Halloween Happenings
September had flown by relatively quickly, and Diana was soon becoming accustomed to life at Hogwarts. Whilst she did not have the comfort of her private bedroom and spacious double bed, she at least had curtains which blocked her from view of the four other girls who she shared a room with.
However, October 31st was something special. James had always been fond of Halloween when he was at home. Always finding the best costume, and pulling the most elaborate tricks a child could comprehend without the help of magic. Whereas Diana was less… appealed by it.
In her view, people were already tricky enough to read. So when they dressed up and intended to pull mischievous jokes on their closest friends it was much harder to predict their movements.
So, on the 31st of October, Diana had prepared her defences for the inevitable barrage of attacks the day would bring. And she was wise to have done so.
The first thing which she had woken up to was having her usually wavy chestnut curls hexed into a hideous bright green colour by her roommate Juno. Although she was not the only victim of Jones’ mischievous nature. Martha’s blonde bob had been altered into a spiky purple mess, and Caroline’s jet black hair had been turned into a sparkly pink Afro style haircut.
Thankfully Diana had managed to charm her way out of the predicament with the help of her transfiguration textbook and made her way to breakfast.
She had seated herself at her usual seat, between Martha and a second year boy who she had grown quite close to - Astyanax Adams - and opposite Juno and Caroline.
As Diana went to take a bite of her breakfast, she realised that what was once a fresh plate of white toast, lathered in a concerning amount of butter with the equivalent of one scrambled egg, had transformed itself into a frog. A live one at that.
Her eyes widened almost comically as she attempted to remain calm, however a sickeningly childish laugh distracted her from the amphibians erratic movements.
She spun around rather frantically and spotted the source of the noise. Sirius Black. Whilst her brother, Remus and Peter had taken to snickering behind their hands, it seemed that the wand which was responsible for the incident belonged to that of the aforementioned boy.
“Oh! You should see the look on your face!” Sirius erupted into a further fit of laughter, doubling over ever so slightly as his lungs began to ache.
“You were all like-“ Sirius raised his hands to his cheeks and opened his mouth dramatically, posing like the infamous ‘scream portrait’. Before he could even let out another laugh he felt something cold, wet and wriggle move around in his mouth and the three other boys which flanked him burst out into laughter.
Peter had fallen to his knees, Remus was in stitches and James was wiping tears away from his eyes as Sirius flailed about trying to pry the fat toad from between his teeth.
“You little sod!” Sirius began to wipe his sleeves over his tongue to rid his mouth of the foul taste of frog he had received.
“I’d prefer to eat my food thank you, so if you don’t mind I’ll be getting some new toast” she huffed before plating some more white toast and eggs and sitting down to devour the meal before it could be turned into something worse than a toad.
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Later that afternoon Diana still found herself the bane of many a Halloween prank. In her potions class straight after breakfast some Slytherin in her year, who’s name she believed was Evan Rosier, had purposely ruined her potion by dropping in a few extra ashwinder eggs, causing the smog to invade her senses and force her to stumble over her words, high on the fumes.
In her defence against the dark arts class some sixth year had decided it would be amusing to allow the pixies out of their cage, which consequently caused them to tug at her hair and snap her glasses. Thankfully another classmate of hers, Lilith Lestrange, the same girl from the train, had extensive knowledge of repairing charms.
Diana had thanked her extensively, and even sparked up a conversation which unfortunately had to be retired once it was time for them to part ways for their next class.
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Thankfully Diana had safely made it through the day and back into the Hufflepuff common room for the evening. Unfortunately so had someone else.
Lilith Lestrange, the girl who had repaired her shattered lenses, had intended to carry on their conversation. As Diana would come to know, Lilith was somewhat good at learning what she wanted.
The blonde was energetic, almost like a wind up toy. “So did you hear? Narcissa Black is dating that pompous malfoy prick? Well of course she can do better she’s gorgeous, and he’s no better than that second year snob, Gregory or whatever.”
“Gilderoy?” Diana asked, of course she had known the name of the fool in question, but needed to check.
“Yes! That one!” Lilith dramatically groaned “anyways- their wedding is going to be so glamorous! I think I’m invited, I mean my brother is married to her sister! So I should be there, maybe you could come with me?” Lilith went on like this for hours, and Diana was shocked that the girl didn’t drown in this extensive gossip session… but she wasn’t going to complain.