May 15th, 1895 — House of Lytton, London

Though she had been at her aunt's now for a week, Eury was not quite recovered from the arduous journey from India—at least, that was what she had tried to claim. Apparently, it was impossible for her to simply reuse her wadrobe from the previous Season this year, and while her aunt was truly generous to be furnishing her with a new parade of dresses, shoes, hats, and underthings, actually visiting the fashion house was an exhausting experience.

(The Modiste Rose or one of the other Hogsmeade shops surely would have been less arduous, but all were inundated with orders for the upcoming Hogwarts ball, she had been told.)

Eury had, it seemed, been abandoned: the seamstress had gone off to show her aunt some fabrics, leaving the ersatz debutante on the podium, the pins of her half-finished ballgown stabbing her seemingly every time she breathed, for an inordinate amount of time. After waiting longer than she cared to for their return, the blonde gave a small sigh, gathered up her skirts, and sort of... waddled her way back to the seating area. In retrospect, it was rather unwise for her to sit given the dress's state, but sit she did, an action that prompted three things in quick succession: a tear in the too-tight fabric around her hips, a sharp stab from a pin into her bosom, and a curse word of frustration leaping, surrpisingly unedited, from her tongue.

  

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Although she often bemoaned many of society's trappings, Sina liked looking good, and dresses were an excellent way to do that. Now that she was The Minister's Wife, it was particularly important that she be on the frontlines of fashion. So: The House of Lytton, where she could luckily avoid many of the new debutantes or their Mamas.

Sina was investigating some of the fabrics when she heard the young woman curse. She abandoned her fabrics and turned to look at the girl in the seating area.

She quirked an eyebrow at the younger woman. "Are you quite all right?" she asked, although based on the state of the girl the answer would probably be no.

  

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set by MJ

The woman was Indian. That was not, in and of itself, a surprise—the sort of migration that saw Eury's family relocate to Calcutta did, in fact, go both ways. It did mean, though, that it did not take Eurydice long to parse the woman's identity; though they had not been introduced, and the blonde did not think they had even been to the same parties, her aunt had shown her Thomasina Dempsey's photograph in some newspaper or magazine, and the young witch had long had a memory for faces.

It was not, strictly speaking, the most useful information in this moment; without any semblance of introduction, it was decidedly unuseful. It did, however, make her predicament rather more stressful as she realized what she must look like, half-dressed and cursing, and having slightly wrenched the offending pin away from her (somewhat generous) bosom on a reflex. Quickly, she came up with something vageuly sensible to offer by way of explanation.

"You're the Minister's wife!"

She did not say it. Merlin, Eury wished she had said it. Alas, no; instead, she had exclaimed it.

  

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Sina had expected a negative answer, or some obvious lying, but she had not expected to be exclaimed at. Was this young woman... simple? Now both of Sina's eyebrows were raised, and she pursed her lips at the girl. (That this was not the first time she'd found a distressed young woman half-dressed had not yet occurred to her, but at least there was no hapless gentleman attached to the blonde, as there had been with Miss Farley.)

"Yes," Sina said, tone somewhat impatient, "And you're rather loud."

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Eurydice's condition was treated in the same fashion as her sister's lack of magic: it wasn't shameful (something her aunt really hammered down on, enough that Eury wondered if she was overcompensating for the fact that it was), but it was... best omitted from any conversation, danced around as much as possible. Usually, this meant that the witch was written off as a bit slow-witted—a label that embarrassed her to no end, but did not require any further explanation.

This was different.

It did not matter who Mrs. Dempsey's husband was, not to Eury, but it did matter that the woman had all but called her rude.

Stupid? Fine.

Ill-mannered? Unacceptable.

Eury, however, had limited wiggle-room here. Even if her affliction would allow it, she could not rightly explain herself to someone who was so prominently in society's eye (even if the woman was... peculiar), but there was little else for it. Unless...

"Apologies," she offered in accented Hindi. Perhaps the bangle she had so foolishly adorned herself with, all those years ago, resented England's colonial presence in India, perhaps Eury was just likely, but speaking outside her native tongue often bore less horrific results. Of coruse, there was no small risk that the matron did not even speak Hindi—India was home to myriad languages, and Thomasina Dempsey may never have had cause to learn any of them. Still, it was worth a try, potential with which Eury was not often faced.

"I am not myself at the moment."

Was she ever, truly—in person, rather than on paper?

  

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