"So what are you wearing to the ball?" Hannah Abbot's round, earnest face appeared over the side of Alexas' bed.

She opened one eye lazily, feigning ignorance. "Hmmm?" She shrugged, putting her arms up to rest behind her head. "Oh I don't know if I'm even gonna go." She looked from the dismayed face of Hannah to the equally dismayed face of Hermione. "What? The whole going to balls thing isn't really for me. I always end up standing against the wall on my own being bored."

"Don't worry about that." Hermione reassured her. "We'll be there to keep you company."

Alexas didn't sound totally convinced. "You sure about that?"

"Yeah! We promise!" Hannah paused reflectively. "But what are you going to wear? There's only four days to go."

She shrugged again. "I'll probably just throw something together on the day." At seeing the scheming looks on her dorm mates faces, she shrank back defensively. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"PLEASE Draco!"

"Look, Pansy. You know I hate balls. I'm not going." He grimaced as he saw her eyes fill with tears. "Oh, don't cry." 'I can't stand the horrible noise.' He added silently to himself, still unable to work out why he still put up with Pansy.

"I won't cry if you promise to come." She whimpered.

Draco threw up his hands in defeat. "Fine. I'll go, I'll go."

For Alexas, the remaining time before B-Day flew by in a whirl of colors, designs and – often heated – discussions about what kind of makeup/dress/hairstyle would suit her best. And then there was the fiasco over what season she should be. (that being the theme) Unfortunately for her, she had no idea what was going on, all this carry-on made her feel as if she'd just crash landed on Planet Fashion where instead of speaking English, they spoke Pretiffion, a language which confused and disorientated her. Therefore she was very pleasantly surprised when she saw the finished product, a long flowing silver gown with sparkling icicles scattered over it. There was even a pair of matching icicle earrings. And her mask. What a mask. Glowing silver tinged with blue, perfectly framing her eyes and spiking out at the sides. All of this contrasted brilliantly with Alexas' black hair and dark eyes. Apparently, she was a winter.

Hermione, an autumn, was wearing a gown with leaves that rustled in a non-existent Breese. Hannah's dress was a mossy green and covered in flowers of all colors that opened or closed depending on where the nearest light sources were.

"You two," Alexas said in awe, "are geniuses. It's like the material itself was simply willed to look this amazing."

"You like it?" Hannah asked timidly.

"Like it? I love it. I've never felt this… pretty… in my entire life!"

Hermione took her arm. "Let's go show everyone else just how pretty you are then."

Pansy stood in the doorway and whined. "Draco, hurry up! I don't want to be late!"

"Don't worry; I'll meet you down there." He said, still pretending to have lost his outfit.

"But how will I find you? I don't even know what you're wearing!" Pansy seemed almost on the brink of panic. Draco couldn't understand for the life of him why this was so important to her.

"But I know what you're wearing, so I'll be able to find you." 'Fat chance of me actually doing that on purpose.' He added to himself.

Pansy squealed in delight and pounced on Draco, flinging her arms around his neck, although careful not to disturb her carefully constructed hair. "I'll see you soon." She flounced out the door to where one of her friends were waiting, and they went off together, already pre-gossiping, talking about what scandals they were predicting for the coming evening.

Draco briefly considered packing the whole thing in, and tell Pansy he hadn't been able to find her, but then decided that since he had something appropriate to wear, he might as well go anyway. There was no harm to be had in going for awhile, and he could always just avoid Pansy. She was usually too wrapped up in herself to think about anything else – except of course, the tabloid-type affairs of Hogwarts.

So he dressed quickly, putting on his new, simpler black dress robes that were lined with silver and a basic black opera mask. These plainer-than-his-usual-attire clothes would surely put Pansy off the trail. He took a deep, steadying breath and headed down.

Returning with punch in hand, Alexas was bewildered to find her companions gone. Looking around, she saw that Hannah was dancing exuberantly with Ernie Macmillan, and from the looks of it Ron had finally got up the courage to ask Hermione to dance; which they were doing rather awkwardly. It was so comic she would have laughed had it not been for the fact that she was abandoned on a sea of hormonal-driven teenagers for which she had no map or compass.

She sighed and leaned lightly against the wall behind her, watching the tides of emotion, but never being touched by them. This was something she was regrettably accustomed to.

She saw Pansy Parkinson sauntering past, surrounded by her squealing friends. That girl was easily recognized, mask or no. Alexas shook her head and muttered caustically "And I thought banshees wouldn't be allowed to come to school here."

Next to her, a youth wearing a basic black opera mask turned at her comment, looking at her like she was his personal savior. She was more than a little put off by this. "What?"

"I'm sorry; it's just so great to see someone in this place who isn't completely stupid." He said rolling his eyes and thinking mainly of Pansy.

She laughed. "A rare thing indeed. Everyone I know has been talking about nothing else for a whole week. I thought I'd been transported to some strange alternate dimension or something." A grin. "Not that that's a rare feeling."

He smiled, but something nagged at him, so he asked, "So if you dislike this so much, why are you here?"

Alexas shrugged. "You know, I honestly don't know. I kind of got roped into it. You?"

Draco hesitated, for some reason, he didn't want to tell this girl that it was Pansy that forced him to come, because that would make it blindingly obvious who he really was, and he was genuinely enjoying her company. "Just to check it out really, no harm in that." He lied smoothly.

"Oh." For some reason, this didn't seem to satisfy her and she seemed mildly suspicious of his answer. That didn't occupy her for long though, as she tilted her head to one side slightly, listening intently to the song that had just started. "Hey!" she exclaimed brightly, "I know this song."

"Then would you care to dance to it?" Draco asked, grandly offering her his hand.

She nodded and handed her cup to a random guy next to her, thoroughly startling him. "Certainly."

He led her out onto the dance floor and they danced. (as is generally done in this type of situation) They were still dancing four songs later, animatedly talking about everything from what they thought of different teachers to their favorite quidditch teams.

"You know what?" Draco said thoughtfully.

"Hmm?" Alexas… uh… hmmmed. (I couldn't think of any other word for it. Tee hee – I'm creating words!)

"We match." He pointed at her dress. "Blue." And then her hair. "Dark hair and eyes." His eyes lingered for a brief moment on hers, then he pointed down at his robes. "Black. And my eyes are blue."

She considered this for a while, her head tilted to one side. "But your hair's the wrong color. But I can fix that." She smiled at him, then spoke a couple of words into her hands and ran them through his hair. "That's better." she said, still smiling.

"What did you do?" Draco demanded, his hand flying protectively to check on his precious flowing locks. (Aha ha ha ha ha ha! Flowing locks!)

"Don't worry," she reassured him. "I only turned it blue, and the spell only lasts for around six hours. It's remarkably simple, but practically unknown. It does anything the caster wants – makes it clean, straight, spiky, whatever you want."

They continued to dance, but not talking now. Both of them just enjoying the comfortable silence. Draco heard the next song begin and chuckled softly. "Well that's kind of ironic." It was Frank Sinatra's 'Witchcraft'. She looked up at him questioningly, but he gave no answer. Instead, he just softly sang along. "Those fingers in my hair." She smiled at him shyly. "That sly, come-hither stare; that strips my conscience bare; it's witchcraft." He gently tightened his arms around her back, pulling her closer.

She sighed happily. "I'm really glad I came now." she said, resting her head on his shoulder. A few seconds later she yawned heavily.

"You tired?" he asked softly.

She shrugged. "A little." Looking up at him again, she gave a small smile.

"Shall we stop dancing then?" She nodded, and they went up the stairs to the balconies that had been added to the Great Hall for just that night. Draco still with his arm around the small of Alexas' back. He felt so relaxed with this girl, it was a fantastic feeling just to be himself and not have to pretend, ironic that it was because he was wearing a physical mask that allowed him to put aside his emotional ones.

"I'm really having a wonderful time." she said, resting her head on the shoulder next to her. She felt him pull her closer, but didn't mind. Usually anyone trying this would receive the 'curse of the day'. But then usually, she kept all her barriers up. Getting to know people meant having to tell them what she was, and most were unnerved by someone who could know exactly what they were feeling all the time. She'd only told Hermione because she was still a little off guard from Dumbledore's announcement, but she'd seemed to take it well enough, not treating her any different than anyone else. But this guy! For some reason, she felt like she didn't even need the walls. She reasoned to herself that it was probably because of the masks, although she still wondered who he could be. If only she knew.

While all this was going on in Alexas' head, Draco's thought train had been brought to a screaming halt. He'd just realized that for several minutes, he'd been just thinking about her, nothing else. How she was funny, how she was smart and how she was soooo beautiful. He had to know who she was. "So do I get to know your name?"

To this question, she only sighed and shook her head. Looking him in the eyes, she smiled sadly. "This is a masked ball. The whole point is the an- an- ano."

"Anonymity." he grimly finished her sentence. She nodded. "I know, but I've never met anyone else that I felt so at home with. You're an amazing person to be around."

Alexas nodded. "I know what you mean. But if you I told you who I am, you probably wouldn't think that. I don't want to take that chance and ruin the time we had tonight." She stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his. "Goodnight my unknown prince."

Draco watched her leave. He briefly considered following her to at least find out what house she was in, but turned back to look out at the grounds instead. He had to find her. But what had she meant by 'if I told you, you probably wouldn't think that'?

A/N: Bwaaaahahahahahaha! Ack! Cough cough! I told you evil was fun! R R!