Upon arriving back in Britain after escaping the Santa Antonia shipwreck, Raphael had considered not attending the Minister's Masquerade. After all, it wasn't like the season was something he participated in out of necessity; he was not some doe-eyed debutante needing to make an impression in order to lure a man into proposing, nor was he some forty-something bachelor in desperate need of a wife. It was only the ball's premise, and the prominence of the couple hosting, that had swayed him into attending in the end.

The night was still young, at least by his standards—(he has always been one to stay up until the early hours of the morning)—and although the sun had set outside the inside of the ballroom was bright and alive. The bright colors of the ladies' dresses were a refreshing change to the bleak colors of the sea, and finally he felt back in his element. The oriental theme provided a bit amusement, and he'd excused himself from the dancefloor with the excuse of wishing to see the Chinese acrobats, but there was no ignoring the growing ache in his shoulder.

After arriving home, he'd been attended to by his father's most trusted healer, and for two days he'd been banned from leaving the family home in London. His father feared the damage done would be lasting—and the last thing Roderick Malfoy wanted was a cripple for a son. Fortunately any discomfort would soon be obscured, as the lights began to dim and the ball transitioned into its next scene: the night sky.

His lapel pin suddenly lit up, illuminating him and everything within two feet of him, and he took it as a cue to begin his circle back around the dancefloor. He could see the other dancers, but there were parts of the room that remained pitch black—empty, void. He briefly contemplated disappearing into it, lurking like a shadow for no one to see. It would be all too easy to let his lapel pin fall to the floor... but he shouldn't. He knew that. Besides, it would take away all potential of socializing for the next who-knows-how-long time.

But in the dark he caught sight of a lone woman, and he would not have thought anything of it had she not suddenly disappeared into the dark. Curiosity got the best of him. Lapel pin still attached to his coat, he moved towards her, aware that she might be able to see him if she turned in his direction—but as he reached her, the light of his pin illuminating her in the darkness, it was clear her focus had been elsewhere.

"Careful, now," he said smoothly, the corner of his mouth turned up in amusement, "Someone might think you're up to something."

---

The Minister's Masquerade Ball.

After having returned home looking like absolute shite (and smelling like it too), Mama and Papa had thrown an absolute fit. Rightfully so; though Rowan had protested very little when her mother descended upon her and scrubbed her head to toe, dunking her in multiple herbal baths until her olive skin was a burnt pink color. It hadn't stopped there. Her hair had been washed thoroughly with soap followed by a treatment of rice water until her tresses had shone like black silk. Mercifully the next day she'd shown up to work fresh as new. All during this cleaning up, Maisie had glued herself to Ro's side insisting that she retell the story of the mission and the man she'd rescued. Mama had scolded her youngest daughter to leave Ro alone, however, Ro was glad to oblige; she'd be able to write her report with more details now that Maisie had demanded them of her.

She let a few days pass between her return to mention that the Minister's Ball was to be hosted. After having to purchase a new wand, they were financially strained; at which time Rowan mused that perhaps she should have taken Malfoy up on new clothes. They still hadn't been able to replace hers yet. As such, they weren't able to get her a new ballgown either, which was something Ro knew was possible even before the shipwreck.

In fact, upon inspection, they hadn't been able to afford any new dresses in the past few years; the last one they'd purchased being Ro's coming-out ballgown. It would have to do - alterations were easier for Mama than making a new dress. It had been a collective effort on the entire family's part. Maisie who had gotten quite good at sewing had made beautiful silk rosettes to fashion on the shoulder, while Mama had embroidered similar white flowers along the hem to disguise the slight frayed edge of the dress. To complete it, Ro had managed a rather tricky feat of transfiguration to cast a mint green velveteen sheen*.

She prayed with all her might that the spells she'd cast on it to hide the extra seams stayed throughout the night.

There had just been one last hiccup. Maisie had guaranteed Ro that she knew how to cast a few extra spells on her hair to make it stay in its cascading updo. As Ro stepped away to look in the looking glass, Maisie had let out a terrified squeak. Observing her reflection, Ro hadn't recognized it at all, because now her hair was bright silver.

And so, Ro now found herself at the ball in her makeshift gown with ridiculous silver hair. Even some of her co-workers had come up to her to introduce themselves, to which she had to explain the entire ordeal over again. At least she could show Zelda in person since they'd taken a carriage together.

As she went throughout the night, she prayed for them to get to the Night Sky portion so she could stop explaining this ridiculous look to everyone in sight. Mercifully, that moment came both soon enough and after an agonizing few hours. Rowan watched as everyone round her was illuminated and she —

What?

Rowan looked down at her gown, perplexed she had slipped into the darkness. Upon further inspection, a seed of dread crept into the pit of her stomach. The pin had been fastened to one of the flowers that Ro had added with her wand in the carriage. Now, it had gone and she was left in the dark. As she began to search around for it, Rowan prayed no one would notice her and she would be able to fasten the pearl broach — why in lord's name was she always losing bloody pearls?! — with no one the wiser.

A voice behind her made her jump slightly and she whirled around to see a tall figure had approached her whilst she'd been absorbed in her search. "I assure you," she said, her voice slightly strained. "I'm up to no such schemes, I...I just seemed to have lost my broach."

---

Despite his taste for extravagance, Raphael had decided to avoid excessive displays of luxury. His suit was black, and the only expression of wealth was the golden embroidery that decorated his suit's lapel, collar, and the flaps of his jacket pockets. His mask was gold, too, unlike most of the men who wore black, but it was not at a level of intricacy that could compare to the masks the women in attendance wore.

The light of his lapel pin provided enough light to illuminate her face, but it was a faint glow rather than a bright light and left some of her features obscured. Her skin was a warm olive and her hair—in striking contrast—a pale silver that made her look like an illustration in a picture book. He didn't even think his cousin's wife had such light hair—and Malfoys, apparently even ones who married into the family, were known for their fair hair. He regarded her tone with suspicion; of course there could be truth to her words, but making sure her pin was there seemed like the logical thing to do as the night sky theme neared closer. She looked like a good and proper sort of girl; he knew enough about fabrics to know that she was not wealthy, but she was not poor, either, and presumably she'd been taught not to put herself in these sort of positions...

No, he thought, she'd done this on purpose. "The perhaps I can help you find it?" he asked, letting a charming smile fall on his features.

---

Rowan blinked in surprise, as she rested her gaze upon him. His mask was gold like hers, but that was where the similarities stopped. Unlike her own (hopefully temporary) silver curls, his mask elegantly matched equally golden locks. He cut a rather intimidating figure in an all-black suit with golden swirls adorning the lapels; he was rather well built too. She couldn't see well enough to determine the color of his eyes, but something about the way he held himself struck her as familiar. To be honest, Rowan thought, he looked as if he'd just stepped out of one of those beautiful High Renaissance paintings they'd studied in Muggle Studies, like a Michelangelo or Botticelli or —

Rowan froze.

Or a Raphael...

But - but surely he must have recognized her?! No, not entirely, she thought, as she remembered her previous observations as well as the early evening's debacle with her younger sister. But had he recognized her voice? Was that why he was being so nice to help her find her broach?

Ro quickly glanced around to see if any of her co-workers were near enough that she might spirit herself away and avoid telling him of all people why her hair was a different color. But no, she couldn't move. It was as if the white embroidery on the hem of her dress had come to life and rooted her to the spot. Was she really so unrecognizable with different color hair? Or so easily...forgettable? Even with her hair a shade that so starkly contrasted to the usual darkness her hair held.

"You're too kind," she responded, willing her voice to sound even and not as if she were a suspicious debutante attempting to hide something. She should tell him it was her. After all, if she knew anything about the man she had tutored all those years ago at Hogwarts, he likely wouldn't react well to feeling like he'd been bested. But instead, she heard herself say: "I'm sure it's around here somewhere, surely you have something much better to do with your night than to spend it with me?"

Why in Merlin's name did that come out sounding as a dare? Why hadn't she told him it was her?

---

There it was. Her tone was not so obvious that it gave away her meaning, but the meaning was still unmistakable. He might have responded quicker, had her voice no given him pause. It sounded familiar. It sounded like her. And yet, everything about the woman was so un-Yaxley-like: the silver-white curls, the dress, tone of her voice that was so unlike the one she usually regarded him with. He must have been imaging things (so curse her for invading his thoughts on a night where he was supposed to be enjoying the company of pleasant women).

"How unchivalrous it would be to leave a woman to struggle in the dark," he said, his gaze falling from her face to linger on her cleavage for just a second. He did not make a habit of calling women pretty for the sake of it, but it was difficult not to appreciate it when fabric was so prettily draped over a woman's figure. But just as quickly as his gaze had fallen over her chest he pulled it away, pretending to search for her brooch on the ground although in truth he was just looking for a reason to assure her it must be somewhere else.

"Do you remember the last place you saw it?" he asked. Her answer would determine how far they could stray from the dance floor; and if she was on the same wavelength as him, it would be beyond the confines of the walls.

---

Unchivalrous indeed! Where had this version of him come from? Even if she hadn't realized it was him, Rowan had a hard time reminding herself this was the same Malfoy she knew. This one was the Malfoy who had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth and spoke with a smoothness that Rowan had never expected to be directed at her. Here, he was in his element; comfortably perched within the proper folds of the upper class. But she thought she could sense an emptiness in his words. As if they were to be only taken at face value, then discarded at a later date.


She let a sweet smile slide onto her face; let her boldness be amplified by the apparent anonymity she had been granted that night. She laughed. "Is this the first time you've rescued a woman in the dark, then?" she replied in a voice that felt foreign to her; silky and flirtatious. What was she doing?

As she cast about in her memory for where the last place she saw her broach, she thought distinctly she had heard something fall around the mezzanine area - where she'd gotten a refreshment. If only it were appropriate to summon her broach, but as it stood, it would be incredibly odd for people to see someone's broach bobbing and weaving throughout the crowd. Additionally, she thought that if people were to see the illuminated broach find its way back to her, they might suspect she'd dropped it on purpose.

She would rather go and find it, even if it did mean having to bring Malfoy along. "And I believe it was on the mezzanine." She directed a gloved hand towards the grand staircase just at the other end of the room.

---

And it seemed, for not the first time in his life and certainly not the last, Raphael had been right in his estimation of this woman's intentions. He'd always had a knack for charming women—the only reason he'd put a halt on his womanizing was because of her: the woman he tried not to think about, but who he found difficult not to whenever he made a move on a woman who didn't live in the whorehouse.

His smile may have faltered if not for her laugh, which he decided very quickly he liked the sound of. It was not so perfected and melodic as many of the laughs the women of his station had, but it felt more... unique. Unperfected. A little scratchy, he would admit, but he'd be able to pick it out in a crowd.

"In the dark," he admitted, his closed-lipped smile spreading a little more, "but I assure you, I am plenty good at playing rescuer." And he was—back on the ship he had helped rescue Yaxley as much as she'd rescued him, and he'd left Portugal feeling far too proud of himself.

In the dark he was the only one with a light source, but it was not lost on him how strange it would look for him to be guiding the brooch-less lady up the stairs without her own light to guide her. No, it probably would be safe to look elsewhere. "But would it not be best to look outside first? I would hate for someone to pick it up." His hand crept to his own lapel pin, where the urge to let it fall to the ground overwhelmed him like an old addiction that he'd been tempted back into.

---

Well, Ro thought wryly, reflecting back onto the last time they'd met. While she had been the one to rescue him originally, there was absolutely no denying the fact that Malfoy had done the same for her, especially from the point where she'd lost her wand.

She watched him closely as he offered another option, and she thought back to earlier that night when she'd received the broach; struggled to remember if she had gone back outside at all with Cartwright or Zelda. While in the end, Ro remained rather unconvinced that it was outside, there was something in the way that Malfoy talked that caused her to re-evaluate if she really wanted to execute this dance they seemed to be doing.

Thus far, it seemed he had absolutely no idea she was the same woman who had rescued him on the ship; had tutored him back at Hogwarts, needled him with questions and whippy responses until he'd rolled his eyes so many times they might as well have been permanently affixed there. So if she knew all of this, knew where his thoughts rested where she was concerned, why in Merlin's name did she not tell him to whom he was speaking?

Perhaps all those years it felt like she hadn't truly seen him for who he was; now that there was potential for him to think they were one and the same, her curiosity was piqued.

"Perhaps you're right," she conceded with a tilt of her head. "Perhaps it wasn't fastened on properly either."

Without waiting to see if he followed, Ro turned, her silver curls swaying with her, and began weaving through the crowd.

---

She was an odd breed. Oh well, it wasn't like it was a bad thing.

The moment she turned and began to walk in the other direction, Raphael let his own lapel pin drop the ground, leaving him in the dark. He moved forward, closer, closr, closer, until his hand found her arm and he swiftly apparated them away with a loud pop.

(Oh well, everyone was masked—they wouldn't know who they were, anyways.)

---

As she navigated through the crowd, a smirk played on Rowan's lips as she wove in and out of the crowd. She vaguely wondered if when they got outside her hair would fade back to its normal color; found herself excited to see the potentially shocked look on his face. Little did she know...

She felt his hand on her arm, lightly first, and she turned to see what had made him hold her arm. And then she was sucked into the smallest of spaces and her breath was pulled out of her lungs. The only thing that remained of her on the ballroom floor were two silken green rosettes, which were quickly flattened by the surrounding oblivious crowd.
______________
As she felt her head and lungs expand back to normal, Ro gasped and staggered. The first thing she noticed was her breath: a misty fog billowing in front of her as she recovered from apparation. The next thing she noticed was how absolutely freezing it was. One of her gloved hands worked up to her shoulders where she realized that the drape of her shoulder sleeve had been cut clean in two and was now hanging down from her body. A quick search of her other shoulder and she realized her other sleeve was still intact.

White clouds of her breath billowed out in front of her, as the night's air prickled at her skin and she looked around to see where they were. The sound of a large group of people echoed just beyond the distance and the soft whickering of nearby horses told her they were just outside the building where the carriages were. She looked up at him, her lips parted in mild shock. "Why not just walk?" She demanded once she'd found her voice.

---

It took a moment to reorient himself when they appeared into the comparatively cold walkway outside of the ballroom. He apparated from short distances like this frequently, but he didn't make a habit out of taking a side-apparitioner along with him. He looked down at her, happy that she couldn't see the dazed expression on his face behind his mask—although it did shift to one of surprise when he noticed that her dressed had ripped. How inconvenient; it would be more difficult to escort her back inside without it seeming as though something had happened.

Raphael hadn't realized how long they'd stood in completely silence (well, save for the distance voices and other generic outdoor sounds) until she spoke, and all of his attention was hers. "Well," he said. One brow raised and the corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk. "I would hate for anyone to recognize you being escorted outside by a gentleman." Although they both had light hair, they were different enough in their general features that nobody would mistake them as siblings.

---

Malfoy's talk of anyone recognizing her was almost laughable given the fact that he himself hadn't recognized her at all since they'd first made contact inside. No one in her closer circle had been able to place who she was until she had told them; and with their masks on it was double the difficulty. If Rowan were one for coyness she would have appreciated the anonymity. Now, it was merely ironic given the circumstances, and — as Malfoy seemed determined to draw out from her every moment they found themselves together — annoying.

Her previous facade inside the ballroom — the one that had been intrigued by his motives and mannerisms — was slowly slipping away from her grasp.

She gave an uncharacteristic laugh of incredulity. "A gentleman?" she questioned again, looking around at who might be near them. Thankfully no one seemed to be running toward the sound of their apparating. As it stood, she hoped to keep her voice down so no one would see her outside with him. Ro fought back the urge to throw another heated remark at his ability to be a gentleman and instead said, "Why would a gentleman seek time alone with a woman unchaperoned?"

Of course, there were reasons. But she would be lying if she said her curiosity wasn't getting the better of her.

---

Raphael brought his hand to his chest in mock offense. "A gentleman," he insisted, pointedly tearing his eyes from hers to trail along the ground for a brooch he was certain they wouldn't find. Of course, this wasn't his most gentlemanly pursuit to date, but he would not allow the woman to believe him a rake when he could continue feigning the part of her hero.

Not that she seemed inclined the type to believe. There was something in the tone of her voice that struck a nerve, as if he'd heard someone else speak to him the same way. Certainly not one of his sisters. He brushed off the momentary irritation and let his face settle into a smile once more.

"Better to be alone outside with a gentleman than hiding in the shadows with one. Intentional or not, it might give that impression," he pointed out with an arched brow. "Here there are at least witnesses—not to mention half a dozen corners a chaperon could be hiding around the other side of."

---

He really fancied himself a gentleman from this encounter! The nerve. Her eyes narrowed again. Before this, Rowan was conflicted by the urge to tell him it was her — that he knew her, and she knew him — but the last of his speech struck a nerve with her and she decided to keep this one to herself. Whether out of spite or some other morbid curiosity, she didn't care to discover.

"I was not hiding!" she responded, outraged he would even think her capable of such impropriety. "I lost my broach and was simply searching for it when you came and so generously offered to help me look." Some help he was, apparating her outside instead of leading her inside where she had actually likely left her broach.

---

Ladies were supposed to act like this when a gentleman made accusations like that, he reminded himself, trying to keep a cheeky grin off his face. "Semantics," he said, with a quick glance down at her. They were approaching where he carriages had stopped, and he began to make a pointed effort to look at the ground as if searching for her brooch.

As they approached a horseless carriage (no doubt one of those newer ones that his Mama had been looking at earlier in the year) he spotted something shiny on the ground—not a brooch, but something worth noticing nonetheless.

"It's not it," he said, nodding towards the object on the ground, which now that they were closer looked like a pendant that once belonged on a necklace, "but I'd reckon it's more interesting."

---

Semantics? As he passed her, she gave his back an incredulous, open-mouthed look. "They are completely different things!" she exclaimed, outraged. Her glance went to the ground at his motioning and her eye caught the object lying on the ground. Someone must have dropped it, she figured, as she leaned in for a closer look. It was a pretty little thing, decorated with elegant engravings. It likely had gone with an equally elegant chain.

"Someone must have dropped it." she said, for it certainly wasn't the little broach they gave out to guests at the ball.

---