Thank you for the reviews yesterday!
A couple notes about this chapter, which please read: This is the first of three Christmas chapters. This particular one has an almighty cliffhanger at the end of it. I mean it. I decided to do this for what I think are good stylistic reasons, which you'll probably understand when you read it. If you don't like cliffhangers, read only up until the last scene break. I mean it.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Dancing With Luna
Another of Lily's letters came at dinner on Christmas Eve.
Harry swallowed the bite of Christmas pudding in his mouth and scooped the letter off the table before anyone else could get too curious about it. Eyes followed the envelope as he dropped it into his robe pocket, but no one said anything, for which Harry was profoundly grateful. He kept his gaze on his plate and continued eating. After a moment, conversation resumed around him. Draco was muttering to himself about Christmas presents. Apparently, neither of his parents had sent him anything because they wanted to wait until tomorrow night, when Lucius would meet Harry and Draco after the Yule Ball.
And it's the conclusion of the truce-dance. Harry swallowed, and then shook his head. He'd spent some hours meditating on it, and still he had no idea what gift he would receive from Lucius. He would just have to wait and see, he supposed.
There might be a gift from your mother in that letter, you know.
Harry focused his eyes on the twelve Christmas trees scattered around the Great Hall. Several people were trying to pack the warm, enchanted snow drifting from the ceiling into balls, and complaining loudly when they didn't succeed.
The trees and the snow didn't distract him. Instead, they just made him remember what had happened at Godric's Hollow, the last time he had seen his mother, a year ago tonight.
You'll never know what she has to say if you don't open the letter.
Harry shook his head and stood. "I've had enough food, I think," he announced, as heads swiveled around to follow his movement. "I've got a private lesson with Professor Snape to go to anyway."
The others nodded, and Slytherins began to disperse from the table, chattering to each other. Most of the talk concerned the Yule Ball. Harry winced, and was careful not to look at Draco. He didn't know if his friend had got a date or not. Draco simply went into frowns whenever he asked, or scowled if he was feeling truly angry.
"Harry?"
Harry blinked and tore himself from his distraction as the object of it came up beside him. "Yeah?"
"You do know that you can tell me who the letter's from, right?" Draco had his eyebrows drawn down, in an expression of concentration that Harry had long since learned to distinguish from anger, especially since both of them were focused on him lately. "I mean, if you want to."
Harry smiled slightly. This is his way of letting me know that my problems matter to him just as much as his do to me. "Yeah, I know that. I just don't want to right now. I—" He shrugged. "It's too much," he said honestly. I don't think I'm going to collapse crying this time—and oh Merlin, that was embarrassing!—but I still don't want to talk to anyone about this. They'd all have advice, and I think it's the kind of thing I need to figure out for myself.
Draco nodded to him, and then they parted, Draco turning for the Slytherin common room and Harry for the corridor that led to Snape's offices. He pondered the whole way over the letter that rested like a burning coal in his pocket.
You could tear it to bits. But that wouldn't give you the option of reading it later.
And he did want that option, Harry decided.
With a long, quiet sigh, he decided that he might as well leave it where it was for now. He could always decide later if he wanted to see what his mother had to say, that way, and he didn't want to have make a more definite choice right now.
Snape lifted his head when Harry entered, and then frowned. His charge looked as though someone had drained all the color from his face. He took out his wand and the book on the Dark Arts that Snape had set him to reading, but his expression remained frozen and thoughtful.
"Harry?" Snape asked quietly.
Harry blinked and looked up at him. "I—" he said, and then shook his head. "I'm all right," he said, in a voice that was convincing if Snape didn't look at his eyes. "I had a few questions about the variations on the Blasting Curse, sir. I tried them, and I didn't do very well. Can you tell me why that is?"
Snape raised his brows, but stood and walked over to the table Harry'd put the book on. If he doesn't want to talk to me directly about it, there are other ways of holding a conversation. Snape did not want to go too fast or be too direct, anyway. He and Harry were building their bond again step by small step, and they took care not to spend too much time in each other's company.
"You tried the variations that called for strength and not finesse, didn't you?" he asked, as he recognized the page that Harry had the book open at. It already bore a worn appearance, as though Harry had read it multiple times in his attempt to get everything right.
"Well, yes, sir." Harry blinked at him. "I'm not that well-trained in the variations, but I'm pretty strong."
Snape nodded. "Your training sometimes leaves you at a disadvantage, Harry," he said, and saw a small flinch in the boy. Ah. Something to do with his parents, as I thought it might be, given what happened to him at this time last year. "You were taught control, though in somewhat—different areas than what Dark Arts usually require, I will agree. That means that you're used to putting your strength in limits. It's not easy to dig it out of those constraints and simply go flailing about with it. And that's what the strength variations on the Blasting Curse call for. You might as well be hitting out with a hammer. And you're more used to using a dagger than a hammer." He drew his own wand. "Show me which one gave you the best results."
Harry gestured with one hand. Snape had noticed that, too, how his charge tried now to keep his wandless magic closely bound to his body. He approved it as a sign of caution, but it was also yet another sign of how Harry adapted to control before he considered freedom, for either his magic or himself.
He has changed, but not that much. He's calmed around me, and around Draco. He accepts help more readily. But his own mind is still wrapped up in steel wire.
Snape watched as the Curse destroyed one of his chairs, which Harry repaired with the next motion, and nodded. "You will achieve better results if you attempt to choose one weak point, instead of simply spreading your strength over the whole of the chair," he said.
Harry's face brightened. "That was the commonality between the finesse-based variations that I couldn't see!" he exclaimed. He shook his head. "I'm slower at learning from books than Hermione. I do much better with demonstrations."
"That does not mean you are stupid, Harry."
Harry's head turned as if he were sensing danger. This was one of those direct things they didn't talk about as much. His eyes were wide as they watched Snape, asking him what he was doing, to abandon their safe routine of the last few days. Caution edged his voice as he replied, "I never said I was."
Snape spun his wand on one hand, thinking of the best way to phrase this. Nothing came to him. Speak as a diplomat, and Harry would let the soft words roll off him as he usually did. Speak as a Slytherin, and Harry would find half a hundred motives in the words and ignore the right ones. Say something that could possibly be connected to another person, and Harry would attempt to bounce Snape's attention to what that person was suffering. Snape had had to make it quite clear on his first day back at Hogwarts that he was not interested in talking about Draco's problems, Granger's problems, Connor's problems, Weasley's problems, or anyone else's problems but Harry's during these private sessions.
So that leaves hard words, and direct truth.
"Your words often belie that. I have noticed that you inevitably denigrate yourself when you compare your actions and performances with those of others. You imply constantly that you should have been better than you were in whatever you do. You take next to no pride in your skills."
"That's not true," Harry argued. "Not all the time. I made a comparison of how I flew to how Connor flies the other day, and it was complimentary to me. And I must have done it at other times in the past."
"Then change 'inevitably' to 'almost always,'" Snape said, unable to prevent a certain note of dryness from entering his voice. "It does not change what is happening, and I will not allow you to get out of this on a technicality. Think about it, Harry. How many other people would have been able to save a friend's life, survive numerous wounds and Death Eater attacks, free their magic, defeat the Dark Lord for the fourth time, save at least half the students at the school, set three dragons free, get the Minister of Magic deposed, gain control of a Daily Prophet reporter, and insure that their guardian was set free in a year?"
"Third time," said Harry.
Snape blinked. He'd become a bit caught up in his own words, and had lost track of what Harry could possibly be responding to. "What?"
"Third time." Harry lifted his chin. "I told you, Connor defeated him at the end of our first year at Hogwarts."
Snape rolled his eyes. "And you choose to ignore everything else on that list," he said. "This is like you."
"I don't like to think about it." Harry turned away. "Stop talking about it, please."
"For now," said Snape, deciding that he couldn't press his charge too far just yet, but not wanting to lie and tell him that he would drop this, either. "Tomorrow evening—"
"After the Yule Ball, Draco and I have to meet with Lucius."
Snape frowned. He had forgotten that. "Very well, then. The night after that, you will return here."
"I will," said Harry, and gave him a sudden, quick smile. "It's nice to have you back, sir, even when you talk about uncomfortable things." He snatched up his wand and his book and let himself out.
Snape closed his eyes, sighed, and went to pour himself a Calming Draught. He was patient. He had set plans in motion before that had taken months to arrive at fruition. He had been a spy for a year. He could do this. It was not too slow. He would break down a few of the barriers that Harry had placed on himself in the end.
His gaze wouldn't stop going to the three cauldrons in the corner of his office, though. Two were empty now, the insanity potion and the Meleager Potion utterly gone.
The third, full of clear silver like liquid glass, still remained.
Harry closed his eyes. He had, try as he might, been unable to come up with a combination of spells that would do exactly as he wanted, so he was trying his best to will Connor's Christmas gift into existence. Or, at least, the overtly magical part of it. He had Transfigured one of his pillows into a blank book that should hold the magic once it was complete.
The air around him tightened as he imagined what he wanted. He pictured Pensieves—though not without a shudder—and Pansy's fey tale reader and the book of pureblood rituals he had given Draco, and shoved his will into the book.
The magic raced around him twice, and then tightened on his body like a coiling spring. Harry let out his breath in a surprised whoof. He had not realized how much his power would change when he centered it on and bound it to his body. He didn't think this particular change was a bad thing, though. At least it meant his magic tended to be more obedient than it had been. He opened his eyes to find out if it had obeyed him this time.
It had. Harry grinned slightly as he opened the book to the first page and found a written record of the time he and Connor had found a nest of fairies at the bottom of the garden in Godric's Hollow. The little creatures had been extremely rude, and refused to reveal how they had crossed the wards.
He flipped through the other pages, and nodded. Each record was written "I," from his perspective, and in his handwriting. All of them were carefully chosen. Harry wanted only happy memories in this book. No need to remind Connor of the storms they'd been through.
He put the book carefully aside, and then started when he saw Draco sitting on his own bed and watching him. He'd been alone when he started, but, of course, the magic had consumed him so completely that it wasn't a surprise he hadn't heard the door open and shut.
"Hi, Draco," he said.
"Hi, Harry." Draco lay down on his back and folded his hands behind his head. He kept looking at Harry, though, and his eyes were more intense than they had been since the night Luna had asked Harry to the Ball. Harry frowned and tilted his head. Is he going to say whatever it was she interrupted then? But why now? He's had plenty of chances before.
"Was there something you wanted to tell me?" he ventured after a few minutes.
Draco let out a long breath. "Harry," he said at last, "do you think there's just one person for every wizard and witch out there? That if they fall in love with each other, that's it? They get married—or joined—and spend the rest of their lives with each other?"
Harry snorted. "Of course not. I grew up isolated, Draco, but I could read. I know there are lots of second marriages and divorces, even if most purebloods don't like to admit to them." This much, he couldn't resist needling his friend about. Draco sometimes had a blindness to the less positive parts of the culture in which he'd been raised.
"But does the mere existence of second marriage and divorces invalidate the idea?" Draco had the pensive, contemplative look on his face that he usually only got when he talked about potions or the pureblood rituals he was learning. "I mean, maybe the right people didn't meet each other until the second marriage, and then they'll stay together for the rest of their lives. And maybe the people who got divorced realized the other spouse or partner wasn't their perfect match, so that was why they divorced them."
Harry shook his head. "I don't think anyone's perfect for another witch or wizard, Draco."
"Why not?" Draco's glare was abruptly of piercing intensity.
Harry blinked. Is this about his crush? Well, that would explain why he's so interested in this, since he thinks it's love.
Harry felt flattered that Draco would choose to talk to him about this, even if it was in an extremely roundabout way. So far as he knew, Draco hadn't breathed a word about his crush to anyone else. So Harry gave him what he really thought, instead of the flippant answer he might have tried to fob him off.
"Because they can't be," he said quietly. "They'd have opposite desires and inclinations and arguments at least some of the time. One person would have to suppress all those differences to really be perfect for the other person, or manufacture the opposing desires and inclinations and arguments that the other person wanted them to have. It would involve crumpling their freedom at least some of the time. I hate the very idea."
Draco opened his mouth, then closed it. Then he said, "But what if that person really does think the other one is perfect just the way he—or she—is?"
"Then he needs to go to St. Mungo's," said Harry gently. "And he's setting himself up for a fall, I think, because what happens if the perfect person changes or makes a mistake?" He shook his head when Draco gave him a frustrated glance. "I don't know what you want me to say, Draco, but that's what I truly believe."
Draco got up, sighed, and left the room. He didn't seem angry, at least, just frustrated. Harry watched him wistfully. I hope he's not setting himself up for a fall. Merlin knows, I can't think of anyone he would believe is perfect, but then, I don't know who his crush is.
Harry sighed and shifted from foot to foot. He'd agreed to meet Luna at the Ravenclaw Tower before the Yule Ball, but he wished he hadn't. He felt utterly ridiculous in his dress robes. He could perform fine gestures and dances and ceremonies all he liked, he thought, but he just wasn't cut out to wear finery.
At least the Christmas Day before this had been fun. He'd given Connor the book of memories, and received a book on the history of centaurs from him in return. Draco hadn't yet given him a gift, but he claimed that was coming this evening, so it could wait. Harry intended to give him his gift then, too, since it wasn't the kind of thing that could be carried or made beforehand.
James had sent him a Pensieve. Harry hadn't yet dared to look into it, resulting in a somewhat awkward letter of thanks.
Draco had been reasonable, resigned, it seemed, to the fact that his crush wouldn't attend the Ball with him. He'd still dressed up as though he were going, so Harry assumed he'd see him there.
"There you are, Harry."
Harry blinked once as Luna came out of the Tower, and then blinked again. She had on delicate blue robes with silver trim, which would have looked completely normal if not for the bits of silver tinsel also stuck on them. Harry wondered if the tinsel was meant to represent stars, the kind that Dumbledore's robes often showed, but they were not star-shaped, and if there was any pattern, Harry couldn't see it. Luna had on a necklace of feathers braided so intricately that Harry couldn't make out anything but a bristling mass of, well, feather, and her hat had long silver ribbons that curled into her blonde hair, around her ears, under her chin, and sometimes left her hat altogether and explored up and down her neck and shoulders, like serpents.
"You look very noticeable, Luna," said Harry, because he wouldn't give her false gallantry. Luna smiled at him.
"So do you, Harry," she said, and held out another necklace. "Merry Christmas."
Harry ducked his head, embarrassed, so she could put it around his throat. "I'm sorry, Luna. I didn't get anything for you."
Luna gave him a strange glance as she straightened again. "Yes, you did. You're dancing with me and taking me to the Ball."
Harry would have argued that she'd been the one to ask him, but he knew she honestly wouldn't know what he was talking about, so he offered her his arm. "Shall we go downstairs?"
Luna put her hand on his forearm in the three-fingered posture correct for a younger witch letting an older wizard escort her—well, after all, she was pureblood—and glided down the hall beside him. Harry took the opportunity to study the necklace she'd given him out of the corner of his eye.
"Luna," he said after a moment.
"Yes, Harry?" She glanced up at him, her face utterly serene.
"What kind of teeth are these?" They didn't look like any he'd seen before, even as ingredients in advanced potions. They had delicate spindles rising from a flat base, and ended in four tiny, jagged spikes, as if the teeth had smaller teeth inside them.
"Hippogriff teeth," said Luna.
"But hippogriffs don't have teeth," said Harry.
"They do," said Luna. "If you look. They take out their teeth by the light of the full moon and hide them away, so that people can use them for necklaces and charms. But you can only find them if you're looking for them, and for that purpose. The hippogriffs don't want their teeth to be used for anything else."
Harry hesitated, then decided that he wouldn't gain much from questioning her. He would feel like he was badgering her, thought of course she would be content to patiently explain anything that he didn't understand. Besides, why should he worry about it tonight? Tonight was a night for having fun.
He relaxed and smiled. "I never knew that," he said. "Do they tell you anything? You know, like the chairs about Helga Hufflepuff?"
Luna sniffed. "Not anything interesting. Hippogriff teeth only want to talk about the full moon, and there's only so many times that you can hear about it rising and setting and waxing and waning before you want something different."
Harry found himself smiling more widely. She's probably the best person I could have taken to the Ball. It's impossible to be self-conscious or worry about my dancing when she's around. There are so many more interesting things to worry about.
They reached the doors of the Great Hall soon enough, and joined the crowd of students milling outside it. Harry spotted Viktor Krum, who nodded tersely at him. The Durmstrang Champion hadn't been that happy about Harry apparently upstaging him at the First Task, but he'd made no secret of the fact that he felt a sort of grudging respect as well, and Harry didn't think the scowl on the other boy's face had anything to do with him. His date, one of the upper-year Gryffindor girls whom Harry didn't know very well, kept sneaking glances at him, as if she couldn't believe she was here with him. Krum ignored her entirely.
Fleur Delacour actually sought him out, smiling at him and tossing her long silver hair. "'Ello, Harry," she murmured. Her gaze took in Luna, and her eyebrows rose, but she didn't say anything. Harry didn't think she had grounds to say anything at all, given that her date, Roger Davies, the Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain, was all but drooling as he looked at her. He had his hand on her arm in the wrong position, as well.
Harry caught the snobbish tone of that thought, and blinked. Since when did I become Draco?
Harry nodded back to Fleur. "Are you looking forward to the dancing?" he asked, since he could think of nothing else to ask her.
Fleur laughed, a sound that increased her beauty. "Of course," she said. "Dancing eez an art in my country. I look forward to showing everyone how it eez done!"
You have an unfair advantage, given your blood, Harry thought, but he murmured something polite that seemed to content Fleur. She led Roger away, absentmindedly moving her sleeve so that he couldn't drool on her robes.
"Hi, Harry."
Harry turned around—Luna was looking in the opposite direction, and for a moment he almost stumbled—to smile at his twin. Connor looked good enough in his red dress robes, though nervous.
Harry blinked when he saw his brother's date. Connor had only winked when Harry asked about her or him, and said that Harry would just have to wait to find out. Harry had, for some reason, imagined that Connor would bring someone from another House, rather than Parvati Patil.
Parvati ducked her head and blushed when she saw Harry looking at her, but she didn't giggle. She was much less annoying when she didn't do that, Harry had to concede. "Hi, Harry, Luna." She didn't appear startled by Luna's robes, and Harry had to give her mental points for that, even if it was probably because Parvati admired Professor Trelawney too much to laugh at strange clothes. "When do you think they're going to let us into the Hall?" She looked imperiously over several people's heads, as though she could command the doors to open by sheer force of will alone.
Connor patted her shoulder. "Probably in a few minutes," he said. His face was soft when he looked at Parvati. Harry blinked again. He had utterly, utterly missed that Connor was crushing on someone, and he looked both pleased and proud to have Parvati here with him.
What else have I missed, I wonder?
"In four minutes," said Luna.
Everyone in the immediate vicinity looked at her.
"In four minutes they'll open the doors," Luna clarified helpfully. "I heard the doors say so."
Connor couldn't quite hide a smile, but Harry was curious. He cast a Tempus charm, checked the time, and decided to wait.
"Where's Ron?" he asked then, since he thought it was odd that Ron wouldn't be at his best friend's right shoulder.
Connor winced. "Um, he came alone," he said. "His date didn't work out."
"It would if he'd asked her the right way," said Parvati primly. "My sister does not enjoy being asked out by someone too angry to get her name right."
"What's he angry about?" Harry asked.
Connor winced again, then abruptly looked over Harry's shoulder and stared. "Because of them," he said. "Oh, Merlin. I rather hoped they'd have the sense not to flaunt it, after everything."
Harry turned around. Blaise Zabini had entered the room, posing, not at all coincidentally, as a flash of light from a charm exploded around him like a camera. He looked good enough, Harry supposed, but his most noteworthy feature was the very pleased smirk that he turned on his date.
Ginny Weasley was on his arm.
"Tell me," Harry muttered to his brother, "was he upset about Ginny dating Blaise, or dating at all?" Ron did sometimes act insanely protective of his younger sister, as though she would shatter if she were dropped. Connor had told him that they'd had a fight at the beginning of the year, before they found out Quidditch was canceled, about Ginny joining the Quidditch team. She wanted to be a Chaser. Ron was worried for her, but he'd chosen to phrase it as "You can't play!" That argument had lasted for a while, and this was one was almost certain to be worse, to judge by the mulish expression on Ginny's face as Blaise guided her into the room.
Connor sighed. "It started out with Blaise," he said. "Then it went through boys, who Ron apparently thinks are lining up to push Ginny into a wall and snog her senseless. I think it ended somewhere around how Ron doesn't want her dating a 'slimy Slytherin.'"
"Bad, then," Harry surmised.
Connor closed his eyes and gave a tight little nod. "And Ron got worse when Padma wouldn't go out with him because he forgot her name and shouted at her."
"She was totally within her rights," said Parvati coolly.
"Oh, no, I didn't mean that," Connor hastened to reassure her. "I just meant that—"
"Welcome, students, to the Yule Ball," announced Professor McGonagall, as the doors swung open.
Harry cast the Tempus charm again, and shook his head. "It's four minutes later," he told Luna. "You were right."
Luna eyed him. "I wasn't right. The doors were right."
Harry smiled in spite of himself.
Draco was trying to decide if being at the Yule Ball without Harry was worse than staying in their room would have been. So far, he hadn't come to any definite conclusions.
On the one hand, of course, he could watch, and see that Harry didn't get groped by anyone else, and he had the great pleasure of seeing that Harry sat out at least half the dances, talking to Loony.
On the other hand, he was talking to Loony. And plenty of other people were looking at him, not that Harry noticed, the prat.
He doesn't notice the people looking at him like that in his own room. Why would he see it now?
Draco wished the professors allowed any drink stronger than butterbeer. It wasn't that he'd had a lot of opportunity to get drunk on wine, as opposed to taste it, but at least he wouldn't be coherent enough to feel miserable. Besides, nothing could possibly make him feel worse than he did right now.
"Draco."
Is there some Fate assigned to listen to me and make my life worse whenever I think something like that?
Draco turned around and nodded tersely to Blaise. "Zabini," he said, and watched Blaise smirk at him.
"Oh, it's like that, is it?" Blaise leaned past Draco to pick up one of the mince pies from the table behind him. Draco had chosen to stand near the food, since it was relatively central and let him see Harry even when he was dancing. "No need to be bitter, Malfoy, just because I got my crush to dance with me and yours doesn't even notice that you exist."
"The Weasel's little sister," Draco said, feeling glad that Blaise had given him the excuse to dip his tongue in acid. "Oh, yes, that's a conquest, all right."
Blaise just shrugged at him. "She's pretty," he said. "I like her. She makes me laugh. And that she'll tell her brother to sod off so she can date me is kind of a turn-on. Meanwhile, you claim to have this great, burning, blazing love for Harry, and all you do is moon after him and glare at anyone who touches him too often. I told you, you've got to tell him." Blaise paused, licking his fingers; Draco heroically refrained from commenting on this appalling lack of taste. "Or someone else could tell him," Blaise added. "Like me, for example."
Draco had drawn his wand before he realized what was happening. Blaise laughed, but couldn't quite mask the widening of his eyes.
"I've finally taken part of your stupid advice," Draco growled, when he could speak. "I know Harry's not like a normal person, and so I've got to treat him differently. But he's not going to take it well, or even understand it, if the time's not right. So shut it, Blaise, or I can make sure you shut it more permanently. I know the Vanishing Mouth Hex, you know."
Blaise's mouth dropped open in spite of himself; then he shut it as though he thought Draco might choose to cast the hex right then. "You do not," he said. "That's Dark Arts."
Draco sighed. "Zabini, think about what my father was, please."
Blaise studied him for a moment more, then shrugged. "Fine. He won't hear it from me. But you can't have everything just as you like, Malfoy." His eyes were shining with spite, which was fine with Draco; he preferred it to what Blaise was pleased to call "humor." "Someone is going to tell him one of these days. Or take a chance on him themselves, you know. Pansy fancies him, a bit."
Draco could well believe it. "But not today, she won't," he said, glancing over to where Pansy was dancing with Montague.
"Not today," Blaise acknowledged. "But soon enough."
Draco turned his back on him loftily. "Soon enough" was not "today."
"Sometimes objects are influenced by what's going on around them in the present," Luna was explaining as Harry led her back to the floor for a third dance. "The floor is talking about dances right now, because that's what people are doing on it right now."
Harry nodded slowly. As much as he could understand Luna's peculiar gift, which appeared to be a kind of empathy tuned to objects alone, that made sense to him. "Are they telling you about any particular ones?"
Luna laughed gently as Harry spun her through the first measure of the music. She barely moved when she was dancing, letting Harry's hands guide her, but her ribbons made up for it, writhing excitedly around her head and trailing behind her, like her hair, when she turned around. "They're remembering the time Salazar Slytherin danced with Rowena Ravenclaw. He only did it once, because he said that she stepped on his feet. Just to show him, she didn't step on his feet once the whole dance, and then told him she'd never dance with him again. He sulked for a week."
Harry cocked his head to the side as he and Luna briefly parted and then came back together again, only their fingertips touching this time. This dance wasn't one he'd practiced often, but he could watch the other dancers from a corner of his eye, and this was a variation on one he'd read about, so he could get through it without embarrassing himself. "The memories you've been telling me about are almost all from the Founders' time. Do the floors and the walls and the furniture remember them best?"
"They loved them," said Luna simply. She halted in place, turned in a half-circle, and bowed to the couple next to them, who, Harry was amused to see, were Hermione and Zacharias. "They built Hogwarts, after all. Of course Hogwarts is going to love them."
"What's she babbling about now?" Zacharias looked extremely irritated as he stepped out of the dance to take his place as Luna's temporary partner. Harry, moving across from Hermione, was about to retort, but Luna got there before he could.
"Do you have clumsy feet?" she asked, frowning at him. "The floor is complaining because it says you step too heavily."
Harry muffled his laughter in his sleeve as Zacharias shut up and retreated into proper pureblood coolness, leading Luna through the steps that she and Harry had just performed, in reverse order. Harry offered his hand to Hermione, and she nodded at him and slid easily into place. She's probably studied this, Harry thought, as Hermione refused to make a stumble, even when he did.
"You look lovely," he complimented her, because it was true. Hermione had gone to some trouble with the cosmetic charms that girls like Parvati used far more often. She'd straightened her hair, too, and Harry did wonder why she'd done that. Curls were perfectly fine. "And I'm sorry for what Luna said to Zacharias. I hope that he won't take it out on you."
"Thank you," said Hermione. "And he deserved it. He's been a perfect gentleman to me all evening, but Merlin, he's an idiot sometimes." She rolled her eyes as she and Harry wheeled apart from each other in the finger-touching motion. "Did you know he told me, in all seriousness, that he doesn't see what purpose most of the pureblood dances serve, because anyone worth a Sickle knows he's more intelligent than they are?"
Harry snorted, and changed it to a cough as Zacharias glanced over suspiciously at them. "That sounds like him," he said.
Hermione nodded with a frown. "That's the thing I like and despise about him most, really." She leaned back, and Harry spun her. "It's refreshing to be with someone who knows what I'm talking about and doesn't make fun of me for studying all the time, but he thinks that makes us better than other people. When I try to say that no, it doesn't, he has very logical arguments on why it does."
"I have to admit, I'm glad that I'm not dating him," Harry said, and guided Hermione through the first steps of the dance. It was harder than it looked, doing them backward, and both of them had to concentrate. "Good luck, I suppose."
"Thank you." Hermione nodded to him and moved back to Zacharias, who took her arm possessively the moment she came up next to him. They started what sounded like a muffled argument, in which Harry caught "different perspective on the world" several times in the course of a minute.
Not sure if I should wish her good luck or not, Harry thought with something between a grimace and a smile as he and Luna turned to face the next couple, Padma Patil and the girl she'd brought, whom Harry thought was named Marietta something. Happiness might be a better bet.
"Harry?"
Harry glanced up. Luna had just finished the mince pie he'd brought her from the food table—he'd nodded to Draco as he'd retrieved it, since Draco appeared to be standing guard over the food, and Draco had brightened considerably—and he wondered if she wanted to dance again.
"I'm going back to the Tower," she said, and smiled at him. "Thank you for dancing with me. I loved it."
Harry frowned. "Wait, Luna, let me take you—"
Luna shook her head. "You need to get to your meeting."
Harry stared at her.
Luna gave him a patient smile. "Harry," she said, "the walls told me." She leaned over and kissed his cheek, then wandered towards the door. Harry stood up to watch her go, at least partially to make sure that no one thought it would be funny to trip her or snatch one of the ribbons from her hat.
That was how he happened to have a direct line-of-sight view of Ron yelling at Ginny and Blaise, his face red as a radish, though Harry couldn't catch everything he said in the general buzz of music and talk. From what Connor had told him, "slimy Slytherin" would figure quite prominently. Harry frowned. If I went over there and challenged him to repeat that to me, would he? Would he have cared if Ginny had asked me?
He also got to see Ginny draw her wand from inside one lacy sleeve and cast a spell at Ron. It him squarely, and he paused for a moment, then clawed frantically at his nose.
Harry knew what hex she'd used when a bat began attacking Ron's face. Harry rolled his eyes. Bat-Bogey. Well, he got what was coming to him. If he'd just shut up about it in public, I don't think Ginny would have felt the need to do that.
The use of magic caused most people to fall silent and stare, so Harry could easily hear Professor McGonagall's shocked, "Miss Weasley!" and Ginny's disgusted, "I suppose that you want to be known as the Boy Who Lived To Be An Immature Prat, then."
She turned sharply away from Ron and took Blaise's arm again. Blaise was grinning like an idiot, Harry saw. Ron was already out the door.
Harry caught Draco's eye and tilted his head. Draco nodded and came over to him. "My father said he would meet us beyond the rose gardens," he murmured. "I know a side door that goes there without passing through the places where everyone'll be snogging."
Harry nodded back, and followed him. Most people were too involved in laughing or dancing to notice them, and the professors seemed focused on the drama of McGonagall attempting to get Ginny to stop dancing with Blaise so she could scold her properly.
Draco led Harry to a far corner of the Great Hall and slipped out a door that Harry had noticed before, but supposed vaguely must be for house elves or something. In a moment, they were out in the rose gardens, and Harry shook his head and sniffed in gratitude. Much as he'd enjoyed listening to Luna, the Hall had been growing too hot, and too filled with stares, for his comfort.
"This way," Draco whispered, and they slipped off among the rosebushes, avoiding any places that giggled.
Harry felt his mind calming and becoming cooler as if to match the air, though he cast a few warming charms on his face so that his cheeks wouldn't get the same idea. He was absolutely sure that he knew what Lucius was going to ask for. Luckily, it wasn't something he was at all reluctant to grant. He wondered what else the end of the truce-dance would involve beyond the exchange of gifts, though. Most books didn't talk much about that, as if afraid they would profane something so sacred with their words.
"Here we are."
Harry blinked and looked up. They'd reached the wall of the garden, and Draco was running a hand along the stone, his face seeming all frown in the faint light from the Great Hall. "Yes," he said after a moment. "Here it is. Father and Mother used to use this way to sneak out of the school in his seventh year."
"Why?" Harry asked, thinking that it would have been easier to go through the Entrance Hall.
Draco gave him a swift look, and his voice turned dry. "Harry, believe me, I really wasn't interested in asking."
Harry flushed. "That wasn't what I meant," he muttered, but Draco was already tugging at the gate.
A moment later, he muttered, "What the hell?"
Harry came up beside him, glad to have something to think about other than Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy sneaking out of Hogwarts. "What do you mean?" he asked, but when he laid his hand on the gate, he realized what it must be. There was a powerful magical force holding it shut, and it didn't feel like a ward or a shield. It felt like the result of a ritual. Harry pushed at it.
A question formed in his mind—not spoken, but written, as though someone were actively reaching into and writing it on his thoughts. Do you wish to pass?
Harry blinked. Yes, he answered, wondering if it could really be that simple.
You are certain?
I am.
There is no longer a prohibition?
There is not, Harry replied, wondering if perhaps this was a spell put on the school to discourage people from coming in during the war with Voldemort.
A wind appeared to sigh, and the words were wiped out of his mind. Harry nodded to Draco, and Draco pulled the gate open.
A single figure waited beyond the gate for them. Harry could make out it was a witch from the shape of the robes, and hesitated. He hadn't realized Narcissa would be there.
Draco took a step forward. "Mum—"
The woman cast the hood of her cloak back and rolled her sleeves at the same time, sending a small globe filled with light into one of her palms, so that they could see her face. When he saw it, Harry was certain that the light had already been lit, as she could not have managed the spell.
Lily gazed at him, and said, "Hello, Harry."