"I still think we should start a sweet smuggling business; it would solve a lot of these problems," Ace bugged Carmilla for the millionth time.
Carmilla took the small bouquet of white roses from the florist and handed over nine knuts with a smile. "Thank you."
They left the shop and stepped over puddles all the way back to the bustling pub on the main street, where crowds of students hovered around the tables outside and the sweet shop they were discussing at that very moment.
Ace's plan was sounding more and more appealing when Carmilla considered the fact that there were only three cursed dresses left in the haunted store, and if Professor Slughorn kept inviting her to parties, she was going to run out pretty quickly.
"Hypothetically... how would we do that?" Carmilla asked apprehensively, watching the mind of Ace nearly burst with ideas.
"We steal sweets and chocolate, leave some money in the cash register, go to all of the first- and second-years dorms, ask them if they want Honeydukes' sweets, then sell them to them. Easy peas, as the muggles say," Ace said proudly, her chin up in the sky.
Carmilla ignored that last part. "What about the people who own the shop?"
"Uhm...fuck capitalism? Cops are shit? I dunno?"
Ace had a bag full of paintbrushes and some mint chocolates for June, which the two of them stashed under the wooden table while they ordered something called butterbeers from the pregnant waitress. Ace insisted she pay, as long as Carmilla heard her out about her sweet shop idea.
"I'm pretty sure Honeydukes is a small business," Carmilla said, crossing her legs.
"So would we sell to just Ravenclaws, or everyone?" Ace asked, raising one eyebrow, and then smiling as the waitress set down two foaming jugs of a sweet smelling drink.
"Only Ravenclaws. The Hufflepuff's are near the kitchens already, and we're the only house smart enough to not get ratted out for it. Besides, Gryffindor's and Slytherins get enough attention, we deserve them." Carmilla said simply. She poked the bubbly white stuff on the top of her butterbeer. "And Charlie is in third year, so he can get his own."
"Speaking of the snake, what's going on with him?" Ace wiggled her eyebrows meaningfully, but it only looked like she was having a stroke.
Carmilla wrinkled her nose at what the pink haired girl was implying. "He's very kind. He likes sherbet. And he knits beanies. I like him."
"You know what I mean, he's cute!" Ace said exasperatedly. There was foam on her nose. She wiped off. She took another sip of the butterbeer that steamed into the air. It was warm?
"I hope you're talking about me..." someone said from behind her.
Carmilla moved over as he sat down next to her on the wooden bench. "Hello Sirius. This conversation is not about you."
Remus sat down on her other side, opening a bar of chocolate with chunks of honeycomb in it. He passed her a square. It was honeycomb. Carmilla took it. "Hey Remus. Did Madame Pomphrey sort out your vomiting spell?"
"Spell?"
"Muggle thing," Carmilla said to James, and looked down at her butterbeer. Did it have actually alcohol in it? Why was it warm? Who put butter in a drink? She pushed it away gently and sucked on the honeycomb chocolate.
Ace glared at Carmilla from where she was squished between James and a burping Peter.
"How did tryouts go?" James asked them eagerly. The waitress brought over four more butterbeers for the boys.
Ace softened, only for quidditch.
"We definitely made it, have you seen Carmilla fly? I mean, she's awesome. Much better than that Canopus guy," she said gruffly. "He was picking his nose."
Carmilla was thankful she couldn't blush, or she would be as red as the Gryffindor beanie Remus was wearing. Compliments were a new thing. Not that people didn't like her, but before Hogwarts she was just living with her messy wild sisters that didn't really do the polite talk thing. Or the adult talk thing. They mostly just cried and growled and stole clothes.
"We definitely made it, Sirius's broom helped..." James turned to his friend with a sly smile.
She narrowed her eyes, "what?"
"Nothing," Sirius said, shooting a pointed look to James.
James shrugged and began sculling his butter beer. When he put the jug down, he had a moustache of foam that bubbled on his lip. He looked to Carmilla's untouched drink. "Are you gonna drink that?"
"James," Remus hissed.
"What? She isn't drinking it!"
Sirius turned to Carmilla. His eyes widened. "Do you not like butterbeer?... Are you sure you're human, like, definitely? Guys... I think somethings wrong with Cami!"
Carmilla stared at him. He didn't know. It was just a figure of speech.
"I don't drink beer," she said, instead of pinning him to the wall and killing him so that he couldn't tell everyone something he probably didn't even actually know. "Especially when it's made out of butter."
It was her turn to get stared at.
"Milla," Ace said, trying to hide her smile. "It's not actually beer. Or butter."
She narrowed her eyes. "Who on earth was in charge of naming it?"
"...She's got a point."
Carmilla ran into her second thing to panic about as June was doing her eyeliner back in their dorm.
"Please don't poke my eye out, I'm kind of attached to them you know. Physically." Carmilla winced as June painted her eyelid with literal black paint. None of them owned real eyeliner.
June was wearing cat earrings today. "Yeah yeah, you'll be fine."
"What's your date dressing up as?" Ace asked Carmilla. Carmilla only stared back at her as she realised, she might have the bloody dress and the roses to be the perfect dead bride, but she was missing a vital part of the costume.
A dead groom.
"Shit," she sighed.
Ace chuckled, "no way, you forgot to ask someone to the ball with you? No one asked you?"
"Well, I'm sorry if I was too busy trying for the team with you," Carmilla huffed. "And trying to find a dress that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg to only use once. Who's going to come to a ball with ten minutes notice?"
June put her thin paintbrush into the glass of water on her bedside table. "Yeah, it's a shame you fight everyone you meet, no one really likes you."
"Thanks," Carmilla scowled. "But seriously, I can't go alone. People already think that I'm a loser."
"Because you are," Ace called from the bathroom.
She didn't have a lot of boundaries, it turned out. She hadn't shut the door, but it didn't really bother Carmilla as she went in and grabbed her lipstick, avoiding the mirror and putting it on quickly. Turns out it was charmed to not smudge or go on her skin once she swiped it across her lips.
The hairbrush yanked at her tangled hair, but it probably just added to the look. Hopefully.
June sunk back into her mound of little retro cushions with bunny rabbits and flowers embroidered into them. "You could ask, like... Yeah, I dunno. Angela's already going with someone..."
"Do you guys wanna-"
"Nope," Ace said from the bathroom.
June shook her head with a grimace. "Good luck?"
"Great friends you lot are," Carmilla grumbled, and put her folded up map of Hogwarts along with her lipstick into the folds of the blood-stained wedding dress. She did up the buckles of her school shoes, which sort of ruined the costume a little, and left.
She left Ravenclaw tower too, and followed a few Hufflepuffs dressed as different characters from the Flintstones. The party was being held in a large classroom that was used for lessons on something called a boggart normally, but was decorated appropriately for the Halloween ball one day a year.
Remus had been invited too, proving the point that Carmilla was not part of the club because of her potion making skills. Apparently Professor Slughorn collected monsters as well as famous people.
He was bringing James as his plus one, because they 'needed someone one the inside'. Whatever that meant.
Said prankster was dressed in expensive orange robes with a jack o lantern face painted on the front rather messily, and Remus was in a black outfit with silver bits, and an eyepatch to match the pirate's hat on his head.
His scars added to the effect and Carmilla watched as Angela swooned from where she was standing next to Benny from the quidditch try outs at the entrance.
Peter was a skeleton, with dark details around his eyes and mouth. Carmilla smiled at them, not sure how Peter had even gotten into the ball, and went over to see Angela before the music started playing and everyone milling around was let into the ballroom.
She was in a cat costume, with the cutest little ears and fluffy tail, but Benny was standing there disinterestedly with mouse ears on his head and a grey robe hanging off him. He was fixated on a blank wall, eyes glazed over.
Angela didn't seem to notice his disinterest when she bounced over to Carmilla. "Merlins balls you look amazing! How did you get your dress that bloody? It looks so authentic."
Carmilla gulped. "Thank you. You're a very cute cat."
She escaped that conversation quickly, not eager to disclose that someone had totally died in her Halloween costume. She slid into the ballroom behind some sixth years when the doors opened.
She looked around the room. There were cobweb decorations everywhere and students dressed as ghosts carrying around platters of food. Jack o lanterns were scattered around the room, glowing from the inside, and Carmilla noticed that James had already adopted one and was carrying it around.
"Miss King! Lovely to see you could make it! And you're... oh... how lovely?" Professor Slughorn came waddling over, already sipping champagne. He was a bit pale at the sight of her dress.
Carmilla smiled, properly this time. "Thank you."
"Oh! There is Mr Lupin!" The teacher strode off the badger poor Remus, so Carmilla made her second escape of the evening, subtly heading to the other side of the room.
As she stood to the side, watching the girls in not too pretty but not scary but knee length and matching their date costumes spin around on the dance floor to some song about orange ribbons.
She didn't feel particularly left out, there were lots of students hanging around the side of the dance floor, drinking bubbly drinks and trying the small skull shapes cakes. She just wasn't with any friends, and this was the sort of place where you didn't just go up to strangers and start conversations about random things. No one was drunk enough for that yet.
Carmilla really liked people.
She didn't have very good social skills at Hogwarts, though. She was completely out of her depth, in a sea of wizarding things and references to magic and rich people talk and the expectations all of these magic blooded students and adult talk. She was great at bantering with the boys at the corner store and talking to the nice old lady she'd forgotten the name of years ago and been too embarrassed to ask about again when she came into the bakery and her little sisters.
She was the one everyone at the home went to when they had a problem or a hole in their skirt or a cent short for their birthday cake or a bruised knee or a bully, and Mistress Theeny was working her but off leading sermons and prayers in the church in front of the home.
But as she stood against the wall, old blood staining her clothes and a bouquet that had cost her shampoo money for the next few weeks in her hand, she wanted to go home.
This wasn't her home. She didn't belong here.
Carmilla wasn't sure if their professor was allowed to serve champagne to minors, considering there were even a few first years in the crowd, but she still reached for the bubbly golden drink in the tall glass. She needed something stronger then the taste of cherry's her lipstick provided.
She smiled at the student underneath the sheet, who was holding the tray, and tried not to look like she wanted to sink into the floor. It was a bit odd that the students were completely hidden from view, funny faces cut out on the material.
When the ghost person in front of her didn't move, she narrowed her eyes at the grey ones watching her. "Didn't think you were the type to hide your face, Rissy."
"Unfortunately, it's all part of the plan... And I don't like that nickname, I'm not a sissy," came the muffled reply from underneath the sheet. Carmilla chuckled weakly at his indignant tone.
She leant against the wall. "Because there's so much to hide, Rissy."
"Hey, I'm dead tonight, not deaf!" Sirius scoffed. He must have cocked his head, but all she could see was a wonky ghost face. "You look nice...uh... is that...?"
"Oh yeah, it's totally real blood," Carmilla said, looking down at her dress. It had white lace that had actually gone a little crusty with the dried blood. It looked great from a distance, but it was starting to make her chest hurt a bit.
What if she made someone's dress look like this one day?
"So, why is James putting something in all of the jack o lanterns?" Carmilla asked him, taking a gulp of her bubbly drink because she was about to throw up blood she hadn't even drunk and then maybe pass out.
She choked on the drink, and tried not to spit it all out, instead gagging and covering her mouth.
The ghost in front of her laughed when she quickly put the half empty cup on the tray he was holding and shoved a cherry tart into her mouth to get rid of the taste. She glared at him while cherry sauce ran down her chin. He laughed his ass off.
"That is revolting! Tastes like cat's piss..." She muttered, wiping her mouth. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I knew that would happen." Sirius said. He was pretty much giggling like a school girl at this point. He lowered his voice and leaned in. "Also, don't stand near any of the pumpkins when you hear the song."
He disappeared into the crowd of ghosts, grey eyes twinkling.
Carmilla stuck her tongue out in the direction he left and turned to find James panicking a few meters away. He was pointing wildly as he pleaded with Professor Slughorn, who wasn't being fooled.
"Have you guys ever pulled a prank before...." Carmilla scolded to no one, before picking her dress up slightly and striding over to save the stupid boy from being kicked out. Ace would be very disappointed in her.
She passed Remus, who was chatting to a Slytherin student dressed as a mummy about homework. What a nerd. He waved to her and then she watched his eyes widen when he noticed the blood.
She sent him a peace sign.
"Professor. What's the problem?" Carmilla feigned innocence. She glanced between Slughorn and James, her eyebrows furrowed.
"Mr Potter has been sneaking things into the jack o lanterns I had prepared for this evening especially." Slughorn said, eyeing James suspiciously. She didn't mention that Hagrid was the one who prepared the pumpkins.
James just smiled and blinked slowly, not helping in any way. He was holding about twenty forks in his hands.
Carmilla huffed at him in exasperation. "James, that's cheating!"
He didn't lose the deer caught in headlights look.
"I'm sorry, we have a bet going to see who can make the best jack o lantern, I'm actually doing mine of a bat," Carmilla said with a smile. She rolled her eyes. "Anyways, he's being lazy and trying to steal one of yours to use cause they look so professional, I'm terribly sorry about him."
Carmilla smiled at the teacher again, before grabbing James's shoulder and leading him away from the teacher, while pretending to scold him all the while.
"You're amazing! How did you, he just...?" James looked over to where Slughorn was now introducing one of his special guests, someone called Barnaby, to Angela, all thoughts of James pulling pranks gone from his head.
Carmilla shrugged. "I have eleven sisters."
His eyebrows shot up, and then she realised her mistake. She covered it quickly. She grew up with eleven girls. "You were pretty obvious, what were you even doing to the pumpkins? You couldn't actually have been stealing them, they're absolutely shit. And what's with all the forks?"
Carmilla glanced at the nearest pumpkin. It was supposed to have a beaters bat carved into it, but it looked more like a floppy penis. Someone probably would steal that one.
"Surprise. But I owe you one, by the way. Now I need to figure out which one of these is Sirius...." He trailed off.
The two of them surveyed the twenty odd ghosts carrying around tray. Carmilla turned to him. "Stand still."
James stared at her in confusion, until she slapped him in the face.
Half a second afterwards, someone picked her up pitifully, turned around, and dropped her away from James. The ghost rushed forwards to James, who was hissing and holding his red cheek in pain.
Carmilla patted him on the shoulder, "have fun, forky."
"My name is not forky!" James muttered at her, holding a cold glass of champagne to his fac. Sirius the ghost stood next to him, very confused, but he waved to Carmilla like she hadn't just slapped his best friend.
"Okay prongs!" Carmilla called back, waving and went to find another cherry tart.
She was on her third cherry tart and second glass of champagne, [she found that by taking a sip and then a bite of tart, it wasn't as bitter] hoping that it wasn't going to make her puke up red and add to the whole bloody bride theme, when the song playing for the groups on the dance floor switched quite abruptly.
Carmilla watched Remus the pirate leaving the dance floor with its hundreds of floating candles and occasional ghost -an actual ghost, not just students in bedsheets- in a hurry. She frowned.
BANG
Everyone froze at the loud sound for a millisecond until they were showered with chunks of pumpkin flesh, and lots of confetti.
The orange and black strips of thin paper rained down prettily on the shocked crowd, but the dripping orange pieces of mush that was squashed against every possible surface, including people's costumes, sort of ruined that.
Carmilla laughed out loud when she saw forks sticking out of the larger pieces of Hagrid's pumpkins, as if the guests were supposed to eat it. He was going to be so annoyed when she told him that the boys he warned her about had destroyed his prized pumpkins.
"You like the surprise?" a grinning voice said from behind Carmilla. She grinned too. Hogwarts didn't have to be her home, the home, for her to stay.
She decided that maybe it would be okay for her to stand on the edge of the crowd covered in blood.
"Sure do, Sirius."