Drusilla Black leaned toward her mirror as she touched her mascara wand to each eyelash. One at a time they darkened and lengthened until her eyes looked wide and sooty and perfect. "Tom Riddle," she recited to herself. "Dark Lord. Cultivate, don't offend. Hermione Granger. Muggle-born. Don't react, married to Riddle. Powerful." She went down the list one more time to confirm she knew all the major players in today's event. Her own papa had been worried she'd not be pleased about Hermione Granger's blood status; he'd been a bit of a zealot on the matter himself thanks to grandmama, but Beauxbatons didn't hold with that nonsense and she was more than able to adapt when necessary to win.

Drusilla felt that flexibility was one of life's more important qualities. She, for example, could not only lay her palms flat on the floor while in her heels, she could condemn violence and hatred with all sincerity while systematically destroying anyone in her way. Mental agility kept one from going the way of poor grandmama Walburga.

Drusilla stepped back to do a final check on her appearance and smiled at the way she'd turned herself into a delicate waif. Six years at Beauxbatons and she'd learned to navigate the shifting alliances of personal magical power, family influence, and physical beauty that guided every interaction at the French school, and learned to navigate them with ease.

It helped she was personally magically powerful, from an important family, and, if her own cold and surprisingly unbiased assessment was correct, beautiful.

Beauty was just one more weapon and Drusilla had honed it for years.

If this Hermione Granger had moved herself to the top by means of power and beauty only, with no family to call upon, she must be quite impressive and Drusilla Black was not stupid enough to go about antagonizing a witch of that stature just because she didn't have parents to speak of. Drusilla smoothed the silk of her black dress over her hips, checking to make sure there were no unsightly lines, before she stepped into her heels. Drusilla liked to keep things simple when it came to shoes: very plain, very black, very high.

She balanced on her toes and added the charm she had developed and refused to share that made these shoes comfortable. She particularly liked that she could store the pain from the heels and give it to the witch of her choice. More than one rival at Beauxbatons had had to leave a social event early because, despite her dumpy little practical heels, her feet were killing her.

"Dru," Regulsus called from outside the door. "Are you ready?"

Drusilla opened the door and admired her papa. "It is unfortunate there are no Black cousins to marry," she said as she took in his dark curls and the angles of his face. "How will I ever content myself with anyone not as beautiful as you?"

Regulus Black smiled at his daughter's flattery and held out an arm. "It's a pity your mother died," he said. "She would see the way you look today as an utter triumph. The only Black girl of your generation and you're perfection."

Neither of them mentioned Nymphadora Tonks who was loud and crass and an Auror, of all dreadful, plebian things to be, and not a Black. Blacks did not get jobs. Blacks married well, which might mean a cousin but never meant a werewolf, and then after marriage they dabbled in influence.

"Are you prepared to assess this young dark wizard?" Regulus asked her. "We haven't committed ourselves yet, not fully."

"The other families?" she asked as delicately as she could.

"Draco Malfoy is off with him and, of course, it's young Theodore's wedding," Regulus said. "The Parkinsons - "

Drusilla interrupted him with a sniff and he laughed. "Quite," he said in agreement. She hadn't expected to see the names Potter and Longbottom on her notes. She'd used the gossips at Beauxbatons, sending off owls about how she was going to this wedding and did anyone know if any of these Hogwarts clods could even dance, and heard quite a bit in return. Harry Potter was Quidditch mad, the son of Aurors and so squeaky clean one of her chums suggested she could use him as soap. The general consensus was that Neville Longbottom was a bit of a non-entity and she could get away with one pity dance.

"Must I dance with any of the Weasley lot?" she asked, as they made their way to the front stoop to apparate over to Nott Manor. The event should have more properly been hosted by the Parkinsons and Drusilla has raised a perfectly groomed brow at the gauche snub of the bride's family. Thoros Nott and his son did not, apparently, even plan to pretend they gave a damn about propriety.

Regulus Black made a face but nodded and she sighed in grim agreement. "If I must," she said. She gave a damn about propriety.

Propriety meant you did whatever you damn well pleased just as long as you appeared like trustworthy good girl who never broke a single rule.

Or nail.

Poor personal grooming was the sign of a weak person and Drusilla was many things but she was not weak.

. . . . . . . . . .

"I don't see why we have to go to this," Ron Weasley muttered as he straightened his robes again. "It's not like I was friends with either of them. They can both go to the devil for all I care."

"They effectively both have," his mother said from where she stood by the door waiting for him to finish getting ready. Molly Weasley had had very similar sentiments about going to this wedding and had been mildly shocked to receive an invitation, despite social rules dictating all members of the ridiculous so-called Sacred Twenty-Eight be invited to one another's major social events. She certainly didn't invite these blood purists and Dark Magic users to her parites and she was quite sure Thoros Nott wouldn't have been able to pick her out of a crowd. As for Pansy Parkinson's mother, well, that harpy would have spit on her just for the sin of being poor. "But we'll go because Albus Dumbledore asked us to and we'll go to see your sister."

Ron continued to grumble under his breath but they'd had this discussion at a much higher volume when Professor Dumbledore had told Molly Weasley to go and have a good time. Dumbeldore had won that argument and Ron admitted the man's reasoning was sound. Tom Riddle and his crew were a bunch of worthless, torturing, freaks but if they were going to be stupid enough to come out of wherever their lair was then the Order of the Phoenix should be there, watching them.

Dumbledore had not been invited and neither had Tonks, who'd sniffed and said several rude things about her cousin and the rest of the Blacks. "They want nothing to do with me and I feel the same way about them," she'd said.

"You'd think with Hermione nestled into their fold they'd be over your mum running off with your dad," Ron had said but Tonks had snorted and said something about how old crimes were never forgiven, not even when they weren't technically forbidden anymore. She might have even muttered 'I'd sooner eat glass, anyway,' under her breath.

"Will you meet Daphne at the wedding?" Molly asked as Ron finally stopped stalling. The rest of the clan had managed to find it impossible to go; even Arthur had come up with a last minute work related emergency and hustled off the Ministry to find out who had charmed all the soap dispensers at some Muggle store to announce 'yer filthy' whenever they were used.

"It is quite clever," he'd said as Molly glared at him, "but can't be allowed to stand, of course."

"Yeah," Ron muttered. "She and her sister, her whole family, they're all going. The rest of the Greengrasses are Riddle's sort, of course." He was looking forward to dancing with her but was less excited about chatting up her parents. He suspected that he wasn't quite what they'd had in mind for their little pureblood princess.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Tom Riddle let his eyes travel up and down Hermione with frank appreciation. Pansy's insistence her friend dress 'like a proper dark witch' had resulted in black satin that slithered over the woman's body except where an external corset pushed breasts up and waist in. The top of the dress drooped over the edge of the corset as though it couldn't muster the energy to stay on any longer and would like nothing more than to slide to the floor in a puddle, and his mother's locket sat between her breasts. "Sit," he said, the words a husky order as he pointed to the bed in the room they'd been offered at Nott Manor.

It remained surreal to Tom that he was still young, and always would be, while Thoros Nott had aged past his prime. He, however, was young and so was the woman carefully balancing herself on the edge of the bed, and he intended to enjoy that.

"Politics soon," he murmured as he knelt down at her feet and slipped the dress up her thighs. "A long night of listening to people avoid saying what they mean." He used one finger to hook her knickers to the side. "Dancing with people we hate and smiling at the empty words of idiots." He pressed his mouth down and flicked his tongue across the very tip of her as she slowly curled her hands into claws on the bedspread.

"Tom," she said, her voice shaking just a little bit.

"I haven't done anything to muffle the room," he said, his breath hot on her skin. "Best to keep it down."

"You are a cruel man," she said

"But you love me," he said.

. . . . . . . . . .

"Theodore Nott," Pansy's mother said to one of her friends as they hovered near their seats and waited for the ceremony to begin. "They met in school, you know. He took her to the little Hogwarts dance their last year." She took a sip from her champagne; it wasn't the first she'd had. This was her moment of triumph and she intended to enjoy it. She'd gotten her plain, unclever daughter married off to a man of wealth. His father was influential in the Ministry and Theodore would surely inherit that so not just a man of wealth of a man of wealth and influence. A pureblood wizard of wealth and influence had, for reasons she couldn't fathom, fallen for her daughter. She'd seen the vows the couple had selected and binding didn't begin to cover what those vows were. As long as the boy didn't change his mind in the next few minutes, Pansy would be well and truly married forever to someone better than she'd hoped for in her wildest dreams.

"Impressive," her friend said. She mostly hid the jealousy in her tone. "Ivy's can't be here today, unfortunately. She'd gone abroad and is traveling in Iceland."

Mrs. Parkinson considered the missing Ivy. She'd been the beauty of her year at Hogwarts and had multiple N.E.W.T.s to her name. "We'll miss her," she said, "but I do hope she's having fun." She took another sip of her drink. "Did I tell you Pansy and all of her little friends spent the early part of the summer in Belize, of all places?"

"No," her friend said through gritted teeth. "How fascinating."

. . . . . . . . . .

Neville glided across the gravel path toward his parents. He smiled at the sight of them. As usual his mum looked vaguely rumpled and deceptively indifferent to her surroundings, and she was unwrapping a hard candy and popping it into her mouth. His dad had his hand on her lower back as they looked over the crowd.

"Neville!" His father spotted him first and shook his hand before using the grip to pull him into a hug. "You look good," he said. "Travel must agree with you."

"Or maybe Ginevra Weasley does," his mum said in a knowing voice. Neville bent down to brush his lips over her cheeks, marveling how tiny she seemed for such a powerful and intuitive witch. She took his hand in both of hers and seemed to study him. "Neville," she said after a moment, "Are you okay?"

The guests talked around them and glasses clinked but Neville's world narrowed to his mother as she studied him with eyes that seemed to see him for the first time. Not the bumbling herbologist with a little childish pudge he could never quite shed and not the forgetful lad who made everyone roll their eyes because he couldn't remember the password again. Alice Longbottom looked at her son and saw him and he could watch her heart sink as her eyes became carefully neutral. "Are you having fun over in Wales?"

"I am," he said. "Draco's family's estate has a long neglected orangerie I've almost totally restored and I've put in some herb gardens." He patted her hand. "Had to ward the thing with work you'd expect to see at Hogwarts because Pans has a fox that seems to be able to wiggle past any spell."

Alice nodded. "Some ward work can be nasty," she said, accepting the offered reason for the way he'd changed even if she didn't fully believe it. "Be careful, Nev."

Neville, who had spent the morning playing catch-the-fiendfyre with Vincent, said, "I'm always careful, Mum."

She gave him another searching look. "I hope so," she said.

The guests had begun to sit down and Frank jerked his head towards the seats Alice had left her bag on. "Sit with us, son?"

"Of course," he said.

. . . . . . . . . .

Theodore Nott met his father's glance and both men smiled. They'd opted to hold the ceremony in one of Nott Manor's ballrooms,with the reception spilling out onto the rolling lawns and gardens behind the main building. There were multiple secluded nooks people could slip into to have private conversations about politics and how much the Ministry's current policies were a shame.

Thoros Nott had been shifting the conversation from 'blood purity' to 'governmental overreach'. If Tom Riddle, still young and still so very dark, had taken a Muggle-born has his wife, blood purity couldn't be the lever and, to be honest, it excluded too many half-bloods who'd accumulated power and wealth over generations and had no intention of letting it go. Thoros valued his heritage, and was pleased his son had found a pureblood to carry on the family, but he took no issue with what other people did so long as his own power was unquestioned.

Wizarding Britain was an aristocracy, whatever propaganda the Wizengamot spewed, and Thoros had no intention of letting that change. However, opening the gates just a wee bit to include all the magically elite, whatever their heritage, was sound policy.

It wasn't as if there were even that many truly powerful magic users anymore. Thoros frowned as he stood to admire the bride walking down to meet his son. Pansy Parkinson was quite the witch but he knew she'd been seen as average in school. He and Theo had had an interesting the conversation the previous night; Pansy and Neville both had come into their own when they'd turned their hands to the Dark Arts.

Only educating people in Dumbledore's approved curriculum had crippled their people.

Thoros had watched the rise and fall of Gellert Grindelwald on the continent and had seen Dumbledore lauded as a hero for beating the man. He didn't buy it. Dumbledore was hiding something about the battle that had made him famous; there was no way a wizard that dark had been tricked quite that easily, or fallen in a fair duel.

Tom Riddle, who stood next to Theo as his son vowed his life and fidelity to the woman at his side, would never have allowed himself to be taken so easily.

Thoros looked at the robes Pansy had on and smothered a snort at the number of buttons. He hoped Theo knew an unbuttoning charm or it might be a long and frustrating night.

. . . . . . . . . .

A/N - Aren't weddings fun?