A/N: Thank you so much to our readers and reviewers; we really love getting feedback. Apologies for the delay in posting this instalment. A mixture of house moving and holidays slowed down our regular pace, but we are both back with a vengeance! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: We still don't own a thing... (gutted)
Chapter Ten: Fascinating Though Your Social Life Undoubtedly Is
The Yule Ball loomed like a disgusting slavering beast. Though its fangs had yet to pierce, Isolde found herself drenched in its foul, rotting drool. With three days until Christmas, the dreaded ball seemed to be the only thing jiggling on people's tongues. Girls giggled, boys stammered last minute invites and those under fourteen looked expectantly upon older students in the hope that they might gain entrance to the coveted event. In the once safe domain of her dormitory, Isolde's roommates now modelled dresses, practised their make-up and experimented with hair-styling charms. With the onset of holidays, it seemed as if everyone had abandoned their brains in the classrooms, awaiting the resumption of work in the New Year.
With the students' minds on frivolity, the library was subsequently left deserted.
Nestled within the dusty tomes, Isolde found a similar sense of solace that accompanied her visits to Zuranders. While her fellow students rambled about robes, she ploughed her way through most of her holiday assignments. As various dark deeds were planned, Isolde planned her latest Potions essay, allowing herself two luxurious days to scour books on advanced medical potions and take extensive notes. The excessive work drew her mind from the ball, Ichabod Flank, Draco Malfoy, even from that hideous lump of velvet sizzling away in the charred cavern of her hearth. With three days to go, though, Isolde found herself itching with worry.
The dress was destroyed, but she had no replacement.
She had no date.
She had lost the respect of Snape.
All in all, she was delving into the odorous quagmire that was the Yule Ball completely unprepared. It was thoroughly tempting just to boycott the dreaded event, but she knew Marius would break into the Slytherin common room and drag her out by her ears should she settle for this option. No, she would simply have to rustle up an acceptable outfit, brush on a fake smile and make an appearance.
As torturous as it would undoubtedly be.
Thrusting aside all thought of the ball, Isolde turned her attention back to the small collection of words on the page. The manuscript was more than nine-hundred years old, the handwritten script beginning to fade and smear. It smelt of mould and parchment, a delicate mixture that brought a smile to Isolde's tired features.
"Izzy! There you are!"
Marius' excessive tones broke her respite, bringing her back into the Ball-soaked present.
"Marius." Her sneer was almost indicative of Snape, but it did not wipe the smile from her friend's face.
"No need to look so sour, Izzy-poo. It's almost Christmas."
Isolde cocked an eyebrow, waving her hands without conviction. "Yay."
Once again, Marius seemed to ignore her. "I came to find you because I have a little present waiting for you up in Ravenclaw Tower."
Isolde could not help but smirk. "Marius, I love you and all, but I'm not sure if I want to see your little present."
"Har, har, hartitty har," drawled the Ravenclaw. "I can assure you, my slippery little serpentine friend, that present is anything but little."
"You do realise who you sound like right now?"
"If you say Draco Malfoy, I am going to tip this double shot macchiato all over that beautifully written essay of yours, Miss Hamilton." With a deft flick of his wand, Marius packed up her belongings, forcing them magically into her bag. Isolde frowned, but allowed her friend to drag her out of the library by her arm.
As they passed, neither of them noticed the figure lurking in the shadows of the Restricted Section.
Neither of them saw the dark, obsidian eyes, glazed with a mixture of fury, annoyance and jealousy...
oOoOoOo
Even amongst the glowing cinders, Lucius' eyes were dark, glancing at Severus as he sat irritably at his desk. Though he was becoming accustomed to Malfoy's impromptu visits to his office fireplace, he continued to receive them with displeasure. It was Christmas Eve but anyone surveying Severus' quarters would not have been able to guess. While every square inch of the rest of Hogwarts seemed to be dressed with tinsel or some form of enchanted, twinkling ornament, his office remained as dark and modest as usual.
"Surely you have better things to do tonight, Lucius, than harass me? A quaint, family game of Wizards' Chess, perhaps?" Severus sneered as his hand absentmindedly tapped a tartan wrapped parcel he had received from McGonagall earlier that day - no doubt, the same saccharine shortbread she distributed, and he disposed of, every year.
"Come now, Severus. I thought we had made amends? Flank tells me he owled you yesterday to do just that."
Severus scoffed from his ornate, high-backed chair. "I hardly think that a letter of drivel and bottle of Ogden's is..."
"He means no harm, old boy."
"My concern is not for myself, and you know that." Severus paused, his stare lingering with significance. "Being a frustrated, middle-aged married man now, I know how you like to live vicariously through others, and the thought of Flank's wrinkled paws grappling at a young vixen's thighs enthrals you to the core, but I would have thought that, being a parent of a student in Miss Hamilton's house, you would understand the overarching issues this... seduction presents to me. It is my responsibility to..."
"Merlin, Severus, we're not asking you to seduce the girl yourself!" Lucius tittered at the thought, but Severus' features remained sharp and brooding. A momentary glimpse of a deeply sheltered fancy drifted inappropriately across his brow and Severus had to stop himself from stamping on the hearth where Lucius' smug features lay. The fact that such a concept humoured him was maddening.
"That is not the point; you are asking me to disregard my duty as a teacher and protector of my students, and permit this sickening foray to advance - within the walls of the school, no less." Severus pursed his lips in frustration: how could he be expected to allow this? He was her Head of House!
And yet, even in the midst of his broil with Lucius, Severus could not help but wonder, as his stomach twisted in self disgust, how much he simply wanted to ravish Isolde himself. He wanted to be the one to slowly peel the emerald straps from her delicious shoulders; to graze his rough palms and fingers up her calf and thigh to gather the skirt fabric around her waist. Was he no better than Ichabod Flank? Was he worse, even? At least Flank was not masquerading as her guardian whilst he imagined her being plucked.
The sound of Lucius' infuriating laughter pulled him back to the present. "I hardly think that Flank is going to pillage her right under Dumbledore's nose, Severus. He is a Triwizard organiser, after all. Even Ichabod has some concept of decorum. No, he simply wants to whet his appetite, so to speak." Lucius grinned roguishly out of the sooty grate before assuming his more serious countenance once more. "That is why it is so important that she wears the dress, Severus. She has been quite the little minx trying to procure a more modest one..."
"And understandably so," scoffed Severus. "I've seen house elves with more casing than that dress offers."
"Well, Barny is fully supportive of it, Severus, so let's not get too much in the way of what is meant to be." Lucius' tone was genial, but it was laced with a veil of warning only an old friend could detect.
"Meant to be? How sentimental," Severus drawled. His face remained blank despite more and more vivid visions of Ichabod and Isolde tormenting him. And Lucius' indifference was getting beyond tolerable. "Well, if it's the ridiculous dress you're worried about, I can confirm that she is planning on wearing it tomorrow evening."
"How can you be so sure?" challenged Lucius immediately. Surely he was not afraid of Ichabod Flank? Why did it matter so much to him?
Severus sighed sharply. "I do not have the time for this, Lucius. I have given you my word; you can take it or leave it. Goodnight." The truth was that he had heard Isolde and Kathy McKenzie gushing about the 'gorgeous dress' earlier that very day in the Slytherin common room, but he was not prepared to justify himself in that much detail for Lucius' peace of mind.
Lucius could read from Snape's curtness that this was the end of the matter, and his expression became as dark as the embers it permeated. "Very well, Severus. I will leave it in your capable hands. I have said what I needed to say. Merry Christmas."
The face vanished, but Lucius' smug grin and final words lingered mockingly in its wake.
As if on cue, the distant chime of the clock tower heralded the arrival of Christmas morning, and with one fluid motion, Severus plunged bottle, letter and shortbread into the bin beside his desk.
oOoOoOo
The day seemed to have soared by in a festive haze of parcels, chatter and giddiness, and although Isolde had spent the last few weeks evading such merriment, she could not help getting caught up in it now that the day had actually arrived. Especially now that she had a dress she felt comfortable with.
She had practically suffocated Marius with her embrace when his little present turned out to be a new ball gown, and the fact that he had sacrificed new dress robes for himself in order to buy it for her made Isolde surprisingly emotional.
"Bloody hell, you're not sniffling, are you? If you go all Moaning Myrtle on me, then I'm taking it straight back where it came from," was how Marius responded when her eyes had brimmed briefly with tears. "I don't do sap, Izzy-kins." But the broad grin smeared across his face betrayed how pleased he was with himself.
Isolde had snorted at her own sentimentality. "I'm sorry. I'm just so relieved that I don't have to wear that hideous dress my father picked out for me." That was another thing she had found so touching: she had not even told Marius she had destroyed its predecessor; he just knew she had detested it.
As she stood before the mirror in her dormitory and admired herself, Isolde was certain that she could not have picked a better dress herself. It still held glimpses of the original, with its rich emerald colour and fitted waistline, but the rest of it was refreshingly modest in style. The neckline simply skimmed her breastbone, revealing a mere shadow of her cleavage, and the skirt brushed – not clung – against her behind, before broadening into a cascade of silk folds. The fabric was, of course, a more basic calibre, and Isolde adored it for that very reason. Following suit, she had scooped her thick dark hair into a loose bun, leaving some rogue tendrils to frame her face.
She had encouraged Kathy and her other roommates to go along to the Ball ahead of her, eager for a few moments of solitude after two hours of feverish hair curling and collective cooing. Left in a cloud of perfume, Isolde savoured the stillness.
"The Ball's over, everyone's coming to bed!" Marius' head popped unceremoniously around the door.
"Very funny; what if I was getting dressed?" Isolde scolded through a smirk as she finished applying her lipstick, not bothering to turn away from the looking glass. "Actually, don't answer that," she added, rolling her eyes as she spotted the reflection of Marius raising his eyebrows suggestively.
"What made you change your mind, then? Did the guy you were holding out for turn you down? Or did you just want to ensure where your next batch of machiattos was coming from?"
Pleased with her reflection, Isolde ushered Marius out the door before extinguishing the candles with her wand. "The latter," she quipped as they descended the spiral stairwell and entered the common room, which was uncharacteristically void of fellow Slytherins. "How did you get in here, anyway?"
"Kath let me in; caught me prowling the hallways like the Dungeon Bat himself. Took pity on me," he grinned, oblivious to the way his mention of Snape made Isolde's stomach jolt. "Am I going to score tonight then?" he teased.
"Don't push your luck."
Yes, we realise we are being extremely cruel by holding back the Yule Ball from you yet again, but we can promise that it WILL feature in the next chapter, and that WILL be posted this week!