Chapter 30
After giving it serious thought, Draco could only conclude that they were on to him. Not, like, the worst people. Just, possibly, the people he considered his friends. It had Draco constantly on edge.
Would Luna be so bad? Obviously she could keep a secret. Also, she had solidly come down in the pro-Draco camp. However, she was the least predictable person Draco knew. He had the vague feeling she was one of the sorts who might reveal devastating facts about you if she thought it would be helpful.
Everyone knew George would be that bad. Draco didn’t know a single soul that trusted him. He delighted in pranks and had a long, convoluted plan to get revenge on the king for a slight that Draco didn’t think was that bad, especially compared to other things the king had done. Draco also suspected George was exceptionally needy. What with the way he’d invite himself over and commandeer spaces, people, and food for his own amusement. It was odd that no one complained about it. Not that Draco would. Draco was always a bit lonely, too. Yet, it was always possible that George would find someone else who’d be a better companion than Draco, and Draco couldn’t trust that wouldn’t be the end of his secrets.
It was a conundrum. For all the turmoil they’d cost him, Draco had loved the balls. He hated the experience only in that he had to compare every experience afterwards to it. They had given him a chance to live fearlessly. He cast off his old, stodgy clothes, and his lumpy, miserable persona, and stepped into a different world where he could be anything. He made fantasy come to life with couture clothing blending long outdated fashion with modern flair until it combined into something edgy and spectacular. At the ball, he could outshine everyone and no one would know they should resent him for it.
How could he show up like that again without giving it all away? Maybe there would be more people there, and it would be harder to distinguish him in a crowd. Except for the puzzle, which he suspected would only be clear to those who knew to look for it. How could he hide from that smaller group, many of which could now recognize Draco on sight? How could he conceal his voice from Luna and George, who he’d spent many an afternoon talking with?
Of course there was the alternative. Draco could show up as himself, for everyone to recognize, with his disguise being a perfectly appropriate fashionable suit and a perfectly appropriate thematic mask, neither of which would harken back to his previous magical adventures. It held none of the whimsy he desired, but in the end it might be enough to drive the lie home that he had never been to an equinox ball and he had never had a midnight tryst with the king.
How horrible that would be. Draco remembered the freedom of dancing that first night with dozens of costumed creatures, each of which let their guard down precisely because they didn’t know who he was. Did he dare compare exuberant anonymous dancing to what was certain to be a stilted formality should anyone know it was actually him? Would he want to wander into the costumed king, only to see the king close himself off when he realized exactly who Draco was? Draco could go so far as to imagine the king reverting back to the worst of their relationship. Sneering and insulting Draco on sight. It frightened him almost out of going at all.
Draco wallowed in his indecision.
Everyone saw he was struggling and sought to help. George offered jokes. Luna offered snacks. Andromeda offered an allowance to purchase a new outfit for the ball.
His mother sat next to him and didn’t offer anything but the comfort of her presence. She looked smaller than Draco remembered. In the last year her clothes had transformed back to respectable outfits, but it didn’t lessen the age she carried. Draco worried he had been too busy on silly things to spend the time with her she deserved. Narcissa didn’t seem worried about that at all. She sat silently with Draco, until he was ready to relax his fretting enough to distract himself with embroidery practice. Then Narcissa practiced her stitches with him. They sat in silent comradery for an entire day and Draco felt better for it after.
Before bed, Draco finally showed her the invitation.
Narcissa touched it reverently. She opened the card and read over the prose with careful scrutiny. “You’ll be visiting the observatory?” she asked, catching the clue at once. Draco imagined that’s how Luna had done it, an almost instinctual ability to spot what the invisible thing right in front of you.
“I suppose,” Draco said noncommittally. “I should dress for it. What out there in our vast universe represents me, mother? Perhaps something sinister, like a black hole. Is it too on the nose to tell them I’m there to suck up and destroy everything good?” It was self disparaging in the self-pitying and childish way that looked bad on anyone, especially Draco.
Draco’s mother cupped his face in her hands, horribly similar to how Andromeda had held him to give him strength when he cried. “You are everything good in this world,” she told him. “In the whole vast universe, there is nothing more precious than you. That is what you will show them.” For the first time in months Draco saw light and determination spark in his mother’s eyes. It lit a spark in him, too. He wanted to be the precious person she saw. More than that, he wanted everyone to see him as that person, the way he had made them do before.
But he also didn’t want to get caught. So he began to plan.
It started with lying to George, since George would think the black hole joke funny. George said it was so good he’d almost steal the idea for himself. He couldn’t though, since he was going as Castor, one half of the gemini constellation. “Who will be Pollux?” Draco asked about the other half. George laughed, then, too hard and not like the question was funny at all.
Next was a visit to Percy, who had to spend half an hour checking to see if he still even had his invitation to the ball. He found it, somewhat soiled, under a heap of trash in the kitchen he’d planned to dispose of that very evening. It was such a waste, but Draco also loved that Percy was the most predictable person he knew. Percy was kind enough to stay and read the letter with Draco.
Greetings from His Royal Highness Harry James Potter, who invites you to
A masquerade ball this fall equinox. This celebration will be
Located at his majesty’s castle and begins at the stroke of seven.
Let yourself enjoy a carefree evening of festivities. This
Event comes only two times a year. Individual invitations are
Required and should be carried with you throughout the evening.
You must dress to the theme: Our vast universe.
“Yours doesn’t even mention eligible gentlemen,” Draco wondered aloud as he reread the details again.
Percy actually snorted. “I should have known you were the sort to enjoy these games.”
“I have a heart of a child, that’s why the children love me,” Draco declared, while in his head he was spelling out the letters. “Gallery. This is for the gallery. I haven’t seen this one yet, can I keep it?”
Percy raised his eyebrows, not at Draco making a request so much as that the request was to take ownership of somewhat smelly garbage. “I don’t see why not.”
“Thank you, you’re a saint. This one has a different number, do you think that matters?”
“I’m sure you’re intended to spend a great deal of time wondering if that’s the case,” said Percy.
Draco made a face at him. “Puzzles are fun. You should know it, you like math! Or is it that math is just joyless puzzles and have ruined your taste for them?”
Percy thumbed his nose up at the joke. “I’m done with you,” he said before walking away. He called back from the hallway. “Did you want to borrow the book?”
To Percy’s great amusement, Draco hadn’t known about the book. It was enough that Draco needled him more for pretending not to like puzzles when clearly he liked them well enough when he was winning. They bickered amicably as Percy walked Draco to the drawing room and over to one of the book-filled shelves. He took out one Draco had never heard of, titled, “Our Vast Universe.”
Draco held the thick novel with growing excitement. “What’s it about?” he asked.
Percy looked up wistfully. “Getting lost, and using math to find your way home.” Draco whacked him with the book to stop him romanticizing over numbers.
Of course, Draco borrowed the book. He carried it as reverently as he did his new invitation. He doubted anyone else would go in with two clues! Draco wanted to make sure he went in with everything he could, so he took it a step forward and committed to reading.
Percy hadn’t been wrong, it was a book about getting lost. The protagonist was sent on a quest to save his kingdom. He captained a ship further than any ship had sailed before and traveled so far that the stars in the sky changed and he could no longer find home. The protagonist had to chart a new sky to navigate. The book was literally about discovering a whole hitherto unknown universe, but it was also about being a stranger in new lands. It was about the captain doing the best he could and that not being enough to stop his crew from suffering. It was about encountering new people you don’t understand and learning how sometimes you are the barbarian, instead of it being the other way around. It was about perseverance needed to finish the journey home. Of course, it also had plenty of math. Even the over abundance of complex equations didn’t stop Draco from loving it.
He held the finished book close to his chest and wondered, why this book? The king could have chosen anything but he decided on what Percy had assured him was an obscure novel. In fact, Percy only owned it because the king had once gifted it to him years ago. Draco felt in his bones that the reason behind the choice mattered.
Of course, Draco once again visited the attic. By now it was as familiar as an old friend and he knew exactly what he was looking for before he even entered.
His first stop was the beloved black chest. Draco’s fingers ghosted over its lid as he considered - was it possible? The king only knew Draco from the ball as a man in celestial masks. There was no way, absolutely no way, that the theme was connected. Draco told himself that over and over again, even as he pulled out the final mask of the trio, his ticket to transforming into an entire universe of undiscovered stars.