Chapter Twelve: The Monster Mash

"Surprisingly", the fact-finding mission had turned up absolutely nothing. Not even something insignificant that could have been misinterpreted to
mean something! They found nothing.

"Wow. We really found nothing." Harry mumbled in surprise.

"Meh. What'cha gonna do about it? Stop moaning and have some fun!" Cora offered. "After all, this IS the coveted Halloween ball that we're at. No squares allowed!"

They were indeed currently at the Halloween ball. The great Hall had been decorated with floating jack-o-lanterns with grinning faces and black candles lined the walls. Enchanted black paper bats fluttered about the festive room and occasionally preformed aerial flips. As an added touch of ambiance, small nooses dangled decoratively from the ceiling hanging cute little dead rats. Filch had out-done himself this year.

Students mingled about in pods and the ones who had not yet been introduced to alcohol were fooled into thinking that they were having fun. Even Bridgit and Cora, stuck with Harry, Ron and Hermoine, seemed to be enjoying themselves as they stuffed wads of candy down their throats. However, right at that moment several Slytherins passed by moving suspiciously, thus nullifying their ease. The Slytherins were snickering and whispering things to each other in evil merriment. The group caught a stray sentence.

"All right. So tonight at-" And the rest was inaudible as they had already passed them by.

"Did you hear that?" Ron leapt to his feet. "They're going to do something at….SOMETHING O'CLOCK!" He cried out.

"We have to stop them!" Hermione pounded her fist into her palm resolutely.

"But…what are they doing?" Bridgit asked the question begging and crying to be asked.

"I…don't know." Harry replied, very Shatner-esque.

"Let's go gang!" Ron hollered, charging after the Slytherin group.

"Okay. Bridgit and I will watch your back." Cora grabbed Bridgit by the arm and the two made their escape.

"We're free!" Bridgit laughed.

Until she saw Snape.

"What do you think of this?" He asked, holding up his arm.

"AGHHHH! Mangled limb!" Bridgit screamed, pointing at Snape's arm.

The entire room looked their way and then erupted in screaming terror at the gory sight. Bridgit held out her hand, palm up.

"Catalyst fee." She explained.

"I will pay no such fee." Snape huffily objected.

"That's some good makeup! No wonder everyone's screaming." Cora laughed heartily pointing at his arm.

"I don't know you." Snape grumbled and went to go sit at the front with the rest of the teachers at the head table.

"Ha ha! Sammy and Reagan have to guard him! Not us!" Bridgit wiped tears of merriment from her eyes.

"I wonder if they're having more luck than we did." Cora pondered aloud.

Sammy and Snape sat across from each other, eyes locked in an unblinking staring match of mammoth proportions. Reagan tried to break the tension.

"Do you guys want some punch? I'll go get us some punch." He hurried off.

"Slytherin." Sammy said distastefully.

"Ravenclaw." Snape spat.

"English guy." Sammy glared.

"Canadian." Snape hissed.

"Wow…there's some kids by the punch bowl acting really weird." Reagan mentioned, trying to change the subject from being mortal enemies to anything else.

"They're probably just being stupid. They are, after all, Slytherins." Sammy, with set eyes and a deadpan look, mocked her social superior.

"Twenty points from Ravenclaw." Snape replied. "Check and mate." Snape grabbed the glass of punch offered by Reagan and took a victory swig. He then coughed and looked at the concoction, completely aghast.

"Whoa…that's strong stuff." His voice was briefly quite hoarse.

"It's just punch! Although I suppose the bubbles in the tonic water would be a bit strong to someone with your constitution." Sammy laughed mercilessly at Snape and took her own victory swig.

She immediately spat it out, unfortunately spraying the good professor.

"Well, apparently more than you can. However, I find this victory fleeting now that I have consumables on my person. I HATE IT WHEN I HAVE CONSUMABLES ON MY PERSON!" Snape roared.

"What's going on guys? This punch tastes pretty good to me." Reagan tossed back the glass, drinking its contents in one swig without so much as the bat of an eyelash.

"What the-? How did you-? That's like proof fifty!" Sammy goggled at Reagan.

"What are you talking about? And why is the room spinning?" Reagan demanded.

"Well, to answer both of your questions, the punch has been spiked!" Snape loudly proclaimed.

At that moment, his chair, with him in it, suddenly lurched from the floor propelled by a large spring, which had previously been coiled. He flew across the room, narrowly missing many pillars, chandeliers and floating pumpkins in a brilliant display of physics. However, just before landing he smashed into one jack-o-lantern and then toppled into a large pile of Puffy Puffs. Reacting with his mangled limb makeup, the Puffy Puff Cremey Puff centers turned blood red.

"ARGHHHHHHH!" Snape roared from within his pumpkin head's confines. He rose from the pile, covered head to toe in blood red Cremey Puff centers. His head was encased in a pumpkin into which was carved a most fearsome expression indeed. He stood amidst the mess of consumables shaking with silent rage. Rage so silent, it frightened all who beheld it.

"When I find out who did this," he deliberately and seethingly announced, "Mister Potter," he added with a look to Harry who was and had been by the punch bowl the whole time, "I am going to-"

"Congratulations, Severus!" Dumbledore quickly walked up to Snape and shook his hand. "You've won the most frightening costume award for scaring the children. And Hagrid."

Hagrid was curled up in ball silently weeping from the corner.

"What? Since when do we have costume contests?" Snape, through pumpkin, looked incredulously at the headmaster.

"Look! We even have a trophy!" Dumbledore deftly dodged having to explain and handed Snape a little trophy.

Snape, who had never won anything in his life because of STUPID James Potter, had a sudden change of heart and snarkily accepted the prize. Striding through the mass of shell-shocked students to return to his seat, Snape passed Bridgit, Cora, Fred and George who were standing in the doorway looking nervous and red-handed. He turned to them, scowling mightily as though he were some kind of pumpkin king.

"Well, Miss Firecatcher, Miss Willowstaff," he began, deliberately choosing his words in supreme malice.

Bridgit and Cora gulped, knowing quite well how many times over he would kill them for this whole fiasco.

"It appears that I have beaten you. Take that! I never dress up for Halloween and I still won the contest! You didn't try hard enough! Ten points from Gryffindor!" He snarled, stomping with mean pride back to the table to take a different, non-modified seat.

"Oh my God." Cora sighed.

"I know. Ten points!" Bridgit shook her head.

"No idiot! Do you have any idea how close we were to being busted?" Cora hissed.

"Well, that was a spot of luck." George offered an understatement, his mouth agape in disbelief.

"We should do this again sometime! You two are naturals!" Fred laughed, patting them both on the back.

"Okay!" Bridgit smiled, instantly cheering up.

"I never did like Trelawney…" Cora proposed a target.

"Nah. She's really hard to prank. She always says it's a fulfillment of some prophecy or other." George sighed.

"We've been trying to get her for years." Fred shook his head in shame.

"We could always just light her room on fire!" Bridgit held up a pack of matches.

Fred and George looked aghast. Even they wouldn't go that far.

"No Bridgit, we can't do that." Cora shook her head. "Again!" She smiled sinisterly. "The redundancy would be totally lame!"

"On second thought, we'll call you." Fred offered.

"Okay!" Bridgit smiled vapidly as Cora shook her head.

After watching Fred and George make a hasty retreat, the two girls headed to the punch bowl, unaware of its contents. Suddenly, they tripped en masse for no apparent reason whatsoever. Climbing to their feet, they brushed themselves off to recover their dignity but remained confused.

"How did that happen?" Cora wondered aloud.

"Yeah! Way to go, Snape!" Reagan cheered, swaying slightly from side to side. He clapped Snape exuberantly on the back, dethroning him to the floor. Reagan then wiped the blood red Puffy Puff Cremey Puff center on to Harry's cardboard crown.

"There you go." He smiled, accidentally wiping his hand down the middle of Harry's face.

"I'll never wash this face again!" Harry sighed.

"POTTER!" Snape exploded. "It was you! You spiked the punch!"

"What? It was obviously the Slytherins! They were going to do something at something o'clock. Do you understand? SOMETHING O'CLOCK!" Ron defended his companion as Hermione prevented anyone from taking any punch from the punch bowl. Especially the faculty.

"Don't lie! You both get detention for two weeks!" Snape bellowed through his orange, jagged mouth.

"Ummm…Reagan…maybe we should go. You seem to be slightly…inebriated." Sammy suggested.

"What're you talkin' about? I'm totally okay to drive." Reagan jabbed his finger repeatedly into her chest.

"C'mon, let's go." Sammy ushered him from the room.

"Aw man!" Cora noticed Sammy removing a very loud Reagan from the ballroom as the He-Banshees began to play "The Monster Mash".

"Well, no more fun for us. See you later Fred and George." Bridgit sighed to two floating jack-o-lanterns whom she had named. She didn't cope with loss well. The pumpkins made no response prompting Bridgit to comment to Cora.

"They seemed so fun before but now they just float there judgmentally. I don't think that we should be friends with them anymore."

"Hmph, we were never friends with those losers!" Cora masked her pain with anger. "Let's get back to the mission."

Passing by the stage, Cora took note of something interesting.

"Wow. This band really DO have a triangle player. Ron must be seething with jealously now thanks to our clever lie." Cora noted using her street grammar.

Suddenly, a mysterious cat flew through the air and hit the triangle player in the head. Said cat then proceeded to maul him.

"Nooooo!" The girls all screamed.

"Agh! My face!" The triangle player screamed.

"What the- how did Crookshanks get here? And how did he manage that jump?" Hermione looked at the scene in confusion.

"Well, you know…some animals can sense evil. Remember Scabbers?" Ron quickly said, discreetly wiping orange fur off of his hand and robes.

"Oh my gosh! Crookshanks saved the day! You do realize that North Darling must have been a secret agent sent in by You-Know-Who to kill everyone! Thank goodness we stopped him!" Hermione suddenly realized. Ron stared at her for several moments.

"Uhhh…yes. Exactly what I was going to say. Now let us never speak of this again." He smiled nervously.

"What are you talking about? We have to tell Harry!" Hermione then bustled off to find Harry.

"Ohhh…why won't you pay attention to me?" Ron pined. He then jogged to catch up to Hermione, tripping once along the way.