Pumpkins

Ben felt mentally exhausted, it took every ounce of willpower in his body to not test the limits of his broomstick, flying circles around the field. He had finally broken his detention streak, and that was something to celebrate.

On the way to the Ravenclaw common room, he met two of his old friends.

"Look, George, It's our little raven friend."

"Looks like he's been learning to fly Fred."

"Where have you been, we haven't seen you for weeks."

"Been busy studying."

"Studying? where's the fun in that, you learn faster by doing stuff, right George?"

"It's no use Fred, the Ravens finally got to him, he's no fun anymore."

"Oh, I'm still plenty fun." Ben rebutted.

"That's what he says, Let's go, George, Lee's waiting."

"Hey!!" Ben called out to the twins who were now running down the stairs.

""What??""

"Be ready for something special tonight, It's going to BLOW your head," Ben said, beaming a mischievous smile down at the twins.

Watching the stunned look on their faces, he rushed up the stairs.

"He looked pretty confident George, what do you think he's up to."

"He did say BLOW, didn't he?"

"Let's hope it's not our heads that blow George, I'd hate to lose our pretty face."

***

On his way down to the Great Hall for the Halloween Feast, Ben heard a few girls talking about a first-year girl crying in the girls' bathroom. Ben knew that Potter and Weasley would take care of her and kept walking towards the Great Hall.

He had spent some time with Hermione, she would often join Ravenclaw students in the Library. Sadly, even among the Ravenclaws, no one liked her know-it-all attitude. She just could not keep her mouth shut, it was as if the poor girl was cursed.

Ben had contemplated interfering and getting Hermione out of the bathroom before the Troll struck, but that would reduce the golden trio to a golden duo, and that would completely change the flow of this world.

The Great hall was livelier than usual, or should I say deadlier. Black clouds of bats fluttered from the ceiling and swooped over everyone's heads, and thousands of carved pumpkins floated in the halls with candles burning with blue flames in them.

Just as the food appeared on the tables, the door to the Great Hall swung open and Quirrellmort stumbled in, looking like he'd seen a troll.

'Tch, he had come right now, couldn't wait a bit longer,' thought Ben.

Stumbling down the hall, he reached Dumbledore's chair and gasped,

"Troll - in the dungeons - thought you ought to know."

There was a huge uproar, Dumbledore made a few firecrackers shoot from his wand to grab everyone's attention.

"Prefects," he rumbled, "lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!"

As everyone made their way out of the Hall, Fred and George somehow made their way to Ben and whispered.

"Merlin's beard, Brown. We didn't expect this at all."

"Where'd you find a Troll, there isn't a secret entrance big enough for a troll, is there George?"

"No there isn't one, Fred."

"Wait! This isn't what I was talking about."

""It's not?""

"No! Where would I find a troll?" Ben argued.

"He's making sense, George. Looks like we got excited about nothing."

"Well, looking at Quirrell's face, there's got to be a troll somewhere," George said.

"You two can go looking for it, I am off to enjoy the feast."

"You'll miss something wonderful if you miss the feast," Ben whispered to them as he followed the crowd of Ravenclaws to the common room.

Since he was at the back of the crowd now, he hid his face with his hat and used [Clairvoyance] on Dumbledore. Ben was not at all surprised when it pointed towards the first-floor girls' bathroom.

What height should a wooden club fall from for it to build enough momentum to knock a troll out? Ben was no Isaac Newton, but even he knew that the answer had to be higher than the ceiling of a bathroom. Yet, Ron Weasley somehow managed to break all laws, magical and muggle to put the troll to sleep.

It was Dumbledore at work with his perfect disillusionment charm. Giving his little lions a big ego boost while helping them form new bonds of friendship, Dumbledore really was a meddling old goat.

***

Harry and Ron entered through the portrait hole and looked around.

The common room was packed and noisy. Everyone was eating the food that had been sent up. Hermione, however, stood alone by the door, waiting for them. There was a very embarrassed pause. Then, without looking at each other, they all said "Thanks," and hurried off to get plates.

"Harry, Ron. Come quick, the food is almost finished," Fred said waving at the trio.

By the time they got their plates, the remaining food on the table was already vanishing.

"Where were you guys anyways? Haven't you heard, there's a troll running around the castle."

The three quietly looked at each other but no one said anything.

"Oh don't worry you three, there's still dessert left. You won't have to go hungry."

Soon the tables were once again filled with food, this time it was carved pumpkins filled with sweets and candy. There were pumpkin-shaped pumpkin pies, scary-looking caramel apples, candy corn, candy apples, apple bread and glasses filled with pumpkin juice.

The trio filled their plates with a bit of everything and found a place to sit near the twins.

"Is it me or do these apples taste like pumpkins to you too Fred."

"Huh, they really do taste like pumpkins, and so do the candy corns."

"I think we've had too much pumpkin for one night, Fred."

"Merlin's fat hat! Your head's getting bigger," Fred screamed pointing towards George's head.

George felt his head with his hands and then screamed pointing at Fred.

"Your face is turning ORANGE!"

There were a lot of similar screams coming from the room.

"Ron, your head's inflating too." Harry pointed out.

"Ahh, noo! I don't wanna die. DO something." Ron started crying like a baby as he shook Harry's shoulder, soon Harry's head too started to inflate and turned orange.

Soon all the human heads in the room, transformed into large pumpkins with scary faces drawn upon them. Some of them found it hard to balance the large pumpkins and toppled to the ground.

It was utter chaos in the room when people saw orange liquid flowing out of the cracked pumpkin heads on the ground. There were cries from Mommies and Daddies everywhere.

Fred and George, who had successfully pulled their heads out of the pumpkins were stumped looking at the scene.

"Merlins Beard, Fred. It seems Brown really knows how to have fun."

"It seems he does, George. Pumpkin Fight?"

"You bet." George smiled as he aimed at Ron's pumpkin head, who was still screaming at the top of his lungs.

A/N: Extra chapter on Patre@n/DreamyApe. I hate Pumpkins.