28th May, 1895 — Hogwarts Coming Out Ball

Theo hadn’t minded the thought of coming to the Hogwarts Coming Out Ball, because for him it was mostly a place to talk to the potential quidditch players graduating or still at school – and it was always nice to have a purpose at a social event, beyond counting down the hours. Besides, it was always fun to see the castle again: Theo suspected the nostalgia of it alone was why most of society who didn’t have relatives descending the staircase tonight actually came.

Seeing the castle again wasn’t the only thing that had made him feel old though – tonight it had been the number of introductions he had been making with families of the new debutantes (and the amount of dutiful dance-card-inscribing following). It hadn’t been half so bad last year, he was sure – so Theo was beginning to worry people would actually start thinking he was mature enough to be eligible.

So – for once – he had already been quite sociable enough by the time in the evening he first found a chance to escape from the Great Hall. He stepped out of the grand oak doors of the entrance hall into the fresh air, though he couldn’t be bothered to go far – it was a good enough view from here, so he stretched out his legs and settled down on one of the stone steps at the start of the paths into the grounds. He had a drink with him, and he wasn’t the only one milling about outside for some air – but Theo had been minding his own business until he saw a familiar face come out here.

“Miss Hunniford,” he said brightly, with a brief smile hello. He didn’t know her that well, but they had made enough regular small talk at enough society events that she felt like a friend – and they were close enough in age that she certainly wouldn’t think him marriageable. “Please tell me you have a space left on your dance card for me,” he entreated, not-actually-joking. They had suffered that night-of-the-many-dances together, after all; one dance tonight would feel like a breeze. “I could use the reprieve.”

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Rosalie Hunniford

  

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Attending the Coming Out Ball as a woman on the cusp of being labeled a spinster was a discomforting experience. The girls — no, women — looked more like children to her than adults ready to commit to the domestic life of marriage and children. They were all perfectly poised and beautiful but they were all so woefully inexperienced.

Would it have been so wrong to allow them a few more years of childhood before thrusting the misery of adulthood upon them?

She wandered throughout the great hall with a glass of champagne in hand, chatting with old friends and new acquaintances alike. Everyone was gushing over the fresh crop of debutantes, of the season to come and what matches might be made. And still, Rosalie continued flitting about like she too believed in the magic of the evening. Like they weren't shepherding these women to a life of heartbreaks.

The melachony she was struggling to suppress soon roared its ugly head as she caught sight of Ezra from across the floor and, despite resolving herself to no longer agonize over that particular loss, she stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. She kept her pace and expression calm as she walked down the stairs towards one of the more well lit paths. Five minutes, Rosalie would permit herself five minutes to settle her emotions before heading back in.

By the end of the five minutes, Rosalie was calmer but no less morose as she carefully walked the steps back up to the Great Hall. Her neutral expression quickly drew up into a smile though at the sight of Mr. Gallivan. His was the first face she was genuinely delighted to see this evening, for though they weren't great friends they were well acquainted enough for her to view him as a reprieve from the polite society talk.

"Please," she answered with a grin, extending him her dance card once she'd paused a few steps below his seated frame. Her card was mostly empty — an intentional effort on her part to not be compared against the shining crop of young women. "Have you had to field many offers already?"

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stunning set by Lady <3

He scribbled his name on a dance in a few sets from now, trying to hazard when his second-wind-of-patience when he went back in might have evaporated (and briefly wondered if he could get away with pretending he had engaged her in a second dance, to use her name as an alibi to fill another of his spaces).

Her dance card wasn’t very full – maybe she had been outside for quite a while already. He wondered why. It seemed like she had been wandering alone; but then maybe she had been with someone and they had only just parted ways. In any case, Miss Hunniford’s smile suggested she was still in decent spirits.

He didn’t get up yet, in case maybe she could spare another minute to sit. “Oh, you know,” Theo said, with a wry smile in answer, meaning, yes, I've been corralled into a few, “I think tonight’s newest debutantes might suppose a single empty space on their first dance card signals their doom in society forever, so they’re determined to dance every set through.” Something like that. Or they didn’t know enough people to be picky with their partners, or maybe it was just excitement for their first adult ball; either way, Theo expected they would regret it tomorrow when their feet were dead and sore, and probably their heads pounding from too much champagne too. Who knew – the Coming Out Ball had been much less pressing, for the seventh year boys.

“Did you go straight into healing when you graduated?” Theo asked Miss Hunniford, curious. She was a healer now, obviously, but she may well have done a couple of seasons first before taking up a career.

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Her feet ached to sit beside him, but she didn't want to rumple her skirts or deal with the unpleasantness of her corset stabbing into the underside of her breasts. The too-tight laces served as yet another reminder as to why Rosalie could no longer live at home: her mother lived to torture her. Still, she gave no indications of hurrying away once his name was placed on her card. Talking to him would likely be the brightest light of her evening.

"They do face a decent amount of competition," she conceded. "There are only so many eligible bachelors and a great many of unwed women to contend with. You're kind to indulge them." There was, after all, a great amount of men who would have insisted upon skipping a set for their own benefit. And while Mr. Gallivan was obviously doing just that, she didn't see him as the sort to sit out many dances.

"Oh, no." She was vaguely surprised he didn't already know her tale, most in their sphere where at least aware of her failed engagement. Then again, perhaps it was only those who were actively engaging with the season at that time that knew her story. After all, why should Mr. Gallivan have cared at all about society news back then when he wasn't yet allowed to truly partake in it? It wasn't as though he would've been expected to marry at eighteen.

Unlike the poor young ladies who had debuted tonight.

She finally sank onto the step beside him, an appropriate distance away to ensure no negative gossip would spread. "I went into healing in 1890, two years after I graduated." Explaining her situation never became easier no matter how many times she told the tale. She knew now to provide the least amount of detail possible, to avoid anything sounding like remorse, to shove those dredged up feelings as far down as they could go, and still she couldn't stop the wave of anxiety and heartbreak that washed through her at the words.

There was nothing to be done for it though. There were no time turners, no way of altering past mistakes. Her only course of action was to jump over the wave and pray her leap was high enough.

She tapped her nails on the stem of her glass for a moment before turning her attention back to him. "I was engaged once upon a time. When it ended ... well, I think you can guess what I did when it ended." Rosalie concluded with a short laugh before swallowing it down with a sip of champagne. "And you? Did you always dream of owning a quidditch team?"

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   Theodore Gallivan

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stunning set by Lady <3

Theo shot her a rueful smile to say well, not that kind – because he was out here, wasn’t he, and pleading for dances with women in the wrong age bracket. But he supposed to himself that he was better than he had used to be: trying for other people’s sakes, nowadays, when in other years he might have been too lost to his own moping or frustrations to care.

And he was genuinely interested in Miss Hunniford’s history, too, now – and he had heard people talk of her almost marrying once, but Theo hadn’t paid enough attention at the time to remember anything of the circumstances, and it was not something he would have addressed point-blank, in case she hadn’t wanted to talk about it. (She had been in love, he knew: she had been out of sorts, that Valentine’s day.) To give her an easy escape route, if she didn’t.

But she had sat down on the step, which almost gave her statement about going into healing a sinking weight to it, a feeling of surrender (almost like that had been an escape route, too). Theo grimaced in sympathy, a wordless I’m sorry about her engagement – but he could guess exactly how it had felt when it had ended, and he had to hand it to her. “I don’t know, I think becoming a healer is more impressive than anything I would’ve done –” Theo offered, with a small shrug. More productive than wallowing in sadness and self-destruction, for sure.

And he had to laugh at her question in turn – as if the only reason he’d ended up in quidditch wasn’t a family tragedy. “And no. I wanted to be an auror.” It was kind of her to give him the benefit of the doubt; but then, she would have been busy debuting when his life had fallen apart in turn. “The quidditch was – a change of plans.”

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   Rosalie Hunniford

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Accepting his praise felt wrong when she knew she hadn't gone into the profession with the same noble intentions as most other healers. For her, the sense of accomplishment when she successfully helped others was secondary to the freedom such an occupation provided her. The Hunnifords weren't so far from the 'proper' path that they would have allowed her to follow her passion into academia. That they'd permitted her to become a healer at all was a miracle in itself, so when she laid suffocating in the bedroom that had been hers her entire life but was hers no longer, Rosalie had chosen the only escape she could fathom: healing.

The endlessly long hours were a help too in the early days of her split, as they provided limitless distractions from the aching wound inside her heart. There was always another patient to see, another case to study, another exam to pass. And, as the time dragged on, healing others had become important, too.

However, to voice as much whilst surrounded by so many was a treacherous idea, and so Rosalie briefly nodded her thanks before hiding that too in her glass of champagne. Perhaps some day she would reveal the entirety of her motivations to him, at a Halloween ball next time. Strangely enough, Rosalie almost hoped that opportunity would come to fruition.

"Do you think you're happier because of it?" His change of plans were obviously as unintentional as her own, but there had to be a silver lining in the clouds somewhere, right? The world couldn't have ceased to spin for them both so that they lived solely in misery, for fate wasn't meant to be that cruel.

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stunning set by Lady <3

She didn’t say anything self-deprecating about her healing career, but he could almost sense her downbeat thoughts in the silence. Maybe it was a good thing, though, that she wasn’t all bright sides and beatific smiles – or, rather, maybe he just liked her better for it, because it meant he understood Miss Hunniford more than he might have, otherwise.

She did seem in want of cheering up, though, or some uplifting (and she had really chosen the wrong person for that, but – well, Theo would try?). “Well, I –” Theo blew out a breath, wanting to be honest but not sure he had a good answer for it. “Ups and downs, you know, but – yeah, maybe it was for the best?” Would he have been any happier as an Auror, in some high-stakes career? Would he have been any happier if his father had still been here, worrying them, witnessing Theo’s every move and probable fuck-up just the same? And his life might have been easier, less fraught and complicated, if he hadn’t ended up getting to know Cash when he had... but then, he would be an entirely different person, and he wouldn’t have Cash.

He could feel his expression getting faraway, a little distant and introspective, at that, and so he pulled himself out of it enough to look at Miss Hunniford again, with a small, furtive smile. “I didn’t want any of it – but it all worked out in ways I didn’t expect it to.” So yes, maybe he was happier, and he wouldn’t take anything back: he was certainly more at peace with his life now than he had been just a few years ago. He tilted his head at her. “Are you? Happy now?” She might reason out that she was in her answer, but Theo wasn’t sure she seemed it, particularly.

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Not wanting any of it was a sentiment Rosalie understood with tragic clarity. Much of her life had been guided thus far by choices made during the midst of grief, leaving her bereft and unsure of every step. She hadn't wanted any of it — not Ambrose's death or Ezra's curse — but, like Mr. Gallivan, Rosalie desperately hoped she was better for it. Stronger, maybe. At the very least, she prayed she was a more independent woman than the ditzy debutantes back inside.

"I'm trying to be." Rosalie admitted, her distant gaze focusing on him once more as she offered a small, sad smile. "It's difficult sometimes, what with the ups and downs, but I would like to feel happiness again."

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stunning set by Lady <3

Theo wasn’t entirely used to being the comparatively happy one, and he sensed Miss Hunniford had a ways to go to get there, but – there was a seed of it there already, which was a good sign. She was trying. “Trying’s half the battle, sometimes,” he admitted – getting his head around the will to try had been almost the hardest part – and raised his half-drunk glass up to toast her dryly in the attempt.

“You will,” he added, in a lower, more sincere tone. Feel happiness again. “I promise you will. And I’m not an optimist by nature, so you just have to trust me on that,” he joked, shooting her a swift smile back. “Or you can tell me if there’s anything I can do to help.”

There wouldn’t be, he imagined, and he hardly knew what her picture of future happiness looked like for her now – he wasn’t sure she had decided yet that either – but hopefully the offer itself at least might count for something.

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"More than half, I think." If the trip into misery and depression was a tumble down a hill, the returning climb towards joy was equivalent to scaling a mountain. Each step upwards posed another risk of falling again, each handhold threatened to crumble beneath her grip. Remaining in the dark, in her misery and depression, was easy, comfortable even. She knew her surroundings here, understood how to function within this world as she was. The simple act of deciding to rise meant she had to once again question everyone and everything. More than that, Rosalie had to somehow open herself up to another potential devastating heartbreak.

Rosalie didn't have it within herself to think further upon that at present.

Her expression softened at his optimism. Mr. Gallivan hadn't ever been anything but kind to her and she had no cause to distrust him. Trying. Trusting him on this was trying, which was more than half the battle. "Okay. I will take your word on it." She consented. Then, a beat later she added, "for now, would you dance with me? Save us both the headache of having to interact with those we don't know?"

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stunning set by Lady <3