Strings of lights criss-crossed overhead, hanging just low enough for the fingertips of a particularly tall student to graze, if they so wished. Elf-lit lamps flickered warmly on the walls as usual, matching the idle glow of the fire grate-- but they had been charmed so that every so often, a lion’s head appeared in the conveniently-Gryffindor-hued flames. They roared proudly, and were dodged by paper snitches flitting about the room.

The squishy armchairs had been shoved to the sides, and a study table was now being used as a buffet of sorts, boasting an impressive collection of butterbeer, pumpkin juice, cakes, sweets, and salty snacks. Above it, a freshly painted and charmed banner spelled out various phrases of Gryffindor spirit and victory.

Lua Taylor, with somewhat randomly applied stripes of red and gold glowing over the apple of one cheek, grinned at the porthole, where more and more housemates were climbing in, last minute stragglers from the stadium,who had stuck around to walk back with the team. Luckily, Gryffindor house knew how to throw a party without much time to set up, and Lua was in her element helping decorate and find things out of nowhere. It was astonishing, what the space beneath beds and corners of trunks could hold, just in case. Not that there had been any doubt in Gryffindor tower the night before about who would win the match, and so they had been prepared.

"Congratulations!" Lua shouted as the team were lead, jostled, and carried into the common room. A paper snitch fluttered into her hair, but she paid it no mind as she reached out to hug and congratulate various housemates.

Dessa clambered through the porthole and skipped merrily into the common room, throat raw and getting rawer from continued cheering. The palms of her hands stung, but there was no end in sight from the pain and, anyway, it wasn't entirely unpleasant. "Go Gryffindor!" She bellowed, as much as an eleven year old girl possibly can, and smiled widely when she caught sight of the exuberant decorations in the common room, a small gasp of wonder slipping from between her rounded lips.

"Who decorated? It looks so cool!" Dessa said emphatically, dodging people's legs in order to locate the buffet table and standing, somewhat awkwardly, with a pumpkin pasty in her hand, generally trying to avoid the kind of harassment that can usually be automatically garnered by first years simply for breathing. She clapped exuberantly when any given player was hoisted on a pair of shoulders, or made to chug a ridiculous amount of punch.

Apparently, during the Quidditch game Erik's foot inconveniently got smashed by a bludger--something that required a bit more patchwork than a broken bone might need, but nothing as catastrophic as growing a bone back. So after the Quidditch match Erik was patched up rather quickly and was told to stay off his foot for the night--not that it helped the pain any; it just meant he healed faster while someone lugged him up towards the Gryffindor tower as his foot weighed with a dull pain, to which he unconciously and methodically chanted "Ow" every minute or so.

At least he wasn't perpetually yelling anymore.

Of course now everyone else decided it was their turn.

As the red and gold clad Quidditch team stepped through the portrait of the Fat Lady they were meant by cheering and crimson decorations. Some people were distracted and then cheering, others just cheering, and they were slowly being ambushed by a room of lions. But what especially caught Erik's attention was the eleven-or-something foot half-giant standing in the corner bellowing, "ROAR, ROAR, GRYFFINDOR!" like he were a dragon.

Erik's jaw dropped for a moment, and he almost forgot about the numbing pain infecting his foot until his eyes landed on the table of food. With a quick shift of attention Erik quickly patted whoever was carrying on the shoulder and pointed towards the treats, "Wait no go over there! I want a cauldron cake!--Ow,"

Kiba sighed in relief as he finally reached the Gryffindor common room with the injured Erik Collins on his back. The poor kid got his foot messed up during the game and was advised to stay off the injury, making him handicapped for the rest of the night. Kiba just happened to be passing by on his way to the common room and offered to be the boys mode of transportation, he needed to work on his fitness, anyway. Obviously excited by the team's performance, Kiba blabbed on about the game on their way up, chuckling softly every time Collins complained.

Glancing around the common room, Kiba was shocked with how awesome it all looked. The common room buzzed with excited chatter and loud cheers, having to restrain himself from jumping around with the boy still on his back. The decorations were amazing, the atmosphere was electric and there was food. Lots of it. Distracted by the sea of crimson and gold, Kiba was startled by a tap on his shoulder. Turning to look over his shoulder, Kiba beamed at Eric. "What's up, mate?" Kiba understood instantly what the boy wanted as he jabbed a finger at the table covered in food, and nodding quickly, adjusted the weight on his back before making his way over to the table.

People were swarming everywhere like ants a Kiba had to be careful not to bowl over any first years. After much weaving and dodging, trying to keep a meter radius around Eric's foot, Kiba finally made it to one end of the treats table.

"Wait no go over there! I want a cauldron cake!--Ow,"

Kiba scowled at a very excited someone as they shoved into him, making him nearly topple over with the added weight. Spotting the cauldron cakes at the other end of the table, Kiba got the attention of a young Gryffindor and demanded a cauldron cake, which they snatched up quickly and placed in his waiting hand. He then reached over his shoulder and waved the cake in front of Eric, waiting for him to take it. "Happy now, oh great Quidditch champion?" Kiba remarked, smirking over his shoulder.

Dessa frowned when Kiba impatiently demanded that she pass him a cauldron cake. She knew he was a sixth year and he could certainly pull that if he wanted, but she would've liked to think that someone so easy going and funny would be above such pretentiousness. He was a known prankster, and she'd always figured he'd be one of those to be nicer to the younger kids. He had one on his back, for Merlin's sake.

She'd discerned that the pastry was for the second year he had balanced precariously on his shoulders, so she looked up at him and gave a nod, imagining she could possibly illicit a thank you.

"You're welcome, Atwood. And random injured second year. Enjoy the pasty." she said curtly, raising her voice slightly to be heard above the din that was only to be expected when any group of Gryffindors got together, particularly in celebration.

“Everyone helped a bit.” Lua grinned down at Dessa, pleased that the decorations seemed to be a success (even if a roaring flame had just scared the daylights out of an unsuspecting fellow fourth year; Lua knew the Gryffindor bravery would kick in soon enough!). The swarm of people in the middle of the room was already making the place warmer-- and louder. A sixth year wizard pointed a wand at the old Wireless someone had propped on a set of books, and a well-known rock song added itself to the noise. School books apparently made a fantastic pedestal for party music.

“That’s Erik.” Humor tinged her throat as her eyes swept from the curly-haired first year to the newly-seasoned Quidditch vet thrown over Kiba Attwood’s back like a small king. “He’s a brilliant Chaser. Have they fixed your foot?” Lua grabbed a caramel apple slice, grinning as leaned toward the younger boy. “I have a mint ointment my mum makes. It’s all organic, and it makes your skin tingly,” she explained. She thought Kiba made a very nice chariot, though. “If you put too much on, you’ll go sliding across the floor. We do that sometimes when we want to ice-skate and it’s not cold enough.” It wasn’t a good idea for a broken foot, but Lua nevertheless offered the anecdote as if it were another benefit of the salve.

With each hand, she plucked two bottles from a giant bowl of ice that made the Goblet of Fire seem like a toy. Gryffindor house was a thirsty house. “Butterbeer?” She asked, biting her lip with a questioning smile. “The owls have been working very hard.” The elves, too. When one couldn’t set foot in Hogsmeade between scheduled trips, there were always mail orders. Though the owls were born and bred to carry things back and forth, and charms made most packages manageable, Lua always felt a little bad for the ones stuck with big crates-- and Gryffindor got a lot of crates.

Dessa blinked rapidly and then waved a little in greeting as a grinning brunette girl seemingly materialized beside her--although it may just have been Dessa's failure to pay attention that kept her from noticing Lua beside her, not that she would've admitted it--and introduced the boy dangling off of Kiba as Erik, Quidditch Chaser. This immediately piqued Dessa's interest, and she smiled up at the boy with renewed vigor. "Really, you're on the Quidditch team? That's so cool! Sorry, it's hard to recognize you all when you're flying around up there."  And it didn't help that she'd arrived late, having slept long past the time she'd meant to. All the while, her voice was tinged with jealousy. She couldn't wait until next year, when she'd be allowed to try out for the House team.

Her gaze returned to Lua, and she felt slightly guilty for ignoring her. "I'll bet they have," she said, in response to Lua's comment about the toiling of the owls. "There's certainly a lot of food here. And it's very well decorated."

Mairead had been reluctant to leave the locker rooms and the pitch after the game.  Flying class had been fun.  Practicing with the team's previous seeker had been exciting.  Getting on the team had been fantastic.  The game, though, had been beyond description - even more so than pretending to be a beater for Hufflepuff towards the end of the previous year.  She'd spent a year struggling through the mire that was academics, beating her head against scholarly walls to even keep up with her classmates.  But, in the wake of that game - in the aftermath of catching that snitch - for the first time Mairead had felt really accomplished. 

She'd been in no rush to leave it behind and go back to the day to day formalities of schoolwork which all now seemed trivial in comparison.  It was the necessary evil that enabled her staying on the team.  Right now, though, as she finally made her way out of the now empty pitch, she was certain.  The day she turned seventeen, she'd be pulling a Callum Knight and would be leaving school to get on a team.  She'd just need to earn her place.

The festivities had already been well underway when Mairead scrambled through the portrait hole, still dressed in full team uniform like most of her teammates.  She paused at the entrance to the common room, grinning at the milling excitement and the well stocked food table.  This was the second best thing about school: food was never in short supply. 

Mairead ducked underneath upper classmates' elbows until she found her way to the food table, plucking two cauldron cakes from amidst the array.  Treats in hand, Mairead flopped down on the nearest available cushion and started in on the frosting-topped prizes.  Sugar first.  Then chatter.

Ted bounded into the common room, his hair wild and ablaze -- not literally, though you'd be forgiven for thinking that. Bold scarlet feathered an inch around his head like a lion's mane, wind-swept and spiked as though he'd just leapt from a broom. Laughing, he darted to opposite end of the common room and deposited a full box of Weasley's Gryffindor House Special party-poppers on the nearest table.

Snatching two of the red plastic lumps for himself, Ted hopped up n the nearest ottoman and surveyed the common room, beaming. Brilliant, it was all brilliant, better even than the way Harry and Ron told it. The energy, the excitement, he loved every minute of it, from the pre-game to this very second. Just one more year and he'd be able to try for the team, too. That'd be the best feeling of all.

He spotted Mairead digging into a pile of pastries and bounded her way. "Hey hey, here she is, the lady of the hour! Hail, ó Fearghail!"

Lifting the poppers high, Ted yanked both strings at once. They burst with realistic lion roars and rained scarlet-and-gold streamers onto their Seeker's head. Ted laughed out loud and plopped onto the ground next to her, his grin stretching from ear to ear. "That was some slick catch, out there. Got it right out from under the bird's beak! They didn't know what hit 'em. Brilliant."

Nicholas had run up to the dorms, he had said it was to change into more comfortable clothes.  Something more suited to a crowded party in the common room than sitting in the stands in early October.  And while he was certainly changing, mostly he was looking for his fire-whiskey.  He'd gotten a bottle at the Hog's Head during the last Hogsmeade trip.  He hadn't even opened the bottle yet, and now it was no where to be found.  He had been sure it was in his trunk and yet he had dug through everything twice and not found it.  He'd had to pull it out earlier in the week when he had needed the socks he had wrapped around the bottle, and now he wondered if one of his roommates had confiscated it, or more likely just swiped it.  Though he couldn't remember putting it back in the trunk, so maybe the house elves had confiscated it since it was against probably more than a few rules to have a bottle of hard liquor stashed in the dorms.

So when Nicholas finally made his way back down to the common room, his good mood from earlier had mostly evaporated, and it didn't help matters when one of the paper snitches swooped down and ran right into his open eye.  Cursing, he pulled his wand and the snitch dropped from the air and turned to ashes on the floor.  "What!" He said to a first year looking at him like he was about to curse them next while he rubbed his eye. 

With a huff he turned and moved over to the table and pulled a bottle of butterbeer out of the ice.  Turning he saw the second year chaser on his dormmate's back.   "Good game, Erik." He said to the young Gryffindor.  "How'd you get this one," he pointed at Kiba with his wand, having forgotten that it was still in his hand, "to carry you all the way up here?"

The entire world was viewed in shades of red and gold in Raine's eyes after their team had caught the snitch, won the game.

Celebrations were underway almost immediately, of course, so the Quidditch captain stayed behind after most players had left to shake hands with Peyton and then take note of their damage in her game book (Collins' injured foot, several sore heads, bruised prides...). Nothing that would not heal soon and fortunately, nobody was due for an immediate visit to the Hospital Hut.

It was therefore later than expected before Raine found herself stepping through into the Gryffindor common room; the din could even be heard past the image of their resident portrait. The prefect's thoughtful countenance broke into a full fledged grin the moment she laid her eyes on the decor. Someone had certainly outdone themselves and it was not particularly difficult to discern who that was.

"Lovely, Taylor..." Raine commented as she passed the fourth year on her way to the refreshments, where most of the team appeared to be congregated- unsurprisingly.

Food. Merlin, she was ravenous, but that was quidditch for you. "Another catch like that and I'll personally buy you a whole platter of treats, Mairead." Raine dropped to a cushion by the table, tousling  their Seeker's hair affectionately (although partly with the intent of deflating what was now bound to be a very puffed up ego). Somebody handed over butterbeer, a pumpkin pasty plucked from the plates.

"No harm in resting I suppose," she murmured wistfully, gaze straying over to Collins as he tore into a cauldron cake. "At least until the next match."

After standing awkwardly for a few moments longer, Dessa realized she was feeling exponentially younger and more in-the-way by the second, so she mumbled another congratulations to Erik Collins--made a mental note to interrogate him later about what it was like to be on the team--and darted between a few pairs of legs until she was standing next to a large, overstuffed chair. Of course, she didn't do any of this before grabbing a butterbeer and a few more cauldron cakes, which she promptly shoved into the pockets of her robes.

She looked tensely over the party, hoping to find Dilly or maybe Lexi, and then realizing she had no real chance of spotting her friend's normally conspicuous hair with this particular decoration theme. Then a flash of blue caught her eye, and she bounded up to Ted with a broad, slightly relieved smile on her face. "Hey Ted, wasn't the game bloody aw--" she stopped abruptly when she realized he'd been talking to someone and flushed the color of the banner behind her.

"Cheers, sorry I didn't....Oh, you're Mairead right? On the team? You were so good!" her smiled widened doubly when she realized she'd found someone she knew, as well as another Quidditch player to question. "What was it like?"

The first game of the season - and, against all the odds, Kingside had recovered well enough to participate! Oh, certainly, he'd lost the position of Captain to Almasy, but as long as somebody put the boy on a broom, he'd be right as rain. He had performed as well as anyone might have expected - no death-defying, breath taking, edge-of-your-seat maneuvers, but he'd flaunted his natural grace and prowess with the broomstick, as always. Of course, for John Kingside, this simply wasn't enough; he would have to push himself harder in November.

Like their esteemed Captain, Kingside found himself tardy for the party - he sat in the changing rooms for what seemed an eternity, hands clutching the unbearably sore jelly stalks he seemed to be using for legs. A side-effect of shattering the damned things, it seemed; Kingside had worked a particularly nasty part-time job two summers previous, in which he spent an exhausting eleven hours a day on his feet - for the most part - and he now recalled, with great clarity, the dull, aching throb of catastrophic leg failure.

No matter. After some time had passed, Kingside egressed via the narrow passageway leading away from the field - giving a nod to Almasy as the two passed by each other - and made his way towards the castle.

The Gryffindor common room was, unsurprisingly, an absolute hub of loud, buzzing, whirring excitement. Students from every year roared, stamped their feet, and generally made an absurd ruckus in honor of their Quidditch team. Kingside winced - doing his best to maintain his poker face - as he was lifted into the air by a small crowd of friends and onlookers, thrust onto their shoulders, and carried about the common room.

"A'right, a'right," he shouted, his voice filled with mirth, "geroff me - lemme down, ye great tyrants, lemme down!" He was released by his affectionate throne and allowed to return to the floor. His eyes darted about the common room, seeking out the nearest object to seat himself on before his legs threatened to give way. Passing by Collins - the both young and impressive Chaser - Kingside gave the boy a clap on the shoulder and a wink. "Keep tha' up, ye might be takin' me spot, ye tuff little Bludger."

Rounding the table brimming with assorted sweet stuffs and foods, Kingside seated himself near Gryffindor's Captain and Seeker, grinning broadly.

"Aye," he tacked on to Almasy's compliment; "Absolutely brilliant, ye were. 'course, I don't reckon tha' was yer first game, now was it?" he added with a smirk, exhaling with relief as a numb tingle spread over his tired, beaten legs. Rising from his four poster the following morning would be thrilling.

Lexi burst into the common room, her face appropriately striped with red and gold paint and her fiery hair woven with yellow and red ribbons. "That was wicked!" She shouted into the loud noise echoing throughout the room. She joined the rowdy bunch of Gryffindors, a wide smile on her face. She loved quidditch, it was official. And she was damn proud of their team too.

"Dessa!" She said rather loudly, bounding over to her friend. "We won! We did it!" She noticed Ted as well and ruffled his mane, "Your hair looks awesome!" She stopped, still smiling at her two friends and the star of the game. "Is it always like this when we win? Because then we'll have to win way more often!"

Mairead lifted an especially flaky looking pasty to her lips and, with a self-satisfied grin, sank her teeth into it.  Just as the cinnamon-y and pumpkin-y filling started oozing through, one of the first years came bounding across the room.  Mairead's eyes widened and she froze, mid-bite, staring at the boy as he made a lot of racket and popped a cracker.  Was the kid mocking her?  Mairead started prickling, defensively, when Raine plopped herself on a seat near her and joined in the first year's excitement.  Mairead's eyes narrowed when the sixth year ruffled her hair but then, with a coy grin, she resumed eating. 

They weren't mocking her!  This whole thing was just getting better and better.  Mairead's ego was quickly inflating to a collasal size and, despite Raine's slight attempt at congenial patronization, no one was really helping it deflate.  But, Rene and all the smart kids got their egos inflated all the time; Mairead figured hers was a bit overdue. 

"Better start savin' now for the next platter," Mairead said, smugly, hoisting her pasty with a grin.  "Who we play in the next match?  We're gonna' devour them.  They won't know what hit them.  When do we practice next?"  The second year glanced up as Kingside joined them, merely smirking and shrugging when he implied that hadn't been her first game.  Most probably knew by now of Mairead's successful attempt to sneak onto the Hufflepuff team the previous year[1].  The team had been short a player and Mairead had been so eager to play so, when the opportunity arose, she didn't hesitate to substitute in for the Puff's beater. 

Which had been fun.  But, she wouldn't trade seeker for beater anytime soon. 

"That stupid bird backed down like a puppy," she said smugly, glancing up when another first year scrambled over.  "Aye," Mairead confirmed.  The second year beamed at the compliment.  She certainly could get used to this.  "It was bloody, effin' fantastic!  'Course it wasn't much competition but it was a good warm up.  But, it was exciting."

1.	Hufflepuff vs Slytherin 2008