The Halloween Feast had ended a bit early for a 15-minute interlude to set the stage for the costume ball, giving everyone that time for last minute changes to their outfits. The treats of the feast were promised to not disappear for good.

When the doors to the Great Hall were reopened there was marked differences to the space. The house tables were now along the sides of the hall stretched two thirds of the way along the wall. Back towards the doors were smaller tables and poofy chairs with orange and black tablecloth. The house tables offered a buffet of Halloween treats, sweets and seasonal favorites.

The hearth fires were roaring and the hovering jack o' lanterns took the place of the usual floating candles but the Hall was a tinge chilly. This had to do with all of the visiting ghosts. Ghosts that had been coming to the castle in greater numbers over the course of the day. Most floated in pairs above the Great Hall between the pumpkins and the live glow in dark bats that cast a sickly green light, the ones at rest roosting in the rafters so the night sky represented in the enchanted ceiling seemed to showcase never before seen green colored constellations.

The reason for all the ghosts became apparent as a Tournament representative took the stage. The stage, raised two feet higher than the platform that usually housed the Head Table, was covered with instruments and flanked by rows of seats for the delegates, professors, and special guests. A large boa constrictor slithered across the stage, climbing the pole of a megaphone.

The boa constrictor was in fact the Tournament representative: a snake form animagus! With a blur of limbs sprouting from a single length of body a darker skinned wizard of Brazilian heritage stood before the megaphone in place of the boa constrictor.

"Greetings ladies, gentlemen, and spirits. I would like to welcome you to the Halloween Gala of the TetraWizard Tournament. We are very lucky for the timeliness of this festivity as it aligns with the Death Days of two honored guests." Two ghosts descended from the mass of specters above, a French man and a Russian woman in antique dress. "On my left is Forbien Malecrit[1], graduate of Beauxbatons and author of the acclaimed Quidditch play 'Hélas, Je me suis Transfiguré Les Pieds'[2] who is celebrating his 550th Death Day. On my right is Lyuha Scarpin[3] a graduate of Durmstrang and inventor of the Scarpin Revelaspell for analyzing the ingredients of an unknown potion, whose 300th Death Day is in four days. Some applause, please."

After the applause died down the representative continued. "I would also like to take a moment's reflection of the 18th Anniversary of the deaths of Lily and James Potter. They did not leave ghosts when they passed on but their sacrifice brought the first major step towards the defeat of the Dark Lord." Silence followed.

"But without further ado, tonight's entertainment!" The energy came back to the representative's voice. "Back from his tour of the United States, the famous vampire lounge singer Lorcan d'Eath![4] I am told Lorcan has satiated his appetite before hand so there will be no danger of his vampiric traits tonight." Lorcan, dressed in black leather and skull jewelry, made a stiff bow.

"The especially queasy should avoid the table to my left as it contains hors d'oeuvres for our undead guests." The representative gestured to a section of house table that contained rotting food, blood lollipops and other things the living may not appreciate to eat.

"And with that, Happy Halloween everyone!" The representative turned back into a boa constrictor and slithered off. Lorcan d'Eath took the vacated megaphone and launched into his hit song 'Necks to You' supported by the band, a ghost quartet on musical saws and six backup dancing skeletons.

---

It was lucky a dual Death Day had brought in hundreds of international ghosts. Ligeia could blend right in with her costume. She was transparent. As in, not easy to read but as transparent as a ghost. Buzzard too, who was on a led pinned to her shoulder.

The ghostly looking Ravenclaw prefect and pet vulture sure drifted like a ghost, though at a lower altitude than the dancers above. The effect was drawing looks from other students. She was as solid as any other living body, however, as a third year student found out when his buddies pushed him towards her to see if he would pass through.

"Watch yourself," Ligeia smiled at the boy, catching him as he stumbled. With mouth agape he proceeded to run elsewhere while his buddies hooted with laughter.

1.	Influence: HP wiki
2.	'Alas, I Have Transfigured My Feet'
3.	Influence: HP Wiki
4.	HP wiki

Heinrich had drawn on the rumours of his heritage to create his costume.  It was unlikely that anyone would recognize him.  He'd even altered his voice.  His height now rivaled that of the Salem half giant; he was wondering if she would be attending and how she'd be dressed.  He'd chosen to adopt a slight French accent.  Added to his slight German accent, it would make identifying his origin difficult.

"Hell of a party,"  he said to someone standing nearby.  They were tall enough to virtually guarantee that they weren't younger than a fourth year but even that wasn't a guarantee.

Leopold stood just inside the door.  He was dressed all in red, with white fur edging his costume.  He greeted everyone with a cheerful laugh and a small box from inside a large red bag.    There seemed to be an infinite range to what came out of the small boxes.  Someone received a deck of cards that could play solitaire by themselves. Another person received a diploma certifying that they were a doctor of draconic dentistry.  There were a number of Weasley joke items and a handful that contained real galleons.   There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the distribution of the gifts.  Even Leopold himself seemed surprised by some of them.  Howler, the long suffering monkey, was perched on his shoulder, dressed like a house elf.

Even with the fifteen minutes set asside for preparations, Ted had to slip out of the Feast half-an-hour early to get his costume just right. Not the clothes; those were just a Ravenclaw uniform he'd nicked from the house elves last week.[1] But he'd spent ten minutes sneaking into the library and another twenty sitting there with only a mirror, his prop glasses, and an open copy of the Hogwarts 1987-1988 school yearbook.

He'd missed desert, but the results had been worth it. By the time the Hall doors reopened, Ted Lupin was the spitting image of Tapendra Trishna, Ravenclaw First Year, complete with the slightly-too-big bronze-and-blue scarf he'd been wearing in the yearbook photo. Ted was rather pleased by the result. He'd even gotten the skin tone right, which had been the tricky bit.

While the transformation from snake to human was impressive, Ted mostly tuned out the representative's speech, admiring the decorations and the costumes that surrounded on all sides. But two familiar names among the list of the dead and ghostly made him start. It always took him a moment to realize when people were talking about Harry's parents. In Ted's mind, Lily Potter was a baby girl who'd thrown mud in his face when told he couldn't come round for her second birthday party, while James was an eight-year-old troublemaker who'd helped him switch the roast turkey for a live one last Christmas.[2]

In the moment of silence, Ted wondered if Harry hated Halloween as much as he hated Remembering Day. But then the moment passed, the vampiric singer was introduced, and the party got off to a full swing.

Ted adjusted his scarf and pushed through the crowd to the non-dead buffet, intent on indulging the desert he'd missed. Filling a plate with rich fudge brownies and chocolate-shaped treats, he turned his eye to the crowd in search of fellow First Years. He wondered if anyone would recognize him like this. The thought made him grin. Happy Halloween indeed.

1.	According to the tags, the uniform belonged to Noah Archer, but Ted was sure his classmate wouldn't miss a spare robe so long as he got it back by the next laundry day.
2.	Uncle George had been so proud.

Alice clumsily wandered the party, her glasses being left in her room. They just didn't go with the whole look, and she figured a few hours without them would be fine. Clearly, it wasn't. Her vision was blurred, and she somewhat stumbled around, her hands protectively out. Her upper arm was as though glued to her sides but her forearm and hand were stiff out.

Her eyes were wildly large, trying to at least help her vision in the smallest way possible. Not seeing where she was going, she walked into someone, her hands hitting them first. She looked up, her eyes trying to adjust to the blurriness as she stared up. It must have been a sight to see, a small ballerina, with large eyes, staring up. "Sorry. Didn't mean to bump into you." She looked for one more minute, before saying. "I'm sorry. Who are you?"

Lucy walked through the party, not really interested in anyone. She saw amazing costumes left and right, but nothing outrageous. She watched as the Hunter girl moseyed her way through the party clearly as blind as a bat. Lucy laughed to herself. Of course she's dressed like that. Such girls like that always had to play by the rules. Except the rules of Holloween.

She walked her way towards the snack table, not really feeling hungry. She really just was bored. And when she was bored, why not socialize over food. Lucy walked up to the young Trishna. "What a party, am I right?" She said, almost unamused.

There were reasons to have good techniques to curl your hair with. Because tonight, Lexi was going all out on her costume. In loyalty to Marvel comics, and her dad's obsession (okay and a little bit of her own) she'd gone as the Black Widow. She tried to replicate it as best she could from the comics her Dad had given her, and she ended up with a good outcome. Boots that had three inch heels, and she had practiced how to walk in them in the days before Halloween... A black jumpsuit equipped with the tool belt that every good S.H.I.E.L.D. agent had, and of course, her winning smile surrounded by her accented red lips.

She walked into the room, feeling much older than she really was due to the heels and the makeup and the curly hair. She spotted Alice walking around, bumping into others left and right. Oh Alice, she thought, running across the room to aid her hopeless Hufflepuff.

"Alice!" She yelled, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Where are your glasses, Missy? You're blind! I'm surprised you got down here without any major injuries!"

Ambrose Pepper had never been the most imaginative when it came to costumes. He'd entirely missed the fact that the general population were going in costumes until about lunchtime, which put him into a state of panic.

As it happened, he had managed to cobble together a costume as a house elf out of a magically enlarged pillow case off his bed (he'd burnt two in the process) with a piece of twine from the greenhouses round the middle as a belt. Winnie had loaned him an alice band which he'd spellotaped a couple of fake oversized ears made of thick parchment to his head, and he'd knotted a stripy tea-towel in each corner for his head as he had been unable to source a tea cozy that fitted over without risking an enlargement problem again.

It wasn't the best, but it was something.

The first years had made a proper effort being new to such excesses of Hogwarts and he gave a wave to his fellow housemates. Lexi and Alice were together - Alice without her glasses, and her friend in something that was very clearly Muggle themed. Intrigued, he made his way to them with a grin on his face.

"Now that's something Muggle - good on you!" He greeted with a grin. "Hello Alice, hello? Its Ambrose? Blimey how strong are your glasses?!" He waved a hand a foot away from her face before turning to the red head again,
"Uhm... what or who exactly are you dressed as...?"

Alice was relieved when she found Lexi. Lexi would take care of her, as she usually did. "Lexi! It's good that I found you." She glanced around even though she couldn't see and lowered her voice. "I left my glasses in my room." She said quietly. She giggled a little, as Ambrose approached. Alice hadn't really gotten to speak much with Ambrose, but this was a party. And she liked to socialize.

"Hello Alice, hello? Its Ambrose? Blimey how strong are your glasses?!"

"Stronger than I thought. I can't see a thing." She replied a smile on her face. He waved his hand in front of her face. But she just stared blankly, not being able to distinguish it from the rest of the party.

Leopold looked down at Alice and he grinned at the cluster of first years that suddenly surrounded her offering support.  "Ho, ho, ho!"  he laughed loudly.  "I think I may have something in my sack that might help!"  He reached inside and began handing each of the children a box.  When he got to Alice, instead of a box he handed her a slender, elegant silver wand, with a delicate mask attached to the top of it.  The mask looked like it had been woven by spiders, out of a combination of black and silver thread.  "Look through this," he said.  "It won't give you perfect vision but it will help you avoid bumping into people.  You children look like you're set to have some fun.  If you'd like to earn a few extra house points, Mr Pepper, you can come back and be my official elf helper for a while.  Howler just doesn't seem to be getting into the spirit of things."

Annette was toasty warm in her Inuit serial killer costume. Blood spattered the front like water on a window. Her rubber hunting knife hung at her side and a bubble blowing hand gun in her pocket. She looked in the mirror to do check overs, she had done a good job.

She had waited until Alice had left, not to frighten her (yet) with the splatter of blood. Realizing that Alice had left her glasses on her nightstand, Annette tucked them into the faux fur pouch strung across her. Anni padded down the stairs hopping a bit. Not because the costume was plenty roomy, but just because their were some fugly costumes following her.

Nothing, not even the 3 layers of fur that covered Nette head-to-toe could prevent the chill that the ghost brought. A mystical scene nonetheless. Looking around for a ballerina, Nette silently crept up behind Alice in her mutluks and put her fuzzy mittens over her roommates eyes.

 "Don't move or I will have to hunt you and eat you" She removed her hands and lokked at Lexi's smiling face. "Nice costume, who's heels?"

Alice screamed a little, when Annette snuck up behind her, placing her hands over her eyes. When she removed them, Alice breathed a sigh of relief. It was Holloween however, and she had to be ready for frightening thoughts and actions. Alice was always easy to scare.

She turned around, looking at Annette. She didn't have the slightest idea what she was dressed up as, but it seemed that she leapt into a conversation with Lexi. So, Alice just stood there, watching them converse. It was what she always was doing, observing other people.

"The Black Widow, she's an awesome secret agent for an agency called S.H.I.E.L.D. Before she did that though, she had a lot of red on her ledger from all these murders she was attached to. But she's one of the good guys, I swear." In reference to his confused look, she added "You know sometimes I forget how little everyone people know about Marvel comics over here. You ever read a good comic book, Ambrose?"

"Thank you," she said, accepting the small box from Professor Sandusky, opening it slowly, seeing as some of the other boxes seemed to contain some rather... let's say odd items. To Lexi's surprise, a little red puffball rested in the box, it didn't move until she opened the lid a bit more. It twitched and she gasped, closing the lid and securing it so that the thing inside it didn't get out, whatever the thing was. She tucked the small box into the belt of her costume, mentally reminding herself to check it out later.

"They're my heels, thank you very much." Lexi replied. "What? Think I stole these babies from my mom's closet? Nah, my aunt sent them to me from the US. Nice blood by the way, never pegged you for a serial killer. It seems I have a really hard time with judging that about people," she said, remembering the time when she went over to Alice's to find the front hallway covered in blood from Mark.

"You think this is bad, " Annette pointed at the blood stain. "You should see this!" She drew her bubble gun in a flash and pulled the trigger. Wizard glitter bubbles erupted from the tip, getting caught in Alice's ballerina bun. The thin membrane on the orb burst and left a thin dusting of glitter in Alice's mousy brown hair.

Now every time Alice turned, her head sparkled and twinkled. "I never caught you for a girl with black go-go boots either, Miss McGee. For you information," Annette continued in a mock-snob voice "I sewed this costume bye myself, thank you!" Ending with a never silly pushing up of the tip of her nose. Annette turned to the right, eyeing the 'living' food table.

"Ooh! Pumpkin seltzer!" Annette ran to the table without warning and started stacking her plate with all pumpkin related goodies. Downing a goblet-or-so of pumpkin juice.

Ted's mouth was full of brownie when Lucy Matthews saddled up beside him, so he couldn't say anything. Matthews didn't seem to notice. For that matter, it was hard to tell if she'd recognized him or if she was just striking up a conversation with the first person she saw. "What a party, am I right?"

Ted swallowed half of the gooey chocolate mess, shifting the rest around so he could talk. "Course it is, Luce. Gotta show off for the visiting school and all." He snagged a mug of pumpkin juice off the tabled and downed it, washing down the rest of the brownie.

He gave a little gasp as he came back up for air. "Happy Halloween, by the way. What're you dressed as? An inferius?"