| Puffskein
Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Canada
Posts: 2,438
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1. Dresses:
Rosa's Dress
Aurelia’s Dress
(... I over-enjoy ‘dress shopping’).
2. “fringe” = bangs in British English.
3. I didn’t want to include real songs into this fan fiction... but I always imagined the song Everything by Lifehouse in the slow dance at the end of this chapter. Chapter 12
The Ball
It was December 19th already; I couldn’t believe it. It was the last day of classes before the Christmas holidays. And, worst of all, it was the ball tonight. I pulled out my dress robes from my closet for the first time since putting it there September 1st upon unpacking. Finding, to my own surprise and glee, it was just a bit too big , I managed to use magic to bring it in.
“How’d you do that?” Aurelia asked in awe as she watched the dress bring itself in.
“A couple of spells. Do you need it done to?”
“Does that work for bringing out the dress?”
I turned around and looked at Aurelia. She was wearing a strapless platinum-coloured dress that cut to two inches below her knee. I didn’t see where it was too tight; the gathered front fit fine, the empire waist the right size.
“Why?” I finally asked.
“It doesn’t feel right around the hips...”
Sighing, I stepped up to her and put my hands on her sides, just beneath the gathered neckline and started to pat down, seeing if I could feel any tightness against the seams. Once I reached her hips, I realized what she meant.
“Turn around.”
She did as I told her. I thought about how using any extra fabric would affect how the fabric hanging below her hips would look. It might not poof out quite as much, so I tried it.
“Impendo,” I muttered, pressing my wand right on the small of her back. I released the spell when I saw it was now too loose. “Redigo.” It went right back in, stopping when it was form-fitting. Aurelia moved to the mirror again and smiled. “Perfect! Thank you.”
“No problem.”
I turned back to my mirror and applied a light layer of make-up. Once I finished my eyes and any foundation, I started working on my hair, something I knew that would take up more time. I saw Aurelia watching me as I started to change around the colours and change the style.
“Merlin’s beard, Rose, how do you know all of this stuff?” Aurelia breathed when I finished.
My hair, originally wavy black with purple streaks in it, was now trimmed shorter half an inch and my natural platinum blonde underneath and a walnut brown on top. Unable to resist it, I added a blue streak in the blonde. I readjusted the curls so it they started loosely a few inches from the root and was fuller near the bottom. I then proceeded to pin up the top section of my hair into a half-ponytail, only leaving my sweep fringe and a small section of a fringe on the other side of my face, framing it more that way.
“French girls,” I responded, turning to face her. “Well, how do I look?” I looked at her, and then spun around in my silk, royal purple dress, the floor-length mermaid skirt flaring out in the breeze I created.
“Shoes?”
I lifted my dress bottom to show a shiny, silver platform sandal, raised on a thin heel of one inch. They weren’t too high to hurt after walking or dancing awhile, but they still had a pretty heel.
“You’re going to knock the wind out of every guy there,” she told me, smiling brightly. “I love your hair too. So your natural hair isn’t actually black?”
“No, it’s what’s underneath,” I responded. I didn’t need to hide this ridiculous truth from her.
“Malfoy blonde?”
I cringed at the name. “Sure.” I then looked at her. “By the way, whatever Goyle is eating now will drop from his mouth to the ground and he won’t give a care in the world about it. You look stunning too.”
Aurelia spun around on her 2 and a half inch white heeled shoes, her platinum dress fanning out beneath her. When she finished her spin, I nodded. “Should we go now?”
“Can you do something for my hair?”
“What? It’s already up and perfect.”
“I mean with colour. It’s been this kind of brown for my entire life, next to no changes... ever. Can you think of anything that would make its natural colour look better?”
“Red highlights,” I said, the first thing that popped into my mind coming out of my mouth. “And as long as you don’t mind waiting...”
“I don’t! Will it take as long as it did for you just earlier?”
“No; the more I have to do the longer it takes. I was doing highlights when I was 9; I’ve spent years learning how to . It’ll take a minute, no more than that.”
I stepped up to her and kept to my promise. In just over a minute, I transformed her rather lank-coloured chocolate brown hair into a near-auburn with fine red highlights.
“Thank you!” she spun around and hugged me. I tensed, surprised at the sudden closeness. I patted her back awkwardly, but she didn’t seem to even notice I was tense. When she pulled away, we linked arms and paraded out of the dorm.
“Wow. Rosa, I love your hair!”
I looked back at Daphne Greengrass, surprised at what I saw. She was a simple strapless scarlet knee-length dress with a criss-crossed, rouched waist, emphasizing her slender hourglass figure. Her blonde hair was up in a loose chignon resting just on the nape of her neck.
“You should totally put up flyers saying you’d teach hair colouring charms classes. People would pay well to learn how to do that. I know I would.” She smiled at me.
“I’ll think about that,” I responded, smiling back. “Or I could just perform some services on the side. Either way, not tonight.”
“Aw, too bad, a lot of girls could use it.” She winced slightly at the thought. “Well, have fun. You won’t be a loner for long.” Daphne then looked at Aurelia. “And you definitely will shock Goyle right into the next century. Have fun, you two!”
“You too,” we said simultaneously.
She passed us and went down the two stairs into the common room. I poked my head around the corner to see her boyfriend’s reaction. He definitely looked rather blown away and was rather glum when she didn’t kiss him right away. They left the Slytherin common room, his arm around her. More girls came from the other direction, all dressed up, and entered the common room.
“Think you’re ready?” I asked, turning slightly to look at Aurelia. She was fidgeting, playing with the nails I spent quite a bit of time fixing up for tonight. “Stop that!” I slapped her hand.
“Sorry,” she squeaked in response, letting her hands drop. “Is he actually there though?”
I poked my head around the corner. This time there were definitely more guys in there than a few moments ago. Draco and his two friends were among the new guys in the common room.
“Yeah,” I responded, standing upright behind the wall again. “Come on.”
I extended a hand that Aurelia took, and together we stepped down into the common room. When every guy’s head turned and looked at us, lingering that way too, I felt a pang of self-consciousness, but pushed away that feeling and just smiled, doing my best to give off confidence as I led Aurelia up to the three guys.
“And you don’t even have a date?”
My head snapped to Draco and I looked up at him. He held my eyes with a cocky smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
“Where’d you get that from?” I responded, doing my best to sound civil. He wasn’t going to ruin this night for me; it’s not like I even wanted to go that much.
“Just about everyone. You could’ve just given me an upfront no.”
I just looked amazed. “Wha... so for the past 2 months when I said no that just went in one ear and out the other?”
His smug smile grew. “I was making sure you knew what you were saying.”
I scowled. I looked next to me and realized Aurelia and Goyle disappeared. Crabbe, who was going with Millicent Bullstrode, had gone with him, leaving just Draco and me out of our original ‘group’.
“Did you manage to look past continual rejection to ask someone else?”
“Maybe.”
“Who would be crazy enough to...?”
I didn’t even need to finish my sentence; Pansy materialized next to me, as bright as can be.
“Ready, Draco?”
Draco didn’t once turn his eyes from me to Pansy. I could feel her anger rise, as a result. “Yes, let’s go.”
Pansy shouldered past me and turned so she was facing me too.
“Have fun alone.” She smirked and slid her arm through Draco’s and had to drag him away from me. He looked over his shoulder and clearly mouthed, “Save me a dance, love.”
I gave him a rather rude hand gesture in response. He just shook his head, amused, and turned back forwards and passed through the portrait hole. I waited a few minutes after he left, watching those that left. When a group of 3 girls passed through together, I followed as close behind them as acceptable, right down the corridors and to the Great Hall. We passed the teachers without issues and entered the ‘ball’ officially.
It was rather elaborately set up. The ceiling was brightly lit with red and green, emphasized by the snow that gave the illusion it was falling, but never once actually touching the hall’s floor. Various Christmas decorations danced around the walls, all leading up to the huge Christmas tree up at the front in the corner, just as elaborately strung with decorations and lights, an angel sitting on the top. I then looked around the floor and saw a huge record player playing the music, a dance floor packed with students, and tables to rest or have a snack at. Seeing the dance floor was very full, I used that as an excuse to grab a snack and sit down, alone. I munched on bite-sized Christmas cakes.
“How could someone like you not have a date?”
I looked up and into the eyes of Deryck Lyon, one of the few 7th year guys in Slytherin that wasn’t totally obnoxious.
“Because I suck at dancing.” I waited to gauge his response, curious as to if that would make him turn around and find someone else.
He just smiled in response. “You just need a better leader. Want to dance?” He held out an open hand to me. I looked at it, contemplating it for a moment, and took it. He lifted me up and led me to the dance floor.
The next two hours passed as I went through various dance partners, almost never getting to sit down and rest. Maybe I did myself up too well; I kept getting guys coming up to me one after the other; I nearly got kissed 3 times for Merlin’s sake! My feet were killing me at the end of the first two hours, so I turned down an offer for a third dance with Rossi Dalton, the beater on the house Quidditch team, just to sit down.
“Hey!” Aurelia plopped down beside me.
“Hey. How’ve you been?”
“I never thought Goyle, of all people, would know how to dance. Well!” she responded.
I smiled in response and took a drink. “So, are you enjoying this?”
“Definitely! How about you? You’ve at least gotten up from your seat here, right?”
“Lele,” I sighed. “I’ve spent the past 2 hours on the dance floor without taking a break. I’m a magnet.”
She laughed. “I’m not surprised. You really outdid yourself. Right down to the hair. Some people don’t even recognize you because it’s not black.”
I just rolled my eyes. As the song ended and a new one started, a guy came up to Aurelia and took her out to the dance floor. I watched her enjoy one song with this guy before Goyle came up and took her away for a dance... but the other guy wasn’t too pleased. Just as this fight was starting to get good, someone came up to me.
“Rosa?”
I forced myself to tear my eyes away from the growing scene and looked up. I forced a small smile. “Hey Harry.”
He reached his hand out to me. “You promised me a dance?”
I really wasn’t in the mood for dancing, let alone with him. But if I am to get any information I will need, I had to be agreeable. “That I did.” I looked from his hand to his eyes and reached out. “I really do suck, though.”
His hand wrapped around mine and pulled me up.
“We won’t do much then.”
He led me onto the dance floor as the song changed. To my irritation, it started slow. When it didn’t get any faster, and I saw couples wrapping arms around each other, I realized this was a slow dance. Harry let my hand go and moved closer. Figuring no one would notice, I let him and I moved closer myself, until his hands rested on my waist and mine on his shoulders. We were more or less swaying from side to side, slowly making a circle.
“Got sick of black?” Harry asked, looking at my hair.
“Yeah, why not try something new?” I responded, looking back up at him. “More natural colours.”
“Yet black was natural for you?”
“Haven’t you noticed I’m not like everyone else here?” I pointed out jokingly, hoping he wouldn’t have an intellectual moment.
“True,” he responded, his features lightening with a smile. “Why blonde?” When his hand ran through my hair and slide down my arm and back to my waist when his fingers did escape my hair, I felt a tingling trail on the skin his warm fingers touched.
“Something new,” I repeated.
The music began to crescendo until it was a heavier guitar sound with drums, but still slow. As the song intensified, Harry and I got closer; my arms wrapped around his neck and his around my waist, resting on the small of my back.
“But always with a crazy colour.” His eyes had found the blue streak.
I just smiled as I responded, “It’s like my signature now. Everyone knows me as someone with something crazy done to my hair.”
As we turned another complete circle, I saw him over Harry’s shoulder. Draco was sitting on a chair facing away from the table and towards the dance floor, his narrowed eyes on me. He looked so... suspicious. It was creepy.
When our eyes caught, he lifted his left hand and tapped twice on his ring finger. In return, I tapped twice on my middle finger on my left finger and smirked at him. His eyes burned angrily, but he didn’t look away from me. I looked away and up at Harry; I found him looking down at me.
“Who’re you looking at?”
“Everyone’s worst nightmare.”
As we turned, he got a look at what I meant. Harry’s jaw twitched and we began to aim our dancing direction more into the crowd.
“Rosa?”
My eyes fell from my hands to Harry.
“You really do look beautiful.”
I let myself smile, but my cheeks seemed to flush red without my permission. “Thanks. You clean up rather well, if I may say so myself.”
Harry’s face seemed to get closer until his forehead was resting against mine. A part of my mind told me that I didn’t want him this close, that it shouldn’t be this way... but the rest of my mind and my body wanted him even closer.
“You may.” His arms tightened around me until we were totally pressed up against each other. My arms wrapped even more around his neck in response. His breath veiled my face, smelling rather sweet; my heart began to pound even more.
I shouldn’t like him. It’s Harry Potter, the one that stands against everything my family stands for. And it’s not like he knows the real me...
At the same time, though, he’s nice, he cares, he’ll listen... and despite his dumb moments socially he can be fairly intelligent overall. I actually enjoy his company; even though I feel the need to lie to him, I feel like I can be myself around him. What a messed-up oxymoron.
I’m lying to protect him. To protect myself. He can’t know the truth.
Harry’s lips brushed mine suddenly. My mouth tingled as though it had been shocked. He then pressed his lips against mine. My entire body felt as though a current of electricity was trailing through it, making everything tingle. When I kissed him back, the feeling seemed to grow. As our kiss deepened, the voice telling me I shouldn’t be doing this, that it was wrong, ‘he’s a halfblood Gryffindor, you’re a pureblood Slytherin’... didn’t seem to matter anymore. I was enjoying this.
It was then I realized it. As much as the pureblood in me hated this, the rest of me knew this was the right choice. He may annoy me, but I can’t live without it.
__________________ 
Siggy from Lissy and Anna's Shop of Super Frazzling Graphics
Last edited by MalfoyzBeloved; 09-28-2010 at 10:14 PM.
Reason: editing personal comment before story
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