I don't know how long I lay there, but it seemed like barely any time later that Annabelle was moving around and speaking softly outside the hangings, "Andy? Are you awake? It's time to get ready for the ball."

My gut sank into my toes. The lovely dress I had been so looking forward to wearing was still hanging in my closet, but to put it on now seemed painfully crass. How could I care about a silly outfit when somebody had died?

"You have to come," said Annabelle, as if she had read my mind. "One, you're a Prefect; two, you're my friend; and three, you didn't buy that dress just so it could hang in your wardrobe. Oh and four, Leo's waiting."

I groaned and buried my face in my pillow. I wished I could simply go back to sleep and pretend the whole day had never happened. But I knew there was no avoiding the ball. I was a Prefect, and I would be expected to help with the chaperoning, if nothing else. I couldn't just abandon my responsibilities now.

"Good," beamed Annabelle when I pulled aside the hangings a moment later and emerged from my cocoon. "Rise and shine, lovely. You've got a lot of work to do."

When I saw my reflection in the mirror, I had to agree. My hair was a mess, and my face was bleary and blotchy from a day in bed. "Oh Merlin," I moaned upon catching sight of myself. "Are you sure I couldn't just come down with dragon pox?"

"Don't be stupid," said Annabelle. She had already washed and was busy putting on make-up. "Start with a shower and you'll feel much better."

It was true. But dealing with my hair was another matter. In the end Annabelle grew tired of watching me grapple with it, and with a few clever spells managed to subdue it into something resembling a respectable do.

"My mother taught me that," she said with a satisfied grin, leaning back to admire her handiwork. "Not bad. Now hurry up and get into your dress, and then I'll do your make-up. You're lucky I'm ready early!"

Finally, I was ready. The dress was as beautiful as I remembered, and helped to cheer me up somewhat. My hair was up in a bun on the top of my head, and I was wearing emerald earrings that matched the colour of my dress. Even in my non-festive state I had to admit the effect was rather elegant.

"Good, we're only fifteen minutes late," said Annabelle as she pushed me out the door behind Phylissa and Helena. The four of us hurried out into the common room, to find our dates pacing before the fire in frustration.

"Finally!" exclaimed Rabastan, pausing mid-stride as we came into view. "I was just about to come in there and drag you – " he stopped as his eyes came to rest on me. He blinked twice, before shaking his head slightly. "Wow."

"You look beautiful," said Leo, walking over and kissing me rather tenderly on the cheek.

"Thanks," I said, pointedly ignoring Rabastan's gaze. "Shall we go?"

"Definitely."

The entrance hall was filled with students, mingling together while they waited for the great hall to open. Out of habit I stayed with the Slytherins, keeping close to Leo and Annabelle, although the latter barely had eyes for me now that she was standing beside Will. I saw a few familiar faces, including Frank Longbottom and Alice Taylor. Alice gave me a surreptitious smile as she passed, which I returned, remembering our conversation by the lake. Close to Alice I saw Marlene McKinnon, looking stunning in a form-fitting gold dress that matched her long blonde hair; she was standing beside Benjy Fenwick, who seemed to have perfected the casually handsome pose. There was no sign of Dorcas.

Nobody seemed to be in mourning anymore. I began to wonder if I hadn't imagined the whole fiasco with The Daily Prophet and the intern at the Muggle Liaison Office. Perhaps I had fallen asleep without realising and dreamt the whole thing? Then again, I thought, looking closer at some of the faces around me, the smiles on several of the teachers' faces seemed rather strained, and here and there groups of older students huddled close together in what appeared to be serious conversation.

"You coming?" asked Leo. I blinked and saw that he was offering me his hand. Behind him, the double doors of the Great Hall were creaking open. There was an excited buzz all around the hall.

I grinned at him. "Definitely."

The decorations were undoubtedly a success. There was a universal 'oooh' as the doors opened; I saw people pointing at the ceiling, which was still covered in the glittery substance I had summoned, and felt a little spark of pride. The suit of armour the Gryffindors had been fiddling with had obviously been restored to full health by a teacher; it was now booming out a rendition of 'Jolly Wizards of the North' at the top of its voice. From above us dry snow fell and settled on the edges of the marble floor. With the glow from the floating chandeliers and the thousands of candles, it was like being both outside and inside at the same time.

"Care to dance?" asked Leo.

"Of course." If there was one thing Leo and I knew how to do, it was dance. We had been raised on balls like this, after all, and knew exactly how to perform. Leo led me out on to the marble dance floor, but before the music began the Headmaster clearly had a few words to say. He was standing at the lectern that had been erected at the foot of the hall, a benign smile upon his face.

"Greetings, students of Hogwarts," he said when he had everyone's attention. "And may your night be as merry as Christmas. Let us forget our troubles for a night and celebrate this dance in the spirit with which it was intended: that is, with kindness, and open-hearts, and much laughter. Joy to you all!" And he raised his glass in a toast. There was a loud shout of "Cheers" and then the music began to play.

It began with a slow waltz. The music was played by enchanted instruments, moving by themselves at the back of the Great Hall. I moved smoothly in Leo's arms, allowing him to guide us across the floor. If I closed my eyes I could almost imagine I was at my parents Yuletide celebration, and that Leo was really my boyfriend, and that my sisters were still as close to me as they had been when we were young. It was only when I opened my eyes and found myself surrounded by the faces of my classmates that the illusion was shattered.

"You look beautiful tonight Andy," Leo murmured.

"You already said that."

With my head resting on his shoulder, I could hear the rumble in his chest when he laughed. "Nothing wrong with saying it again, I guess."

I drew back just enough to look at him. "I don't know about that," I said lightly. "I might get a big head."

He gave me a look of mock horror. "What would your mother say?"

"Probably that all Black women should have big heads," I said dryly, doing a quick twirl before returning to his arms. "So long as we keep them well groomed."

He laughed. As he turned me again I saw Cissy, moving serenely in Lucius Malfoy's arms. She looked more angelic than ever, and I smiled.

"They look happy," I said softly.

Leo twisted to look. "Your sister?"

I nodded. "Yeah. They'll be a great match."

Leo's eyes found mine again, and his stare was somewhat piercing. "A bit like we were meant to be, huh?"

My stomach twisted, but I found to my surprise that his words didn't upset me the way I thought they would. "It could have been so easy, couldn't it," I mused without much emotion. "You and I. Our parents satisfied, our families united… that was how it was supposed to be."

The song ended. We paused for a moment, waiting for the music to begin again. "I've always thought playing to the script is rather boring," said Leo.

"Mmm."

The dance was faster now, and opportunity for conversation less frequent. I couldn't say I minded; there had been enough drama for the day already without needing to continue the train of thought Leo and I had been on.

We passed many couples that I recognised. Marlene and Benjy were dancing out of step and laughing, while Alice and Frank were swaying in each other's arms and appeared oblivious to anything happening around them, as were Molly Prewett and Arthur Weasley. Even some of the teachers had joined us on the dance floor, Professor Dumbledore taking Professor McGonagall for a sweeping waltz around the hall. I spied Dorcas sitting at one of the many tables that lined either side of the Great Hall, and made a mental note to go over and talk to her at a later stage. Rabastan and Helena were sitting too, arms crossed and identical sour expressions on their faces.

There was one person who was conspicuously missing. I had been looking out for Bella since leaving the Slytherin common room, but so far there had been no sign of her. I did not think she was simply blending in with the crowd. My elder sister was nothing if not striking, and I was sure that if she was present her figure and passion would radiate from metres away. That I had not even caught a glimpse of her suggested she had found something else to occupy her time. The thought worried me, a gnawing sensation that grew more persistent as the night progressed and she made no appearance.

It was a long time before I stopped dancing. It was only when a change of music was announced, and the enchanted instruments ceased playing, that Leo suggested we take a break. My skin was damp with sweat and I could feel that several curls had come loose from my bun, but I didn't really care. I was having more fun than I had had in a long time.

"I'll get us some drinks," Leo said, before ducking away.

I looked around, hoping to spot Annabelle; but she was still in the throng of dancers, standing with both her hands in Will's as they waited for the new band to start. Dorcas was sitting at a table, but I couldn't go over to her in front of all the Slytherins, and besides, I thought I could see the red halo of hair that was Charlotte Weasley sitting next to her. Nearer to me was Helena Flint, sitting with Phylissa at an otherwise empty table. Neither of them had their dates with them. Curiosity got the better of me and I wandered over.

"Hi," I said, perching myself on a chair and fanning my face with one hand. "Having fun?"

Phylissa gave me a strained smile, while Helena answered rather derisively, "As well as can be expected, I suppose. You obviously are."

"Sure am," I grinned. "Where's Rabastan and Thorfinn?"

Helena gave me a condescending look. "The same place as your elder sister, I imagine," she drawled, clearly enjoying the way I sat up straighter at her words.

"And where would that be, exactly?" I asked.

Her upper lip twitched, and I imagined she probably wanted to watch me squirm. But Phylissa spoke up before she could, saying in a timid voice, "Outside, I think."

"Oh." My eyes scanned the crowd, and I began to pick up the surprising absence of many of the older Slytherins. Most of Bella's gang were missing, in fact. "And what are they doing outside?"

"Something far more worthwhile than dancing," Helena sneered.

"Uh-huh." I got to my feet again, deciding Leo and his drink could wait. "Well, if you'll excuse me." I did an exaggerated curtsey and walked away, my mind racing. What on earth was my sister planning?

The grounds were open for the festivities, although the teachers had been rather reticent in allowing students to wander at their leisure. Nonetheless, the area beyond the Entrance Hall had been lit up with hundreds of live fairy lights, stringing a network of paths that spread out across the lawns toward the Forbidden Forest, lined with enchanted rose bushes and tall hedges. It had quite a lovely effect, although my Prefect eyes could already spot several suspicious shapes lurking in the shadows on either side of the path. I was hardly in the mood to start handing out detentions, however, and so I simply pretended not to see them and marched resolutely away from the castle.

The bushes seemed to grow in height as I walked. Here and there they were interspersed with statues and the occasional fountain, until soon enough I felt almost as though I was walking through one of the mysterious and rarely used gardens at our manor. The noise had dimmed significantly, so that I could hear my footsteps and the sound of the wind rustling the branches. It was cold, and the ground was carpeted in fresh snow. I rubbed my arms, wishing I had had the foresight to put on something warmer.

It did not take me very long to find the group of Slytherins. I heard the low rumble of their voices moments before they came into view themselves, huddled close to the edge of the forest in a tight circle. Bella stood in the centre, white skin gleaming in the mingled moon and fairy light. She was talking animatedly. I came to a halt behind one of the last rose bushes, close enough to listen but remain out of sight.

"… and we will be rewarded," Bella was saying. She wore ordinary, plain black school robes, as though she had not even bothered to dress for the ball. "We who were loyal before all others. Those of us who never doubted."

There was a murmur of agreement, before Rodolphus spoke. "It will not be easy," he said in that low, slow drawl of his. "We will be tested, and there will be those who try to destroy us. But in the end we will prevail, because our blood is stronger, and our magic is true."

More sounds of assent drifted through the air. I thought it was the longest speech I had ever heard Rodolphus make.

"And," Bella concluded, lifting her face so that the moonlight illuminated it fully, her expression full of passion and defiance. "We are the ones that are always pure."

"Always pure," repeated the group. In it I could hear Rabastan's voice, clear and determined. It was my family's motto, toujours pur. I had been raised to respect it from an early age. But hearing it now, it seemed unusually sinister, like a threat, rather than the badge of pride I had always considered it. I shivered.

I had presumed that was the end of the meeting, but the group made no move to return to the castle. Bella was speaking again, talking about targets and aims and what they should expect to find when they entered the real world. I wondered if they would spend the entire night out there in the cold. I certainly didn't plan to. I had found my sister and confirmed what I suspected to be true: that she had moved on to greater, darker things than a simple Hogwarts' ball, and had no time for dancing anymore.

Carefully, without making my presence known to them, I slipped back the way I had come. Nothing good could come of Bella finding out I had been spying on her, and I was not interested in confronting her about her activities right then. Instead, I weaved my way through the side-paths, moving further and further from the entrance hall with no particular destination in mind, until I reached the eastern edge of the rose bushes and the grassy slope that ran away to the Quidditch pitch. I stopped, taking a deep breath of the crisp air, and stared at the hoops rising high above me, lost in thought.

"Andy?"

I jumped, and would have reached for my wand had the voice not been instantly recognisable to me.

"Merlin," I huffed in frustration. "How on earth do I keep running in to you?"

Ted laughed flatly. He was leaning against a statue of Saint Nicholas, his hands in his pockets, apparently completely alone. I peered into the darkness, half expecting Emily Howard to come lurching towards us at any moment. When no one appeared I looked back at Ted, to find him staring at me suspiciously. "What?" I demanded.

"Oh, nothing," he said in a voice that suggested there was, in fact, something. "I was just wondering the same thing, actually."

"Maybe it's fate," I suggested mockingly.

To my surprise his expression remained thoughtful. "Yeah, maybe."

"What are you doing out here anyway?" I asked to cover my embarrassment. With one hand I gestured around us at the dark, empty grounds. "This is hardly the life of the party."

He shrugged. "Just needed some air, I guess."

"Air," I scoffed, remembering the moment in the seventh floor corridor when I had caught him snogging the Howard girl. Had he needed air then too?

I could feel his eyes on me, and when I met his gaze I saw that he was giving me a hard, challenging look, as though daring me to doubt his word. "That's right," he said. "Air."

I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at a spot on the pitch some way ahead of me. I didn't want to get into an argument with Ted right then; I already had too much else on my mind.

After a while he said in a voice of forced casualness, "And you? What are you doing out here?"

I didn't answer.

"Are you taking a break from your gang meeting?"

My eyes snapped up at his words. I could see at once from his expression that he had stumbled across Bella and her cronies just as I had. "Excuse me?"

"I heard you," he said simply, waving a hand in the direction I had just come from, and where I knew the Slytherins were still lurking. "Talking about how you're going to punish Mudbloods, and blood-traitors, and anyone else that gets in your way. About how you're going to be rewarded by that – that maniac…"

Perhaps I should simply have let him believe I had been a part of Bella's gathering, and was as dedicated a member of that clique as someone like Rabastan Lestrange. But his words ignited a fierce spark of resentment inside me, and before I knew it I was striding angrily up to him.

"I can't believe you think I would be involved in that!" I hissed, stopping less than a foot away and giving him my best glare.

"Why shouldn't I?" he retorted, pushing himself off the statue and returning my glare with one of his own. "Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't your sister head honcho of the Slytherin thug-gang these days? And isn't your entire family as batshit crazy about blood-status as this Lord Voldemort guy?"

"You – you – I'm not my sister!" I shot back. We were far enough away from the rest of the party that I didn't think our voices would carry, but I kept mine low just in case. "You don't know what I believe!"

"You're right," said Ted, advancing on me all of a sudden and closing the space between us. He was taller than me, but I refused to be intimidated by him. "I don't know what you believe. Most of the time I have no idea what you're even thinking! But I do know that the last time I came near you, you told me to keep my filthy Mudblood hands to myself – and forgive me if I'm wrong but that sounds exactly like something your sister would say."

I couldn't help but wince at his words. He hadn't raised his voice, but for some reason I felt worse than if he had shouted at me. "I don't need to explain myself to you," I said weakly.

"No, I suppose you don't," said Ted. "But don't blame me for coming to a bad conclusion then. If you don't like it maybe you should set me straight." He stared at me so intently it was like he was trying to drill a hole through my skull with his eyes. "All I know is that right now your sister is out there plotting ways to make life miserable for people like me. I don't want to believe you're involved in that, Andy. But you haven't exactly given me reason to trust you."

His last words stung so badly my eyes pricked. "I haven't given you reason to trust me?" I repeated incredulously. "Every time I even talk to you I risk their disapproval! It would be much easier for me to simply pretend you don't exist!"

"And isn't that exactly what you have been doing?" demanded Ted roughly. "For the past two months you've completely ignored me! You barely even look at me on patrol."

"Not two months," I said without thinking. "Only since – " I choked the words back at the last minute.

"Only since what?" pressed Ted. He had somehow manoeuvred me so that I had my back pressed to the statue he had been leaning against, trapping me between him and it. "Only since what, Andy?"

Only since I caught you snogging Emily Howard. But I couldn't tell him that. I didn't even understand why seeing it had made me so angry to begin with. Beyond the fact that it was vulgar and inappropriate and another reminder of my own sorry lack of a relationship, it really shouldn't have bothered me. What did I care who Ted Tonks kissed in his spare time? It wasn't as though it had anything to do with me.

There was half a minute, maybe less, while the two of us stared at each other. Our eyes locked and I thought I caught a flicker in Ted's eyes. At the same time my hand twitched toward him, and I pulled it back against me, appalled. Then a gust of wind blew between us, and whatever it had been, if it had been anything at all, vanished into the night air. I shivered, and wrapped my arms around my chest in a vain attempt to keep out the chill.

"I – I should go back to the party," I said, and my voice sounded strange, detached from my own body somehow. I cleared my throat.

Ted had stepped away from me as smoothly as if we had been having nothing more than a run-of-the-mill chat about the weather. He was looking at the Quidditch pitch now, away from me, so I couldn't read his expression. "Yeah, of course," he said.

"Leo went to get drinks," I told him, before realising how stupid that must sound. "I mean – I just popped out for a moment, and…"

"Mm-hmm."

"And I'm sure Emily is waiting for you," I said scathingly. Ted's head swivelled to look at me.

"What?"

I had said too much. My heart gave a painful thump, and I span on my heel without replying, hurrying back up the path toward the castle. I didn't stop until I had reached the warmth and clamour of the Great Hall once more. After the darkness and silence of my time outside, it was almost overwhelming, and I had to blink several times to adjust my eyes to the light.

Leo was sitting at the table with Helena and Phylissa and, I saw with confusion, Rabastan. They were all talking animatedly, and looked up when I approached.

"Where did you go?" asked Leo. "I came back with drinks and you'd vanished!"

"I just wanted some fresh air," I lied, carefully avoiding Rabastan's gaze. If he was back, did that mean my sister was as well? But my quick scan of the crowd did not show any sign of her, nor Rodolphus.

At the table next to ours, several Gryffindors were laughing uproariously over what appeared to be a fake wand. There was something a little too exuberant about their behaviour to be entirely natural, even for Gryffindors; I frowned.

"Someone spiked the punch," said Leo in my ear. He had stood up, and was offering me a butterbeer. "Firewhiskey, and a Giggling Solution."

I groaned.

"Want to dance?" he asked. There was a different band on now. I thought I recognised them vaguely from one of the magazines Annabelle sometimes read. Their music was more upbeat than the invisible orchestra, and quite catchy. "Let someone else deal with that."

I grinned at him. "Well, if you insist..."

He placed the butterbeer back on the table and took my hand. "Merlin Andy!" he said when I laced my fingers with his. "You're freezing!"

His hand, in comparison, was like a heating charm. I squeezed his fingers and dragged him toward the dance floor. "Better warm up then," I said, and started to dance.