Halloween Ball

The **Halloween Ball** is a formal Halloween celebration that occurs annually. Located in the Great Hall, the ball is open to everyone in the castle. There is a costume theme every year.

## 2018

For Halloween 2018, the theme of the ball was a Masquerade.

### **Description**

Star made her way down to the Great Hall finally after wasting her whole day in the dungeons. Looking around at the empty site, she busied herself conjuring up candy canes and other Halloween candies that she placed cheerfully on the tables. Taking out a record player, she immediately decided to play Monster Mash, clearly the greatest of all Halloween songs. She dimmed the lights to a spooky orange and danced on her own for a few quiet moments before heading back down to her office to assemble her costume. The whole castle had been Halloween-ified, lights hanging from the ceiling and blood dripping down the corridor walls. Even the spiders seem to sense that this is a welcome time of year, creeping out from their hiding places and adorning the castle with webs in splendid patterns intricately decorating the interior. Since the ball hadn't started yet, the music was still quiet, playing cheerful tunes throughout the whole place as Star made her way back downstairs.

### **Events**

> *A group of upper year lads, about 6 or 7 all in house robes with pumpkins on their heads storm onto the dance floor. They begin to dance like they're running away from their sorrows, letting it all, out on the dance floor. Two of them, a slytherin and a ravenclaw, both particularly tall appear to be engaging in a break dance-off.*
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> — The Chronicler
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Amelia Mahoney, the Herbology professor at the time, allowed students to sign up to receive flowers before the dance began.

During the dance, mysterious figures with pumpkins on their heads appeared and danced with several of the party-goers before disappearing.

## 2019

For Halloween 2019, the theme of the ball was Gothic Victorian.

### **Description**

The ceiling is particularly black, mirroring the dark night outside, as if the weather itself is in tune with the ball, and the few stars that stand out against the utter darkness twinkle merrily, excited to be above the students who attend the ball. Orange Jack-O-Lanterns, with a plethora of designs carved in, from simple faces all the way to absurdly complex scenes of Halloween lore float around the room, out of the grasp of even the tallest students but glowing with a festive orange light, and casting the hall in a pale orange glow. Cheerfully dancing skeletons mark the corners of the room, perhaps transfigured from something harmless but still dressed to impress in clothing of a dark Victorian black.

The walls are still drab and gray, but it seems hardly noticeable with the sheer number of decorations strung up over them, streamers of all different sizes but only in the colors orange and black fluttered lightly against the wall, and in-between them you could spot stickers, and paper mache of black cats, skulls and other dreadfully fightening things. The pumpkin that floats above staff table has a black cloak thrown on it, a scythe attached to it's side. In tandem with the glow it emits, the entire getup is intimidating indeed. The long house tables have disappeared. sometime over the course of the day, and they're replaced by over a dozen circular tables which dot the hall, covered in black tablecloth with orange decorations dotting them and food piled in the middle.

The hall even looks larger, somehow managing to fit all this in and still having space for a dance floor.

There’s an inordinate amount of food on the tables, probably enough to feed the current attendees two fold. There’s mutton, steak, and lamb; there's potatoes moulded in such a way that they give the appearance of a miniature graveyard. Alongside the meat, you can find an array of fruits and vegetables, including bread rolls cooked with pumpkin. However, dessert is when the meal truly stands out, with enchanted spiders that crawl around the tables, only turning into velvety chocolate when eaten. Alongside caramel and taffy apples, and of course, a most delicious pumpkin pie that makes this dinner one to enjoy.

### **Events**

> *The forbidden forest, whose trees often buzzed with the rhythms of life, the birds in their nests, the acromantulas scuttling across dirt and over root, the leaves swaying in the wind; was dead silent, on this night of Hallows Eve. A dense fog drifted through the air with a slow, almost purposeful inevitability, and the forest's canopy blocked any light from even the brightest of stars. To most, it would seem as if not a single thing stirred-and even those with the sight or magic to pierce through this illusion of calm would find themselves regretting their keen senses, for the terrible thing shambling through the trees as slowly and inexorably as the fog blanketing the Forest does not seem quite of this world.*
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> — The Fate
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>

During the ball, a mysterious fog began to blanket some of the grounds, and stuff went down in the portrait hall with moss dogs.

## 2020

For Halloween 2020, the theme of the ball was Sweets.

### **Description**

Miniature spun cotton candy dancers in many different colours pirouette gracefully through the air, sometimes getting stuck on the colourfully Tingerused wall. Lollipops zoom around, picking people who seem like they would want to eat them, and crashing into their heads. Large jack o’ lanterns with beautiful scenes carved into them serve as soft lights, floating high overhead.

Rainbow table runners are laid through the middle of each house table, a sugary array of food piled high on gleaming platters. Of course, there are several more filling items, but to fit the theme of the ball, they're shaped and colored to look like candies or other, more sweet foodstuffs.

The hall itself is brightly coloured, with candy covering nearly every surface. Most things are edible, with the exceptions of the room, the furniture, and of course, the people.

There's music settling over the Hall as well.

#### **Gryffindor Table**

Laid upon the Gryffindor table is the most curious array of food. A large turkey, coated with a substance that appears to be chocolate syrup - only when it is tasted is it revealed to be gravy. Corn in a bowl, white and fluffy like mini-marshmallows. Several savory pies in pink-and-purple tins. Sausages of various whimsical colours. If one weren't looking close enough, they might mistake the entire table to be filled with desserts, but in reality, all of it is the same food served at usual Hogwarts feasts.

#### **Hufflepuff Table**

On the Hufflepuff table are kegs of warm butterbeer, hot chocolate, and punch, with stacks of cups in every colour of the rainbow.

#### **Ravenclaw Table**

The Ravenclaw table is stacked with cakes, sweet pies, pastries, biscuits, truffles, and various other baked goods. Most of them are made from pumpkin, strawberry, or chocolate, colour-coordinating the table with oranges, pinks, and brown.

#### **Slytherin Table**

The Slytherin table has bowls and bowls of sweets, both magical and Muggle, lined along the length of the table. Chocolate Frogs in a bowl (with a lid, of course), Ice Mice, Liquorice Wands, Fizzing Whizbees, Cockroach Clusters, Sugar Quills - you name it, they've got it.