It still bemused the witch of particular peculiarities that she was no longer a resident at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Despite his hesitation, the Headmaster and close relative – though through what means Isadora could not claim to know personally – had allowed her to continue living as she wished to; i.e. in Hogsmeade with her husband. The law had been broken some time ago. She would not have liked to have attested to whether their negligence to file for a separation had been out of laziness, inbred contempt of the idea, or perhaps even real affection. In truth, it was possibly a combination of both but more so the first and a general contentedness with the way their lives had been elapsing more or less unburdened. Until of course, New Year.
The wonderful, pureblood, party princess could only wear such a façade for so long. There was a reason she was in Ravenclaw, after all. She was much more interested in winding her legs underneath herself and setting a book demurely in her lap to peruse while sipping at cocoa that that their elf had dutifully made. As the decorations for the party had gone up that afternoon, she’d eyed her chaise lounge from her periphery, her hands grasping absently, mournfully by her sides. Nevertheless, both Notts knew that there had to come a time when they would be thrust rather unceremoniously into the limelight but however much Isadora enjoyed parties – which, mind you, wasn’t much sometimes – she didn’t know how long she could fix a smile upon her face and thus it had led her to sit before her mirrors for the latter part of the afternoon, practising.
When the door to their bedroom opened, the full measure of vanity in which she had been indulging washed over her and the painful smile she’d been trying to stretch across her face dropped like a sack of bricks. She rubbed her mouth, glancing up into the mirror to look at her husband. A little colour, not painted their by her own careful hand with aid of brushes and powder, rose in her cheeks and Isadora looked down at her table, eyeing the diamonds peeping out from under a white sugar paper wrapping, amidst a powder blue box with that famous logo imprinted in black upon the top – one made famous by Audrey Hepburn, a man, and a cat named Cat. The earrings had been a present from her father, seemingly in gross refute of the reason why she’d had to marry into the Nott family in the first place. Apparently penniless was no longer something quietly associated with the Malfoys. What timing.
“Perhaps,” she considered modestly, pressing absently against the silken material. The blabbering witch had promised a dress that felt like water and flowed like a river of silver. Isadora, upon slipping it over her narrow frame, had even been granted the meander of the river within her body. It made her feel grown up, as bizarre as such a statement was. She’d never considered herself a child, of course, but caught within the silken confines of this grandeur with shimmering diamond waiting to be placed through her earlobes, she felt all of a sudden caught between a childhood she’d never had and a womanhood she was not entirely sure she wanted. She couldn’t deny the strange feeling of sexual control. She felt attractive and, devoid of humility or not, indeed, as beautiful as he said. Suddenly, though, she wanted her nighty back, and her book and her cocoa.
Isadora’s fingers snuck beneath the sugar paper and she lifted out one of the earrings that immediately began to shimmer in the low light of the bedroom. She held it up to her ear, balancing the hook on her finger, and sucked her lower lip into her mouth. Bringing her other hand up, Isadora gently pressed the wire through the small hole in her lobe. Then, with the weight of the earring, and then the other, came the inevitable feelings of anxiety as the weight of hope and the oppressive reality that they needed to make a good impression settled on her shoulders. With shaking fingers, Isadora picked up her liquid liner and gently applied it before putting more eye shadow on to smoothen everything in that area and make it blend nicely. It was all she could do, really – preen and poke at herself. She felt as though the longer she did that, the less time she’d have to spend downstairs – but Alexander’s presence meant her time in hiding was up. They had to go and be pleasant now.
Rising from her stool, the dress shimmered and flowed down around her as promised – like water. Indeed, she even possessed the meandering curves she’d been thinking about, that she could never have imagined that the seamstress would be able to create. Twilfitt and Tatting’s had outdone themselves – in a big way, too. She supposed that their custom and their gold was enough to make any extra little bit of bother worthwhile. After all, Isadora was a giant beacon of advertising for them that evening and the cream of the pureblood crop would be there, all dull and uninspired, just waiting for the next thing to fritter their money away at. A dress they couldn’t hope to wear and do justice to was probably just the thing they needed. She could already imagine Cora Yaxley splitting the sides of a reproduction before screaming that they hadn’t done enough to make her look beautiful, all of the seamstresses unwilling to vocalise that a buffer on her face, injections to take the fat from her backside, and all the make up in the world couldn’t make her look beautiful.
“And you,” she appraised, walking towards him to straighten the lapels of his robes – a habit, more than there being anything amiss with them, “look very handsome.” Isadora smoothed the fabric out under her palms. “Tonight will either be wonderful and we’ll have to host again or it’ll be dreadful and your mother can spare us or bask in the satisfaction of showing us how a real witch runs a party,” Isadora sniffed affectedly and rolled her eyes with a derisive look. She was torn on that front. She wanted to do well but not at the expense of having to host another party any time soon and though she would have been happy to fail – bizarre though the idea seemed to her – she also didn’t want her mother-in-law to enact the example of how it should be done. She didn’t think her short temper would spare her an entire evening of humiliation without one tantrum or perhaps a glass hurled furiously at something – or someone, most naturally an elf.
“Perhaps we’ll only be pressed to take the New Year,” she suggested optimistically, brushing invisible lint off of his shoulders, stroking her palms across him in broad, soothing motions. “That can be our party piece in the pureblood calendar of outings,” she rolled her eyes again and passed a smirk up to him, the sparkle in her grey, Malfoy gaze reflecting her facetiousness. It was as important to her as the next pureblood, of course, but even so, she couldn’t help but feel put out by all of the madness such an event had required and she wished that Alexander hadn’t been forced to go to all the trouble he had done. Yet, it was their first party and she knew that it was important really. Perhaps her pragmatism was getting in the way of splendour she’d not really known unless with her grandparents. Perhaps the trouble was going to be worth it. Perhaps.