Chapter 44: Saturday Night Lights

7-8 September 1940

Hermione arrived at the entrance to the Hufflepuff Common room at a quarter past eight, feeling more than a little out of place in her transfigured robes. No one else was wearing anything quite like it, though, to be fair, no one was wearing anything quite like anything she had ever seen any of them wear. The illusions the other fourth-years had conjured had not done justice to the imaginations of the upper-year Ravenclaws and Gryffindors who were just arriving. It was like something out of a fairy-tale, she thought – one girl was wearing a Victorian gown that stopped above her knees in front and appeared to be made entirely of feathers; two others were wearing nothing but magically fluttering scraps of silk and some kind of metal lattice; one of the older boys, a Slytherin, by the trim on his hat, had enchanted his walking-stick to create a shimmer of light that raced over his suit every time he took a step, and his date was dressed in what could only be described as a captive waterfall. A first-year Hufflepuff was standing by to hold the door open, but the others appeared to be more interested in milling around the corridor than making their way to the dance floor, or whatever the Hufflepuffs had set up. She spotted Thea, Tammie, Lina, and Aggie standing near one of the alcoves in the hall and made her way over to them.

Aggie saw her first, and whistled in false appreciation. The others laughed, and she called out, "Hey, I almost didn't recognize you, with the glamours and whatnot!"

"You clean up well, Hermione!" added Lina.

Hermione laughed herself. "You needn't sound so surprised, Lina!"

"I like the glamour. It's a nice touch," said Tammie, who had charmed her own hair a startling pink. It clashed slightly with her red and purple robes, but Hermione thought it suited her, overall.

She rolled her eyes. "It was Tom's idea. He said I didn't match with all the brown. I do wonder about that boy sometimes. Honestly."

The girls tittered and sniggered for a moment, until Aggie asked if Tom was coming. Hermione said that he was not, and when Tammie asked why, explained that he didn't like people, crowds, dancing, or anything that required him to act like a normal human being.

"So Slytherin's not boycotting this year again?" asked Thea. She looked almost disappointed at this.

"No. But your brother and his friends hadn't decided at dinner whether they were going to come or not. Do you two not get on? He never mentions you."

"That's one way to put it, I suppose. Another would be that he's a bit of an idiot and more than a bit of a spoiled brat. Mummy and father put him first because he's a boy, and he doesn't seem to think there was a damn thing wrong with that. We haven't really gotten on for years. It's fine. It's a big party. I can avoid them if I have to. It's not like I don't do the same every day in class."

"Or you can ask Art Yaxley to hex him for you," suggested Lina. "He's been making eyes at you from across the hall – Don't look!" Everyone but Thea laughed at this.

The Malfoy girl pouted prettily at them, and pointed out that if it came to that, she could just hex Scorpius herself, and damn the consequences.

"But then," Lina pointed out, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world, "You wouldn't have any excuse to talk to Mr. Yaxley. And that would be a damn shame."

This, Hermione thought, is exactly what I needed – a night of frivolous talk about boys and clothes and maybe a bit of dancing, and a few hours with no responsibilities.

Thea snorted. "Come on, girls, it looks like the crowd's thinning out. They must have fixed their problem with the seating arrangements."

"Oh, was there a reason we were all standing around? I thought we were just mingling or something."

"No, I forget you're new here. Usually we'd just go in, but they asked us to wait, because the girl who used to do the couches and so on graduated, and her replacement's just not as good. He filled the entire dance floor with wooden folding chairs, and they were having trouble banishing them back to wherever he found them," Aggie explained.

"Oh." Hermione could think of nothing else to say about this, but thankfully Thea stepped in.

"Come on, Hermione. I'll introduce you around to the upperclassmen you won't have met yet. Anyone else want to come?"

Aggie and Lina decided to accompany them, while Tammie went to find Lily. According to Thea, those two were dating, though they kept it quiet for the most part. Hermione was more than a little surprised about how open the young witches were about same-sex relationships, but she thought she hid it well. Between introductions and small talk with a vast number of students, whose names Hermione was sure she would not remember, the girls filled her in on the ongoing relationships in their year. They were most interested in Cherie's exploits, because she was apparently dating both Michael Rosier and Teddy Potter, and rumor had it neither boy knew about the other. After nearly an hour of mingling and introductions, the girls moved toward the dance-floor, where a live band was playing swing and alternating with someone playing jazz on a saxophone.

Hermione had learned to swing dance as a child, along with brief stints of ballet and tap (her mother had thought that dance lessons might cure her of her love of books, and encourage her to make new friends), but had not had a reason to practice in years. She turned down several offers to dance in favor of watching the acrobatics of the older students. She recognized most of them, now, but could remember only a few of their names.

Natalia Grousovich was giving some sort of exhibition with Nicolette Fortescue. They were the girls she had noticed in the hall wearing little more than scarves and skimpy metal lattice-things, and must, Hermione thought, have charmed each other to be feather-light, because there was no way either girl should be able to flip the other around so easily. Sylvia Nott, a Slytherin prefect, was dancing only slightly more sedately with Altaf Shafiq, the head boy, and the Gryffindor Terrors were engaged in some kind of weird three-way dance which seemed too coordinated not to be choreographed, but too ridiculous and complex to have been. In any case, there was a lot of spinning and clapping and yelling 'Hey!' out of time with the music. At one point they were throwing a girl who looked like she was about twelve between them – Hermione hoped she had volunteered. Lily and Tammie were together in a corner, out of the way, and Anamaria had apparently cornered Damocles Smith, as she was dragging him out on the floor as well.

After some time, the band switched to a slower song, then segued into a waltz, and most of the active dancers retired to the sidelines, or the next room, which held the refreshment table. The fourth-year Slytherin boys had apparently decided to come, at least for a little while, as Edmond appeared at Hermione's side and asked her to join him on the floor. She agreed with a smile – she was certain she could handle a waltz. She had not noticed when the first-years left the party, but she supposed curfew must have come and gone, because not a minute into her first dance of the evening, all hell broke loose, in the form of a Gryffindor sending a Dancing Feet Jinx directly at her partner. His friends retaliated from the sidelines, and Hermione found herself in the last place she had planned to be this evening – in the midst of a melee, surrounded by potential enemies on all sides. Sedgwick, she thought irrelevantly as she cast her shield charm, would have killed her.

She quickly realized, trying to fight her way to a corner, that a melee was nothing like a duel. She was fairly certain that no one was actually aiming at her, but that didn't mean that unexpected jinxes and hexes would not be deflected at her at odd angles, and it was nearly impossible to defend against randomly-colored jets of light with no clues as to what kind of spell they might be. She tried to dodge most of them, and was lucky enough that the few things she couldn't dodge were caught by her shield. The corner was, she found, occupied by Lily and Tammie, who had apparently still been nearby on the dance floor. They were watching the madness unfold, several Slytherins fighting back-to-back against the Terrors and their Gryffindor friends, who were in turn trying to fend off intervention by irate Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws.

Fortescue and Grousovich seemed to be having almost as good a time fighting as they had dancing, dipping and dodging around each other and sending curses indiscriminately as they did so. As they began to draw serious fire, the Yaxley sisters made their way out to help them, and they formed another defensive knot, focused on taking out the main contenders. This group, as it had the head girl and arguably the two most attractive girls at the party, began to attract more and more upperclassmen, until at least twelve prefects (and about twenty other sixth and seventh years) were presenting a united front against all other factions.

They pushed the Terrors and the Slytherin retaliators into different corners of the ballroom in short order, and Tammie pointed out that Hermione should probably go: The excitement was more or less done, and the professors would be in to hand out punishments soon. Hermione thanked the other girl for the reminder, and slipped out of Hufflepuff, disillusioning herself just in time to see Professor Sprout, looking as angry as Hermione had ever seen her, storming down the hall.

It was just after midnight when Hermione reached her bedroom. Tom was there, apparently meditating in what had already become his usual armchair. Bellatrix was sprawled out on the floor, still in her party dress, working on an essay. The younger girl looked up as Hermione opened the door and reversed her Disillusionment charm.

Bellatrix cried out in shock, breaking Tom's concentration and causing him to send a look of irritation at her.

"Did I not tell you that you could only work here if you could be quiet? Hello, Hermione."

"Hello, Tom. What's wrong, Bellatrix?"

"Hermione? …It's nothing… you just… startled me." Hermione fixed the child with a stare that said clearly that her lies had not been believed. "Fine! You looked like Cassie, okay?"

"Cassiopeia Rosier? I suppose she does, a bit. But Cassiopeia was taller, and her eyes were a darker green," said Tom.

"I know that!" snapped Bellatrix. "As I said, it just startled me, for a moment."

"I'm sorry, Bee. I forgot I even had the glamours on," Hermione said in what she thought was a soothing tone, dispelling the aforementioned charms. "Why are you still wearing your dress? You left with the other first-years, didn't you?"

The girl nodded, apparently happy to change the subject. "Yes, but I missed you at the party and Tom didn't get to see it, so I thought I'd wait for you." She stood and spun in a circle, the black skirt flaring out to reveal green panels.

"Very cute," Hermione approved. Tom rolled his eyes.

"I had fairy-wings and a sparkle charm, too. Allie King was doing them in the cloakroom. But they wore off a little while ago."

"I'm sure you were adorable."

"Try fae," said Tom. He sent Hermione an image of Bellatrix appearing at her door, looking like some sort of demonic trick-or-treater, with black and silver wings, dripping sparks of black fire when she moved. She was grinning from ear to ear, and there was something about her smile that said she was planning mischief.

"I see. What are you working on?"

"Potions essay," said Bellatrix. "Two feet on the proper steps for brewing the Boil Cure Potion. It's so boring. Did the Gryffindors hex you?"

"No, no one got me, though it did devolve into a melee. Sprout looked angrier than I thought she could, but I escaped before she saw me. And you've left out all the preliminary safety checks," Hermione added, looking over Bellatrix's six inches of perfectly calligraphed (albeit largely written) instructions for making the potion in question. "Don't grumble, it will get you closer to the length requirement. Imagine you're telling someone who's never made a potion how to do it, step-by-step, and write it all down. Honestly," she added, looking at Tom, "Sometimes I question the decisions of some of our professors to go into teaching."

"Mr. Stibbons isn't that bad," Bellatrix protested, "He just didn't tell us to do it like that."

"Who's Mr. Stibbons?"

"Slughorn's apprentice," Tom answered. "Sluggy makes him teach the first and second years, and about half of third year. He's never going to finish his Mastery, because then Slughorn would have to start teaching kiddies again."

"What on Earth does Slughorn do with his days, if he's only teaching the upperclassmen?"

"No one knows. It's one of the Great Mysteries of Hogwarts," Tom smirked.

"What are you doing?"

"What was that charming muggle phrase? Casing the joint?" Hermione nodded. "Casing the joint, and making a list of runes to look up. There are more enchantments on the foundations than I expected, and I can't tell what most of them do."

Hermione rolled her eyes. He sounded put out, but she was rather reassured by the fact that Tom couldn't just wave his hand and have a new room appear. She settled into her own armchair, opening her bootleg copy of The Nature of Thought to the first chapter and finding a clean page in her enchanted notebook. Mind magic was infinitely more interesting than writing yet another Charms essay on a topic she had studied months ago, and anyway, she would have most of Sunday for homework.

Thea joined Lily and Tammie in the corner just after Hermione slipped away. "I still think we should have invited her to the sleepover tonight."

"Come off it, Thea!" Lily said in the most exasperated tone she could muster. "You were outvoted." It was true. Thea, Aggie, and Lina had been in favor of bringing the new Slytherin into their group at once, but the Hufflepuffs had been wary, and Tammie had voted with her girlfriend instead of her roommate. "The only reason you want to be her friend is that it will irritate your brother, anyway."

"Yes, and? She's a Slytherin. I doubt she would mind. She shouldn't have to spend all her time with Riddle if she doesn't want to. And Aggie and Lina said she seemed normal enough yesterday."

"What are you lot arguing about?" Aggie joined them as Professor Sprout entered the Common Room and began questioning the head boy and girl.

"Thea's still going on about not letting Hermione come to the sleepover," Tammie explained.

"Oh," Aggie was quiet for a short moment. "You have to admit it, Thea, we were outvoted. And I've thought about it a bit more. Maybe it's for the best. I mean, it's not like we would be letting a Snake into one of our common rooms overnight. I do kind of get why the Hufflepuffs said no."

"Thank you. It's not that we don't like her, we just don't know her. Give us a week or two, and maybe she can come to the official sleepover, instead of the we're-too-drunk-to-sneak-back-post-party sleepover," Tammie offered.

Thea gave in with an overly dramatic sigh. "Fine. You win. Where's the firewhisky?"

The others laughed. "It's in the usual place, but wait until Sprout is gone!" the Hufflepuff warned. The usual place was under a couch in the fourth-years' parlor.

Hufflepuff house, like Slytherin, had individual rooms for its students, but unlike Slytherin, each year also had a co-ed shared living-space called a parlor. These branched off of the main Common Room, and the bedrooms branched off of them in turn, all round, like a series of bubbles. The thinking was that Hufflepuff as a house was so enthusiastically social that students ought to have plenty of places to gather, but also a refuge from the rest of the house should they need it. One could not maintain constant friendliness with no recourse to privacy. Thea liked that philosophy better than the one which governed Ravenclaw's dorms: each student ought to have a roommate, because that way someone will notice if a student starts acting oddly or getting too obsessed with their current project.

"I'm going to go say goodbye to Les. I think the party's pretty much over, anyway." Sprout had dismissed most of the students, and was now herding the main perpetrators – the Gryffindor Terrors and Slytherin fourth and fifth year boys (save Riddle, who, as promised, had not showed) – out into the corridor. Presumably they had been given detentions, but the Gryffindors looked unfussed. The Slytherins looked mutinous.

"See you in an hour, then," Aggie called after her. Thea made a rude gesture and kept moving. She liked Aggie, and Lina, too, more than the Hufflepuffs, but given a choice she would have associated with Cassie Rosier or Maris David, who were a year ahead of her in Slytherin, or maybe third-years Allie King and Aradia Prewett instead. They were cleverer, and the younger girls were downright mischievous (and therefore fun). Tammie had been decent company before she started dating Lily, but since then she was rather irritating.

If Thea was honest, irritating Scorpius was the second reason she wanted to befriend Hermione. The first was that she wanted to get to know the Slytherin girl. If what Aggie and Lina had said was true, the new girl was both brilliant and "Slytherin" (read: manipulative and sly). She could hold a decent conversation even with Lina (who was not the brightest Light Charm) without being overly sarcastic and snarky (a feat which Thea often had trouble with), and yet had somehow managed to charm Tom Riddle, who was never not cutting at the very least. So Hermione was interesting, and Thea thought that she might be a good candidate for a close friend in her own year, especially given that she knew she should truly have been in Slytherin from the beginning. She had insisted that the Hat place her in Ravenclaw only because she did not want to be in the same House as her brother, and knew that he would never be placed anywhere else but Slytherin. She suspected part of the reason she had no close friends among the other fourth-year girls because they knew she was really a snake at heart.

She mulled these thoughts over as she looked for her boyfriend, trying to let them float away when she found him and he swept her into a quick spin and a kiss. (His family might have been a generation away from being acceptably pureblood candidates for marriage, thus her older brother would never approve the match, but even Abraxas would give Les points for style and grace.) She would have to find another opportunity to spend time with the new girl, she supposed. It really was a shame Aggie had ended up partnered with her in potions. Not only was Thea smarter (and therefore better tolerated by Tom Riddle), Aggie was too easily disconcerted by the kind of games Slytherins played amongst themselves. Thea had grown up with them. Then Les realized she wasn't paying attention and bit her lip. She smiled at him, and her thoughts turned to more pleasurable things, like whether the cloakroom might be unoccupied, and how she might most beneficially spend the next hour of her time. After all, it wasn't as though the girls would really miss her company. They would just remark upon it and exchange knowing little looks and jokes about getting caught in a broom closet.

Thea shrugged internally. There were worse things than being caught snogging in a cloakroom. She dragged her boy away through the much-thinned crowd, a smile dancing across her lips.