SEA, SWALLOW ME, remus lupin

ochd air fichead, our last dance

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
our last dance

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AS THE BUTTERFLIES IN HER stomach grow unrelenting and cruel, Cove traces the grooves of her reflection with a scrutinising stare. The arch of her nose, the silk of her curls. She sizes herself up in the mirror and has to relish in the fact that the girl who stares back is not the same girl she had been at the beginning of Seventh Year.

   Sure, she has more or less the same face as she did a few months ago, but the subtle changes dappled here and there make a mountainous difference in her eyes. The brittle, bare skeleton of her character has been eroded by change, her skin toughened up by a thousand different factors that she had never even considered before. Though her softness hasn't been completely sanded down to the bone, it has been refined to chip away at the vulnerabilities that had once been a burden of hers.

Where there is now strength on her face, there was once weakness. She smiles softly at the thought.

The alarm clock in the corner of the dormitory flicks a minute closer to eight o'clock, the digits scarlet and flashing in her peripheral vision. She blinks the glare out of her eyes and focuses back on the task at hand, returning to reality so that she can fiddle about with her appearance and ignore the nerves eating away at her insides.

   One hand fiddles with her pearly earrings, the other coming up to daub at the smudges in her glossy lipstick. Freckles dimple the patches of her skin that aren't dotted with acne or scarred from her transformations, a welcome result of the recent summer sunlight. Her scars have been dressed up all pretty, her lids dusted with shimmery blue eyeshadow and her lips the colour of sea thrift. Tonight she feels beautiful, a true vision of glitter and gossamer.

   The teal fabric of her dress is satiny and slips over her skin like the smooth caress of water, pooling around her ankles in a way that reminds her of a loch's still surface. It has a pretty sweetheart neckline and thin straps that curl up over her shoulders, a small brooch of sea glass and crystal pinned along the front. Her heels are plain white things that she'd borrowed from her dorm mate, Jenny, her woven anklet poking out through the thin slit in her dress that reaches her lower thigh.

Her mousy curls have been twisted up and pinned atop her head with an ornate barrette from Cordelia, small pearls from her home waters woven into the neatly styled coils of her hair. Mary had used a glamour charm to support the thickness of Cove's hair so that it wouldn't come tumbling out, secured in place with magic in a way that wouldn't weigh down her head or unfurl the neat style she'd spent so much time on. Sometimes, she really doesn't know what she'd do without her friends.

Speaking of the devil — Fallon comes crashing into the dorm, strapping a heel over her ankle as she stumbles over the threshold. A thin gold necklace has been wound around her clavicles to match the rings on her fingers. Her gown is the colour of meadowsweet petals and has enchanted flowers sprawling over the skirts, a matching stole of satin bundled up in the crook of her elbows. The chestnut waves of her hair sprawl down her back, glossy and smooth in the flickering saffron hues of their dormitory.

"You look gorgeous," Cove gushes, rushing forward to clasp Fallon's hands in her own. The smile on her face is infectious and her cheeks are beginning to ache but no matter how hard she tries, she can't smother her giddiness.

"Says you, Vee," Fallon says. She squeezes her hands. "You're stunning. Blue is definitely your colour."

She fusses with the fabric of her skirt, smoothing it out against her legs. "You think?"