Totally Awesome | George Weasley

Let The Spookyness Begin! | Chapter 5 | Book 1 Ch 5

     Nothing extremely interesting happened for the better part of their first months back at Hogwarts until the arrival of Halloween. Halloween was a break for everyone at the school, a time a quarter of the way through the school year where everyone could rest and - more importantly - take out all the stress induced from one too many potions classes in the form of pranks on other students.

     Or at least that was how the Weasley twins and their friends planned on spending their Halloween day.

     So by the time the day was almost over, and Fred, George, Lee, Arwen, and Naomi had barely avoided five different detentions as Hestia went about her day as usual, everyone had gathered in the Great Hall for the customary Halloween Feast.

     And, for the most part, the feast was wonderful. The food was as good as all Hogwarts Feasts tasted, and the lax rules from the staff meant that friends from across houses could sit together without having someone call them out for it and demand they go back to their own house tables.

     Everything was going wonderfully until the doors to the great hall got thrown open as Professor Quirrell - this years Defense Against The Dark Arts professor, who most of the older students had accidentally referred to using one of the past professors' names - came running in, gasping for breath.

     " Troll -!" He managed." In the dungeons - thought you ought to know..."

     He collapsed onto the ground.

     In addition to Professor Quirrel, a few other kids also passed out as everyone began to panic.

     By the time Dumbledore finally got everyone's attention, his only words were," Prefects, lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately."

     Percy shot up from his seat." Follow me! Stick together, first years! No need to fear the troll if you follow my orders! Stay close behind me, now. Make way, first years coming through! Excuse me, I'm a prefect!"

     " They're sending us BACK to our dorms?" Hestia asked, beginning to hyperventilate." They're sending us BACK to down near the dungeons!?"

     " Worse than us," Arwen added." The Slytherin kids LIVE in the Dungeons, where are they supposed to go!?"

     George stood up, pulling Arwen with him." We'll all go to the Gryffindor dorms, that should be far enough away from the Dungeons, hopefully."

     They all nodded, getting to their feet and attempting to hide among the other Gryffindors, with Fred, George, and Lee attempting to disguise the three Hufflepuffs as a part of the group.

     " How could a troll get in?" They heard Harry say a little ways behind them,

     " Don't ask me, they're supposed to be really stupid," Ron said." Maybe Peeves let it in for a Halloween joke."

     " Even Peeves wouldn't do that," Lee muttered." He's insane, not malicious."

     After the Gryffindor group had gotten out of the Great Hall, it was practically a sprint to Gryffindor tower, as the group sped up to get to their dorms leaving Percy in the dust as he tried to enforce the rules.

     " Pigsnout!" A sixth year who had reached the portrait of the fat lady yelled, and she opened to let in the seemingly never-ending stream of students who were taking refuge in the tower - some of them, like Arwen, Hestia, and Naomi, not even being Gryffindors themselves, but at this point, it didn't seem to really matter what house they were as even a pair of scared Slytherin second years were let in.

     Most everyone set themselves up in the Common room as food began to appear on the tables and students began to fill up plates and co-mingle with everyone else, given that running in fear from a Troll seemed to break down most walls in between people.

     By the time the Troll had been dealt with, most people had already made themselves at home in the Common room, and even when it was safe to return to their own dorms or, if they actually were from Gryffindor, go up to sleep in their own beds, most people chose not to.

     When the sun rose the following morning, only a dozen kids had actually gone to bed, while most were camped out down in the common room, napping on rugs or any other soft surface.

     Arwen had been one of the last asleep, making sure everyone else was comfortable enough, and at one in the morning she turned in, going to sleep on one of the sofas that had been saved by George, with the help of Fred, the two of them warning off anyone who tried to sleep on that particular couch.

A/N: Back under my preferred word count, but given how small the amount of actual text material I had to work with for this one, I'd like to think I did pretty well for this one.

I hope you have an absolutely wonderful rest of your day!

- Alex