One of the more neat things about fancy magical gloves, Liz thought, was that some of them were enchanted to be used as pockets. A lot of fancy clothes weren't designed to have pockets, for various reasons — most of the time, you wouldn't need to carry a lot of shite at the fancy parties the fancy clothes were for, anyway, so it just wasn't a priority. So, her dress didn't have any pockets, but there was a little fold on the inside of her gloves against her forearm where she could stick things.
The room available was pretty limited — space expansion worked best with rigid materials — but between both gloves it was more than enough to carry everything she needed. In went a pouch with a handful of coins — she was unlikely to need any, but just in case — a partially-emptied calming potion and a broad-spectrum antidote — she always had one on her, which was maybe paranoid, but better safe than sorry — the emergency portkey Severus had given her she was supposed to carry whenever she left the house (or the school), and also the bag of crystal-tablets Susan had sent her, for when the one she'd already taken wore off. Running her fingers over her forearms, she could feel a little bump there, enough stuff in there to start stressing the expansion charms, but the bulge was still small enough it wasn't super obvious, so, not a big deal. She considered grabbing a cloak — they'd be apparating to the gates and walking all the way across the grounds, might be cold — but fuck it, she'd just use charms. Besides, she wasn't sure what the hell she'd do with her cloak while they were at the Ball, probably best not to bother...
Right, she was ready, then. Narcissa quick taught Liz a couple charms that made just existing in formalwear more convenient — in particular, one that would help hold her skirts out of the way while she was on the toilet, which sounded very necessary, now that Narcissa mentioned it — and then Narcissa was finally packing up her supplies (cheating and using charms to summon her things straight into her bag), dismissed the conjured furniture and just left the real stuff where it was. (Nilanse and Honish would get them back to Clyde Rock eventually, but it wasn't worth calling her back to do it right this second.) Liz led the way back out, unconsciously smiling at the click of her shoes against the hardwood floor, the smooth silky inner layer of the underskirt swishing against her legs.
The heels and the corset-thing were making her walk different, but she didn't really mind. She was a little self-conscious about it, more aware of how she was moving than she'd normally be, but not really in a bad way — kind of felt really really girly, couldn't quite put her finger on why, exactly. She felt kind of great, actually, though it was impossible to tell how much of that was just because of the drugs.
(Honestly, it was almost hard to remember that she'd been super depressed just a few hours ago, but she had drugged herself, and it turned out dressing up could be fun, so. Brains were fucking weird sometimes.)
Severus wasn't in the guest bathroom, a tang of unfamiliar products wafting out into the hall through the open door, he'd probably finished up a while ago. When Liz got to the top of the stairs, Narcissa appeared at her side — holding out an arm. For Liz to use as balance, going down the stairs? Liz didn't wear heels super often, but she knew that going down stairs could be awkward (though going up was fine), and the corset probably wouldn't make it easier. That was completely unnecessary, though, Liz just quick-stepped down to the turn in the middle, planting a hand against the wall to halt her momentum, a second quick-step bringing her down to the foyer floor, coming to a stop after a couple little clacking steps. She turned to look up at Narcissa, still at the top of her stairs, and stuck her tongue out at her.
Smiling, her mind giggling with warm, fuzzy amusement, Narcissa just made an over-exaggerated roll of her eyes, before wordlessly starting down.
Her occlumency was still solid, so Liz wasn't sure how she knew — Seer cheating, maybe? Narcissa was coming to the conclusion that Liz was a bit sillier than the impression their first meeting had left her with, but she mostly just thought it was cute — which Liz might ordinarily find a little demeaning, but she was too high at the moment to care — in a childish sense but also in an almost fae sort of way, casually using difficult magic like that. So Liz decided to ignore it.
Not like seeming super magical and girlishly adorable at the same time was really a bad thing, when she thought about it...
They ran into Severus in the dining room, sitting at the table with today's newspaper. (The Herald, not the Prophet.) There was some kind of flutter in Severus's head when he looked up, but he didn't comment on the dress and everything at all. Trying to avoid making her uncomfortable, she suspected — not necessary at the moment, thanks to the drugs, but she appreciated the effort anyway. Narcissa chattered on for a little bit, how getting ready had gone, talking about Severus coming by some free weekend whenever he could — they'd be in Lithuania on New Year's, so he'd be missing the annual lunch at the Malfoys' — a couple final comments about making sure they got her pictures (oh god, Liz had forgotten about pictures), and then she was disappearing through the floo.
Now that she was all dressed up and ready, Liz kind of wanted to just get going already...but they still had, like, at least a half hour before they had to leave. Liz stood there fidgeting for a little bit, indecisive — Severus quickly suggested they get some coffee before leaving, as there wouldn't be any at the Ball. (Well, some of the after-dinner drinks would have coffee in them, yes, but none at the dinner table itself.) Which, sure, good idea. Once they had their coffee, they sat down at the counter — stepping up onto the stool was slightly awkward, but she managed it — and Severus summoned over the paper from the other room. Since she didn't have anything better to do, she dragged over one of the sections, idly read over her cup.
(She'd been worried her head would be spinny enough she wouldn't be able to read easily, but it wasn't a problem. If she'd been as high as the party after the Second Task, that would have been hard, but the effect with this was a lot more subtle.)
She ended up reading all the way through something about a contract dispute, a surprisingly long article, just out of curiosity. Apparently, the Foxes had sued a construction company for breach of contract, the construction people claiming in their defence that they'd just made a substitution (as allowed by their contract) due to a lack of the necessary materials. They'd passed culpability onto the ceramics people they usually worked with — they were a relatively poor outfit, just a single master potterer and his apprentices, so the guild had immediately stepped in to back him up. The special mix used to make the special ceramic the construction people had been contracted to build something with was patented by a particular alchemist, who had steeply increased the licence to use it, for some unspecified reason, so the potterer had been forced to refuse to supply the construction people. The alchemist basically told the construction people to piss off — it wasn't her problem that they'd made an arrangement to use the product she owned the rights to without checking if they'd be legally able to — but everyone involved (except the alchemist) was out a fair bit of money and time, so they'd refused to just drop it. Everybody was suing everybody else, the construction, ceramics, and alchemy guilds pulled into it, as well as multiple Common Houses and one noble family, bringing in their own complicated interrelated politics, and multiple Departments in the Ministry. It was a big fucking mess, basically.
With how seriously complicated the magical economy could be, it was a miracle mages ever got anything done.
Liz was distracted reading about a dispute with the cleaning staff in London when Severus suddenly spoke — she'd missed the first part of it, only catching up in time for the last couple words. "What was that?"
There was a slight hint of cool exasperation. Severus didn't entirely approve of Liz drugging herself to get through this bloody thing, but he also wasn't going to make a point of arguing about it. Not that Liz would have necessarily heard him the first time if she weren't high, she'd just be startled instead of confused. "If we leave within the next five minutes, we should be more or less precisely on time."
So they wouldn't have to awkwardly wait around for it to start, he meant. "Oh well, let's go then." Liz folded the section of the paper closed and hopped off the stool, her shoes noisily clacking against the tile, the beads around her ankles jingling. When she'd bought them, she hadn't realised these things were so loud...
Liz quick rinsed out their coffee cups, followed Severus through the house and out the front door. Severus was leaving his bag here, but he did intend to apparate her back at the end of the night, so. It was rather cold out, being the end of December and all, Liz cast a warming charm over herself with a second of concentration and a wave of her hand. She didn't block off the wind though — the skirt fluttering around her legs was weirdly fun, and the warming charm was taking care of the uncomfortable part, so why not.
"You seem to be in a lighter mood than when I arrived."
"Huh?" Liz belatedly felt Severus's attention on her, forced herself to walk normal — she'd been skipping a little, trying to get it to feel right in heels. "Oh, yeah, I guess. I was in a pretty down mood, you know, but I was kind of surprised out of it when you showed up." Not that having a lot of weird confusing feelings and not knowing what was going on was pleasant, necessarily, but it was at least different than blank depressed numbness. "And the drugs are nice, I'll have to remember to thank Susan for that. Or Artaimís, I guess, for winning that duel we were betting on. Most of the time I kind of don't realise how anxious I am, until I'm suddenly not, it's really nice. Is there a way to get the stopping my brain from being pointlessly stupid for once in my fucking life thing without me acting...you know, like this?"
She'd babbled on long enough that they'd reached the gate already, Severus pulled it open and stood aside to let her through first. "Possibly. Without knowing what is causing this particular effect I cannot be certain. It's possible that the relief from anxiety symptoms and the suppression of psychometric echoes are caused by the same mechanism that is also to blame for the euphoria and reduced inhibitions. However, as you are leery of trying to find a suitable grounding potion, it may be worth looking into — I'll ask around." Also, he worried that if being out in public just kept getting harder and harder, which it had been ever since she'd started paying more conscious attention to her Seer shite (because magic was weird like that sometimes), she'd end up further isolating herself, which could only have negative consequences for her mental health long-term — a problem which could be entirely avoided if they could find a way to properly medicate her — but he didn't say that part out loud.
"That'd be great, thanks." Severus asking his healer friends would be way more efficient than Liz trying to do research on her own. "So, we apparating to the gates?"
"The train platform — the carriages are available to bring guests up to the castle."
"Oh! I thought we'd have to walk, that makes more sense."
Severus gave her a flat look. "You planned to walk from the gates all the way to the doors. In December."
"Sure?" she said, shrugging. "Warming charms exist, Severus."
Sounding a little exasperated, "There is no paved road, only a dirt track — given it is currently December, I expect much of it will be a slurry of mud and ice. And you meant to walk it in heels. White heels."
...That seemed really fucking obvious, now that he'd pointed it out. "Alright, I'm an idiot, thanks for rubbing it in. Can we just go now?"
As they usually did when apparating somewhere, Liz powered the magic for herself, Severus steering for her — it took rather more effort than usual, thanks to the enchantments thick on her clothes, but it went smoothly enough. They'd landed in the marked-off area for apparation just next to the Hogsmeade train station, a little paved square for easier landings and take-offs, a colourful mosaic of the Castle over the lake, the village in one corner, which was also for ease of apparation, making the spot more memorable. There was a little bit of a crowd around, people coming in for the Ball — there was a train letting out a stream of people at the platform, several more popped into existence as Severus led Liz off the square — but thankfully nobody was paying them any particular attention yet, focussed on their own business. The crowd was also very colourful, sparkling like rainbow stars in the lamps on the platform, formalwear only partially hidden by sturdier cloaks.
Somewhat to Liz's surprise, it was snowing in the Valley. They got snow pretty often in Hogsmeade, but it never stayed on the ground for more than a week or so at a time — they were too close to the ocean here, kept it from getting very cold. Way up in the hills surrounding the Valley, you'd sometimes see snow cover through most of winter, but the snow line only rarely dropped low enough to cover the Hogwarts grounds and the village. They'd had a lot of snow for Christmas first year, a good foot at least covering the grounds, but that had been an unusually cold winter, she'd heard, in her second and third year there hadn't been any. It wasn't a heavy snow, a thin dusting of big puffy flakes lazily dancing toward the ground — like sprinkling, but frozen — and there hadn't been enough to actually collect anywhere, only a few glimpses of white clinging to iced-over puddles.
It was pretty, the snowflakes glowing orange in the light from the train station, but she didn't think they had to worry about the Ball getting snowed in. Supposedly there'd be gardens and shite to hang around in, this was light enough not to ruin it.
There was now a brick-paved path connecting the village to the station, and also the guest village opposite — added as part of the construction going on in the Valley this year, it hadn't been there before — so they could get to the turnabout with the carriages without having to walk in the dirt. People did start to notice them while they were waiting for their turn, their attention crawling over Liz and gossipy whispers reaching her ears, but it was much easier than it'd otherwise be to ignore them, the touch of their eyes and the weight of their minds far less intrusive. (She'd call her first real test of the drugs Susan had sent a success, then.) They might be standing on brick, but the track the carriages were on was still dirt...or, at this point, more like mud broken with little spots of ice. When their turn came up, Severus reached the carriage in two big steps, tall bastard, a single boot squelching ankle-deep into the mud — he cleaned off his boot with a wandless brush of his fingers, then didn't move to sit right away, holding a hand back to her. Worried she'd have trouble getting up with all the mud, she guessed, since she was so bloody short.
Liz considered it for a moment, eyeing the distance between the edge of the brick and the carriage. Fuck it — she cast a featherweight charm on herself, pushing enough power into it that her arm tingled, backed up so she'd have room to build a little momentum. Then she took a few quick steps to the edge of the tile, and jumped.
The distance really wasn't very far, but it was enough that she definitely wouldn't have been able to make it without the featherweight charm. Especially with the heels getting in the way, she'd completely forgotten about that, barely stopped herself from tipping over and falling face-first into the mud. She came up slightly short, one of her shoes skidding off the step, but Severus caught her arm, helped pull her up. There was some gasping and muttering from the crowd behind her, the weight of the attention on her increasing, but Liz just ignored it, followed Severus inside, her skirts flooffing around her as she sat down. Severus closed the carriage door with a click, but it didn't start moving right away — there were a couple carriages in line in front of theirs, probably had to wait for the passengers there to settle in first.
Sinking down onto the bench across from her, unusually baggy robes billowing around him, Severus shot her a look she didn't quite know how to read. "I imagine there are more conspicuous ways to board a carriage."
Liz shrugged. "You're the one who pointed out my shoes are white. They're cloth, too, I'm not sure a basic cleaning charm would get mud out of them very well. I would have just quick-stepped up, but you were in the way."
One of his eyebrows arched up, a lurch of amusement in his head. "That would be one of them."
...One of the more conspicuous ways, right, got it. "Severus, I'm the bloody Girl Who Lived, people are going to be watching me no matter what I do. It's not like avoiding getting my shoes messy is going to make it worse than it is already."
"Fair enough."
Liz hadn't really paid that much attention to Severus's robes before, but now that they were in the little carriage sitting directly across from each other it wasn't like she had much else to look at. Partially hidden with a more sedate plain black cloak, the robes themselves were very very blue — still a dark colour, but very obviously blue, rich and vibrant — edged with accents in silver, glinting in the undifferentiated magical light filling the carriage. He'd gone with the silly formal robes various old-fashioned people wore, not too dissimilar from what he normally wore at school (aside from the colour), though a fancier material, the cloth thinner and all drapey, and much baggier than usual. Severus tended to wear robes meant for professionals, the sleeves tailored close to the forearm (so they didn't get in a cauldron or something), but these were much, much looser, pooling around him a little, making him look less dreadfully scrawny, the sleeves drooping back enough to clearly show shining black gloves. There was an extra bit around his waist, maybe, but Liz couldn't see very well from here, the way his arms were folded hiding it.
She wondered if Severus had bought these ones himself. Severus wasn't desperately poor or anything — a Hogwarts professor's salary was comfortable enough (if not exactly luxurious), and he had other jobs on the side, though a lot of it went back into equipment and ingredients for his own potions work — but the super fancy magical formalwear could get stupid expensive. Not a problem for someone like Liz, but the magical economy was horribly lopsided. The average person might not ever even use galleons at all — granted, Liz's entire outfit had only cost, like, almost two? maybe a little over? but that was a lot of money for the average mage. Severus's probably cost a little less than Liz's, but it was definitely at least around a galleon, and his salary was only...what, ninety a year? something like that? It'd come up not that long ago, talk about the educational reforms going on, but she forgot.
He did have a fair amount of fancy clothes, but Liz knew for a fact that at least some of those had been paid for by Narcissa. She did ask him to fancy events all the time, and it'd be embarrassing to go in the same robes every time, but he definitely couldn't afford to consistently buy new stuff — if she wanted him to show up, making it so he could was only fair. (He'd mentioned at some point that he was technically on retainer as the Malfoy family's healer, which Liz imagined was at least in part just for appearances, so the fancy shite could be passed off as his compensation.) Some of his things he'd bought himself, but Liz really had no idea how to tell whether this was one of those, or if Narcissa had basically picked it out for him.
Liz wondered how Síomha felt about another woman dressing her boyfriend half the time...though, Narcissa was famously gay, so that probably wasn't a big deal, actually.
The carriage lurched into motion, pressing Liz back against her seat — Severus's feet shifted a little, but he otherwise hardly seemed to move. "Were you planning on going with Síomha, before... You know, I don't know how public you two are about that yet." People did know, now, thanks to how fucking gossipy the papers in this country were, but Severus was a super private person and all, he might not want to be super obvious at school.
"Frankly, I hadn't planned on attending at all. For her part, Síomha would prefer to spend Christmas with her family."
"Oh, are the Ailbhes Christian?" She knew some Gaelic mages were, but it was safer not to assume. Multiple muggleborns had complained about needing to choose between attending the Ball and having a proper Christmas at home, so, that would make sense.
"Some of them, I suppose. Though I understand it may not be Christianity in the sense that muggles would recognise it."
"Yeah, I noticed." Religion on the magical side was often different family to family and even person to person, and Christianity had gotten all mixed up with pagan shite, it could be hard to guess what— "Oh shite! I was going to send you something for Hanukkah, but I completely forgot, with, you know, everything going on..."
Severus gave her another funny look, not sure how to read that. "The last night of Hanukkah was the fifth of this month."
"...Was it? I didn't look it up, I thought it was around Christmas."
"Not necessarily. The timing is determined by an old lunar calendar — sometimes it overlaps with the Christmas season, and sometimes it does not. And in any case, the prominence of Hanukkah is very modern, and associated primarily with the United States, practices including gift-giving adapted directly from the culture around Christmas. It has only become so popular in my lifetime — I recall my paternal relatives thought the development somewhat crass, but harmless — and it hasn't reached the small Jewish community in magical Britain at all."
"Oh, well." Liz hadn't known any of that, honestly. Not that she really knew much of anything about Judaism, when it came down to it. "I guess I need to look up Jew stuff, and do it proper next time."
One of Severus's eyebrows ticked upward — probably at the use of the phrase Jew stuff. "You realise my parents hardly bothered to properly observe their religion when I was a child, and I haven't taken it up in the meanwhile."
"Well, yeah, but I'd just be doing it to mess with you anyway, so that doesn't matter."
Severus rolled his eyes (an indignity he only allowed himself when they were in private), but didn't say anything. Of course, it was very possible that he'd just hit her with super Catholic stuff as revenge — supposedly Lily's family had been Catholic, which she only knew because Severus had mentioned it once when his parents being Jewish had come up — but whatever, she didn't care. If he were actually annoyed by the idea, she would drop it, but he mostly just seemed to think she was being silly, so.
(She still didn't really get religion, but that didn't stop her from thinking all the shite people had come up with was neat sometimes. And messing with Severus was fun, so, why not.)
They sat in silence for a couple minutes, the carriage smoothly trundling along, Liz idly kicking her feet — it was pretty easy to angle her legs so her shoes didn't hit the floor, because short, but she was in a good enough mood at the moment she didn't actually find being reminded of that annoying. They must be getting pretty close to the Castle when Severus finally spoke again. "I forgot to ask, Black did teach you the women's parts, yes?"
"Yep. He figured it'd be better to make sure I know all the dances I'll need to for this stupid thing, learning both parts would take too much time, and I'm tiny, so." It was pretty common for all the fancy noble types to all learn both parts, whether they planned on using the other or not. Part of that was just so they could teach them if necessary, to their own kids or younger cousins or whatever, but the parts also weren't necessarily restricted to one sex, despite being called that. Which one someone preferred doing often depended on their personal preferences, who their partner was and what their relationship was like, and even just their relative heights — for some dances, it was more convenient for the person doing the woman's part to be the shorter of the two.
And, obviously, queers existed? It wasn't nearly as big of a deal on the magical side for gay couples to go to this sort of thing — one of them would have to do the part 'for' the opposite sex. And even if you weren't screwing each other, it was fine to do these dances with, like, family or friends or acquaintances, and they might be the same sex, so. Talking about this stuff, Sirius had explained that, when he was dancing with another man, he'd usually take the woman's part, just because he was so bloody short. (He'd also sometimes take the woman's part when dancing with a woman, but that was mostly because he was a flamboyant bastard and thought it was more fun that way.) Daphne was taller than her, so she'd confirmed that Daphne knew all the men's parts before Sirius decided to just teach her all the women's, they'd catch up with the other half later.
Not that Liz would probably ever need to know the men's parts, since she was so bloody short.
"Oh shite, I just noticed, you're a tall bastard. We're going to look so fucking awkward..."
He just laughed at her, because of course he did. She realised she was slow sometimes, no need to rub it in, Severus...
(Severus laughing was still kind of surreal.)
Not long later, the carriage lurched to a stop. As Severus opened the door, Liz leaned back to look out one of the windows — they were at the loop right in front of the main doors, okay then. Severus stepped out first, she could hear his boots squelching down into the mud. There were paving stones extending out from the main stairs, but they didn't go out nearly this far. Thankfully, it was cold enough out that everyone was rushing straight toward the double doors, hanging wide open to let an warm inviting orange glow out into the winter evening gloom, there was plenty of open space left on the path. Liz stalled a moment standing in the doorway, hands braced on either side of the frame. There were only so many carriages going by at a time, people streaming past, there should be room at any moment...
There — Liz picked an open spot of solid ground and quick-stepped straight there, flying right past Severus's left side. As awkward as her perch had been, she landed a little rough, stumbling forward, her heels catching against the stone tripping her up. Thankfully, she managed not to fall on her face in public, that would have been embarrassing (even if the drugs meant she might not feel it until later). She waited for Severus to catch up before starting toward the doors, zig-zagging around tracks of mud left behind by the attendees.
Honestly, Liz hadn't expected them to do much with the Entrance Hall — it was already ridiculously fancy for being in a bloody school, all shiny marble and fucking gold all over the place. The thing that was immediately obvious to Liz was the presence of plants in the Hall, long garlands of ivy along the handrail of the Grand Staircase and covering the doors into the Great Hall, in multiple stripes along the walls, some even stitching across the wide open space overhead, here and there decorated with bunches of holly and mistletoe, berries bright red and white. Lamps had been attached to the walls, light set behind glass panels throwing chinks of colour in random directions, and there were rainbow lights wand—
Oh, those were fairies! There were fairies resting on the garlands, or randomly fluttering around, glowing a whole variety of colours, little glittery sparks drifting down from their wings — there was a faint shimmer of not-light a few feet overhead, a faintest sheen of oil on water, Liz assumed that was a paling to keep the fairies away from the attendees. It would probably be invisible to anyone who wasn't a Seer or didn't have magesight, Liz hadn't noticed it at first herself.
Looking past the plants and the fairies, the gold leaf covering the ceiling was partially taken over with white, as though touched by frost, the ice reflecting all the rainbow of colour from below. It was very colourful in here, and she liked the plants — and also the fairies, that was a neat touch — she just hadn't expected them to do anything out here.
Hmm, ivy, holly, and mistletoe. If she was correctly remembering her old-fashioned plant symbolism — it only sometimes overlapped with the use of things in potions — that was peace and community, good fortune and protection from evil, and...health and fertility? Not sure about the last one, something like that. Seemed like good Christmas vibes, she guessed...
While she was distracted looking around, Severus held an arm out to her, in one of those silly formal gestures that, in her lessons with Sirius, had reminded her of the glimpses of period pieces on the tele she'd caught while dusting or whatever. Oh, they were doing this now, okay then. Liz started slipping her arm around his — and then immediately caught herself, moving her hand to his upper arm instead, just against the inside of his elbow. Because the silly noble etiquette could be a bit much, they had ridiculously fine details for everything. With Sirius, she'd been practising specifically to go to the Ball with Daphne, and had automatically moved to hook her elbow with Severus's, hand forward to droop over his wrist...which would imply they were sleeping together. Oops. This was the, ah, less intimate grip, Sirius had shown her that too, at least she'd caught it before it was too late. Severus had been to enough fancy parties and shite that he probably would have caught it right away, just a little irritating, nobles and all their stupid...
Of course, Liz was so bloody short that the intimate version would have been a little uncomfortable anyway, but still.
Severus started leading the way across the Entrance Hall, toward the Grand Staircase. Liz did know where they were going — the Champions and their companions were supposed to gather in one of the little common rooms just behind and to the left of the Stairs — but holding his arm like this put her a half-step behind him. (Which she suspected was kind of the point?) Besides, Severus was a tall bastard, and also vaguely intimidating, he was more likely to have an easier time carving their way through the crowd than she would...not to mention he could bloody see, so would be able to make out the path of least resistance, it was easier to just follow along. It wasn't very long before they started to attract attention, eyes tracking over her, whispers breaking out here and there. She caught a fair bit of confusion, people wondering why she wasn't here with Daphne, which wasn't a surprise — the only person she'd talked to about it was Hermione, and she had no idea who Daphne might have told, but it probably hadn't gotten very far yet. Even as gossipy as nobles could be, most people in the room must still have no idea Liz and Daphne had broken up yet.
(Liz grimaced at the dull ache in her chest flaring at the thought, tried to brush it off. She hadn't lied to Hermione about being mostly okay, but it still sucked.)
The eyes on her might not be quite as intrusive as they were when she was sober, but she could still feel them — and she could also still feel the warm tingly pressure on her neck and hugging around her hips, following the strip of skin down her back once people started to notice that. Sexy attention normally made her very uncomfortable — it felt rather more physical than people just looking at her normally, for some reason, almost as though someone was literally pressing up against her — but whatever it was, the super comfy clothes or just because she was high at the moment, it wasn't bothering her this time. It felt strangely warm and nice and cosy, actually, she felt herself smiling without realising when she'd started.
...No, being high literally every time she had to be in public would be a bad idea, she had to remember that...
The walk through the Hall took a minute or two — drifting through a maze of bright glittering rainbow colours, the air a thick warm tingly soup of the minds around her, dozens of voices mixing into meaningless white noise, all smearing together into a vaguely pleasant multisensory cacophony — and then they were slipping back out of the opposite end of the crowd, turning off into a hall behind the Stairs. The sudden absence of the attention on her and the minds pressing in thick all around seemed to cause the temperature to drop a few degrees — it was just in her head, she knew, but it was enough of a shock she was almost shivering for a few seconds before she adjusted. The room was right over here, a couple men standing outside the door — Hit Wizards, but not advertising it, in formal robes like everyone else — the door was hanging open, she could already feel a faint hint of veela magic wafting out into the hall. Ooh, that was going to be a pain to deal with, even worse when she was a bit unfocussed from the drugs, she hadn't considered—
"Are you all right? I am carrying a mind-shielding amulet if you feel it necessary."
Liz grimaced. If he was even offering at all, he must have enchanted it to vent off the magic pumped into it from her overactive mind — there was no way she'd get through the night wearing one of those otherwise — but she was certain she'd still be absolutely miserable once it was taken off. "I feel fine, Severus. The crowd was weirdly cosy, actually. You know, like, being wrapped up in a thick fuzzy blanket, but with mind magic. This is only the second time I've ever had it, but I think I really like cannabis."
There was a shudder in his head, not sure what that was — he felt warm enough in there that it probably wasn't a bad feeling, but it was so hard to tell with him. "Some Seers do respond well to it, yes. If you wish to leave any time after the opening dance, for any reason, come find me and we'll make our escape."
...She'd need to stick with Severus through dinner and for the first dance, but after that he expected she'd want to go find her friends, so she would have to find him again. Right, okay. "Got it. Not sure how long I'll feel like putting up with it, I guess we'll find out." As long as she didn't let the drugs wear off, she'd probably be able to make it through the whole night without any trouble, but she doubted she would actually want to.
At that point they were reaching the door, the guards (silly) nodding them through. The sitting room was rather more full than she'd expected. The Champions were here, yes — it looked like Liz and Severus were the last to arrive — but the judges were all in here also... Probably the whole head table, actually, she noticed several extra people who must be from the Ministry — she'd known some were coming, for whatever reason, but she wasn't sure who, exactly. There was Blaise's mum, of course, and a couple other faces were vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place them. People from Education, International Cooperation, and Public Works, she would guess, those were the Departments actually involved in this whole mess and most likely to get an invite as a reward.
She noticed both Gamp and Zabini giving them a nod, probably just noting that they'd shown up. They stalled at the door, briefly, before Liz started walking, giving Severus's arm a little tug — not that she was going anywhere specific, just aimed toward the opposite end of the room from where Dumbledore was sitting. Interestingly, Dumbledore and Maxime were sitting together, they must have decided to go with each other for whatever reason. (Politics, Liz assumed.) The Headmaster was accompanied by an unfamiliar woman of a similar age, presumably his... Was Gamp married? Liz didn't actually know, she'd never asked. Well, a friend at least, if not actually his wife. Dianaimh was with a similarly Gaelic-looking man who must be her husband, Vebjørn and Barthe both accompanied by women she assumed were their wives. Karkaroff had brought a friend — an older man, by the way they were sitting and chatting Liz could tell they weren't screwing, just friends — and Liepiņš had a date...who was vaguely familiar, but Liz couldn't place her. Maybe she was another professional duellist, might have seen her face somewhere at some point, but Liz didn't pay close enough attention to remember very many names.
Aritsa was, as usual, super distractingly pretty — her dress all lacey and glittery, soft white and green edged with gold and black, her makeup done all dramatic and colourful — and Liz only ended up staring more as she realised Aritsa's date was a goblin. What the hell...
Her goblin lover (Liz was certain about that detail) was openly wearing an actual bloody sword — she imagined how happy the Hit Wizards had been about letting him through, and failed to choke down a giggle.
The room was absolutely filthy with sofas, there were open seats toward where the Champions were mostly concentrated, Liz just found a random place to swoosh down to a seat. Liz had already known Cedric was going with Chang (Ravenclaw seeker) — some girls in her year were entertainingly disappointed that handsome and fanciable Cedric Diggory had a girlfriend (who wasn't them) — and she wasn't entirely surprised that Viktor and Ingrid were going together. (Ingrid wasn't really interested in dating yet, very much focussed on her education, and Viktor probably just wanted to avoid inspiring unnecessary gossip.) Fleur actually had a date, a tall boy with curly brown hair Liz didn't recognise at all, presumably someone from back home — they both seemed pleased about it, Fleur brightly grinning, Liz assumed the relationship was a new development. Artèmi was with a veela boy, who was vaguely familiar, he—
No, not a veela, a lilin. Liz got close enough to feel his magic, hot and smooth and smokey, but she didn't actually have to feel him directly — the magic being pushed out by Fleur and the mystery boy were grating together with little sparks of interference, the light and the dark messily cancelling each other out, creating a sort of subaudible background hiss. Anyway, Liz knew she'd seen him before, but the name wasn't coming to her, she was pretty sure they'd never actually spoken. He must be one of the people who'd come with Beauxbatons. Liz was pretty sure Artèmi and the lilin were here as friends, but it could be hard to tell — it didn't help that veela and lilin were kind of clingy — and it wasn't really her business anyway.
It didn't take very long after sitting down before Liz caught herself staring at Artèmi — she was, of course, unfairly pretty. She was wearing white again, accented here and there with pale blue and glinting silver, the neck hugging her throat but the skirt slit pretty high up a thigh, the fabric textured with embroidery that was almost invisible at this distance, lacey in places and thick with silver thread in others. There was a sash of some kind tied around her waist, blue and yellow and red, pulling the dress in enough to suggest that there must be some kind of corset-type thing under there...though the curve wasn't so noticeable as it was on Liz — Artèmi was only a few inches taller than Liz (she might be five feet even), her chest subtle enough her clothes sometimes hid it completely, but for whatever reason Liz's hips were way more obvious.
When she was in a good mood about herself, Liz could admit that she did have a nice arse. So she had that one on Artèmi, at least.
Artèmi noticed Liz was staring, turned to give her an almost Snape-ish raised eyebrow. Ooh, her makeup was subtle, but she had a silvery sort of eye shadow, glittering in the light like diamonds, pretty. Impulsively, Liz reached through the soup of veela/lilin magic filling this part of the room to push a thought at her. You're completely unfairly pretty, you know that.
Artèmi's lips curled, amused. Because she was cruel like that, she decided to respond aloud. "Why, thank you, Liz, I'm flattered. You clean up quite well yourself," with a slight edge to her tone — implying Liz didn't try most of the time, but without being outright rude about it. (Which was fair enough, most of the time Liz only bothered if there was a reason she needed to.) Artèmi was just playing, though, she did mean it as a compliment.
Feeling attention flick to her, shivers of amusement (or exasperation, from Severus) as people realised what just happened, Liz tried not to shrink into the sofa at the warmth she felt on her own face. (The corset would make that kind of awkward to do anyway.) Not sure how to respond, she just let out a huff with a sceptical roll of her eyes, and looked away.
Though, she was playing it off like she doubted the compliment, which she normally would, but she didn't feel it at the moment. Maybe the drugs were suppressing her stubborn fucking issues with her body at the moment, because, she'd seen herself in a mirror earlier — she thought she looked pretty great. Which was something she almost never felt, it was... Well, slightly surreal, she guessed, but fucking amazing, honestly, too bad she couldn't dress like this all the time.
...Well, this fine of a dress would be a bit much, but there was no reason she couldn't wear girlier shite more often, and like corsets and whatever. She should probably hold off on spending too much money on clothes until after the blood alchemy thing, though.
Sitting this close to a veela and a lilin — a veela and a lilin who were in a good mood, even, happiness and giddy pleasure bubbling in her stomach and tingling across her skin — was a little bit overwhelming, honestly, it'd probably be a bit much for her if she didn't have a distraction. Thankfully, one of the Ministry people (and her date) came over to talk to Severus before too long — Liz didn't really participate (aside from being briefly introduced), but she did pay attention to the conversation, if only to have something to occupy herself with. Someone from the Department of Education, apparently, as long as she had a moment wanted to discuss the comments Severus had provided on updates to the NEWT curriculum. A lot of it was over her head, but it was vaguely interesting, at least, she did like potions.
Not for the first time, it occurred to Liz that most of Severus's friends were women. She didn't know what was up with that.
Liz and Severus had shown up pretty much exactly on time — it'd been close enough to the line that they were the last in the room, after all — but they still had to wait several minutes. When they'd arrived at the train station, there'd still been plenty of people there, the last train still disembarking — they must have gotten behind schedule for some reason. And there'd been a pretty big crowd in the Entrance Hall, the doors into the Great Hall could only let so many people through at a time, who knew how long it'd take for everyone to find their seats. But that was fine, Liz could deal with that, listened to Severus talk to the Ministry woman when not just letting her mind wander. And also trying not to stare at anyone, which was irritatingly difficult at the moment, since everyone was all prettied up and Liz was frustratingly gay sometimes. She distracted herself with thinking about the Kaunas trip, mostly, she'd need to pack tomorrow...
One of the veela/lilin in the room (Fleur, maybe) had a sexy thought, an edge of lust pulsing through the air, echoing in Liz before she could stop it, a tingly flush crawling over her, she grit her teeth against the urge to squirm in her seat. Ugh, that was just what she needed — she'd rather not be distractingly turned on through the Ball, thanks...especially since she'd have to dance with Severus later, that would be awkward...
They'd been in here for a while, she had no idea how long — she'd noticed time could get kind of smeary when she was high — when people started standing up. She was confused for a second, there must have been an announcement that they were ready for them, Liz lost in her head enough to miss it. Severus offered a hand, which was helpful, the sofa was low and squishy enough that getting out of the bloody thing was a little difficult. (Okay, she'd finally found something she didn't like about this dress.) They streamed out of the room and back to the Entrance Hall, though the Champions stayed behind, in the little alcove to the left of the Grand Staircase — they'd be coming in after the judges and Ministry people, single file, wait for a couple counts between each pair. They didn't have assigned seats at the table, just go ahead and pick whichever were left. Blah blah blah, nothing really interesting, Liz didn't listen to most of the instructions.
She did pay enough attention to realise the entire hall would be watching them walk in — good thing she wasn't doing this sober, because there was no fucking way she'd be able to eat after that otherwise.
Liz felt an inexplicable tingle of uncertainty, a subtle knot of worry in her chest, she instinctively looked over to find Fleur approaching. Of course the bloody veela was fucking distracting, shimmery silver and gold fabric draped loosely around her — Liz had heard veela and lilin didn't like feeling confined, never wore restrictive clothing if they could help it — shifting as she moved in a way that made her figure very very obvious. "Hello, Liz, you look lovely tonight."
She tore her eyes away from Fleur's wast, blinking. "Yeah. I mean, um, thanks. You're really, er..." Liz glanced down, which was a mistake, lost her train of thought. "Let's pretend I said something very articulate and not at all awkward and just move on."
Liz caught a flash of exasperation from Severus — yes, she was hopelessly gay, not at all helped by the weird veela soul magic thing, she was aware — but as overpowering as veela stuff could be, Fleur's bubbling amusement and warm pleasure was far more immediate. Introductions went around quick, Liz barely even bothering to listen to Fleur's date's name (she was pretty sure she'd never meet him again) — she hadn't even noticed they were speaking in French until Severus's horrendous accent tipped her off. Date-boy didn't speak English, apparently, and also had a very noticeable southern accent, so he must actually be Aquitanian, like Artèmi. Though, now that Liz was paying attention, she thought that Fleur had an accent too, different from other French mages she'd spoken to — very subtle, sounded vaguely Slavic to Valérie's ears...or maybe Turkish? Something eastern, anyway. It must actually be from whatever the veela/lilin language was called, but Liz didn't know anything about it, just that it existed.
Once the pleasantries were out of the way, Fleur got to the reason she'd come over to talk to Liz in the first place. "I was wondering, if you don't mind my asking, I assumed you would be coming with... Oh, I don't recall her name, that blonde girl." Fleur hesitated for a second, glancing at her date — he'd never shown any issues with her people, but she didn't want to make him uncomfortable — before adding, "She tastes like sunlight."
Liz felt herself stiffen, her eyes widening. "Oh! You can feel that too? I've noticed her mind is like that, but I could never find out why. People all feel slightly different, I assumed it didn't really mean anything, but it is odd how consistent it is..."
"Yes, everyone's soul has a different character." The way she worded it felt off, Liz assumed it was imprecisely translated from her native language. "Sometimes it is simply innate, but, would I be wrong to assume she has a deep love of growing things?"
"Yeah, good fucking guess. She's from the Greenwood, and they're all like that, hippie nature types. Her bedroom is literally a garden," she said, pushing the mental image she'd gotten from Daphne over at Fleur. Impulsively, she might not have done that if she were thinking straight at the moment, but Artèmi had implied veela/lilin did this kind of shite all the time, so it was probably fine? By the way Fleur grinned, Liz suddenly feeling warmer and lighter, yeah, not a bad thing to do. "Her name is Daphne, by the way, Greengrass."
"Of course, that was it, I apologise. Is she quite all right?"
"...Um. We broke up, actually, like a week ago now."
That led to a very awkward moment, with the Champions and all their dates offering her sympathy for that, which was incredibly uncomfortable. She had absolutely no idea how she was supposed to respond to these kind of comments — she cheated and silently asked Severus for help with what the fuck she was supposed to do, but he wasn't very helpful. The sympathy from Fleur and Artèmi's friend thrumming through her was not helping, ugh, how the fuck did normal people handle feeling shite like this all the time, she was going to start crying if they kept at it too much longer...
Thankfully, Abbott showed up before Liz could completely lose it, waved them toward the doors. They were going in tournament order again, mixed up slightly due to Viktor and Ingrid going together, meaning Liz and Severus would be all the way at the back. Once they were lined up, Liz took the opportunity of everyone's backs being to her to wipe at her eyes quick — she hadn't started crying proper, but it'd been far too close for comfort, bloody veela...
She caught an odd simmering echo from Severus — he understood perfectly. Severus might be way better at occlumency than Liz, but the veela/liln thing worked through soul magic, it was practically impossible to keep out, pain in the arse.
A flick of her wrist and a pulse of magic dried off her finger, and— Oh shite! She drew her wand, cast a mirror charm and... Her make-up was completely unaffected, actually. Maybe the magic stuff was just more resistant to water, or one of those charms Narcissa had cast had done something. Right, good, Liz wouldn't have been able to fix that on her own.
Artèmi was somewhat concerned, but she kept the thought to herself, firmly not glancing over her shoulder back at Liz. She was picking up enough from Liz to know what was going on back here, but at least she was polite enough to pretend she didn't.
There was music of some kind coming from inside the Great Hall, which must be the cue, Abbott waving Viktor and Ingrid through the doors — once they were in, Liz heard applause start up, which seemed like a bit much, but whatever. Some seconds later, Fleur and date-boy followed them, and then Cedric and Chang, and finally Artèmi and lilin-boy, leaving Liz and Severus standing right at the threshold.
...Woah, the Great Hall was...different. She knew there must be something on the wards that resized the Hall somehow — it'd gotten bigger multiple times since she'd started here — but it was much bigger than it'd been last time Liz had seen it. It was hard to tell exactly from the entrance (and also with all the people and furniture in the way), but she was pretty sure it was multiple times larger. It would have to be to comfortably fit everyone plus a dance floor, but still, fucking hell. The rectangular house tables were gone, the room instead scattered with smaller circular ones — at the centre of each was a magical lamp, the light steady and unwavering, filtering through dyed glass shades to turn cool and soft. It was a lot darker in there in general, light clinging around the tables but the shadows all around deep. Odd.
It'd be their turn any second now, Liz shuffled a step closer, returning her hand to the proper spot on Severus's arm. "Looks like someone had fun with the decorating."
"So it would seem."
"Those lamps were made by hand, weren't they? The light looks too real." Liz couldn't explain it better than that — illusions and shite often didn't look right to her, especially when light and shadow and colour did funny things.
"The school contracted a handful of glass-makers to prepare them, starting as early as September."
...Seemed like a lot of effort for only one night, but whatever.
Liz didn't have any more time to wonder about that, Abbott waving them on. There must be some kind of paling over the door, Liz could feel it, like walking through silk curtains. As soon as they were through, she was submerged by a prickly wave crashing over her, too much for her to pick anything out — like stepping into the shower, water pounding against her warm and smooth, running along her skin, too much all at once to follow any one particular droplet. The sudden deluge was so intense her breath caught, hitching in place. She hadn't really noticed she'd stopped moving until she felt a faint tug on her hand, Severus still walking, forced her feet into motion, feeling weirdly numb and clumsy.
Even with the lower couple years not allowed to come there were more people in the room than usual — various 'important' people would have gotten invitations for the event, not just in Britain but Aquitania and Daneland as well — the magic in the walls of Hogwarts keeping the thoughts and feelings released by their minds contained, concentrating, until the thin fog of ambient magic had been thickened into a dense creamy soup. Thick enough she couldn't just feel it magically, hot and cool and smooth and jagged, swirling around in countless eddies, here and there crackling with interference where energies that didn't really get along brushed up against each other, but she could feel it physically as well, a pressure against her skin, warm and fuzzy and soft like a really nice blanket, harsh and grating like sandpaper, brushing over her smooth and cool in a way very similar to the silky inner layer of her skirts. Thick enough that the air seemed to have more resistance than it should, like wading through something denser than air but thinner than water, her breath thick with it, tasting coppery and green and sweet and sour and...cheesy, her ears ringing.
Though it was hard to tell how much of that was just the magic in the room and how much was all the eyes on her — normally, she could pick out a particular person's attention, a point of pressure against her with associated feelings, but this time it was far too much, all mixing together into an undifferentiated mass. It was impossible to identify where one person's gaze ended and the next began, or even what anyone was looking at, wrapped up in warm tingly pressure head to toe, beating against her sharp and smooth and...
...pleasant, honestly. It was a lot, sure, but she just let most of it slip through her fingers, flowing through her and out — if she tried to hold onto it she'd get overwhelmed very quickly, and probably end up crying like a baby — and in a weird way there being so much of it almost made it easier. Too much, she couldn't identify any particular feeling or thought in it, just a sea of magic, everyone being generally in a good mood making it all warm and soft, run through with giddy tingles, comfortable and exciting. She felt herself smiling, bit her tongue to keep herself from giggling.
Of course, if she weren't high she'd probably be having a panic attack right about now, but as it was this was weirdly nice, nerves practically tingling with vicarious good vibes. She kind of loved it, honestly.
Pushing a tendril of thought up through her grip on Severus's arm — more efficient than trying to reach him through the soup of magic on the air — she asked, Are we really sure I can't just be high whenever I need to be in public?
There was a shudder, some kind of unpleasant thought going on in there, but Liz lost it in the noise going on all around. I will ask my colleagues about a less conspicuous solution. The thought from there wasn't quite as explicit, not firmly framed in words, but Liz understood it clearly enough anyway, part of what he was consciously trying to communicate. Severus hadn't been fully aware of how much the Seer stuff bothered her, he'd thought it was mostly a mind magic issue — apparently, if it were a mind magic issue, being high should just make it worse. Which was his mistake, he'd unthinkingly assumed that Liz's difficulties would be similar (if not identical) to his own, especially since her Seer stuff had started (consciously) presenting late, he hadn't properly taken it into account. (Though, in retrospect, her issues with crowds and people watching her had probably always been a Seer thing, even if she hadn't been consciously aware of the distinction at the time.) He wasn't going to pressure her into trying a proper grounding potion — if for no other reason, the side effects would likely worsen her mood issues — but she couldn't just take this stuff all the time, as the hit to her executive function would inevitably have serious consequences. They should definitely try to figure something else out, though. When it'd come up earlier, he hadn't been lying when he'd said he'd look into it, he was just taking it rather more seriously now, like an actual medical priority.
...Right, that was probably the smarter thing to do. Cannabis did make her act silly, and as much as she found she didn't care about that right now, being high all the time would...probably cause problems at some point. It was hard to remember that in the moment, but she guessed that's what responsible adults were for.
Severus found that last thought amusing and exasperating at the same time, which was a very Severus sort of feeling, really.
The magic all around and the attention on her made it rather hard to think straight, or pay attention to practically anything going on around her — it was even hard to see, honestly, her eyes refusing to focus, the room a colourful misty blur. But she didn't need to be able to see where she was going, just kept her hand on its place on Severus's arm, let him lead the way. (It dimly occurred to her that that would normally freak her out too, this shite was great.) After a distance she couldn't begin to guess at, a flicker of thought from Severus warned her of steps coming up, they climbed up onto a platform of some kind. Attention was starting to lift away from her, but the daze was slow to break, she couldn't really make out the table very well—
Nowhere near Dumbledore, please. And preferably not too close to Artèmi either, I won't be able to keep myself out of her mind, it's awkward.
—the angle they were moving at changed as Severus headed toward seats. They'd just come to a stop when the haze properly broke, attention shifted over to...someone, saying something. Gamp, she thought, saying a few quick words before dinner started. Since they had a stupid number of people who needed to be at the special person table — the Champions, the judges, a selection of VIPs, and all their dates — the platform actually held two tables, curving in long U-shapes, the bottoms in the middle and the ends toward the outside, people lining both sides of both tables. There were more empty spots than she would have expected, either some people hadn't shown up (or hadn't brought dates) or they'd left room for people to move around if they felt like it.
While Liz was glancing around, Severus pulled out a chair, she belatedly realised that was supposed to be for her. Doing the fancy formal gentleman thing, like. Liz felt her lips twitch as she sat, the layered skirt audibly rustling, the silky inner layer tickling her legs. The attention of the whole bloody hall off her by this point, her head finally cleared enough to get a proper look around.
The Great Hall was, indeed, very different. It was much larger, for one, though it was hard to get a clear impression of how much — the only light seemed to be coming from the colourful lamps on the tables, the shadows surprisingly deep along the walls. Liz knew some people had a thing about winter and the longest night or whatever, the darkness was probably supposed to be appropriately thematic. She personally liked it — the colourful light dancing off of people's clothes and jewellery, the shadows all around making everything else seem sharp and dramatic by contrast — but Liz realised her personal aesthetics were a little odd. She noticed that the walls, bits on the ceiling overhead, were glittering in the diffuse light, as though dusted with millions of tiny diamonds. No wait, that was ice, caked over the surface, super clear and glassy, dark enough over there that it took her a moment to figure out what she was seeing.
The platform they were on wasn't in the middle of the Hall, much closer to the back wall than the doors (it certainly hadn't felt like they'd walked that far, must have been really out of it), the Hall scattered with more little round tables than she could easily count, each large enough to sit maybe eight people. A band nearly as wide as the platform the special person tables were on stretched all the way from here to the doors, which Liz assumed was supposed to be the dance floor. Halfway down the Hall, an open archway had appeared on the right side, leading deeper into the Castle, the arch thick with ivy and holly and lined with more rainbow-glass lamps — there shouldn't be a hallway there, running right into the duelling hall and eventually Helga's Gallery, but they'd probably cheated and fucked around with the interior geography of the Castle for the night. Opposite the arch against the wall was a somewhat brighter spot, surrounded with a faint shimmer of palings of some kind, where the musicians were gathered. They were in rather plain professional dress, but even from here Liz caught a faint glint of metal in their faces — Mistwalkers, maybe? She'd heard somewhere that it was commonly believed that the best musicians in the country were Lovegoods, fancy people always tried to get some to play at their parties if they could manage it, seemed like a good guess.
(Liz knew that the Lovegoods owned the biggest fiction publisher in the country, the entirely bloody mad Quibbler, had a bunch of musicians and artists and stuff, but they were, like, how the Greenwood was an agricultural cult, the Lovegoods were a weird hedonistic sex cult or something? Like, the name was supposed to be literal. It all seemed sort of contradictory, she didn't really get what was going on with that.)
Also? It was snowing in here. Looking up, there were big pretty glittering flakes fluttering around, drifting down toward the floor...but not actually reaching them. The snow seemed to fade away at some point overhead, not hitting a single solid line (like a paling or something), but just...gradually thinning until it was all gone. The point they disappeared at was low enough that Maxime might get a little snow in her hair standing at her full height, but it wouldn't get on their food, or make the dance floor slippery or anything. The snowflakes sparkled in the multicoloured lamplight, all...
It was possible Liz was just in an unusually good, drug-assisted mood, but it was extremely pretty in here, she loved it.
And there's part two of five, see you all tomorrow.