The second part of Valentine's Day events was here. Well second and third, hard to rank the two events going on at the same time today. But between Dolly's launch yesterday, Lothorio and Vedir's charity event tonight, the usual Spellpunk business and the Hogwarts Ball, Meredith was currently running on two hours of sleep and whatever energy potions she could get. She wondered vaguely if this is what Phil felt like.

Tonight she was planning on spending a few hours at the school, travel back to Calaveras and repeat. Thankfully she had brought some of her best staff with her to Hogwarts tonight, including Catrina and Aiden, both more than capable to handle the antics of school children in her absence. The holes in London Spellpunk had been filled by temporary staff for the evening. Eben so, there was a strong chance she would need to change out of her heels this evening.

Meredith and her staff had arrived two hours before the dance to set up. Thankfully, much of the furnishings were in the tent, which could never have passed as a Muggle device. The large rectangular tent was decorated on the outside with glowing crystal formations pulsating red and purple light. On the tent itself, enchanted paintings of couples with brightly coloured hair and clothing danced on the canvas.

The inside of the tent strongly resembled Spellpunk, but with canvas walls instead of stone or bright. There was even an enchantment on the ceiling to replicate the port-hole glass ceiling, which right now merely reflected the night sky, but would be spiced up once the event proper began.

The bar, stage, booths, tables and chairs had come with the tent and were exact replicas of what could be found in Spellpunk. Like the club itself, more enchanted crystal formations served as the main light source, but being true to the holiday only glowed in whites, pinks, reds and purples. Cupids were waiting for their purpose. Meredith had initially been against using the things, but students seem to want cupid, for some unfathomable reason, so they would be flitting around the entryway, handing out swag bags, tied shut with a charm that had been etched with one of the following sayings: Love, Lust,  Obsession, Infatuation and of course, Amortentia.

The student organizations and bands were busy setting up. There was a photo booth with famous couples, a table for the werewolf organization and a special area just for Ms. Dolly herself. The woman did get around. From the looks and sounds of things there would also be candy and flower grams going around.  None of those Meredith had had to organize, which was a welcome relief for her. It's not that she didn't mind extra work, it was just that she was very much looking forward to sleeping the entire day away on the 16, when this weekend was over.

Meredith have the inside of the tend another quick survey. Her staff were busy double checking everything in the bar. A majority of the drinks (all non alcoholic of course) would be in the same colour scheme as the rest of the event and some had been given Valentine's Day-ish names. She'd let her bar staff handle all of that. The drinks would be served in little potion vials or goblets instead of glasses. Other staff were at tables, putting together trays of  Hors D'oveuvers that would be circling the event once things began.

Feeling like things were going good on her end, Meredith walked up to one of the students setting up and asked. "How are things going? Need any extra hands?"

The tent was impressive, Dion was forced to admit. It was even better than he'd imagined it could have been; this was, hopefully, going to be the event to do the job of cheering the school up.

And making the clubs some money, of course.

The SAWs booth was the first one they'd headed over to set up, and it was nearly done - the flower grams made it quite festive looking, which was good - he hoped that'd attract some money-spending. Of course, the flower grams were the big attraction.

He couldn't help surveying the tent as the setup went on, having to almost physically restrain himself from shouting orders at some of the students who were taking the 'easy' jobs or slacking off. Thankfully, there was one student who he could yell at...

"DAX!" He called, and his brother looked over from the Art Booth. "That curtain isn't attached correctly! FIX IT!"

Dax sent him a gesture that didn't need explanation, but fixed the curtain anyway.

Dion jumped slightly as a voice piped up behind him and he smiled.  "Hallo, Miss Renfield," Dion said, politely. He waving his wand and erecting a curtain  by the SAWs booth; Fauna, who had come with him from Hogsmeade, was nearby.  "I think we're good here - Fauna?" He called to the girl. "Miss Renfield wants to know were we need help - is there anyone who's short on hands?"

Fauna, supervising the SAWS booth with the posters, pins, and flowers, bit her lip and let out a heavy sigh. She had to say something. She was supposed to lead, wasn't she? But she'd started it by sticking a flower in her own hair. One flower! Still...

"Er..." She cleared her throat. The girls by the table kept giggling and ignored her.

"Could you please... maybe, uh, not braid flowers into your hair?" They glanced at her for a second, then looked away. Her method of telling people what to do contrasted sharply with Dion's, who was hollering at his brother.

Fauna glanced at him, perhaps for inspiration, and then back at the flower-stealing culprits.

"Oy!" She said a tad more loudly. "Flowers! On the trellis! Not in your hair!" She gestured at the booth. "Come on, now."

They gave her an annoyed look, but finally did as they were told, flouncing away to find another booth to pester. That was just fine with Fauna. They weren't even helping, as far as she could tell.

She turned when she heard her name, and smiled at Miss Renfield, who was doing an amazing job setting up the tent and the decorations and food inside. Dion asked if anyone needed extra help, and she shook her head, happy with their progress. "I think we're-"

An ominous creak sounded behind her.

Fauna turned, and had just enough time to scramble backwards as the tall trellis of flowers fell forward*, landing on the SAWS table with a loud crash. Then a second CRACK! as the table broke into two pieces.

She blinked at the mess for a few long moments, wanting to wish it away. This was not good. Not good at all.

"Shite..." Fauna mumbled under her breath, unable to make eye contact with the others in the room, though she definitely wanted to hex the pair of girls tittering in the corner.


*(I'm imagining the trellis to look like this, but with heart shapes instead of octagons!)

Sophie, who had been across the tent working on setting up an array of signs, costumes, and fussing over the enchanted background of the photobooth looked up sharply when the loud crack sounded. When she turned, camera still in one hand, she felt her heart drop a little. Apparently Fauna was having a bit of a rough go. The gaggle of giggling girls had stopped at the candy stand Honeydukes was running to bother the dreamy shopboy and Sophie gagged a little. Since throwing all her energy into the dance, and probably also since she started dating Fig girls who acted stupid over boys sort of annoyed her.

Glancing at Pax and several of the other art club members she gave them a grin and left them to do what they were doing and stole away to help Fauna. The thing about having an attention span like Sophie's was that she could easily jump from ten different jobs and still keep them straight in her head. It had proven rather helpful in all this dance planning. She'd have to check on the bands when they got here - be Daddy's Girl and all that; then there was the Chior/Players booth taking orders for recordings of the night's sets, but right now she thought Fauna needed her more than that.

Skipping across the tent, yes skipping she got about four feet from Fauna before taking a flying leap and wrapping her arms and legs around the older girl from behind, "What, Ho! FAUNA'S GOT A SOPHIE ON HER BACK," she gave Fauna's cheek a loud smacking kiss  and hoped to Merlin they wouldn't end up in a pile on the floor like the flowers. Sophie was small but even her compact form was a lot to shoulder if you weren't expected it. "I have come to offer my amazing flower super services! And also because I need someone to pay attention to me or my head might explode"!

The Choir and Hogwarts Players were in charge of making sure the performances for the night were recorded so that they could be sold afterwards as memories of the night compilation discs. However as a member of both as well as SAWS, the art club and almost every other club the school had to offer Billie had felt a little stretched and so instead in true Billie fashion she decided to go in her own direction to help with the set up of the dance.

She was sporting a bright red tutu, pink tights, lace up red ballet shoes and one of her skin tight bodysuits. Thankfully Billie had a dancers body and didn't feel awkward at all about how modest her curves were. Her golden locks were pulled up in elaborate braides tied with ribbons and heart shaped barrettes, leaving her single blue and pink streak hanging down. On her back was a pair of feathered wings and a bow and quiver. While she was dressed as cupid for the night her quiver was currently stocked with tiny heart shaped bottles of muggle bubbles. She was planning on putting one on every table and handing them out to the students as she went.

The crashing flowers and table drew her attention away from spreading heart shaped confetti over the tables the Spellpunk staff had set up. She spied Fauna and Sophie at the SAWS booth and giggled. She pranced across the tent in their direction pausing for a moment to blow Dion a kiss and place a heart shaped sticker on his cheek (so cute!) before joining the girls.

"What happened?"

Hmm, it looked like the SAWS crew had some considerable muscle on their side. Pretty boys, but muscled. They could probably be intimidating enough amoung their fellow students, but in her world, not so much. Pity. Security guards were always the hardest to find, not because of lack of talent, but because physically imposing wizards were a rarity unless they were infused with giant or troll blood.

Meredith had quite enough to deal with at the moment that she really didn't need to add scouting for employees to her night's to-do list, but it was hard for her thoughts not to drift in that direction. Some of the students would be seventh years, and not every witch and wizard had a family with an overflowing bank vault behind them.

Just as Tall Blonde One and Ms. Blake assured her they were doing just find, chaos occurred. It was only to be expected. Preparations never went half as smoothly as one wanted, and she had been sure infusing teenagers to the mix would only increase the chances of things going wrong.

Without pausing to ask if the students were sure they didn't need aid (they obviously did), Meredith pulled out her wand and waved it with a calm 'Reparo' The trellis and table sprang back up and in perfect condition.

That done, Meredith strode up to the giggling flow-girls that had caused the incident in the first place, taking great care to memorize their faces if they ever came knocking with their resumes. Sigh. There she went again.

"Ladies," Meredith began, in a tone that suggested forced politeness. She may not be the world's best witch, but her closet obsession with theatre and film noir had taught her something. The woman stood to her full height- with her heels she was damn near six feet tall, tilting her head just so to make the shadow of her already angled hat fall across the good half of her face, murky eye and heavy scarring staring straight at them. Meredith accepted she would never be a beauty and would draw stares. She used to to her advantage. Intimidating silly school girls was hardly  challenge.

"Ladies," Meredith said again. She kept her tone calm, barely rising above normal volume. She twirled her wand almost lazily in her hands as she spoke. "Now, we are all here for a reason, yes? Because we all need to work together and make this ball happen, but that's not going to happen if the tillis is going to fall over mid-song on one of your classmates, a staff member or my head. Now how about you stop playing flower children and take those things from your hair and back to where they belong, hmm? And try and make sure everything is secure this time, won't you?"

The girls nodded mutely and with wide-eyes and hasty glances went back to their work, the work that had been assigned to them.

Meredith turned back to the student organizers, the edges of her lips twitching slightly into a subtle smirk. Youth.

"Perhaps a sticking charm, yes?" she asked Fauna. "Nothing too powerful, I'm sure you'd like your decorations as well as I like a clean tent wall. Ah- Ms. Flickwick, perhaps you can help supervise the flower arranging and the bands perhaps when they get here?"

She knew the girl-vaguely- just from interactions with the musical-oriented members of the family. The other girl, who seemed to have taken her fashion advice from the cupids, not so much. But it was stinking her eyes. She hoped the other students wouldn't be like that.

"Nothing that isn't fixable, thank goodness," she informed her politely, before addressing them all. "Now then, what else is left to do for your booth?"

Dion blinked in surprise, and couldn't help standing there for a moment looking incredibly confused as things fell momentarily to chaos around him. The booth snapping back together, however, got him out of his reverie.

"Thank you, Miss Renfield," he said automatically, peeling the sticker off of his face and going into prefect-mode. "Miss Kennedy, what the heck are you wearing? Please go change into something more appropriate," he said, affixing the last of the ribbon with his wand. He glanced over at Fauna and Sophie - blushing at the angle Sophie was currently at - and cleared his throat. "Err. Flickwick - does the Art booth need any help? Dax isn't doing much good over there, I'm sure," he said, glaring at his brother, who'd wandered off somewhere.

"Let me know if you need him held down, by the way. Though from his response to the 'renting' idea I don't think that'll be necessary."

When a small form hit Fauna's back she jumped, thinking that one of the cupids had gotten loose and decided to attack her (because that was apparently how her day was turning out), but then a loud girlish voice sounded in her ear and she relaxed. Sophie.

After a kiss on the cheek and more of Sophie's loud exclamations, Fauna stumbled a bit drunkenly (no, she hadn't sampled the special candy) from the weight of the fifth-year. Unlike the twins, she didn't have the physical strength to hold someone up for long.

Plus, she'd started laughing. "Who are you calling a ho?" She giggled, fully aware that was not what Sophie had intended by her greeting. It was difficult to stay sad when friends tackled her and Billie had stuck a heart sticker right on Dion's cheek! Miss Renfield had also sprung to action and fixed the flower trellis, and Fauna sobered slightly when their host scolded the girls by the Honeydukes booth and told them to return the flowers.

"Thank you," she told the woman, then glanced at Dion. "Oh, Kennedy's just being festive!"

Fauna casted a sticking charm on the trellis, and was about to cast Reparo on the broken table when Miss Renfield asked what else the SAWS booth needed done.

"Besides cleaning up a bit, not much," she gestured at the scattered flowers and pins on the ground. "Um... hmmm.." Fauna looked to Sophie and echoed Dion's question, "The art booth need anything?"

Sophie caught sight of Billie as Fauna weaved around trying to stay upright. She wondered, vaguely what Kit would have to say about this get up, given her attitude toward anything that didn't cover a person head to toe. She'd called Ayla a lady of the night once, though Sophie thought she'd just call Billie a mental case. As she unwound herself from Fauna (she didn't think either one of them looked like they needed the bruises for the night festivities) she cast a long look at Dion. Apparently planning things made him act like a put upon ass.

Sophie had herself invested a lot of time and effort into the dance. However, she didn't think belitting people would get things done quicker or put people in the mood to actually help. As she grabbed a handful of flowers from the table she tried to keep her voice neutral, "Everything at the photobooth is fine. Dax is hanging all the heavy things, apparently when you ask him nicely he doesn't mind a little hard work". She threw a look at Dion then that - if he were paying attention might have denoted her desire for him to calm the hell down.

"Anyway, the signs are all made, and if I stayed over there another minute I would have gotten fussy about how they were displayed and how the costumes should have been hung up - and there is nothing worse than someone with an attention span like mine starting a project like that," she giggled a little but her eyes did keep darting to the door. "Pops and the boys should be here soon, and Creevers. They need to get everything set up preshow... has anyone seen Her Majesty?" Sophie was not a fan of Dolly St. James, she thought her books were laughable at best, and the woman herself was rather annoying.