Epiphany |Scorpius Malfoy|

Chapter Twenty-One

The room seemed empty. There was nobody sitting on the bed, nobody standing beside the window, nobody warming their hands in front of the lit fire in the fireplace. If they looked around closely, though, they would see, in front of the mirror in between the bed and the desk the young woman had in order to study, the young woman herself standing there, not blinking as she looked at her reflection.

She was wearing a long dress that was hugging the curves of her upper body but fell on the ground without showing off her legs. She had made sure that the dress would not show the prosthetic at all. If anything, she had made sure that the dress showed hardly anything at all. Her arms were covered and the neckline was wide but it hardly showed anything beneath her collarbones. The colour of the dress was an incredibly light blue, the exact same shade of blue thin ice had. The only accessory she was wearing was a simple silver ring on the third finger of her right hand.

Her gaze was not on her dress though. Instead, she was examining her dark red lips and her eyes that seemed bigger than ever because of the light blue and silver eyeshadow she had applied on her eyelids. Her eyelashes were black instead of blonde, and she found it peculiar. She was not used to seeing herself like this.

Isabelle sent a small smile to her reflection as she raised her hands to her hair and parted it in two. She started braiding one part of it and then the other, humming lowly to herself as she did so. In the end, she connected both braids in the back of her head as she twisted them together so that it formed a bun. She smiled as she looked at her hair.

There was something about braids that she really loved, even if her mother had never really expressed a liking to them and she didn't have a grandma that would like her braids. At times, she had tried to find a reason why she liked braids so much, but after some thought, she had come to the conclusion that she just liked her hair styled like that. After some time, she had stopped bothering to explain her liking to the hairstyle.

Still humming, she made her way out of her room without bothering to take her wand with her. After all, she was going to be in a ball. She would hardly need a wand.

As she walked, she glanced down at her legs so as to make sure that nothing was visible. Reassured, she looked back up as she reached the door leading to her parents' bedroom. She stopped humming as she raised a hand to knock on the door.

"Maman? Papa?"

She knocked thrice and took a step back as she waited. Seconds later, the door opened, only to reveal her father, dressed in a black suit. As soon as he saw her, he sent her a wide smile.

"How elegant, how beautiful," he said as he placed a kiss on her cheek, "way better than your mother."

"Albert, I heard that."

Her mother left the bedroom, and Isabelle could not help but smile as she looked at her. She was wearing a long light pink dress that did suit her very much.

"Don't listen to him, maman," she smiled at her, "it looks nice."

"Thank you, chéri," she smiled back at her before raising an eyebrow at her father. "Shall we?"

"Well, considering we had been waiting for you-"

"You hadn't-"

"And you are now ready, we might as well shall."

The woman let out a sigh as her husband grinned at her before offering them both an arm. They grabbed the arm that was offered to them and a second later, they were apparating away.

Isabelle held on tightly, hoping that she would not fall and make a fool out of herself in the process. Her father's presence beside her was comforting, though, as she knew, if she needed anything, he would help her without hesitation.