Chapter Text
Ms Hermione Granger,
You are cordially invited to a masquerade ball commemorating the tenth anniversary of the end of the second Wizarding War. Three nights of magic, mystery and merriment to celebrate unity between all magical creeds and peoples.
From 7pm on the nights of: Thursday 4th May, Friday 5th May, and Saturday 6th May
At Rosellin Manor, Devon
Please RSVP via owl to Cicely Rosellin, or Narcissa Malfoy
Detailed dress code and guidelines on magical disguises and costume can be found overleaf.
Choose your mask and wear it well,
So your true identity, none can tell,
The damn thing had been sitting on Hermione’s desk for a week, the enchanted lettering sparkling at her out of the corner of her eye and reminding her that time was running out to RSVP. She had to go, she knew that, she just really, really didn’t want to. She didn’t hate the concept; indeed if Ginny or Luna had decided to throw a masquerade for one of their birthdays she would have been all for it, but this was business, not pleasure, no matter how much the festive invitation sparkled at her. Actually, it was worse than business; it was politics, and Hermione got quite enough of that at work without it invading her weekends as well. Originally, they had wanted her to make a speech, but that was where she drew the line, and Harry was so very much better at that than her anyway. It wasn’t the public speaking that unnerved her, more just the strange celebrity she had never quite got used to. She regularly spoke forcefully and (hopefully) eloquently to the Wizengamot, she’d even taught transfiguration at Hogwarts for a week once, as a favour to Minerva when the new teacher couldn’t start right away. She had no problem speaking in public, as long as it was about something. The speech at the party would have been about nothing; pretty words and hopeful sentiment to elevate the atmosphere and get a good cheer from the guests.
Maybe she was just being overly grumpy. After all, the world had changed, things were better… mostly. There wasn’t anything close to the darkness that had lurked in the background during her Hogwarts years, but if there was one thing she’d learnt in the decade that had passed since the end of the war, it was that fixing something just meant that you got to concentrate on a new problem. True, she’d much rather be dealing with the comparatively minor policy issues she saw these days than the rampant bigotry that used to permeate all the way through wizarding society, but she had to admit, the monotony and the Sisyphean tasks were starting to get her down. On top of that, there was a strange, irritating dissonance between the public perception of her, her work persona, and her actual personality. The public saw her as this perfect figurehead; the wizarding world’s golden girl, and whenever she dared to do anything that contradicted that image people seemed disappointed or annoyed, as if she was the once that was bucking propriety by having the audacity to do anything other than smile silently, wave and nod daintily at everything Harry said.
Work was a different story of course. The war might have been over, but the Ministry of Magic was still saturated with the same old windbags who didn’t like to change the upholstery on their sofa, let alone embark on a complete overhaul of outdated policies. Hermione had no patience for them dragging their heels, and she’d never been one for beating around the bush, so she’d pushed and she’d shouted, she’d used every trick and privilege she had got by being a war hero, and eventually they had surrendered. Unfortunately, by that point the rest of the Ministry had started talking, and before long everyone knew that Hermione Granger had something to prove, and Merlin help you if you got in her way. She had never meant to develop such a harsh reputation, but by the time she realised it, it was too late, and people seemed to see her efforts to be more friendly as outliers rather than her actual personality. It wasn’t the end of the world really, she had plenty of real friends outside work, but it did mean that people tended to be a bit more combative with her, and Merlin, it was exhausting always having to be the one swimming against the tide.
The invitation glittered at her obnoxiously, and she paused her report for a moment, absentmindedly tapping the nib of her pen on the parchment. Under different circumstances it might have been a bit of a relief, putting on a mask and just having fun with none of the baggage that was usually attached to her name, but the damn thing was being planned by Narcissa Malfoy of all people. Oh, Cicely Rosellin might have her name on the invitation, but Hermione had met her a few years ago, and that woman was so out of touch she may as well have stepped right out of a time machine from the 1800s. There was no way Cicely could pull something like this off on her own, half of the magical community in Britain was coming to this party, and the paperwork alone would have taken hundreds of hours of work, an enormous network of contacts and enough charitable donations to politically advantageous causes to make the event unmissable. No, this had Narcissa’s fingerprints all over it, and that meant that she’d have to make awkward small-talk with all three of them as if they hadn’t watched her get tortured on their living room floor. Joy.
If she was honest with herself though, it wasn’t Lucius or Narcissa that really bothered her. She had spoken to Draco Malfoy exactly four times since he had properly re-entered the Wizarding World seven years ago, and none of those occasions had been pleasant. He had thanked her, Harry and Ron for speaking at his trial, sounding overly formal and not managing to meet Hermione’s eyes. Then, a year later they had run into each other at the Ministry, and the polite small-talk had lasted about a minute, before one of them had inadvertently insulted the other one. She didn’t even remember who had started it. They managed to get up to nearly five minutes at Narcissa’s last two soirees before they had ended up snapping and snarking at each other. Something about his mannerisms still raised her hackles, even all these years later, and she supposed she should just be grateful their paths didn’t cross very often. Come to that, she should definitely be grateful that this stupid party was being held at Cicely’s country house rather than Malfoy Manor.
Hermione sighed and smothered a yawn as she scratched out the last few sentences of the report. She just needed to bite the bullet and RSVP. There wasn’t any getting out of it anyway, but why on earth did it have to be three nights? It was bad enough that she was being dragged along to this farce, but the Ministry would be essentially running on a skeleton crew for those days, and it had been incredibly disruptive to her work. And now she’d have to go bloody shopping. Over the years she had accrued a not insignificant collection of black-tie apparel, but it was ten years since the end of the war; it was a unique occasion, and that unfortunately demanded a unique dress, rather than just recycling the dresses she had worn for the last few events. Plus, there was the whole mess of frippery that she’d have to deal with regarding the masks. Ugh.
She had used to enjoy dressing up, but it seemed that time and experience had sapped that from her as well.
***
The first night of the ball approached with alarming speed, and to Hermione’s mild irritation, it seemed that the entire Ministry could speak of nothing else. She was trying really hard to seem like she was just as excited as everyone else, but she had a feeling that she was coming off as patronising. Maybe she could use a night off after all…
To her surprise it seemed that a lot of people were really getting into the mask aspect of it, the invitation had specified that while masks were mandatory, many other forms of magical disguise were encouraged and apparently many of the guests intended to make full use of this indulgence. The disguises should be superficial enough that they could be removed quickly and easily at the end of the night, but even that gave the guests an enormous array of charms and potions to choose from. Ginny didn’t care so much about being recognised, but in the interest of Harry’s anonymity she had agreed to change her hair and voice, since no matter how good Harry’s disguise was, it would be a dead giveaway if he was kissing Ginny Weasley. Ginny had tried to convince Harry to go all out and try and trick a few of his least favourite people into telling him what they really thought of him, but he said he was happy enough just to not have people stare at him for one night. Luna had grand plans involving a full face mask of a dragon, including delicate, enchanted wings at her shoulder blades that Hermione had helped her with the last time they’d all met up. She wasn’t sure about Ron and the rest of the Weasley boys, since they all seemed as sick of talking about it as she was, though she dreaded to think what chaos George was planning. He might be a respected businessman now, but she knew better than to believe that meant that he was respectable.
Hermione herself had been reluctant to get into it. The whole disguise thing seemed somehow… juvenile. She felt silly, and she hated feeling silly, so she had settled on a simple eye mask of dark blue lace which she fully intended to transfigure each night to match her dress, and resolved not to bother with disguising her hair or voice. She was sick to death of feeling like she was performing for everyone anyway. Despite her general cantankerousness though, she really did love the dresses she had bought. Tonight’s dress was a simple, navy blue gown with a sweetheart neckline and a hint of lace around the hem. She was sure it wouldn’t be anywhere near as extravagant as many of the outfits she would see tonight, but it was beautifully fitted and surprisingly comfortable, and that was good enough for her. And it certainly didn’t hurt that it made her boobs look incredible.
As she checked that she had everything she would need in her magically extended bag, she wondered how many times she had transfigured and re-transfigured it over the years. The charm was technically illegal after all, and now she worked at the Ministry she couldn’t get caught casting a new one, so the once-beaded bag had remained with her since Bill’s wedding, all those years ago. Despite her earlier misgivings, Hermione was actually a little excited now that she was five minutes away from apparating to Devon. Her hair was behaving tonight, cascading down her back in loose curls with the help of generous amounts of Sleekeazy’s, her dress was flattering and she actually quite liked the way her delicate mask accentuated her eyes. She looked good, and that knowledge went a long way towards improving her mood. With a final glance around her apartment, she took a deep breath and disapparated.