't have, not after the past two months sitting in class with her and watching her do magic as well as anyone, and better than some of them, but...she couldn't get the words out of her head. "You muggles"; what did that make her? Fred seemed to realize his mistake, and the anger rapidly flooded out of him. He drew his hands back into his lap, swallowing hard.
"Ever, I...I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I mean, you're a bloody good witch and I didn't—" The witch held up her hand, shaking her head and taking a deep breath.
"I—I know you didn't mean it like that. I overreacted. Just..." She bit down hard on her lip and shook her head. "Forget about it." She swallowed hard, looking down at her wand—she was holding it a bit too tightly now, and made herself relax her grip—before glancing back up at the red-head, forcing a smile and a lighter tone. "Yeah, we have police men, but they can't exactly going around checking every bag of every child. There are loads of them out on Halloween."
"So..." George began, obviously not sure quite how to break the tension. "What do they do, then? To make sure that doesn't happen to other kids?"
"Well...now the kids just don't eat anything that's unwrapped." Ever shrugged, sliding her wand back behind her ear and nibbling at her thumbnail. "If it's store bought and hasn't been unwrapped, there's no way that it can be tampered with, so parents don't have to worry about it. Mostly when they get back to their houses parents help littler kids go through their candy and throw away everything that isn't packaged up."
"Why don't they just cut open the apples and things and make sure there's nothing in it?" Lee asked, scratching his nose and leaving a smear of ink from his quill there. The witch bit her lip to keep from giggling and shrugged again.
"Dunno. Most kids don't like fruit for Halloween treats anyway. I mean, would you? The night is all about candy."
"S'pose not," Fred mumbled, and when she glanced at him he was staring down at his completed Charms essay. Ever sighed and leaned across the table, putting her hand over his.
"Fred." He looked up at her, meeting her eye, and she blinked at his serious expression. She'd never seen him look anything less than thrilled to be wherever he was, but he looked like he would rather be anywhere but in front of her. "It's really okay. You didn't mean to do it, yeah?"
"Yeah," he sighed, nodding, and the tension seemed to flow out of the group when he finally cracked a smile. Ever leaned back in her chair again, pulling her feet up underneath her, and sighed as she looked down at the books in front of her.
"Reckon we better get started on Defense." The boys groaned, and she couldn't say she didn't feel the same way—she liked Professor Black a ton, but he wasn't at all lenient about homework—and picked up her quill again, cutting away a new sheet of parchment.
"Right then," Lee muttered, drawing his quill out from behind his ear and setting it to his parchment. "The properties of the bat-bogey hex..."