what we once called home

Another evening at the Eplee house, another dinner party. Sometimes things never changed. Elizabeth couldn't remember a time when she hadn't been forced to sit through these god awful events. As a child it had been much more trying, given that her attention span hadn't exactly been suitable for small talk with adults. However as time passed, she grew more and more used to it. There were times which she would engage in conversation without being provoked, which pleased her parents, but during other dinners she was liable to sit quietly clearly displaying the 'children are meant to be seen and not heard' ideology.

Her house hadn't changed in the past fifteen years. The dining room was a dismal forest green. The table, which was only used during these parties, was covered with their finest lace tablecloth. It was so old that the corners were beginning to yellow though somehow that went unforeseen by her mother's ever watchful eye. The fine china, which matched those ugly walls, sat before each of the overly ornate chairs. Maybe if she didn't dread these parties quite as much as she did, she would have thought the room was aesthetically pleasing. But that wasn't the case.

It appeared as though most of the guests had arrived as people began taking their seats. Elizabeth was in a better mood than usual and had small hope for the evening providing some entertainment. Taking a seat next to her father, she looked at the empty chair beside her. Normally this seat was taken by her brother, Andrew, but he was unfortunately unable to attend. Looking around the room, she noticed everyone's attire. Most of the women were in basic colored cocktail dresses - each more boring than the last. Elizabeth never really got to choose her own clothes for these events in the past but for some reason she had this time. Her canary yellow dress stood out among most of the dresses.

Dress:

Spoiler:

Dinner Parties were Charlotte’s forte, not Jenifer’s. But somehow she’d managed to drag herself to the Eplee family home where the latest pureblood dinner party was being held. She entered the dining room and her nose wrinkled. Clearly the room hadn’t been upgraded since the 1800’s. Jen squeezed herself between a gaggle of gossiping witches and glared at a few of them as she did so. She remembered idly that she was in fact armed but wondered if any of them would notice. She doubted it very highly, those witches weren’t particularly smart.

Jen moved to towards the table and tried to ignore the colours that were really quite offensive to the eye. She pressed her lips together in frustration and pushed her hair off her shoulder. She had an awful Muggle pop song running through her mind and she just wanted to burst out into song. That didn’t seem to be an accepted thing around the stuffy Wizarding folk that attended these galas for fun. Jen wondered idly where the hosts were but she knew better to start a conversation with the people there. She’d end up with one of the ones that would never stop talking.

Sighing, Jen sat down in a chair beside a girl with a canary yellow dress on. It reminded her of when her mother decided that she wanted to tie-dye some of her things. That didn’t go down too well with Jen’s brother so in the end they ended up with all of their clothes in yellow. Their Hogwarts peers thought they were some sort of Hufflepuff mascots. Jen remembered hexing quite a few people during those months of ‘embracing the bird within’. She turned her head and glanced at the girl. “Enjoying yourself?”

Spoiler:

Why there weren't many people around her age forced to accompany their parents was a mystery to her. Even when these little dinner parties were held in any other location she never had the choice of whether or not she wanted to attend. One perk was that she could easily drink even though she was underage. It just generally went unnoticed. After grabbing one of the finer alcohols and making herself a scotch on the rocks, Elizabeth took a long sip.Things were always that much more enjoyable when liquor was in her system.

Elizabeth began drumming her fingers as she waited for everyone to seat themselves. She was positively starving and scotch mixed with an empty stomach at a table full of her parents' friends was never a good combination. After a moment of people-watching once again, a voice interrupted her. Turning towards her left her blue eyes fell on a rather remarkable beauty. Elizabeth was quite sure she must have seen her before at one of these things but she quite frankly didn't remember her.

Chuckling at her question, Elizabeth nodded her head. "You betcha. These things are always just a big ol' bundle of fun," she replied with sarcasm dripping from every word. After taking another sip of her drink she turned back towards the beautiful brunette, "How about yourself?"