Bedknobs and Broomsticks [HP fanfic; BNB Book 1]

The Invitation

The next morning, Emilie's horned owl dropped her copy of the Daily Prophet into the bowl of cereal in front of her before landing a ways down the table and wending its way carefully back toward her. She gave the bird a scowl as she pulled the sopping newspaper from her bowl and set it aside, but took the letter it held in its beak and gave it a piece of sausage before it flew back to the owlery. She ripped open the envelope and read the card inside.

Professor Horace J. Slughorn
cordially invites you to attend his twelfth annual
Slug Club Halloween Party
on the Thirty-First of October at Eight O'Clock in the Evening
in the Fifth Floor Banquet Hall.

No costumes, please.

RSVP - Horace J. Slughorn
Potions Dungeon, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Regrets Only.

Present this invitation at the door.Good for admission of One Club Member and One Guest.

She tossed it aside carelessly. Of course she would be attending, and of course she wouldn't be wearing a costume. Costumes were Muggle rubbish.

Rosier picked up the invitation from where she had let it fall on the table. "What's this? An invitation to Slughorn's party? When's it at?"

"Well, it's a Halloween party, so one would assume it's on Halloween. Not that it matters to you, seeing as you didn't get an invitation," she said stiffly.

"But this says admission for one club member and a guest," he said, pointing at the bottom of the card.

"Yes, but I never said I was taking you as my guest." Despite the fact they were all but going steady, she had not made up her mind to take him as her guest. Until he either came to his senses and decided to treat her like a lady instead of a hookup, there would going to be no assumptions as to whom was being taken where.

Rosier frowned and opened his mouth to say something, but stopped as Mulciber elbowed him in the side.

"Hey, Rosier, check out Manic Mansfield over there. Where d'you think he got that shiner?"

The Slytherin boys all started sniggering behind their hands as Mansfield crossed the Great Hall toward the Gryffindor table, sporting a spectacular black eye. Emilie gave an indifferent sniff and used her wand to dry off her newspaper, knowing full and well where the black eye had come from and not caring to hear the boys' speculations.

"What do you guys say we give him another one to match?"

There was a general chorus of agreement following Rosier's suggestion, and the boys began formulating a plan.

* * *

Tired of Rosier haranguing her about Slughorn's party, Emilie had retreated to the library by two that afternoon. By five-thirty, she had finished all her assignments for the rest of the week and, at a loss for anything else to do to fill the gap until she was due in Slughorn's office for detention, she headed downstairs to the Great Hall for dinner, dreading having to listen to Rosier rant and rave about not being in the Slug Club for the umpteenth time.

She descended a staircase and turned right, planning on taking a hidden corridor from the third floor down to the first, but stopped when she heard voices from behind the tapestry concealing the passageway.

"Tarantallegra!"

"Oh, that's a good one -- haha, look at him go, Avery! Ever seen someone dance like that?"