[sovereignslytherin-blog]

{ gate crashing } | blaise & tracey

[sovereignslytherin-blog]

His heart leapt in his throat at the sight of the brunette, but only for a split second, because then she’d spoken and shattered the illusion. It wasn’t her. Although, the voice was familiar. Blaise squinted, his eyes narrowing behind the holes of his mask (a sleek black to match the trim of his suit), and he turned to eye the woman who’d drawn up beside him. She was tall and elegant, very slender, and judging by the cut of her jaw and the fit of her dress: very attractive as well. The frustration in her tone is amusing, to a degree (or perhaps that was just the champagne-) and he gives a little laugh despite himself. Could he not allow himself to feel humor? Was that no longer a thing that he deserved? He was still a human, whether Daphne or anyone else who mattered thought so, and he could enjoy his life in the same way that he always had. Plus, his hard work had paid off, and here he was. Blaise sniffed. As if they could keep the brilliant Blaise Zabini out of anywhere.

“Who knows where she scrounged up this many people. I’d have thought no one would have wanted to leave the safety of their estates, given the latest forecast for danger. Clear skies with a chance of werewolves.” Zabini nearly laughed at his own joke, but the expression went sour in his mouth and he doused it with champagne. “She probably dredged the lake,” he spat in disguist, implying that their dear hostess had, indeed, stocked the party with reanimated corpses. Such a thing was not unheard of, though it’d been several hundred years since the last noble had had to resort to such desperate measures. He stood in silence while she spoke, his lips pursed while he scanned the crowd, only partially listening. He hated the idea of a masquerade- it’d been Daphne’s notion all along, and when they’d planned the party he had been vehemently against it. Wearing a mask let others believe that they were all on the same playing field and that they were all of the same class. While they might all be of some form of nobility, class wasn’t something that you could buy. But here, everyone was the same; unrecognizable behind plasticized features and a drunken swirl of confidence in their bellies. He’d hoped to avoid this very scenario.

At least she had a nice pair of legs. Had it been any other bird he might’ve given her the silent treatment and stalked off to find Daphne himself. But for the moment, he was content to sip at his liquid courage and try to discern exactly where he’d heard her voice before. The Slytherin common room, no doubt. Though, that was the easy guess for most of the guests here. And it’d been nearly two years since he’d seen some of these people. The war really had scattered them to the four winds to hide beneath craggy rocks high and low, waiting until it was safe to come out, until the community had a different scapegoat to cast their own shortcomings upon.

“It can’t be that hard,” Zabini drawled, rolling his eyes a little. “Unless, of course, you don’t know anyone who would be here.” He cast her a suspicious glance, wondering if they could be lumped into the same group of gatecrashing partygoers. “Look, there.” He pointed across the lawn with the rim of his glass. “That’s Theo Nott. I can tell by his hair and the cut of his suit. We use the same tailor.” He was pleased with himself for his brief show of brilliance and when another tray of flutes floated by, he exchanged his empty glass for a full one and took a long, drawn out sip of the fizzy alcohol. Blaise turned to his companion and lifted his chin. “I suppose, though, the real question remains. Who are you, stranger? And how do you know the hostess?” Straight and to the point. He hadn’t time to fancy around the conversation like they were accustomed to.

[fasionistadavis]

Her black dress fit snuggly to her, sparkling in the light of the darkness that was very slowly starting to creep up around them. She continued to stare at the large amount of people that were chatting all around her, but at the same time not coming too close to her, or the man she had found herself standing beside. Tracey hoped that he was someone she could use to her advantage later, someone that could help boost her in the eyes of the rest of the former Slytherin elitists. How had she fallen so hard? Putting almost all of her cards in the wrong pocket of Pansy, who was becoming more and more disgraceful as the days passed on. She should have known not to lay all of her eggs in one basket. Luckily, she had maintained a rather small friendship with Daphne. The elder Greengrass would no doubt her new leader. How pathetic did that sound? Did she truly need a leader, someone to follow around like a lost pup? Of course she did, it was how she had survived her entire life. It might not be one of her greater traits, but who were people to judge her? After all, she knew some of the deepest secrets people had to offer, just by their own stupidity of not noticing her.

The man’s comment drew her from her thoughts, posing the question of why she had chosen to come out tonight. It was dangerous, that was no secret. Reports and headlines were not easy to ignore, mostly when you worked at the Daily Prophet. But, the remark he had made almost had a morbid humor to it and let out a small, drawing laugh. “It seems as though anyone is willing to put their lives at danger to come to a party held by Daphne. Not that I blame them.” Tracey went to take another sip of the champagne, but it seemed the liquid in the glass had already disappeared on her. “As for me, I’ve never been one to let the chance of something bad happen, ruin a good evening. Plus, it’s not as though they are always in their beast form. Who knows? There could be some amongst us, now.” Tracey knew more about werewolves and other dark creatures than most of her peers. Not because she had set out to learn about them, but when you constantly bury your face in books to pass the time and go by unnoticed, you tend to learn a thing or two.

“It’s harder than you think.” It shouldn’t be, she thought to herself. How long had she studied some of these people? Plotting and planning to make some of them her closest allies of the pureblood world. Maybe, it was the alcohol. Tracey had already had a few glasses and that was more than she had consumed in awhile. “I should know most of the people here, except for some of the lesser beings that somehow made their way onto the guest list.” It was no secret that some of the people here were not considered worthy. Impressed by the man’s ability to tell who people were, mostly ones she had been staring at for the better part of an hour, Tracey gave him a smile. “I might need to keep you around tonight. You can steer me in the direction of those I need to speak to at some point.” She was only half-joking with him. It would be nice to have him around, even if just to keep her company.

Tracey grabbed one of the champagne filled flutes as they were being floated by, deciding she did in fact need another drink. It didn’t matter if her head was already starting to feel a bit fuzzy. She knew how to keep herself dignified even under the influence. “Ah, straight to the point. No games. I was right, you must have been in Slytherin.” She eyed the man carefully, glad that she had at least figured out one thing for sure. “Tracey Davis.” She, too, felt that it would be easier to skip all of the assumptions. “And if my previous statement was correct, I would think that you can now figure out how I know Daphne. But, just in case, I’m an old friend of hers from school. Slytherin, too, if you don’t remember by now.” Tracey stared at the mystery man from the corner of her eye, “I think it’s only fair that you tell me who you are. I would hate to have to try and guess. If you haven’t already noticed, I’m not great at this guessing thing.”

[sovereignslytherin-blog]

{ gate crashing } | open.

Daylight lingered longer on the eve of the summer solstice, and for that Blaise was grateful. It was, after all, one of the main reasons they’d planned the soiree for that evening- more light meant more time spent in the vast gardens of the Greengrass estate. And, as much as Daphne liked to boast, the gardens were arguably the crown jewel of the family’s property. An evening spent inside on balmy (bordering on crisp as the daylight began to wane) summer nights would have been a waste. But then again, Blaise Zabini was arguably biased toward his own manor, which he preferred over any other. He found the interior of the Greengrass estate to be wildly showy and not at all like the sleek dark and entirely gothic décor scheme that his mother was so intent on keeping up. To each his own.

As he slipped through the woods that he knew surrounded the estate, he was mindful to keep quiet and alert. No doubt the Greengrass elders had employed more defensive wards and spells than just the barriers, though those were powerful enough. They’d been entirely tricky to navigate, and he’d spent the better part of a week learning not how to break them, but how to fool them into thinking he was not what he was. Tainted. Ruined. A beast.

The Slytherin was not aware that several hundred yards behind him, a pack of mongrels tracked his scent. They were transformed and thus moved very quickly and almost silently beneath the Blood Moon’s light. Blaise himself felt the pull of his blood toward the orb above and it unsettled him, shook him to his very bones. He lived moment to moment think that he might transform- that the charade would be up and the venom would finally sink in and render him a true version of the mark he bore on his skin. Some scars were scene as a badge of honor (surely Potter wore his like one, the prat-), but Blaise knew that his was a disfigurement. A brand. He was marked forevermore as a lesser being, and to reveal it to anyone would mean his sure descent from the upper echelons of society in which he so comfortably sat. He arrived at the barriers sooner than he’d expected and he knew this because he felt them physically repelling him and he was almost sick to his stomach. Blaise took a step back and carefully performed the slew of charms that would, if done right, allow him to slip through the wards without his bones turning to dust within his skin, rendering him a skeleton-less bag of skin and fluid (at least, that’s what it felt like would happen- the heir didn’t really know for sure).

Something went wrong.

The last spell he’d cast, a powerful swoosh of his wand with a fiery red crackle of magic at the tip, had gone horribly wrong- the staticky-looking jolt shot toward the invisible barriers and ricocheted off and hit him square in the chest, sending him flying backward into the dense undergrowth. He did not see the reddened spell linger in the air where the barrier was and spread outward like veins from a throbbing heart before vanishing. By the time he’d gotten up and brushed himself off (Merlin forbid there be any grass stains on his tuxedo), he didn’t see that anything was amiss. He assumed the spells had worked because his stomach was no longer churning and as he moved forward, he passed through the wards without flinching (or more importantly, dying). 

Mask held in place, the dark-skinned male moved confidently over the grounds until he slipped effortlessly into the crowd gathered on the lawn. A hand plucked a flute of champagne from a hovering tray that was deftly navigating the scene. He scanned the crowd and found that it was, actually, harder than he’d realized to recognize individuals with half of their faces obscured. A presence at his elbow drew his attention and he made sure that his own mask was properly affixed with a sticking charm before turning toward them. 

“I suppose you wouldn’t know where to find the hostess of this thrilling gathering?” he drawled, for lack of better conversation fodder.

[fasionistadavis]

Light chatter was buzzing around the lawn. Nothing exciting enough to catch her attention, though. She was too busy trying to figure out who people were behind their masks. Tracey wanted to make sure she got some time in with Daphne, before the night was completely over. But, she was failing at that. Failing at spending time with anyone for that matter. She was standing in the corner against a pillar, slowly sipping the champagne from the crystal flute.

The idea of a masquerade ball was in Tracey’s opinion, not one of Daphne’s greatest. Although, Tracey would never admit that aloud. Plus, it wasn’t so much the party that was the problem, it was only the fact that Tracey could not tell who everyone was. How was she supposed to warm her way into the graces of those she considered to be elites?

Generally the concept behind the mask was something the former Slytherin was all too used to. Hiding who you were. She had done that her entire life. Whether it be hiding her true parentage, or hiding some of her true talents just to get herself ahead in the inner circles, hiding was definitely a second nature to her at this point. Deciding that the time had come to quit sulking in the corner, Tracey moved her way through the crowd, along the outskirts of the lawn. The only way she was going to find Daphne, or anyone she bothered to converse with for that matter, was going to have to be done through mingling.

Her strides lead her to stand beside a very broad figure. “I wouldn’t. Actually, the hostess is exactly whom I have spent the last hour trying to spot through this bloody crowd of people.” She responded in kind. The man, though, seemed all too familiar to her. From his voice, to his demeanor, something was sparking her curiosity as to who it could possibly be. Although, she figured, almost everyone in here should be somewhat familiar to her. Most of the attendees were Slytherins, after all, which meant she had spent the better part of seven years in the same dungeon as them.

“Truthfully, I haven’t been able to recognize anyone.” She admitted, taking another sip from the almost-empty glass she was holding. Part of her wondered if the man could recognize her, or if he was having the same troubles she was.

[loosenthenott]

Notwithstanding Greengrass’ complete disregard of standards when it comes to her invités, it’s fairly decent. Ah, Tracey… it’s been a while since we last saw one another, no?

[fasionistadavis]

Not that I disagree with you by any means, but it is her party, her home; whomever she decides to invite is her choice. 

It has in fact been awhile and whilst I can't remember the last time we spoke, I would say it's been too long. Do tell me, Theo, what have you been up to as of late?

[fasionistadavis]

This party, it's just so - so wonderful, wouldn't you say?

[fasionistadavis]

Finding Your In (Open)

Tracey loved Sundays. Sundays were an easy day for her. The articles she had to turn in for Monday's paper, were always easier than the rest of the week. She wasn't sure why, maybe it was the beginning of the work week, for most, was not a time they really cared to read the fashion article. She always sent her piece in fairly quickly and spent the rest of the day in the town, trying to find anyone she considered worthy to talk to. 

That was exactly what she was doing today. Sitting at a little table outside of Florean Fortescue's, taking small bites of the ice cream she had purchased, she watched as people walked in and out of the quaint, little shops. No one has sparked her interest as of yet. So, she pulled a book out of her bag that was strewn across the back of her chair. Becoming easily bored was one of Tracey's many and biggest faults. She had found over the years that reading somewhat cured that problem. As long as she was not left to her own thoughts, she was fine. 

She wasn't sure how many minutes had went by, but after hearing someone clear their throat, Tracey sat the book down and looked up. Glad for someone to talk to, she smiled and motioned for them to take a seat across from her. "Haven't seen you in awhile. Do tell me what you've been up to?"