No Longer

Nighthowlers and Orchids

**Era Damon White

Era stood in front of the floor to ceiling mirrors and inspected his appearance. His dusky honey gold skin looked beautiful paired with his billowy, artfully cut red leather robes. His hair appeared as such a dark brown it was nearly black, and the gently tousled waves looked soft and silky under the light. His warm chocolate brown eyes were fringed with sooty lashes, and they appeared startling large with the mask.

He looked-well, kind of effeminate. His current body was lithe, with muscles like a swimmer rather than a weight lifter, sinewy and streamlined rather than bulky. He really did look like a girl, all big-eyed, silky-haired, and soft mouthed. His obvious lack of chest and short hair didn't really help, and neither did his lack of hips. For some reason, Era just looked feminine.

Huffing a bit, Era scowled and tried to alter his appearance. Frustratingly enough however, as he attempted to manipulate his appearance, he found it was currently fixed. Nothing he was tying to alter was changing.

Biting his lip, he instead tried to turn into Harry. It worked as easily as ever, the transformation going smooth and fast, so why couldn't he change Era's appearance?

A ridiculous thought hit him then. What if he couldn't change his appearance because now he knew he was switching identities when he thought he was simply glamouring himself? What if his appearance was fixed now in this form? Thinking it over, Era thought it seemed just crazy enough to be believable, but that someone higher up must be pulling the strings. After all, normal people could alter their appearances and remain themselves. It must be some vindictive powerful entity, like the ones the goblins claimed had concealed all of those things on his identity papers.

Sighing, he figured there was nothing to be done for it and switched back to Era and hoped no one would judge him for being effeminate and not take him seriously as a result.

In a last ditch attempt to try and fix the situation, he pushed magic around him until he was enveloped and wished to look better.

The second the results made themselves known, he nearly cursed himself for his stupidity, only barely managing to stop because the curse would likely have come true due to the magic still lingering in the air.

He was now dressed in very tight fitting pants with comfortably worn looking thigh high leather boots that hugged so close to his body he might as well have worn nothing at all. They were surprisingly comfortable, and he was mortified to find the boots had a heel that was at least three inches.

A sculpted shirt made of stiff armor-like dark red leather hugged his chest and torso, cutting off before his shoulders like a vest and leaving his arms bare. The tattoos his mother had gifted to him twined up from just being at his wrists, and the farthest reaching runic tendrils curled up at his biceps. A heavy leather cape flowed down, billowing out when he moved like his own personal background and stopping two inches above the floor. The cape almost, almost gave him a greater presence. Too bad that it seemed to accentuate his more slender physique.

His mask had changed as well, now a molded leather half mask that left the lower half of his face bare while still disguising the overall shape and features of his face.

There wasn't anything to be done about his appearance, so he apparated to the club and found a quiet, secluded corner hidden from everyone's eyes but affording him a clear view of the area. It was 8:55 pm, and he'd gotten everything in place, waiting with a ball of anxiety in his gut for the first people to arrive. In the wizarding world, coming to parties early was considered terribly gauche, so he knew no one would be arriving until at least nine. 

To calm himself down and pass the time faster, Era summoned the book he was reading. It was quite fascinating, mostly filled with obscure potions lost to time and curses that were no longer widely used. The book was a few thousand pages in length, as it had been the private diary of a very long lived wizard who had liked to catalog everything. There were just so many curses and potions the man had found worth mentioning, and Era was quickly enraptured in the details.