"It is with the greatest reluctance one can summon that Lady Elisabeth has declined Mr. Riddle's proposal for marriage. She extends her heartfelt sympathies, but she does not believe that either of them is suited to one another, and she fears it would result in a most grievous life for Mr. Riddle and herself both. However, she wishes that they both should remain cordial to one another, and she offers Mr. Riddle an invitation to her wedding as a reward for his friendship.
Sincerely,
Ms. Eileen Prince."
Tom stared, dumbstruck, at the paper before him.
"She didn't even write it herself."
Nott stared at him with a blank expression.
"I suppose she's going to marry Franz Joseph, then," He said with disinterest.
"That's unacceptable." Replied Tom, the letter now crumpled in his hand.
"She won't change her mind." Nott stared into the empty bottom of his flask as if searching for something.
"I know that!" Snarled Tom. "Godamnit, but she hates him!"
"That's true," Agreed Nott, "But she certainly doesn't hate his money, and she most certainly loves his reputation."
Tom leaped to his feet and spit in the fire before he began to pace across the room.
"It's too late." Murmured Nott, now gazing into the blaze. "You won't persuade her. There's nothing to be done, accept to arrive at the wedding with a smile on your
face and a gift in your hand."
Riddle turned to Nott, at first infuriated, but as understanding overtook him, he grew calm.
"You're right. And her father always liked me."
"She wants to remain cordial, she said." Nott continued.
"And Franz Joseph doesn't know a snake from a wand... I could be set, Nott."
"Of course you could. Leopold adores you- they all do."
"Then it's settled," and Riddle grinned with excitement. "I'll pay her a visit tomorrow and smooth things over."
-------------------------------------------------------
Eileen looked away from her new book and out towards the drive. A young man stood there, immediately identifiable as Tom Riddle by posture alone.
Elisabeth was busy pursuing the wedding gown portfolio the witch from Wibeck's Wardrobe had sent over.
"Oh, Eileen, what about ermine? I can't decide, they're all just so beautiful. Perhaps I can get Penny to combine some elements..."
"I think you've got a visitor."
Elisabeth tore her eyes away from her magazine.
"That horrid little class grubber, Riddle?"
Eileen nodded. "Certainly looks like it."
Elisabeth clicked her tongue. "I don't want to see him now. I'll have Doublet send him out."
An elderly house-elf appeared and bowed politely. "Madame?"
"Doublet, Riddle's coming; I don't want to see him. Tell him I have a migraine and can't entertain today."
Doublet disappeared in a puff of smoke, and Eileen and Elisabeth returned their attention to the wedding portfolio. Doublet promptly re-appeared.
"Mr. Riddle wished that you may receive this letter, Madame, and he says he hopes you shall sufficiently recover from your migraine in time to attend the Black's ball tonight."
Doublet extended a heavy, cream envelope embossed with a green 'R' in elaborate script. Elisabeth took the envelope and sniffed with amusement.
"Riddle and his airs. It's like a bad circus. Open it for me and read it, would you Eileen?" Elisabeth began to leaf through the wedding portfolio again.
Eileen shrugged. "You know it will just be more of the same."
"I know, but it's always good for a laugh Eileen, and you don't laugh nearly enough."
Eileen smiled to herself and began to read.
"Dear Lady Elisabeth,
May I confess myself heartbroken?-"
Elisabeth and Eileen snorted and broke into laughter. Elisabeth regained her composure.
"Oh, Ellie, go on, go on!"
"It is with a heavy albeit open heart that I commit myself to the role of mere friend in your life, for to cage such beauty, intelligence and wit as yours for myself would not be worth the price of your happiness. Yet I do hope that we should remain friends in all aspects of life, and that, indeed, you may consider me your confidant where all others fail-"
Elisabeth and Eileen exchanged dubious looks.
"Forever yours in friendship,
Lord Voldemort."
This elicited further peals of laughter from the two girls.
"My lord," Gasped Elisabeth, wiping away tears, "Lord Voldemort! What a foolish name! What is he, a type of root?"
Eileen gulped back more laughter and shook her head, "Oh, Sissy, he takes himself so seriously!"
"I know, I know, and you haven't been on the receiving end of some of the conversations of his that I have! 'Purity of the race', 'order and discretion', what nonsense.
And shouldn't I know better than anyone else? Me, Lady Elisabeth Wittelsburg- member of arguably one of the most pure and inbred families in the wizarding world. A fat lot of good it's done us, too. Look at poor Papa. Look at his father, and his father before him!" Elisabeth had long since stopped laughing, and she stared at the letter in her hand with a kind of enraged intensity. "Poor little fool! He can't understand the misery of it- we only play at being important and noble and brilliant, Eileen. We're the pathetic mad hangers-on of a dying age, one I don't want a part of, one that 'Lord Voldemort' would love to resuscitate." She tore up the parchment into little shreds of paper and let it fall to the floor. Eileen stood up.
"Should I go?" She asked, concern written on her face.
"No, stay awhile," Sissy pleaded. "I need someone to pull me out of this horrid mood, and you're the best for horrid moods, Ellie love."
Eileen smiled at her, sat beside her and opened the portfolio again. "What do you think of peach?"
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Eileen was wearing a dark green gown that had once been Elisabeth's, as her mother hadn't the money to afford one for Eileen. It fit very tight around the waist as Elisabeth was an ardent fan of corseting, and rather loose around the sleeves, as Elisabeth indulged perhaps a bit too much in chocolate cauldrons and that was where she gained weight. Eileen was highly aware of the fact that she resembled a mossy stick.
However, Elisabeth's father had decided to indulge his daughter with a long, billowing gown of white chiffon and a ruby and diamond star parure. She chose to wear only the hair ornaments, for her hair was, so she believed, her best feature. Seeing the poor state of Eileen's dress, she lent Eileen her pink pearls for the evening.
"I hate parties, Eileen." She groaned as they piled into the carriage.
Eileen grimaced. "I know, but at least you look good."
Elisabeth snorted. "I'm not allowed anything but my beauty in this facsimile of the real world, so I'm going to raise it to unprecedented levels. Dear Ellie, you're much more honest than I."
Eileen laughed. "Honesty's not in vogue like rubies are!"
Elisabeth opened her mouth to issue a retort, but she just laughed.
"You're determined to be miserable, but I am also. Let's make a pact of it."
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A triumphant Elisabeth was introduced by her new fiancé, the sweetly amiable Franz Joseph de Klondt, to loud and approving applause. The young man smiled down at the jubilant crowd with warm, blue eyes filled with naivety. Eileen watched as Franz swept Sissy into a graceful waltz to the envious and admiring faces of the onlookers.
She watched for a time before she observed Elisabeth's father, Leopold, weeping freely as he gazed at his daughter from amongst the crowd. When the music died and the waltz concluded, he looked about confusedly, with an expression of vague panic on his face. Sudden pity stabbed at Eileen and she ran to him and grabbed him by the elbow, leading him back to a small, deserted sitting room.
"Unser Leo, what is it?" She tried to comfort the terrified man, who in the past few years had mentally deteriorated at an alarming rate. He stared back at her with empty, horror filled eyes, and gripped her hand.
"Ah, Ellie, yes? Ellie!"
"Yes, yes!" She soothed him, and patted at his shoulder as though he was a child.
"My Sissy, she looks beautiful tonight, doesn't she?" He asked vaguely.
"Yes, she does." Eileen replied.
"I weep because it is so hard, so hard to know she will leave me forever, and that her whole life will be so sad, and yours too." Leopold took a shuddering breath and more tears squeezed from eyes. "Forgive me, please. How dreadfully I must embarrass you. I'm an old man."
"You're nothing of the sort! You're hardly fifty."
Leopold shook his head. "No, no, my brain-my heart, or maybe my soul, that is what's old. I killed the dark assassin Otto Gunter, did you know that? Albus Dumbledore and I were both racing to find him- I beat him that time, but he won the next. Sissy was a child. Grindlewald, do you remember? I knew him. We'd studied in Bron together. Such a brilliant man, but he was too hard, too brutal. Albus won that round. But I was Minister then- I didn't have time for that. I was keeping my new country safe here at home. He wanted to marry my Liselle- Dumbledore, not Grindlewald. He's never married, did you know that? But she loved me- me! Of course, it was no contest. I was very handsome you know. And terribly clever."
"You still are, Unser Leo!" Eileen said in an attempt to cheer him up.
"No, no, I am not. I'm as bad as my father, if not worse. It's in the blood, everyone knows that. Did you know I had a brother? Sigmund. Mad as anything. He thought he was a dog. Funny, yes? Not for my mother, she died over it, the purple consumption, of course. I suppose I was of little comfort to her- I was quite prone to fits of incoherent rage. I'd throw china."
Eileen laughed in spite of the situation, and Leopold smiled at her.
"Huge vases, too. I'm thin but I'm tall and marvelously strong when I'm angry, or I was. The large window in the Minister's office, looking down on the atrium?"
Eileen nodded.
"I threw a chair through it once. I was arguing with, oh, the name escapes me. Dumbledore was there, though. Ask him, he'll know. A huge hole in that window, and glass on everyone below. I won the argument, I think." He chuckled sadly and looked at his hands. "Liselle would be mortified. I'm here, a sad and sorry mess, instead of out there, enjoying myself. She used to love to watch me dance with other ladies. She hated to dance herself, so she claimed to appreciate my dancing from afar better than in person. She'd pick them out, the women. Only the prettiest. And I'd always pretend they were her!"
Eileen patted his shoulder again. "I'm sure Sissy is waiting- why not go dance with her?"
Leopold nodded slowly. "It would be dishonorable not to, and she has a lovely quadrille." Having suddenly composed himself, he got up to leave and paused, looking back at her. "And you, Ms. Prince? You'll be joining us at some point, I hope? Waiting for anyone special, perhaps?"
Eileen laughed and nodded, but raised a finger to her lips. "But for Merlin's sake, don't tell Sissy!"
"Ah!" Laughed Leopold, "She will have a conniption!" And he flew from the room at once, presumably to tell his daughter of Eileen's imminent dance partner.
Eileen waited awhile in the quiet dark, savoring the solitude and peace. She truly disliked parties- and doubted that Sissy truly did, for though Sissy did hate the gossip and the mean spirited looks she received from other women, she reveled in the praise and admiration she received from the men. Eileen just disliked dressing up, and the music, and the gossip too, she supposed. It was too much for her.
But she had dressed up tonight- albeit in an ill-fitting gown two years out of fashion, but a beautiful gown nonetheless. Besides, Tobias preferred her in green.
She heard him pull into the drive in his clunking automobile, and she watched from the window as he extracted his lanky frame from the car, cursing profusely. She noted with a faint smile that he was wearing a tuxedo. Something else no one else would have, and she loved him all the more for it. She rushed to meet him at the door,
brushing past a laughing Sissy, who looked after her with a questioning 'o' of a mouth. She arrived mere moments before he even rang the doorbell- just enough time to smooth her dress and hair. She opened the heavy doors with a flourish.
"Tobias." She exclaimed, winded.
"Eileen, you look like a piece of moss." He laughed.
"Thank you." She gasped, blushing.
"My pleasure." He handed his overcoat to a house-elf with a distinct look of unease. "Did you say they had a bar?"
"Yes, of a sort- but you should see Sissy first."
"Ah, Lady Elisabeth Charlotte Wittelsburg, soon to be Lady Elisabeth Charlotte Wittelsburg de Klondt. I'm sure she looks radiant, and miserable, as per usual." Tobias grumbled as he fussed with a cufflink.
"You're one to talk- showing up late like that and cursing to beat the band." She chuckled. Tobias grinned painfully.
"Well, let's go, then."
They were announced with little fanfare, aside from Elisabeth's loud cry of delight- "It appears the dear Lady has already been a patron to that bar I asked you about," Commented Tobias. Eileen elbowed him and waved back to Sissy.
"Sacre bleu! -Franz just taught me that- did you know his mother was French? I didn't! Ha! But anyways, sacre bleu, Tobias Snape! In Merlin's name, what silly muggle thing are you wearing today?" Sissy cried in one scotch-laden breath as she clutched at Tobias's shoulder.
"A tuxedo." He replied through gritted teeth. Franz Joseph smiled obliviously at his fiancé. "You must forgive my Sissy, she becomes so excited during parties," He explained.
"She's of an artistic temperament, you might say," Continued Leopold as he sidled up to the little group, in his hands more alcohol. "Another scotch, little bird?" He offered Sissy a shot which she accepted without pause. "My grandmother was as well, you know, of an artistic temperament. Very excitable. It's a familial trait." He inclined his head toward Tobias amicably. "I for one applaud your decision to wear a, how did you say it, tuxodo? Yes, well, anyhow, these island people don't have a clue as to fashion- I import all my wardrobe from the continent, and I do the same for Sissy. Joseph here does as well. They'd all be wearing dress robes from the 1700s if we Europeans didn't breathe some fresh air now and then into the corpse they call their culture. Am I right, Tobias?"
Tobias shrugged noncommittally. Leopold took that as a sign to continue on, but Sissy stopped him.
"My father had this dress made for me in Toledo, did you know that?" She muttered at Tobias, who recoiled slightly.
"Can't say I did."
"Well, he did, and it cost a near fortune- all the silk is from china- enough money to buy this manor. And do you know what?" She stage whispered, leaning in closer to Tobias and Eileen, who merely smiled.
"I don't care. I'll wear it tonight and that'll be it. Se la vie! Good bye, dress! It will linger in my closets long after I have succumbed, and my little granddaughters will play dress-up with it one day when their mother isn't looking and they will tear it to pieces! And I won't care! But god help you if something happens to it in that in-between
time, Tobias, god help them!" She collapsed into giddy laughter and stumbled into Eileen.
"Let's get you on a sofa somewhere, hm?" Eileen chuckled as she led the softly humming Sissy away from the ballroom. Franz Joseph smiled after his fiancé and Leopold gazed vacantly at the crowd of swirling couples around them. Tobias grunted unhappily and shifted on his feet to the silence.
It was not long before a new guest arrived: Tom Riddle sauntered into the room, and spotting their circle, strode over towards them. He cast an appraising look at Tobias, but shook Franz Joseph's hand and respectfully kowtowed to Leopold, who merely laughed and gazed after a woman who he thought had called his name.
"Franz Joseph- the man who has bested me!" Riddle said, in a tone he no doubt thought was, incorrectly, jovial.
"Not at all, Tom," Replied Joseph with a graceful inclination of his head in Riddle's direction. "Elisabeth is an...inexplicable type of woman. She could just as easily have chosen you over me."
"Yes, well, that's not the case, is it?" Laughed Tom with notable restraint. "Where is the lady of the evening?"
Eileen returned, and upon noticing Riddle, her face turned somewhat sour.
"Ms. Prince! Perhaps you know where our dear lady is tonight!" Riddle pried unctuously as she arrived.
Eileen glared at him. "A greeting would have been proper, Mr. Riddle. At the moment Lady Elisabeth is suffering from her migraine."
Tobias snorted, and Eileen elbowed him. Tom raised an eyebrow but did not press the subject further. He instead turned to Leopold, who had not paused in his surveying of the wall behind them.
"Minister-"
"Oh, please, ex-minister, I always loathed that bourgeois title so. Don't call me that." Leopold suddenly snapped.
"Of course not, sir;" Riddle stammered. Eileen smirked to Tobias, who simply craned his head, searching for the bar.
"No, Tom, dear boy, just call me Leo."
Riddle, clearly unused to this, blinked rapidly, but recovered easily. "How has the ball gone so far, Leo?"
Going in for the kill; Thought Eileen. Leopold loved a chance to talk.
"Excellent. I daresay Sissy looks just like my mother. Sophie- that was her name. I wanted to name Sissy for motherdear; of course Liselle would have none of it. Her family was Austrian, just like you, Franz!"
Franz smiled obliquely.
"Yes, Austrian and Bavarian, that's the sum and the whole of us Wittelsburgs. Franz is Austrian and French and Russian- if it wasn't for the damn economy I wonder why we'd ever be in this bloody place at all."
Franz Joseph nodded and sighed, commiserating. "Dreadful weather, but there isn't any money to be made elsewhere."
"No substance to the place, either, or rather, too much." Grumbled Leopold. Riddle could easily see where this was going; time to steer it in another direction.
"I've heard you've invested in a new residence, sir." He slipped in, quietly.
"Indeed!" Shouted Leopold, for spending his money on lavish villas and palaces was his greatest passion, "Yes, in Corfu. Sissy loves the seaside. Aldanon, we're calling it. Her name, of course. And heavens, it isn't mine, no; it's a wedding present, so Franz here will be getting the full benefit of 600 goblin architects!"
Franz smiled again at Leopold, but his eyes seemed harder somehow. "Very kind of his electorship too, as neither Sissy or myself will be spending much of our fortune on residences. Just Aldanon, Westinghouse here in London, and Schlossbrun in Austria."
"Oh, that's far too few for me, and I daresay Sissy will have a bit of a time getting used to it; but she'll cope." Chuckled Leopold.
Eileen saw Riddle's eyes flicker in momentary anger. So clearly, she imagined he thought, Sissy hadn't just married for blood or for money; she'd married for mobility. And there wasn't much mobility in a 'learned magician', however charming he may be. A silence settled over the group, and Tobias glanced at her, bored, but Eileen was still closely observing Tom Riddle, who was staring at the silver head of his expensive new walking cane with a kind of dumbfounded horror. He had realized far too late what mattered the most to these people, at the very echelon of pure blood society; they did not think of money, it was vulgar; they did not boast of blood much, though they always married to a standard; they lived in a world untouched by common greed because they had lived without want for so long. Their desires were great but insubstantial; they thought not in the reality of wealth, for that was something to be handled by bankers and financers and overseers; they lived amongst their possessions as if they all had come naturally to them. His wealth would never impress them because, and he now realized with a sinking in his stomach, to them, wealth was a natural state. To be unwealthy was abnormal; having climbed your way up from the bottom did not make you admirable; it made you a curiosity. Eileen took all this in, in just the few moments she was able to glimpse his face, which suddenly went ashen. Riddle looked up abruptly.
"I regret that I must be off." He said, in a cold, dead tone.
Leopold and Franz Joseph looked to him in surprise.
"So soon?" Asked Franz, pleasantly bewildered.
"I am afraid so."
"That's too bad. I'm sure once Sissy'd sobered up a bit she'd dance with you." Leopold stated baldly.
Riddle blinked once, then with a curt nod, turned on his heel and stalked from the room.
"I've always liked that boy," Yawned Leopold as Riddle exited. "It's too bad he's got such poor blood."