Re: [OPEN/MASS THREAD] Valentine's Day Party

[Molly Weasley]

Molly was clever enough to know when she was not needed somewhere, and Apollo was a lot less subtle than he thought he was. So she tilted her chin and turned. Margo was busy chatting up Clair, but Charlotte Waldorf had just come in, so she beelined to the other Ravenclaw, reaching out and grabbing a cup on her way, before holding it out to her. “Drink this. Let’s make friends.”

Molly didn’t do anything in the way of explaining, just took Charlotte’s elbow and cast her eyes around. Podmore was busy with Kapur, Mulciber looked like she wanted to be anywhere but there… Westbrook then. Actually, she could see Charlotte and Westbrook getting along.

So she angled them towards the Slytherin girl and stopped in front of her. Molly wasn’t great with small talk, so she just dove in. “How’s the team looking this year, Westbrook?” Not bad, all things considered.

[Clytemnestra Lux]

She had always known the Zabini boys were eccentric, but Christian's comment made them sound even stranger than she'd anticipated.

"You're thinking of someone else," Clytemnestra replied. "I agree there are a lot of weird Ravenclaws, but I'm talking about the one in our year."

His eyes slid away from hers then. Something interesting must have been unfolding behind her back. Clytemnestra began idly picking up and replacing bottles from the table in front of them, just in case she was going to have to turn. Hopefully, that wouldn't be necessary, though.

"What's happening?" she asked. "If I turn around right now, it's gonna look pretty obvious, so it's in both our interests for you to give me a running commentary."

[Freyja Podmore]

Freyja thought parties were fun, but they weren't her favorite things in the world. If she had to choose between a party and going to the movies or hanging out with her friends.. she'd probably choose the latter.

Didn't mean she didn't know how to have fun.

Parties were great ways of getting Hit out of the common room and her own head, so that was why she always dragged her along. Even if it meant the other girl wouldn't talk to her for a while afterwards. Frey just wanted her friend to have fun sometimes. A lot of the time. Whatever.

The point was that Hit didn't know how to do that.

She laughed at Julian's response. "Guess so." A smile curled the ends of her lips and she swung her arm around the boy. "Ooh, you're right. Shoulda done that first." She said with a grin. He handed drinks around and Freyja eagerly took one from him. She didn't get the chance to do this stuff often so it was more than welcome when it did.

Hit stared st the cup she'd taken from Julian, almost like she was scared of it. "C'mon Hit. Bottom's up?" Freyja held the cup up toward Hit before downing almost all of it. Hit looked at her like she had three heads.

"Oh come on. You know you waaant to." She teased her friend. "Kapur, you gotta convince her."

[Christian Zabini]

Christian tilted his head when Cly corrected him, unsure who she meant. But then, of course, he noticed the purely Ravenclaw-colored dress passing by next to Molly. "Charlotte?" He asked, frowning a little. That... seemed like a bad plan. "If she won't even talk to me without exploding, I'd like to see her try to handle Apollo," he returned rather sarcastically. Still, he was smiling as the irony of it all set in.

"Well we're not about to be in a scrap," he said, his eyes following Violet. "But I think Julian might be." Christian looked at Lux again. "Apollo hasn't gotten over that fight, it seems. So, depending on what happens over there," he gestured with a tilt of his head, "you might want to keep an eye out."

And, indeed, Violet was doing what Apollo wanted her to. The problem with Julian, it would seem, was that he would go for just about any woman that was still breathing. So when Violet passed him the laced drink and laid one hand on his arm, the elder brother felt positively smug. And while Christian didn't know about what was wrong with the drink she gave him, it was an easy guess that something was up. Julian had been rejected, essentially, by her before.

The real question, perhaps, was whether or not Apollo had asked her on purpose, or if Christian was reading far too much into thing. Hoping that it was just extremely coincidental timing, he turned back to the Slytherin next to him.

"Why is it that none of these parties ever go well?"

[Julian Kapur]

Julian was enjoying the attention. Anyone with eyes could see that his ego was ascending to great heights, with the small group of girls surrounding him. (Actually, they all just happened to be near him, but he didn’t mind acting like it was intentional). He passed the drinks around and led the charge, throwing his back, wincing and trying to hold back a cough. His was a little strong.

Freyja pointed him towards Hit and he gave a wide grin, stepping towards Hit. "One drink. If you don't like it, I'll... owe you another one."

He let out a laugh and turned, the laugh freezing on his face. Violet "Hottie With A Body" Archeron was walking towards him with a smile on her face. His heart froze and his eyes widened, and her turned away, nervously lifting his drink to his lips, swallowing the rest of it down, trying to act like his eyes weren't watering.

His voice was completely casual when he greeted her, even managing a little shrug in his shoulders. He reached out for the drink, setting his empty cup down. "Sure, thanks, love," he said. "Cheers!" And he downed the cup in another spectacular show of bravado.

None the wiser at the love potion hidden by the alcohol.

[Clair Sauvage]

He almost couldn't believe his luck.  This was like, indisputable proof of what girls liked in the whole boys who liked boys who liked girls chain of events.  Clair guessed it was written in the third floor bathroom - that one hardly anyone used - and he'd definitely be going down to read the account tomorrow.  If it was good enough, he'd... find some way to spread the news to Julian.

"I'm multitalented," Clair gave Margo his rare, genuine smiles.  "I can help you get into mischief and be hung up on Kapur at the same time."

There was no point denying that.  Margo wouldn't believe him, and well, Clair had spent too much time thinking about all the ways things might have gone differently the other day.

"What've you got in mind?" he asked.

Just as he spoke, there was a loud call from the drinks table and Clair was just in time to see the boy in question down an entire cup of liquor. Well, maybe he'd get his chance tonight.

[McKinley Westbrook]

That would explain it: a boy had done the decorations. McKinley smiled brightly back at Julian and waved. "Oh, it's simply charming! Thank you for putting it together; I think that all of us could definitely use a little more fun sometimes." She gave him a pat on the back before moving over to the refreshments table.

Upon seeing the drink selection, McKinley's face shifted into a frown. Most of the bottles on the table were definitely alcohol-related. She had never drank before, since she wanted to keep her mind sharp and her father always said that a proper lady won't partake in such beverages anyways. With a sigh, she cut her losses and reached for a bottle of pumpkin juice instead.

The party mostly consisted of students that were much older than her, but McKinley didn't necessarily feel intimidated. It just meant that she would have to be a bit more .. inventive in who she started conversations with. Thankfully, she didn't have to search to hard, because she was approached by Molly Weasley and Charlotte Waldorf. McKinley recognized the latter as being part of the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team, but she had never much spoken to her.

"Oh, hello Weasley! Hello Waldorf!" she waved and smiled brilliantly. Remembering what her father had said about proper ladies, McKinley couldn't help but notice the drink that Charlotte was carrying. "Oh, it's going wonderful! I expect we will make finals this year," she giggled, before taking a sip of pumpkin juice. "How about you two; how is it over in Ravenclaw? Are they working you hard enough over there?"

[Cronis Yaxley]

Evander was such a buzzkill. Cronis really needed to find a way to get his brother to have fun. He was kind of like Hit, whom he'd also failed in getting to have fun. But that was different, he wasn't related to Hit so he didn't know certain things about her. He definitely knew everything about Evander though. They were brothers.

(How sad he'd be to find out he really didn't.)

Cronis didn't need Evander to be there, though. The party would be better without his brother being there, probably, but Cronis knew he'd end up feeling bad if he went without him. And Evander would never do that to him. Freyja had mentioned something about a party earlier that day, and Evander had immediately said he wouldn't be going.

Cronis had seen to it that his brother changed his mind.

Now the two Yaxley's made their way to the Room of Requirement, a frown on Cronis' face. "We should've been there already."

"You wanted me to come, you had to wait. Deal with it."

Cronis blinked. Was that the attitude Hit had mentioned before? Something was off. Evander never spoke to him like that. "Whatever. Next time be faster." Cronis said back, not wanting to lose to his brother. The party wasn't in full swing, so to say, when they got there but it was definitely going.

Immediately, the Slytherin's eyes searched for their Gryffindor friends. His eyes landed first, on Freyja who had just downed a drink and was teasing someone. Of course, it was Hit she was teasing. He didn't like that they were near Kapur, though. Or that Freyja just basically pushed him to be friendly with Hit.

Not that he ever wasn't. But then he saw Violet Archeron walking toward Kapur and he was almost beside himself. Why was everyone around him?

**

[Darcy Driscoll]

As the older students mingled and drank more, things were definitely starting to look more interesting.

Darcy decided to investigate the drinks table. Not to drink anything herself, but she needed to know what everyone else was consuming. For research purposes.

Most of the bottles on the tables were cheap liquor. A lot of them were even muggle ones. This wasn't that different from any ordinary party. There were a few wizarding beverages, like butterbeer and pumpkin juice, and Darcy took a cup of pumpkin juice since it was really the only nonalcoholic option on offer.

Having finished her investigations, she began moving through the crowd, listening to the conversations around her.

[Freyja Podmore]

It was fun to tease Hit because she was the oldest out of their group but she was the most innocent. A lot of people find that hard to believe with her attitude toward most things. She had a side of her that was actually pretty dirty-minded, but it seemed she liked to keep that side under lock and key. Except when she was with Freyja.

But that was because she pushed her buttons about always being so innocent about everything.

"That's all you got? Really?" Hit retorted, raising an eyebrow at Julian. It seemed that hadn't been what either of them had been expecting, though she was unsure of what Hit had been expecting exactly. The startled look on her face before he spoke made her think that it was something bad, though.

Freyja laughed. "Ah, too bad. Kinda hoped to get a rise outta you." For someone who had tried so hard to get a date for Valtentine's Day, Kapur was really making it seem like having a very attractive girl come up to him was nothing. It really made her want to say something but she bit her tongue. Frey saw Hit roll her eyes at the boy when he downed the drink given to him, probably because she had taken it as a challenge.

She really doubted it was though.

"If you don't want to be challenged, just do it mate." Freyja said, pushing the cup in Hit's hands up, toward her mouth. The other Gryffindor let out a small whimper of defiance but finally caved and took a large swig.

"'Atta girl." Freyja coaxed a wincing Hit as she swallowed the alcohol.

She caught sight of a rather fancy dressed Cronis and grinned and ran over to him and Evander, who was equally well-dressed. "You guys came!" She squeaked and before a response came, she slid her arms around one of each boy's and led them to where the others were.

Cronis didn't seem happy about it.