Aurora liked to think of her life as one that, unlike seemingly everybody else nowadays, she did not want to re-live.
Sometimes, when she's lying awake at night, she likes to think that the fates, or God or whoever it was that planned out peoples li...
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Aurora stood before the mirror, pulling at the hem of her sleeves. She craned her neck, twisting her body so that she could see her side; she posed in strange positions, examining the way her body turned to ensure that she looked fine and wasn't going to make a fool of herself. She tugged nervously at her hair, adjusting the stray curls that lay loose against her forehead and repeatedly curling them around her finger, testing to see if they would stay in place. From behind her, Tinky appeared holding a hot chocolate, watching as she frowned at her reflection.
"Do not worry, mistress!" Tinky smiled, her ears flopping around her cheeks as she set the hot drink down besides Aurora, "Tinky has made sure that you look stun-ing! Tinky has done her very best, and Tinky has spied other dresses, and mistress Aurora's is the most beautiful!"
Aurora sighed, turning away from the mirror. "Thank you Tinky, I just can't help but think that I look a little pompous..."
"Oh Miss Aurora does not look pompous in the slightest! Tinky insists that she looks glam-or-ous!" Tinky had taken up the art of big words, but had not yet mastered pronunciation – she sounded out most of her phrases, and Aurora had bought her a spelled dictionary that sounded out the contents of each page as the reader read them. Tinky had not yet put the book down.
"I don't know," Aurora whispered, turning back to her reflection and tilting her head slightly as she allowed her eyes to rake over her figure, "Is it not too....much?"
Tinky shrugged, picking her book up again. "Tinky does not think so, but it is Mistress Aurora's choice! Master Regulus had Mistress Andromeda design the dress especially for Mistress Aurora to wear, though, and Tinky thinks it looks spec-tac-u-lar!"
Aurora regarded the house elf for a second, watching as her large eyes eagerly inhaled the content of the page she was reading. She smiled slightly – the briefest upturn of her lips – before going back to scrutinising her makeup.
The dress was gorgeous, Aurora couldn't lie. The emerald green suited her well, bringing out the mercury of her eyes and the black of her hair; she had a red lip on, originally, but had ended up wiping the scarlet lipstick of in fear that it didn't match or was too bold – Aurora had never had an eye for fashion, black was her forte. This dress was magnificently mortifying, her eye makeup felt too eye-catching and her feet ached even looking at her shoes. She wasn't sure if she could even dance – what if she tripped up over her skirt or broke her ankles trying to waltz wearing anything other than boots? The thought was terrifying.
Aurora gulped, glancing at the clock. She had half an hour until she was due to meet with Remy, but time seemed to work differently when one was stalling. It would take her ten minutes to get up to the Astronomy tower, fifteen with heels on, and as the clock ticked on Aurora realised just how nervous she was, the nerves washing over her like a tidal wave.
She bounced her leg up and down, sitting on her bed. Every five seconds her eyes would flicker up to scan the time, counting down the minutes until her impending doom. Those minutes soon turned into seconds, and those seconds turned into nothing; an alarm sounded from besides her. Aurora hesitantly switched it off.
