(( Hi, guys! Just a couple of ground rules to keep things running smoothly:
1. When you join in, post your response to the end of whatever the most recent post is, to keep just one string of sequential posts. That way it should be easier to keep track of what's going on, and thus easier to include everyone. When the string gets too long, we'll come back to the top and start a new one.
1.5 Don't worry about your characters being "late" if you can't get here until this has been going a little while. This is the PPC--Jenni understands that people can't always show up at one time. ^_~ But really, it's just a personal pet peeve of mine, 'cause I've seen it way too much in other RPs, so now it's just boring and distracts from whatever else is happening at the time.
2. Keep posts in past-tense. It's easier to read if everything is in one style, and it will make it easier for me if I decide to polish this up and post it later. {= )
3. No controlling other people's characters. Some may be okay with it, but I'm not (unless you have explicit permission).
And of course, OOC stuff gets marked somehow, but you all know that. {= ) So, here we go! ))
The Really Very Tiny Auditorium had taken on a distinctly Potterverse cast in the last few hours. Granted, the ceiling only had a bedsheet-painting of a fairly generic cottonball-cloud sky tacked onto it, and the floating candles were battery-powered. The red and green streamers were nice, at least, and the single long table, draped with blue and set with yellow partyware, was laden with snacks that looked to have never seen the inside of the cafeteria kitchen.
The four adults in the room, two of whom wore Hogwarts robes and one of whom was a blue alien, stepped back from the final streamers and surveyed their handiwork.
"You do realize," said the taller of the two robed people, polishing his glasses, "that he won't remember any of this?"
The other robed person, Jenni, folded her arms and tilted her head at Nume with an amused smile. "Well now, I think we both know that isn't necessarily true."
"You should hope for his sake that it is," Nume replied, sliding his glasses back on. "Now, I 'helped,' and if you don't mind, I'm going to be in the stands avoiding the rest of the farce as much as possible, thanks."
"You'll be back," Jenni called happily. "Even you like cake!"
Without turning around, Nume pulled a large book out of a robe pocket and held it up in a display of how he intended to ignore her.
"And he's your friend, is he?" Agent Derik said. "I've seen friendlier watch-whers."
<My partner is not a 'people-person,'> Ilraen said. <But we are his friends, and that means he has to come to Henry's birthday party.>
"Yep!" said Jenni. "It's good for him. Now then... how's my kid?"
She crossed to the far end of the room, where a fairly large area had been fenced off, the floor padded, and strewn with the few toys any one RC had room to keep. In the midst, the purported center of attention was chewing on the tail of a brown stuffed fire-lizard, happily oblivious to the strangeness of adults. Henry Rowling Robinson wasn't precisely the most beautiful child in the world, having taken rather after his father, Severus Snape, but he did have one or two saving graces. The first of these was a pair of large green eyes, clearly the mark of his other father. The second was an adoptive mother who loved him and made him smile.
"There's the birthday boy!" Jenni said, stepping into the pen and scooping him high in the air, making him squeal and giggle before catching him up again. "Your friends should be here soon. It's going to be big fun!"