Roslyn Fisk had not tripped over the hem of her gown (lower, now that she was to be a debutante, than she was accustomed to), nor had she blundered her first dance of the evening, both of which the Hufflepuff had not only expected, but been mentally preparing for all day. She was not the first debutante Hogwarts had ever seen, not even the first from among her siblings, but still, this evening had her pulse far more atwitter than even her recently-concluded NEWTs had done.

She had three goals for the evening, and indeed, had written them down on the inside of the fan that now dangled from her wrist in case she should forget them:

— Number One: Remain until at least midnight, even though she had never much loved crowds—save for the crowd that was her family, of course.
— Number Two: Dance with at least three gentlemen, at least one of which was a viable option as a husband, for it would be mortifying to be ignored at her own debut, even one she shared with two dozen other girls.
— Number Three: Not spill punch upon her gown; white was truly an appalling colour to force upon young ladies suffering from any degree of nerves.

All perfectly reasonable. She hoped.

Ros had wondered more than half a dozen times that day if this was what she wanted and not just what her mother wanted for her. For herself, she did not need society, just a good man who would love her and build her a greenhouse and let her grow plants as they worked together to build a good family, if one that was markedly smaller than the Fisk brood. When she had voiced an edited version of this to her mother, of course, Delia had pointed out that society was the easiest place to meet a husband.

Uncharacteristically, Roslyn had not had an answer for that.

And so she stood, clad in white, not so near the dancefloor that anyone would be honour-bound to ask her to dance but not so far that she could be thought of as unsociable, thirsty but not daring to drink the punch for fear she might fail in her third objective for the evening, and keenly aware of the fact that it was only a quarter past nine. Last year, when she had attended, it had seemed so fun and exciting, but this year, the ball had a harsh gravity to it.

Indeed, Roslyn was so focused upon being perfect that she did not hear the gentleman speak to her until the poor fellow raised his voice.