For the Greater Good || Tom Riddle ||

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Jarvey in the Garden

Gwen half expected for the Selwyn family to be at Grindelwald's feast.

But they weren't. Grindelwald hadn't lied when he had stated that the majority of the attendees hailed from central Europe. Apparently, many wizarding families in the United Kingdom were waiting to see who would win the Muggle War: The Axis powers or The Allies. If the Germans, Japanese, and Italians turned out to be victorious, they would throw their hat in with Grindelwald, but if not, they would stand steadfast by the Muggle Crown (even if the monarch was a mudblood, British purebloods still did exemplify some form of odd patriotism). It was in the same vein as cheering for the underdog. Gwen heard Cyril Selwyn himself admit that tying one's wealth to politics was a sure way to squander what took centuries to build.

Halfway through the night, Gwen found herself desperately searching for Griffith. She needed a break from attending to Hepzibah Smith, who had gotten quite drunk and was now off dancing someplace. The dinner had consisted of aristocratic gossip, the lowdown on promising Muggle stock in the American monetary market, and rantings about the crop of new shops in Diagon Alley. It was all sloshed down with shots of green Chartreuse. Hepzibah Smith certainly didn't know when to shut her mouth, whether she was speaking or eating.

Music swelled. The lighting, once dimmed, became bright and flooded the rooms. The eating had ceased, but the drinking did not and the party had now moved into the grand ball room. Grindelwald had been adamant that Nurmengaurd have a proper room for entertaining, because what powerful political party did not entertain and engage its supporters with formal events and soirees?

Gwen desperately wished for the night to end. At dinner, she was barely able to interject a word about the Greater Good to the ignorant woman, not that Gwen was too keen on trying to recruit more followers for her grandfather in the first place. Luckily, her lack of words proved to actually be a blessing—it protected her identity from the other members of the table. The Rosier family, Milton and Druella specifically, did not seem to recognize Gwen with her straight hair, and Gwen thanked the heavens that it was a masked party. How easy it was to lurk under someone's nose if they did not expect it.

Unfortunately for Gwen, the one-sided conversation made her more dependent on her glass to tolerate the incessant talk of antique goods, frills, and stupid meaningless things, and thus, she consumed more liquor than she rightfully intended to that night. She definitely felt the rosy glow in her cheeks and the fogginess in her brain.

Gwen stared quite forlornly into the dancing crowd. With her marked back carefully against the wall, she felt as much out of place as a jarvey in a flower garden—even though she knew that a decent number of Grindelwald's acolytes had used the Killing Curse before, she couldn't help but feel like the wizarding war had been replaced by some demented royal carnival affair.

She had always hated crowds, but especially magical ones, and especially in her slightly inebriated state, she felt highly sensitive to the energies that mingled in the air like a thundercloud. Gwen felt it stir her own magic deep within her bones and she couldn't help but think sloppily of what Grindelwald had said: the breath of the universe lived within every soul where magic bloomed.

She stood by herself, sipping from her glass of green Chartreuse liquor. It helped calm her nerves and had a very strong characteristic taste—very sweet at first, but became both spicy and pungent, burning the back of her throat on the way down. She liked it. Her eyes scanned the crowd for Griffith, or Mika Nakamura, rather. He was nowhere to be seen. Gwen hoped that Griffith's snarky comment about drawing the unwanted sexual attention of Kogen Higa didn't ring true.

She walked the perimeter of the room to see if she could find him anywhere to no avail,  only to decide to get a breath of fresh air on the balcony. She had to squeeze in between people loitering in the threshold. She passed men dressed in their finest robes and suits, a short blonde woman wearing an atrocious hat that looked as though she had plucked an Augrey and put it on her head, and finally by a weirdly familiar looking woman speaking to another woman with moussed brown hair.