The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

Halloween

Halloween

On Halloween, Regulus woke up to the sound of people shouting in the common room. He rolled out of bed and stretched, kicked on his slippers and went out to the landing of the stairs to see what was going on. The answer was that somebody had booby-trapped the door of the Slytherin common room with a good deal of skeletons that hung from the ceiling and had been bewitched to grab at the first years that had tried walking past them, and they'd been scared and now huddled in the common room shrieking as the bony arms stretched for Regulus as he stood in the doorway, having opened it up to investigate. "Oi you lot, it isn't that scary!" he said, "Finite incantantum!" and with a mass of pops and cracks, the skeletons were reduced to nothing more than engorged, balled up bits of paper. He rolled his eyes, "See, look. Just some idiots playing a prank on you! They've only transfigured paper! Come and see... Look, just a prank, that's all."

And he had a feeling he knew exactly who it had been that had pulled it.

Divinia Weiss hugged Regulus's side. "Are you sure it's just paper?"

"I'm sure," he promised. "Look." He waved his wand again, blowing a gust of air that sent the balls of paper rolling away down the hall. "There, see?"

"You're so smart you figured that out!" Divinia said, smiling up at him.

Regulus forced a smiled, and went back to grab his textbooks from his dormitory while the first years went off to the Great Hall.

In all fairness, it came out relatively quickly that it wasn't only the Slytherins that had been boobytrapped into their common rooms. Every house, including the Gryffindors, had had the same skeletons hanging outside their doors. Sirius smirked as he walked down the halls, listening to various stories being traded by students that had been scared by them. "That was ruddy brilliant," he told Peter, high-fiving the short boy, "Absolutely brilliant. And good one, James, thinking up the transfiguring paper part of the idea!"

James grinned.

Remus shook his head, "I'm going to be comforting first years for the rest of my foreseeable future."

"Poor ickle seagulls," James chuckled.

That evening there was a party in the Great Hall with music and loads of sweets and Hagrid's huge pumpkins - which had made it through the inclement weather - were carved into great big scary figures with flickering candles in the eyes. The ceiling was bewitched with a lightning show and the ghosts all came out and danced in the air above the students and staff. They had candied apples and chocolate spiders and drank loads of pumpkin juice and glasses of "goblin sauce" which was really just cider transfigured to appear red as blood.

Sirius slapped a masquerade mask across James's face and wore one himself with a long cape that draped over his shoulder. Peter even got into the spirit and transfigured a winter cap to be tall like a chef's hat. "What're you supposed to be?" Sirius asked Remus on the way downstairs.

"A prefect," Remus replied, pointing at his badge. He was supposed to be "on duty" that night and watch over the younger kids to be sure they stayed out of trouble.

Sirius nodded, "Ohh, yes, that's a very scary costume."

Remus rolled his eyes.

In the Great Hall during the party, Regulus Black stood to one side of the Hall, watching the festivities that everyone was enjoying and sucking on a sour candy wand. He had tied a black mask around his eyes as well and had been mistaken for Sirius twice now - the first time he'd corrected the people saying hullo to him, the second time he'd just nodded a greeting back (it was easier that way).