Chapter Eighty

Araminta trudged wearily back toward the Great Hall. Maybe she should just get some sleep and forget about having a really good time. On the other hand, she still had a half-hour's worth of time on her dance card.

When Araminta entered the Great Hall, the dancing had entered the full on stage. In other words, the six-inch rule was being ignored, swaying couples were ignoring the tempo in favor of looking into one another's eyes, and the lights were conveniently dimmed in the corners of the room.

Including Hermione's alcove...and Hermione was gone.

Araminta began to panic. Hermione was the type of girl who stuck around to clean up after dances, wasn't she? She couldn't have gone far. Araminta shouldered her way through the crowd, searching faces and costumes, and inspected every nook and cranny of Hermione's alcove a second time, just to be sure she wasn't hiding somewhere within.

"Hey there, sweet thing, want to do the twist with me?" a drunk voice asked.

Araminta managed to stop her grab-and-twist reflex just in time as she recognized the man dressed in green from head to pointed toe--he looked like a refugee from Santa's workshop. "Draco?"

He lifted his mask carefully. "Araminta?"

She grabbed him tightly by one gelatin ear. "Have you seen Hermione?" she shouted over the suddenly bass-heavy music.

"Been looking everywhere"--he hiccupped--"and I can't find her."

Araminta thought for a second. "Have you seen Trelawney?"

Draco nodded. "She's right there." His finger was extended toward the door to a storage closet on the side of the hall. "Looking for more cups, I think."

"I bet she needs some help. Trelawney's kind of a lightweight, you know?" Araminta squeezed Draco's bicep, which he flexed indulgently. "You could help her lift things."

"I could?" Draco asked. "Isn't that what house-elves are for?"

"Oh, yeah." Araminta's spirits plummeted. "Maybe we could see what sorts of things were in the storage closet, you know, in case we ever needed anything in there."

Draco rolled his eyes. "I have money to buy whatever I want. I don't need to steal things. In fact, the Malfoy Code of Conduct, section two hundred and twelve part a, forbids stealing anything as it does not allow one to show off one's wealth," he recited.

"Maybe it would be cool to sneak in. We'd get to be someplace we weren't supposed to be. It would be dangerous and exciting and very, very Slytherin."

Draco looked as if he didn't want to dignify this with a response. "It is Slytherin to sneak into the Oscars, or the White House, or the Minister of Magic's private quarters in order to watch his videos of pixies doing..." He caught himself and coughed. "Not that I've done anything like that."

Araminta's heart pounded. She had to get Draco into the closet! It might be her only chance to get her parents together! If she didn't, she might never be born, and the possibility that time would twist in upon itself and collapse upon her was too much for Araminta to handle.

She dropped to the floor and wrapped her arms around Draco. "Draco, please." She clutched him tightly so that he couldn't walk off. "Please, please, please, please--"

"I'm usually the one begging in these sorts of situations," Draco noted.

"Don't interrupt!" Araminta snapped. "Please, please, please, let's go over to the closet and let's go inside and if it's boring or you don't like it, we can leave."

"Fine," Draco acquiesced to her demands. "No more than three minutes, though."

"I think that's the limit for closets, anyway," Araminta said, relieved. She took his hand and they trekked through the huddled masses that were bumping and grinding on the dance floor (and they gave Dumbledore and McGonagall a wide berth for the sake of their sanity and stomachs).

"Here we are," said Araminta. She shoved Draco forward as hard as he could and heard him yelp as he fell against Hermione, knocking her over into the back of the closet. Araminta jumped forward and pulled the door closed, locking them all inside.

She pulled the string that she could feel hanging down and a bare lightbulb came on with a ch-ching, filling the closet with a weak, dusty light.

"Mom? Dad? I have something to tell you before we all come out of the closet."