Fallon was so excited that she had gotten picked to work on the invatation committee for the ball. She had never been to the ball and she was really excited about it.

She walked into the kitchen and took in the delicious smell of cake. After she caught the scent, she looked around the kitchen to see that a few people were already there. She saw that people were snatching seats so she took one near one of the Slytherin prefects. I think her name's Nancy... she thought trying to remember her name.

Fallon looked around and saw Mr. Masterson was sitting on the other side of the room. She also spotted Professor Carlton somewhere near the girl who seemed to be baking the delicious smelling cake. After taking in her surroundings, Fallon sat there quietly taking in the delicious smells.

Excited about what happened during dinner, Lysandra couldn't believe that she was chosen to be a part of the invitations committee for the alumni ball. After she was done eating, she left the great hall and went to the kitchen. There were a few people there already so she went and sat by a group of Slytherins. She saw Professor Carlton and Mr.Masterson already there. She was so excited, she could barely keep herself in her seat.

Vashti was quite excited to be a part of the Invitations Committee. That was the one she'd been hoping for, although she was sure the other three would've been great. Especially Food Committee! Yum! Entering Molly Weasley's Charmed Kitchen, she saw she wasn't the only one there, but she didn't really know any of the others who were there. Hm. Time to make new friends then, yes? But who to talk to? Hmmm. For now, she'd quietly take a seat.

Vanessa nodded in Gold's direction. She watched as she worked on her cake and it did smell verrrryyyyy delicious. "It does smell delicious. Can I have a final taste once you're done?" She asked hoping it would be a yes. She was a sucker for baked goods.



Vanessa turned from Gold and saw her little sister. She gave her a smile and put a hand on her shoulder. "Holding up a little better?" She asked curiously. She wondered if she was doing any better than her. "Anyways, it's going to be exciting working together on the committee, huh?" She asked.

Keeley smiled slightly awkwardly at Professor Carlton, one of her favorite teachers. But the lady probably didn't remember her, as professors never really did. Brushing her bright red hair aside, she pulled out her sketchbook and started doodling. Some habits die hard.

Taylor listened to Gold's and Vanessa's little conversation.

"Oh hello! Would you like to help?" Taylor said to Vanessa.

Taylor was glad to see someone else joining them. It was nice to have a small group once in a while. While they were talking, Taylor watched in amazement as Gold starts charming and baking. It started to smell wonderful! Taylor wanted to help but she didn't know what to do at all!

"Gold, how can I help?"

Taylor wanted to call Gold Goldie too but didn't know if she would like it. Goldie was a nice name and Taylor already thought of it the moment Gold told her her name. Sigh.

And to think Taylor didn't even know many spells! How was she suppose to help? She felt a little left out that she didn't know anything. Vanessa probably knew more than her too! She looked way smarter and is probably older than her too. Making friends can be so hard!

Wow! It was starting to smell better and better!

"Can I also get a little final taste?"

Taylor haven't helped much but she did truly wanted a taste.

Gold grinned up at Vanil-LAH, as a knife split each cake layer into a horizontal half, pretty much on its own, courtesy a simple enchanment. "Definitely," the sixth year laughed, as she set one layer, split into crumbs, aside and, picking up a brush, "dusted" loose crumbs away. "You can have a piece, if you would like that. I can't possibly eat all of this, myself."

The recipe she had somewhat followed, had aimed for twelve or so servings. That was QUITE a lot, if you ask Gold.


Oh! Taylor had been quiet for such a long while! Gold looked up, surprised when the girl spoke again. Their conversation seemed to have drifted off, as Taylor chose not to pursue most of what they had been discussing. But that was alright. Change can be good.

"Sure, you can help," she told Taylor, with a nod. "Maybe you could levitate the cake-layers, into the tray?" She set one down. "The charm is Wingardium Leviosa. It's a pretty simple one, if you don't know it already. Just give your wand a flick-and-swish, and say the incantation." She acted out the wand movement, for Taylor to ask. "You can make each cake-layer rise into the air, and then gently set it down on the table," Gold said, cheerfully. "You can also sprinkle the frosting on each layer after you've set it down, if you want to." She smiled, at the younger Gryffindor.

OOH, final taste!

"Of course, Taylor."

Antonia looked up, startled that anyone would bother to speak to her. There was an older girl here, a girl wearing the Slytherin tie like herself, but this one had something different, a badge. Ah, she was the prefect, of course! Antonia's dad had told her all about what the prefects at Hogwarts did, how they set an example for the other students and helped resolve problems, ah yes.

"Hi, Nancy, I'm ---", Antonia paused a moment. "Antonia. Sure, you're welcome to join me." Antonia had evaded all contact up to this point, she guessed it was time she became a bit more sociable or else she wouldn't be here. Worrying about what was up with her father wasn't going to change anything. She sniffed. "Something smells REALLY good, doesn't it?" Finally, Antonia smiled. The fragrance reminded her of back home, when her mother used to cook. My, that was a long time ago, when Antonia had just been a little girl.

Amy walked inside the room, clutching at her slip of parchment she took her place in the corner of a room, figiting with the hem of her dress she grabbed her and pen to take notes and waited for the meeting to start

OOC: Since it's about midway through the school year, I'm going to assume that by now, Lexi at least know everyone's character's name. ...and, I'm pretty sure I got everyone who's here in this post, but if not, then my apologies.






"It's alright, Miss Laksh. You two can just carry on as you've been doing," she said, assuring the girl that she and Taylor wouldn't be in the way once the meeting got underway. After all, the charmed kitchen was fairly large, so it was likely the meeting could be held without anyone ever having to get in someone else's way or disturb them. "I'm going to start the meeting now, but you two have fun." She smiled at both Gold and Taylor then turned to start the meeting.



With a charmed piece of parchment and a quill following right behind her, Lexi circulated the room and took note of which students had already arrived.

"Vanessa Campbell," she told the quill, as it jotted down exactly what she'd said. Lexi nodded and smiled toward the Gryffindor girl as she said her name.



" Captain Brant DeVaice," she continued, nodding a greeting to the Gryffindor Quidditch captain. The quill quickly jotted down Brant's name, as well. "...and Sophia Diggory." The quill added her name, as well.



"Prefect Nancy Hudonson," Lexi said, smiling at the girl who'd calculated some numbers for her just a few days ago. She nodded a greeting in reply to the girl's hello.



"...and Antonia Dumont," Lexi said, recalling that someone had told her Antonia's father was a former Hogwarts professor. She smiled at Antonia as the quill added her name to the list.



"Bonnie Campbell," she told the quill, briefly wondering if Bonnie and Vanessa were related somehow. Although, it could just be possible that just happen to have the same last name. Lexi's mouth widened into a smile when Bonnie cheerfully greeted her. "Hello, Miss Campbell."



Out of habit, Lexi started to tell the quill to add Constantine and Jadyn Masterson to the list, but she stopped herself just in time. "Constantine," she greeted, leaning over to playfully tap Jadyn on the nose.



"Fallon McCarthy," she said, noticing that she was nearly done with making a list of the students who were present. This meant that several of the students had yet to arrive, but Lexi didn't worry---she knew they'd be here soon.



"Lysandra Malfoy," Lexi greeted, turning towards the quill to check her list as she said this. Hmm...just three more to jot down then they could get underway.



"Vashti Greenwell," Lexi said, the quill hurrying along as she said the name aloud.



"Keeley Smith and..."



"...Amy Samson," Lexi finished, grabbing the quill and parchment out the air.



"First off, welcome to the first meeting of the Invitations Committee. We've got about a week to create and send off the invitations for the Ball. I know that sounds like a really short amount of time, but with the help of magic, we'll definitely be able to get everything done in time," she said. She laid the list of name off to the side before turning back to the group.

"What we need to work on is designing the invitations, figuring out what the invitations will say, and then of course owling them to the appropriate people," she continued. "We'll need to coordinate with the Decorations Committee as far as colors and designs, though, but lets start off with a few color and design ideas of our own." She grew quiet and glanced around the room, waiting to hear the ideas of the Invitations Committee members.

OOC: Mmkay, so...what we're starting with are ideas for the colors and designs of the invitations. So feel free to go ahead and talk amongst yourselves and share ideas that you come up with. If you're just now arriving at the meeting, feel free to just jump on in.

A week? Katie shifted in her seat, letting go of a curl she had been twirling around her finger absently and brushed the strand of hair from her face as she listened to Professor Carlton. A week was sort, but she had a point. Magic would speed things up, and it made sense - the alumni students would need to be informed with enough time for them to prepare and get their shedules in order, and for the winged beasts owls to deliver their invitations in the first place.

When the charms Professor finished, Katie raised her hand before speaking. "What about making four different invitations, one for each of the houses? Blue and bronze for former Ravenclaws, yellow and black for the former Hufflepuffs and so on?" She suggested as the idea came to her, "Or would that be tricky? We'd probably need some list of what house each and every past student was from.." And if there wasn't such a thing, then, well.. that idea would flopped. She had another, "Or we could make one type of invitation for everyone, designed and colored to fit all the houses. Maybe with all four house crests, or with the house mascots - a badger, lion, eagle and snake on the front, or something? We could use magic to animate them to wave hello, move or make sounds."

Keeley looked up from her doodle ideas, seeing that the lesson had started. She put her book back in her messenger bag, ideas of invitations already formed in her head. But for now, just answering about some color schemes would be nice. Certain ideas for this had been bouncing around her brain, but she just deccided to answer her favorite. "What about different shades of blue?"

Fallon smiled as Professor Carlton read off her name. She was glad that the Professor had remembered her name, but she guessed that that was her job.

She listened carefully as Professor Carlton explained what they were to be doing. It sounded simple enough. Fallon thought that the color thing might be a problem when it came to the decoration commitee because that is just a bunch more people trying to agree on one idea.

Fallon turned to face a girl who seemed about her age. Having different invites in house colors seemed to be a really good idea. "Using house colors might make them a little more personal." Wow, that sounded stupid.

Vanessa laughed. "That would be great, the cake looks fantastic by the way." She said nodding her head. "Or have I already said that?" She asked giggling at herself. She couldn't help herself, it looked amazing..and smooth and delicious and well great.



Vanessa smiled at Professor Carlton as she said her name. She thought about the designs and colors for the invitations for a few seconds. A few ideas came in her mind and she didn't know if she would raise her hand or not. The ideas of the other people on the committee were quite good actually but then again would it take long to make all the invitations that way though? With all of the house colors? "I agree, using the house colors would be a great idea." She said nodding her head in agreement.

Gold nodded, at Professor Carlton. "Thanks, professor," she said, glad that she and the cakeyy were not going to be a hindrance. She levitated what she aimed to be the middle cakey-layers, on to an empty tray, and tipped cherry topping on to each. She frowned for a moment, then, wondering what else she could possibly add to make the cake richer, and then decided she could go for walnuts. YUMMEH!

Of course, she would have to crush them first.

Tipping some walnuts into a mortar, she charmed the pestle to ground them. When they were broken into fairly small pieces, little chunks that were not too fine at all, Gold said a quiet "Finite Incantatem," to cause the pestle to stop. Then she placed it aside, and sprinkled the chunky-powdery walnut on to each of the middle cakey-layers. Levitating the final cakey-layer on to the second, the Gryffindor patted reserved crumbs onto the frosting at the sides, and tipped the remaining cherry topping onto the top.

"I don't remember," she chuckled, when Vanessa spoke again. "I think you might have." She chuckled again, as she waited for Taylor to work on the first layer of the cake, if she wanted to. All they needed now was the first layer, after all. Then they could just levitate the top two onto it, and chill the cake - simple charm-work.

Gold was about to say something else, when Professor Carlton officially started the meeting most of the students in the Charmed Kitchen were there, for. The sixth year fell quiet, after giving Vanessa a small but warm smile, and trained her green eyes on the now, almost-finished cake. It smelled delicious, no doubt about that.

RAWR.

Antonia was shocked, the professor knew her name! She smiled in spite of herself, and began to listen intently to what the group had to say.

"I agree with the idea of personalizing the invitations by using house colors for each individual house," she said. "I think there should be some main theme which is common to all of them, some type of picture which symbolizes the event or whatever, but then they would all be done in the different shades. They would be real keepsakes, I'm sure."

"Hmm...it looks like most of you are suggesting house-themed invitations, so we'll go with that," Lexi said, with a smile. She turned to Keeley, who'd suggested invitations with various shades of blue. "...and we can use Keeley's idea for the Ravenclaw invitations, of course." So with step one behind them, the Invitations Committee now needed to figure out---"Oh, and what about wording? Of course we need the normal who, what, when, and where, but do any of you have any suggestions about anything specific with how we word this?"

Fallon tried to think hard about this. She had a few ideas, but she wanted to share the best one first. "How about something like: Come to an enchanting evening of dancing and fun. It doesn't have to be worded like that, but something along those lines." That sounded good to Fallon. "And then we could give the date and times of the ball."

Fallon smiled. She was very proud of her suggestion and hoped that someone would be able to add on to it.

Lysandra put her thinking cap on. How could they word it. Maybe we could put 'Hogwarts invites you to their very first Almuni Ball were there will be dancing, music and food. So come and have yourself a good time' and then add were and when it will be.

"hmm that sounds great." Brant said. "Did someone say make the mascots animated I think I can do that" he said while straching his head "How would everyone like to have them animated?" he asked while looking at the professor if it was okay.

While the other students discussed ideas, Katie listened and thought over Professor Carlton's question. "What about something like 'The staff and students of Hogwarts would like to welcome you back for a special ball in honor of those who've left school and those still attending' or.. no, that's not great. Hmm," Katie murmured, the corners of her lips turning down. "Something.. to make it sound as awesome as it is, to make it sound magical." She would have to think about it more.

Jadyn giggled when she got prodded on the nose by the nice lady. But, it didn't take long for her to become restless, so Neo counter-attacked it by bouncing her on his knee. She giggled and then went back to looking around the room at all the people.

"I like the idea of house themed," Masterson nodded. Hmmm, this Carlton woman seemed to be handling this meeting well.

He liked her.

Taylor realized she was just standing there for a second. What was going on? Why wasn't she talking to Vanessa at all? Was she shy? She decided she
would go and try to be friends with Vanessa after the cake was finished and all.

Oh oh. Taylor wasn't doing anything after Gold had told her the instructions. She quickly went to work levitating the first layor of cake on the tray.

"Wingardium Leviosa" Taylor said nervously. That was the first spell she's done! Her parents are very strict about magic and always insisted for her to learn magic at Hogwarts for whatever reason. Taylor always guessed that it was because magic can be dangerous sometimes so a magical school would be the best to do magic instead.

Taylor swished her wand the way Gold showed her. The cake layor started floating. Taylor was really excited. She had never done things like that before. The cake layor was looking so delicious too! Taylor soon realized that this spell was getting pretty easy just like Gold had said.

After the cake layor was on the tray, Taylor started putting the frosting. That wasn't hard at all. It looks like there was going to be about 12 servings. The more cake there were, the better.

Gold gave Taylor an encouraging smile, glad to see the first year get the hang of the Levitation Charm, so quickly. She watched as the frosting was sprinkled on, beaming quietly.

"Great job," Gold said, as she levitated the two top layers, on to the first, and pointed her wand at the cake. "Glacius," she said quietly, intending on a blast of air, one chilly enough to serve her purpose. Once the cake was sufficiently cold and yummeh, Gold sprinkled some more of the crushed walnuts on top of it, before taking it in. Merlin, she hadn't expected it to look this good. It really did seem like a perfectly delicious tower of chocolate. She was allowed to be a bit proud, right?

Though, of course, Taylor had helped and everything.

But, before she could think more yummeh, cake-thoughts, Gold had other stuff to do. Namely, cleaning up. She didn't ask Taylor to help with that because, you know, it seemed sort of odd, asking someone to help you clean up. Sooo Gold cleaned up the dishes and trays and cakey-pans she had used. That was, of course, a simple case of "Fixate," "Geminio," and "Locomotor wash-cloths." Gosh, charms can make life SOOO much easier! Once the utensils had been washed and dried with a drying charm, Gold returned them to their proper places, and vanished the crumbs and other, little messes that had been created in the process.

Rinsing her hands, then, she eyed the YUMMEH! cake. Question was, what to do with it, now? Gold had no thoughts of carrying it all away. She turned to Taylor. "You wanted a final taste, right?" She grinned, though she kept her voice low, so as not to disturb the meeting going on. "Help yourself."

Then she looked up, saw that Professor Carlton had fallen silent for a while, while the students chatted among themselves about invitation cards and stuff, and decided now would be the best time to speak to Professor Carlton. "Professor, is it okay if I leave the cake, here? You can share it with the committee members, or do whatever you would like, with it."

There.

Bonnie chewed her lip and tapped her chin. Something magical... "Well, for the colours, if we do do house colours, we could make the different house colours in the bottom corners, the fading into the middle. And, um... something on the lines of, Hogwarts invites you to the one and only Almuni Ball, and then like from ... to ...! Hope to see you enjoying yourself there...or something like that..." It didn't really sound right... Hmm...