"TRICKS OR TREATS, MINNIE!" Sirius shouted, banging obnoxiously on her office door. 

James, Sirius, Remus, and Lily stood in the hallway outside of McGonagall's office - Sirius holding up his rucksack, the others standing a couple paces back because - well, this was Sirius's idea and they were only along for the walk about the castle.

The door opened slowly and Minerva McGonagall peered out at them, her eyes taking in their costumes slowly. Her lips moved as she read the name Snuffles on Sirius's collar and she opened the door a bit wider. "Good evening Potter, Lupin, Black... Miss. Evans," she said. "On your way to the feast, are you?"

"Yeah," Remus answered, and he started to say more, but Sirius cut him off.

"TRICK OR TREAT, SMELL MY FEET, GIVE ME SOMETHING GOOD TO EAT!" Sirius sing-songed, dancing a little jig.

"Nobody wants to smell your feet, mate," James said.

Sirius grinned up at McGonagall and shook his rucksack at her expectantly. "I love treats, Min." He stuck out his tongue and held up his hands like little paws at his chest, miming a begging dog.

Minnie looked at the rucksack, then studied Sirius for a long moment, settling into a most disapproving expression. "Mister Black, there will be plenty of treats at the feast this evening, which I am most sure that you will gorge yourself on, as is tradition."

"Yes, but, will there be tricks?" Sirius asked, grinning.

"With you there, I have no doubt of it," she replied, and she ducked back into her office and closed the door as James, Remus, and Lily laughed uproariously.

"She had no idea what to do with you, mate," James wheezed, near to tears. "The way she stared at you, oh, I'd pay a galleon to have taken a photograph of that look!"

Minnie was not the only professor utterly uncertain what to do with Sirius's shouted greeting. Professor Flitwick shooed them off, and Professor Clearwater already had a notice on her door that she would not be providing and treats and to kindly make her trick green as it was her favorite color. "Well bloody hell," Sirius said, looking at the notice, "She really can see the future!" And he made sure to oblige her request. Neither Garm or Frek responded to the banging on their door at all, which set Sirius to grumbling that he didn't really want to trick-or-treat to them anyhow, as they went on to visit all of the other professors all over the castle.

Only Professor Sprout managed to produce a treat - a tray of ghost-shaped cookies with bright orange candy eyes. She smiled as the four of them eagerly took up a cookie each - two for Sirius, and James requested one for Peter. "See you at the feast!" she called, waving to them, and Sirius skipped her door when setting their tricks, the taste of that delicious cookie still in his mouth.

"You would've been much more successful if you'd set this up with Dumbledore," Lily said. "And we wouldn't be the only idiots walking about knocking on the professors doors."

Sirius grinned, "But then they'd be better prepared and there would be far less tricks!"

McGonagall was looking into a mirror on the wall, just finishing up getting ready for the feast, when a loud banging came upon her office door. She turned about in surprise, glancing at the clock on her mantle, and crossed the room to open the door.

The corridor was empty.

She glanced up and down the hallway, but there was no one to be seen. Her mouth set in suspicion, but she ducked back into her office, and closed the door.

No sooner had she reached the mirror and been about to put the next pin into her bun than another knock came upon the door. She sighed and crossed back over, opening the door to find - yet again, nobody was there. She leaned out again, looking about. "Peeves?" she called. But there was no response from the Poltergeist, who surely would have shown himself at her request. McGonagall's eyes narrowed, and she closed the door again, though this time she waited beside it.

Knock, knock, knock.

She whipped the door opened as quick as a flash and stepped into the hall, "What is the meaning of this --" she started, but the moment she'd stepped out there was a great burst of confetti, which fluttered about her, sparkling orange and purple bits of paper that fell from the ceiling like rain, sticking to her dark green robes and her greying-auburn hair. She stood still in the confetti falling about her for a moment until it had all settled, and then she slowly turned and looked about.

"Sirius Black!" she shouted.

But he was no where to be seen.

Professor Flitwick's confetti was silver. McGonagall plucked several bits of it from his hair as he sat down beside her at the staff table at the front of the Great Hall. As promised, Professor Clearwater's confetti was green. Dumbledore's had been hot pink, like something left over from Valentine's Day. Each of the members of staff wore bits of it in their hair - on Filch, it blended rather equally with the bits of dandruff that graced his shoulders, and on Hagrid it had only hit his lower quarters so that his great belly sparkled.

Dumbledore stood, twinkling hot pink, at the owl-shaped podium, his eyes dancing over all the costumes that filled the hall. "Another holiday - another prank from the Marauders..."

"WOO!" Sirius shouted, clapping loudly. "YAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSS!"

Dumbledore waved his hand for Sirius to settle down. "Looking over the lot of you, I see some many marvelous costumes to inspire fear in even the most ghastly of ghosts, and —" he paused suddenly as the doors of the Great Hall opened with a loud, groaning creak.

Everyone in the hall turned to look and saw Mr. Frek, hurriedly pushing the doors aside and rushing back to the side of Garm Tyr, whose form was hunched to one side, or so it seemed...

"What's happened to his shoulder?" Lily gasped, clapping her palms to her mouth in shock.

Garm Tyr's shoulder was missing a gigantic chunk of the flesh, and surely some of the bone, too, for how deep it sank between his neck and the curve of the top of his arm. He walked with a stagger, leaning heavily upon a thick cane, his usual lithe swaggering gone entirely. The gait he now walked with was that of a much, much older man's - slow and wobbly. One foot dragged a bit so that he seemed to wobble on one leg while the other was pulled through each step, a long and altogether tedious process as he made his way up the Hall. Garm kept his eyes steadily on Dumbledore as he walked up the center of the four tables, ignoring as students turned in their seats to stare and gape at him. They whispered and pointed, as Mr. Frek walked alongside him, encouraging his every step, and ever ready to cast a spell to keep him upright should he fall. The embarrassment was clear on Garm's face, but so was the determination, and the grit-teeth anger.

"I suppose that's why they didn't answer when we knocked," James murmured.

"Bloody hell, I'll have to dash up and get that bleedin' confetti popper off his door," Sirius said, "Don't need to be making his night any worse than it already is."

Remus shivered as Garm passed them - for around the man's neck hung the string of teeth, and it was hard not to notice that a new one had been added on, longer and more sharp than any of the others, the new focal piece of the chain of them.

"I am most surprised to see you here tonight, Professor," Dumbledore said, hurrying down from the raised platform the Staff table sat upon to help Garm forward, cupping the younger man's arm with his own as support. Behind the table, Minerva McGonagall was covering her mouth in shock and she turned away - unable to look on. Professor Flitwick patted her arm comfortingly.

"A fair bit surprised myself, sir," murmured Garm. He staggered with Dumbledore up to the staff table, where he sank into a chair nearest to the end, vacated by Hagrid, who had stood up hastily to provide the space. Garm panted, eyes closed in relief of being seated, and there was a deal of shuffling as the staff reordered themselves to make room for Hagrid and Mr. Frek as well. Dumbledore motioned for Madam Pomfrey to come and aid, and she produced a bottle from her robes that Garm refused and pushed away. McGonagall had gotten up, as had Flitwick and Sprout and they were huddled about as Garm settled himself, waving off their concerned expressions and whispered words.

James looked about at Sirius, Remus, and Lily, wide eyed. "Was missing during the full moon, wasn't he, Evans?" he asked.

Lily nodded numbly. "DADA was cancelled."

James looked at Remus. "It doesn't matter you can't smell him, mate. There's no way he isn't one."

Remus nodded, eyes wide and glued to the gash.

"I reckon he was one of the wolves that attacked us in the woods that night," Sirius murmured.

Remus nodded again.

Dumbledore and the other members of staff returned to their seats, McGonagall's jaw set twice as firmly as usual, even as she clutched a handkerchief that Flitwick had handed her. Dumbledore rambled on about the fun and joy of Halloween, about how the feast ought to be a time of happiness and for all of them to tuck in to their specially prepared meal... but most of the students were still whispering, still paying most of their attention of Garm, who sat stiffly in his seat.

The food popped onto the table and they began to eat, and it was not lost on Remus that while the rest of them ate the pumpkin and squash stews and apples and candies, Garm was eating a steak so rare that the blood had to be wiped from his chin.

Upstairs, Peter was laying in the silence of the dormitory, the only sound the ticking of the watch. At times like this, when he was particularly down, the watch seemed to tick louder and louder, becoming more and more impossible to ignore, as though reminding him that he was irrevocably alive. Peter shivered and closed his eyes.

Tick, tock, tick, tock...

You're alone, you'll always be alone, you'll die alone... Wormtail.