Sinners and Serpents {g.w.}

Chapter 11

The next weekend was All Hallow's Eve---better known as every student at Hogwarts' favorite holiday. Not because of the actual holiday itself, no, but because of the masquerade party that was held every year for fifth year students and up. Part of it was for celebration, and part of it was for taking a breather from the never-ending piles of homework and tests.

And part of it was to get entirely drunk off your ass. The professors didn't know about that part, though. Or, if they did, they always chose to turn a blind eye to the punch that was always spiked and the strange, widespread bout of headaches and squinted eyes the next morning.

Hermione said Muggles dressed up for Halloween: angels, devils, their favorite characters, or really anything one could think of. The Wizarding world didn't do costumes, but there was one thing the two societies had in common.

The outfits were always as revealing as possible.

This year was no exception, of course. Umbridge had tried her hardest to put a stop to the dance, but even she couldn't argue that it was tradition. Magic folk were rather insistent when it came to tradition.

After an unsuccessful attempt at canceling the party the weekend before, Umbridge had become even more of a tyrant than usual, but it didn't seem to bother most students. You'd been looking forward to the party since last year's and nothing could put a damper on that, even that frogish professor and her shrill voice.

The week passed in a blur of homework and lectures and late nights in the library, but come Saturday, you were sitting in Hermione's Prefect room in the Gryffindor tower. She was helping you arrange your hair into an artfully loose braid that left soft, curling tendrils of hair framing your face.

Her fingers moved quickly as she twisted your hair together, her brow furrowed with concentration. Hermione was wearing her hair down in a strange turn of events, and it seemed like she had used that hair potion she had used for the Yule Ball, because her normally wild, frizzy curls were tamed into a smooth pattern. Really, she looked rather beautiful and you had made sure to tell her so.

The mask worn to the party was a massive portion of the celebration. Every year, students did their best to pick out the prettiest, most ornate, most detailed mask they could find. There was no rule regarding what it could look like other than it had to hide a majority of one's face.

That was just fine with you; it meant anonymity, which meant you didn't have to worry about your actions during the party, especially once you had had a good amount of spiked punch warming your veins. Some students even cast faint Illusion charms on themselves to really disguise themselves, but you hadn't bothered last year, nor would you this time round.

This year, you had honestly outdone yourself with the help of Hermione and Ginny. The two of them had suggested in a bit of a joking manner one night while studying that your mask should be snake-themed because of Fred and George's not-so-affectionate nickname for you. At first you had laughed, but then you realized it truly would be the perfect disguise for you.

It had taken a while, including a few visits to the shop in Hogsmeade that sold masks during this time of year specifically for the older Hogwarts students, but you had finally found your mask the day before the dance.

It was truly something, too. When you had shown Hermione, she'd gasped at the sheer beauty of the thing. It was a half-face mask, circling around your eyes and covering just past the bridge of your nose and most of your forehead. The mask itself was a deep black that glinted dimly in direct light, but the details were what really set it apart.

There were four golden, intricately detailed snakes slithering across the mask; one diagonally below each eye and one diagonally above, their tails almost intertwining but not quite. The snakes faced the center of the mask, creating a bit of a frame. Small gold swirling details graced the space between the snakes on the temples of the mask and spread down to where it would barely cover your cheek bones. Between the two snakes that rested on the forehead of the mask, an emerald the size of a knut lay right in the middle, surrounded by a small frill of gold.