The Halfwolf (Year 1)

The Halloween Ball

After many hours of spellwork and much fussing over hair, the three first-year boys stood in front of the fire in the Hufflepuff common room, waiting for the girls and Tyson to join them to head up to the Entrance Hall. Between Gretchen and Tyson, they had done beautiful work on the boy's costumes for the evening. Gretchen had managed to convince the Hufflepuff boys, including Tyson, to do away with the traditional dress robes that they would end up throwing over a chair once they got to the ball and started dancing. Instead, Matt had a deep blue suit vest over his white button up shirt. Across his shoulders in the back were a pair of purple wings and the vest had flecks of purple streaked throughout it to give the illusion of the Occamy's feathers. Zach had just a white button up shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, that had been enchanted to react like his mask did. Now, it shimmered like gold when he moved. He, too, had a set of wings across his back, only his were white with golden feathers along the edges. He also had a set of gold tail tassels attached to his belt at the back that had white feathers attached to their ends. Tyson had enchanted them to hold themselves out and back slightly, more like the tail of the Thunderbird. Teddy had on a grey vest covered in short grey fur over a white button up shirt of his own, the sleeves also rolled to his elbows. He had managed to control his metamorphmagus powers well enough to give himself golden eyes and a pair of grey furry ears that stuck up from his purple hair. He was currently standing in front of the mirror beside the fireplace, trying to elongate his canines to complete his werewolf, when Tyson jumped down the last few stairs from the dormitories and landed with a heavy thump. He, too, was wearing a suit vest and tie over a button up shirt, but his vest and tie were brilliant shades of orange and red feathers and his shirt was black. He was just tying his phoenix mask onto his face when he spotted the first years and grinned. Walking over, he nodded his head approvingly at the boys.

"We do nice work, eh?" He said as he flopped onto the couch. Matt turned around from the fire first and smiled.

"You definitely do. These costumes are incredible!" Matt looked down at his vest smiling as Zach nodded. Teddy threw up a thumbs up over his head as he continued to try to get his canines right. Tyson laughed.

"Now, granted, Gretch did the hard part. All I did was transfigure some t-shirts into those vests. She did all the charms." Tyson put his arms up behind his head as he leaned against the back of the couch.

"You did just as much work as I did, darling." Tyson jumped up off the couch so fast he knocked the coffee table back several inches with his boots. He turned quickly to see Gretchen peering from the stairway to the girl's dormitories. Zach appeared at his side, and he looked down at the first year and nodded. Zach nodded back, and the two boys crossed the room to the foot of the stairs, each extending a hand to Gretchen, who giggled. "You boys."

"Good evening, madam." Zach said with a bow. Tyson bowed his head slightly, then kissed her hand when she placed it in his. Zach did the same, and both boys rose to their proper heights and helped her down the stairs. Tyson's face split into an enormous grin.

"You look stunning, sweetheart," he said, causing her cheeks to turn pink. She had made herself a white dress with a fluffy tulle skirt that hung just above her knees and a pair of white leg warmers with the same soft white fur as the mask on her face. She had also gotten Tonya, who was just as gifted with Transfiguration as her brother, to turn one of her scarfs into a soft white tail.

As Tyson and Zach escorted Gretchen towards the foyer of the common room, another, smaller face peeked out from the staircase. Teddy, who had finally managed to get some sort of canines situated in his mouth, nudged Matt with his elbow and nodded towards the stairs. Matt saw a very shy-looking Claire peeking around, probably looking for Gretchen, and nodded back to Teddy. Like Tyson and Zach had done, the two boys walked over to the foot of the stairs and extended their hands to Claire, who's face immediately turned scarlet. She took each of their hands and stepped down to the common room floor. Her dress was various lengths of soft, speckled, furry ribbon and a long skinny tail with a tuft at the end, similar to a lion's, was attached to the back. She had rather large, furry silver ears situated on a headband atop her head, and long whiskers attached to her cheeks next to her nose on either size. Matt smiled shyly at her.