He was so freaking excited!

Demarcus couldn’t help put invade a few people’s bubble as he wandered around aimlessly through the hall. He couldn’t help put bump into them with every step he took. Occasionally he’d reach out a hand to touch one of the tuxes or dresses that these complete strangers were wearing. They were so pretty. Luckily Demarcus had made it look like he was trying to push his way through the crowd, which wasn’t really hard to do with being so short.

But wow. He had never seen so many people in one place before. This was a fact that mummy and daddy needed to take him out more instead of making him do his chores every single day. Who does chores these days anyway?

Then he heard the music coming from the Great Hall when he got bored looking at some old lady’s bizarre-looking dress. Demarcus glanced over his shoulder and a grin appeared on his face. People were dancing in there without him!

Even though he wasn’t out there on the dance floor yet, that didn’t stop him from waltzing in the entrance hall solo. He was tempted to randomly grab some lady’s hand and start dancing with her there, but that was when he noticed a familiar face among the crowd.

“Heeey, Gray-Gray!” Demarcus shouted enthusiastically, twirling toward Grayson. He continued to twirl around her, waiting for her to jump right in, humming with the music. Before she could start waltzing with him, however, he ended up tripping over. After he had hit the floor with a soft thud, he immediately sat up and said, “I’m okay!”

Half-tempted to just go over to a random person and ask them to test the juice for her, Grayson had continued looking around. She'd felt strange just standing there holding a glass of pumpkin juice anyway, but she figured nobody out here would know about what she'd done inside at the food table. So if she asked right, she thought she might be able to find out if Professor Vindictus had tried to pull one over on her. As far as she remembered, he'd picked up one of the other pitchers of juice when he'd refilled her glass, but she couldn't be sure. Especially since she hadn't known if he'd actually figured out what she'd done anyway. The whole Mr. Masterson babbling thing had been sort of obvious, but she'd already known what she'd done. And she'd been fairly certain if he'd drank out of her glass, he shouldn't have ended up babbling anyway.

Starting to work her way through the small crowds still in the entrance hall, looking at each person to decide if they would be good for her tester, she blinked as she heard an exuberant greeting. Not to mention a familiar nickname. Making sure she wouldn't be at risk of ending up with juice all over her dress, or her sneakers, she turned to look as Demarcus twirled over to her. Before she found herself practically having to spin in a circle as he kept moving around her. "Someone's going to get awfully dizzy," she commented, before he tripped and she found herself stepping back slightly to avoid him crashing into her. This was sort of starting to become a habit of his, it seemed, but at least she was getting better at avoiding an actual collision. And at least she wasn't having to spin anymore. And she giggled a little as he bounced back from his fall. "That's good. I think. I still think maybe the spinning might have been a bad idea," she said, eyeing him in amusement. At least the music filtering out from the dance floor wasn't icky waltz music, so if he really had been trying to dance, it might be easier to not get injured.

Obviously he hadn’t listened to the young Ravenclaw while he was twirling around her. Yes, he knew that he’d probably get dizzy from all that twirling. He had plenty of experiences with twirling, getting dizzy, and colliding with someone or something. But that was the fun of doing so! Anyway, twirling as often as he did gave him plenty of practice so that he wouldn’t throw up if he ever had the chance to ride on a rollercoaster one day.

And that ‘rollercoaster ride’ of his had come to a complete stop. Say hello to the floor!

“Since when had that been a bad idea?” Demarcus asked, looking up at Grayson as if she were crazy. Spinning was fun, and doing fun things was always a good idea. Such a silly little Ravenclaw girl she was. “And for your information, that wasn’t just spinning around. I was totally getting my groove on and you didn’t join in all the fun with me.”

He stuck out his bottom lip and gave her a look, crossing his arms as he continued to sit on the floor. Even though he had been raised to not pout, the boy couldn’t help but do so. How else was he supposed to make Grayson feel guilty for not dancing with him? He then looked down at her shoes and blinked. Oh, she so would.

The pouting act was quickly forgotten when he looked back up at Grayson with a grin. He opened his mouth to give her a lovely comment about how unique she had been with her shoe choice, but no words came out. His eyes had wandered down to a cup that she was holding in her hand. “Is that pumpkin juice?!” Demarcus asked excitedly, snatching the cup from her and placing it up to his lips. Mmm!

Diana was nervous, for this was the first time she was going to a ball. She wore a simple but pretty black sleeveless knee-length dress and her hair was tied back into a sleek ponytail. She walked nervously and spotted Jack standing with an older guy at the Entrance Hall."That must be Desmond." She bit her lip, took a deep breath and went up to them and said," Hi Jack! And you must be Desmond?" She turned a faint shade of red with shyness and wished frantically that they liked her.

Jack saw Diana walk up to him and his cousin and his jaw dropped. Literally. He was quick to close it though and he regained his vioce. "Wow... you look amazing" he said. He was speechless.


Desmond saw his cousins date walk up to them and he saw his cousins jaw drop as well. He smirked and had to hold back a laugh as he saw that his cousin was speechless.

That was a first.

"Yes, I'm Desmond" he said answering her. "I'm afraid I must leave you two love birds, I think a saw a few girls here who were in my classes." he said. He gave a reassuring smile to Jack before he turned and walked away.

Grayson giggled a little as Demarcus looked up at her from the floor with that look. Like he was trying to be so serious and she was completely insane, but the topic was just too hilarious to believe it. And he obviously had misunderstood her meaning behind her comments. "Y'know, I'm not against fun. I just had some back inside the Great Hall," she pointed out, before breaking into another bout of giggles. "It's a bad idea when it makes you fall down. And I was more thinking I was going to get dizzy from having to turn around in circles to pay attention to you, silly." Had he missed that fact, in all his exuberant spinny-dancy-ness.

As he started to pout, she bit down on her lower lip hard to stop the next bout of giggles. Pouting wasn't going to make her feel guilty. If Professor Vindictus hadn't managed to make her feel guilty about the potion incident, Demarcus sitting down there pouting that she hadn't joined in with his spazziness wasn't. But when she saw him glance at her shoes, she watched him intently. If he made any sort of comment, she'd kick him. And just cause she was wearing Converse didn't mean it wouldn't hurt. He was sitting down there, so she could hit parts of him that wouldn't have been as easy if he'd been standing. Not with her practically midget-ness.

And the fact he'd stopped pouting to grin at her told her he was going to say something. Shifting forward a little onto the balls of her feet, she prepared for who knew what. Even though she knew she couldn't really hold a grudge against him for too long. Until he saw the glass in her hand, and she blinked as the topic changed. "Um, yeah. It is . . .," she said, as he snatched it from her hand. Wondering if she should say something, about the possibility the professor had given her some of the juice she'd spiked, she quickly decided not to as he put the glass to his lips. If it was, things would get way more amusing, and if it wasn't, she'd know Professor Vindictus wasn't as sneaky and evil as he could have been. Not to mention she'd sort of decided to stay away from pumpkin juice for the rest of the night anyway. It was too dangerous, considering she didn't want to get caught in her own prank.

Cadi continued to watch Varius with the air of one who was on the defensive end of a duel. This kids was weird, and she wasn't sure what he was going to do next. When he called her Codface, she opened her mouth to tell him off for his rudeness, but then he was yelling at her and she stumbled backwards a little in shock, her hand moving toward her concealed wand, though she didn't draw it yet. He thought that SHE killed Set. Marching back toward the boy, eyes blazing, she poked him hard in the chest. "You listen carefully, alright, so you don't understand me again. I didn't kill anyone. Someone murdered him, and then Jake Upstead found him dead in the library. I would not be capable of doing something so horrible. As for the Common Room, I didn't know what I was doing, and I woke up hours later in St. Mungo's... where I was kept for a good long while. So, calm yourself down because I'm not some psycho out to murder anyone. I was a little girl who had been through far too much pain," she explained to him firmly, making sure he understood her clearly.

Once she had finished, she backed away slightly and said, "You weren't being funny. You were being mean. There's a difference. Now, if you'll excuse me..." Cadence trailed off and turned to begin walking away from the young man confidently, her dress swishing slightly as she walked and her heels clicking against the floor.

She looked angry. Violent. Seething. Like she was about to kill him like she had that other poor person. And. Then. She. Poked. Him. In. The. Chest. "OW!!!!! Quit that, crazy lady!" He groaned, rubbing the place that was now throbbing as a result of her brutal finger attack! She then began to explain to him as to who killed him, why she did this and that and blablabla. He looked down at his dress robes to see if he had accidentally walked out with his mothers badge for work again because this here girl was talking as if she was lounging on a chez lounge spilling her heart out to a shrink. "I'm sorry, but i'm not my mother. You should be telling this sort of thing to a professional. I can't help you and your mental problems," he cautioned her with the utmost sincerity, pity coming across his face and he reached out a hand to reassuringly patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it. Life gets to the best of us..." even half-elves, he thought.

"You are correct. There IS a difference between funny and mean. Do you know what that is?" he tilted his head to the side as if to jibe her for a guess, "No? Well, i'll tell you. It's interpretation. I find MYself highly amusing. If you want to be high strung and take offense to it, then thats your mindset. HEY!" he shouted as he came up with a brilliantly, awesome, magnificent idea, "That's something else you can bring up to your shrink! How to see the funny side and to stop being so touchy. I bet you feel TONS better having met me now, yes?"

Now she was leaving. Wait. Why? Why was she leaving? Where was she going? She still hadn't put his outdoor cloak in the cloakroom yet! "I hope you're not going to vandalise anymore common rooms now!" he called after her, "Because if you are... well, you're going the wrong way!!! JUSTSOY'KNOW!"

Demarcus couldn’t help but stare at Grayson. She had to be joking, right? He sighed. The little Ravenclaw girl still had a lot to learn. It didn’t matter if you get dizzy from spinning around and around in circles. All that mattered was having fun, which was exactly what he had. Heck, even falling on the floor was a bit fun!

Though, it did make his bum hurt a little bit…

“What sort of fun did you exactly have in the Great Hall, then?” he asked, pulling the cup of pumpkin juice away from his mouth for just a moment. If she had actually had fun earlier, then he wanted to know what she did. Maybe he wanted to do whatever she did too, depending on whether he thought it was cool or not. Plus he was a little curious about what Grayson thought was fun as she clearly did not like spinning much.

And the cup was back up to Demarcus’ lips, making it seem like it had never been removed from them at all. Whether Grayson was giving him a legit answer to his question was on the back of his mind. In fact, he sort of wasn’t even paying attention to her. All that was on his mind was drinking all that pumpkin juice up. It was absolutely delicious!

“Awe, man, it’s all gone,” he said, shoving the cup back into Grayson’s hands. A frown appeared on his face and he looked up at her. “You should go back to wherever you got that stuff and get me another cup. Wait. You should take me with you so then I can hand this stuff out to more people. I can’t just let all that good pumpkin juice just sit there! ... Did you know that my sister Mary Annette loves pumpkin juice? It’s such a shame that she couldn’t come here. She loves stuff like this, especially all the dancing. … Hey! We should go dance! I happen to know a couple groovy dance moves.”

Grayson bit back another giggle as her comments about the spinning were met with a sigh. It didn't bother her much if Demarcus thought she was uteerly backwards when it came to fun. He hadn't been there for the attempt at sliding down the moving staircase's railing. Or any of her other forays during the term. She knew she had fun her own way, but she wasn't against letting him go after it his own way. That was part of what she liked about hanging around him, his craziness. Not too many people around who would seem perfectly comfortable sitting on the floor of the entrance hall during a ball, just to try to prove a point to her.

A bit of a speculative look crossed her face as Demarcus stopped drinking her pumpkin juice long enough to actually ask what she'd meant by her comment about having fun in the Great Hall, though. More because she wasn't entirely sure if she wanted to tell him before he tested the juice for her. Something told her it would be way more hilarious if she just let him wonder, at least until she got her answer as to if Professor Vindictus had tried to turn her prank around on her. "Probably not the sort of fun you would have thought of," she said cryptically, watching as the goblet moved back to his lips. Maybe now she could find out.

Her eyes widened as he drained the glass before shoving it back to her. She hadn't expected that at all, although she probably should have. With how focused he'd been on drinking. But she grinned as he started going off on how she should go retrieve him more. "The food table. That would be where the rest of the pumpkin juice is, but Professor Vindictus gave me that gobletful. Maybe we should go in, to get you some more. There's lots in there," she said facetiously, before trailing off a little as he just kept talking. Kind of like how Mr. Masterson had when she'd thought she'd been caught. At least he's not talking about how much he likes pies, she thought, biting back yet another giggle as it would seem to insane to explain why she'd reacted that way. It seemed Professor Vindictus actually was fairly sneaky, though, which brought her back to the thought about idolizing the professor.

Until the actual babbling registered in her mind, and she couldn't hold the giggles back. Biting her tongue to stop, she watched Demarcus for a while longer. It was nice to know she still had her potionmaking abilities, what with having been teaching herself for most of the term. Reaching down a little to try and get him standing again, she couldn't hide the fact she still wanted to crack up at the insanity. "We'd need to get inside to start dancing. And maybe you can find more juice, send it to Mary Annette or something." Hopefully the potion would wear off before it became a big issue. At least she'd have something funny to watch, listen to. If he continued babbling.

Maddox sighed, and walked back over to his wife, and tried to listen to the conversation that was going on between herself, and Amanda. He didnt know Amanda well, and didn't want to interrupt their conversation.



Then suddenly, Maddox heard the one voice he hadn't heard in almost a year. He turned and grinned hugely! "PENS!" He shouted, and ran over to her. He pulled her up into a huge bear hug, and wasn't going to let go. "How are you? I've missed you! Where have you been!?" He asked before she could answer. He hadn't seen his best friend in so long. What a reunion!

What? Penny was here?

Lima was totally distracted from anything else that was going on when she saw her best friend join them.

"Penny!" she squealed as she wrapped her arms around the woman even though it was hard to with Mads hugging her as well. Meh, he needed to let go at least a little she she could hug her better.

And they must have looked really weird right now, but she didn't care.

All Penny could do was laugh, even though she could not breathe. Then she felt Lima's arms around her. She laughed harder. "Penny... can't... breathe!" she said in between laughing and gasping. She forgot what Mads bear hugs were like. She missed them so much. This going a year without seeing them was aweful.

Maddox realized how tightly he was holding Penny and let her go. "Heh, sorry." He grinned hugely, and grabbed Lima's hand. "How are you? How is everything? Aren't you working at the Ministry? Why haven't--well I know why I havent seen you." He grinned, he was to excited for words. He missed Penny so badly.

Aww. Poor Penny was being suffocated by her husband. Snort.

She smiled when he let the woman breath a little. That made her happy because she didn't want Penny to be squished. She squeezed Mads' hand and blinked. And he was supposed to be the calm one here? Wow.

"Mads, calm down. You're acting like a child on a sugar rush here."Though it was adorable.

"So how have you been?" That was cutting across all the other questions she figured.

Penny laughed harder. "Its all good." she said with a smile. Wow Mads can barely talk. That was almost a first. She giggled. "I am good. Everything is well. Yes I am working at the Ministry." She said, all awnsers to the questions. "What about you two? Can't call? Or write?" she asked picking on them. She so missed her two best friends.

Grayson was being way to quiet. Why was it that he always had to do all of the talking?

“There’s a lot more pumpkin juice at the food table?” Demarcus asked, his eyes widening a bit. What was wrong with these people? All of that pumpkin juice should have been gone by now with all the dancing that they were doing. The boy sighed and shook his head. He and Grayson would be handing out pumpkin juice to everyone after they had gone to refill his cup. “Professor Vindictus? The flying instructor? … I don’t like flying. It makes me queasy and stuff. No matter how hard anyone tries, getting me on a broom is impossible.”

And how he wanted to ride on a rollercoaster was another question. At least you couldn’t fall off those and end up breaking every bone in your body because of all the restraints. Hmm. That’s what broomsticks needed! “I think broomstick companies should think about installing seatbelts on their brooms. Then I would give flying another go. Maybe,” he said to Grayson randomly.

He blinked when she tried getting him up off the floor. “Jeepers! You want to get in that dance room bad, don’t you?” he asked, pulling himself up from the floor so that he was standing on his own two feet again. “Nah. Forget about the pumpkin juice. Mary Annette should’ve come tonight. No pumpkin juice or dancing or fun for her!”

Demarcus paused for a moment and grabbed Grayson’s hand. “Hey! Did you know that I have a cat? Her name is Bubbles. She’s sleeping up in my room right now.” He then moved a little closer to Grayson and continued at a soft whisper, “She farts sometimes.”

Grayson snickered as Demarcus actually seemed surprised at her revelation there was more pumpkin juice inside the hall. Even as she wondered if it was actually him speaking or the babbling beverage she was fairly certain had been in her glass. Not that she could fault Professor Vindictus for giving it to her. Although she partly wished the professor was oddly impressed by her actions, she couldn't blame him for trying to catch her in it. Not that it had worked, since she still thought herself too smart to fall for that. "Of course there's more in there. I mean, there's other stuff to drink too, but this is Hogwarts. How could there not be pumpkin juice?," she commented, before eyeing him as he went off on a tangent about her head of house.

"Yes Professor Vindictus. He thought I'd done something, but I convinced him otherwise." Even though she actually had done something. As evidenced by Mr. Masterson's babbling about pie, and now the amusing, yet not really surprising babbling of Demarcus. Which was partly why she wasn't being completely truthful, since who knew what the Huffie would say while under the influence. "I've never done a lot of flying. Can't do much outside of Hogwarts, so I've never had the urge to, y'know?" Witch in Muggle land. She wasn't sure how her mother had done it, beyond the not actually being able to perform magic. At least she hadn't been restrained in her pranks while at home. She could always hope that Ministry thing didn't have anything to do with her. "Don't you think seatbelts on brooms would look funny, though?"

She rolled her eyes as he interpreted her attempt at getting him to stand up again as an urge to get inside to dance. Not exactly, even though she was beginning to think dancing with Demarcus would be hilarious. Way better than the stuffy stuff from that lesson, not to mention being without the weird tension from Evelyn Flores. As far as she knew, at least. And it had gotten him back off the floor, so she looked up at him with a grin. "Kinda harsh for her. Makes sense though." May as well go with the babbling. At least she'd be entertained, not that he didn't usually entertain her without the help of her surreptitious potions.

Until he grabbed her hand, and she looked down at it with eyes widening. Until she was forced to bite back a giggle at his revelation. "Guess it's a good thing she's in your room then," she whispered back. "Wouldn't want her to fart around all these people." But she shrugged. "I have a ferret," she said in a more normal voice, as if discussing pets was common at balls. "His name is Draco, and he's probably up in my room pouting that I didn't bring him down with me." Considering she brought Draco pretty much everywhere else. But she'd gone with just her Converse for now, figuring not everyone might be comfortable with a ferret wandering around and not wanting him to get trampled. Especially since she was without pockets or anything to keep him in.

Lyra pressed out the front of her dress after returning from the lady's room. Never before had she felt the need to visit a place more than she did tonight and poor Christian was left alone every time, not that he didn't have people to talk too. She sighed, looking to the dancing floor wanting to make a few rounds for a change. Christian seemed to be taking his time, but she would eventually find someone to dance with, that was for sure.

Gold had returned to the Recieving Line and Chris had agreed to go find some old friends to reunite and talk with but wasn't having much luck. Naturally out of all these people crowding the place, only a small precentage of them would have been at school when he was. Walking in and out of the crazily packed dacne floor. He past by a lady very quickly.

o.O

Was that...? The Head Boy backtracked until he found the woman that was wearing the same dress he had seen a few seconds before. Her back was towards him now and he tapped her shoulder. Who was she?

Now who in the world was tapping her shoulder? Lyra glanced to find someone slightly familiar and a squinting of the eyes helped a little more. "Oh my goodness," she shrugged, touching her chin to her shoulders in a flirty way. "Is that you, Chris?" If it was, my-my he'd changed and quite well.

He was actually nervous to see who he had tapped on the shoulder. What if he got the wrong person, like he didn't tap the one he thought he saw? What if she thought he was some creep and hexed him? Oh well he had already done it...and OH SHE WAS TURNING AROUND!!!

"Sorry to bother you Miss you just looked liek someone I knew..." he trailed off as she began to speak and then...flirt with him? Why was she looking at him like that? He grinned and blushed slightly his tie feeling awfully tight all of a sudden.

Then it clicked, he knew her. "Lyra Noir is that you?" he said with a hige bright grin. She was one of Anna Greingoth's good friends and a friend of his towards the end. "What did you think this was a Pink Ladies convention?" he chuckled. Yep he heard Anna talk about it once or twice on Prefect duties.

Hahahahaha! Lyra let out a giggle of laughter then looked around. "Why is Banana here already?" She knew that girl had better show up at some point. "And you, Mister," she paused dramatically to feel his upper arms and gasp with a surprising effect. "Wow! What big biceps you have?" With a wiggle of her eyebrow and an innocent grin to accompany. "Can those strong arms twirl me across the dance floor?" Yup she was asking, no harm in that, right?

Chris chuckled and looked around with his old Hufflepuff buddy. "You haven't seen her either? Well she must be around her somewhere. I talked to her about a month ago at the Job Fair we had." he stopped looking she wpuld turn up eventually. "She's probably snogging up Cale somewhere." he grinned. Oh he was no gossip that was for sure!

Again with the blushing?! He felt her light touch on his arm and the squeeze that followed. Of course he had packed on some muscle a growing boy and all. Quidditch didn't hamper that either. "Well Quidditch and being a beater last term did some work." he chuckled as she then asked him to dacne.

Making a fake scandalized face he bowed slightly and then grinned before taking her hand and walking towards the dance-floor. "You took my part, I'm supposed to ask you!" he teased.

"Ewwwwww!"

Lyra was about to say something about Banana being at...a job fair? until Chris said something about her snogging Cale. MENTAL PICTURE. She wrinkled her nose, shaking her head slightly for added emotions. "T.M.I. there Chris," she couldn't help but laugh, showing that she was only kidding of course.

Then he explained about the nice muscles he acquired since she last saw him. "Awww, you're just being nice on yourself. It's just me. Be honest and just say that you've been working out. All guys do it." Including Christian, who was probably going to get mad that she was dancing with someone else but, HA! She beat him to the punch.

"Then next time ask faster." She gave a wink and linked her arm to his. "I'll let you lead. I'm a good follower."