Disclaimer: yada yada yada…
Ginevra, more commonly known as Ginny, sat at her vanity table applying various paints to her face expertly. Normally there would have been a maid there to do it for her, but her family could hardly afford food for the table, and she preferred to fix herself anyway. Besides, she couldn't risk a gossipy maid.
Although she was barely 13, it would have been any normal girl's "coming out" years. "Coming out" meant that your family was notable and that you had already gotten your period. She had both. "But," her family said, "If you're already engaged, we can't afford to send you to parties for fun." Which was true. She completely understood it. She completely hated it.
So here she was at court, at the invitation of the king himself, who had somehow gotten her parents to believe that he always paid for the board and clothing of his guests. She was slightly grateful to him: he had made up for nearly a quarter of the mess he had made her life in the first place.
The marriage was not until her sixteenth birthday. She had seen her betrothed, and he wasn't bad looking. Ginny knew that it was a sin to judge by looks, but she didn't particularly care.
Finished with her makeup, Ginny rose gracefully out of her chair and removed the apron that kept her from staining the dress. The dress was a masterpiece. A single peacock feather covered her chest and curved down to the point where her bodice formed a V, drawing attention away from her unimpressive chest. Thin black material showed a dizzying array of colors underneath it. For the final touch, Ginny grabbed a colored mask and hid the strap under her hair, which was strung with sparkles and different colored gems. She had no plans of taking off the mask that night…she wished to enter by the Malfoy curtain that evening, to see the Draco who wasn't her betrothed.
Draconis Malfoy stood frozen with his politest smirk as Lady Trelawny rambled on about something that he didn't bother to try to figure out. The woman was clearly mad, not to mention that she smelled of mothballs and sour milk. Now and then his eyes drifted over to the Weasly entrance, where Ginevra should be coming out. His smirk broadened slightly at the thought of the marriage…it would obviously not last long, but until his father fund a proper assassin for the girl, he could play nice. Well, he could try…he wasn't sure that he would be able to smile, however falsely, if she turned out to be anything like her brothers. Which she most certainly would.
His eyes traveled over to Pansy, dressed in furs to resemble a cat. He hadn't bothered to dress up for the mosque…however many old bats he was forced to talk to, he still had some scraps of dignity left. Pansy, in his opinion, looked as though she were a pregnant bear.
He blinked and found that his burden had left. Not bothering to question why, he glanced through the crowd for a familiar face that he wanted to talk to. There were none…it seemed that everyone was still wearing masks. He spotted a group of Malfoy women who had not disgraced themselves with Pansy's extravagance, but instead wore simple masks. He gave Pansy a wide berth as he joined the other two gentlemen who stood talking to the ladies.
His rule with ladies was to smile, nod, put in occasional words like, "Oh", "Ah yes", "Most definitely", "Mmm," and "Do you think so?". Their lady's training had taught them the rest, and he saw no need to intrude on such experts. Instead, when he woke up in their beds the next day he would disappear and pretend it had never happened…most often he had gotten them too drunk the night before to remember.
He sorted through the ladies for a new partner. He knew Janishé and Blanche all too well…the palace whores. He preferred not to prey on them – Jan's laugh was earsplitting and Blanche had a peculiar way of smiling that unnerved him. He refused to go within 10 feet of Pansy. Perhaps, he decided, it was time for some new blood.
His eyes fixed almost at once on a girl with a peacock costume. He found it slightly funny that a girl would dress as a male bird, but it wasn't the first time. She stood at the refreshment table on the Malfoy side of the hall, already sipping wine – a good sign. He strode over to her and she looked up, in either alarm or triumph. He didn't care which.
"A dance, my lady," he asked without a question at the end, holding out his arm. She took it as he led her to the dance floor.
The conversation that he was accustomed to was non-existent. Two minutes into the dance, annoyed at the embarrassing silence, Draco bothered to ask after her name and house.
"Delia from the house of Gealiché. It's foreign," she explained. From France, she decided. French and Latin were her only two other languages, and she was pretty sure there wasn't a Latania. She wasn't positive – Geography had never been a strong subject…but it would be embarrassing to discover her "hometown" did not exist.
"You don't have an accent," he murmured, trying to sound impressed. It was an unsuccessful attempt, he thought…he sounded more constipated than anything else. He needed to work on that.
She gave her thanks and from there the conversation deteriorated from little to none. The waltz ended, and he offered to get her a drink. If she refused than he could move onto someone else, and if not, he could find her the strongest alcohol, which loosened the quietest of tongues.
She accepted.
Lord Voldemort, the diplomat from Calazia, viewed the ball with a sneer that matched Draco's. His unreadable eyes followed Draco and the girl until she began to loosen up, and he watched him escort her to no doubt his apartments. As a young man he, too, had been a horny bastard. It was Voldemort, actually, who had invented a drug that worked several times more efficiently and faster than alcohol. He made a note to give some of the precious stuff to Draco.
Stiff from sitting in a chair so long, he got up and left the party, following Draco's path until he reached the library, where he stopped. He had not visited Hogwart's pride and joy for nearly a year, and he was anxious to do so now. Retrieving one of many keys from his pocket, he inserted it in the lock.
The library was black, so he lit a candle on the desk. The candle was still warm.
His first thought was of a couple, perhaps Draco and the girl, but as he glanced at the desk he found several sheets of paper in Latin, copied neatly from a bible in a woman's hand. The last words on the page were still wet. Smiling, he closed the door and lit a torch on the wall, so that it cast eerie shadows that danced on the walls. He moved around lighting the others on the wall, watching carefully for his culprit. So therefore, the sudden pressure of a sharp blade across his throat was quite unexpected.
"Don't move." The voice was husky, the breath in his ear warm. He reached up and grabbed the offending wrist, using all of his muscle until her arm lay at her side. Raising an eyebrow, he took removed the weapon from her now limp hand.
"Tut tut. You shouldn't be doing that, Miss Granger"
Bonnie, one of the Malfoys' many bloodhounds lapped up the last few drops of wine from the under the table Ginny had been standing at. Draco's father, in the middle of a long and dull debate with the French diplomat over the usage of wheat, excused himself abruptly and took the dog out through the garden as discreetly as he could. No easy feat, as the dog swayed back and forth crazily. Once outside, Bonnie promptly through up all over Mr. Malfoy's shoes.
Hestia: Tamora Pierce is one of my favorite authors, I hope I'm not borrowing too much from her… Actually, I don't think it is going to be Ron/Hermione – I don't know much about the future plot because if I plan it then I get bored with the story.
Snaped: Well technically Hermione's rank is superior to the pages, but money-wise she is waaaaaaay below all of them except possibly Ron.