Chapter Forty-Two: Dancing

For the first time in recalled history, first, second and third-years, as well as the students' parents, were invited to the Yule Ball. Since a good many first-year boys were unused to dressing up, John Tyler had borrowed his wife's classroom for an impromptu lesson in haberdashery. He had not estimated the turnout would be the entire class.

"Okay…" he began, looking at the slew of eleven-year-olds. "You don't want your tie to choke you to death. You'll die."

"Sir, my robes don't have a tie."
"Oh. Good. You're safe, then."

"How do I tie this one, sir?" One unfortunate boy had a bow tie. John went ashen.

"Err…you don't. It's …bad luck."

"But sir, do I just leave it?"

"No, you ask a girl. They all know how. It's quite irritating."

"Professor Tyler?" Ginny Weasley had appeared at the door. Every little boy went scarlet and several tried to cover boxers and bare legs. "Don't worry, guys," she remarked with an airy gesture. "I have six brothers. Professor, Cass said you might need some help?"

"Yes," John looked quite relieved. "There's a bow tie."

"Oh." With an air of calm superiority, Ginny stepped over to the first year and deftly tied the offending bit of satin. A lost-looking little fellow with his sleeves undone came up to her next, a set of cufflinks in his hand. "These are like buttons. See?" The next boy had suspenders that were too long. Ginny moved the slide adjusts and had them fitting in seconds. One unfortunate little fellow's robes were simply too big. "Oh, dear." His hands and feet were hidden entirely.

"They're my brother's," the little Hufflepuff explained, tears starting in his eyes. Ginny shrugged, waved her wand, and fixed everything. The little boy looked as though his smile might let the top of his head fall off. "Thank you, Miss Weasley!"

"No problem."

"So we can use wands?" John asked.

"Why not?" Ginny smiled.

"Oh. Okay."

A few charms later, the entire class of first-years was resplendent in their dress robes, some of which had been entirely retailored to suit better. Ginny was impressed.

"Well, that worked nicely," she observed. "You look great, all of you."

"Where is Cassie?" John asked quietly. Ginny grinned.

"Being attacked by Lavender and Parvati, most likely. Have you seen her outfit?"

"No."

"Oh, you poor, poor werewolf." The sixth-year patted her professor's shoulder. "I'd better go get ready."

As Ginny left, the first-year boys applauded.

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"Well?"

"They're all dressed, and noone's tie strangled them." Ginny had to restrain a smirk as Cass was struggling with her dress-up clothes.

"That's good. John can't tie a bow tie to save his life."

"Why not?"

"He has three brothers. None of them would let the others wear such a thing."

"He looks awfully good, you know."

"Which robes is he wearing?'

"They're burgundy, with a gold sash and shiny embroidery."

"How very House-conscious," Cass observed. Considering her ensemble was the most Slytherin thing imaginable, it was a sarcastic comment. "At least burgundy looks fairly good on him."

"I think it's intentional," Hermione remarked, struggling with her pantyhose. "When you two dance together, it'll sort of shoot the House rivalries in the foot."

"You're one to talk." Cass grinned. "Did you hear about the new prefects rule?"

"Which?"

"Prefects have to dance with at least one teacher. Hallo, Head Girl."

"Who decided that?" Lavender inquired. "She might have to dance with…I d'know, Snape or somebody!"

"Beats the sod out of Professor Binns, in my opinion," Cass smirkingly ate a pretzel. "Why are you lot so down on ol' Sevvy?"

"He's a greasy git rat bastard with the temper of a tarantula and the social graces of a dead manticore." Blaise also picked up a pretzel. "No wonder he's my favorite relative."

"Hey!" Cass gave the Slytherin a look and swiped back the pretzel bowl. "He's not so bad when he's not stuck teaching."

"If he could just get laid," Parvati observed. "Maybe that'd help."

Cass artfully distracted the others from Hermione's blushing face by choking on a pretzel. A punch in the gut from Ginny later, she was cured.

"Gaw, evil pretzels." Cass passed the bowl to the highchair's tray. "You eat them, Donaghan."

"Okay!"

"Explain to me again, why's the kid here?" Blaise gestured to the little Scot.

"It's fun to babysit," Lavender protested.

"And dressing in front of a guy is fun," Cass added. "Just with Donnie, we don't have to follow up on it."

"Well, he's scarfing up all the pretzels." Donaghan picked up a pretzel and offered it to Blaise. Since she was in the process of buckling a shoe, she opened her mouth, whereupon the little boy deposited the pretzel between her teeth. "Thank you."

"We have enough pretzels to build a new Astronomy Tower," Ginny held up a fat bag. "Why did you buy so many, Blaise?"

"I like pretzels."

"She got the Muggle units of measurement just a little off," Hermione explained. "Thank goodness I bought the chocolate."

"Hey, confusing pounds and ounces is not bad when you buy chocolate," Cass happily took a piece from the little heap that was decorating the tea tray. "Seventeen pounds of chocolate and pretzels…we could make chocolate-covered ones."

"We could have chocolate fondue," Blaise suggested.

"After the Ball?"

"Why not now?" Ginny went and fetched her cauldron from potions class. "I'll have Dobby bring up some strawberries and bananas and such."

"Marshmallows!" Cass pleaded.

"I've got toothpicks!"

As Blaise and Ginny eagerly melted the chocolate, noone thought to rinse out the cauldron first.

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"I think this is a bad idea." Ron tugged at his sleeves. "Why should I?"

"Because, Ron, I think she needs a nice guy to ask her to dance."

"Draco's…I can't believe I'm saying this."

"It's not like she's…well, most people wouldn't mind."

Ron looked at Harry, a sheepishly apologetic smile on his face.

"I don't mind her looks."

"Then why are you being such a scared cat about it?" Harry adjusted his tie in the mirror. "It's just a dance or two."

"But she's…she's Blaise Zabini, y'know?" Harry looked at his friend, who did seem rather apprehensive. "She's the Slytherin Queen, the Serpent's Den femme fatale." Harry couldn't resist.

"A scarlet woman?"

"Harry, I'd just as soon not wind up with a crush on her." Ron sounded desperate.

"Who says you will?"

"Everyone who's seen her up close in dress robes does!"

"I never did," Draco observed, coming in with a small box. "Got our boutonnieres."

"Our what?"

"Button-flowers," Ron explained.

"Oh."

"They arrived by owl. I'm betting Professor Cass or my mum sent them."

"Why would your mum-?"

"She thinks you lot beat the sod out of Crabbe and Goyle," Malfoy explained. Harry picked up one of the tiny arrangements and sniffed it.

"I think your mum must've sent them."

"Why not Professor Cass?" Ron asked.

"Too strong a smell," Harry explained. "Werewolves' noses are really sensitive." Having stayed with Remus Lupin, Harry knew what he was talking about. "That, and they're just not the sort of thing Professor Cass would send."

"Not even," Draco agreed. "Have you guys seen the girls' new robes?"

"No, why?"

"Well, I took the box of wrist corsages over to the Gryffindor girls' room, and-"

"How'd you get in?" Harry asked eagerly.

"Secret passage, behind the picture of the water nymph on the fourth floor."

"Cool!"

"What did they look like?" Ron pressed.

"Weasley, let's put it this way. There are little heaps of dead Gryffie boys piled at your sister's feet." Draco grinned. "Potter, you are one lucky Seeker. Your Hermione's done her butterfly-out-of-bookworm trick again, and the fashion plates just look like their usual selves in robes."

"How about Blaise?" Ron asked.

"Oh, Blaise…she looks good." Draco shrugged.

"How good?" Ron was beginning to look desperate.

"What, scared she'll do the part-veela thing to you?"

"She's part-veela?"

"Only about a twelfth, but sometimes she can have that effect." Draco looked at Ron in astonishment. "Why? Fancy her or something?"

"I suggested he dance with her once or twice," Harry explained. "So much for Gryffindor being the bravest House." Draco shook his head.

"No, Potter, his fears are well-founded." Ron looked even more nervous and Draco sighed. "Here's the trick, Weasley. You just have to keep in mind that under the fabulous outfit, the great figure, the gorgeous hair, all of it-"

Ron looked sick.

"-there's a bit of a ditz who likes to dance about the room naked to disco music when noone else's around."

"Okay, that mental image was not helpful…"

"Look, Ron, why are you so worried?" Harry asked. "If you like a girl, you like her."

"Yeah," Draco agreed. "And it's Blaise."

"You lot see Blaise Zabini as this friendly tomboy with a Muggle music fixation. I see her as the English answer to Fleur Delacour."

"And?" Harry smiled.

"Look what she did to Bill, and then Roger Davies."

"I thought she was Bill's friend at Gringotts and he helped get them together," Harry observed.

"Well, yeah, but she's all hypnotizy and…" Ron gestured incoherently. "Look, I'll dance with her, but if I'm a lovesick git like Flint was within a week…"

"Flint wasn't lovesick," Malfoy explained coldly. "He treated her like chattel."

"But look how possessive he got."

"Same way he treats a broom. That was his problem, not Blaise's." Draco had a dark look on his face. "Listen, Weasley, I've spent a lot of my time here hating your very guts. Blaise is like my sister, and she needs a nice guy to watch out for her at the ball tonight. Just to keep her from getting snarled up in a case like that again. You're the one I'd pick." The blond boy smiled slightly and continued. "Besides, if she's seen with you, her family'll have kittens. Blaise loves doing that kind of thing."

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"I hate my life."

"Severus, stop."

"My very existence is a riotous haze of woe."

"It's a tie, not a noose."

"Might as well be."

"Look, just because you have to go to a Ball-"

"And entertain the grim thought of living another day-"

"And dance with at least one student-"

"The worthless hours passing like –I get to what?"

"Dance with one student. Albus' orders," Lupin explained before looking at his coworker's face and going pale. "Good god, man!"

"What?"

"You're smiling!"

"Oh, dear. Call a priest," John said dryly. "Severus got possessed again."

"And you're joking with us?" Remus looked at the werewolf and the Slytherin back and forth. "First he smiles and then you speak? Who's going to die tonight?"

"I don't know," John replied thoughtfully. "Hope its noone nice."

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The music filling the Great Hall was a mixture of Muggle and wizard, British and American, wild and demure. Some of the parents were confused by a few selections, but by the second rock an' roll number, Arthur and Molly Weasley were dancing like students. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy arrived during a faintly forboding orchestral song, entering ironically from the front just as John, Remus and Severus appeared by the left door of the rear. At the right, a few moments later, Cass, Blaise and Hermione entered, seemingly engrossed in conversation. The song ended with an abrupt scrape of strings, leaving a total and abject silence as the gathered onlookers watched.

The rumor mill, especially in Slytherin, had loosely hinted at the vendetta between Lucius Malfoy and Cass Tyler, until most of the student body simply considered them hereditary enemies. (When questioned about his seeming civility with the werewolf by his housemates, Draco had been smiling arrogantly and saying something to the effect of 'Know your enemy.') Consequently, when these two entered the Hall within seconds of each other, everyone watched, some hoping for a fight.

Rather than risk not only a fatal duel, but also the blowing of his own cover, Severus quickly sprang into action. He crossed the room and stiffly bowed to Hermione, who took his hand with an equally impassive expression as the next song began. Lupin, wishing to avoid a fight, did the same, a little more warmly, offering a hand to Blaise. John distracted Cass from Lucius' presence in the best way he knew how, which replaced the silence with a chorus of 'aww,' 'oooh!' and the perennial favorite 'Newlyweds, go figure.' It was quite an effective trick. Just about the only thing Lucius could do at that point was dance with Narcissa, and this he did with the same aristocratic coldness as the rest of his movements.

At approximately the sixth measure of the song, something unfortunate happened. Since the thirteenth century, the court quadrille had been popular among wizards. It had evolved very little, being still a kind of slow, stately British square dance. With the four pairs present on the floor and the tempo of the present song, an inadvertent cross had formed. The laws of etiquette being what they were, the eight people had no choice.

"What's-?" Hermione whispered.

"Quadrille," Severus explained, almost silently. "To the left."

Hermione appropriately stepped to the left and found herself dancing with Professor Lupin. He very surreptitiously whispered the steps, and within a bar or two she had it down. To her chagrin, Cass and Blaise already knew this dance. Blaise being a pureblood, it was little surprise from her, but Cass…

"Dance classes," Lupin explained quietly without even being asked. "Americans love them."

"Won't she have to…?"

"After you do, yeah."

Hermione felt an icy fist grasp her intestines. Dancing with Lucius Malfoy herself was scary. Being in the room while Cass did, well…

"Miss Granger."

"Mr. Malfoy."

"Your holiday is passing well?"

"Quite, and yours?"

"Splendid," the blond man replied without expression. It was all very stiff and polite. As Hermione moved to John Tyler, she listened carefully. "Professor Tyler," Lucius greeted crisply.

"Mr. Malfoy." Cass' tone was equally icy.

"Very Slytherin ensemble."

"And yours, as well." Lucius was wearing black with green accents and silver embroidery.

"Was your Sorting a surprise?" Cass didn't flinch or bend in the slightest.

"Not really. Yours?"

"Never." The two parted, and Hermione realized she had barely breathed in the interim.

"Are you alright?" Severus whispered.

"Terrified."

"Narcissa warned me -he knows." Hermione felt a chill.

"That she works for-?"

"No." Severus inclined his head slightly and Hermione saw something. Even as Lucius danced with Narcissa, he was carefully watching every step Cass took, a strange look in his eyes escaping his usual control.

Whether it was hatred, fascination or fear, Hermione didn't quite want to know.

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