once upon a time (open/multi)

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It was shortly after Jerome's birthday, but he hadn't really celebrated it. It seemed a shame, as he had more friends this year, so perhaps they'd felt let down by him not organising anything. Everyone knew that he wasn't the type to throw a party, as those always seemed to get out of hand - no matter how hard you tried to keep everything low-key and alcohol-free...

He'd read in the Prophet that the cinema was doing a showing of some animated classics, so he'd sent a crystal message last Thursday about meeting up at the weekend and seeing them together. Some of the invitees he didn't know extremely well, but he'd invited them anyway knowing they'd probably enjoy the films. It was just nice to get out and get lost in another story for once.

Jerome was in the lobby of the cinema, having purchased his tickets and was now considering which popcorn to get.

"Maybe we should just get a large one of each?" he suggested to someone who'd turned up.

After grabbing her milkshake and ensuring they didn't already make much of a mess with the popcorn, Cherry followed after Lien and joined him and the others.

"I forgot it was your birthday recently, Jerome! Happy Birthday!" she softly exclaimed, smiling at her friend.

"I don't think I've seen Mulan..."

@Jerome Estrada @Lien Chang

It was his day off work, and Harrison was spending a good part of it catching old muggle films at the Hogsmeade cinema for matinee prices. For most people, it would be an odd sight to see Auror Jetson enjoy some family films, but these films were some of the first things he encountered when he escaped to the muggle world straight out of Hogwarts in 1984.

He was sitting closer to the screen than the others in the theatre, gleefully awaiting the start of the film.

Faolan wanted to wrap his arm around Emery's waist or at the very least take her hand in his but that wasn't what friends did, was it? Then again, neither was hooking up at a party but that had happened. He was stopped from thinking about it when Jerome announced that they should head to the screen. "Come on, we'll find us a good seat." He said as he did then reach out and boldly take Emery's hand. There were plenty of seats in the back couple rows with no one around so he started towards some of them. "How about here?" He asked Emery, indicating the seats away from the rest of their peers.

@Emerald Cartwright

Sierra laughed. "I could never!" She told Wade in response to punching him in the face. She couldn't imagine punching anyone for any reason. "Ummm, I'm not sure. I haven't talked to her today. Maybe I could message her!" Then she took out her crystal and sent a quick message to Thalia to see if she was coming before slipping it back into her pocket and moving with the rest of the group into the screening room.

She took a seat next to Jerome, hoping he didn't mind that she took it but not wanting to ask in case he said no. Then she spotted Lien and Cherry coming towards them. "Hey guys! I don't think I've heard of Mulan either..." Really, she hadn't seen any of the muggle films but she was excited to!

@Wade MacKenna  @Marilyn Grayson  @Thalia Tremlett-Chang  @Lien Chang  @Cherry Darling

"Oh - happy birthday," he said, startled. Then again, it would explain the group of students. Was Jerome really that popular though? Hmm.

"Mulan is really good - set in old China. A girl doesn't want her Father fighting in a war, so she dresses as a boy - and it's really..." A girl, and a girl-boy. Who turned out to be more of a man than the other men. Lien appeared to be having some kind of epiphany, as he realised how much he liked both Mulan and Ping. Girl and boy.

"..."

Not the time or the place for this!

"It's really good," he concluded quickly.

@Cherry Darling @Sierra Longbottom

"Hi Cherry, thanks," he said, smiling at her.

Then he didn't know what he was witnessing, but Chang trailed off all of a sudden. He didn't know how he felt about Lien anyway. Part of him was glad he wasn't sat next to Sierra, but he was sat next to Cherry...

Why was he being so protective over them all of a sudden? Chang wasn't as bad as Burke, he decided.

Sierra sat next to him, actually. Far from being taken aback from it, he was sort of glad. She wouldn't be sighing and complaining or talking about something else other than the film: something he couldn't stand when he wanted to watch something.

"Is this your first time seeing a film?" he asked Sierra, smiling at her.

@Sierra Longbottom @Cherry Darling

"That explains why that was one of the few Disney movies I wasn't allowed to watch growing up..."

Crossdressing was a huge no-no in her household. Why?

She had no clue actually, but Cherry was sure the reasoning was nonsensical.

"You're saying I'll enjoy it then, Lien?" she wondered with a grin.

"You're welcome, Jerome! How are you, Sierra?"

@Lien Chang @Jerome Estrada @Sierra Longbottom

Sierra wasn't sure what Lien had trailed off for but she didn't want to disrupt his thoughts wherever they had gone so she just smiled at his description. Then her attention turned to Cherry. "I'm doing well, how about you?" She smiled then looked back to Jerome. "It is! I've always wanted to see one though. Dad was more into working in the garden or whatever than going to muggle cinemas." She said with a little laugh. "Even if I was always just getting in the way when it came to anything to do with plants." She explained while the advertisements still played on the screen.

@Cherry Darling @Jerome Estrada

As he walked through Hogsmeade with Bellona, Thius had noticed that Estrada and a few of his fellow cretins, including bloody McLagBrain, were gathering inside that muggle attraction.

"Shall we cause some trouble for those mindless nematodes real quick, my lady?"

@Bellona Lestrange

"Sec."

Wade climbed up onto his seat, and blew a loud whistle between his fingers.

"Yeah - before we get to this film and stuff," he shouted to the entire theatre, owing at once to several complaints and grumbles. "Just gotta say that this lad right here." He pointed at Jerome. "Has turned 18. And he's a right prick. So chuck ya popcorn at him."

He crashed back down to his seat, laughing.

@Everyone

"Your Dad is a herbologist, isn't he? It's funny that our Dads both like gardening--"

He was interrupted, by... Wade. At once Jerome was growling at him to sit down, pressing his head in his hand, feeling a heat rise in his cheeks in a combination of irritation and embarrassment.

... but people were actually throwing popcorn at him.

He laughed, despite himself, but turned to MacKenna after with a warning finger.

"You'll get kicked out, so be quiet now."

Enjoying a lovely trip to Hogsmeade, with her arm slipped over Melanthius's proudly, she turned her head and noticed, beyond the glass, a lot of them gathering. Her eyes slipped up to the sign for the cinema.

"So now he's pushing his agenda to all the half-wits," she sneered, clutching more firmly at his arm, grinning. "If they wanted to see a freakish muggle thing, we could just put him in a cage and charge six sickles a go."

Sniggering, she turned her eyes back at him, smirking.

"Yes - let's."

@Melanthius Burke

Thius snorted as her comment lit up a bright torch in his brain.

"You know, babe, that just gave me an excellent idea - for Halloween, we could be zookeepers and lock all the mundanes up in cages for everyone to laugh at."

Licking his lips as he stared briefly at the smirk on her face, Thius planted a kiss on the cheek before approaching the entrance of this cinema.

As they entered the cinema, Thius observed their surroundings, trying to figure out the best way to disturb the group's time. "Oh, look, pathetic little Tremlett is here," he whispered to her, chortling away.

@Bellona Lestrange

Although the popcorn wasn't being flung in her direction, Marilyn still screeched. Ewww, whose saliva has been on some of the fingers that touched some of the pieces of popcorn?

"Happy birthday to you!" she started to sing to Jerome in a loud whisper.

@Jerome Estrada

Mackenzie had been running late to meet Tiernan at the cinema due to a meeting with her father. She had bumped into scorpius outside so they both went in together. When they got to their theater, she saw Tiernan at the top row with Wade, Marilyn and Rose, "Oh look, scorpy. There theybare." She made her way to the top and plopped down in the seat next to Tiernan, "Sprry I'm late. My father." She rolled her eyes and took a handful of popcorn, "I didn't miss anything did i?"

@Tiernan McLaggen

Rose had hung out with Tiernan as they had entered the screening room. After all, neither of their dates were there yet so it seemed to make sense to her! She was giggling a bit at Wade's statement when Mackenzie approached them with Scorpius trailing behind. Her smile grew as she attempted to navigate around the seats and people to get to Scorpius. Once there she hugged him. "I had hoped you would come! Tiernan said you would but I wasn't sure." She blushed a bit as she spoke.

@Scorpius Malfoy

Sierra didn't even get a chance to respond when Wade cut Jerome off, filling the whole theater as he yelled about it being Jerome's birthday and suggesting everyone throwing popcorn at him. It was all a joke, right? She waited to see how Jerome would react and he seemed to take it all in stride as he laughed about it. Even more surprising, people were actually doing as Wade suggested. She laughed as popcorn landed on her and in her hair due to her close proximity to Jerome. "I can't believe people are actually listening to him." She said with a laugh as she picked some popcorn out of her hair.

@Jerome Estrada

"We could stick them all to their seats," she suggested, smirking cruelly as she hung back with Melanthius, out of sight but viewing the others. "Or we could give Estrada's date a face full of boils."

She noticed that he was sat next to Longbottom, and assumed they were interested in one another. Longbottom had to have foul taste, after all.

"McLaggen is there," she whispered to Thius, almost turning her face right into his. Momentarily blushing, she pursed her lips and turned back, nodding towards McLaggen. "You said he cheeked you. Go on. You do the honours there, and I will sort out Longbottom's visage..."

Trying to keep her giggling subdued, she drew out her wand.

@Melanthius Burke

Tiernan was definitely chucking popcorn at Jerome, but ceased when Mackenzie appeared with Scorpius in tow.

"Babe," he whispered, leaning over and giving her a kiss before she had a chance to eat any popcorn. Then, throwing his arm around her, he stole the handful of popcorn she had got for herself, smirked, and shovelled it into his own mouth, grinning.

"You haven't missed anything. Albus talked to me. He seems to have cooled off now."

Tiernan leaned forwards and briefly nodded at Albus.

@Mackenzie Riddle @Albus Potter

"Sometimes people just need an excuse to act like a pack of monkeys," he told her, chuckling.

Ruffling his own hair, several pieces of popcorn snowed down onto his lap and he brushed them off onto the floor.

He smiled around at some of the others, but there was plainly someone missing. Of course, he hadn't expected Amara to turn up. She was doing her own thing. Perhaps she had plans with Ashton. The thought of the two of them laughing down the Hogsmeade street, not giving Jerome a second thought, made him feel oddly lonely, despite being surrounded by friends.

It was probably best she wasn't there.

Jerome smiled weakly at Sierra, and the lights turned down.

"Oh - looks like it's starting now!"

@Sierra Longbottom

"And once we see the spells hit them, we can apparate out, almost as if we were never here," he added softly, his stomach fluttering from their faces being so close together. A couple's treat at Puddifoot's would be an excellent way to celebrate this!

Thius nodded, biting his tongue as he decided how he waa going to deal with McLaggen. Hmm...

He referred to his mother as a monster. Transfiguration it was. It was a good thing he was working on his mastery of nonverbal spells, so that should make their presence less obvious.

He ducked down and drew his wand under the seat, pointing it towards the set of legs that were identifiable as McLaggen's, concentrating extremely hard on turning him into a pig. Who was the real pig now?

@Bellona Lestrange @Tiernan McLaggen

"Oi," he whispered, right to Marilyn's ear, when he was confident no one could overhear or see the affection in his voice. "I'll pull up the hand rest and y'can snuggle in, yeah?"

@Marilyn Grayson

"Oh, Wadeyyyy, you're so romantic!" she giggled, throwing a piece of the toffee popcorn into her mouth. "Please do that, pleaaaaase!"

@Wade MacKenna

Giggling in response, she looped her arm around Melanthius's - ready to side-along apparate when they were finished.

The only problem was, as she readied her wand and spell, the lights went down. That certainly made it more difficult to see, and aim, but as the screen lit up, she definitely saw a flash of a pair of glasses. Estrada's glasses, she presumed. That meant Longbottom was a few inches in his left...

"Furnunculus," she whispered, and a thin trail of light issued from her wand towards the target.

Which she hoped was the target...

@Melanthius Burke @Sierra Longbottom or @Someone else 'cause her spell mishit lol

One second, he was cosying up to her, the next, his arms were shrinking to trotters.

Uttering a wail of confusion, which came out a pig-squeal, the McLaggen-pig squirmed about in a frenzy, flailing over Mackenzie and Marilyn seated either side of him.

@Marilyn Grayson @Mackenzie Riddle