Attending the Coming Out Ball was a traditional marker of failure for Minnie. With each year that passed she looked and felt a little bit older than the girl’s that were debuting and she wondered what they saw when they looked at her: somebody who was a success in society, a well-known young lady about town who was – she had to admit – invited to essentially everything, or somebody who had failed, despite those things, to find a husband. She tried not to dwell on it too much, that way lay madness according to Emma when she had laid her fears out to her sister earlier.

Emma was usually right so Minnie had taken her other piece of advice and allowed her sister to dress her in the sort of dress a girl of eighteen would not think to wear. She looked like a proper, grown-up lady, not a girl and she did feel less out of place. She wasn’t one of them anymore, but was she ready to be left on the shelf?

Forcing herself not to be too morose she had sought out other ladies in a similar position, in no mood to hear about upcoming nuptials or expected children, and eventually found herself at the refreshment table, picking up another glass of champagne. She had danced but not with the same abandon she had once felt; now it felt a little hollow.

Laughter caught her attention, cutting through the encroaching melancholy she had no use for and she latched onto it, turning herself towards the culprit like a sunflower towards the fiery star.

"I'm sure they'll continue to be enchanting through the rest of the season," she replied with a soft smile. "We're surely owed one full season without disaster so these girls might be in luck."

Having the option of not being part of the season was a choice that had never been offered to Minnie and for a brief moment she was not entirely sure what she might have done if allowed the decision. When she had left school, what felt like a lifetime ago now, she had been terribly envious of Ivy getting to become a healer but had never questioned that her lot in life was to go to her aunt’s newly founded finishing school and be made ready for society.

Minnie wasn’t entirely sure she would measure up to her aunt’s exacting standards but at least she had not left a man at the altar or been abducted abroad by a rogue, so she was probably doing better than most.

“It’s hard to say whether having a troll put one in hospital was as disastrous as being attacked by a flying carpet but I live in hope that things can only get better,” she replied with a wry smile, taking a sip of her champagne for good measure. Merlin, when put like that it was no wonder lady luck had not yet led her to the happy state of matrimony!

“Lord that sounds bleak doesn’t it? If you’ve never been involved before I don’t think I’m recommending the wonders of the season to you very well am I?”

Clinking her glass against his with a grin she tried to place him. Generally speaking one tended to recognise most of the faces that ghosted through the same parties and balls year after year but she struggled, though she put that down to his own admittance that he had not been especially involved. Still, all of his sisters, said in such a way, suggested there were quite a few and other than Mr Echelon-Arnost she didn’t know anybody with quite so many female siblings. At least, none that she could recall.

“Perhaps it will, Mr…? I’m sorry, I know I ought to wait for a proper introduction, but if it counts, I probably know your sisters.”

Unless they were a great deal older than her of course, though it didn’t occur to her to consider that he might be the baby of his family.

His sisters were, for the most part, quite a bit older than her and Minnie did not know any of them especially well, though more than one of them were far too intimidating for her to even contemplate making an acquaintance. But she certainly knew the name and felt a distinct surge of delight, and relief, at discovering he was part of a family she would likely be encouraged to make a connection with.

“Pendergast. Minnie Pendergast.” She supplied with a smile as she pondered, not for the first time, whether it was an advantage or a curse that her name was now forever associated with a finishing school she had, at best, attended, given how limited her successes had been. “The pleasure is all mine Mr Longbottom. Wait a moment,” her smile grew as it occurred to her where else she had heard his name. “Don’t you know Thom? Mr Pettigrew I mean? I was friends with his wife before…well, before, and I’m sure I remember her mentioning you.”

In all honesty Minnie thought she might have heard Hannah mention Mr Longbottom once or possibly twice but she had hardly been given a full description of the young man, even if the name had somehow lingered. But she supposed that after so long doing the season the one thing she really was good at was recalling names and faces quickly from only a scant acquaintance.

Hopefully Mr Longbottom would acquire the same skills and recall her again. He seemed like an entertaining addition to the social scene and they certainly needed some new faces!

“Well,” she retorted with a quirk of her lips that was eerily reminiscent of her sister. “I can hardly reveal what we ladies talk about when you gentlemen are absent, can I?”

“Oh I doubt anybody forgets you in a hurry Mr Longbottom,” she replied with a grin at his almost inappropriate wink, committing his face and name to memory for the next ball she attended. Minnie could usually find something to enjoy at any social event but it was much nicer when she had somebody to look out for and, if she was charming enough, get an invitation to dance out of it.

Minnie felt as though she had been on an endless loop of flirting, dancing and meeting new people for so long now that the minutia of each step was ingrained on her brain, but Mr Longbottom was at least something new. Somebody new. And that meant he was an exciting prospect.

Maybe Emma would know more about him? She was of an age with one of his sisters, she was sure of it, and he certainly seemed like somebody worth knowing better…

“I’m sure you’ll have heaps of success now you’ve joined our circle of itinerant revellers,” she sipped her champagne, wondering where the majority of it seemed to have gone. “It was Quidditch you retired from was it not?”

Minnie laughed brightly at the comment, though it was tinged with a touch of bitterness, understanding the sentiment perfectly well even if there was precisely nothing she was able to do about it with her own circumstances.

“Then may I suggest you never become a debutante Mr Longbottom,” she knew she ought to be less candid perhaps, but he certainly didn’t seem the sort that would find her excessively at fault for being so. She was finding, to her great pleasure, that the older she became the more she seemed able to get away with – as though the gentlemen actually enjoyed hearing a real opinion on a subject rather than the same comments regurgitated. The champagne helped with that enormously.

“Idleness may be the only thing I am an expert in, though I do try not to let myself become such a recluse I never leave the house for fear of accidentally getting some exercise or mental stimulation!”

His gaze flickered away from her for a beguiling moment and before Minnie could answer his first question she was asked a second she liked the sound of much more. She wasn’t sure what had prompted him – their conversation thus far hadn’t really been a prelude to either of them taking enthusiastic part in proceedings – but she was hardly going to turn him down. Compared to some of the gentlemen circling around the debutantes, a mixture of pallid youths barely old enough to court, corpulent middle-aged men who looked to be seeking a second or even third bride, and austere Ministry men seeking a woman made of charm and gossamer to help them advance through the political ranks, Mr Longbottom was a breath of fresh air!

“I’d be delighted,” she replied with a wide smile, glad she had not imbibed more earlier in the evening less she be in no state for anything by now. And she certainly didn’t want to make a show of herself in front of Mr Longbottom and his handsome smile. “Dancing at balls is fortunately my chief hobby so I shall not disgrace either of us.” She giggled. “It does mean I get through an inordinate amount of shoes though.”