The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

The Halloween Feast

Lily did agree to cook them all a Halloween Feast and she made quite a collection of treats, including warm cinnamon spice cakes with orange, apple, and raisin bits, as well as pumpkin stew served warm in carved out pumpkin shells. Remus sat in the kitchen, feeling a bit dizzy from the new moon night that was coming upon them, working at making home-made crackers filled with paper bats that would really fly and raspberry-chocolate spiders that scurried across the table so that he had to capture them to scoop them into the crackers to be popped free later that night. 

James and Sirius worked at arranging the living room, magicking the couches and chairs 'round a table they set an englongating spell upon so that it took up the full length of the flat's living room. They lay several magicked-together table cloths across it so that the full table seemed shrouded in a mis-match patch work, and Sirius set thick taper candles along the center while James worked at charming some of Sirius's extra jack o'lanterns to float, just like they did at Hogwarts. 

By five, people were coming over and knocking on the door, dressed in costume, even, and Peter Pettigrew, who had dressed as a rat with a painted black nose and whiskers wearing all gray, answered the door for the guests while Remus waved from his place at the table, where he'd sat down to give his tired knees a rest. He wore a plastic crown that sat crooked on his head and a thick maroon robe.

As they worked at setting the table, Lily and James ducked in and out of the kitchen, shouting greetings to their friends. Lily had on a long flowing green silky gown and had woven a ring of autumn leaves into her hair so that she was a wood nymph and James had on a long colourful Doctor Who scarf and an overcoat, having magicked his wand to look like the Doctor's screwdriver. 

Jasper Odair came, along with Ethel, the pair of them dressed in togas. Emmaline Vance was a black cat, and Marlene McKinnon arrived with her, dressed as a peacock with real feathers she'd magicked into a short miniskirt with tiny rhinestones all over her. Frank Longbottom arrived in a muggle doctor's uniform (he and James made a good deal of Doctor? Yes Doctor? jokes that night), and later when Alice Prewitt arrived she was dressed as Marilyn Monroe, which gained a good deal of Frank's attention and finally put an end to the Doctor-Doctor jokes. 

"Where is Sirius?" Jasper asked, but all anyone could tell him was that Sirius was 'getting ready', whatever that meant.

Sirius made his grand entrance after he was sure everyone had arrived.

Remus had gotten up to go and check on Sirius's progress and he returned to the living room, his face flushed, and cleared his throat loudly until everyone looked at him. He sighed, clearly embarrassed of what he was about to do, then said, in a sort-of loud voice, "Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls... I give you... Freddie Mercury." He stepped aside.

From the hall came Sirius Black, wearing a skin-tight black-and-white-diamond printed spandex unitard, which left his chest bared, a white mask over his eyes, and his mouth painted bright red. He spun his way into the room, arms wide apart, and took a bow.

"Bloody hell," James muttered, and Lily's mouth curved into a smirk.

They sat down to dinner and Remus's crackers were a hit, spider candies running every which way across the table as paper bats fluttered about the ceiling. Laughter rose over the record player Sirius had set to play as background noise and their good times were punctuated only by knocking on the door as children in costumes came and went, collecting chocolate frogs that Lily had made - without the enchantments of a true chocolate frog, of course. There was a good deal of reminiscing about Halloweens gone past at Hogwarts, and how delicious the feast the house elves made every year was.

"Though I reckon your pumpkin stew tops even theirs, Lily," Jasper Odair said, raising a spoonful to the chef. 

Lily smiled, "Why thank you. I got the recipe from James's mum."