The first thing that their eyes could make out after the initial burst of light was a stone staircase that led into a sea of brown. There were strobe lights flashing everywhere and disco balls that were enchanted to float around the room in no particular direction. The music was loud enough to make a person go deaf if he were exposed to it for too long. Hundreds of tables overflowed with treats and drinks of every sort, surrounding a gigantic square dance floor that had a large silver serpent painted on top of it. There was also a large table right in the middle of the dance floor on which at least 20 people were dancing. About one-third of the crowd that was currently dancing frantically in no particular style was wearing their regular black Hogwarts robes, though some of them had taken them off and were wearing them as scarves or capes. Harry figured that the people in black were the Slytherins, considering they didn't have to wear the loser suits. Harry turned to look over at Ron to see what his reaction was, but he wasn't anywhere to be found. He searched the crowd from where he stood, but it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. He then looked over to Hermione to ask her if she had seen Ron but, of course, she had passed out, fallen down the stairs, and landed on one of the tables face-down in a punch bowl.
Harry walked down the stairs to remove Hermione's head from the bowl so that she wouldn't drown. She had been blowing bubbles in the punch with every snore. After he was sure that Hermione wouldn't suffocate, he began to search for Ron in the massive dancing crowd. As he moved through the crowd, occasionally dodging an arm or a leg, he spotted Cho Chang and Luna Lovegood, who were engaged in conversation.
"Hi Harry!" Luna called over the loud music when she spotted him. Both of them had loser suits on, only Luna had a badge on her chest that read V.I.P.
"How did you find out about this place?" she yelled.
"Huh … oh … I … er … just kinda got dragged into it."
He was more focused on Cho. Even though they had broken up, he still got that feeling in his stomach every time their eyes met. At that moment, Cho turned away from him and picked up a rather large bowl of chips and dumped it over Harry's head. She then ran away as fast as she could through the thick crowd laughing and yelling "Woohoo!!" over and over again.
Harry, who was very shocked by what had just happened, only stood there with the bowl still on his head. Luna, who had watched the whole thing and didn't think twice about it, removed the bowl from his head and continued with her conversation.
"So, where are Ron and Hermione?" she asked as she took a sip of some sort of steaming liquid.
"Uh, Hermione decided to take a nap," he said, still dusting chips off of his head. "I have no idea where Ron ran off to."
"He's probably around here somewhere. You'll find him sooner or later. In the meantime, have some snacks, dance around, have fun! You're in the craziest room in Hogwarts!" she said, looking at him as if this were the most natural situation in the world.
"Yeah, about that," Harry said. "What exactly is this place?"
Luna looked at him appraisingly. "What do you mean? Haven't you heard the story?"
"Story?" Harry asked, feeling that he would at last be getting to the bottom of something.
Luna opened her mouth to speak just as Harry felt something rub against his leg. "What the … Mr. Filch?" Harry looked down to see Filch on all fours rubbing against his leg and meowing like a cat. Harry backed off as Filch crawled toward him, his loser suit dragging on the floor as he went. "Stop following me!" Harry yelled and he zipped through the crowd and found his way to an empty corner. He was still looking for Ron when suddenly out of the writhing crowd ran Snape, who was wearing a loser hat on his head that was a good eight sizes too small. He had a potato sack, well a loser suit, in his hand and was twirling it around over his head like a helicopter.
He shouted, "I got one!" through the crowd, and took off again as the people in the crowd parted before him and laughed and cheered loudly. As soon as he disappeared, Colin Creevy ran through the crowd after Snape, wearing only camera-print boxers and his trusty camera around his neck. Snape had apparently stolen his clothes for fun, and as Harry had seen the same thing happen twice more in the next few minutes, he figured it was some sort of Slytherin game.
"Hiya Harry!" called Colin, holding up his camera and taking a picture. He seemed to have forgetten that he was partially naked because he had abandoned his chase and started toward Harry. Harry quickly dived through the crowd again to avoid interrogation and more photographs. He also didn't want to be seen with Colin while he was wearing only his boxers.
As he walked, he ran into Hermione, her head still soaking wet from her dive into the punch bowl.
"Harry! There you are! I was wondering what had happened to you." She looked positively red in the face with delight; or maybe it was just the punch.
"Hermione, this place is mad! Help me find Ron so we can get out of here!" Harry was yelling at the top of his lungs because the crowd had suddenly increased its volume.
Hermione's smile faded faster than hot breath on a cold night.
"Er … Harry, I don't think that Ron feels the same way as you do."
She pointed toward the large table that was centered on the dance floor. This was what Harry figured the people were cheering for. Several people were dancing on top of the table. There were eight in all, five of whom Harry didn't know at all -- but they were all wearing loser suits. Two other people up there were Fred and George Weasley. Both of them were wearing the same V.I.P. badge that Luna had been wearing, and they had enchanted a broomstick to float horizontally as they limboed underneath it. The last person -- dancing the most hysterically -- was, to Harry's horror, Ron. He had taken off his loser suit and was swinging it wildly around just as Snape had done.
Harry moved his way up toward him to try and get him down, but a line of losers doing the Congo cut him off. At this point, several people, if not the whole room, were cheering "Losers rule! Losers rule! Losers rule!"
Suddenly, Ron's voice ripped loudly throughout the room and over the roaring crowd.
"Chicken Dance!!!!" he screamed. There was a loud roar of approval before the music changed and every person in the room, losers and Slytherins alike, started doing the Chicken Dance.
That was the last straw for Harry. Horrorstruck by Ron's behavior, Harry rushed through the clucking crowd and onto the table. He dodged Fred and George who had attempted to bewitch him into dancing and pulled Ron back down into the crowd.
"C'mon!" Harry bellowed as they took off for the door. People were booing at Harry for stealing the life of the party and throwing food and, oddly enough, high heels, at him as he dragged Ron through the room. Ron was still dancing as the two of them ascended the stairs and exited the room just before a large cauldron was thrown in their direction.