𝖌𝖔𝖑𝖉-𝖙𝖎𝖕𝖕𝖊𝖉 𝖋𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖗𝖘 𝖜𝖗𝖆𝖕 𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖒𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖛𝖊𝖘 around a now-gold glass that was not so when he had first received it . he had plucked it from a waiterʻs tray , crystal turning to mineral in his grip , and left them to marvel at his dedication to his costume and wonder at how he managed it .
( it was his wand tucked up into his sleeve and some quietly whispered transfiguration . but he wasnʻt going to admit that yet ) .
❝ merlin , that outfit is tacky , ❞ he laments after a sip of his drink , eyes cutting towards a shoddily done toga . ❝ if theyʻre not even going to make an effort , they should just go home . ❞ blaise caught himself , a crease appearing between his brow . for the first time in perhaps EVER , it felt like the words had slipped past his lips as soon as the thought had formed in his brain . ❝ canʻt blame them though . that whole ensemble reeks of half-blood .❞
hazel eyes widen , blinking slowly as his more . . . prejudiced thoughts became voiced against his will . a nervous laugh spills out from his chest . ❝ . . . what the f u c k ? ❞
❝ JOIN US IF YOU DARE FOR A HALLOWEEN SCARE ! we at the poison apple have been hard at work for weeks preparing for our costumed event, with no expense spared to ensure a night that nobody will ever forget ! gain entry to the PLACE to be this horror season for two galleons a head, and choose a complimentary cocktail from our dozens of spooktacular options. there’s something for everyone inside, whether you’re a MUSIC lover who doesn’t want to miss the exclusive performance from the up and coming DEATH RATTLE, or whether, like me, you’re a lover of all things dreadful. if downstairs isn’t enough to give you a spook, make your way up the staircase of doom and find yourself on our second level : opened to the public for the very first time and transformed for one night only into a TERRIFYING haunted maze. sharpen your fangs, cob your webs, and enjoy a night of tricks, treats and booz-y spirits ! ❞
WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE :
the poison apple is an extremely popular nightclub that took over a LONG disused building on knockturn alley at the start of this year and finally opened its doors to the public at the beginning of june. it faced a small amount of difficulty in its first few weeks given its location, but word spread quickly among the younger generation, and business has been BOOMING for a while now. until poison ( as its nicknamed ) opened up, those in search of exciting nightlife were forced to seek it out in muggle london - the mysterious owners, never publicly named, saw an opportunity and are certainly not living to regret it.
WEEKS have been channelled into preparing for their halloween event, with the intention always being for this to be the first blowout event the nightclub held. the interiors are covered in the spookiest of decorations with the upper levels serving as a sort of inside haunted maze’ experience / the little known wixen band “the death rattle” are booked all night / and on TOP of some sweet treats courtesy of the leaky cauldron, the drinks menu has been given a one night only overhaul to fit the ghastly theme. flyers for the event began circulating a week ago, with everyone willing to come as they’re not for the night WELCOME : so long as they pay the two galleon entry fee, of course. don’t let the price get you down, though - everyone who pays gets a free signature cocktail ( of their choice ) upon entrance !
OUT OF CHARACTER:
halloween wouldn’t feel right without a costume party of some description, and poison was the perfect setting ! while diagon alley celebrates halloween in a far more traditional sense, with plenty of activities for the kids, knockturn alley is where all the grown up fun is going to be happening - with everyone and anyone welcome to attend ! costumes are mandatory, of course, and a channel has been set up in the discord for you all to post what your characters will be wearing between now and the event start. we’re all in for a proper treat : but remember that it’s halloween, so there’s certainly a couple tricks up my sleeve.
the event will begin on monday the 26th of october at 6pm gmt - YOU CAN CLICK THIS LINK TO FIND OUT WHAT THAT TRANSLATES TO FOR YOUR SPECIFIC TIMEZONE - with a tentative end set at the same time on november 3rd.
no character is required to attend ( nor are you required to take part ), though you’re highly encouraged to take part ! the costume party is our primary halloween event, but diagon alley would absolutely have all the regular pulls in a street type festival for the kids ( think bobbing for apples, pumpking carving, scarecrow dressing, face painting, etc ) which you’re more than welcome to set starters up dealign with if your character wouldn’t be inclined attend the party.
all event specific posts, including starters and costumes, should be tagged with nox.event008 ! the location for the party is the poison apple, knockturn alley.
if you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to message the main, and please comment your favorite halloween candy once you’ve read this post !
Celebrating Halloween is something that, historically, Cho hasn’t done among the masses. At this time last year, she and Marietta had lazed around at her best friend’s flat and drunkenly read each other horror novels from Flourish & Blotts. The year before, Cho had donned classic cat ears and drawn precise whiskers in the mirror while a person she now tries not to think about had cheekily watched from the doorway. This time, however, the world has changed and Cho has been all too adroit to transform with it, but only for one night. There is nothing recognizable about her: her medical robes have been replaced with a mustard yellow turtleneck, a short red skirt that she eventually stops trying to prevent from riding up, and even redder lipstick. Behind Velma Dinkley’s classic black frames, though, Cho Chang still exists, even if she’s already two drinks out. Somewhere along the way, she’s lost Marietta and Ginny, but she is keenly aware from days of post-quidditch game victory parties that she’ll come back to her senses is she steps out for a moment.
The command to move echoes in her head as she pushes through the Poison Apple’s back door and into the freezing October night. Through the thick wall, she can hear the relatively unknown band commence with the first bars of a muggle song. Her mind is a blurry swimming pool as she wonders who the original band is, only to realize that she had picked it herself and slid over a few galleons in front of the act a while ago. Making sure her wand is with her, she stares up at the sky, trying to focus herself by picking a singular star and eyeing it with a precision she usually reserves for scanning her patients’ ultrasounds. With her back to the bricks, Cho tries her best not to startle when the door swings open. Whoever it is, it’s best to ignore them until she can shake her half-haze. Her consciousness is slightly damaged but nowhere close to gone: she’ll go back and find the others eventually. ( @qviddiitch )
“Teddy!” Tonks screams so loudly that people turn to stare at her, but all she could see is her son lying limp on the ground before her. She shoves past people and starts sobbing. “My son...My baby! Someone has to help him!”
Parvati arrived at the poison apple dressed up as a phoenix. She wore a golden gown with makeup and a wig. She also had enchanted small flames surrounding her silhouette.
“ can i tell you something ? “ nellie’s usual smile was an actual smirk. an hour prior she had the frankenstein ― quickly picking the first thing with vodka off the menu, because, well, nellie ― and ever since she’s really made good on her old promise that she was the worst hufflepuff that had ever lived, BECAUSE SHE SURE WAS ACTING LIKE IT NOW. a few minutes prior on the way to the loo, nellie had told some unsuspecting person that everytime they laughed, an angel died. she leaned forward, scooby doo outfit ridic up as she did so ( it was sinfully short, really, for a costume of a cartoon dog ), resting her head almost boredly on her hand. “ YOU LOOK LIKE A FUCKING IDIOT. “
“baby. from dirty dancing?” merry wasn’t old, but apparently the youth of today didn’t HAVE any casual patrick swayze knowledge. what had been a childhood favorite of hers meant nothing to the young server who had stopped to see if she needed anything and given a confused compliment, and she really had to take a gulp of her bright purple drink just to hide her frown. “trust me, my costume would make far more sense if my husband were here. either the miserable prat has decided not to join me, or, self involved as he is, he’s forgotten i exist. again.”
they were almost vicious words, from merry.
and they were far from intended.
the server, eyes a little wide ( and the picture of someone who had realized this was a little above their paygrade ) scurried off, and merry sank into her chair - her expression vaguely horrified. “mon dieu-” such things weren’t said aloud, no matter how true they were, and though she says, “i didn’t mean that.” what she really means is : i shouldn’t have said that.
HALLOWEEN NIGHT, 2020. it’s the early am when confused and buddled patrons of the poison apple, unsure of what they’ve experienced but positive it wasn’t exactly normal - begin to stumble out of the exit doors and head for home, their costumes more worse for wear now than they were at the start of the night. if it were muggle london, there’d be a line of people waiting for a taxi at one of any number of ranks, designated drivers fumbling for keys in too deep pockets and trying to round up their blacked out friends. wix do it a little differently : the knight bus stop outside of the leaky cauldron is the intended go to for many, which means they have to make their way from knockturn to diagon on shaky legs that don’t want to cooperate, small gaggles of friends moving as one along the cobbled alleys.
the thing is... drunk people aren’t quiet. they laugh. they sing. they shout at one another, sometimes, falling over their own feet as they discuss innane things like where they’re going to get their late night snack, or laugh about the stupid things they stood WITNESS to. when the first scream pierced the crisp night air, it wasn’t immediately apparent that there was a problem. that something was wrong.
for pyotr anikov - a man unfamiliar to most who is making his way in the opposite direction to the weary partygoers - the first time that he realizes the scream didn’t come from someone laughing uproariously at a joke told by their friends is the very moment that one of the beasts emerges from the shadows of a side street on diagon alley. he does a visible double take, almost comical if not for the way in which his features pale and his body jolts away, almost tripping in his haste to put distance between them. it TOWERS above him on its two hind legs, and it gives him just enough time to turn his first sharp intake of breath into a yell before it lunges towards him, faster than he can even hope to reach for his wand. its teeth tear, his throat destroyed, the red gushing over the costume he has hastily assembled at the last possible minute... and when his body is tossed aside like a rag doll, the WEREWOLF, now stood in the center of the alley, stretches its head towards the sky and howls.
a half dozen smaller beasts appear, skulking from the shadows, dropping from buildings onto cobble street below. the hunt has begun.
those closest to the ill fated pyotr trip over themselves to escape what they can see, plainly, is coming : but their DESPERATION mixes terribly with their drunken states, and the werewolves descend.
dennis creevey is one of the first to have left the poison apple and one of the first to come face to face with one : he pulls his wand from his pocket and attempts a protective spell that would have done wonders were he up against offensive magic, but does nothing when it’s teeth and claws and BRUTE FORCE - a jaw closes around his forearm and he bellows in pain, his next spell a reducto that sends the werewolf soaring away from him, daxed but not stopped.
farther away, a clerk named verity tries to reach the doorway to the shop she works - the shop she has keys for, the place she might just find SAFETY - even while persued by a wolf who only has eyes for her. she casts a spell that slows it down, for a moment, and salvation seems to be within her grasp until her clumsy feet land wrong on a loose cobble and she takes a disastrous tumble. the last thing that she sees as she struggles to grip her wand is the beast pouncing.
blaise zabini and rowan graves don’t know one another, but find their fates tied together in this nightmarish situation. amidst the chaos, the screams, the individuals rushing to retreat, to find help, to hide, the zabini heir backs down an alleyway with the intent to APPARATE to safety at the very forefront of his mind. the young graves child can’t - didn’t - know that they were leading danger straight into his path as they stumble into the shadows, hand held to the wound that one of the smaller creatures made across their throat. it follows, intending to corner its prey, only to turn onto the side street as they slump and still on the ground before a young man who almost made it. in that INSTANT, there is time enough to think that for a senseless beast, the wolf looks awfully pleased. he reaches for his wand. the werewolf dives. he sees the stars.
fleur weasley wasn’t leaving the event as much as she was searching for her husband, but the sounds of... something - draw her from the smoking area of the poison apple and towards diagon alley, where the sight of what is happening stops her in her TRACKS. in due time, she’ll be one of the first healers on the scene. from her bag she will pull a mixture of powdered silver and dittany that will save a number of victims from what they may have considered a better fate than the cursed ALTERNATIVE, but in that first moment, she will be credited with sounding the alarm.
it isn’t the red flare fired into the sky over the alley that scares the werewolves away, but the fact that in seconds, the street is flooded with clear headed aurors who kill ONE and wound another before the others disappear at an unimaginable speed. the aurors contact st mungo’s, st mungo’s sends their emergency team, and at the apple, the pounding music will eventually be CUT to inform everyoe that there has been an INCIDENT, and that they aren’t to panic, but to make their way slowly and calmly towards the exit doors...
ROUNDUP OF DAMAGES, FATALITIES & INJURIES:
shops along the alley were destroyed in the attack, with weasleys wizard wheezes and many of the buildings AROUND it taking the BRUNT of those damages. several individuals were injured and more killed in what will soon be dubbed the diagon alley massacre. they include :
dennis creevey and blaise zabini were bitten in the attack, their wounds subsequently tended to by fleur weasley. they will, from this point onwards, by cursed with lycanthropy.
verity caldwell ( a long term clerk at www ), pyotr anikov ( junior wizengamot member and husband of merry lestrange ) and rowan graves ( the youngest child of the well known graves patriarch ) were among those killed.
OUT OF CHARACTER:
this post marks the official end of the halloween event, but as mentioned yesterday : since i’m not planning on springing anything onto you all for a little bit and there was a clear desire to see some sort of extension, you can all CONTINUE to take advantage of the setting the event provided you with. i’m entirely fine with the chaos of the different potions continuing, and for more open and closed starters to go up - especially considering that this is a very stressful week, and only in the next couple days will people feel up to properly taking part. if you’re new, or would simply rather avoid the event, then THIS is just to provide some content for you to proceed with.
