634. Chapter 634

“So Muggles dress as witches and wizards and try to scare each other, even though they can’t do magic,” Lena recaps, her brow a map of confusion, worrying at her bottom lip as she tries to understand.

Kara adjusts her glasses and her yellow and black striped tie, her face turning slightly pink at the sight.

“Yep,” Winn answers gamely.

“Absolutely,” Maggie nods sincerely.

“Are they joking again?” Lena turns to Alex and James, who shake their heads.

“Nope, this isn’t like that time they tried to convince us that rubber ducks were actually Transfigured animals,” Alex mock glares at her Hufflepuff girlfriend, who leans into Winn conspiratorially.

“Ravenpuff jokester squad for the win,” she congratulates him, and they clack their wands together in imitation of something they call lightsavers, or something like that.

“Nerd,” Alex murmurs, and Kara snorts.

“Hey, you can’t laugh at that, Little Danvers, because if I’m a nerd, you’re the…”

“The nerdier nerd?” James suggests, and he and Maggie share a dap.

“Yeah, that.”

“So wait, can we go back to the original point?” Lena asks, absently flicking her wand at the stack of books on the massive shelf in the Room of Requirement and coaxing them to magically rearrange themselves in alphabetical order.

“About dressing up for Halloween?” Winn perks up.

“We’ll look pretty strange at the feast,” Lena says into a moment of silence before they all break out hysterically laughing.

A Gryffindor and his Ravenclaw best friend? A Slytherin sister with her Hufflepuff sister and girlfriend, who has her own Ravenclaw girlfriend? They already look pretty strange in the Great Hall. Not to mention Adrian and Lucy – cracking open the door to the Room of Requirement as they laugh – a Hufflepuff first year and a Gryffindor fifth year who are about the same height and wearing matching grins.

“We brought a pre-feast feast!” Adrian exclaims as he lets the massive bulge in the stomach of his robes clatter onto the table. Lucy does the same, and the amount of Honeydukes candy on the rug in front of them is enormous.

“How did you – “ Winn starts to ask, and Adrian just holds up his hands.

“Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies!” the smallest of them declares, and Maggie asks with her eyes before tugging him playfully down into her lap.

“How are you a first year and already know more ways out of the castle than most seventh years? And how are you encouraging this, Lane?” she asks, but she’s grinning and reaching around Adrian to open a chocolate frog as she speaks.

“My mom says I’m special,” Adrian grins with a sparkle in his eyes, and James holds out a hand for him to slap.

“She’s got that right, little man,” he ruffles his coarse hair gently after pausing with his hand above his head, giving Adrian the choice to accept or reject the touch. The little boy beams.

“And Lucy and I also had a great idea for costumes!” he buzzes with excitement, and Lena exchanges an amused look with her girlfriend.

“Tell us the whole plan,” Lena quotes one of those Muggle TV shows Winn likes to watch on that odd little screen of his.

Kara beams and leans over to kiss her girlfriend while Winn high-fives her. Maggie snuggles into Alex’s arms, and Alex gladly holds her Hufflepuffs in her Quidditch-trained arms.

When they show up to the feast in the Great Hall that night – already brimming on full from the Honeydukes sweets – Adrian is drowning in Alex’s spare Slytherin robes, and Kara has never looked so good in her girlfriend’s blue and bronze. Lena sports Kara’s Hufflepuff gear with elegance, and Maggie fits nicely into Lucy’s Gryffindor robes. Lucy rocks Adrian’s yellow and black, and Winn looks extra sharp in James’s red and gold. Clark swoons slightly when he sees James stroll by in Alex’s Slytherin gear, and Maggie keeps biting her lip at the sight of her girlfriend in Winn’s spare Ravenclaw tie and robes.

Headmaster J’onzz takes one look at his costumed students – his children, really – and smiles, because the way they’re so happy together? The way they’re just… family, regardless of House?

Is exactly what holidays, even the silly ones, should be about.