♠ The Room of Requirement ♠
To say Avery was bored would be a massive understatement. The reason he did not usually go to parties had somehow accentuated itself in this secretive gathering of many of the craziest people in school. While Avery was perfectly comfortable alone, perfectly comfortable just watching people, and perfectly comfortable talking to people, he wanted to have some fun on nights he decided to take off, and watching the people here did not provide that. There were a few couples making out, some dancing in odd ways, some goofing off and playing tricks on each other. It was a mental exercise, trying to keep track of everything and everybody within his line of sight, but he hadn't come here for a mental exercise. He'd seen Stella Prince walking in - who wouldn't with that hairdo? - but the girl always seemed to find the need to make some snide comment about him. That was amusing in its own way, but it didn't promise to make his evening less of a waste of time. He glanced at the windows at the other end of the room. Thankfully, the storm had quieted for the moment, and there didn't seem to be any chance of them entertaining one of the Prince girl's massive lightning-induced breakdowns yet, but that was just a side thought.
Idly, he picked up a goblet from one of the vampire waiters, smiling and thanking the other boy - at least he thought it was a boy under all that make up - for the drink. Not a very lively bunch, these ones. Then again, they were the waiters, they couldn't just stand in the middle of the crowd getting it on with someone else. It made him feel almost bad for them. He took a sip of the drink and by some miracle managed to swallow the mouthful without shock raising his eyebrows. The boy had never had a problem with disgusting food that most people would spit out, but he was sure it might come in handy to be able to eat or drink anything without making a strange face about it. And he'd been right. Letting his eyes casually scan the crowd just once to make sure no one was looking at him, he looked down at the goblet in his hand. The juice was a deep orange color, swirling around smoothly in the metal cup and looking no different from the normal, innocent pumpkin juice, but Avery knew alcohol when he tasted it. His mother had decided that he'd better learn how to drink responsibly at an early age, and so had introduced alcohol to him several years before he'd been accepted to Hogwarts. She'd taught him how to recognize when it was present, what kinds there were out there, excluding the wizard brands since they hadn't exactly done this with his father's consent, how much to drink to be polite without getting thoroughly smashed, and how to tell what was high quality and what was not.
When he'd returned home from Hogwarts in his third year, she'd sat him down and, to the astonishment of both him and his father, demanded the two of them have a drinking contest. It had started with a calm conversation about school and ended with a tussle that had left two very off-target bullets lodged in the wall of their kitchen, himself pinned to the wall by his clothes with kitchen knives like some kind of Jesus statue, a large chunk of his ponytail missing, and their poor wooden dining table completely destroyed. If his father did not regularly renew a sound barrier spell attached to the wall of the house, someone would have probably called the cops. Apparently, his mother was a happy drunk, he was an angry drunk, and neither was a good idea when both were lightweights and had something akin to military training. According to his surprisingly untraumatized dad, his mother had laughed at his long hair and sliced a portion of it off, Avery had lashed out, and they'd gotten into a miniature war until his mother had had the "good sense" to make sure he was stuck on the wall until he calmed down, never mind the fact that slamming knives into your sons clothes at close range was dangerous when he was trying to break your wrist. Oh, and the extra knives lodged in the wall around his head? Those had just been for practice, because throwing knives at people wasn't dangerous at all when your senses were blurred with alcohol. It must have been divine interference that he was still alive after that ordeal.
From that moment on, the Slytherin hadn't touched the stuff, but he hadn't forgotten how it tasted. A mouthful should be fine, but he left the rest where it was. He shook his head. He wouldn't have come if he'd known alcohol was being formally served to everyone. He scanned the room again, this time taking into consideration this new piece of knowledge to adjust the information he'd taken in about the people here, especially his fellow classmates, whom he'd thought he'd gotten to know fairly well. Some people were clearly sober, others... not so much. Slightly torn between the desire to laugh and the desire to help some of the poor suckers who had clearly never tasted alcohol before, Averill began pushing his way through the crowd to reach the snack table. He wasn't planning to confiscate it or anything, that was a prefect's job, and might ruin some people's soon to be very exciting nights, but he wanted to see if there wasn't some drink that wasn't spiked, since he knew he'd eventually get thirsty, as would other innocents. However, just as he reached it and managed to grab a goblet of plain water someone shoved into him and sent him stumbling slightly backwards. He staggered for a second, before twisting slightly to prevent the cup from spilling. He regained his balance and found himself facing the candy table. A whole table devoted to candy. A small laugh touched his eyes as he noticed the person there, talking to a skeleton covered in pumpkin guts. He should've known Anice Runeswell would be found right there.
And she was holding... Oh! In two long strides, the long-haired boy reached his scantily-clad friend. He turned to her companion and said,
"Excuse me for intruding on your conversation, I just needed to speak to Anice for a bit." Now that he was a bit closer, he realized the other person had gone for a fairly good replica of Jack Skellington, a popular Halloween figure among the muggles. If he was right, the person under all the make-up was Lucas Grey, but it was hard to tell in this kind of light. Placing his own goblet on the table surreptitiously, he plucked the laced juice from Anice's hands, smiling politely. It was probably a good idea to just be honest with this one.
"I hope you don't mind me taking this off your hands, but I don't think you'd approve of what's in the pumpkin juice tonight, Anice." His tone was serious, and quiet enough that only she and her companion could hear, but it couldn't hide some slight amusement as he wondered how she'd react to being informed what might be in there. Placing the juice carefully down next to his own goblet of water, he dug into one of the pockets conveniently provided in his costume and pulled out a small hard candy covered in an obscenely bright wrapper.
"I know you have every candy you could possibly want in front of you, but would you like to try this?" He said, to distract her. It was a pineapple-flavored candy with a gooey center, or so the house-elf had said when he'd gotten it from the kitchen. What he didn't know was that it was a pineapple-flavored candy with a gooey banana-flavored center laced with a little black pepper. It was one of many insane creations one of the house-elves had thought up specifically for him, since he seemed to like even the most disgusting of flavor profiles, not that Avery knew anything about that. Picking up Anice's old goblet quite naturally, he left the goblet of water next to her in case she wanted something to drink.
Characters interacted with:
Anice Runeswell -
@VocaStar
Lucas Grey -
@Faust
Characters mentioned:
Stella Prince - My Character
Desiree Trevelyan - NPC (his mother)
Lysander Trevelyan - NPC (his father)
Evil Candy-Making House-Elf - NPC
For someone who was just getting a refill Romeo was taking awfully long. While considering that the boy might be lost in the crowd, distracted or held up by someone he still worried. August didn't take the Gryffindor as someone who would ditch him without a word. Besides, the punch was just down the table so all he had to do was follow the table. No one would or should get lost with that line of logic. The fact that he was thirsty again, after a drink and that the drink just tasted plain weird all added up to his worries. It was a combination of these little details that unsettled the Turk a little.
John's answer to her question was exactly the answer she had expected...though she would have liked to think that the Egyptian would have at least attempted to remember who he had forced to be his date. The ginger girl sighed as the other continued to speak. "
