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On Halloween morning, Lily wakes up with the rest of the Gryffindor house and goes down to breakfast, feeling slightly happy but there is a looming fear in the back of her mind that something will go wrong. "You alright, Lily?" Fred asks me as we get up from the Great Hall table and make our way out of the castle with Katie, Angelina, Lee and George. "Yeah. I'm fine. Just gonna enjoy my birthday and hope that nothing goes wrong." Lily tells them.
"That's the spirit." Fred says, pulling shaking her shoulders slightly, making her laugh. "Come on. Let's go get some butterbeer." Fred says before they all walk out of the school together.
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Lily spends the entire day, laughing with her friends and having the greatest birthday that she has ever had in fifteen years after her parent's death, and losing her little brother. The six of them ended up running into Hermione and Ron in Zonko's Joke Shop as Fred, George and Lee wanted to get some more things to prank people with.
So, walking into the Great Hall that night, it has been decorated with hundreds and hundreds of candle-filled pumpkins, a cloud of fluttering live bats, and many flaming orange streamers, which were swimming lazily across the stormy ceiling like brilliant watersnakes.
The food is delicious; and even the six of them, who are full of Honeydukes sweets, manage to have a second helping of everything. Lily keeps glancing up at the teacher's table to see her grandfather having the time of his life, after spending lots of time with Lily, and she being upset, made him upset so it is a relief to Lily to see him smiling and enjoying himself after lots of time.
The feast finishes with entertainment provided by the Hogwarts ghosts. They all pop out of the walls and tables to do a bit of formation gliding; Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, has great success with a reenactment of his own botched beheading.
So after all the ghosts finish, Lily, Fred, George, Lee, Angelina and Katie all head up to the Gryffindor Tower, with other Gryffindor's following them, yet when they reach the end of the corridor with the portrait of the Fat Lady, they find it empty and soon enough, the hallway is jammed in the corridor. "Let me through, please." comes Percy's voice, and he comes bustling importantly through the crowd. "What's the holdup here? You can't all have forgotten the password – excuse me, I'm Head Boy –"
And then silence falls over the crowd, from the front where the six of them are, a chill seems to start and is spread down the corridor. "Somebody get Professor Dumbledore. Quick!" he yells.
A moment later, Professor Dumbledore arrives, sweeping towards the portrait; the Gryffindors squeeze together to let him through. Parts of the canvas is littered on the floor; great chunks of it have been torn away completely. "Miss Potter, Mr Weasley's, Miss Johnson, Mr Jordan, did you see what happened?" Professor Dumbledore asks them. "Sorry, Professor. We didn't see anything. We just came up here after the feast and stopped when we saw the portrait empty." Lily tells Professor Dumbledore.
"Right. We need to find her." Professor Dumbledore says. "Professor McGonagall, please go to Mr Filch at once and tell him to search every painting in the castle for the Fat Lady."
"You'll be lucky." a cackling voice says. It's Peeves the Poltergeist, bobbling over the crowd and looking delighted, as he always is, at the sight of the wreckage or worry. "What do you mean, Peeves?" Dumbledore asks calmly and Peeve's grin fades slightly. He doesn't dare taunt Dumbledore. Instead, he adopts an oily voice that is no better than his cackle. "Ashamed, Your Headship, sir. Doesn't want to be seen She's a horrible mess. Saw her running through the landscape up on the fourth floor, sir, dodging between the trees. Crying something dreadful." he says happily. "Poor thing." he adds unconvincingly.
"Did she say who did it?" Dumbledore asks quietly.
"Oh yes, Professorhead." says Peeves, with the air of one cradling a large bombshell in his arms. "He got very angry when she wouldn't let him in, you see." Peeves flips over and grins at Dumbledore from between his own legs. "Nasty temper he's got, that Sirius Black."
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