And with all that darkness, I hope you like this very fun & light hearted chapter, before things get dark again. Figured why not write one happy chapter!

Chapter Five:

After the incident in Diagon Alley, Veronica and I steered clear from any Wizarding communities for the next few weeks. We ended up in a bad muggle neighborhood, and even I knew it was bad because of all the fighting I heard. The muggles here just seemed really angry. We took over a 'foreclosed' house. I didn't know what it meant, but Veronica said it was when people were kicked out of their house for not paying for it. That was an awful thing for muggles to do to one another. Anyway, it was a small and beat up house that we rarely left. Veronica and I protected it with a bunch of spells so that even the muggle's wouldn't come inside.

When I grabbed the Prophet the day we fled Diagon Alley, it was a horrifying sight. Harry was more than a wanted man. They were putting out cash prizes to anyone who found him and wrote up a whole article on Dumbledore that was nothing but a liar. Something about Dumbledore being 'dark' and fighting on the wrong side when he was younger. Even if it was true, people can change. Then there was a whole section on how they were accusing muggleborns of stealing magic. How could that even be possible? Muggles don't even know about magic. They were arresting them and taking away their wands. I saw that Hermione Granger was on the wanted list for that.

I felt so out of the loop. I wish I could at least hear from someone to let me know that everyone is still alive. I was sitting on the hardwood floor in the living room. There was really no furniture in this place. We made beds from sheets we had found around the house. "Why are you looking so down?" Veronica asked walking in the room and I shrugged. "I mean...it is your birthday."

"It's Halloween?" I asked confused, where had the time gone? Veronica nodded and smiled.

"Of course, haven't you noticed the decorations outside?" she pointed out. Looking out the window I noticed there were tons of pumpkins, most of them were smashed on the ground though. They called those decorations? Hogwarts Halloween was all candy. "You're finally seventeen," she pointed out. "You are officially a legal wizard."

I smiled widely, I had been waiting for this day my whole life. How did I not remember? This was the day I was planning on leaving my family forever, guess I did that much sooner than I had thought. "What a great way to celebrate my freedom, by spending it in a secured house!" I said sarcastically.

"Oh no," Veronica said shaking her head, "We're going out."

"Yeah right," I answered. We could barely go into a restaurant without being tracked down.

"It's Halloween...muggle's dress up in costumes."

"So?"

"So?" Veronica mimicked. "We dress up in costumes! They won't recognize us. It'll be fun, we can walk around the city freely tonight. It'll be great." It did sound very intriguing and I had been extremely bored these past few days. I was even wishing for a book to entertain me, which wasn't usual for me.

We apparated from the house and to the back of what Veronica told me was a 'costume shop'. I had never heard of one before. Outside, there was tons of scary looking decorations and a large orange sign. Inside, there were plenty of muggles buying costumes. Really, this store was just plain creepy yet awesome at the same time. Yet I didn't truly understand the purpose of these costumes. I saw one entitled 'police officer' and modeled a girl with a short blue dress and hat. Muggle's sure were crazy.

"Keep it simple," Veronica said to me as we walked around the store. "We should wear things that disguise us, and that wouldn't work too well." She motioned over to a witch costume and we both laughed. Okay, we did not dress like that at Hogwarts on Halloween.

"I've never done this before..." I said and looked around. I don't think she had either, but she had a much better idea of it then me. We came to a section of wigs and there were multicolored ones. I put a blue one on and Veronica took it off my head while rolling her eyes.

"Please," she laughed just shaking her head, "Just don't." She picked up a curly brown one, which short of reminded me of Hermione's hair but much longer. "Try this." I put it on and looked in the mirror. It actually looked like it could be natural, and with my brown eyes it could be. I handed her one that was an auburn color and straight. It looked good on her.

"Well, we don't look like Carlie and Nica anymore." I looked in the mirror, it actually looked decent. Then we had to find costumes. Veronica settled for a 'devil' costume and wore a short red dress with horn ears. It looked cool, but really creepy. Where did muggle's come up with these things? I just had to go with a vampire costume, because my love of them. There were fake fangs, which just clipped on your teeth and looked pretty much real. The dress was black and short and the top half looked like a corset. "Now what?" I asked as we walked out of the store in our costumes. I felt rather stupid, but there were a lot of people in costumes around me.

"We walk around," Nica said. "I've seen a few movies. Okay, so for the rest of the day here is the plan."

That was the best birthday I had ever had. After buying our costumes, Veronica and I walked around the city center with tons of muggles. People threw candy at us, but it was candy so we were okay with it. I wondered why, but I figured it was another muggle thing. Someone even kindly gave us orange bags to put it all in. This would last us weeks, of course it wasn't healthy, but a change from our canned food. We went on a 'hay ride' which scared the living hell out of me because we went through a creepy forest and muggles kept popping out at me in creepy clothes. It was fun though, it reminded me of carriages that brought us to Hogwarts.

Veronica and I took a walk through the cemetery. I don't think that's what muggle's actually did but it gave me that creepy Halloween feel and it got dark out as we were walking around. Then...we did the strangest thing. We followed a crowd of people in costumes around and went to people's doors, knocked on them, and they gave us candy. For free. They didn't charge us anything! And even strange, the little muggles kept saying words such as 'trick' or 'treat', but I could just be hearing it wrong. Secretly, Veronica and I used excess space spells on our bags because we were running out of room. Normally I wasn't the biggest candy fan but Veronica was. There were a few things in this bag that I could enjoy. "Alright. Now birthday party time," she said looking at me deviously.

"This has been enough I think," I said with a laugh. There was no way she was able to put a birthday party together for me. It was just the two of us.

"Nope, we're celebrating the right way. Follow me," she said as we walked down the streets.

"And where is this party?" I asked her with a smirk. She didn't say anything as we walked and turned a few corner. Finally we spotted a crowd of kids around our age dressed in costumes. Veronica grinned knowingly at me. So we followed them discreetly. As we walked for another ten minutes, the crowd of teenagers stopped in front of a house. I could hear music blasting and colorful lights were flickering from inside. The crowd walked up the steps and went right inside without even knocking.

"And here we are, your party!" she said with a laugh. I wasn't going to argue. We walked up and the steps. Veronica casually opened the door. This felt weird, but when we opened it no one turned their head or anything. So we walked in. The room was packed beyond mask. It reminded me of that time in the Slytherin common room when the older students had their party, but this was ten times bigger. We pushed through the large crowds. Thankfully no one seemed to know we came in without an invite. It was unlikely they all knew each other.

"And who are you beautiful ladies?" a boy said stopping in front of us. Veronica and I looked at one another but kept our cool expressions. "You must be a friend of Elle's." I nodded.

"Veronica," Nica said shaking the boys hand. He was dressed very odd...but then again it was Halloween. Muggles did these sort of things. He wasn't wearing a shirt, just jeans and a yellow plastic looking hat. At least he had abs.

"Carlie," I told him with a grin.

"I'm Max, welcome to my party," he slurred. Well, at least this worked out well. Max led us to a fridge that had a variety of different drinks and we each took one. Mine was fruity. Veronica warned me that I better not go out of control like last time, and I promised I wouldn't. We were already having fun. My drink was fruity and pink, it was nothing like firewhiskey but it'll do.

The two of us had a few more each. Several different muggle boys came up to us. They would ask us to dance so we would. It was fun to let go, just for a night. It was nice to keep my mind off of things. Then after, they would ask for our numbers. I didn't know what they meant so I laughed at first. Veronica told me she learned in muggle studies that they meant 'phone number', which I didn't have. So we ended up making them up and then taking off. The party was going fun. Due to the number of drinks I had, I filled my 'candy bag' with water bottles and food I found in the fridge when no one was looking. The drinks didn't make me feel as guilty about it.

When we got back to the house that night at three in the morning, we dumped all of the candy we had gotten onto the floor. This candy didn't move like the kind at Hogwarts, but it still seemed fine to me. I couldn't find any chocolate frogs or licorice wands, it was still the finest day ever.

"Sometimes I wish," Veronica began saying as she bit into one of the muggle candies called 'snickers'. "That I was just born a muggle. It seems so much simpler now."

"I know," I agreed pouring colorful candies called 'skittles' into my hand. "Then again, a lot of kids at Hogwarts have it easy. It's people like us and Harry, that get caught up in it." Veronica nodded in agreement. "I just wonder how everything is going."

Another week passed and we were sick of candy. We still had an entire extended bag left of it and I was thinking about just leaving it outside. I was glad I stole that food from that party. "Okay," Veronica said groaning. "We need to get back to the Wizarding World. I can't last this long."

"You read my mind," I agreed. "What can we do though? Remember what happened at Knockturn Alley? We got caught even there."

"I just want to go to the Ministry! That's the center of it all." Veronica sighed, annoyed.

"The Ministry? Are you insane?" I responded and she just shrugged while lying back on the floor. I thought for a moment, truthfully I would like to go to the Ministry too. To see how the change has been taking, if things really are as bad as they say they are. "Well...our muggle wigs look too fake..." I began thinking out loud.

"What are you saying?" Veronica asked sitting back up.

"Well, the disguises were a good idea. No one would even recognize us in those fake costumes, what if we really disguised ourselves?" Veronica looked at me to go on. "I remember a few 'beauty' spells. I have practiced them before, they'll wear off in a few hours but I could do that." Veronica nodded in agreement. I better get practicing on my beauty spells then.