Dark as a Ravenclaw

Chapter Six; This is Halloween

As I woke up from slumber and began getting ready, I realized something. Today was October 30th the day before the muggles celebrated a holiday known to everyone as All Hallow's Eve or Halloween. Most everyone was already at breakfast or long gone with their parents to spend halloween with siblings and relatives. Well I guess I'll go see if Luna's awake and wants to go to Diagon Alley. I quickly get dressed in a periwinkle v-neck and white skinny jeans and a gray flannel jacket with the Ravenclaw crest sewn over my heart. I slip out of my dormitory and into the great hall looking for Luna's golden/dirty blonde locks at the Ravenclaw table. Only a couple of students from each house actually stay at Hogwarts the holidays and I'm one of them except during Christmas time. I shrug off the fact that Luna isn't going to be here to enjoy this day of shopping with me. As I leave the great hall I briskly run through the corridors until I reach the trophy room where my Firebolt 373 was on display for being the fastest racing broom in the history of Quidditch. It was custom made in France and cost about a gazillion dollars in UK money and about triple that in galleons. Luckily that's the only thing I ever asked for from my parents this year for my birthday. I unlock the display case and dismount the broom from the pegs that hold it in the position it's in currently. I race outside and down a long narrow corridor until I reach the main courtyard of Hogwarts. It's fountain still bears water and now by the looks of it dead leaves. It was the beginning of a very cold winter even though it was only the peak of autumn. I mount my broom and begin soaring through the sky. I can't believe how good it feels to be flying again. The wind blowing against you, hair in your face, no problems, no school work, no boys or Italian teachers. Just you, your broom and the sky above. I dive downward toward the Black Lake. As I skim my hand across its clearish surface I attract the attention of the lakes inhabitants below. I give the mermaids a quick wave before grabbing the handle of my broom again, as I shoot up in the air preparing for a triple three seventy loop de loop. It was my signature move after catching the Golden Snitch in Quidditch as my team would rally around me from below. I zoomed full speed ahead to the brick wall aka one of many secret entrances to the ever so busily amazing Diagon Alley. As I touched down I parked my broom in a V.I.W. (Very Important Witch) spot. I then dismounted the broom and began tapping in with my wand the intense, diverse code of the magical wall and watched as one by one the bricks folded back revealing a crowded cobblestone path lined with shops and storefronts of all kinds. As I stroll down the pathway I see little second years admiring how amazingly kick butt my broom is in the Quibbler. Pet emporiums, Ice cream vendors, Ollivanders, just to name a few. As I walked I remembered that I needed galleons if I wanted to buy anything and I usually did so I need to go to Gringotts. As I entered through the big wooden doors, I began striding towards the front desk to ask for the goblin assigned to my family's vaults. I think his name is Griplink or Griplock, yeah Griplock that's his name. I ask for Griplock as a younger, shorter goblin comes out from behind the desks and asks for the key to vault 0071373. No matter how badly I wanted a vault a few feet above ground my family sprang for the high security vaults guarded by Hungarian Horntails and way down so far you could feel the magma in the earths core. Either that or the waterfalls plus hot tunnels made the air dense and humid and hard to breathe. I stepped out of the small mine cart as Griplock handed me a clanker. Thanks to the study's done on dragons by Dr. Charlie Weasley it was proven that the dragons hate these clankers so just use them to get past the dragons and boom problem solved. I shuffle through the vaults super high tech magically secured door Griplock opened for me and look around. Inside my vault were piles and piles and piles of bronze knuts, silver sickles, and golden galleons. One wrong move and all of my good fortune would become your bad fortune. I take out a small fuchsia pouch about the size of my forearm and open it. It had somehow gotten to me by some secret Santa thing we did in the third year and I with Lily and her Aunt Hermione's help enchanted the bag to be bottomless. I pick a pile with lots of galleons and pull one from about the middle of the stack. It was a fun little game I taught myself in my second year at Hogwarts. You pull a coin from the middle of the stack and the all the ones above it fall. Then with a bag of some sort I would catch the falling coins until I had what I needed. Knuts are fifteen points, sickles are thirty, and galleons are fifty a piece. As soon as I had enough I motioned for Griplock to close my vault and get back in the small cramped cart. As we began going backwards I decided why don't I save myself the nausea and aparate to Diagon Alley? So I did. Griplock is probably gonna be pretty confuzzled but that's okay because who cares right? I mean come on, I get a migraine just looking at the carts much less riding in them. I begin making my way down to the other end of the walkway I browse through the windows of the shops and storefronts looking to see if I was actually going to be buying anything with the galleons I'd just collected. As I approached the end of the street something strange happened. The abandoned building that Lily's uncles had once called Weasley's Wizard Wheezes began to transform. Over the rustic orange coat of paint that had been chipping away for twenty four years was a fresh coat of lilac paint, like magic. Then slowly one by one the letters of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes became the words Belle of the Ball Boutique. The letters are written in calligraphy and are brushed with a silvery glaze. The old shredded purple drapes are replaced with black crushed velvet ones to fit the look of... whatever this is. I slowly jog towards the building as more subtle things begin changing. First the wooden staircase becomes clear as crystal glass with wrought iron curlicue railing. Then the windows become cleaner and polished, and mannequins appear visible in the windows. White ribbon is strung from the tops of the window framing, and it is raining little snowflakes? No are those...? Yes they are! It's showering diamonds all over the three story building. A marque appears under the lettering. I read it and gasp in shock, delight, and excitement all in one. COME CHECK OUT THESE ONE OF A KIND DESIGNER DRESSES INSPIRED BY FASHIONISTA AND HOGWARTS STUDENT LUNA LONGBOTTOM!!! As I peer through the newly polished glass of the windows, I see Luna,whipping around her wand and performing great feats of magic so that she can set up her shoppe. I rush to the first story door and as I jerk on the door knob I find the entry to the boutique has been open the whole time. A wave of pure joy and shock overcomes me as I step through the door frame. The shoppe walls are painted a pristine white with silver lining and hard cherry wood floors polished with a purple tinted lacquer. I guess Luna hears me come in because all items of clothing suddenly drop to the floor and Luna is no where to be found. I race up the stairs to find her draped in one of the crushed velvet curtains. "Really Luna? Of all the awkward positions I ever experienced fetchingly draped against the wall is a new one for me." I tease as she unravels the curtain from around her small frame. " Sorry I didn't tell you sooner," she said sort of quietly. "But I had intentions of you being the first one to know." I turn around to look at her. "It's alright. This place is amazing! So when's the grand opening celebration?" I ask hoping I'm free that day so I can come support a good friend when a good friend needs support. "Actually it's tomorrow night. I'm going to have it be a halloween masquerade." I squeal with excitement because she and I both know that my favorite type of party or dance is masquerade because of how romantic they are. "You can come ya know if you want. As long as your not busy doing other stuff." I cut her short mid-sentence. "Of course! I have nothing better to do and Jacob isn't at Hogwarts so... I'll come!" She perks up and asks some unusual questions. "Alright, what size do you wear? Favorite color? Favorite gem? Favorite metal? Favorite fabric?" I answer slowly backtracking what questions she asked. "Okay let's see um... oh I'm a size eighteen, lilac or azure, okay, sapphire or garnet, um silver, and silk or something of a crushed velvet, why?" But Luna was no where to be found. She had quietly apparated up to the third floor design studio. I knocked on the wall slightly making sure she was aware of my presence. She was sitting hunched over on a little metal stool with a charcoal pencil in her hair and a giant pad of sketch paper on a wooden easel. Crumpled up mistake filled paper created a thin layer of slipperiness on the floor.She was muttering things under her breath fast. "Oh that's perfect! Wait no I don't have any lilac silk dangit! Oh or... no not enough garnets. Oh or wait she said silver not gold. Why is designing a dress so hard!!!" She screamed the last sentence and all at once at least thirty or more crumpled up balls of parchment landed and overflowed the small iron wastebasket sitting in the corner of the studio. She got up still in total frustration when she noticed I was standing behind her the whole time the tantrum dealio was going down. "I'm so sorry. I just... I don't know. It's just that this opening of the boutique is so big and if I fail I might lose the boutique the minute it opens." There was an awkward silence. Luna had never acted like this. She had always been kind and sweet and caring and smart and I just didn't know she had this in her. "It's okay. I'll help in any way I can. You deserve this after all your hard school work and all your beautiful stitching and dress making." "Alright," she responds looking a little more confident with every word she speaks. "Let's get started!" (Insert Art of the Dress song here)

TIME SKIP TO HALLOWEEN NIGHT~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Everything is set up for tonight's masquerade ball. Reyna are you done changing yet?" Luna shouted from outside of the girls bathroom. I should never have volunteered to help Luna. I didn't know that sewing dresses took some much pre planning. But it was all worth helping Luna open her boutique. "Almost Luna. I'll be out in a couple minutes." I quickly slip off the white lace shirt and black jeans I had worn to the boutique earlier. I then swapped out my casual Hogwarts weekend clothes for the beautiful sapphire encrusted sky blue Marilyn Monroe style dress with silver accents that Luna had made and customized just for the grand opening. The dress was a blue velvety type fabric which was fitting for such a grand, formal, event as this. Just then a hand shot through the curtain leading into the bathroom holding some sort of venetian mask. "Here," she says but is no where to be seen. "Just to complete your whole masquerade ensemble." I take the mask and place in onto the counter. I step out of the stall and gaze into the shimmering mirror above the sink. The soft curls in my hair complete my royally regal outfit and then I remember the mask. I grab it off of the marble countertop and look over it. The mask is a metallic silver with blue and black feathers and gold accents. I stare at it and realize it is the face of a raven, decorated in Ravenclaw colors. I step out of the bathroom and into the hallway of the second floor. I find Luna leaning up against a pillar. She is dressed in a strapless white chiffon dress with a silvery fur-trimmed jacket. Her hair is put up in a bun and she is wearing very subtle makeup. On her mask is the face of a snow fox decorated with diamonds and silvery feathers. "Yay! Omg Reyna you look amazing! I'm so glad you agreed to help me!" "Thanks," I begin. "Alright it sounds like they are ready downstairs, ready?" I nod to Luna as I take my place to the right of her. I stand next to her linked arm in arm and begin descending down the wrought iron staircase. It's hard to walk in glass heels but Luna insisted so I decided to take her advice. As we reach the bottom of the stairs a spotlight finds us. It feels as if everyone in the universe is staring at us from afar. A round of applause begins from the crowd. Luna and I then curtesy and the music of the quartet we hired fills the air with a joyous melody. Suddenly I'm caught off guard when a dashing young man wearing a black cloak and a gold lion face mask with garnet feathers rimming it and some glittery black accents approaching me. In a very familiar voice he asks "Young lady, would you join me for this dance?" "Of course. I would love too." I responded as he led me onto the checkerboard dance floor. I had somehow gained some dancing skills since the Equinox because I wasn't causing any problems this time. Since I had gained those skills I looked at the young man I was dancing with. He had a gorgeous smile and beautiful summery green eyes. I then gained an extremely painful headache. Everything went black and I heard a very raspy voice. Salazar Slytherin was first and next it will be you Renya Elderblood. And through the darkness I began hearing more voices. Only the darkest of souls and purest of heart. It will be you. Help us, save us Reyna. Turn back the clock to save the soon to be from the darkness that is. And as the voices stop, I fall into what feels like an eternal sleep.

A/N; Hey guys! Hope you liked the chapter! Had a lot of fun writing it. And don't worry Renya's not dead... Or is she? You'll have to find out in the next chapter. Ar Revoir my little Fandomettes!(That's what I'm calling my followers and readers now!) LordoftheFandoms373