Chapter 8
The night of the ball started off very messily. The girls dormitory was a mess – with Hestia having accidentally set Dorcas's hair on fire briefly, trying to get it to grow a couple of inches. Dorcas was now removing the scent of the flame hurriedly by the mirror, whilst Marlene was desperately trying to find her bag with her necklace in it. Hestia, feeling guilty about the fire incident was sat on the end of her bed, changing the colour of her shoes, undecided on what would look better – silver or black. Lily on the other hand was sat on her bed, still in her Hogwarts robes.
"Lily! Get dressed or we'll be late!" said Dorcas, noticing the red hair under the covers. She reached over and pulled Lily out of bed, much to her annoyance.
"What? I don't want to go" Lily grumbled.
"I thought you were going with Justin Abbott?" asked Hestia.
"No. I don't have a date so I said I'd go with Sirius and Peter" said Lily.
Hestia raised her eyebrows. "With Sirius?" she asked.
"Yeah – after we both – after we realised we didn't have dates we said we'd go as friends" replied Lily hastily.
"Oh" Hestia's focus turned back towards her shoes.
"I think you should go ahead of me" said Lily, "I'll only make you late!".
After much arguing, Lily finally managed to get the girls out of the dormitory to meet their dates. Looking at the Auror pamphlet lying on her bedside table, she decided to treat this as a practise mission. Blend in and you can convince the enemy of anything. And anyway, it might be fun to let her hair down a bit.
After putting on some makeup, which she usually didn't bother with, and her emerald green dress robes, Lily found some shoes and was ready to go. Before leaving she sprinkled some perfume on her neck and wrists and caught sight of herself in the mirror. Whilst usually she didn't care about her appearance, she knew she looked good and that made her feel good. The dress robes accentuated her figure somewhat, making her look taller than she was and curving round her waist with a material that glinted in the light. Sliding an emerald clip into her hair to match the robes, Lily left the dormitory to find Sirius waiting for her, dressed in very dark maroon robes.
"Evans you look great! Wait till you see the look on Prongs's face" chucked Sirius.
"You clean up alright yourself Black" replied Lily, as they went through the portrait hall.
"Wormy and Moony are already there – let's find them" said Sirius.
Perhaps tonight would be fun.