Party Rockin'

Keith was a big fan of parties. What he was not a fan of was being stopped at the entrance of one and being told that he needed to pay a sickle to go in.

"A sickle?" He protested to one of the seventh years guarding the door. "That's practically highway robbery! Who's going to pay a sickle to go to a party?!"

"Apparently, plenty of people," the seventh year said.

Keith's face twisted into a laughable imitation of a snarl. "I'm not paying. Let me in."

"Yeah, as if," the seventh year said, placing a hand on Keith's head and leaning into the fourth year Ravenclaw. Keith struggled to move forward, but the weight of the older student was too much.

"Alright, very funny, haha?" Keith said, rubbing his head as the two seventh years snickered. "But how about this? I'm a prefect. Let me in for free or I'll dock so many house points it'll make your heads spin."

That had gotten their attention. The seventh years knew that he was actually a prefect, despite his reputation as a troublemaker, and doubt flashed in their eyes for a half-moment.

But only a half moment. "You're a Ravenclaw prefect," one seventh year said. "You can't take points from us. Nice try though."

"Fine then. Detention." Keith said. "You want detentions? You're sitting out here, extorting money from students for a party that I'll bet hasn't been approved by a teacher. I will get you in detention so hard you'll be wondering what happened." He crossed his arms smugly.

The two seventh years gave each other a quick look before one sighed and regretfully stepped aside, allowing Keith access.

Keith nodded, shrugged his shoulders, and stepped through. He certainly hadn't expected that to work. But it had, and that gave him a wonderful idea.

He knew the party was being run by one Ellie Hanson, a seventh year in his house. She was supposed to have graduated by now, but had fallen sick and failed her seventh year, forcing her to retake it now.

Charging for entrance. How very clever. Unfortunately for her, somebody in the Hogwarts upper brass had for some reason seen fit to give Keith authority, and he was ready to abuse the hell out of it.

"Ellie, Ellie, Ellie," he said, approaching the girl and tapping her on the shoulder. He didn't have to stand on his tip-toes to do that anymore, he found to his delight - he was finally beginning to grow, and while he was by no means a giant, he was no longer the scrawny little midget he had been the past three years. "We need to talk about this whole party deal."

This was really the last place he'd want to be right now. After the fight he had with Ellie he really didn't want to be anywhere near her, at least until things calm down a little bit. But he also didn't want hee to think he was all sad and depressed about it. That was why when Judd started talking about the party he decided he would go with him. It was like almost everyone was there, and Foster was determined to not let his shyness get the better of him with all these people around.

Judd was able to go in first, somehow they got separated in the line, and soon after he followed, after two others got in first. He looked around and saw Judd talking to someone, he stood there for a second when he realized it was Ellie and the thought of running out ran through his mind but he wasn't going too. That would mean she won and he wouldn't allow that. He walked up to the two of them and only addressed Judd, "Awesome party huh?"

Despite his passionate loathing of Christopher’s species, Rudolph owed the man his due credit for his seemingly choreographed timing, for it had been as Rudy had been in the midst of envisioning stringing LeBlanc’s limbs in the fashion of a banner across the Slytherin Common Room’s porthole as an example to those who behaved in a similar manner, when the object of his fantasy waltzed up to the table at his side. Finding himself far too lax in his thoughts to speak aloud, Rudolph simply smiled while he watched Christopher suffer from what appeared to be a facial seizure of shorts and snatch up a Firewhiskey from the table. He would drink alcohol, Rudy scoffed inwardly with an agitated glare; a subtle upward flick of his lip and right nostril, followed shortly by a pair of scalding brown eyes.

Oh, how he desired a moment’s time alone with Christopher. Who would fret over the disappearance of such a moron? Rudy contemplated with morbid delight, only to be drawn outward once more by Franki’s presence. He concealed a pleasured shiver as it tickled his chilled spine in response to his companion’s proposition and he shook his head in a deceivingly disapproving manner. “He likely has friends who would worry about him if he disappeared. Besides, we’re not supposed to stoop to their level; ‘be the better people’, or something like that,” Rudy preached before meeting Franki’s gaze with his previous expression of shy and gentle uncertainty.

“More people are coming ‘round. Maybe I should leave,” He offered, blatantly exposing his feelings of not belonging as a result of LeBlanc’s actions to Franki. And for the sake of furthering his act he glanced downward at his shoes and drew his butterbeer against his chest to cradle it in his nervous hands, all the while tasting upon his bit tongue the blood that he’d smelt a moment prior.

Everyone was talking about this party. It seemed like a big thing, but of course Jayden was scared to go. And mostly by himself. He was already unaccustomed to being around a lot of people, and now if he went to this party, as his housemates kept suggesting, he thought he was going to do something really stupid and embarrass himself. He was so afraid of doing something like that in front of so many people, probably some that he didn't even know, that it stopped him from doing almost anything.

But he was being taken by some housemates, without his consent really, and they asked if there was someone he knew that he would want to have be there so he wouldn't feel so awkward going. At first he tried to say no, that there was no one, but as he thought about it with the obvious fact that they didn't believe him, he managed to remember the day he talked to Juliet in the library, and he said her name almost subconsciously. A few of them stared at him, wondering when in hell he even talked to the Slytherin girl, but they didn't oppose to what he said and a message was sent to her asking if she would go with him to the party.

They left for it soon after and when they were in there, after having paid and everything, he winced when he saw just how many people were in there. Jayden told the others that he would wait by the entrance for Juliet, just so he wouldn't have to go any further, and that they could go on without him. They agreed and scampered off while he stayed there, waiting for Juliet.

When Sam had heard there was a party going on downstairs in the ghost's dungeon, his first reaction had been an outright no.

No, he wasn't ready to face people in general yet.

No, he wasn't ready to face his friends - the judgemental stares of those who he was sure thought he should just "man up"

No, he wasn't ready to head out and celebrate, when there was still so much mourning to do.

However, along with a broken heart, he was afflicted by broken defences, and after only a few half-hearted arguments with Alex, Sam had consented to face the world again.

And so it was that he was entering the dungeon, a smile plastered on his face, feeling alien to muscles so accustomed to the image of grief's painting, and, in little to no time, a red face as he turned his back on the ever-so-embarrassing dance moves of his friend.

Instead, he nodded to a few people and headed straight to the food and drink, stopping only to thank the host before standing around awkwardly, hoping he didn't look like the wreck he felt he was.

Rudy's words were so very typical of the boy. She supposed he must have had a secret blood prejudice, because she often wondered what made him a Slytherin. He seemed so unwilling to hurt anyone to get ahead. And with a clever mind as his, it seemed that he would be better suited in the Ravenclaw House, where the worst crime was pretentiousness, but never the cruelty and selfishness that exuded from the Slytherin House. Perhaps that was why she liked Rudy. Franki didn't like to think she belonged to the Slytherin's House, and Rudy seemed to fit that bill too.

She rolled her eyes. "All of his friends are Slytherins. None of them would dare interrupt their own good times to go seek him out." She giggled- besides, it was all hypothetical. It wasn't like they would actually let anyone die.

He offered to leave and Franki felt a flutter of panic. If Rudy left, she would be left to interact with people such as Christopher for the rest of the night. "No, don't go!" she pleaded. "C'mon, don't let idiots ruin your fun. You haven't even eaten yet!"

It was then that Ellie caught sight of Foster and the color drained from her face, as well as a little smidgen of her mirth. He approached and she glanced around, swallowing, desperately looking for a distraction. She did not want to see the boy who was SUPPOSED to be her best friend.

Luckily, a distraction appeared in the form of the trouble-making Keith Nicholas. She turned her back on her two best friends as obviously as possible to face the younger boy, who had already caught up to her in height. "Do we?" she said, smiling. "Are you here to beg a dance out of me already?" She smirked, hoping Foster heard. She planned on having fun even if he was there to try to put a damper on her day.

"Are you here to beg a dance out of me already?

Time seemed to go into slow motion as Keith started to speak. It was like he had an eternity to study every word, inflection, and tone that came out of his mouth - and yet despite that, it was like he had absolutely no control over what he was saying or how he was saying it, because everything was going so quickly.

"Ha, not exactly," he said, clasping his hands behind his back. "Look, I'm a big fan of parties. In my prefect's acceptance speech - well, see I didn't actually have a speech but if I had had one I definitely would've identified myself as a pro-party candidate."

He looked around. "But the thing is Ellie, even though this is a great party and all, there are a lot of things you did wrong, and lets be honest, we can't have that. Like that table," he said, pointing to the table that held the refreshments. "Now, I know that that table comes from a classroom on the fourth floor because I carved Poters Army Suks in there last year during a detention. And I'm pretty sure the administration doesn't know that you're using Hogwarts property to support your own party."

He kept a cheery, upbeat demeanor the entire spiel, doing his best to project an aura of understanding and calm despite the fact that he was a little terrified. "And of course, I know you didn't mean any harm by it, but really Ellie, rules are rules. As prefect, it really is kind of my job to report things like this to the administration, and I'd hate to get them involved because they might find that somebody spiked the drinks with firewhiskey - and really that would reflect poorly on you. So all I'm saying, all I'm saying now, is that you might want to consider taking the profits you've made from admissions, and I don't know, making sure it makes its way to the proper authorities, like say, a prefect, so that there's really no trouble here."

"Does that make sense?"