One Party To Rule Them All
10th May 1983
Lyall crept up to the children’s bedrooms and checked that they were all asleep.
Ophelia was always good when it came to sleeping, and she always had been, and so was fast asleep. Harry was snoring softly having dropped off before Hope could even finish his bedtime story as he had been so tired from playing with Ron and Neville all day.
But the one that he was worried about was Stefan. It had taken Remus nearly an hour to get Stefan to settle down tonight. Not because Stefan was scared or had been having nightmares or anything, but because Stefan was so excited for the next day.
He opened Stefan’s door slowly trying not to creak the door, and alert Stefan to his presence. Stefan’s room was crowded with books all of them well read; quite a few Muggle and magical books on the Tudors, which they were learning about in class; the dozen or so books in the Merlin and Morgana adventure series that Stefan loved reading; various other Muggle and magical children’s books and adventure series; and of course as always a full set of J.R.R.Tolkien on Stefan’s bedside table.
The Lord of the Rings were Stefan’s favourite books, and Percy loved them nearly as much as Stefan. The walls of Stefan’s room were scattered maps of Middle Earth, and drawings of his favourite characters that he had drawn in art class.
Lyall realised at a glance that one of the books was missing from Stefan’s bedside table, so he tiptoed over to the bed, and gently lifted Stefan’s duvet.
And sure enough, Stefan was lying on his side completely covered by his duvet, fast asleep. In his hands he was limply holding a Muggle torch so that he could read, and lying next to him was The Two Towers still lying open at the page where Stefan had stopped reading and had dropped off.
Lyall chuckled softly as he put the book and torch back on the bedside table, and then tucked Stefan back into bed.
He crept out of the room and saw that it was already a quarter past twelve. If his calculations were correct, they had about six hours until the first of the kids would wake up and Harry would wake up and start rushing around.
That meant that they had six hours to transform their house into Middle Earth for a certain bookworms tenth birthday party. Stefan knew he was getting a birthday party, but of course he didn’t know what it was going to be.
‘The coast is clear,’ beamed Lyall as he got back downstairs and found Hope and Remus.
‘Thank Merlin for that,’ sighed Remus.
Remus went over to the coat closet, and there was an avalanche of toy bows and arrows, cloaks, pointed ears, unwrapped presents, carefully drawn maps that Xeno had spent hours carefully drawing, and goodness knows what else!
‘Right,’ said Hope, ‘Lyall, get started on the wrapping, Remus get decorating the garden, I’ll get on with the food.’
‘Ok Mam,’ chuckled Remus pulling on his cloak as even though it was May, it was still slightly cold as it was the middle of the night.
Remus spent half the night stringing paper lanterns through the trees instead of the usual bunting, and banging signposts into the grass such as To Mordor, a sign saying the Baggin’s Residence on the entrance to the cave at the end of the garden, and finally a huge sign at the front gate reading Welcome To The Shire.
By the time that the sun started to raise slowly, Remus was almost convinced for a few seconds that he was actually in The Shire!
He went back into the house, and found Lyall sitting next to a mountain of wrapped presents waiting to be hidden back in the coat closet, and Hope who was wearing a flour covered apron and looked exhausted as she got a few minutes rest in an armchair.
‘Remus Lupin if you ruin that cake I will never forgive you,’ said Hope opening her eyes just enough to glare at Remus.
‘I wouldn’t dare,’ chuckled Remus going through to the kitchen to see this miraculous cake.
On the kitchen table was enough party food to feed the five hundred, as well as a huge birthday cake. Hope had been up all night making a huge mountain, that had what looked like real lava coming out of the top, and there was a path up the mountain which two little Hobbits were climbing. Hope had made Mount Doom and Frodo and Sam trying to destroy the ring out of cake!
‘Is it alright?’ asked Hope brushing flour off her forehead and biting her lip.
‘Mum it’s fantastic,’ laughed Remus, ‘he’ll love it!’
‘Uncle Remus!’ yelled Harry from upstairs as he woke up at six o’clock exactly on schedule.
‘Come mate!’ laughed Lyall going upstairs to help Harry get up.
They had finished getting ready just in time for the children to start waking up.
‘Are you going to be a little elf today?’ asked Remus quietly as he dressed Ophelia in her little blue party dress. He was going to put on her pointy ears later.
‘Yes Daddy!’ laughed Ophelia.
‘Don’t tell Uncle Stefan,’ whispered Remus putting his finger to his lips, ‘it’s a secret.’
‘Shhh!’ giggled Ophelia putting her own finger to her lips.
‘Is it my birthday now?’ asked Stefan running into Ophelia’s room, still in his pyjamas, barefoot and tousle haired.
‘Happy Birthday Stefy!’ said Harry giving Stefan a huge hug.
‘Thanks Harry,’ chuckled Stefan.
‘Now come on, can you tell me what the theme is?’
‘Why don’t you go check your bedroom?’ asked Hope.
‘Ok!’ beamed Stefan running off to his room followed by the rest of his family.
On Stefan’s desk, he found a tightly rolled scroll of parchment which he unwrapped and read out loud.
‘Aragorn, High King of Gondor and Arnor, is cordially invited to a birthday party in The Shire on the 10th of May.’
‘I’m having a Lord of the Rings birthday party!’ exclaimed Stefan.
‘Well, I hope you are,’ muttered Lyall, ‘otherwise we’ve been up all night getting the party ready at the wrong house.’
‘Come on Aragorn,’ said Hope, ‘let’s go find your costume.’
‘I’ve got a costume?’ gasped Stefan.
‘Of course you do silly,’ laughed Harry.
‘I’m being Smegal.’
‘You are?’ asked Stefan impressed.
‘Oh yes,’ said Remus nodding, ‘Harry’s been practising for a month.’
‘My Precious,’ cackled Harry.
‘Now that was just creepy,’ said Stefan raising his eyebrows.
Stefan got changed into his costume which included a white shirt and a regular pair of trousers which weren’t particularly exciting. But he also had a new cloak which had a hood and was deep blue, and a belt which could hold a sword. Hope kept on thanking God that the sword wasn’t real. But the most exciting thing was the crown, because of course a king needed a crown.
Stefan hadn’t even opened any presents yet, but he was excited!
Everyone got changed into their costumes, Hope didn’t have a costume as she was going to be busy in the kitchen. But Ophelia was the smallest and cutest elf that Remus had even seen, Remus and Lyall were Saruman and Gandalf complete with long flowing robes, fake beards, and huge staffs that they could use for fighting each other, and Harry of course was Smegal.
Harry didn’t need much of a costume to play Smegal and was just wearing old clothes, and pair of spare elf ears, but he was having a lot of fun pretending to be Smegal, as Stefan had read the books to him so many times.
‘Oh look!’ said Remus pointing to the gate with his staff, ‘the first Hobbits are arriving!’
Remus was indeed right; Cedric and Felicity were coming down the path with Mrs Diggory. Cedric and Felicity were wearing what they would normally were for a birthday party, Felicity had a party dress and Mrs Fawcett had sent her with a little pinafore to wear over it so she wouldn’t wear her clothes, and Cedric was wearing his little bow tie, but they both had Hobbit feet instead of shoes.
‘Welcome to The Shire,’ beamed Lyall coming to the gate, ‘I am Gandalf the Grey, may I inquire as to your names young Hobbits?’
‘Cedric and Felicity,’ laughed Felicity.
‘You look like Dumbledore,’ laughed Mrs Diggory indicating Lyall’s long white beard.
‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ said Lyall bowing.
‘I’ll come pick them up later,’ said Mrs Diggory having hugged Cedric goodbye.
Soon after this, a family of elves arrived. The only major difference between the way that the Lovegood’s usually dressed, was that they were all wearing pointy ears, and Xeno had a bow and arrow slung over his shoulder. They were all wearing long flowing silvery blue robes, apart from Luna who was wearing a dress of the same material.
Luna rushed over and gave Ophelia a huge hug, and they were both soon spinning around in their party dresses.
‘Now the question is,’ said Xeno, ‘is which little elf is which?’
The only people who hadn’t arrived yet where the Weasleys, but they weren’t far behind.
‘I’m sorry we’re late,’ said Mrs Weasley very flustered and holding Ginny and Ron’s hands.
‘Charlie said that Ron’s wings didn’t look like a real dragon’s, so I had to redo them.’
Charlie himself had come as Gimli and even had a fake red beard, but Ron had come as Smaug the dragon from The Hobbit. Ron had his face painted bright red and had paper mâché wings that flapped when Ron moved his arms. He even had a little bucket of treasure which was actually chocolate coins and scrunched up sweet wrappers. Percy had come as Frodo, and was looking very proud, Fred and George had come as Merry and Pippin. Neville had come as Samwise, because they were a Hobbit short. But Ginny had come as a fairy.
‘I tried telling Ginny that there weren’t any fairies in Middle Earth,’ huffed Percy glaring at his sister.
Ginny stuck her tongue out at Percy and ran off to play with Luna and Ophelia.
‘Ok kids,’ said Lyall, ‘today we have a very important quest.’
‘For Stefan to have a great birthday?’ asked Cedric.
‘No,’ said Lyall, ‘we have to destroy the one ring.’
He went in his robes pocket, and pulled out an engraved gold ring on a chain.
‘Woah!’ breathed Stefan and Percy.
‘It’s the real ring!’ exclaimed Stefan looking at the ring.
‘My precious!’ cackled Harry.
‘That was too real to be allowed,’ said Remus indicating Harry.
‘Well put it on then,’ said Charlie.
Stefan had nearly put the ring on, before deciding against it.
‘No,’ he said shaking his head, ‘Frodo wears the ring, Percy should have it.’
Percy was dumbstruck as Stefan passed him the ring, and Percy took off the acorn around his neck that they had been using as a ring for nearly a year.
‘Aragorn protects the ring, he doesn’t wear it,’ nodded Stefan, ‘I will protect it.’
Stefan unsheathed his sword and stood defensively next to Percy.
The party was a huge success; they played a version of hide and seek where they had to all hide from Saruman, and Remus tried to find them; Xeno taught Charlie, Percy and Stefan how to use a bow and arrow; Pandora taught them all the songs from the books; they had to destroy The Eye of Sauron, which was actually just a pinata; and finally they ‘destroyed’ the ring and then ate Mount Doom.
Even all the presents were Lord of the Rings themed, the Lovegood’s had given Stefan a bow and arrow, so he could do archery like Legolas, the Diggory’s had given Stefan a belt, which not only could hold his sword when he was playing Lord of the Rings, but it also had a holster for when he got his wand next year.
The best present though was from Remus, he had spent the last few months ringing up Muggle bookshops and checking everywhere and had finally got Stefan a set of all five books including The Hobbit and The Silmarillion, all of which were first editions, and four were actually signed. The Silmarillion wasn’t signed as it didn’t come out until after Tolkien’s death.
‘Who would have thought that evil wizards could give such great presents?’ said Charlie as he smirked at Remus.
Remus had gone out of Sauron mode as they had been opening presents.
‘Do you challenge me to a duel Gimli?’ asked Remus in a tone of mock threat picking up his staff.
‘Anytime, any place,’ said Charlie beaming picking his own axe and shield back up.
They spent the rest of the afternoon fighting each other in the garden and the tree fort, and everyone was sad to see the end of the party and have to go home.
‘Stefan,’ said Percy at the end of the party taking the ring off.
‘This is yours,’ he tried to hand it back to Stefan, but Stefan stopped him.
‘No Perc,’ said Stefan, ‘Frodo wears the ring. You keep it.’
‘Tell you what,’ said Percy pulling the acorn on the string out of his pocket.
‘You wear this one, it will remind you of the importance of the ring.’
‘It will also remind me of my best mate,’ beamed Stefan putting on the acorn necklace, and hugging Percy.