Tainted Love

Many Happy Returns

IRIS

Simon's parents had spared no expense. The ballroom was decked out with floating lights and ornate tables, chandeliers reflecting scraps of moon all over the walls. Floors so polished that the glots of partygoers could easily see their faces in them. Floor-to-ceiling windows, a wraparound balcony.

There was a stage, too, upon which a single table was set. Sadie and Simon sat in the middle, lording over the party with their usual love and joy. Celebrating their engagement.

"Finally!" People kept joking as they shook Simon's hand across the table.

The joke got old quickly in Iris's head, but Simon and Sadie laughed every time. Sadie rolled her eyes jovially, sometimes quipped back. They were in high spirits, willing to sit through millions of congratulations.

Iris was honored to have been asked to sit at the table with them, though she suspected they did it more out of pity than any real desire to have her third-wheeling their engagement party. She'd be lost in the crowd, small between the women in their tall heels and beautiful dresses.

She had bought a dress for the occasion, mostly because all the nice ones she already had reminded her of Draco in one way or another.

Simon and Sadie had their heads together, murmuring and smiling. Iris wasn't used to feeling like a third wheel with them. The two of them were together so often that when Iris joined them they didn't need to act like a couple. They could fall back into their roles as her friend.

Iris supposed that was too much to ask for at their engagement party. Gala. Soiree. She cast her eyes back out to the room.

A couple out on the balcony had been intertwined for the better part of twenty minutes. Iris had avoided looking at them out of respect, but their presence in her peripheral vision was too animated to ignore. Now she was studying them out of pure boredom.

She thought one or both of them must be secretly bored too. Otherwise, they would have progressed past simply making out by now.

Eyes back towards the crowd. A bunch of heads separated from their bodies, bobbing around aimlessly. She thought of the tanks where muggles submerge their feet and let fish bite all the dead skin off. All swimming around each other.

That sort of thing seemed cruel, but Iris supposed you can't force a fish to bite human feet. Maybe it was a choice. Something they liked. Or maybe it was just something to do other than swim around and bump into each other and say it's been so long.

"I might walk around," Iris said. The doors to the room hadn't closed in five minutes, busy absorbing the crowd as it flowed back and forth. Simon and Sadie turned to her expectantly.

"Give you some alone time at your engagement party." Iris smiled. Sadie laughed.

Sadie laughed. "Good. You look bored out of your mind."

"Here, look," Simon said conspiratorially, leaning towards Iris and pointing into the crowd. "Do you see the one with the brown suit?"

There were a couple of men in brown suits, but none near the part of the crowd that Simon was pointing to. Iris wondered whether he was drunk or whether her eyes had gotten terrible.

"That's Leo. You'll like him a lot," Simon grinned, assuming Iris's silence meant she was staring at the man. He clapped his hands together.

Sadie rolled her eyes fondly, mouthing something that Iris couldn't catch. She was usually better at interpreting Sadie's inaudible language. Her head was monotonous in the way it sometimes got when she was drinking. But she hadn't had a single drink tonight. Hadn't had one in a while.