An Orchid By Any Other Name

An Orchid by Any Other Name

Chapter One- Diagon Alley

"Hey Harry- do you need new robes?" Ron asked. "I think we've got everything on the list."

"Nah- I got mine last week," said Harry. "Let's go visit your brothers."

"Yeah, all right."

It was hard for Harry to believe that tomorrow was the first day of his last year at Hogwarts. The last time he would be shopping here in Diagon Alley for his schoolbooks and supplies. A perfect summer day as it was, he could not think too much of his worries; luckily Ron wasn't bothering him to talk about it now. Everyone had been asking him what the matter was since he arrived at the Burrow two weeks ago. How could he explain? With seventh year beginning, life after Hogwarts was around the corner. It was hard to imagine living alone, but who did he have? All of his friends were pairing up and enjoying the freedoms that came with age, but Harry never found anyone. Besides, with the whole 'either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives' thing, would he really want to get involved with anybody? Would that be fair? Maybe he wouldn't have to worry about life after Hogwarts after all- Voldemort could kill him before term even ends. Somehow, that thought wasn't too comforting either.

Harry and Ron waked into 'Weasley's Wizarding Wheeses' to find Fred demonstrating shadow rings to a couple of third year boys. As he slipped on the ring, Fred did not disappear, but his body, clothes and all, turned charcoal gray and translucent, like a shadow. When he took it off, he popped back into full-color. "Just 20 sickles- they last a lifetime!"

After the boys paid for their rings and walked out of the shop beaming, Fred called to his twin. "Oy! George! Come upstairs- the guys are here."

"We have some excellent information for you, right George?" said Fred.

"Oh yeah," panted George, coming into the room.

"What is it?" asked Ron.

Well," said Fred, "we were in Knockturn Alley this morning, trying to find some grindylow hairs, when we saw this..." George produced a fancy invitation "in the window at Queen Mab's jewelry shop."

The invitation read:

End-of-Break Masked Ball

for Hogwarts students and recent alumni

The Silver Spoon

9 PM

Host: Draco Malfoy

"all" are invited

"The Silver Spoon? Where is that?" asked Harry.

"The far end of Knockturn alley. It's their version of the leaky cauldron," George told him.

"Yeah, and it looks pretty posh, too." added Fred.

"Are you two gonna crash?" asked Ron.

"Sure, bro," said Fred. "Might hear something useful, to the Order, you know."

"Yeah, and we all may have a bit of fun too," George said.

"Masked ball? That's so old-fashioned. Convenient for us, though. I'm for it," agreed Harry.

"What about Mum?" asked Ron. "Will she let us stay out so late the night before term starts? I doubt it."

"Go home and pack your trunks. You can send them along with her and the girls. Crash here if you want and Apparate to the train station in the morning. What can she say? You're both of age."

"But what do we wear?" asked Harry.

"We've got that covered. Headless hat or Faceless mask?" George pointed to a display of masks and hats. Some were beautiful, some funny, and some scary. "This one would match your new dress robes, Harry." It was a mardi-gras type peacock feather mask. Sure enough, it would look excellent with the dress robes he had picked out with George the week before. They were kelly green and fastened with jade buttons off to one shoulder. He also had bought a midnight blue velvet cloak. Seventh years were expected to dress well for the Graduation ball. He took the mask, put it on, and looked in the mirror; his head vanished, but you could see his eyes inside the mask.

"This is cool!" said Harry.

"And for you little bro," said Fred as he held out a gray silk top hat. "You can wear it with those gray robes Bill gave you for your birthday."

"And you can borrow my plum cloak. The ladies will be all over you," offered George.

"What about you two?" asked Ron.

"We don't want all the lovely ladies to distract us from getting information," said Fred.

"So we will have to disguise our astounding good looks with these." George put on a frighteningly realistic vampire mask. Fred donned a similarly convincing merman mask.

"With black cloaks, we're good to go," Fred said.

"Meet us back here at a quarter of nine and bring your dress robes with you. I don't think the girls should come- if we got found out, it could be a really bad situation for them," George warned.

"It's probably better if we don't even tell them then," Harry said.

"Let's go then, Harry, it's almost dinnertime now," said Ron. "Can we use your fire?"

"Certainly." Fred handed them the floo powder.