And heres my Halloween story! Pretty late but close enough! This also happens to include the food fight (if only a little) that McGonagall and her friend started which I mentioned in a story a few days ago that people asked that I write so I hope you like it! The great pumpkin war started as a cute joke… …Which quickly turned into a massacre of sorts. It all started when Evelyn Rigby, Minerva’s best friend, tossed a pumpkin pasty a little too hard at her when sharing them around, resulting in Minerva becoming more pasty than person. Had Evelyn not been laughing in the hiccup way she did that was a clear indicator of her guilt Minerva probably would have let this go as an accident. But this was no accident. And Minerva had never really been great at letting things go. After two weeks of unbearable pumpkin jokes and puns from Minerva’s friends she finally got Evelyn back, giving her a dose of her own medicine, by ensuring that every seat she happened to sit on had a pumpkin pie conveniently placed on it. It didn’t matter where Evelyn sat or if Minerva was around at the time, there was always a pie there. Infinitely creative and not one to take a prank lying down, Evelyn vowed for revenge, much to the amusement and terror of their friends. Things were about to escalate. Weeks went by of Minerva and Evelyn trading prank after pumpkin prank until their friends finally got fed up with constantly being in danger of being in the splash zone, when an errant pumpkin pie, pasty or pudding missed its target, and put their collective foot down. The pranks had to stop, for the sake of the house elves doing their laundry and their sanity. That, and the fact that their heads of houses were beginning to develop stress ulcers. Both girls decided to call it quits for the foreseeable future but it never sat well with Evelyn that Minerva had taken the lead by replacing all of Evelyn’s clothes with pumpkin versions of themselves. They were almost impossible to tell from the originals… until they were put on. It was an inspired prank but Evelyn knew she could do better, and she knew just when to do it too. Evelyn and Minerva were doing so well with keeping their strange pumpkin prank fixation on hold until October inevitable started drawing to a close and Halloween feast, a pumpkin-fest of epic proportions, was upon them all. Knowing that Minerva and Evelyn would be surrounded by the temptation of hundreds of pumpkins and pumpkin by-products, everyone knew that the Halloween feast was going to be a no holds barred bloodbath of epic proportions. Since each house was encouraged to sit at their own tables, especially during feasts, Evelyn and Minerva were separated but only by two tables and two rows of people. Neither was perturbed when their friends from their respective houses refused to sit with either of them, opting for something safer, but continued to eat their separate meals calmly and as normally as those two got. Surprisingly the feast was going off without a hitch. Minerva and Evelyn had barely looked at each other let alone reached for any pumpkin paraphernalia and poor professors’ Green and Albernott, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff heads respectively, were finally starting to relax. They should have known it was too good to be true. Without any warning, Evelyn stood up and, in one swift motion, propelled the largest pumpkin she could find sitting on the Hufflepuff table across the Great Hall, aiming dead on for Minerva. This could have ended more disastrously had Minerva not been the fastest dueller in third year and already on the defensive for an attack. She whipped out her wand and, without thought, yelled “BOMBARDA!” Minerva barely caught sight of Evelyn’s smug face before, realising that she had played right into the other girl’s plan, the pumpkin erupted, showering a majority of the school in its bright orange flesh. The entire hall was silent, with Minerva frozen, her arm still raised to defend herself. Then all hell broke loose. A first year lost his head and nailed a sixth year Ravenclaw in the face with a custard dish, prompting the rest of the school to pick up various dishes and create the biggest food fight Hogwarts had ever seen. After the headmaster, professor Dippet, got the Great Hall under control and the transfiguration teacher, not getting the memo, threw one last cream pie, they were both called into the headmaster’s office. As they were trailing out after, an incredibly red, professor Dippet, both girls realised the sheer amount of food they had collectively wasted, adding that to the amount leading up to this. Minerva and Evelyn, feeling contrite, both knowing what it was like to go without, but, knowing what they were both like, decided to play their pumpkin pranks but only ever on Halloween. Because really, it was far too tiring and a waste of food to constantly find ways to cover each other in pumpkin anyway. After the third consecutive Halloween debacle Minerva and Evelyn had caused, Minerva decided that there really was nothing really like sitting in the headmaster’s office, covered in pumpkin flesh, while trying to look apologetic but really wondering whether it was possible to get Evelyn back before midnight. Though Evelyn was much less pleased with getting a telling off but Minerva could tell that she was just a little proud of herself. She had successfully gotten Minerva back and the ball was out of her court in the most spectacular way yet. Trapping her inside one of the more massive pumpkins and bowling her through the top table really was an inspired plan but it left Minerva scraping for good ideas, especially made hard due to the fact that the Great Pumpkin War had been going on for three years now, even if it were only on Halloween. Unfortunately Minerva never got the chance to get Evelyn back. Her friend came down with a nasty case of dragon pox over the summer and did not return to the school after she had been whisked to St Mungos. Even after Evelyn had recovered she never really gained all her strength back and, instead of returning to Hogwarts, opted to be home schooled rather than struggle about the castle and grounds. The loss rankled with Minerva, both of her friend and their game, but as life went on she eventually forgot the Pumpkin War. That is, until Evelyn stepped in to be the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. It was almost midnight on the eve of Halloween and Minerva McGonagall was not patrolling the corridors like she was supposed to. Instead she happened to be rolling one of Hagrid’s massive pumpkins down the hallway in the middle of the night as stealthily as possible. She was almost to the third floor stairway when the pumpkin abruptly bumped into something that squeaked rather loudly before falling to the floor in front of her. “Pettigrew!” She snapped out, immediately becoming professor McGonagall rather than Minerva at that moment, “it’s almost midnight! What exactly are you doing out of bed?” “Well professor McGonagall,” came the, unfortunately distinctive, voice of Sirius Black as he revealed himself around the massive pumpkin followed, as ever, by Potter and Lupin, “we could ask why you have one of Hagrid’s prized pumpkins that he loves almost like his own child?” he questioned, almost managing to look guileless. “He means, did he give you permission to pick it up in the middle of the night? That’s an odd time to take one of his beloved pumpkins!” Potter chimed in with mock innocence, both boys’ clearly knowing that McGonagall was tough on students caught out of bed and hoping to get themselves off the hook. Lupin just looked resigned while Pettigrew seemed to be doing his best impression of furniture in an effort not to be noticed. Minerva just looked back and forth from one to the other for a moment before sighing and saying, “just shut up and help me push.” Unethical as it may have been she did have three more floors to go and the look on old Evelyn’s face when she woke up that morning to an overlarge, pumpkin, time-bomb that had loomed over her as she woke, before promptly exploding, was priceless… …And forever captured in Minerva’s mind… …And in the picture Potter’s camera had captured after he insisted on setting it up in the corner of the room. Needless to say the Marauders got a whole new respect for McGonagall after that. This was looked over by the wonderful and amazing admin Ebony who stepped in to help look for glaringly bad parts because I am currently too much of a zombie for editing right now! - Cristie
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 10:57:28 +0000
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