"Ella, quit it! Stop showing off!"

"Quit whining," said Cedrella Black as she imperiously took her wand in hand. Drawing herself up to her full height—which wasn't much—she began waving it above the door to the drawing room.

"Just because you've just come of age, doesn't mean you need to show off."

"I don't need to do magic. I want to."

"Someday I'm just going to disarm you." Charis crossed her arms. "The Ministry won't know any better."

"I'll tell Mum and Dad." Cedrella did not turn around.

"I wish Harfang was here," Callidora moped for roughly the dozenth time that day.

"He's visiting the O'H—"

"I know, I know. Cursed Dubliners."

"Cassie!" came a voice from across the room. "Is my dress done up all right?"

Cassiopeia Black giggled and turned to address her younger cousin, Calliope Burke. "Are you going to a dance or a Quidditch match?"

"A dance," Calliope hissed.

"Don't let her step on you," said Charis. "Here, let me see."

She looked Calliope up and down—one wouldn't want to wear the dress outside in early January, and the colors were rather gaudy, but then again, she wasn't strictly a Black. "You're fine."

"Thank you," she smiled. "And no one's going to step on me. Except clumsy boys."

"Well, excuse me!" came a voice from outside.

Charis, Cassiopeia, Calliope, and Callidora all turned to look at the young man who was standing outside. "The lovely Blacks," he grinned. "Might I drop in?" He squinted. "My name does begin with a C, so I think I'm eligible."

"You're eligible to escort us downstairs," Cassiopeia huffed.

"Oh, come on in," Charis waved.

This took a little more effort than was strictly necessary; as the young man did so, he bumped into Cedrella, causing her wand hand to jerk aside and the mark she was making above the door to veer off-course, obscuring whatever she had previously written.

"Pardon me," he said, bowing.

Cedrella glared, but appeared to take no notice, and resumed her decoration.

"What's the holdup, then?" said Charis. "They busy downstairs?"

"Are you so eager to be rid of my company?"

She laughed. "I just know Auntie Violetta too well. She won't want to be running late."

"Apparently there's been a tragic mix-up with the house-elves. Who's the lady in the gold necklace, carrying out the, ah, ceremonial duty?"

"Mum," laughed Calliope.

"Oh, good, you're not some cousin I've forgotten," Charis sighed.

"Isn't he?" said Cedrella. "If he doesn't recognize Aunt Belvina, who's to say you would recognize him?"

"Oh, goodness no," he interrupted. "Please forgive me. Caspar Crouch."

"Pleased to meet you," smiled Charis.

"Crouch?" Callidora squinted. "Not that swot who had the paper open every cursed day?"

Caspar just gave a long, slow shrug, with a grin spreading across his face as he did so.

"I couldn't see across the breakfast table!" Callidora shrieked.

"My humblest...second-humblest apologies," Caspar amended himself. "I'll save my humblest for later. Just in case I need them."

"Will Mum hurry up?" said Calliope. "I want to dance."

"Is that so? Tarantallegra!"

While her older cousins giggled, Calliope began circling throughout the room, her legs gyrating under her entirely outside her control. At first, her face was frozen in terror; then, she too began to giggle as she continued to sway.

"Ugh, look out—" Callidora eventually called, but Cedrella had apparently finished whatever she was doing and stepped aside an instant before Calliope pinwheeled through where she had just been standing. One more step would take her out into the hallway.

With a look of great resignation on his face, Caspar cast "Finite."

Calliope took a few moments to come to her senses, breathing heavily, but then smiled. "Is the real dance going to be like that?"

"Yes," said Cassiopeia, "yes, of course it's a brilliant idea to have people out of control all over the place. It'll be a wonder we don't step on any more house-elves."

"What've you been at, Ella?" said Charis, before the wide-eyed Calliope could respond. She'd magicked some green letters into the door; 19+C+M+B+34.

"Epiphany blessing," she said. "1934, may Christ bless this house."

"He already has," said Callidora. "What's a CMB?"

No one could hear the answer; while Cedrella was trying to respond, Caspar was simultaneously giving another reply.

"What?" Cedrella finally asked.

"The Three Wise Men."

"We don't know how m—"

"Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar," he grinned.

After a brief silence, Cedrella rolled her eyes and said, "Please don't tell me you have two younger brothers—"

"Obviously he doesn't, you ought to know the Pureblood families your age," Callidora interrupted him. "Besides, if he did, he'd have blamed one of them for that cursed newspaper."

"How old are you?"

"Ell—" Callidora rasped while trying not to open her mouth.

But Caspar just smiled. "Sixteen."

"And you jinxed Calliope like that?" said Callidora. "You're underage, you little—"

"So what? Could've been you. Or your sister. Did you mind it?" He turned to Calliope.

"Nah, it was fun! But when is Mum going to—"

Calliope was cut off by a voice from below. "Master Crouch? The ladies, if you please?"

"All of them at once?" he replied before any of the Blacks (or Burke) could make some more tactful version of the same point.

After an indistinct reply, Cedrella put on a smile and said "We can make our own way down. Thank you!" A footstep behind, Callidora followed her below the threshold.

"You can escort me," said Calliope. "Or just enchant me again?"

"He will do no such thing," Cassiopeia hissed. "Now I know why Dorea's too young. Come on, let's go."

"I suppose this leaves me to escort you," Caspar raised an eyebrow. "If I haven't offended you already...?"

"No," smiled Charis.

Arm in arm, they made their way down the staircase. The dining room table had been magically hidden away, and a tragically small house-elf brigade was frantically swirling among the guest floor, offering food to all and sundry. The Blacks' Twelfth Night Gala was somewhat larger that year than in the past; the last time Hogwarts' school break had lasted until the fifth of January, Charis had not yet started school.

"Shall we dance?"

"Suppose so...but don't jinx me."

"Couldn't possibly, with so many grown-ups in attendance."

So they began to dance, slowly making their way through the room. Their usually-slow pace was interrupted, several times, by a harried house-elf making its way across them.

"I say," Caspar whispered, "ten points if we can trap it between our legs?"

"You just don't want to get too close to me."

Caspar paused, then saw Charis' smirk and laughed along. They did not wind up entrapping any house-elves, although when they got very close to Ecky and wound up both leaping, one foot from each sliding between the others' stance, Calliope's brother Antares wolf-whistled.

A waltz drew to a close and they paused for a moment near the kitchen stairwell. "So," Charis asked, "are you a wise man?"

"Your sister thinks I'm a swot."

"I can always ask my sister's opinion."

"Always? Aren't you going back to Hogwarts."

"Oh. Well. You're not answering my question."

"I don't think," Caspar said slowly, "they were all that wise. I'd much rather be a little baby." He nodded to the stairs; below, near the kitchens, house-elves were keeping most of the cousins-once-removed entertained. "They get all the gold."

"Oh well," said Charis. "We get all the dancing."

"Was that an invitation for another round?"

"I suppose it was."

And back they went.

Charis wouldn't think the night much, as far as dancing went, but then in Hogwarts Caspar was still there, newspaper at the cheeky ready. They drew closer to each other, making some memories and forgetting others, and none of her emotions from that first night really stood out. She could never pinpoint the moment she fell in love with him.

It couldn't have been that early. Couldn't it?

But to their joy, it didn't matter.