Chapter Ten: The Awkward Tale of Halloween
(Yeah. It's that awkward.)
October's end rolled around just before the students of Hogwarts could drown in their workload of the fall, bringing delight in its shower of multicoloured leaves and cold winds. The kids all knew the zenith of the season: the Halloween Dance. As the night of the 31st grew closer, the population of the school sorted itself into pairs within which they would attend the dance.
That is, to say… Most of them found a date to it. A Ravenclaw curled up in her favourite spot of the Library did not.
So it happened that Lylia Letum found herself single as she snuck into the Slytherin dormitories to help Kayla with her outfit, five hours prior to the dance. Kayla had Melinda doing her hair.
"How can I help?" asked Lylia as she plopped down onto the stone by a wall. "I see you haven't made your mask yet."
"Would you be able to?" Kayla gave a smile. "It's going to be like… that Asian Lung you fought."
"But green?" guessed her friend as she examined the hem of the silky emerald gown on Kayla's bed.
"Exactly."
"So, where's Karen?" conversed Lylia as she began to glue individual 'scales' onto a green mask. "If I could find my way in here, I'm certain she could."
"She won't be going tonight," sighed Melinda regretfully. "She feels ill. Although," now she grinned, "I doubt she'd want to go with anyone but that you-know-which teacher anyway."
"Oh…" Lylia paused for a second before resuming the fastening of scales. "That's a bummer…"
"I know she wouldn't want us to miss out on it, though," smiled Melinda supportively. "Speaking of the dance, who's going to be taking you, Lylia? I know Kayla and I have our dates getting ready."
"Oh," Lylia repeated distantly. "I don't have a date… I don't think I'll really be going."
"You're joking!" pouted Melinda. "Come ON, Lylia. If you didn't hang around books every hour, you'd definitely have someone by now!"
Lylia's determined stare quieted the protests. "If there's something in there about an embodiment of Death, or the Addonexi, or anything like that, I'm going to find it."
"You're gonna go crazy, talking like that," mumbled Melinda as she just kept styling Kayla's hair.
"I have a couple books that need returning," chuckled the blonde as she stood, setting down the finished mask to let it dry. Without waiting for farewells, she left for the Common Room, where she found a dark-skinned Slytherin boy charming serpentine scales onto Draco's face itself. As Draco began to turn his head to look at Lylia, his costumer gave a growl:
"Move again, and I'm going to slice open your tongue."
Lylia smirked, her arms folding. "Why not? It'll look more like a snake's that way."
"Letum, don't-"
"I like." The darker boy had a smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he flicked his wand in a particularly-vicious addition of the next scale, making Draco give a small yelp. He winced and raised a hand to his face that was swatted away quickly by the boy decorating him.
"Letum. Who're you going with?" Draco made a face.
"I don't think I am, actually," Lylia tried to not laugh. "No one's asked me, you see."
The authoritative dresser stopped assaulting Draco's face with scales long enough to turn to Lylia, stepping forward and inspecting her quietly. Lylia glanced between his angular face and Draco's greened one, pink flooding her cheeks in the unease. The observing boy then stopped, met her gaze with dark brown eyes, and asked:
"Go with me?"
"… Sure." Lylia didn't really have the means with which to conjure a reason not to go with this stranger. Except that he was a stranger. "… Who are you?"
The boy grinned, taking her hand and brushing his lips across the back of it. "Blaise Zabini, at your service. What's your name, beautiful lady?"
Draco watched all of this incredulously, laughing in disbelief at the absurdity. Then:
"I-I'm Lylia," the shocked girl responded, her blush deepening at the suave nature of her new acquaintance. "Lylia Letum."
This sent Draco into a small fit of hysterical laughter. Blaise silently split his tongue without turning or dropping his pseudo-sweet smile.
"You should be getting ready," Blaise went on. "I'll walk you to your Tower, Lylia." As he departed with his new date, one hand resting on her lower back and keeping her blush persistent, Blaise smirked over his shoulder as Draco stumbled off to his dorm so he could examine his new tongue with horror.
"I was thinking of the whole 'Angel of Death' look." Blaise kept his eyes unbendingly on the path ahead of them as they traversed the halls. At hearing this comment, Lylia gave a not-so-graceful stumble.
"B-beg pardon-?"
Thankfully catching the girl by slipping his hand fully around her waist, Blaise gave a debonair smile. "You know- all black, feathers, artistically-torn clothing…?"
"I… bet it'll look good on you," Lylia shyly drew herself a respectable distance from Blaise as she straightened. With a nervous little wave, she turned away and, after answering the knocker's riddle, vanished inside the Tower.
Blaise watched in an almost predatorial way before turning and ambling back to the Slytherin living area. He began to pull together his costume, then started on a pair of wings. Over the course of four hours, a wire skeleton of angel wings came to life with ash-coloured feathers, the ends of a few actually smoldering. The mask was made of tightly packed black feathers with gray feathers creating a masculine yet genteel filigree around his right eye that enhanced his smoky gaze. He arrived at the dance in soft leather breeches ripped with a peculiar elegance, the leather vest serving as a top frayed at all the edges and showing off his thin yet muscular frame. He left a feather or two burning on the floor in his wake, and in his hand he held an entirely black rose with a stem made of black silk and petals comprising of midnight lace.
Kayla arrived in the shimmering, slinky green dress that had been in her dormitory earlier; its bends and folds wrapped around her in stunning imitation of the Lung's coils. Her hair was curled in perfect complementation of the dress's style, and every bit of the green enhanced her hazel eyes to a sharpening degree. At her side was her escort, Draco; he matched her in the green, reptilian attire, his living mask of scales charmed all around his eyes. Somehow, Draco Malfoy made green snakeskin look good.
"How is it?" he smiled over at his date, his forked tongue darting in and out from between his lips as a knee-jerk reaction. "Sssstunning?"
The Asian Lung laughed at the serpent's new speech impediment. "Let's say that."
The dark and seductive Zabini remained patiently at the side of the Great Hall, making mental notes here and there of those entering and exiting. Melinda made her entrance soon, her playful smirk perfectly suiting her fox mask. She tugged her vermilion tail close behind her to avoid anyone stepping on it. After giving a vulpine snarl at one hare-costumed firstie who almost did, her eyes wandered over the floating Jack-o-lanterns, the round black tables now dotting the edges of the dance floor, and each table's festooning of genuine spidersilk. An iron maiden hung from one ceiling's corner, serving as a charmed speaker for the dance's cheerfully macabre music. From above the dusky black clouds of the ceiling swirled and growled down harmlessly at the partygoers.
A line of the original Great Hall tables bordered one wall, supporting numerous cauldrons filled with gruesome treats. Fudge flies, white chocolate skulls, chocolate bars in the shapes of full skeletons, chocoballs with strawberry crème, creamy cauldron cakes, and the marshmallow-and-frosting-topped confections of full milk chocolate cauldrons all laid in and around the containers. Blood lollipops, taffy bats, chocolate and peanut butter coffins, and a veritable plethora of puddings and tarts also awaited their tasty demises.
It was at these tables that Melinda tracked down her own date. Unfortunately.
"Haynes…? What are you… WEARING?"
The Prefect grunted his answer through a mouthful of gummy ants. "I'm a bagger. Bagger. Badger!" The last word was barked after an obstructing swallow.
"You're a HUFFLEPUFF, Haynes?"
"I'll haff you know, honey baggers are capable uf mauling a hooman whole," stated Aidon as he stuffed more of the doomed gummies into his mouth.
As the clouds above the Hall parted to show a glorious full moon, Lylia reservedly brought herself into the dance. Around her feet trailed the hem of a gown as white and pure as the lunar beams that blessed the ebb and flow of its form over fair skin. A strip of gossamer caressed her upper arms in the semblance of ethereal sleeves, tiny rhinestones dotting in delicate patterns on her lower arms. A pair of columbine white wings unfolded hesitantly on her back, a matching mask over her face bearing a single curve of black feathers tracing around her left eye.
Blaise stopped in his conversation with Kayla and Draco as he saw the entrant, his eyes widened in pure shock and his lips uttered a soft oath. "If that is an Angel of Death… Let me die now to be in her arms…"
"Lylia?" Kayla looked on with her own level of amazement.
White-clad Death went to get a drink of blood-red punch from one of the treat tables, not noticing her nocturnal counterpart until Blaise was already by her side. He offered the rose with a charming grin.
"I thought you were beautiful before… Why, now you outshine everyone here!" He gave a bow in praise; but Lylia just smiled, blushed, and accepted the rose.
Draco and Kayla observed the duo from a corner's circular table, wary of their housemate's fixation on the Ravenclaw. Haynes blissfully continued to scarf down sweets, impervious to the lean panther at his side that was leaning barely on the table until it muttered something about the 'girl in white.'
"I added a scent to the lace… Just to add a faint surrealism bit, you know?" Blaise went on, his eyes gleaming in assumed pride over his work. "Go on, smell it!"
Lylia lowered her head to do so, but before she could inhale it she felt a furry hand rest on her shoulder. "YIKES!"
"Letum?" Aidon drew his badger-paw off and gave a smile through his hair-matted mask.
"Oh! Hanes!" sighed Lylia in relief. "You scared me…"
"I'm going to go have a chat as well," Draco said to Kayla as he started toward the group. "Care to come along?"
"No, thank you," Kayla declined as she turned to her drink of punch. "I'd rather not talk with Zabini. He's an incessant ladies' man."
Giving a small smile at realizing her protective nature, Draco just nodded to his date and headed to his male housemate.
"Who's this?" Aidon scrutinized Blaise carefully. "Ah, Zabini…" He himself seemed a bit taken aback by the known flirt's accomplishment in acquiring Lylia. "Nice to, erm, see you…"
"Thank you," Blaise stiffened as he stared down the badger. "Interesting costume."
The uncomfortable, striped mammal version of Aidon looked around in the discomfiting silence before strolling as unnoticeably as he could away, dragged halfway along by Melinda as the Slytherin girl demanded a dance. Lylia's attention turned again to the synthetic rose, lifting it for a brief second and taking in a deep whiff. Blaise grinned widely as Lylia's legs gave out from under her, scooping up the half-conscious girl already under the charm's effect. He broke his attention away from her only to silently cast a Confundus Charm on Draco, sending him right back the way he came. It was in a tender fashion that Blaise toted Lylia in his arms out of the dining hall, giving the excuse of taking his exhausted friend to the Hospital Wing.
His footfalls led nowhere near the infirmary, and he instead rushed up to the deserted Divination Tower with a Disillusionment Charm cast over them as they went. Neither Aidon, nor Draco, nor Melinda, nor Kayla noticed the pair's disappearance. The only guest to do so was a silent panther that had left immediately after the two students. Lylia dazedly tried to focus on the passing overhead arches, her mind clouded in the numbing scent of the false flower.
"Blaise…? What's… going on…?"
"Don't worry, love, you'll be fine," crooned her dark company that was increasingly making her concerned. He held her in a gentle embrace that was betrayed in sincerity only by the fact that he had essentially drugged her.
Karen heard distant footsteps from outside the infirmary before she saw her visitor in the doorway. Raising her pale head, her smile soon failed. "Professor Lesto… No. You…? Why are YOU here?"
Blaise laid Lylia down carefully on a premade bed, his eyes gleaming fiercely in the dim light. "My darling… My beautiful Angel of Death…"
The immobilized blonde stared fearfully up into the black eyes absorbing her, her mind struggling to no avail from her limbs. Her mind raced for some sort of reason as to how Blaise would know of her recently-found identity.
"Ms. Lylia Letum… Oh, yes… I have waited such a long time to be with you… My mistress." He snatched one of her hands and kissed every finger in a servile manner, rubbing his cheek against her hand with a deep and pathological gleam in his eye that didn't match the sharp and sensible Slytherin. The madness belonged to something deeper. "The Scythe… has for so long missed his master. So clever was the Scythe, so clever! But now… reunited! I shall consume life, any life upon your command! Command me, my mistress!"
The horror in Lylia's mind finally found its way to her hand, and she tried her best to jerk it away from the madman. "Let GO of me!" Her captor only held her hand tighter.
"Please, Mistress! Please accept your servant! I have dreamed of nothing but our reuniting ever since our incarnation!"
"HOMENUM REVELIO!" bellowed a voice from the entrance's aperture, making the two teens on the bed visible once more. Elden gave a growl as he slid off his panther mask, glaring envenomed daggers at the man poised over Lylia. "What the hell-?"
Blaise looked calmly at Elden. Within a second a jet of violet light flew from his wand concealed behind one of the false wings. He leaped after the spell; his hands groped wildly for the half-Veela's neck. While Elden deflected the spell with his honed reflexes, the actual physical assault knocked him clean onto his back. He used his wand as a bar to press horizontally up against Blaise's chin, trying his best to fight back the threat seeking to strangle him. His mind concentrated on a single sentence as his hands pressed desperately up with his wand in resistance to Blaise. A borrowed ring glimmered on his hand.
Meanwhile, the rest of their friends were in the Great Hall, seeking a missing Malfoy. Kayla was, obviously, doing so more frantically than the others. It came as even more distress to her when Melinda yelped and drew off her own ring, examining the message inside with confusion.
"It's… Lylia? Trouble at Divination?"
"Lylia and Zabini…" Kayla paled as the revelation dawned on her, and she scanned the dance floor. "They're not here anymore."
Blaise sank a knee into Elden's groin and forced a pained grunt from the necromancer, his untamed hands scratching at any and all exposed skin he could reach. The cruel nails lodged themselves in Elden's face, dragging down and trailing eight deep gashes behind them. His combatant, instead of giving the scream of pain his senses demanded of him, jabbed his wand into the chest of the insane attacker thirsting for his demise and let loose a slew of spells.
"Stupefy! Expelliarmus! Mobilicorpus!"
Even as he was blown off of Elden and hit the nearest wall, Blaise's let his mad laughter ring out while he slid to an unconscious and bound heap on the floor. Lylia struggled through the haze in her mind enough to sit up; her frightened eyes were glued to the bleeding man who made his own battle in standing up, violet-tinged eyes focused on azure ones. It was then that Melinda and Kayla rushed in, the latter running to Lylia and embracing the girl while Melinda just stared around in shock.
"What… happened if…? If Lesperance didn't… then what would've happened…?" asked the blonde shakily, her watch still on the unblinking stare of Elden's eyes. Something in them snared her attention and held her focus unsparingly.
Kayla held her friend's shoulders as she followed Lylia's line of sight, her expression turning horrified at the sight of Elden. "Holy Hell." She went to dab at the blood with a handkerchief withdrawn from her pocket. "We need to get you two to the Hospital Wing."
The elder Ravenclaw jerked away from the care before Kayla could make contact, spitting blood aside. "I'll take her… Go find Malfoy. He looked rather bewitched."
Melinda followed a renewedly-frantic Kayla back down the Divination Tower.
McGonagall was returning to her office from the dance when she saw Draco Malfoy knocking at her door.
"… Mr. Malfoy?" Her eyebrows raised. "Can I help you…?"
Malfoy eyed her confusedly. "… Is that who I am? Where am I…?"
Elden made his way to Lylia's side and wordlessly bore her up into his arms, beginning the long journey to the Hospital Wing. His blood-tainted gaze strayed from the emptied, darkened line of paintings they were bypassing and noticed her troubled expression.
"What?"
"Why did you come and help after you said-"
"I stated that I could be whole again by being worthy, didn't I?" Elden stared around at the lack of scenery instead of meeting the inquisitive blue eyes.
"Well, what do you mean by that?" Lylia's stare remained stationary on her old adversary.
"Nothing sentimental, Death. I'll know it when I feel it."
"Hm… And how do those scratches feel?" Lylia folded her arms, not quite sure how to take the title Elden gave her.
"Worth the pain."
The blonde's eyes softened at hearing such, her right hand almost timidly ascending to the man's face when he went on-
"It would be a shame to see such a nice dress spoiled, regardless of the Mudblood wearing it."
Lylia's hand froze, shook for a moment, and then slapped Elden across the face.
The necromancer cringed visibly at the sting that was only multiplied by the pain of his wounds, but his hold on his carried companion only tightened more securely as he stopped in his tracks. His mind swam not only with the pain but also with the realization of him finally being stood up to. His penetrating eyes stared at the girl's with a fiery indignation, but he met only the same inferno in her own optical orbs. Her now-bloodied hand clenched as she refolded the arm to match her other one, still shaking a little.
"I can walk," she stated stiffly after a few uneasy seconds of unchanged silence.
Elden shook his head with a disreputable grin, his steps continuing once more. Soon they had reached the sick bay, but not before Elden had tried making conversation. "It's simply glorious how much of a mess you can make… I figured that HIS aura must just be overactive when put beside yours, so I'm not surprised that happened, but… YOURS has just begun to bloom. No wonder looking at it sent Trelawney into a coma. I could follow your scent alone to that Tower, you know… I knew since the Ministry installed Aurors that they must suspect a spy here at Hogwarts, but I highly doubt that nutcase is capable of such treachery…"
He stepped back after he had laid her down on a bed, then slid into the unoccupied bed beside her. The Hospital Wing was deserted aside from a colourless, sleeping Karen in the corner furthest from the entrance. Madam Pompfrey herself had already turned in for the night, and neither of the newest occupants felt a need to wake her as they closed the curtains hanging around the beds and changed into the complimentary nightclothes. Lylia's focus strayed to the silhouetted man changing two curtains away; as his form stopped in its motions, she hurriedly went back to dressing.
"Should I draw these curtains for you?" Elden's voice was taunting.
He was coldly given no reply, and he simply shrugged and chuckled as he donned the pyjama shirt in the resuming of his own business.
Kayla located her boyfriend, with Melinda's help, at McGonagall's office door, where she was trying to persuade him out of believing he was a bright green pennywhistle. The negotiations were going nowhere.
"Mr. Malfoy, you are NOT a musical instrument!"
"You're Peter Paaan!"
"DRA?" Kayla hurriedly took ahold of Draco's arms. "Are you alright?"
"Kayla, thank GOD," Draco leaned into her with a befuddled demeanor. "Tell the Professor how she's Peter Pan. Look at the hat!"
McGonagall flushed angrily. Her pointy green hat was quite disgruntled as well.
"Ms. Hartland. Ms. Appleby. As splendid as I find it that you two are no longer trying to claw out each other's eyes, may I ask what you're doing outside of your Slytherin dormitory?"
"Draco will explain everything, I'm sure- right after I fix this charm he's under," Melinda assured the teacher as she drew her wand and waved it. "I'll fix him!" With a bright flash of light, McGonagall was knocked out cold and Draco was given a splitting headache, storming off in quite a hurry. Not wishing to bear added charges to the newest potential one of accidental assault of a teacher, Kayla and Melinda jointly lifted McGonagall's body and trekked nobly to the infirmary, where they laid her down gently in the back, beside Karen. ("Maybe she'll be less angry when she notices someone trying to sleep next to her," Melinda reasoned hopefully. Kayla just stared at her.)
Kayla rushed back on her way to find her elusive beau, the hunt leading her again past the Great Hall, where none remained but Aidon, who waved cheerfully with a fake, black rose in his hand.
"Oi! Hartland!" he beamed. "Great dance, huh? My date went missing early enough for me to finally enjoy the food-" Aidon trailed off as an inhale of the flower's smell made him quite dizzy. Kayla decided to ignore him, and continued on to go nurse Draco's headache in the Slytherin Common Room with some concerned company.
Melinda, however, stayed behind in the Hospital Wing, and she remained there long enough that she caught sight of a most perplexing sight.
Lylia sat at the edge of Elden's bed, using one of a medical kit's rags that healed skin as it cleaned. She had rinsed in a basin of warm water that was poised on the nightstand, and every now and again she dipped a corner of the rag into the water. She dabbed away the blood and rips on Elden's face scratch by scratch, just as indifferent to her surroundings as the Ravenclaw who seemed to be sleeping was. An infinite tenderness marked her hand as she tended to the wounds, not unnoticed by Melinda as the Slytherin silently padded back out.
The witching hour's bitter air was wafted through the curtains of the Hospital Wing and seemed to filter out its chill as it did so. Lylia finished the repair process over the course of the subsequent couple of hours, moving away the rag once she had finished. It was then that Elden opened his eyes and grabbed her hand in unison, making her softly hummed tune abruptly end in her surprise. He didn't let go as she jerked her hand a little, but he didn't tighten his hold either. After he had used his unoccupied hand to set aside her rag, Elden laid her hand gently against his cheek. His eyes held her gaze, for once not mocking or analyzing her within the bottomless, unique orbs. He let go after almost half a minute of tacit gratitude, rolling onto his and facing away from her.
Not yet blinking, Lylia gradually lowered her hand and went back to her own bed for sleep.