Half the Ravenclaw upper years are lingering in the common room, carrying drinks and mixers and snacks while they wait impatiently.
There's a blockade formed to stop lower years from coming to the common room and a few scouts wandering the halls outside. Some Ravenclaws have already vanished off to friends in other houses to go with them but the majority wait for 'the signal' whatever that means.
A scout opens the door to the common room and pokes her head in. "It's broomsticks," she calls out.
There's some good-natured groaning because of course there's broomsticks for Sirius Black's birthday party.
A tiny broomstick zooms in over the scout's head, an equally tiny arrow hangs underneath it, flashing through colours as it flies around and ducks back out.
The Ravenclaws flood down the hallway now lined with tiny broomsticks, arrows flashing in sync. They turn two corners and meet up with the heavier traffic flow of the Hufflepuffs mingled with Slytherins. The miniature broomsticks guiding the Slytherins rather pointedly have Gryffindor banners like they've just won the quidditch house cup.
There's only one or two Gryffindors speckled into the flow of loudly chattering students, probably because most went with the party hosts.
The students are led away from the moving stairs and through a tapestry instead, where the flow slows down to two people squished shoulder to shoulder in a darkened passage. The tiny broomsticks don't come in with them so it's almost pitch black except for the occasional student who throws up a lumos.
At the end of the long passage, the stone turns to a clear glass wall beside a spiral staircase, the moonlight streaming through and there's a ripple as the students cry out in shock as they reach it.
The clear glass shows the view of the quidditch pitch at night, and the absolutely massive glass dancefloor hovering above it with a light show rippling out to the edges to the beat of whatever music is playing, the whole thing tenuously held up by the bridges leading out to the seating towers.
There are no walls or ropes to keep anyone in and even now some students are able to see people just jump straight off the edge of the platform only to land on some invisible slide and swirl down into the sand of the quidditch pitch below.
The incoming students wind up the spiral staircase and reach an empty doorway six storeys high and a perfectly silent, empty quidditch pitch. Some students hesitate while others jump straight off into what looks like empty air and disappear to outsiders as well, only to stagger when they land on a narrow bridge and rush off towards the larger platform where the music is loud enough to shake the glass.
Harry is with his Sirius, near the Black Lake where the invisible party probably can't see them. Harry already gave his present to younger Sirius earlier in the day when he helped set up so now he's chilling with his version.
Harry is sitting up with his forearms resting on his knees, still sipping the tequila sunrise James made him before he ducked out. Sirius is lying back on the grass with his hands under his head, a pile of ripped wrapping paper and presents near him.
Harry got him a fancy clock like the Weasley one that tells when people are in danger, at home, etc and locked it into the other three and himself so Sirius doesn't need to call on the mirror in frantic worry every time he sees another newspaper article about Voldemort. (Sirius will do it anyway but still.)
James got Sirius a fancy pureblood cane with head of the snarling dog -entirely just for fashionable purposes- with a gap in the underside of the detachable head that can fit a wand – it's half an insult because Sirius doesn't like that pureblood stuff but also it's a sick looking cane so he'll probably use it anyway at fancy parties.
Remus got some books regarding ethical time travel, and parenting books on how you shouldn't discipline children with punishment such as timeouts, except every 'timeout' is crossed out in favour of a scribbled 'kidnapped'.
It does seem, a bit, like the younger ones are warming up to Harry's version. It's slow going but Harry thinks that night in the Czech manor did a lot, with Sirius saving them and then James happily chatting to Sirius on the mirror for the rest of the morning until Voldemort took them away.
Sirius also got a very strongly worded letter by the younger Sirius about how older Sirius should murder their family and take over the Black name because it would make everything a lot easier.
"Don't actually do it," Harry says.
"I didn't say anything!" Sirius protests.
"You said he made a good point!"
"Technically true," Sirius argues. "I'm not going to do it though, it's fine. The House of Black survives another day."
Harry rolls his eyes. "How's being a hitwizard?"
"Fucking fantastic!" Sirius crows. "No listening to superiors, I work my own hours and – and this is probably really boring for a teenager."
"I'm almost nineteen," Harry points out. "I kind of need job advice anyway."
"Ugh, you can worry about that after your NEWTs come out." Sirius sits up with a wry smile. "I know you're not exactly a party animal but you sure you don't want to be up there with your dad?"
Harry purses his lips. "You – he actually…hmm."
Sirius' eyebrows furrow for a brief moment and then he realises. "Oh, I'm so sorry. Did we…?"
"It's okay," Harry sighs. "Trauma is an old friend to me now."
"It gets worse," Sirius says solemnly. "We actually peak after we graduate Hogwarts."
Remus is hovering at the edges of the crowd – not close enough to be pushed off the platform though. He has a drink in one hand and while his clothes are rumpled, he was thankfully able to fight off James and Sirius when they tried to strip him and put him in a costume. He did submit to his clothes being transfigured into something fluffier though.
Poor Harry looked so embarrassed when Sirius flounced down into the common room wearing a skimpy black and white maid costume, a puffy miniskirt not being to hide muscular thighs and the lacy short sleeves ripped from when he flexed his biceps too hard at some girls. It took some tricky transfiguration to even get Sirius' broad shoulders into the thing.
Right now, Sirius has amassed a crowd of admirers dancing up against him while he works out how to shake it down in high heels and, admittedly, he's doing a pretty good job.
You'd think the costume would detract from it a bit but no, it almost seems to have ramped up his masculine energy with all those muscles on display and he's practically flashed everyone his joke underwear with the smiley face across the ass but apparently the girls love that.
It also wasn't meant to be a maid costume, it was very last minute because James was reading Harry a bedtime story last night (mandatory now, after James learned Harry didn't get bedtime stories) and Harry made a comment about the muggle nursery rhyme Little Bo-Peep.
Sirius lost his shit at the thought of himself dressing up as a slutty Bo-Peep while James and Remus were his sheep because then he could make a dumb joke about Remus being a wolf in sheep's clothing. They could have made a black sheep joke too but Sirius wanted to wear a dress more than he wanted the pun.
But, well, it is Sirius' birthday so they owl-ordered a rushed maid costume, certain they could adjust some things since it'll only be used for a night anyway but they were pressed for time so Sirius just wore it as is.
James, no thanks to Sirius egging him on, bounced into the common room earlier and Remus at least had the heart to try and cover Harry's eyes. James has dressed himself as an equally slutty sheep in white sneakers but thigh-high white stockings. He transfigured some old clothes into tiny booty shorts with a stubby tail and a turtleneck crop top with puffy sleeves. He even added a headband with ears.
James is still darting between groups because his clothes are so soft and impossibly fluffy, and James is ridiculously proud of his transfiguration work and he wants everyone to know it. It's literally only about him being smug asshole but it comes across as a little strange when he dives into a group of people and cheers touch me, touch me before waiting impatiently for them to pet him.
Remus sips his drink and waits for the crash and burn because the more people grope James, the wilder Sirius gets and – yep, that's Sirius jumping off the edge onto the safety slide with some random bloke to probably go get his dick sucked.
Remus sighs and goes to collect James before someone thinks James is actually flirting and tries to take him up on it. Remus picks up his pace when he sees James make a beeline for Lily.
It's too close to the new moon for this shit.
Eight hours later as the sun rises, Sirius is slumped down on a cushy loveseat in the empty divination classroom, James sitting on his lap and slumped sideways against his shoulder for extra warmth even after they tossed up heating charms.
Remus is sitting next to them, a napkin in hand full of crackers as he slowly feeds them to James and Sirius who are half passed out already. He confiscated their alcohol several hours ago, but they were both already shit faced by that point – James because he never knows when to stop and Sirius because everyone kept giving him birthday shots.
James turns his head away when Remus pokes his cheek with a cracker, into the frilly bit of Sirius' collar. "I want cake."
"The cake was all eaten," Remus reminds him patiently because he didn't drink nearly enough to overpower the werewolf metabolism, so he's unfortunately not drunk enough to kiss the pout off James' lips.
James huffs and then his eyes curve up in mischief. "Touch me, I'm fluffy."
Sirius pats James on the ass and starts rubbing circles into the material. "I want my bed to be made of this."
"A whole classroom," James says.
"The grass surrounding the castle."
The two gasp and get excited – as excited as they can when James is half asleep and Sirius is exhausted, barely managing to stay conscious after leaving the party three times with random people before he latched back onto James and the teenage libido is an incredible thing, but even Sirius has limits.
"Okay," Remus says soothingly. "We'll do that tomorrow."
"Is 's tomorrow," Sirius mumbles, unintelligible.
Remus hums softly along to no music in particular and the two are passed out in a few more minutes as the sunrise creeps through the windows and bathes the classroom in a pale yellow glow.
They'll get detention anyway, might as well leave all the clean up until then.