Days following the match Luca became a target of admiration from the students of three houses, his regarded as unfair by some advantage in speed and spellcasting sparking a prolonged discussion among the teaching body. Fontaine claimed that it was not his pupil’s fault to be born better than those sorted into Pukwudgies house, ignoring the fact he was indeed invited there at the beginning in the Sorting Hall. Deans of other houses united against him and went to wake up the sleeping headmaster to make a ruling on the matter. Assistant Juno Lytras let them in, as she found the prospect of Luca’s dominance for the next seven years harmful for the competition.
A compromise had to be reached or they swore to camp in the corridor banging gongs and generally disrupting the elderly Geoffrey Roche, so after he finished watching the game recorded on a magically upgraded TV, the verdict came that the boy was allowed to play for one year only, putting an end to the vice-headmaster dreams of decade-long domination. Luca didn’t care for it, flying on full throttle without control, while exhilarating, lacked something essential to feel secure. Knight’s club members coming to cheer him up from the perceived ‘wrong’ warmed his heart, he vowed to win this year with a style to remember.
Lectures continued despite the boy making no progress in controlling his charms, a spell intended for levitation of objects cast by him somehow managed to lift a chunk of the floor along the feather he was supposed to practice on, similar disasters abound. Lucky for him, those attack and defense hexes came to him naturally, or he would have to start doubting if being a wizard is really the way to go, failure more common than success.
On the day of Halloween that Ilvermony faculty made free of studies, before the dinner set as a start of the celebration, Luca went for the best suited for his red eyes and black hair costume, a caricature of his year-long kidnappers, an exaggeratedly pale vampire, the look achieved using a joke makeup set Junfeng had delivered by an eagle and shared within the dormitory day prior. Winnetou simply dressed in a cheap-looking stereotypical Native American costume as a mockery to others in the school for sure wearing the same. Tolkien and Junfeng opting for a tattered zombie look had fun adding scars and imitations of festering flesh overflowing out of their faces. Bennet wrapped himself in two rolls of toilet paper and called it a day, Nathaniel the most engaged of the six, wore an elaborate costume of Chucky Doll wielding a bloodied knife, the most popular horror movie in the wizarding world last year. Luca also ordered a small Manticore costume for Ringo, which grew up bigger by two circles since loitering around the boy for almost two months now, consisting of a lion’s mane, wings, and a fake plushy spike worn on the tip of the cat’s tail.
The boys shrieked chasing each other and pretending to be frightened, affirming their visuals before heading out into the common room, Ringo curled around Luca’s neck, his laziness to take too many steps daily seemingly incurable. They were greeted by a room full of your usual Halloween freaks among the junior wizards, but those advanced in age were truly trying their best to be original, already learned partial body transfiguration or some obscure hexes. Slate’s giant head replaced by a glowing pumpkin the most eye-catching example, the triplets collectively turned their lower bodies into that of horses by unknown means and had girls painted green as woodland nymphs riding them, others clashed using their crab claws or had only a floating head remaining visible after casting the disillusionment charm on the rest of their bodies.
“Come here, Luca!” Abigail waved to the boy as she pretended to sit on the same sofa as two girls dressed as The Shining twins holding hands. One of them was Miranda whom she had a good affinity with after learning about her initial troubles in casting spells, they spent time together, and she tutored the young girl in the hard subjects she struggled with.
“Looking good handsome, this is my bestie, Nadine Voraci. She’s full Italian, not like you counterfeit goods.” Miranda and the girl wore heavy makeup and wigs to harmonize their looks, so Luca couldn’t see anything besides the girl’s big, purple eyes as he shook hands with her.
“Nice to meet the famous student of Thousand Nicknames.” she smiled at the boy.
“That many already?” Luca rose his brows in doubt, although instantly he indeed seemed to realize that each person called him by a different moniker as if members of a secret society dedicated to making them up.
“Yeah, some are pretty absurd, like Cat Stuffer because your kitten became fat so fast.” she pointed at Ringo, the black cat’s sixth sense instantly sending a warning signal as the three women and Luca focused their attention on him. Ringo meowed innocently and tried to suck in that excess plumpness, fooling nobody as Luca had to acknowledge that nickname to be accurate.
“From tomorrow, no free rides and a strict diet.” the boy had to intervene. Ringo gave up pretending and slumped his head down with a resigned expression on his chubby muzzle, eliciting a small laugh from the girls. At that moment, a sound of piano resonated solemnly over the castle Ilvermorny, at the sign which the older students started slowly step by step going out. Luca figured it out after couple notes, hearing it all the time from the windows of the orphanage adjacent to the cemetery, but wanted to confirm.
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“That’s Funeral March to replace ice cream jingle?” he asked looking at Abigail who nodded smiling forcefully, reminded of watching helplessly her own body lowered six feet under.
“Sorry...” the boy caught her mood swings and apologized embarrassedly, he had real problems talking to the ghost girl.
“Take her hand, you jerk. Let’s see if those cooks slash poisoners want us to eat chickens even on Halloween.” Miranda stood up and intervened rolling her eyes, this ridiculous dynamic happened constantly between them. Luca extended his hand that Abigail grasped shyly floating beside the boy. Luca thought that having a ghost at his side had to trump any other wanna-be-scary costume, the attention he got from nearby students affirming it.
“Why are there no decorations?” Luca asked following the crowd slowly heading to the dining hall, stomping to the tune of the piano. Completely no effort to put up at least some Jack-o’-lanterns seemed impossible judging from the school’s attention to the campus environment the boy observed so far.
“Classified.” Abigail put a finger to her mouth playfully, helpless Luca kept in awkward silence for the rest of the road looking at the now-twin girls leaning their heads together and giggling every second whisper exchanged. The procession reached the empty of anything other than teachers standing dressed in their fun outfits in front of the window dining hall. A rare sight of the headmaster present, as he dressed in a Santa Claus costume, red sack and everything, perhaps he mistook the date due to an onset of dementia. Luca did as everybody else and stood loosely in the space previously occupied by the tables.
“Revelio!” the headmaster suddenly threw the sack in the air, it transformed into his wand as an allegory for a wand bringing anything you desire in the wizarding world, spell changing the surroundings completely. The walls disappeared, green light got replaced by a gloomy blue-red coming from the image of a giant full moon now present on the stained glass instead of the snakewood tree. Small, cameral tables on the left and right were bending under the weight of massive pumpkins with a candle stuck on top of them, and a microphone food-on-demand system as Luca enjoyed for his week at Vilemyr Inn was in place of a buffet. Illusions of cobwebs and spiders on them hung in the air, ghosts performed waltz in pairs above the celebrating students, with music changed to a discorded rasp of violins.
“Cool, so cool!” Miranda jumped up and down admiring even the floor unrecognizable from the solid stone turned to a creaking with each step run-down wooden planks, gaps between them filled with eyeballs looking back at anyone whose sight went down.
“It’s Halloween again! Now, the entire globe dresses as us, pretending to be wizards and witches for a day, but we are special and unique at any second throughout the year! Have fun as always! We prepared a game, search for miniature pumpkins over the castle and gardens area, upon touch they will turn into different amounts of points depending on finder’s luck, the person with most points inscribed on their hands gets a funky-groovy-bomb reward! Go my little monsters!” the headmaster put a lot of energy into his short speech and had to be helped by Juno dressed as an elegant elf with red tights and a funny hat.
“If headmaster says the reward is good, it has to be!” Abigail had to scream in Luca’s ear as the sudden hubbub erupted, students stampeding to the exit in search of pumpkins or discussing in groups if it was worth the effort and what are their chances among three thousand youths. Some young pairs started dancing, some fatter kids went to check out the menu, Luca’s girl companions called a quick conference.
“I think the roof has greater chances of good pumpkins, oh!” Miranda bent down to put her finger on an orange fruit camouflaged among the blinking eyes, the palm of her hand displayed number 10.
“My lucky day? Alright, time to run! We can’t share the score!” she exclaimed smiling mischievously as she darted out leaving her twin Nadine standing there.
“I want to try too, seems like a fun game.” Luca said goodbye and turned to leave too, keeping in mind that he had a helper well-versed in school’s architecture, that maybe played this game herself.
“So, where to go?” he asked Abigail as he jogged looking down, hoping to find something as Miranda did.
“Garden, there are always a lot on trees, underwater, and hidden in shrubs. There is one!” Abigail spotted the pumpkin inside a skull laying among the pile of bones adding to the new atmosphere of the school, the red light ever-present even outside the dining hall. She focused from the get-go, eager to help the boy and establish some bond.
“Thanks!” Luca looked at the number 20 with some hope for the grand reward, he let Abigail whom he has been dragging the whole time go and went out. Outside lawn made into a field of mist-covered tombstones with Pukwudgies dressed as ghouls jumping from behind them to scare passers-by. Luca had some trouble reaching the gardens, Pukwudgies chased him ferociously punching the parts near his hips if let come too close. Good news on the road, he and Abigail earned another 100 points, as the students before them somehow missed six pumpkins, or he run so fast as to be the first one here.