Does the punch taste.."funny"..to you? O.o..(Open)

[seb]

(this thread is open for any who would like to join..the more the merrier..don't get scared off because two or more are already posting in it.. read so you know whats up and jump on in XD )


Yeah his dress robes fit... 'to' well in his opinion. Sebs' finger reached up to hook behind the taunt strap of his black bow tie and he gave it a firm tug away from the side of his neck. His head tilted to the side a bit as he stretched and grimaced at its tight hold. That settled it.. formal wear was simply code for a non bloody form of torture. Though even that was up for debate, he certainly 'felt' as if the fully buttoned stiff white collar of his dress shirt might bite in deeply enough to coax out a few drops. Add to that the neatly tucked tails of it.. held straight and in place with a smooth black belt looped through the pressed black slacks covering his legs, and he was quite out of his element. Frowning he slipped on the formal black robes, thankful that unlike their shorter open fronted cousin, the tuxedo jacket, they hung down to his ankles and successfully covered the whole outfit save the collar of his shirt and that cursedly tight bow tie. He'd had to attend a few functions in his life out in the muggle world at the insistence of the center. Prized lab rats had to be shown off on occasion after all..especially once they decided to stop filling you with needles and started using you as a source of information instead. They had funding to keep up after all
and funders were impressed by flashy shows of how 'compassionate' and 'good' they were to the subjects in their care. But that was then.. not tonight.. he wouldn't think of that for now.

At present he was standing in front of a floor length mirror in the Room of Requirement.. having taken his robes to get ready for the dance there after accomplishing some..'work' ..he'd been due to send back 'home'. Letters that were a challenge in themselves to focus on as he'd been aware that the larger part of Gryffindor had headed out to the grounds for an all day snowball fight at the suggestion of Al Potter. Sometimes Seb had to wonder if his dorm mate realized just how much 'leadership character' he often displayed.. he doubted it if the blokes lack of confidence was anything to go on. Maybe it was a genetic thing..he was Harry Potters kid after all..leadership in the blood..all that rubbish. At any rate heading to the room earlier in the day had turned out to be for the best, even if he had missed a chance to peg Ada with a cold ball of fluff or two, seeing as he'd already heard the tell tale noises of disappointment on two occasions of others that knew of the room as they discovered it was currently occupied. Tuff luck for them. A mix of marrow-sweet and sage leaves burned in one corner of the room, he'd started the incense earlier in the afternoon because the scent it produce was know for helping with clarity of thought..something he knew to be true from practice and needed for what he'd been trying to get done . It's smoke curled up and about the confines of the room, permeating the fabric of his dress robes..impressing into their fresh lienin air his own unique and signature scent. Running a comb through his wavy brown locks he let them fall haphazardly at will, the stands naturally settling in a way about his head and face that was both messy and stylish at once. That done he turned and headed off from the room and out into the castle halls.

He moved down the flights of stairs.. at a rather casual pace.. sure he'd be a few minutes late.. maybe five..ten.. somewhere in that number.. wasn't a bad thing though. Really he wasn't big on attention.. not of the general, everybody stair and notice sort anyway. His taste in the social scene tended to lean towards warm giggling bodies in the darker and more secluded corners of the school. In fact he was likely to dance with many and leave with one of those warm bodies tonight. So why did he keep turning his thoughts back to the fact that 'his' best mate..Ada Williams would be attending this dance with her 'best mate' Damien Inglebee? And why did those thoughts bother him so damn bad? He had the pick of the school through those doors..or at least a large percentage of it.. Catching site of Al, apparently waiting on his date at the foot of the grand stair case, Potters comments on morals awhile back whispered naggingly in the back of his head and he shifted his lips into a deep frown. There was another mystery.. why did the boys comments keep coming back to plague him? Ada could give a care less what he did on his own time.. shed made it clear shed just prefer he not do it in front of her right? Wasn't like she had any interest in him at any rate.. her affections lay with that Inglebee bloke.. so much so that shed gone with him to this dance 'knowing' he planed to ditch her at some point into it. So why should he even waste the time to wonder what she might think of his extracurricular activities? He enjoyed them..that was all that should matter.

Slipping in through the doors his gaze traversed the scene and a brow rose.. smiling love sick faces.. nervous wall flowers.. over bearing and watchful chaperoning professors.. right. This needed work. Edging his way along the outskirts of the mass of people he followed the wall until he reached one of several punch bowls scattered about the room. its crystal basin glinting in the light reflected from the icicles hanging above and various other decorations adorning the hall. Glancing around he slipped a small bottle from the pocket of his slacks..elder berry wine.. true there wasn't much but it was some pretty potent stuff.. beyond that it wasn't like he was hoping to get every one fall down drunk..just... lighten the mood a little.. that was all. Re-pocketing the bottle he waved his wand over the bowl and murmured under his breath.. a charm to dodge content spells and conceal his little addition.. it was only one bowl.. not everyone would end up drinking from it. But those who did were in for a much more pleasant night in his opinion. Grinning he dipped himself out a glass and a spare as well and made his way to the wall, leaning back against it and sipping on his drink..the other held at his side. A very short time later a petite little blond Ravenclaw..rather pretty and a fifth year if he recalled correctly..Jane?..might be it.. sidled up to him with a knowing smirk and greeting.. ..Sebastian..who's the drink for handsome? He glanced down at her with a roguish grin and lifted the glass..."why you of course" The girl bit her lip and took the glass.. snaking her arm around his back and leaning in to flash him a rather suggestive expression with her brows and eyes.. Seb smirked.. right.. maybe tonight wouldn't turn out to be half bad...

[ada]

the hair the dress

.....baby i’ve been here before.....
I’VE SEEN THIS ROOM AND I'VE WALKED THIS FLOOR

Ada tried to tell herself that no one was going to care how she looked. They wouldn’t. Honestly, most people knew how she looked by now. And their opinion of her wasn’t going to change even if she did manage to find the perfect accessories or accomplish the miracle of fixing her hair. So she repeated that like a mantra as she got dressed. Not like it helped. She was still stupidly, unbearably fussy about her ensemble. Which was odd, because usually Ada was very low maintenance—she’d get dressed, run a brush through her hair, add a few randomly chosen accents, and then get out of the room. She wasn’t accustomed to so much preening. Maybe her roommates being all fluttery and squealy and girly had something to do with it—the mood was rubbing off on her and all. She sure hoped so—if she was permanently changing into a priss, she’d ask someone to put her out of her misery.

Earlier that month, Mel and Suze had sent her a package via Kitty, who also had an accompanying note explaining the mess of black fabric inside the neat wrapping. They’d found an old formal dress in a thrift shop for fifteen bucks, and they’d bought it in case Ada wanted to use it for the dance. Which was a good thing, because money was still tight at home. The bad thing was that the dress was mostly shapeless. And three sizes too big. It swamped Ada in sequined black drapes. Ada worked diligently at it for weeks, shortening the hem, taking in as much as she dared from the sides, and adding a little satiny belt for definition. The end result was rather pretty—a form-fitting dress of sheer black, draped and gathered over a bottom layer of gold. It was gathered at one shoulder, hugging Ada’s waist and hips before flaring out. The one thing that she was self-conscious about (besides the rich girl’s condescending glances at her project of a dress) was the fact that it had a very large slit up the side. All the way up to her hip, practically. Which showed just a tad more of her sheet-white leg than she had planned on. She’d worked on charming it closed, but the design looked weird when the slit was gone. All Ada had managed to do was close up a few inches at the top so that it only revealed up to mid-thigh.

But Ada planned on wearing it. She’d slipped into her black heels and tried to muster her confidence. Sure, she was wearing mascara for the first time in what felt like years. And sure, she was afraid to touch her hair after Rose had spent so long piling the thing into a loose curled bun at the back of her head and charming it repeatedly to make it stay. But was only Damien. He didn’t care—there was nothing to be nervous about. He’d probably be thinking about Vivi the whole time. But if she was being honest, it wasn’t Dey she was worried about. Or anyone else at the Yule Ball—just one guy. Seb. Who, coincidentally, wasn’t interested in her at all. And he was her friend, damn it. She should be treating him just like she did Dey. And she was trying. But it was harder than it sounded. She found herself fretting like a little girl over whether or not he’d think she looked good. Maybe the black was too stark against her washed-out coloring?

Too late to change anything, if it was. It was time to meet Dey, who looked nice in his dress robes and was a good date…for the first few minutes. Then he got distracted watching Vivi, and Ada sat and tried to figure out a way to drape her dress to hide her leg and mostly contented herself with watching both Vivi and Dey and giggling a little. Especially when Dey had suddenly lead Ada over a few feet, lowered his head to mutter that he was taking off, and proceeded to go out on the dance floor in Vivi’s general vicinity, which was when Ada stopped watching. She felt like she was intruding. So she turned her head away, and found herself looking right at Seb, who was only a little ways off, leaning against a wall.

And he was wearing dress robes.

And he looked damned good in them.

Ada found herself staring at him, and she was just thankful that her jaw wasn’t hanging open like an idiot. But she was sure her eyes were wide. And she was also sure that they got wider when some little girl walked over to him and threw herself all over him. Ada turned away. God. Some girls had no dignity. She shook her head. She shouldn’t even care—it was none of her business. None. But it was damn hard to remember that sometimes.

But she made herself take a breath, cool down. There was absolutely no reason for her to be angry or upset or anything like that. So she should get over all of it and act like a normal person. And if she was acting normal, it meant that she had to go over and talk to Seb, because that was what she’d normally do. Logic sucked sometimes. Ada turned and stepped towards Seb, making sure to walk carefully in her heels and long skirt so that she wouldn’t stumble. Luckily, she’d found out a way to walk so that her dress slit didn’t show as much skin. Ada flashed him a smile as she came closer. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything to the small girl at his side—she had nothing to say to her. Well, nothing nice, that is.

”Hey, Seb. Having fun? Actually, I bet this event is pretty tame for you.” She smirked a little. ”But maybe you’re going to grace us for a little while longer?”

[seb]

His eyes had been trained down on the girl at his side.. watching in satisfaction as she sipped at her drink and the arm that was draped across his lower back toyed with the fabric of his pressed robes. She would suffice well enough for a distraction right? A potential bit of good snogging later.. maybe even something a bit more if she encouraged things in that direction. So with a deffinate on his arm and a scattering of glances here and their about the hall from 'friends' admiring him in his robes and trying to show their own gowns in the best light.. why was he unable to truly enjoy the moment? Why with so much beauty about the hall, a fair amount of which was very 'touchable' for him..did he find his gaze pulled from the blond, whispering some rather tantalizing notions in his ear, to scour the floor for the tall head of another bloke of all things?

He knew the answer, but insisted to himself it was merely out of concern for one of the rare friends he'd acquired at school..a friend of the non snoggable sort that is.. the kind you actually took the time to hear rather than just listen to out of courtesy. Where ever Damien was..Ada would be there as well, to short to be seen clearly over the general crowd. Unless of course Damien had ditched her already. A glower crossed his features at the thought and he took a rather large swig of the punch in his hand.

He had a very small circle of such people in his life.. so small in fact that the deep inner part of that circle, people who went beyond friendly banter and jabs as he traded with Al in the dorms..or the brotherly like picking he occasionally tossed at the hotheaded little meta in their house.. consisted of only one individual. One individual who knew what lay beyond the cool and aloft mask he presented.. the only individual save his own parents when he was a child.. to have ever seen him shed tears. The one person that knew his heart lay trapped in a none to friendly place with people who could chose to harm her at any given moment if he fouled up.

He told himself these were the reasons he sought out the taller than average head of Damien Ingelbee on the floor, because he knew that his friend..his best friend would be shadowing the blokes side this evening. Stuck on the git she claimed was simply her best friend even though his preference apparently lay with another girl. Had he any right to be offended by the fact?.. Well, yeah..he did actually... sure he'd spent a fair amount of time him self with her these last weeks.. and yeah, he had his eye on err.. a 'few' others.. but the difference as far as he was concerned was that Ada had made it clear he was only a friend to her.. the girls he saw were just as much in it for a random snogging as he was... and 'he' had never drug her along to tag behind him when he set off with the intent to be snogging another girl.. yeah he'd invited her to the dance..on a whim..just as friends of course.. and had she taken him up on it he'd have held off on any other.. 'invitations'.. for the course of it.. seen to it she'd enjoyed herself. He'd not have taken her with the intent to dump her on the side lines first chance he was given. You just didn't bloody well do what this daft prat had planned!

His hand clutched his punch just a bit to tight as these thoughts tumbled through his head..and his gaze failed to pick out the head of brown hair it was searching for. He was clutching it so tightly in fact that when Ada's voice sounded in his ear.. only a few feet away and he glanced over at her, taking in a rather mature and form fitting gown, his fingers flexed involuntarily. The pressure sent his punch sloshing over the rim on his cup and a quite a few of the droplets managed to land on the pale blue dress of the girl at his side.
She gave a shriek and broke away at once..rubbing a hand hopelessly at the bright red spots only to smear them worse. Seb half turned to her to utter a vague apology but when the girl saw his attention was less than completely focused on her she waved him off in teary anger and stormed off through the crowd. Seb glanced after her and blanched.. realization that he hadn't shown the proper level of regret registering just a bit to late.. Turning to Ada again he looked a bit sheepish for a fraction of a moment before his mask was back in place and he was leaning back against the wall relaxed with his trade mark lopsided grin in place. His shoulders rose in a small shrug to her questions... " I might stick around for a bit... given the right incentives.." He left off at that..letting her make what she chose to of it. "So wheres you "date then? ... Has he ditched you already?.. dance has barley gotten started right? "

[ada]

Ada had to forcibly bite back a smirk as the girl that had attached herself to Seb’s side suffered the lovely consequences of being very, very close to someone else in a crowded room. The red splashes were pretty miniscule, all things considered, and could probably be removed with one simple spell. But the girl threw some kind of fit. It involved squealing and rubbing that only made things worse, and ended when Seb’s mumbled apology apparently didn’t live up to her expectations and she stormed away. It was only after she’d gone that Ada allowed a wicked grin to break out over her face. She knew she wasn’t being fair—Seb did look good in his dress robes, and girls weren’t crazy for wanting to be near him. Nor was it fair to condemn a girl for flipping shit about her dress—Ada might’ve done the same thing in that situation. Granted, with less squealing, less tears, and less storming off, but still. She couldn’t help being unfair, she just didn’t like the girl. That’s all there was to it.

Seb looked a little surprised as the girl made her dramatic exit, but he didn’t seem really upset about it. Huh. Interesting. The surprised part was understandable—guys never really seemed to get how attached girls were to their clothes. At least that was Ada’s experience. But the fact that Seb didn’t seem too torn up about his date or whatever that girl was to him just up and taking off…well, that was interesting. He looked sheepish for a second, but he didn’t look particularly mad or sad, and he made no move to follow her. And for some reason it was making Ada happy. Which was beyond ‘interesting’ and into the ‘weird’ classification. She should probably stop.

Her wicked grin had started to fade by the time Seb gave her a little shrug and told her he might stay. It almost disappeared completely as Seb made some suggestive comment about staying for the ‘incentives’ which Ada took to mean ‘the girls to snog’. But she managed to disguise its absence under a little smirk. ”Yeah? Well, it’s too bad, because it seems like one of your ‘incentives’ has gone off to sulk in a corner about spilled punch. I hope she wasn’t the ‘right’ one.” Her lips twisted up even further as she gestured loosely towards where the girl was now, talking animatedly to a few friends, still teary-eyed and upset.

Subject change. Apparently he was talking about Dey now. Ada shrugged one shoulder. ”I guess he’s out on the dance floor with Vivi. At least he was last time I checked.” She turned slightly, straining her neck to see over the crowd near the dance floor. After a few moments her efforts were rewarded, because she found her friend’s dark-haired head, sticking out over the majority of the people around him. She pointed towards him with a tiny smile of satisfaction. ”See? There he is. And I can’t see her, but I’d bet anything that Vivi’s still with him.”

She turned back towards Seb, glaring at a strand of hair that had just up and decided to fall down into her face. She delicately tucked it back into her bun, still frowning, silently daring the little piece of hair to try that again—it wouldn’t be pretty. Then she scoffed quietly. ”He didn’t ditch me. We had an understanding, I knew this was coming, it doesn’t bother me, et cetera.”

Dey had been a nice friend-date, but that’s all he was. She didn’t mind him leaving early because she understood that his heart was with the girl that he was infatuated with. And that wouldn’t change even if she’d forced him to spend the entirety of the dance with her, which she wouldn’t do because she honestly had zero objections to Dey liking someone else, or dancing with someone else, or making out with someone else. Granted, she wasn’t exactly fond of the girl he’d chosen for all this, but she had nothing against the concept in general. Which just went to show all the fans of the “Ada and Dey are secretly dating!” club that they were very, very mistaken. God knew that enough girls had approached her with that little conspiracy. Hell, some boys had too. As if a guy and a girl weren’t allowed to be friends unless they were playing tonsil hockey in secret.

[seb]

A light frown tugged at his lips as he glanced off in the direction of his recently departed arm candy. His caramel gaze taking in the girls blotchy tearful face as Ada commented on her. His gentleman like demeanor when it came to the treatment of girls veyed with his bad boy, don't really give a damn attitude for a moment, though in the end he'd shrugged off the bit of guilt that was nagging him to head over to her with a better worded apology. Instead his attention focused once again on Ada.

Ada.. who was now ribbing him about hoping he'd not ruined his chances with the 'right' one.. Ada who's eyes were being drawn into a rather cute near crossing as she warred with a loose stand of delicate blond hair in her face and nonchalantly mentioned where she 'thought' her date might be.

Seb scowled mentally, dark feelings crowding in on his mind again as Ada continued on about how she'd known Damien's plans when she'd agreed to go..how it was fine with her that he'd intended from the start to cast her aside practically on walking though the door. Ingelbee.. .. ruddy prat. his jaw stiffened as he thought on the other bloke though he didn't let it show. Ada might be playing it off as if she didn't mind but personally Seb thought it all an act.

His gaze flickered over to the punch bowl and he smirked a bit against the lip his cup as he took another sip. A professor was chatting just a bit to easily with a young Auror in the corner.. the Auror a young man probably in his twenties..was watching the animated expression of the young lady teacher far more than he was spending time surveying the room.. the bloke best watch it.. his departments head had an awfully lot of rather observant family here. His gaze caught on the dark and shaggy head of Al Potter and he and the young meta from their house headed in the direction of the punch. His smirk widened a bit.. the two had partaken of his little Christmas 'gift' without even realizing it.. they should be in for an interesting night. Chuckling silently he brought his focus back to Ada.

Lifting a brow he gave his head a jerk in the direction of the dance floor and leaned over to set his cup on a nearby table edge before offering an arm for her to take and a rather lopsided grin. "Alright then.. if your so 'fine' with it.. how about a dance right? Show me you can enjoy yourself with your attention focused on a different bloke for awhile.." He grinned" Purely for ruling out any disguised moping on your part at having been ditched of course. " A light smirk found its way to his lips and he locked his light brown gaze on her own waiting for an answer.