A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially tryntee13 and amethyst-rose!
At the present time, one can hardly conceive the importance which was attached to getting admission to Almack's, the seventh heaven of the fashionable world.
- Captain Gronow, Reminiscences and Recollections.
A cool wind blew in Ginny's face. The night sky opened overhead, sprinkled with a million twinkling stars. Outside! I'm outside, for the first time in weeks and weeks and—oh, I don't even know how long it's been anymore! She breathed in great lungfuls of fresh air until her head spun; she'd become so used to the close, stale air of the passages and underground rooms that she'd almost forgotten how it felt to take deep breaths at all.
She was standing on the edge of a cobbled street, and it was filled with horse-drawn carriages. Orange witchlights set on top of old-fashioned lampposts glinted off gold trim and rich enamel paint. Glossy horses stamped and neighed and shook their heads in their harnesses. She could just see the silhouettes of figures behind the closed doors with their elegant silver monograms. The wind stole under the thin wrap to bite at her bare arms. She shivered. She hadn't been reminded of the fact that it was winter in a long time, either.
The sound of wheels on the cobblestones grated unpleasantly on her ears. I got so used to the silence of the soft places, she realized. There was no sound at all there, really. Only Draco's soft breathing in the middle of the night, and the sound of his voice, and-
All at once, Ginny realized what the sound meant. The coaches were starting to move, and it was happening all round her. She had stepped down into the street. Before she could even begin to do anything more than look around in a confused way, all of the carriage wheels ground to a halt again.
A green and silver coach pulled by two perfectly matched gray horses had stopped just in front of her. One elf dressed in green and white livery was sitting up on the seat, holding the ends of the reins. The other hopped down, bowed to her, opened the coach door, and pulled down the folding steps. Ginny could just see a man seated inside. For a wild, impossible second, she wondered if Draco was waiting for her. Then he shifted position, peering out at her, and she recognized Blaise Zabini.
Of course! Awkwardly, holding up the skirt of the gown with one hand, Ginny stepped in. The elf tried to help her. She was dismally aware that the effort would have been a lot more successful if she had ever been helped by a house-elf servant in her entire life, which she hadn't.
Ginny collapsed onto the plush grey velvet with a sigh of relief. "Oh, Blaise! Thank gods you're here. I didn't know how I was going to find you."
He gave her a brief look. "Hello."
Uh-oh."Your, uh… clothes look nice." Ginny waved her hand vaguely at Blaise's dove-grey knee breeches and green long-tailed coat. Her mind ran after the name of the exact color for a moment. Bottle green? I think that's it. Matches his eyes, they're darker than Harry's. And that ridiculous necktie… cravat?... crazed tablecloth attacking his neck… well, he can almost pull it off. But what the hell's wrong with him?
"Right." He stared past her, at the papered wall of the coach, avoiding her gaze.
Suddenly, she was afraid she knew. "Blaise, did you get a letter from Malfoy about me?"
He did look at her then, his eyes tired. "Of course I did, Ginny. Why else would I be completely unsurprised when I saw Abby helping you into the coach dressed in a Regency gown?"
Might as well seize the Snorckack by the horns. "Did it contain dire threats?" she asked.
"No," said Blaise. He was staring out of the little window now.
"Well, is there some other reason you're treating me like this?"
Silence.
Ginny's stomach began to sink. "You can't do this, Blaise. You really can't. You've got to teach me the trillion deadly important rules of the Pureblood Ball in the next ten minutes, and you're the only one who can do it, because you're not going with—"
She stopped. Her face flamed. She thought she heard Blaise give a low, bitter laugh. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.
"Nothing to be sorry about," said Blaise.
"Is Luna—"
"I'll be very grateful if you don't mention her name," he said, in a voice that made her feel painfully ashamed. They both sat in silence for a while.
"Really? A trillion rules? And how do you know that, Gin?" he finally asked, his voice very light and amused. It might have convinced almost anyone else, thought Ginny. But she was used to deciphering disguised voices, after the last weeks.
"Well, Malfoy said there were."
Blaise's lips twitched. "He always was a stickler for rules."
"Really?" She certainly hadn't known that about him. But then, thought Ginny, she really knew almost nothing about him.
"Of course he was. Not so much now, I'd say, but I'm talking about the boy I knew from the time we were both five years old and Lucius laid down the law that we'd be best mates from then on, although he put it a bit more elegantly than that. Draco was the Malfoy heir, remember? He had the weight of the pureblood world on his shoulders, and he thought—for awhile, anyway—that he could please his father by trying to follow every rule in the book. It never worked, of course."
"Oh." Ginny pictured the child Draco at eight or nine or ten, younger than she had ever known him, anxiously following Lucius Malfoy around and obsessively following every rule the older man laid down. She imagined him never pleasing his own father, and slowly coming to know that he never could.
"But we don't really have time to spare for trips down Memory Lane," said Blaise. "We don't have long before the coaches all pull up at the Crystal Palace, you know. And I've got to fill you in on the trillion Pureblood Ball rules and regulations, remember?"
"Oh, gods," moaned Ginny, falling back against the seat. "It's hopeless, isn't it?"
"Not at all." Blaise leaned forward. "You've got to understand something, Gin. The Pureblood Ball is the most appalling bore; there's absolutely fuck-all interesting or fun about it under normal circumstances. Just the same creaky hundred-and fifty-year- old ruins dragging the family jewels out of the vaults—and the earrings and bracelets and brooches and necklaces, as well. You'll be new blood. A novelty. They'll adore you. You don't have to follow a single rule." Blaise studied her from head to toe. "And you look delicious in that gown. It doesn't leave much to the imagination, you know. Are you sure you don't want to just stay in the coach all night long? We don't have to go in—"
The imitation really might have fooled anyone else, thought Ginny, but she knew that it was only a parody of his old self. "No, Blaise," she said quietly.
"Then I promise to treat you like a cross between a ninety-year-old lesbian nun and the sister I never had. Don't fret, Gin. I could read between the lines of Draco's letter to me—"
"Don't talk about Malfoy," said Ginny, "and I won't talk about Luna."
Blaise winced. "Fair enough. Look, I'm not wasting time on those rules, because they don't matter anyway, and Draco's right—there really must be a trillion of them. You're better off not even getting started. How'd you like to hear about what's been going on while you two were shut away from the world, instead?"
"Oh, yes!" Ginny exclaimed. "I can't believe I didn't think to ask right away."
"You've been pretty distracted, in my opinion. What do you want to know first?"
"Have you heard anything about my brothers?"
"They all think that you've been working on the sculpture sketches, but they don't know anything at all about your being closeted with Draco the entire time," said Blaise. "They think that you've been in your studio, and of course none of them can get in there."
"Thank gods," said Ginny fervently.
"Yes, I think we've avoided loads of major disasters on that front. Colin and Anthony Goldstein have been the ones keeping the story going, and actually they've been managing to keep the lid on a lot of gossip while you and Draco have been stashed away. I don't know how much longer they can keep it all up, but everything has to get resolved at the Ball anyway."
"I wish Colin could be there," said Ginny wistfully.
"So do I. He'd add loads of life to the proceedings, but he's no pureblood, so he can't be."
She nodded. "I know. But then, that also means that Harry…"
"Shouldn't be able to show up either," finished Blaise.
"I don't like the way that sounded at all."
"I don't mind telling you that neither do I, and I'm the one who said it."
She took a deep breath. "Blaise, what's been going on with Harry? He's had two and a half weeks to make trouble."
"Nobody seems to know," said Blaise. "It's a very deep game he's playing. That's my guess. Well, there are just a couple of things I've heard…" He hesitated.
"Blaise, what is it?" Ginny tried to keep the impatience out of her voice.
"Colin told me a couple of things that George said to him."
Ginny glanced through the window on her side. Were the other coaches starting to move again? It was so dark outside compared to the lit interior of their own carriage that she couldn't tell. "Blaise, can't you hurry this up?"
"George said that Granger isn't exactly sitting up and begging for scraps from Potter anymore. They're rarely seen together. But nobody knows exactly what that means, either—it's not as if anybody's listened in on their private conversations."
Ginny drummed her fingers on the coach seat. "I still don't know how far I'd trust Hermione. But I guess it's a good sign. You said 'a couple of things', so what's the other one?"
"Er… this one may not be quite as promising." Blaise cleared his throat. "Apparently Potter's been closeted with Kingsley Shacklebolt quite a few times over the past couple of weeks. Nobody knows what they've been talking about. George heard that from Percy, from what Colin said."
A chill ran down Ginny's spine. Maybe it was true that nobody had any idea of what Harry and the Minister of Magic had actually said to each other during these meetings. But if the Minister hadn't taken Harry seriously, then there would have been no real point in meeting him privately more than once. Looking at Blaise, she knew that he knew that too.
Blaise's smile became very bright, very cheerful. "So! How are the sketches? Draco said he had them, but he didn't include thumbnails, or anything like that."
"They turned out really well," she said.
"Good. And just think, Ginstress, they got you to the Ball at last."
"It's going to be very dangerous, isn't it, Blaise?" she asked.
He avoided her gaze. "I didn't say that. The food's always awful, though. Sorry about that part of it."
"Not for you. For me. For us… but I don't want you to feel bad. It's not as if we could have avoided it."
Blaise looked at her for a long time, as if trying to decide whether or not to say something. "Actually, Gin, you certainly could have avoided this entire event in the first place if it weren't for the fact that you do have to present those sketches. It's fun, and I always enjoy looking down girls' dresses, but the dinner really is shite and it's dangerous as hell for both of you. I'm more sorry than I can say."
She looked at him blankly. "What do you mean? We couldn't have avoided it. We were just automatically drawn here at the right time."
"What are you talking about?"
"Well—isn't that how it works? I mean, that's what Malfoy said—"
Blaise gave her a half-grin. "Gin, are you sure that he didn't get a good knock on his pretty little head? That's a load of complete shite. Purebloods generally fight tooth and nail to get in. It's taken my mother several husbands to manage it."
"Is it because he's a Malfoy?"
"No. Even for a pureblood name as ancient as his, it doesn't work that way. Admission is guaranteed—that part's true- but it's not automatic."
"But—I don't understand. Why would he say that if it isn't true?"
"I don't know," he said.
She looked away and out the window, feeling uncomfortable without knowing why. Blaise was still looking at her in a thoughtful sort of way; she could tell, so she didn't look back at him yet. The lights within their coach dimmed. Her eyes began to grow more used to the darkness, and she heard the sound of carriage wheels as all the coaches began to move forward again.
Ginny had seen no more than the vague outline of the coach directly in front of them, but now that it was moving ahead of theirs, she could see its shape and size more clearly. It was all black enamel, without the slightest hint of any lighter color relieving the darkness. No—that wasn't quite true, as she could see when she peered round. There was a silver design on the door. It was the Malfoy eagle crest. A light shone behind the drawn curtains in the side window of the coach. Ginny saw the thin, sharp-nosed silhouette of a woman. Astoria. She watched the figure seated across from her, studying Draco's perfect profile. He didn't move an inch. Astoria's head jerked back and forth; she seemed to be talking loudly. He was ignoring her.
Blaise's hand reached out and pulled the curtains closed. "Don't look," he said, his voice almost harsh.
"It's all right," said Ginny, not turning her head. "This is how things have to be."
"Ginny, we're friends, right? Even though our early years of acquaintance were mostly made up of your calling me a poser, and then I made a pretty fair attempt to seduce you before I knew you were Draco's, ah..."
"Yes, we're friends, Blaise, as long as you stop calling me Malfoy's anything—"
"Sorry, sorry," Blaise said hurriedly. "Will you take a bit of advice from a friend?"
"Maybe. It depends on what it is, I suppose."
Blaise took her chin in one hand and turned her head towards him, gently. "Don't look back, Ginny," he said.
He took her hand as they stepped down from the coach, and she felt his fingers warm and firm in hers, his pulse beating time to her own. The rows of elves in livery stood silently along the broad boulevard in front of the long, low brick building. Blaise led her past them, towards the pillared entrance, and the soft pattering of her slippers on the ground sounded impossibly faint and faraway.
"Blaise, is it real?" she asked, mostly to hear the sound of her own voice in the cool night air.
"Oh, yes. It's the Crystal Palace, all right." He flashed her a grin. "I'm sure you've never seen it, you sweet little innocent?"
She blushed. "Um—"
"Gin, do you have a dark past?" Blaise asked delightedly. "Do tell."
"Of course I don't! I saw a picture in a book once. That's all."
"So you're a curious girl. Well, it hasn't always looked the same, you know. But this is definitely how the outside appeared in 1814."
"You mean…. You mean we really are in 1814?"
"Of course. The Crystal Palace is a pretty tricksy place, Gin. Even I don't know everything that goes on here, or how large it really is, or exactly what it contains. And that's not even taking into account the fact that it's connected to every other soft space—" Blaise stopped suddenly.
"What is it?"
"Nothing at all. Don't worry your pretty little head about it."
There's something strange about this, thought Ginny. At any other time, when her mind wasn't spinning like a Whirligig Charm, she might have even had one brain cell to spare to worry about it. As it was, though…
"I thought you said that Malfoy had the pretty little head."
"You're both scrumptious. Pity you're both off-limits, as well," said Blaise distractedly.
Ginny got out her fan and rapped him on the elbow. "Behave yourself, Blaise."
"Oh, I will," he said, suddenly looking very serious indeed. "You'd better do the same, Gin. Watch your step."
They had reached the entrance; it had happened all at once, and for one panicked instance, she wasn't ready at all. But it was happening anyway.
Two house- elves in blue and gold bowed, and then drew the white doors open. It seemed to Ginny as if they telescoped back and back, opening to a unbearably brightly lit scene, glass and crystal and mirrors everywhere, and people, so many people! And every single one of them turned and stared at her, diamonds and rubies and emeralds and sapphires winking and glittering back at her, dazzling her eyes unbearably.
For a cowardly instant, she wanted to turn tail and run.
Then she set her jaw, raised her head, and walked forward on Blaise's arm.
A pale, haughty-looking elf with an extremely long nose stepped in front of them. He scrutinized Blaise from head to toe, peered round at the back of his knee breeches, and took a small measuring tape from a pocket, and carefully began to measure the distance from the crease of the knee to the foot.
"What is this?" Ginny hissed at Blaise.
"Er, that's a protocol-elf. I had Prinny take over an hour on my cravat alone, so I think I'll be all right…" he whispered back.
"Hmm," the elf said in nasal tones. "Hmm, hmm, hmmm hmm hmm hmm." He turned to the front, whipped out a magnifying glass, and peered up at the cleavage of Ginny's gown. She stared back at him defiantly. Then he smiled.
"Most welcome you both are to the Pureblood Ball! Yes, yes indeed. Sonorus!"
Oh, no, thought Ginny, in dawning horror.
"Mistress Ginevra Weasley and the Lord Blaise Zabini!"
The entire nineteenth century, thought Ginny, had probably heard that announcement.
"Lord Zabini?" she hissed to Blaise.
"I don't use the title very often. Although in certain London clubs—"
"I don't want to hear about your life as a male slut! Let's get up these stairs, now."
He smiled at her, rather cheekily, in her opinion. "Your wish is my command, Mistress Weasley."
She gave him a stern look. That still sounded rather suspicious, if you asked her.
Together, they started up the marble staircase, and she breathed a bit easier. At least they'd got in. The first barrier had been crossed. But where was Draco? His carriage had been in front of theirs; he should have already been there. She tried to scan the dazzling. moving figures at the top of the stairs. Wouldn't his hair stand out under the lights, at least?
"We're just in time for the first dance," he said. "You remember the minuet, right?"
"Oh, no," she groaned.
"Oh, yes," said Blaise. "Come on. Show us some more of that Weasley pluck."
"I'll pluck you, Zabini," she muttered. But she wasn't about to give up now. As all the curious eyes turned to stare down at her and Blaise, row after row after row of them, she took a deep breath, summoned up all the courage she had, and entered the Pureblood Ball.