Chapter 4
It was the night of the ball and Claudia was the most nervous she had ever been. She didn't understand why either though. These were just people from her school, there was no one she wanted or needed to impress, it wasn't as if she had a date either.
Early on Pansy and Claudia had decided it would be better to go as friends than to go alone. Pansy had had plenty of offers from a lot of different people but she only had eyes on one person and that person was oblivious so that wasn't likely to happen any time soon and Claudia wasn't interested in having a date and wasn't asked by anyone who wasn't 'joking' (she thought they were joking anyway).
She was undeniably nervous though and she just couldn't pin point why. She almost felt like everything would be different from this night onwards. Why she didn't know.
Her and Pansy had decided to take the whole day pampering themselves before the ball tonight. Or rather Pansy had decided and Claudia had been dragged kicking and screaming into the plan. She had been bathed, shampood, conditioned, scrubbed, moisturised and expholiated in every single nook and cranny of her body. She'd had face masks and hair masks and been plucked and waxed and buffered all over and she was now sitting on the chair infront of the mirror wearing her beautiful jumpsuit and Pansy's Jimmy Choo's while Pansy did her make up.
"Ok you can open your eyes now," She did as she was told and her jaw dropped.
She looked like an entirely different person she thought.
Pansy had used a gentle natural looking foundation on her so her skin was lovely and even and looked smooth like porcelain. She had a faint pale pink blush to her cheeks and her lips were stained the gentlest of pale pinks. It was her eyes which captivated her though. She had always thought her eyes were boring and bland but whith Pansy's magic they seemed to sparkle and crackle and they looked alive. They were still dark but somehow that just made them all the more deep and mysterious.
Pansy had given her the smokey eyed look she had said she would. She'd used a small amount of mascara to make her lashes look bigger then she'd put a thin line of liquid eyeliner on her top lids and a small dusting of grey/silver eyeshadow over that.
She took in the sight of herself with her subtle and elegant make up, her deep brown hair which was as short as ever but gleamed and shimmered in the light and her beautiful elegant outfit. She finally looked as pretty as the other girls and thats all she wanted for tonight. She'd go back to not caring tomorrow but for tonight she just wanted to be a normal girl.
On the other side of the castle someone else was getting ready themselves. Unknowing and uncaring of the beauty that was transforming in the slytherin girls dorm.
Neville Longbottom was in the middle of doing up his tie while Claudia is looking in the mirror in her dorm.
"Hey Seamus what's the plan of attack for tonight?" Dean was shouting across the room to his friend while Neville minded his own business, as usual.
"Dunno D. Let just play the feild yeah? There's gunna be girls from 5th and 7th year tonight so we gotta play it by eye I reckon." Seamus shouted back while Neville cringed.
This is what he hated about living with boys, the talk about girls. Always it was about who fucked who and the best ways of 'pulling' as they put it. They werent all like it. Ron and Harry tended to steer clear of those conversations but Dean and Seamus were always at it and it made Neville uncomfortable.
It wasn't that he didn't like girls at all or that he didn't think of them in a sexual way, trust him he did, he was just bought up differently. He was bought up by his Grandma and she'd instilled a sense of respect that men should have for all women and he lived by that rule.
It didn't matter all that much in the dorm anyway. No one really paid attention to him so he was able to sneak out of these conversations fairly quickly.
Neville was a non entity to the people in his house it seemed to him. He had friends like Ron and Harry but even they only acknowledged him on occasion. He didn't think they meant to do it they just have other friends and are spread to thin when it comes to time they have to give out.
He couldnt say he minded all that much though. He liked being on his own to do his own thing not having to do what everyone else was doing. Some people mistook that as being shy which was untrue. Neville would talk to anyone if they came to him and talked to him but no one ever did so he didn't talk to them and so they left him alone.
After escaping the rather lude conversation in the boys dorms Neville made his way slowly down to the great hall where the ball was going to be held.
When he arrived he was still one of the first there and so he sat down at one of the back tables. Instead of the usual long house tables there were now a large number of smaller round tables for students to sit and eat before the ball truly began later in the evening.
As he sat he took in the sight of the hall. The walls had all been transfigured white and there were fake icicles hanging off of window ledges and from the fireplaces. The roof was now showing a snowey sky with snowdrops that fell to a point just above your head where they disappeared. The whole effect made the room look like one intense snow cavern.
Slowly more and more people appeared in the hall and soon enough it was nearly full. His table remained relatively quiet throughout the whole time however because people were moving to sit with their friends at other tables.
Neville was just about to tuck in to the bowl of warm soup which had appeared in front of him when something from the doorway which was slightly to his left caught his eye.
Pansy Parkinson had just entered the room wearing a lovely pink dress and was being accosted by a number of her slytherin friends, but that wasn't what had caught his eye.
It was the girl that stood diligently behind Pansy as she chatted with her friends animatedly. The girl was just standing there seemingly waiting for her friend to finish but she was the most interesting thing in the room to Neville at that moment in time.
She was breath taking to say the least. The purple outfit she wore had a grecian look to it and to him it made her seem like a goddess. Her figure was divine in his eyes, all curved waste and bulging bust her body was a work of art. Erotic art at that. Her hair was short and modern and framed her face perfectly making her slightly rounded features look pixieish. Her eyes. Even from this distance Neville could see the depth in those eyes, they were swirling pools of arctic sea and he was lost in an instant. She was magnificent and he didn't know anything about her.
Not very long after spotting her, she and Pansy disappeared into a crowd and he assumed she sat with them near the front of the room. When she went his heart sank lower instantly and he wondered if he hadn't imagined her.