A Black Affair
It was the most backward, wayward, regressive, archaic, arcane, inane ritual. The women acted demure, batting their eyelashes, pretending to be innocent instead of conniving. The gentlemen skimmed their eyes through the crowd, ogling their treasures. There were many objects to this ritual, of course. Marriage was first and foremost on everyone's minds, and all sorts of connections were very important.
The ritual was a dance and dinner. The guests first gathered around shiny polished looking tables in refined rooms. One would expect said tables to burst into flames and like tribesmen, the people to gather around chanting and pounding their chests like a normal ritual would call for. Instead, the tables did no such thing; they stayed looking polished and shiny, food appearing out of thin air, by magic to satisfy the glutinous guests.
The older guests stayed at the tables for the rest of the night on most occasions, too tired to dance. They preferred to just watch the couples pair up like lions during mating season, ferocious, with their claws out and ready to steal any spare pieces of meat. These people weren't like lions, though. They were like snakes, like the treacherous snakes that had inhabited the garden of Eden at the birth of men, betraying god and men alike. They were all forced to slither along on their bellies, hissing their way in blatant disapproval of the rest of the world, and trying their damnedest to get their feet back. They would have sold their own souls for a bit more power.
In the end, it was all about power, all about the magic and wealth and blood. They didn't like to associate with dirty blood unless it happened to be spilling on the floor in front of them, and even then they'd probably laugh in disdain and stick up their structured noses while calling for a house elf to clean it up.
It was, in essence, a coming out party, a debutante ball. The high society met, parading their daughters around for the highest bidders. They would marry and have children to preserve their perfect, pure lineage.
Seventeen. Narcissa Black was seventeen just this week and this party happened to be in her honor. Seventeen meant that she was an adult in the wizarding world, but in the pureblooded world it meant she was ready for marriage. It was her job tonight to be beautiful as she walked down the stairs in a pure white dress robes with her golden hair lustrous. She hid her eyes from the crowd until she reached the bottom of the stairs then she looked up to catch someone's eye. It happened to be that of Lucius Malfoy, her long time crush. Then she pulled her wand out from some hidden fold in her dress robes and performed an ancient charm that was part of her family heritage. A swish and a jab and a graceful twirl, soft muttering, and the black family crest appeared on the ceiling in white to match her dress robes and little stars exploded through the room. This was all part of the night, all part of the ritual. There was no fire, but there were stars, which all the animals below looked up at. Her older sister Bellatrix's had been red and Andromeda's had been green, but her crest was white and pure and lovely, just like her.
Then the music was playing and the mother's of pureblooded sons flocked to Mrs. Black to compliment her daughter and maybe to get their sons a little bit more power with a lovely trophy wife like Narcissa was sure to be.
Bellatrix Black, 19, twirled around the room with her fiancé, Rodolphus Lestrange, whispering and smirking as she went. Her dress was a royal blue tonight, which complimented her dark black eyes and even darker hair. While she danced, the single men cast their eyes jealously upon Rodolphus, because surely he was one of the luckiest men to be there that night. Narcissa then made her way to the center of the floor, again pulling out her wand to cast another spell. She levitated herself a few feet into the air and the music began to change. The crowd made their way to the edges of the dance floor, forming a circle around her as she began to dance in midair. She didn't look nervous like Andromeda had been, and she didn't smirk at the crowd in confidence either, like Bella, but she smiled prettily down at them, concentrating on her graceful movements. She was the bell of the ball tonight.
Any of the Black sisters would have been a perfect match; any of them were better than most of what was out there, all beautiful, all fantastically wealthy, and all pureblooded. Bellatrix was wild and crazed and had a dark beauty about her. Narcissa was pure and a little more relaxed than Bella. Andromeda was dark featured also, but she wasn't crazy, she was quieter, smarter, and maybe a bit stranger. Currently Andromeda sat at one of the polished tables next to her Great Uncle Alphard.
"It's the same at every dang one of these." Alphard stated. "But you were beautiful Andromeda. Got any men hanging on your chains?" He wheezed in laughter and showed his old teeth as he pulled his glasses down his nose to get a good look at her. His breath smelled vaguely of alcohol. He was the family oddity, forever single, many thought him to be insane, but Andromeda knew better, which is why she liked him best out of the adults in her family.
"Hardly," She rolled her eyes. Her younger cousin, Sirius snorted from Alphard's other side, but chose to hold his tongue. Sirius knew she wasn't telling the truth, but no one else from her family needed to know that. The three of them sat there, the family outcasts, Sirius the rebellious, Alphard the insane, and Andromeda the strange. Well, no one thought she was strange besides the fact that she was nice to everyone, including muggles and muggleborns, a practice generally looked down upon in her family. She'd rather read books than talk politics of the wizarding world with her crazed family, and she'd rather sit with her Uncle Alphard at a ball than be dancing with her pureblooded suitors. About the boy though, she had one.
"Strange thing though," her uncle started, "This is a muggle ritual too."
"Really?" Sirius asked
"Yep, but your parents would never tell you that, they probably don't even know." He put a finger to his lips and made a quiet shushing noise, which was almost lost under the music of the orchestra. "Muggles have coming out balls, of course there are no house elves or magical appearances or anything like that, but wizarding kind stole this from them muggles. When a rich, high society muggle turns 16 she gets the dance and the suitors and the dress, and it's strange that we spit on them, but we have something just like them."
"We're more alike than anyone in this family would know." Andromeda stated scowling, which made her look fierce and pretty. She recalled with a bit of mirth when she had told her boyfriend, Ted Tonks about her own party a year ago, he hadn't believed her at first.
"A coming out party?" Ted asked in disbelief.
"Yes! Why are you acting so surprised?"
"Well, that's a muggle ritual."
"No it isn't." she looked confused.
"Erm yea, it is."
"Oh, I didn't know that." She stated.
"Weird though, that your family of all the families is having them, since it's a muggle tradition." She nodded at him.
She had spent time researching wizarding debutante balls and coming out parties, only to find out that this particular tradition had come directly from the muggles, she was surprised to say the least.
In muggle society, a debutante is a young lady from an aristocratic or upper class family who has reached an age of maturity and is eligible for marriage. The muggles of Britain were presented at court at the start of the social season. Only ladies whom had already been presented were entitled to present another lady (usually the woman's mother though in some cases other high society women), which ensured social exclusivity. These rituals differ from that of the wizard balls amongst the pureblooded families in the age of the coming out, for muggles 16, and for wizards 17(the legal age of an adult in the wizarding world), and in the use of magic as an important aspect of the event. Wizards, feeling their superiority shortly after their adaptation of this ritual from the muggles, added bits of magic into the coming out process to add a distinctly wizard touch to the event. Debutante balls are an old ritual and are sometimes deemed extremely old fashion, and are nowadays very rare among most families except for a few pureblood elites.
That had been just before they had been dating, and no one really knew about them, except for a few close friends and her cousin, Sirius, of course. She hoped to keep it this way. Reason being, of course, that Ted was a muggleborn, which was a total taboo. She couldn't believe she was risking this much for anyone, but he had become one of her best friends, and eventually, her boyfriend and she would do it again a hundred times to come to the realization that blood didn't matter anywhere outside of the room she sat in now.
Her sister, Narcissa, was now dancing with Lucius Malfoy, their blonde hair looking like a perfect family match, and their steps in time. Lucius was whispering something into her ear and Narcissa was giggling quietly.
She was so caught up in watching them that she didn't notice someone appear in front of her. "May I have this dance." A hand was in front of her and she looked up to find Rabastian Lestrange the owner of said hand. She scoffed and politely declined. "Come now Andromeda, you must know that everyone would love to see us dancing, I would love to see us dancing." She looked to her Uncle Alphard who was no help since he had seemed to dozed off. Sirius rolled his eyes beside him. Rabastian's eyes were pleading and it would placate her mother to see the two of them dancing, it would get her off of Andromeda's back for a large part of the night. With a sigh she accepted his hand.
Rabastian led them to the dance floor in plain sight of most of the adults and the older wizards and witches seated at the polished tables and pulled her a little closer than she would have liked. The song changed and they danced. Lestrange knew what he was doing and Andromeda had no problem following him. Ted could never really dance, any time they tried it was a clumsy ordeal which always ended in one of them falling over and then both of them laughing on the floor together with tears in their eyes. This wasn't right. Rabastian was whispering in her ear something she wasn't really listening to, and she could tell her mother's eyes were upon her with an appraising smile adorning her face, and her pureblooded friends pointing out her beautiful daughter with a possible suitor.
From the table Sirius watched his cousin dance only waiting for a time when his own mother would come over and scold him for not choosing to dance with one of the fine pureblooded girls his age, some of which were eyeing him with hope just as he sat there. From his side, Alphard, whom he thought to be sleeping, spoke. "Now that's not right." One of his baggy and creased eyes was open and focused on Andromeda. "Where's that chap who she's so smitten with?" Alphard knew more than he let on. "She doesn't look right out there with them, she's like us lad, we're different, and you'll be so lucky if you ever get out, not like I am, still stuck here, unmarried and generally ignored for my weirdness. No, I hope you get out alright." His eyes shut and his head flopped forward and Sirius wasn't sure if he was still breathing.
Suddenly from the dance floor Sirius watched as Andromeda pushed Rabastian away without warning and shook her head. She disapparated away and her mother took a step towards the spot she had been only a moment ago, trying to contain her rage. Sirius clapped his hands together and shook Alphard's shoulders, waking the man up. "Oh I thought I was gonna go that time!" he exclaimed. "Why didn't you let me go?" Sirius looked at him oddly. Did Alphard want to die or something? He wouldn't find out. Alphard looked at the dance floor to see Andromeda gone and Rabastian partner less. "Now that's more like it!" He sighed and closed his eyes again, this time his breathing audible in drunken wheezes.
Andromeda's robes swirled around her body as she apparated with a pop in front of a familiar doorway. It was wooden and a bit worn, with a smooth pewter knocker and a glowing doorbell. She walked up the front steps and poised her hand to knock on the door, only to have the door open before her fist connected with it. A wand was pointed at her face and she sucked in a gasp, but it was only Ted at the door, you could never be too careful these days. He pulled her to him in a tight embrace and then he pulled her into the house. This was how it was supposed to be: Dinner with the Tonks', dancing that always ended in laughter and not dismay, careful thought, and care for another, not a cold-blooded pureblooded life. Andromeda Black much preferred the Tonks' house to the bleak dining hall where her family still remained. She preferred Ted to Rabastian and maybe even to her family. This was her little secret, her family wasn't supposed to know about Ted, but she couldn't pretend to care about anyone else. She couldn't dance with Lestrange like she wanted him, like she cared because she didn't. It was a Black affair that she left and a Black affair that she had.
Sirius would soon leave his family, before she would have the courage to do that. He would live with the Potters and try to escape. Alphard would die, old and alone and still as strange as ever. He would leave Sirius enough money to escape perhaps forever, to love whosoever he pleased. Narcissa would marry Lucius, and Bellatrix would marry Rodolphus. And Andromeda Black, well she wouldn't be Andromeda Black any longer. She would be Andromeda Tonks, never forced to go to a coming out party ever again, never forced to talk instead of read, and never forced out of love and into marriage. Never ever.