Approximately twelve thousand years ago, somewhere in the sandy belly of ancient Mesopotamia, eyeliner was invented.
Of course, only a mastermind supervillain could consummate such an enduring torture method, because twelve thousand grueling years later, it continues to be nothing short of a formidable bane.
It goes without saying that procuring twins on each lid shall forever remain a terrifically aggravating task. So unfathomably popular is this unobtainable goal which operates as a heartily rigged game, it begs to remind one of those blasted teddy-bear booths at the fair.
There's just no way around it; eyeliner is a bane even for the everyday magical. No one can possibly hold a pen or a wand that steady.
Even for the craftiest of artists, or by the steadiest grasp of a neurosurgeon, there is no straightforward manner in which to apply such sultry paint hellbent on chaos.
Under the ungraceful glare of blinding torches, Audette Bellarose was quite certain that Guy Cosmos was managing something more along the lines of a swan on the right, and an ugly duckling on the left.
However it is worth noting that the inelegance occurring was not his fault by a hair's width. Guy was a phenomenal makeup artist by all standards, and if anyone was capable of wielding eyeliner with mild precision, it was him.
No...the absolute atrocity blooming on Audette's face could be sturdily blamed on the fact that Draco Malfoy would not cease pinching straight up her ballet skirt in a public display of brazen flirtation.
That December evening at Hogwarts, holiday festivities were kicking off with a bang. Horrors associated with scholarly examinations had all but dissipated, and celebrations were beginning with the annual Talent Show one week in advance of the scheduled Yule Ball.
It aught to be noted that magic tricks are not an uncommon element found within the average school talent show, however at a school specifically intended to teach magic, anything but magic tricks would be deemed an abstract approach.
There in the Great Hall, waiting in nervous anticipation behind strung curtains thicker than the average carpeting, stood a cluster of competing students from various magical academies.
And what a sight to be had; it was practically a melodramatic bonanza comprising of histrionic costume wear, unoriginal conceptualization, and campy gimmicks alike.
Why if anything it was a treacherous zoo in that shambolically restricted space, filled with smoke, sparks, and the occasional phosphorescent flame.
Ghouls who'd been roped into assisting fluttered amuck, live organisms of unintelligible origin fought to escape enclosures, and ensorcelled inanimate objects nabbed insolently at the capes of passersby.
Contestants were milling about conducting final revisions to curious steampunk creations, some vainly rehearsing at the last possible minute, others testing out wonky spellwork expected to daze should it somehow keep contained.
There must have been just about twenty of them behind those curtains, all gawking at one another's nuances, packed in on the modular wooden stage Filch was forced to begrudgingly construct and tear down each and every event without so much as a wand for support.
Contestants from Hogwarts were designated first, then Durmstrang, then Erenholl, and finally Beauxbatons. Audience members had been suitably forewarned that each clap registered during a performance would thus contribute to the odds of that school winning.
Half of Hogwarts had already wrapped up with plenty of warmhearted commendations, so far without incurring any major injuries - a phenomenon.
Seeing as Fred and George Weasley had finally graduated and moved on with their signature hijinks in tow, there existed an obvious hope in the air that this would be the first year no one landed themselves - or an unwitting audience member - squarely in the infirmary.
As if it were not already agonizing enough to be tossed into the whole charade against her will, Audette now found herself in a state far beyond nervous anticipation. For the pinches received from her forbidden loverboy not only caused her to jump constantly and ruin said makeup application, but also to sweat in guilty fury...
Such raillery was surely not inconspicuous, and the only saving grace was an arguably hectic atmosphere. The air was rife with universal distractibility paired with crippling stage fright, and the harry of hindmost preparations, all of which might stand to ward off prying attention.
Might.
It was probably far too late to expect any amount of camouflaging to properly hide what had been broadcasting itself in plain sight for several days.
Something truly voracious had been awoken on that lakeside promenade, and it had spun Draco's head round in a complete one-eighty - setting him on a predatory hunt of unprecedented intensity which took no prisoners and cared not for reputation.
To Audette's shock, words no longer satisfied his complex mind for very long, and even when they did it was expected to be constant and immediate, short and relieving for whatever desperate stress was overtaking his mind.
He was on a panicked warpath. By each minute the Yule Ball crept closer, he in turn wound up tighter like a walking bomb in strapping designer attire.
Perhaps that annoyingly sharp ticking emanating from the clock tower was audible to the greater population, scratching like a spider in the ear, promising madness...
No amount of reassurance could persuade this frantic boy that the end of the year was by no stretch a final deadline, and it was safe to conclude that his emotional endurance had run as dry as a desert - dehydrating with it any lingering reason.
And so, the tedium of the library routine was abruptly rendered a null and void interface, seeing as he was entirely too impatient to leave communication up to The Book Of One Thousand Bleeding Eyes any longer.
Most evenings Audette returned to her bunk to discover tellingly folded letters in black left directly on her comforter, risking blowing everything.
In fact his signature missives - stamped with the flashy Malfoy family crest - showed up everywhere at random; in her pockets without explanation, under the silver hood of an unexpectantly empty dinner plate, and even in her study books.
Worse, he no longer adamantly preached they maintain their physical distance. Quite the opposite, practically pressuring her with waxing vigor to abandon Nott before he made sure of the breakup himself through an inevitably careless stunt.
Misplacing all ability to suppress his masculine urges, he grew increasingly impudent each chance he happened upon to remind Audette of his touch, bravely lingering on the backs of her dresses for riveting seconds at a time no matter who was in the immediate proximity.
The talent show was far from any exception to this latest burgeoning issue, and swatting off his encroachments was proving to be a total lost cause.
To say it had been a surprise spotting one another competing was an understatement; no mention of the show had arisen in their recent concourse.
Shy as sunshine in Éire, she certainly had no business braving face in a talent show whatsoever.
And Draco, well...Draco was decisively "too cool" to be caught dead participating in something so outrageously vulnerable.
Audette had burst out nervously laughing when he'd jogged up the rear stairwell in a fencing uniform and nearly run directly into the back of her gossamer tutu.
The platinum pest was only on the backstage due to all eight of the residing Durmstrang scholars being forced into a military-style repartee incorporating flaming, enchanted weaponry.
According to his cryptic explanation, their enrolment that evening was meant as some bizarre form of punishment exacted by their wicked headmaster. But for what unholy crime, remained a mystery yet.
Almost immediately he had wandered over to Guy and Audette like a pestilent child to a lolly stand, leaving the rest of the Russian cavalry busy shouting obscenities from the backstage at other performers who were doing their best just to keep it together.
No crystal ball was necessary to foreshadow such unregulated hectoring. Between the Eastern Europeans, and the similarly vitriolic Slytherin bunch brooding in the third row, it was guaranteed to be a bleeding slaughterhouse.
Ergo it was not her personal idea to be standing there next in line for egregious humiliation: it was Montgomery Bellarose's brilliant and ferociously egotistical request that his daughter compete for and represent Ireland, despite Audette never having been registered at the institution.
Confoundingly ridiculous, that's what it was, costing her every single night for the entire week brushing up on sacred ballet instead of attending to what felt like more pressing matters.
All the while she hadn't possessed the guts to admit it to Malfoy, out of fear for how he might premeditatively judge her. Surprise, surprise - they were identical cowards.
Naturally, Erenholl had welcomed her with open arms given her family's prominent and rather threatening dynasty.
The Emerald Princess, what an honor indeed...
The school had one other percussive act to donate alongside whatever blundering disaster Audette ended up pulling off in their name: a champion who was slated to tap dance in tandem with a team of leprechauns, or as it was more formally put in their maiden territory, sean nós. A tad corny, though sure to be a crowd pleaser given the customary tossing of coins.
The Irish lunatic in question was bustling about several feet away, producing a terrible clickity-clackety cacophony, sincerely putting Audette's already strung out nerves on end as Guy attempted to finalize her doomed makeup.
When she popped again at the sensation of Draco's veiny hand snaking it's way up her tights, her flustered reaction caused the delicate line Guy had redrawn for the millionth round to streak straight up her eyelid.
That was the final straw.
He leaned around in a huff, shifting his gaze up at the obvious perpetrator, "Alright you handsy dunderhead, had yourself a satisfying grope of my subject back there, have you?"
A foreseeably cheeky response came from Draco, who pointed an accusing thumb backwards at the innocent tap dancer, "Please...It was obviously this clogging maniac."
Obviously.
Two seconds of peace passed until his entire palm clamped down on her left buttock below the soft tutu, and a lamentable squeal escaped from Audette who against all odds, fought quickly to compose herself with a heavy hum in her throat.
The world was on fire, and so was her valuable virtue.
It would seem she had become the very bashful bimbo she'd once turned her nose up at, and it was looking to be an irrevocable update.
Likely thinking the same, Guy shook his head, wiping clean her sullied eyelid, "At this rate Detty's going to end up presenting like a toddler's wax doodle. You've already got her melting on par."
His gaze continued to narrow when Draco snorted at the latest result of his intrusive contact, "Oh? Is that a promise?"
Guy was the only one who knew about the sordid affair - Audette had effectively blown the whistle to him the moment she'd returned from that fateful morning stroll. Of course, it hadn't come as much of a surprise for several reasons, mainly the miserable effort she'd put into concealing Draco's Durmstrang jacket.
And while Guy was all for the racy update, conversation between them had grown oddly tense the more it was brought up.
This was because Audette refused to entertain a single word more on the topic of 'The Other World' - a concerning fantasyland Guy was wholly convinced had been stripped away from them by a tinkering troublemaker.
He'd proclaimed with whimsical confidence that in 'The Other World,' Audette and Draco had been well-acquainted for nearly a decade, and were already happily engaged at that - a visual she struggled to swallow without downright choking.
But when the accusations spread to a slew of mumbo jumbo regarding Theodore, all nihilism had then accumulated into a punishing front.
Sat enthusiastically on his comforter with his feet kicking in the air, Guy had gone on to speculate rather boldly, out loud, that perhaps it was Teddy B. Nott - the impossible Slytherin sweetheart of the century - who had bitterly doctored their suddenly disorienting chronological reality.
"For that matter Audette, I've seen it in my dreams. This whole darling gentleman business is all a Shakespearean act."
"Yes well, I've drowned plummeting into Poll Na bPeist in my dreams Cosmopolitan, and yet here I am. Breathing."
"Oh is that so?"
"That is so. Tell me you haven't dreamt of that angular hole to watery hell."
"Don't mock a fellow islander, of course I have. Pushed my gramps into it in a good dream too. Speaking of wormholes, in 'The Other World,' ol' Salvatoré there is a dirty rotten Death Eater."
"Now you're a comedian, are you? Blasphemy."
"You won't like this next bit: so is your pretty blondie."
"Oh, Coz. Chicanery! Chicanery of the worst aggravation. Malfoy is rough around the edges, surely, but not evil. He's even told me that he loves me."
"Noooo, facts, both of them! Death Eaters! You have a terrible taste for suitors, babe. And I'd bet Nott's a reckless time traveler to boot. Nothing good can come of a deposed Einstein with a broken time turner."
"Hmmm...this is bordering on sacreligion. I don't believe I'll hear another syllable. Do I at least have a modern wardrobe in this sparkly 'Other World'?"
"Not exactly, you're still a gentry barbie to a tee. But you are an animagus in the making."
"Naturally."
"Naturally. But seriously, just have yourself a decent gander at Teddy's neckline, and his hands - really begs the question what is he hiding under those pervenche articles? Who else would wield motive to warp our world other than a sensitive Italian with mommy issues?"
"That's downright nasty of you now, it's only a necklace. He claims it to be an artefact of his lost mother's and that's perfectly reasonable. As for the gloves - an accident in potions, apparently."
"Now that is blasphemy...I'm warning you Dettsicals, the last time you rejected him he sent us all here, to the 'New World'. What do you reckon he'll do this time? I think he'll be less benignant, probably shoot a green curse straight through the center of Malfoy's forehead for stealing away his prized princess yet again."
Audette had been utterly appalled, slack-jawed in place. So much so that she'd dropped her freshly laundered nightie, "How DARE you, Guy Jaziel Cosmos. You've gone much too far now."
She might have recently fallen out of romantic affectation with the reverent, rainy boy, yet she still maintained a certain relic of love and respect for him after years of intimate connection.
Enough was enough.
Shutting down this paranoid schizophrenia seemed the sole tool at her disposal to steer Guy back into the real world, where he was missing out on his real life.
Audette had then cautioned Guy that if 'The Other World' wasn't put swiftly to kip, then she would be compelled to report him to the infirmary for a mental health intervention.
The zinger ended there. Granted, without a lick of resolution.
Receiving such harsh denial from his best friend had left Guy feeling ultimately dismissed and ignored, and regrettably saucy afterwards.
Proceeding the altercation Audette had waltzed about with a snitch-sized lump jammed deep in her throat, wishing that he would finally seek help so the vibe between them did not continue to deteriorate.
He did not, and in a few short days he'd gone and grown as testy as a fire alarm ill-installed within a chimney stack, and even with the buzzer silenced, the smoke escaping could no longer be overlooked.
"Why don't you scatter away from the light with the rest of those bewhiskered cockroaches?" he hissed at Draco in a wiry, alien tone; a far cry compared to his typically bubbly chime in the presence of a celebrity athlete.
Pandering after Malfoy's attention had virtually become an unpaid internship for the bombastic fanboy, and this spiteful snoot was one of many expressions displaying how truly upset and isolated he felt in 'The New World'.
Audette guiltily winced as the eyeliner pen was waved in a haughty gesture, "Cozzy, do be humane. Please."
Guy stubbornly poked the object into Draco's sternum, "You're a stinking womanizer, and she's an uppity duchess clean out of your league. Don't bother ask me how you bloody well managed to pull off this manipulative parody in two separate dimensions. Now if you wouldn't mind-"
In his stunning crimson uniform Draco shuffled flat up against Audette and wrapped his arms around her slender waist, balancing his pointy chin on her collarbone, "-Womanizer? Surely if she's been my duchess in this dimension and the last, then no such crime has been committed."
Guy blinked momentarily, appearing almost relieved that for once his fairytale had not been denied flat out.
His gaze twitched as Draco's fingers roamed unobstructed, tangling in the pearly material which clung to Audette's frame. A suitably demonic glint appeared to twinkle in his frosty stare, "She's a siren in this ballet slip, wouldn't you agree? It's impossible to keep my hands to myself."
He kissed along her jaw and Audette tilted her head helplessly, forgetting herself in his arms, for the warmth of this wicked boy's embrace and the lovely words of affirmation had flooded her with romantic glee.
But then she overheard the rising whisperings nearby and the tisking of Guy's tongue, and recalled with dim enthusiasm that it was necessary to maintain the Potemkin farce she'd been upholding in the public eye.
At least...until she was indisposed of her current engagement.
A concrete plot had finally been settled upon: Audette planned to host a discussion with her father after the talent show concluded, where she would bargain for her choice of suitor once and for all.
If they could only control themselves for another hour, and if she survived public incineration, then perhaps a full-blown scandal might be narrowly dodged...
Might.
She begrudgingly made to brush him off, glancing awkwardly at the various gossiping bystanders, "Sweet bejesus, Mr. Malfoy. Consider the optics of your actions. If you're finding your extremities so out of control, than perhaps removing them would be most modest."
Draco cocked his head at Guy for a prolonged moment, his voice jumping humorously with that handsome British intonation, "Hmm...it's a bloody good thing she wasn't born a wizard. With that mindset and her reputation, the sole Bellarose heir would wind up an armless, legless, eunuch in no time."
Audette briefly envisioned it: an inconsequential egg - another type of fragile, Fabergé perhaps - only this one in a dapper pervenche suit advertising the utmost of etiquette, and only that for a quality.
Cosmos gripped onto her chin and forced her to stand steady, closing one of his eyes to concentrate on the task with nuclear intensity, "The pair of you twits...mucking about like this...Might as well darn t-shirts stating We're Up To The Hanky-Panky."
Right as Guy had finally, finally, finished with the onerous eyeliner, a very funny expression etched across his face. For a second it appeared he might hurl, and Draco took a wide step back with a deep frown of premeditative revolt.
The toque on Guy's head gradually began to squirm from the inside out, and within a matter of seconds it became clear why his skin tone had gone as verdant as a swamp.
Out poked a little face on the top of his bangs, baring a smile lined with razer sharp teeth. It was a Gaelic faerie with cerulean hair stood electrified on end, sporting a decidedly freakish smirk to match.
Then there was two, then three...
One popped out of the hood of his oversized sweater before lifting off into the air by it's buzzing golden wings, struggling to lug a rolled up parchment tied with cheap twine.
Another showed up in his cosmetics satchel, tossing bits and bobs before holding it's breath and flattening it's face straight into a sparkly vat of highlighter. A small plume of glitter erupted, statically imprinting all over Draco's fencing trousers which he bitterly began to rub off as if it were infectious spores.
Audette knew precisely who had sent these unkempt faeries.
Whilst owls might have taken to dominating the wizarding postage system decades prior, the most vintage of Irish folks who were still heavily rooted in the elder ways of enchantment, tended to continue sending faerie posts.
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There was a reason for their growing lack of popularity: not to be confused with fairies (who were lovely, and kind), faeries were nothing if not pesky and ill-mannered.
The Cosmos family was contemptuously vintage out of mere depravity.
Both of his parents being squib farmers meant that in the wizarding community, they were unbelievably skint, and so there wasn't many shillings lying about to upgrade much of anything. Especially to waste on purchasing an owl. They already had a perfectly good cage full of naughty postage faeries waiting at beck and call.
Audette surmised that having to depend on a pack of nipping nuisances was just another tiresome adversity faced by the ever-resilient Cosmos clan.
The run-down, rural cottage which they inhabited in the boondocks of Ireland was a total deathtrap as a result of their impoverished circumstances.
It was one of many ancient structures hidden keenly from muggles in the gorgeous Mountains of Mourne, within a magical hamlet aptly coined Sue-Iss She-Us Tullach (Up and Down Mound). As implied by the ridiculous name, the region was so vast and undulating that skipping down to the local merchants and back felt like a drunken stumble, and guaranteed a fair ear popping.
When it rained outdoors, it often drizzled indoors at the Cosmos cottage. One might even insinuate that it rains quite a bit in the Emerald Isle, painting a picture of the sheer struggle. It wasn't uncommon to spot a gigantic umbrella enlarged by the simplest of magic propped overtop of the dilapidating dwelling, the stem driven straight down the chimney: a Guy solution through and through.
Random holes in the floorboards were another inevitable feature within the cottage, often lazily covered up with carpets as a dowdy solution which took the saying swept under the rug a little too seriously.
This was fine for the residents of the establishment who knew inherently which spots to avoid stepping. However, the first time she'd visited, one of Audette's governesses had been sent straight into the cellar in an impromptu elevator of dusty rugs. Thankfully it had been Aine, who was by nature, mild and unprovoked.
Further plaguing the entire community was a hungry garden gnome infestation of astronomical proportion, breeding like wild rabbits in a sparse landscape where gardens were essential to basic survival.
On the upside this produced quite a lucrative business model for Guy's summertime extermination services.
On the downside, during the unseasonable months, the gnomes tended to snake their way into residences to gnaw on the scant wooden furnishings like ruthless beavers. This destruction was far from ideal in a place where the tallest vegetation was typically wildflowers, highlighting the woes of such an isolated life.
Despite all of this, the Cosmos' were some of the cheeriest and most accommodating people Audette had come to meet. They were wealthy by means of unrivaled creativity, a sparky sense of humour, and an unusual medley of antediluvian wisdom.
One member of the underprivileged family therefore possessed the grand prize of an owl, and that was Guy.
The foul had been a rare bequeathment from his demented grandfather who could hardly tell his face from his arse anymore, let alone his transformative grandson disguised as a collector reporting from The Bureau for Owl Debt Collections.
There was no such thing as The Bureau for Owl Debt Collections, as one might expect.
However Ziggy Cosmos was no longer in a state of mind to expect anything reasonable, locked up in St. Mungo's with his surfeit of hoarded wealth protected squarely under his rump.
When informed by a trenchcoated stranger that he somehow owed fourteen owls in lieu of unpaid court dues, the modern-day Scrooge had been very proud of himself indeed for haggling it down to one indebted bird.
Guy scored himself an owl that day, and Ziggy was permitted to swim round in the delusion of triumph...for the six and a half generous minutes the memory persisted.
When her son was off and took with him the deviously contrived owl, Shazreen Cosmos resorted to forwarding the family's nasty triad of faeries instead.
That evening they had arrived as always, with a non-negotiable appetite for carnage.
"Shazreen, that goblin," Guy seethed his mother's name in outrage, snatching the torn letter. As he fought to read the passage they danced around his head, pulling on his ears and singing maniacally.
"What does it say?" Audette asked politely, worried that one more rip of Guy's locks might take his head clean off.
Draco on the other hand was not polite, peering rudely over the lip of the page to inspect Guy's private mail, "Ha! It's from someone called mum - what a stupid name."
"I know, right? Who does she think she is?" Guy snorted playfully, chewing on his nails.
His eyes began to faintly flash as he made it farther down the babbitt, "Ah Jesus fecking Christ, the boisterous bat has come to watch me perform. I told her clear as jell-o that I'd been disqualified from this talentless talent show."
He blasted to the curtains and fussed around with the nearest panel, revealing an unsightly crack straight down the center of the backdrop.
Out on the stage Seamus Finnigan was in the middle of a rather disturbing ventriloquist dummy act. In place of a standard puppet he had elected to utilize a charmed, carved pumpkin, which was cackling away in his lap.
Unfortunately this cleverly designed performance had gone off the rails when the combative gourd commenced speaking directly over Seamus' lines, effectively dissolving any figment of a ventriloquist condition.
In fact the pumpkin was currently busying itself issuing brutal insults and racy curses to random members of the audience, garnishing a symphony of bemused gasps and sheepish apologies from the Hogwarts contestant.
A strict signal to cut it off emanating from McGonagall, combined with the petering of a few hesitant clapping hands, indicated that it was soon time for the only submission offered by Durmstrang.
At this point Guy's entire skull was inappropriately out of the curtains, scanning the vast hall like a deadly robot.
Sure enough, his mother noticed him first.
In a plain, tattered brown jumper she stood in the middle of the Hufflepuff section and began to wave with both arms overhead, as if guiding an airplane down a runway. It was a cringeworthy parental act every teenager dreads ever occurring.
"No, NO! Go! Away! The bevy of you!" Guy did his best to yell in a furious whisper. It didn't help matters that his cousin, Gal, had come along to ridicule him crooked.
At twenty-two Gal was four years older than Guy, and she was the sole reason he had attended Hogwarts instead of Erenholl in order to avoid crossing her deadly path.
The pair of them had both been born with metamorphmagus abilities, ensuring that the otherwise destitute family made the national gazette repeatedly for such incredulous luck. However Gal was hypercompetitive, and this had immediately spurned an unnecessary rivalry.
When Guy had materialized to innocently steal away a healthy chunk of the rainbow spotlight, four-year old Gal had decided then and there that bullying was the best band-aid for scorned feelings. The strategy had been such a roaring success, that they now spoke only on holidays.
At Shazreen's other side was sat a venerable chap in white robes, chewing on an impressive beard equal in length to Headmaster Dumbledore's.
It was filthy and coiling in a fuzzy lump on the stonework below the bench, yet this did nothing to deter a good segment of the contaminated mane from feeding directly into his mouth.
In the darkness of the hall, Ziggy Cosmos - who arguably had no idea where he was at all - was flashing away like a Christmas ornament via the glow of his bioluminescent, selectively edible fringe.
When Shazreen jumped to her feet he lifted a pair of absentminded, cataracted eyes in question of the nearby movement.
Due to his misunderstanding of their surroundings, and the degree to which he was hard of hearing, he practically shouted his inquisition which caused several dozen heads to turn in shock, "What guy was it you said we was here to see, ehh, Shazzy?"
"GUY! YOUR GRANDSON, GUY!" Shazreen cupped two hands to her mouth and spoke supportively slow, and now there wasn't a single person paying any attention to Seamus' departure whatsoever.
"Guy! Guy! Guy!" many of the Slytherin boys chanted to add fuel to the fire, and Gal burst into delighted sniggering, clapping her hands like a cymbal-banging monkey.
"Right yeah, but what guuUuy is it!" Ziggy repeated in understandable befuddlement, albeit with the grouchy tone of a mean old codger. He banged a fist on the monolithic table, gesturing to a group of Hufflepuff students as if they might agree, "That is the question, you blithering hag! What's the lad's name?"
Ziggy often forgot that his grandchildren existed, and thanks to their unique names, this interrogation was a regular hassle. What guy, that gal...
What wasn't a regular hassle, however, was it unraveling in front of every single person that Guy knew in the whole world.
"Guy! Guy! Guy! Guy!" thundered a sea of green robes with ramming fists.
He shut the curtains and moaned theatrically, doing his best to block out the obnoxious behavior by yanking his toque straight down to his chin. His voice produced muffled through the suffocating sheath, "What is she thinking, letting loose that geriatric gerbil? Ohhh dear god, I'm ruined. Please fib to me and say that I've turned invisible."
"Who is it there, speaking?" Audette smiled sadly, pretending to play along.
She sincerely wished she knew what to do, but as Guy blathered on and on from within the safe confines of his headwear, her attention tragically shifted to where Malfoy had somehow ended up several meters away whilst they were gawking out the curtains.
She folded her arms in disbelief of just how fleeting his loyalty was, for the flirty twat was now surrounded by three exceptionally resplendent Beauxbatons champions in matching indigo gowns. Outstretched was his fancy fencing sword, lit along the length with black flame magic.
"Dat is a very long sword you 'ave, Monsieur Malfoy," one of the surly angels danced her fingers just above the licking fire. Each of their wandering eyes shone bright in it's hue.
Audette watched with ballooning discomfort as they giggled suggestively back and forth, hushing in a foreign dialect. Two more Durmstrang classmates meandered over, likely in the hopes of syphoning off some of the female attention.
Draco's brows popped rakishly, flipping the weapon around in a perfectly controlled arc to show off his acumen, "Ne vous inquiétez pas, les filles, je sais comment gérer ça."
Ohhh...she was quite sure he knew perfectly well how to handle his sword alright...
He practically oozed experience in a field of opprobrious sexuality of which she had zero conception. What especially hurt was the inescapable impression that everyone else, including any girl he spoke to, was partial to this knowledge save for her.
It was not a case of fearing missing out: it was a case of feeling like a complete pariah, as if she could never possibly meet his expectations nor compete adequately for his dedication.
Guy raged on and on in her eardrum, his voice registering to Audette in concentrated blinks here and there, "...ad enough that dusty tumbleweed has shown up here to blast off like a ship's whistle in the hall, but mum just had to string along that bitch from hell, Gal..."
"Be careful in dis melee tonight. But...if dis uniform catches alight, don' rush to stop, drop and roll..," one of the Parisian beauties flattened a manicured hand to Draco's chest. Her eyes clung longingly to his from a rather scarlet angle which infuriated Audette, who's nails were now digging half-moons into her arms.
The message was loud and clear; it wouldn't be a strain on the eyes to spot him in his birthday suit. For all anyone knew, that girl already had.
More giggling erupted, more peccant petting was administered. Soon they had their tiny hands all over his hair and attire, encouraging his ego to inflate dangerously.
Clearly enjoying the worship, it was a miracle that Draco happened to drift his gaze a little too far to the side to where she was pouting angrily in his direction, and the flashy grin he'd been showing off vanished.
Their eyes locked in a horrifically exposing bind before Audette dropped hers down, scowling hideously.
Her breathing picked up and her fingers slid up her shoulders in self-conscious discord, praying that she would not give away any more visual clues as to the jealousy and indignity rippling through her system.
His voice reappeared in her ears, newly defined by an uncomfortable cadence, "Hmm...if it's a fetish for burnt flesh you've got, I'm sure that roast suckling pig in the dining area should satisfy."
An awkward grumble ensued from the semi-circle of admirers who seemed to pick up the dismissive energy in the air, then the sound of his sword sheathing rung, "Ladies."
Audette's eyebrows tented in defense with each click of his incoming shoes. She refused to look when he bravely rejoined them, instead grinding her jaw at the floorboards, "I won't hesitate to sick my Consciaur on you."
He mocked her by making a show of shivering in fear, "Awww, I'm positively trembling in my Oxfords, love. Don't sick the imaginary bear on me!"
Her glare must've impacted like a double-barrel shotgun, "Very well, bank on his lack of existence and it shall mark the end of yours. He's been hankering to plug someone's ears up with lit matches in the dead of the night - who am I to dismantle his impulses? There won't be a freckle of evidence, either."
Draco's jaw dropped in stunned amusement, "Well...It sounds as though I am a dead man."
Guy slid off his beanie in defeat, "WELL. No need to worry about offing each other - Nott will surely beat you to it. Perhaps he'll fashion himself a couple of journals out the skin of your adulterous corpses when he discovers tonight's transgressions."
"Anthropodermic bibliopegy," a gravelly voice interjected.
They all looked up to where a man had manifested from the shadows, brandishing ragged obsidian robes and greasy hair. In the stage lighting his pitch black eyes appeared totally berserk and undomesticated, much like a drunkard who was convinced he had just stumbled upon the end of a rainbow in the loo.
The alcoholism and sleep depravation Draco had mentioned was gleaming in high definition; it was Headmaster Karkaroff in the flesh, baring some seriously rotted teeth at the trio, "The art of binding a warlock's spellbook with the skin of a human being. An occasional crafting course if you will, offered at Durmstrang. The ground there, it is frozen solid. We dig no graves...and we leave no waste..."
Draco let slip a deriding noise, "Ah, that would explain why my diary keeps on taking up bruising."
"You are on that stage, now, Malfoy. Do not give me reason to incorporate this...intermittent crafting course into January's agenda," Karkaroff snarled frightfully.
Guy's eyebrows rose into his hat far out of view, cringing until the man had lumbered away to wreak havoc on someone else's breathing air with his marinated body odor, "Dread to imagine what Karkaroff's concept of finger painting looks like."
Audette was more worried about what ended up on the lunch menu the day proceeding an untimely funeral, given the leave no waste stipulation.
She sucked in her lips and turned to warm up her ballet slippers, carefully bending the shanks before stooping to tie them on.
Draco coughed uncomfortably, now directing a sinister sneer towards where she was lacing up. His biting orbs hovered on the nettlesome ring continuing to preoccupy her fourth finger, and soon a warm, leaden hand appeared on the arc of her bare spine, "You're still conspiring to speak with your father AND Nott tonight, correct?"
Audette ignored him childishly. The reality of such a huge leap forward was staggering, and nearly paralyzing.
When she tepidly straightened he was still lingering very close, a stubborn glint buried in his silvery stare, "Correct?"
"Yes, tonight," she sighed, beginning to flex appropriately for her upcoming dance, "Tonight all of this burdensome anticipation shall be void, one way or another."
"Good," he crookedly leered once more at her engagement ring, as if hoping that his hatred alone might dissolve the valuable rock, "I expect you to meet me at the Launders Hole come midnight, as we discussed. For an update."
The fact that he continued to misnomer the belfry the Launders Hole had become a point of great hilarity to Audette.
She nodded, gently making to unravel a silk ribbon holding up her bun. Feet of aureate waves unleashed down her back as she then grabbed ahold of his arm, "Here, a mild quench for your angst until then. I doused it this morn, with my perfume."
He allowed her to lace the ribbon into an angelic bow circumferencing his bony wrist, just beneath the jacket sleeve where pale hair grew in soft patterns on his forearm.
He inspected the cuff link, and within seconds his eyes fluttered shut, "Mmmm...intoxicating. You're an absolute dream, a dream girl I never saw coming. Even if I desired to, it doesn't appear possible to wake from this."
Ugh, the emotional gymnastics...
Each compliment from this exquisite specimen made her feel increasingly feminine, rare, and breathtaking, for his opinion was the only one that mattered.
He thought of her as a dream, and that made her feel devastatingly ethereal.
Suddenly she became aware of the grace in which her spun gold hair fell in a waterfall, curling in cavalier arcs with ten shades of highly sought after halcyon. Suddenly each pinpoint freckle on the scarp of her cheeks felt ultra cute, the chartreuse in her gaze gloriously pigmented...
Life was only blooming.
Hope existed.
Love was real, afterall.
"Likewise," champagne bubbles soared in her chest, and Audette clasped her hands in the center of her glamorous tutu, batting her long lashes up at him, "I'm...I'm afraid a steely beast has stolen my heart, yet I'd prefer it remain in his covetous grasp."
"Don't look at me like that. It's far too...precious," he propped up her chin. A wonder it was, to behold a genuine mirror of happiness and sentimentality in his expression as well.
The pull of his thumb on her plump bottom lip sent Audette's frivolous heart off in a hot air balloon without a map for wherever the heck it was headed. In that wordless exchange, the desire and chemistry exuding between them was sensational.
"HeL-Lo! Draco Malfoy! You see Baby Doll LA-TER," barked one of his impatient comrades, sweeping a fiery axe in the direction of the stage.
Draco glanced over his shoulder, then leaned very close, his breath sending shivers down her spine, "Thank you for your ribbon. All I wish to give you in return is my last name - make that a possibility tonight."
He kissed her boldly on the forehead, then disappeared, and Audette fell into a love-drunken stupor on the spot, wilting like a pompon in the sun.
"Ohhh," the three Beauxbatons' girls eyed each other as understanding washed over them.
The transition between Seamus' exit and the onset of the Durmstrang click was not particularly peaceful.
Eight brutish champions collided with the miniature lad at the very precipice of the stage, where they immediately began to shove him back and forth. Some even yanked on the long curly vines dangling from the pumpkin's stem, effectively infuriating the already cranky creature.
What spewed from the pumpkin during the attack was entirely too foul to reiterate, but one can certainly imagine.
Professor Flitwick - a man of less than three feet in stature who was ironically responsible for managing the talent show - struggled to urge them on, his pipsqueak voice barely audible over the snarling gourd, "Now, now, Durmstrang! That is quite unnecessary."
Necessary was not nearly a deciding factor. They managed to lift the pumpkin clean out of the boy's hands, swiftly carved a hole into the base of it, and shoved it right over his head. They blew a flame over the stem as if it were the wick to a bomb, and Seamus was thus abandoned to bake into a live pumpkin pie.
Seeing as she was promptly to follow next, Audette and Guy inched towards the opening, gawking at the unreal skill in both firebending and weaponry unraveling beyond. Her now problematically untied hair blew back from the sheer blast of heat alone.
"Can't believe Flitwick denied my entry, yet he permits this bloody pyromania," Guy mumbled in discourse as she fidgeted maddeningly with her fancy dress sleeves. Magical shamrocks were floating off of the fabric and popping out of existence like pretty bubbles.
While her entire back was essentially bare, the hot breeze was only contributing to overheating.
There it was: her father's discerning monocle glinting in the crowd, reflecting the flames produced by a boy he had soon to discover was familiarizing himself with his tightly regulated daughter.
She glanced at Guy who was noticeably moping, "I'm still failing to understand how bubbleology could be viewed as 'obscene' and 'disrespectful'. I can't help but wonder if you've given me the full picture of what exactly you were planning to do."
"Fecking gobshites. If anything is obscene, it's them red suits," Seamus commented in equal lament, having finally freed himself from the burnt pumpkin helmet. His hair was all matted with orange goop, and it was very obvious that Guy was internally judging him for this.
Audette's ears began to ring in anxious anticipation, blocking out their chit chat. To say that she was encumbered by stage freight was a blatant understatement.
She was the type to loose her voice when reading aloud in classes, let alone dancing before four schools, a boy she had a raging crush on, and several V.I.P. individuals including her father - whose expectations were off the charts.
Time was up far too soon when the Durmstrang students finalized their fascinating stunts with a huge explosion of fire and dramatic cheering from the onlookers.
Audette could hardly feel her body as the sweaty boys marched past her in a flurry and she received a rather hard pat on her rump from Malfoy who whispered something in her ear that went totally unregistered.
The lighting changed, and she was prodded in the back of her knee by Flitwick's wand.
One, two, three...
Tiny steps forward, on the tips of her toes...ethereal motion as she twisted her arms...little shamrocks floating around her...
It was grace and delicacy in comparison to the previous action on that stage, and the room was unbelievably quiet as hundreds of eyes followed her around curiously.
Whoever was in charge of the classical music intended to partner with the dance had perhaps perished. Or, the more plausible scenario, was that she couldn't hear a single thing due to the overwhelming fear gripping her nervous system.
The air smelt of carcinogenic smoke from the prior enterprise, and Audette began to feel very light headed and dizzy as each rotation was greeted by a myriad of conflicting faces: Theodore smiling encouragingly at her from the front, Draco watching her intently from the sidelines, Gal's unsettling selection of white hot iris' that day, her mother's clasped, hopeful gloves...and that shiny pane of glass at the back hovering over a lit cigar.
Sparks swam in her vision like inconvenient bugs crawling around in her brain, signifying that she very well might faint. Audette tripped rather subtly on a landing, and that was the beginning of the end.
There it was again, and again, and again: that lethal monocle which had served to terrorize her for eighteen years straight.
Was it beginning to transition into red?
Or was she simply doctoring that worry into her reality out of wild panic?
Suddenly and without rationale, she grew convinced that her father already knew all about her mischievous delvings with Draco Malfoy. He knew everything. He always knew...
Somehow she survived the entirety of the fragile dance, awkwardly nodded to the applauding crowd, and rotated back towards the stage exit.
She was free to faint the minute she was out of view, all she had to do was-
Audette was not actually in her body then, the lights were on but nobody was home as they say, and so she proceeded to rashly strut directly into the center of multiple curtains dividing the platform.
Montgomery's monocle might not have been red, but everything in sight now was.
It was truly insane, the sparse amount of time it took for her to wrap herself up in an imprisoning cocoon.
Audette pawed for her life, choking on stupid magical shamrocks engulfing her now limited space, searching desperately for an escape from the fabric fortress that was trapping her in the most embarrassing presentation of her clumsy life.
Yet it would seem that the curtains were designed with the intent of a crab trap - there was only the way in, and no conceivable way out, and it was rapidly constricting.
No no no...
She realized too late that a large contributor to the problem was the fact that she was stomping all over the silk at the bottom, pulling taught the sheets all the way from their rigging down to the wooden planks.
Spinning once more, her slipper came down in a new spot, and the fabric flattened to her face in a suffocating saranwrap. From the outside it must've looked just like a ghost pushing out of wallpaper as she gasped in shock, now breathless and mortified beyond belief.
NO.
An absolute riot of hollering and laughing exploded throughout the Great Hall, accompanied by the clacking of the Erenholl champion's shoes. The boy had narcissistically begun his tap dancing despite the drama occurring in the background.
No, no, noooooo...
What the FUCK.
This was NOT happening.
She was a second away from passing away out of either the asphyxiation or the unreal disgrace, whichever slayed her first, when someone appeared outside of the jungle of textiles.
He was tittering in amusement, that same handsome British intonation giving away his identity, "Is this all part of the act, Bellarose? Are you planning to emerge out of there as a beautiful butterfly?"
Oh god, he had come to assist her. It was Europe's Greatest Arsehole.
He managed to peel back one segment enough to save her from drowning in the sea of swathing partitions. Vantage of the backstage reinstated: the Beauxbatons femmes were giggling and pointing, Flitwick looked wildly aghast, and Guy had a hand clamped over his mouth.
Audette's arms were still pinned down like a mummy due to the amount of times she had foolishly rotated, and all she could do was suck in sweet oxygen as Draco Malfoy laughed in her face, "Aww, just look at this damsel in distress. Where are all of your lucky charms, Ireland?"
In her hair, several of them in fact...although those trinkets were purely ornamental.
He unwrapped her like a Christmas present with a swirl of his wand, and the curtains went right back to their original form without so much as a wrinkle. Unless of course, if one counted the freaky imprint of a weirdly round face that her makeup had left tattooed on one panel.
Just before they swayed closed, Audette made the horrifying realization that her father was now skirting around the perimeter towards the stage stairs, stately robes sweeping in tow.
"Lord Bellarose, he's coming!" Guy wailed far too loud, confirming the serious doom at bay. He glanced around with the very ridiculous expectation that he might somehow hide himself from that x-ray of a glass pane, "It's every wizard for himself! Run for your fecking lives!"
Audette turned to Malfoy portraying parallel panic, as if he might have the key to a trapdoor lingering somewhere at their feet, "I simply must get out of here. He's incurably unreasonable when incensed, my father is."
He shook his head sternly, "Absolutely not. You promised me you would speak to him tonight. If you don't, I will."
"Not when he's in this state, or you truly can count on losing those extremities of yours. Or worse," Audette baulked, ringing out her hands. She suspected that her father could care less what setting they were in - school or not, someone's head was coming off.
In the backdrop Guy paused his frantic pacing to eye down a lonely wooden chair for the potential purpose of a shield. Seamus inspected the desecrated pumpkin by his feet with a queasy look that suggested he might actually jam it back over his head. No one else however, seemed to have a single clue as to what was coming, despite the infamous reputation of the unscrupulous Emerald Lord.
Draco shook his head a second time, a long ridge forming between his eyebrows, "You have no idea what state he's in. And-"
One of the eavesdropping Russian boys surprised her when he cut in supportively, planting a hand on Draco's shoulder, "Let poor baby doll come to de Black Boggart with us. We go now anyways, out back door where monopoly man does not follow."
Indeed, the crew of crimson uniforms had calmly packed up their equipment and were waiting.
"Yes! Yes, absolutely anywhere!" she pleaded.
Malfoy deliberated to the dappling symphony of the performing tap dancer and his bumbling leprechauns, then made a face at the other boy, "Does a lady of her stature seem the type to be spotted in a dive bar, Sasha? What happens when the monopoly man does follow us there? It's out of the question."
"I've been to loads of dive bars! I-I wouldn't be a thorn about a thing!" Audette fibbed pathetically, lacing all of her fingers together.
Draco's arched brow spoke to his scant confidence in the statement, analyzing her angelic ballet gown, "Yes, you would. It's a deplorable hole in the wall, everything is sticky or soaked in liquor, and don't even get me started on the characters it attracts. You won't last five minutes."
"I need to go to that dive bar, RIGHT. NOW!" her entire approach shifted to hostile as panic rose far beyond conscionable.
He didn't blink as she barreled on heatedly, "I shall speak with Theodore when I return, and then write to my father. That will provide him time to cool off. It is but a minor delay, but it is ESSENTIAL THAT I LEAVE THIS PLACE RI-"
The large boy named Sasha grinned, wrapping an arm around her heaving shoulders, "-Hey, hey, it is just like they say in my country; ride slower, sled goes further. It is settled, Baby Doll comes!"
All of them cheered gruffly save for Draco, who issued the scoff of the century, "Tell me, what was that other nagging proverb on sledding, Sasha? Oh that's right; if you like to sled, you have to like to drag the sled, which is exactly what you rubes will be doing when Bellarose requires someone to carry her home later."
In an unexpected twist, they were off for the Black Boggart - a wicked pub in Hogsmeade that set one's hair on end merely passing by it's demure facade.
The rather humble Professor Flitwick did absolutely nothing to prevent nearly half of his talent contestants from disappearing out the rear egresses of the sepulchral great hall. Seven blokes and one girl in red, one ballerina, one fairy boy, and a curious pumpkinhead made up the unusual convoy.
They were instantly greeted by a steep path to the village, a biting winter freeze, and a clear sky positively dotted with twinkling stars and endless possibilities.
Shivering in Draco's jacket - an article that had once again saved her in a pinch - Audette couldn't help pondering which was worse afterall; facing the wrath of the disappointed monopoly man, or a notorious dive bar known for forcing it's patrons to challenge their worst fears.