Among the Stars

       Wisteria and her roommates wake up over a month later on Halloween morning to the smell of pumpkins. Wisteria sighs, "Oh I just love pumpkin! Halloween was always my favorite holiday back home. Lily, Petunia, and I always dressed up and traded our candy after the night was over."

       "My favorite holiday is Christmas." Shannon says as she gets out of bed.

       "Mine too!" Jane yells from the bathroom. "I mean, candy is great and all, but presents are better!"

       "Yeah, but on Halloween you can scare people and it isn't frowned upon or considered bullying!" Wisteria argues.

       "Shut up. It's early." Penelope mumbles from under her covers.

"Yes, but it's also Halloween! So get you butt out of bed, get dressed and come with us to eat breakfast!"

       "It's Saturday though! Let me sleep!"

       "Nope. Come on girls, let’s get the little girl out of bed."

       "Shut up...”

Jane approaches Penelope's bed and grabs her feet. At first Penelope doesn't act, but the moment she realized Jane was seriously going to pull her out of bed she started thrashing around. Jane let go quickly and jumped back to avoid being kicked.

       "There!" Jane says happily. "Now you're awake. Let's go!" Jane runs out of the room before anyone can say anything.

       "She does realize that she's the only one ready, right?" Wisteria asks.

       Shannon shrugs. "She'll figure it out soon enough."

       A few minutes later all the girls are in the great hall marveling at the decorations. There were bats flying all around the room. Real bats. That were really alive. Instead of the typical floating candles there were floating Jack-o-lanterns.

       "Lily, Petunia, and I used to love carving pumpkins. It was probably my favorite part. We would usually try to make complicated things and then fail miserably. The pumpkins would always look awful, but by the end we would always be covered in slime and pumpkin seeds, which our dad would then cook for us. Lily loved them, but Petunia and I were never very big fans of them." Wisteria remembers, a small smile on her face as she looks at the pumpkins above their heads.

       "My mom was an amazing artist." Jane says. "She would always carve the most beautiful pumpkins."

       "My family never did much. My aunt and uncle would come over and give us some candy, but other than that we never really did any of the typical Halloween stuff." Penelope speaks up after taking a sip of Pumpkin juice.

       "My sister was here when I was still a child, so she would always send me candy from Honeydukes." Shannon tells them.

       "My dad was against the holiday so we didn't celebrate it." Christine says.

       Wisteria laughs, "See! I have the best Halloween memories by far! That proves that Muggles are better than wizards in some ways."

       "I never said you weren't." Penelope defends. "Actually, I was thinking of taking Muggle Studies one year. What do you think?"

       "If you like wars I would definitely recommend it." Wisteria says with another laugh.

       "So what do you guys want to do today?" Jane asks. "I mean, its Saturday, so no classes. We can do whatever we want."

       "We could go watch the team practice Quidditch." Christine suggests.

       "We don't know anyone on the team. What would be the point?" Wisteria points out.

       "I wish we were old enough to go to Hogsmeade." Penelope says miserably.

       "Oh, the castle isn't that bad. I say we take this time to explore a little!" Jane says excitedly.

       "Shouldn't we do homework first?" Asks Shannon.

       "It's Halloween! We can't do homework on a holiday!" Wisteria protests. "I like Jane's idea. Let's explore a little! I've hardly had any time to do that."

       "Okay." Shannon says. "Where should we start?"

       "We don't need a starting place! We just walk and see where our feet take us!" Christine says.

       By the time dinner rolled around the girls had only managed to explore under half the castle. When they got down to the Great Hall it felt much more like Halloween than before. The sun outside had already set, so now the ceiling of the room was dark. On her way in, Wisteria saw Lily and ran over to her.

       "Hey, Lily!"

       "Wisty! Oh, I've missed you! I wish you were around more ofter outside of study sessions and Astrology."

       "So do I. Have you talked to Severus recently? He doesn't come to the study session, so I never see him outside of Charms and he doesn't sit anywhere near me in that class."

       "He sit's next to me in Potions so I get to see him a good amount."

       "That's good. I'm-"

       "My precious Lilypad," The voice of James Potter interrupts. "How has your Halloween been? Good, I hope. Mine has been, though it would be much better if you would go on a date with me tomorrow."

       "Hmm." Lily says, pretending to consider it. "Let me think, no."

       Wisteria turns around to see James, Peter, and Remus standing behind her. "Where's Sirius?" She asks. The four of them are practically inseparable.

       "He's off with his new girlfriend right now." Remus explains.

       "Elizabeth is over there though." Wisteria says, pointing to the girl that she knew to be Sirius's girlfriend as of a couple weeks ago.

       "They broke up Monday. Now he's dating someone else." Peter tells her.

       "Oh. That didn't take long."

       "Yeah, I'm not sure how long this one's gonna last either." Remus says.

       "Well, it was nice talking to you, but my friends are currently waving frantically for me at the Ravenclaw table and I'm afraid I must go see what has them all so worked up. I will see you all later." Wisteria says and walks away after the others say goodbye. Not even five minutes after sitting down, Wisteria's attention is draw back to the Gryffindor table.

       "Bombs away!" She hears James yell at the top of his lungs and throw four objects into the air, one at each of the house tables. Wisteria and her friends watched with curiosity as the 'bombs' came plummeting down on each table and exploded in a cloud of orange smoke. Everyone coughs and waves the smoke away while the professors cast spells to clear it out.

       When all the smoke is gone the students realize the smoke wasn't supposed to be the funny part of Jame's little prank. The thing that had him and his friends, along with many other people in the Great Hall roaring with laughter, is the fact that anywhere the orange smoke touched is now dyed the same shade of orange.

       Wisteria and her friends laugh at the way each of them look and finally Penelope calms down enough to say, "Oh Wisty darling, that color looks absolutely horrible on you. It definitely does not complement your hair." That comment make them fall into hysterical laughter once more.

       Some students and teachers were mad, others were trying to find a way to reverse it, and some people had run out of the Great Hall for fear of people seeing them like that. In the end the Ravenclaw Prefects figured out how to undo the dye that was in the bombs. Some people chose to keep the orange look, just for fun, and James assured everyone that no matter what, it should be gone by Monday. By the end of the day, most people, even those who had originally been angry, were laughing off the whole incident with their friends.