Nostalgia

[Benjamin Twemlove]

Benjamin had pondered whether or not to attend the Masquerade Ball before ultimate deciding to do so. It had been quite a while since he had last been in his alma mater - well, the exterior of it anyway. He thought he could see the hoops of the Quidditch Pitch in the distance and he would be lying if he said it didn't make him at least a trifle nostalgic.

Costumes were required which had been a major con but Benjamin had followed through and was dressed like a prince. It was the easiest he could come up with that wouldn't make him want to put his wand to his head. Despite his reluctance, he had paid close attention to detail - he still needed to look good, after all - so he looked very royal indeed as he wandered through the event.

  

[Thom Pettigrew]

Thom didn't have the time to put much thought into a costume, what with the wedding coming up and business being what it was. He'd left the shopping in the hands of his mother and Andromache, and they had somehow come up with a elaborate black and gold mask, which was how he'd ended up costumed as a bull. There wasn't really much more to his costume besides the mask, really; he was wearing the same dark suit he typically wore to balls, with small gold buttons and cufflinks. The only additional pieces were a short tail, which hung from his waistline beneath his coat down to around the back of his knees, and a pair of down-turned, bell-like black ears, which protruded from his unruly brunette hair.

He'd lost track of Hannah in the crowd, as well as the rest of the fairly large party he'd come with. He hoped Hannah was enjoying herself. He'd wandered if it was even sensible for them to come, the wedding being so close, but it might do her some good to get her mind off it it for a night. The details were all sorted by this point, and if they weren't, there was hardly anything to be done about it now.

People were wandering by dressed as all sorts of amusing things, but Thom wasn't finding anyone he recognized--or anyone he recognized in costume, anyway. He thought maybe he'd track down Phineas, but as he spotted his friend (dressed in nothing but his normal attire, which Thom wished he could have gotten away with) he noticed that Ursula was standing next to him. That was a conversation for another time. He turned almost a hundred and eighty degrees around, not wanting to be spotted by either of them and drawn into a conversation (not that he didn't enjoy both of their company, but he didn't want to talk to Ursula mere days before his wedding), and, in the process, nearly ran right into another gentleman, who was dressed as a prince.

"Oh, pardon me," Thom said, stepping back. "There was just the most frightful smell in that direction," he lied, making up an excuse for his abrupt about-face. "I think someone might have taken their costume as a corpse a little too seriously. I'll be headed this way, now," he said, raising his eyebrows and pushing his lips together in a can you believe some people? sort of expression.

  

[Benjamin Twemlove]

Benjamin hadn't quite expected to be run into by another man. He wasn't quite sure he believed the man but then again, what need would the man have to lie? It wasn't like they knew each other as far as Benjamin could tell. The fact that they were both masked could be a factor in that but Benjamin was generally good at placing voices he had heard before to faces that went with them.

"That's quite all right. I hope whoever it was find their odious attire worth it," Benjamin said instead, personally finding the idea of someone making themselves smell bad on purpose to be rather disgusting. The other man had taken a sensible stance in his clothing, at least.