May 26th, 1894 — Hogwarts Coming Out Ball

There really was no reason for them to be here tonight. Ford was married and no one thought of Noble as a proper bachelor yet, so they couldn't be here for the new debutantes. It would be poor form for his sisters, or any women who were already out, to be seen competing too hard against the newer ones tonight. The only reason to come tonight was that they had to start going to things sometime, at least if there was any hope of Clementine ever marrying, and they didn't have a wealth of invitations to choose from when deciding the best re-entry point. Everyone was invited to the Coming Out Ball, though, so it would have to do.

Grace had stayed home tonight complaining of a headache, but Ford supposed her real ailment was probably that she'd been listening too well to his dooms-saying about how uncomfortable the season would be for all of them this year. She may not have quite been ready to jump to a governess post, but he'd been wearing her down since he'd first brought the idea up in April, and now she seemed rather fretful about the idea of... well, most things, honestly. Hopefully this all worked out in the end — if he'd miscalculated, it was becoming a more expensive miscalculation by the day in terms of damage to Grace's self-esteem. But he didn't think there was much use feeling anxious about what he'd told her when it might very well be true; tonight would be the test of that. So he'd told Grace to try chamomile tea and sent her upstairs and left her at home. That meant when they arrived at the ball there were an excess of qualified chaperones to keep an eye on Clementine — which freed him up to keep an eye on Jemima.

He knew he had been to parties with her before, because he had some vague recollections of having danced with her at least once, but prior to the wedding Ford had never had any reason to really notice her. So he didn't know what was normal for her at a party like this. She looked nervous, but I've always hated crowds nervous or that confrontation nearly made me cry nervous? He hadn't been hanging close enough around her so far tonight to overhear any of her conversations, so he didn't know who she'd been talking to or if they'd been kind. Regardless, whether she always had a difficult time at parties or was only having a difficult time at this one, Ford was left with the impression that she was in need of rescue — and supposed that rescuing her was probably his job, if anyone's.

A few moments later he approached and presented her a bite-sized pastry from the refreshments table. He'd found her unengaged in conversation, which seemed to have been the case most of the times he'd looked her way tonight, though maybe he was wrong. "If this gets too unbearable," he said, expression flat, "I saw a coatroom on our way in."

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Jemima Greengrass & open to anyone who wants to be seen with them

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   Jemima Greengrass

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Set by Lady!

Jack was here. Why hadn’t she considered that Jack might have been here? They had first met here, years ago – he had not-asked her for a dance and then had been far too gracious about it, even with her a stammering, rambling mess.

It had been bad enough before she had noticed him – busy dancing with debutantes, of course he was, she had refused him and he had not written back – but now other people’s looks and whispers and every conversation that began with congratulations on her marriage (however sincere, however pointed) felt like pressing on a wound.

She had hoped that coming back into society at the start of a new season would be the fresh start they so desperately needed, for herself and her reputation and for the rest of the Greengrasses’, too; for February’s scandals to have faded in the face of... well, all these new faces. She had always imagined society would be fun as a married woman, with all the pressure gone and only friends to see. Maybe if she gave it time, she thought forlornly. She had danced much less tonight than she had as a debutante – bad form for gentlemen to dance with hussies, probably – and her real friends did not outnumber the false ones, no matter how she clung to them.

So she had been left adrift again – at least until Ford found her. He had brought her a pastry. Jemima found this absurdly touching. She could have kissed him just for that. There were perks to having a husband, she supposed, even one who had been threatened and coerced into the position. She took a bite of the pastry to stop herself spiralling again – and nearly choked on it at that comment, covering her mouth with a hand. The noise she made in her throat came out somewhere between a laugh and a sob – she had been teetering on the edge of hysteria either way – but Jemima let the die fall towards the former, since they were very much in public. She swallowed and lowered her hand again, a corner of her mouth twitching. Yes, this was unbearable; but at least that remark had finally dragged her from the torture chamber of her own mind. “I should say don’t remind anyone,” Jemima returned quietly, her faux-chastisement twisting into wryness, “but I don’t think anyone’s actually forgotten yet, so it probably couldn’t make things any worse.” Unless she had just received the worst of it, and he had been having a very different night.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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Tycho had to come to some social events and the coming out ball was always considered the kick-off. So here he was, dressed a little more somberly than he might have before everything in his life imploded. But he was also Tycho Dodonus so he didn't exactly blend in despite wearing more muted colors. He had cut his hair in a fit of pique simply because he knew Ford had loved his curls. He had decided to live with it a bit.

He had not noticed Ford and his wife at first but could not help but eavesdrop. He couldn't help shooting the pair a look at the mention of a coat room. He purposely brushed his arm against Ford as he passed them by, like anyone would when walking by someone in a crowded room. He was being petty, he knew it, but it was hard not to be.

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She'd laughed. Ford grinned, pleased with himself. Probably he ought to feel at least a little guilty about it (or at least the timing of it, since he'd nearly caused her to choke on her pastry from the looks of things) but he was so pleased to have correctly identified a way to break the tension she had been wearing in her shoulders that he couldn't quite manage it. He was happy to take her feigned chiding if it gave her something to do other than fret — he could probably even come up with another ridiculous comment or two, to keep the joke up long enough for her mood to fully shift. It was maybe a stretch to think she could enjoy the evening, surrounded as they were by people who didn't want them to, but maybe he could make it bearable, at least.

"We could always give them something else to talk about, I suppose," he returned lightly. "Dance too many times with each other, maybe?" It wasn't as if Ford had anyone else to dance with, with Grace at home. Clementine would rather drown in the punch bowl. He couldn't dance with Miss Chang anymore, and she had been his only other recurring dance partner before the wedding. He doubted any of these random debutantes would be much enthused if he asked them to dance, being both married and clouded in scandal.

"How many da—" he started, cutting off when someone clipped his arm. He glanced that direction automatically, though he was sure they hadn't done it on purpose or meant anything by it... only it wasn't someone, it was Tycho, and he almost certainly had done it on purpose and did mean something by it. Ford hadn't realized Ty was here tonight. He hadn't been looking for him, especially, because Tycho didn't have any special reason to care about the Hogwarts debut; no younger relatives, no interest (Ford assumed) in fresh debutantes. And he hadn't spotted him yet tonight, hadn't recognized him with his hair cut so short.

Ford had had his fingers tangled in Ty's hair two weeks ago. Something ugly and cold sprawled through his chest, and it took him longer than it should have to realize it was likely also showing on his face. He swallowed and pulled his eyes back from Tycho's retreating form. He blinked at Jemima once while he forced his features back to composure and tried to remember what he'd been saying.

"Dances," he continued; his tone had lost some of its levity though he was clearly still trying for it; the ghost of it remained. "How many do you think is too many, seven?"

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   Tycho Dodonus

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Set by Lady!

Jemima smiled at him properly at his response. She ought to be worried about making fun of society right in the midst of it, but it was difficult to when the worst had already happened to them, through no fault of their own. Well, not much fault; not in the way everyone thought.

(Now that she had fully grasped and properly experienced what everyone thought they had been doing, hidden away from the ball, Jemima could only think that most people in society must think she was much braver than she was. She could never have been so entirely fearless.)

Too many dances were much more reasonable, when it came to rule-breaking schemes, in jest or otherwise. Inappropriate, but only in a way that looked like they were grossly in love, perhaps – and she was fully aware that they were not, and that they both looked far from elated, but it was an awfully tempting thought, to imagine proving society wrong and seeming happy.

Her gaze had been angled at Ford, so she saw his expression falter before she registered the cause of it – another man, someone from society she didn’t quite recognise, shouldering past him. Jemima’s eyes followed the man’s back for a moment, trying to decide if he was going somewhere purposefully enough that he hadn’t noticed them in his path, or the brusque contact was his intended purpose.

She was watching Ford again, earnestly, by the time he looked back. He was trying to recover himself; Jemima knew the feeling of being cold-shouldered and rebuffed well enough (since the coatroom, but on multiple occasions in her youth, too; even just being at Hogwarts made it all resurface) not to see it mirrored now. So maybe he had been getting just as much judgement as she had, after all.

Jemima almost wished she had a pastry to present him with, but she wasn’t sure it would have worked in turn. “Seven is about four too many, I should think, but if we want to be outrageous...” she replied, trying to carry on smoothly to cheer him up, but she couldn’t keep the joking afloat for long. Curiosity or concern got the better of her. She softened her tone to make sure no one overheard them. “Does he – know you?”

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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Ford might have preferred for her not to have noticed, but he wasn't surprised that she had. At least when she brought it up her tone was kind and her voice was low. Even so the question was surreal; he had never expected anyone to ask him whether or not Tycho knew him, when they had been publicly all but inseparable for at least a year prior to the wedding. It was good that she'd spoken softly, because to anyone who did know him this question would have made it quite obvious that prior to their marriage Jemima really hadn't.

"That's Tycho Dodonus," Ford explained, assuming she would probably recognize the name at least. "He cut his hair," he added, as though this was the reason she might not have already put it together, though actually he didn't know whether she'd ever had occasion to meet him before or not. Ty hadn't seemed to know anything particular about her (though in fairness they had mostly avoided the subject of Jemima in the weeks leading up to the wedding, whenever they could).

Jemima would recognize the name, wouldn't she? Ford thought he must have mentioned Ty before — explaining where the suit for the wedding came from, or referencing some other story from his life before her; Tycho featured in many of his memories. Though now he couldn't recall whether he'd ever talked about Ty by name or only made references to a friend, so in case she was still at a loss he added, "My friend who couldn't make it to the wedding."

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   Tycho Dodonus

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Set by Lady!

The name was familiar, mostly from society – but Jemima wouldn’t have recognised him from so brief a glance, not with the apparent haircut he had had; the picture she had of Mr. Dodonus in her mind had been of an eccentric with wild curly hair. “Oh, of course,” she murmured, as if it had been obvious. She knew more of the man – a poet? a Seer? a general oddity? – by reputation than any personal interaction with him, but in an attempt to excuse her unfamiliarity, she added, “I thought he was usually – more colourful.” As far as she had heard, his fashions were usually distinctive from a distance. And Ford suggesting that he was a friend made even less sense for the way he had barged past without stopping to say a word to them. If it had been accidental, wouldn’t he have glanced back and noticed who it was? And if they were friends, whyever hadn’t he been able to come to the wedding?

A crease formed between her eyebrows.

“Maybe he didn’t realise it was you,” she said finally, in case Ford was upset. “Do you – want to go say hello?” He had come over to look out for her, she realised; but she would hardly stop him going to speak to his friend, if he wanted.

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Maybe he didn't realize it was you, she said. Ford looked at her a second with a slight frown, trying to work out what she was thinking. Obviously he knew Tycho knew exactly who he was; obviously Tycho had brushed his arm on purpose. For the moment, though, that mattered less than whatever Jemima's perception of the interaction had been. He'd have to figure out what to do about Tycho later, because there was nothing he could say to him in the middle of a public ball. Jemima, then — he'd come over here to rescue her as best he could, and now he felt as though the tides had turned on him, and as he did not particularly want her digging around for ways to make him feel better it would behoove him to find a way to turn the tides back again.

She was concerned, he guessed from the expression on her face. Worried that a friend of his was avoiding him, or at least that Ford thought he was. Probably she would have assumed this was the same sort of thing she was dealing with: rumors and gossip and false friends. Maybe she would imagine that Ford was feeling particularly discouraged by the loss of the friendship. It was a silly thing to imagine in their particular case, knowing as he did how little Tycho cared about anyone's reputation, but it was an easy enough conclusion to reach in the abstract, and there was no reason to suspect Jemima knew Tycho well enough to know better.

(Usually more colorful, she had said, but with the air of something she had heard more than an observation she had made herself. Tycho had said something about that the last time Ford had seen him, hadn't he? The world drained of color when they parted — quite a bitter irony for the same metaphor to have found it's way into both of their mouths).

Well, in any case, if she supposed him disappointed by something the best course of action was to pretend he wasn't disappointed at all, Ford decided. "No, I don't," he declared. He flashed a quick smile at her, trying for charming. "I want to dance with you. Three times, you said? Or were we going to be outrageous?"

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Set by Lady!

She supposed she should have been pleased when he changed the subject, back to cheering her up and asking her to dance – but Jemima wasn’t wholly convinced by it. Tycho Dodonus was supposedly one of his best friends, after all, and either they had fallen out and he was pretending not to be affected by it (badly; because he had frowned and now he was trying too hard), or everything was just fine and dandy between them.

Except when she had asked do you want to go say hello?, Jemima had half-imagined that he would say yes, and in fact insist she came along with him, to make proper, if belated, introductions. She had hoped, maybe, that his friends would become hers too, or at least sympathetic allies in a ballroom like this. But of course he didn’t want to introduce his close friends, his real friends, to her. He wanted his own life back, or at least to keep as much of it separate as he could now. She was a wife he had not wanted; she was an inconvenience to look out for, an anchor to drag him downwards. She was – feeling sorry for herself again. No one would think her happy if she didn’t try.

“Alright,” Jemima conceded, forcing herself to smile back – but she offered him her hand. “Why don’t we take it a dance at a time,” she suggested mildly, “and see when people start being shocked?” The only flaw in this was how to tell when they crossed the line of outrageous when Jemima was fairly sure there were countless beady eyes trained on them already. She lifted her chin slightly.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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Ford nodded. He would have agreed to anything at this point — who was he trying to preserve his reputation for at this point, anyway? He had already done as much damage to the family as he was likely to do; if people thought he was sickeningly in love with his wife it was hardly going to be any worse — but taking it a dance at a time sounded like an excellent course of action, because it would allow him to feel out whether his attempts to distract her enough to lift her spirits were working or not. Assuming he could stay focused on it, anyway — as he reached for her hand he caught himself glancing back in Tycho's direction once, but he had already disappeared into the crowd. Good, he decided; less reason to keep an eye on his direction. Maybe he'd gone outside or even left the event entirely. Presumably he wasn't going to follow them to the dance floor and try to shoulder-check Ford again, at any rate, so there was no reason to pay him any attention.

Tycho wouldn't have wanted to make a scene, Ford didn't think — he'd just wanted Ford to know that he was here, that he was near enough to see Ford trying to be charming for his wife. It wasn't fair for Ty to be judgemental of this — wasn't fair to Jemima, who had done nothing to Tycho except having the audacity to exist, and did not deserve to be miserable for that crime alone. Ford was very aware that one couldn't reason oneself out of feelings, and he understood why Tycho would have been upset. He remembered how irrationally angry he'd been when he'd spotted Tycho hugging someone else in the weeks leading up to the wedding — and that wasn't even someone Ty had been sleeping with, so he had even less grounds than Tycho did to feel resentful. But it still seemed rather selfish for Ty to have intruded on the situation and made his angst their problem, made it the centerpiece of this interaction Ford was supposed to have been having with his wife — and Ford suspected maybe cutting his hair had been a maneuver meant to upset him, too. Well, if Tycho wanted to be provocative — if he wanted to throw salt towards a wound — Ford could do that, too.

"Which dance is this?" he asked Jemima, tone still forcibly bright. He hadn't been paying enough attention to the music to know. "Which dances are your favorites? If you don't like the next one we could kill some time," he offered. He didn't have specific plans here, but little snippets of things were occurring to him — disappearing from the party long enough to walk across the lawns might have given Tycho a well-deserved surge of anxiety, or he could fetch them glasses of champagne and make silly toasts for just the pair of them — something to telegraph to anyone who happened to be watching that they were delightfully happy together.

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Set by Lady!

The brighter he was – the more he seemed to be expressly catering to her whims, as if she were some difficult child – the worse she felt, suddenly. Because this was what she had always dreamed her husband would be. Because in the end, she hadn’t earned that, and if Ford was trying to be that husband, it was at least half, maybe more, for appearances’ sakes. He had glanced back; he wasn’t as impervious to whatever had happened back there as he was pretending to be. And the question of her favourite dances felt oddly mercenary, somehow: or maybe she was mourning the fact that her imaginary-husband would have known all these little details about her already. That she was fond of the quadrille, enjoyed the waltz and a polka, found the galop a little dull and the mazurka difficult.

“It’s the polka now,” she informed him, after a glance at the dancers and her (scarce used) dance card. “And a waltz next. But we can do whatever you like,” Jemima said, feeling a little flustered by his attention, or by that reminder that people were watching them, and judging them, and – resenting them, or whatever else. She felt the anxiety climb suddenly in her chest, which made her want fresh air, which only reminded her of the cloakroom incident again, in some terrible spiral about her choices and her fate. “You don’t need to – look after me,” she protested quietly, for want of a better phrase.

The pastry had been enough of a gesture: she had fallen for that one completely, and could cling to that. But she was starting to think that coming tonight had, on the whole, been a bad idea.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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Ford had turned his attention with determination to the polka and the waltz; she hadn't answered the question about which was her favorite, but also hadn't indicated that she didn't want to dance them, so he supposed she liked these. He wasn't an excellent dancer (or at least he never would have claimed to be), but he knew the steps and could make it an enjoyable enough experience for the pair of them. There was the question of whether it was better to start at the edge of the dance floor or nearer the center — either had a risk, the edge of making it seem they were content to cling to the outskirts of society and be ignored by anyone who considered themselves too respectable, the center of being criticized for forcing themselves into the middle of things when really this night had nothing to do with either of them and they had no business taking up anyone's attention. With this conundrum on his mind, her soft protest caught him off guard.

"What?" he said immediately, as though he hadn't heard. Maybe he had misheard, because what she had said — he didn't need to look after her — was simply not true. What was he meant to be doing as her husband, if not looking after her? There were other things in the vows — love and cherish and honor — but really the main underpinning of the whole thing was that he was meant to look after her. And who else was meant to do it, if not him? No, it was his responsibility — so he could only interpret this comment from her to mean that she didn't want him to. That suffering through this ball alone was preferable to having him trying to look after her. He deflated at the thought.

"Oh," he said, crestfallen.

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   Jemima Greengrass

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Set by Lady!

He looked almost hurt, and she didn’t know why – she was trying to be considerate to him. To take care of herself, and let him have some freedom left. Did men even like dancing, really? They certainly did it, when they were courting and looking to marry – but most older couples seemed to only dance when the men were dragged out by their wives. Ford had suggested it to prove a point to society, that was all – and though she genuinely liked to dance, there was no chance she could enjoy herself in a dance that he was trapped in for appearances’ sake.

But she felt a pang at his face and that oh, and blinked rapidly, trying to quell – some emotion. “I – just need a little air before we dance,” she said decisively. She would give herself time to pull herself together without all of society watching, and then she would face the rest of the night, and dance as many times as he wanted to in perfect good humour. “See the grounds, for a bit. You can come too, if you’d like to,” she allowed quickly, feeling obliged to give him the choice; but at least she knew the Hogwarts grounds as well as anyone else, and he wouldn’t need to worry that she would get into a state in the coatroom this time – “but I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

At least the Coming Out Ball came around every year, and invitations were not exclusive. It would surely be a better time next year.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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She just needed a little air, she said — meaning a little time away from the party, that was plain enough. And though she had offered to let him come along with her on her walk around the grounds, it rang with obligation; she did not really want his company. When she said she needed to get away from all of this, Ford was very much included in the this, he felt certain — which meant there had really been no point in coming over here in the first place. He'd wanted to distract her, or cheer her, maybe even rescue her — instead he was just another thing to be endured.

"No, it's fine," he said hastily, with a forced smile. "Enjoy your walk."

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   Elias Grimstone

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Set by Lady!