This was going to be interesting, even though she couldn't believe that they would actually have a party during a Defence Against the Dark Arts class.

When professor Schirmer finished with the instructions, Nora walked over to the box with party decorations, and took as many balloons as she could. That is, as many as she could deal with.

Starting off with a few green balloons, she actually had fun throwing them in the air and then pointing her wand at them, muttering "Wingardium leviosa," so they would float some more. But the party hats... no. She wasn't going to wear one.

Jesifur twirled into a standing position. Once standing she walked over to the first two boxes. Jesifur grabbed an end of a table and unfolded the legs and locked them into position, then set the table on its legs. She reached into the box and grabbed an arm full of decorations. Jesifur shook out a very large cloth and lofted it above the table. It landed mostly on top of the table but a bit askew. She walked around the table smoothing it out and making sure it was evenly spaced. She jitterbugged back over to the box to get some more decorations.

After making sure that there were enough green balloons in the room (and, of course, some other colours, but Nora still preferred the green ones), she made her way to the second box. Taking a trestle table, she set it up, and then covered it with a pretty tablecloth. Next, she placed there a few paper plates, paper cups and plastic ustensils.

Wanting to help some more, Nora did the same things once again for another trestle table, but she used Accio to summon everything she needed, and Wingardium leviosa to place the super safe ustensils. Just to have a little bit of fun.

Whoah! All this running around and pacing around the room made Jonathan dizzy for a little while but still, it was fun setting up for this party. Jonathan did finish one table, how many tables were there anyway?

Jonathan passed by Kurumi and stopped. Wait! Kurumi? Jonathan faced her. He wanted to say 'hi' but she seems to be doing a lot and he's still holding a couple of stuffs himself as well. After hearing her offer to help, Jonathan shook his head "no need. I've got it covered." he smiled. At least, he think he does.

Jonathan looked at her again, "If you need any help as well just tell me" he added a wink and went onto the next table on the other corner.


Jonathan nodded when a younger gryffindor came to help him. "Uhmm, you could go get the utensils while i start putting all the paper plates and plastic cups into place." he smirked. They needed to double time on the preparation.

Violet had noticed the house elf come in with the tray laden with food and had been listening to other students talking to him as she walked over to where the party things were. They were so busy being friendly, they didn't seem to be able to figure out that what the elf needed was a table! She was relieved to finally see one get set up, but she decided that setting up some more was more important right now than decorating (maybe she could put some streamers on the tables after she set them up).

Violet wasn't sure how to use magic to open up and assemble a trestle table, but she knew just how to get them into position--"Wingardium Leviosa!" she called out, point her wand at a folded table and guiding it over to an empty spot. Then she walked over to the pieces and began putting the table together.

Maxwell walked over to the first box and started blowing up balloons he'd just started on his second balloon when it flew out of his hand and across the class room losing air as it was propelled across. Maxwell laughed at himself for a moment and went after the rouge balloon, this time he filled it and tied it shut. four or five balloons later he was done and started looking for the next thing he could help with.

Violet had a bit of trouble figuring out which bit went where, but she finally had two tables assembled and in place. She levitated a couple of tablecloths from across the room (she was rather pleased with how well her skill with Wingardium Leviosa had become after years of sneaking things out of rooms with it) and onto the tabletops, and now she was looking around for other things to decorate it with.

She thought she would like to hang streamers in loops along the sides, but she was having trouble finding any. Looking up, she noticed that a bunch of streamers were floating on the ceiling--it looked like they had put them all up there! Surely a few of them could be spared for the tables. She carefully pointed her wand at a single streamer at a time, each in a different color, and said "Descendo!", causing each streamer to float down into her hand (except for the one time she missed and hit a spitwad that had been thrown onto a rafter in a long-ago class--that was really gross to touch!).

Then she pulled the roll of Spell-O-Tape she always kept in her pocket (just in case--you never knew when you might need something like that) and begin to drape them along the sides of her tables in what she considered to be an artistic manner (though her governess might disagree).

Tiffany listened to the professor's instructions. She took out some streamers and balloons out from the first box and decided to stick them onto the edge of the ceiling and along it. She noticed that there were lots of senior students working together, using spells. However as for herself, she did not know which spell should she use and she didn't get anyone's helping hand either. Anyhow she had to do it on her own. She borrowed a ladder from the professor's and climbed up and stuck the balloons one by one.

Violet noticed another first year standing on a ladder and hanging balloons by hand. She hesitated for a moment, because she didn't want to seem bossy by interfering (her governess was always telling her to stop being so bossy or no one would like her), but she couldn't help wondering if she needed any help. Violet didn't know as many spells as the older students, but she did know the one to make things rise in the air. Or maybe this girl just liked climbing ladders--Violet could understand that sort of thing. But she decided she ought to work on her social skills anyway, so, standing at the bottom of the ladder, she called up, "Hey, do you want any help? I know a spell that will make those float up there--or I could just hand you balloons, if you prefer to do it that way."

Oh decorate. Heh. Lexi had been lost in her blissful thoughts and before she knew it there was an elf there with goodies and the whole darn place was nearly decorated. MEH. Getting up off of her bum she unholstered her wand and thought for a moment before simply shooting red and gold streamers from the tip of it as opposed to pushing through the little crowd to get to that box.

Yes so she added a dew more touches of red and gold here and there being sure to use a good sticking charm for the streamers she stuck to the ceiling. Hehe. Most of them, though, she just used to blast around the room willy nilly. It looked nice though, in her opinion. Hehehe.

Now, the decoration was ready. Time to set up the tables!! Raven help some students set up the tables. She arrange the utensils on the table.

It looked awesome now.

Jesifur reached into the box and lifted out some cups and plates. She walked over to the table and set them up on one side. Going back to the box she found a stack of napkins. She pulled them out and walked over to the table. Jesifur took the stack of napkins and split them into three smaller stacks. She held the small stack in her palm and took a cup and set it on the middle of the stack and twisted it in a clockwise direction. The napkins separated slightly forming a spiral fan pattern. Jesifur smiled, picking up the next stack she did the same. On the third stack she twisted the cup the opposite way and set all three stacks carefully on the table. They looked like little twisted towers. Awesome.

Jesifur took the cup and placed it back where it belonged. She picked up the large stack of plates and separated them into three smaller piles. Placing each stack next to a stack of napkins. She took three of the tallest cups and tied ribbons around them and placed forks in one, knives in the second and spoons in the third. She set the cups of silverware near the plates and napkins.

MJ went over to another First Year to help her with the tables she was setting up. The Slytherin was decorating them with streamers, so MJ grabbed an armful from the nearest box and carried them over. "Hi, I'm MJ," Well this Defense class was definitely bringing the shy girl out of her shell a bit! MJ beamed at Professor Schirmer, thinking that the woman had absolutely no idea how much this lesson was doing for one of the Ravenclaws. MJ held out a hat for the First Year she was helping. MJ's was already on her head, shock horror! She would never have just let go and had fun like this normally. And she hadn't even drunk the potion yet!

She goes up to the first box, retrieving several latex balloons and threads before finding a rather isolated part of the classroom. There, she blows the balloons and ties each of their ends into a knot. After that, she groups the balloons into three and ties their ends together with a thread.

A hand slipped into her robe, Aiden withdraws her wand, pointing it at a group of balloons before she makes a swishing continued by flicking movement with the piece of wood. "Wingardium Leviosa," she mutters as she hovers the group of balloons up in the air and hang it near the window. She proceeds the other groups of balloons at different locations each.

Violet looked up when she heard the other girl approach, glad both for the help and for the company. She had spent too much time alone growing up and still hadn't got the knack for socializing easily. Then she saw the party hat in the other girl's hand. Oh, Merlin, not again! What was it with these Hogwarts teachers, did they have a thing for making their students wear embarassing costumes? Hadn't dressing up like a clown in Transfiguration been enough?! But the other girl was obviously having fun herself and trying to be friendly. Violet definitely did not want to put on a silly hat, but she also didn't want to offend or embarrass the other girl. She finally wound up taking the hat from her and keeping it in her hand, hoping the other student wouldn't notice and might eventually forget about it.

"Thanks, I'm Violet P. Blackthorne," she said, holding out her hand (the hand not holding the hat. "I guess the next thing we could do would be to get some plates and cups and stuff for the tables."

Since the tables are already covered with tableclothes, Aiden takes some paper cups and plates before arranging them on the tables. Then, she gets some of those party hats (which she never wore before) and arranges them near the paper plates.

Wonder if she should put on some music? Wrocks are definitely in these days.

When she finally finished setting up those tables, plastic ustensils and paper plates and cups, Nora was super excited about the last part. She was about to fly!

... not really. But levitate. Same thing.

Making her way back to the boxes, she took a small bottle and stared at the pale blue thing inside it for a few moments. Alright. The happy memory. Seeing Elijah for the first time, that is. Silly or not, her tiny lizard made her happier than ever, even if he didn't purr like the cat she actually wanted to buy before seeing him.

Anyway. Concentrating on the memory, Nora drank whatever it was inside the small bottle and waited. At first, nothing happened, but, concentrating harder on the memory, her eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head when she started levitating.

She. Was. Flying.

...

Awesome.

MJ took the girl's hand and shook it, with a smile. "Yeah, there's a box full of paper tableware right here." She said, starting to pile items on the table. When the box was empty, she started laying plates out, trying to make a presentable pattern, but really; how much could you do with plates?

The little Ravenclaw unstoppered her potion and snifffed suspiciously at the blue liquid. She shrugged, and gulped it down.

"Oh thanks for letting me help out, Louisa. The levitation charm. Duh! I know how to do that I'll do that right now." Alyssa ran over to the streamers and taking out her wand she waved it at the streamers and said "Wingardium Leviosa". The streamers slowly floated up until it reached the same height as the other streamers Louisa had already glued them to the wall. Then she did the same to the rest of the streamers that were still lying on the floor. Soon there were streamers floating in the air above her head. "I'm all done here, Louisa. Again thanks for letting me help out with the streamers."



"August is hanging up the balloons the non-magical way? Now why didn't I think of that,"Alyssa thought to herself. She walked over to see what August was doing. That looked simple enough, so she gathered up all the balloons she had blown up, which was a handful, and brought them over to where August was hanging up the balloons. Then she turned back to where she had dropped some along the way, and brought them over too. She looked at how high August was hanging them. But he was tall, Alyssa knew that she wouldn't be able to reach that high, so she decided to work on a separate design and incorporate what he was doing with hers. She was glad that she had blown up all those balloons and she could definitely use the star shaped balloons that Kurumi had blown for the finishing touches.

So Alyssa started working on her design. She first laid out the balloons on the floor and tied them together to form a column. Then she gathered up another set of balloons, tied them together to form another column. Then she picked out two yellow balloons in the shape of a star and tied it to the end of each column. "That will be the top of the column once it stands up, "Alyssa thought to herself. "Now for the finishing touch". Alyssa strung up a line of balloons together. She then tied the line of balloons to each end of the columns connecting them to the star shaped balloons. Now she was ready to raise them. Taking it out her wand, she waved at the balloons and said "Wingardium Leviosa". The two columns started to rise and stand up. While waving her wand to keep the columns standing upright, Alyssa quickly took some sticky tape and taped the base of one column of balloons to the ground. She made sure that she used enough sticky tape, so that the column wouldn't fall back down. Once she had that column standing firmly upright, she ran to the other column of balloons and secured the base to the floor. Then she stood back to look at what her design of balloons looked like. The line of balloons looked kind of limp, hanging between the two columns, but she knew that with August or even another older student's help, they'd be able to stick it to the ceiling to form an arch.

She then working on the next column of balloons repeating the same steps. She tied and raised and taped, until she had formed an aisle of columns of balloons with an arch overhead, leading from the entrance of the classroom to the back of it. Once she was done, she stepped back to take a look at what she had done.

ooc: looks something like this:


"Kurumi, August, Pip, everyone does this look okay to you? All I need to do is someone to help me stick the line of balloons in the middle to the ceiling to form an arch and I guess I'm done with this part of the room. But if you guys don't like it, I'll be more happy to take it down."Alyssa told the others. She really appreciated their feedback.

"If it is okay with everyone, I'll go help out with setting up the tables and getting them ready, since it looks like we're running out of time." Alyssa quickly ran over to where the tables were placed against the wall and started unfolding them. Once she was done with that, she unfolded the table cloths and arranged them on the tables. Then taking out some paper party plates, paper cups, and plastic utensils, she arranged them neatly on the tables. "I guess I'm done," Alyssa thought to herself but kept an eye out just in case someone else needed help.

Violet smiled back, glad that there hadn't been a fuss about the hat. She went and got some cups, napkins, and utensils, and followed behind MJ, laying them next to the plates in their proper places (hadn't Miss Howard drilled that into her!). Standing back a bit, she took a critical look at the tables and thought they looked quite nice, if she did say so herself.

Violet saw the Ravenclaw First Year gulping down her potion and watched her curiously for a minute to see if it would have any effect. She took her own bottle out of her pocket while she waited, uncorked it, and sniffed it experimentally. Was that the faint odor of brewed Billywig stings she detected? She looked back at MJ to see if she was having any ill effects, but didn't see any so far. Well, after all, the professors weren't likely to give them anything harmful (well, unless it was Professor Lafay, and even then it wouldn't be very harmful...she didn't think).

Deciding she had better just go ahead and get it over with, Violet closed her eyes, tried to concentrate on how she had felt when she found out she had gotten top marks in all her subjects so far, and took a sip of the potion.

MJ had chosen the time she got Avis as a chick, for her happiest memory. Her cousin was an owl trainer, so she'd been able to have the owl from very, very young and bond with him while he was trained in her home by her relative. She thought that this was really unique and was quite smug and proud of it. It also meant that she'd been able to send her own letters from a much younger age than most of her classmates. Most people she knew had gotten their owls in the summer before they started Hogwarts, along with the rest of their school shopping. Concentrating on that big, white feathery face that she loved so much, MJ felt herself lifting gently off the ground by about a foot. She giggled and shrieked. MJ was having so much fun today! That might have been the potion, or it might not. But either way, she had a baaaad case of the giggles right now!

Violet swallowed the potion in her mouth and waited expectantly to see what would happen. She felt a sort of faint glow steal over her and a kind of fluttery sensation in her stomach--kind of like when you fly a broom, but less terrifying--but not much more. Disappointed, she opened her eyes to see MJ floating up off a foot or so off the ground! The other girl was giggling and yelling like a kid--in fact, she looked well on the way to what her great-aunt Frances called 'a giggling fit.' Violet frowned, first, because her partner had succeeded on the first try while she was still grounded, and second, because Violet did not want to start giggling like some silly girl in front of the whole class (though if they had the same reaction as MJ, maybe they wouldn't notice). Hmm, she thought to herself, that sneaky professor must've slipped some sort of cheering potion into the mix--or had gotten Professor Lafay to. But maybe that would help. Anyway, she needed to keep her grades up--she wasn't about to start slipping now that the year was over half over!

Searching her mind for something else, Violet took another small sip and thought very hard about raising Mack, her pet magpie, from a chick and how it had felt when he came to her when she called the first time.

Can we work together?" William asked Jez. " I am ready to do the levitation spell. " William said to Jez. You could hand me ballons and I will levitate myself" William explained to Jez. " William did get some streamers , pointed the wand at himself, called out " Wingardium Leviosa". He taped the streamers from one side of the wall to the other side of the wall.

MJ looked around (and down!) to see where Violet was and whether she'd tried the potion yet or not. MJ wondered what her memory was, briefly, before a wave of giggles took over. Avis was definitely a good memory to choose, but perhaps the Professor should have taken their wands off them in case someone decided to do something "hilarious". MJ giggled at the thought, though as a First Year she didn't know anything good to do, and she didn't want to lose points or spoil this happy, floaty atmosphere. She was trying desperately not to burp until others started to. That and, she didn't really want to come down, despite not being very far up at all. She tried walking in the air like a space-muggle. Mouth wide miming the traditional slow-mo Nooooooo, all four limbs splayed, she tried to actually move forwards a little, but that didn't work. Still, slo-mo action movie scene was providing more than enough entertainment for now.

August waved at the Hufflepuff as she joined him and Kurumi. He hadn't really gotten to talk to her much since the Start-of-Term feast. "Oh hey Alyssa! Sureyou can help out." He walked over to her pile of balloons and then began to get tape out and started to hang them up around the room. "Let's hang some over this way." he said calling back to her.

After hanging up a few of those balloons he decided to go help out over near Kurumi again, offering Alyssa to join him in setting up the trestle tables. He helped unfold one and began to set plates and cups on top in a nice organized fashion.