6. Evacuate the Dance Floor
Author's Note: Yay for ridiculously clichéd chapter titles that I don't own! And, by now you've probably got that I don't own the story title or Harry Potter, so this disclaimer is lasting from here on in. Chances are that the rest of my chapters' titles will be from songs, so I won't own them either. /longdisclaimer
And, in case you're all up on grammar and shizzle: I was never sure whether to spell the word blonde, or blond. I thought that the masculine form was blond and the feminine form blonde, but now I know that's wrong. I now assume that the colour is 'blond', but if you're referring to someone as their hair colour – as in 'the brunette smiled' – it would be 'the blonde'. I think. I dunno. Either way, there are different spellings of it all over this story. Ignore them. xD
Right, the Halloween ball! Let the chaos ensue...
Rose was ready, showered and made up, dressed in her homemade fairy outfit by quarter past eight. The catastrophe with her hair – which was now pinned back at the front only, and enchanted so that it shimmered and glittered every time she swung it over her shoulder – had set her back a bit time wise, but she wasn't bothered. What was fifteen minutes to a party that had the potential to last all night? She tied a white leather pouch around her waist, subtle and compact, to carry her money and makeup in, and checked to make sure her wings were still magically fluttering back and forth. She took a moment to adjust the tiny skirt that she'd made herself from the sarong – it showed an awful lot of pale, freckle-dotted leg – and then she was ready.
Perhaps she wouldn't win best costume, but she was still damn proud of herself for pulling one together.
In the common room, she bumped into Louis. The seventh year was dressed in medieval finery- silks and velvets in shades of forest green and deep burgundy. He also had a little, gold, glittering crown atop his thick blonde hair. "What are you?" she asked with a laugh, observing him closely. He brandished a stick in one hand that had a horse's head on top and haughtily replied that he was someone called 'Prince Charming'. "A Muggle thing," apparently. She wondered how he knew anything about Muggles, before concluding that it was probably from one of his sisters. She was sure one of them had taken Muggle Studies into a career.
James appeared soon after – none of the Weasley-Potters were very good timekeepers, apparently – in a red outfit, waving about a plastic, ruby-encrusted sword. He was Godric Gryffindor, and very peeved that he didn't have the genuine sword in his possession. The annoyance slipped his mind, however, once he was approached by some Gryffindor girls, all of whom asked him to be their date. He disappeared before Rose could question him about the fake spell book, regrettably.
Rose left the common room – pleased with the compliments that she had received over her costume from the few people she'd spoken to – and made her way down to the Great Hall. The party was already underway, with a live band that she didn't recognize screaming away up on the platform that had previously held the staff table. The only sources of light to the room were the huge pumpkins – some that were even taller than her – with the lanterns inside. They cast odd glows and brought up strangely shaped, abstract shadows of the people dancing in the room. There was a buffet to the right of the band, which Rose headed for immediately. She hadn't had a thing to eat all day. As she was helping herself to pumpkin pie she noticed her brother, Hugo, in the corner with his friends. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt that shouted, in big white letters, 'I AM A MUGGLE.' Rose rolled her eyes; how original.
"I thought you weren't coming for a second," said a familiar voice behind her, strained to be loud enough over the music without shouting.
Rose turned, almost dropping her plate of pie in alarm when she came face to face with what looked like a genuine bone mask. The rest of the figure was draped in black robes. Its arm lifted and moved the mask up, revealing the grinning face of Scorpius Malfoy. "What are you?" Rose asked, blinking up at him.
"A Death Eater," he sniggered, rolling his eyes and showing her his forearm, on which was a replica of the Dark Mark. Rose's eyes popped.
"You are not!" she said disbelievingly, amazed by his boldness but unsure whether to appreciate the humour or embrace disdain.
"I am," Scorpius replied, tapping the mask lightly.
"Bit risky, don't you think?" Rose asked, raising an auburn eyebrow.
"Not as risky as that skirt, Rosie," Scorpius laughed. "Jesus, what's it made of? And when did you become a blonde, anyway?"
Rose blushed at the skirt comment, one hand immediately dropping to adjust it at the back. It was outrageously short, she had to admit. Ignoring his first question, she answered the second instead. "I guess I just got inspired," she grinned, twirling a lock of pale hair around the fingers of her free hand.
Scorpius grinned back, observing Rose in her costume for a couple of long moments, before reaching behind her to get a goblet of juice. He downed it in one and replaced the container on the table. While he drank, Rose fidgeted in her outfit almost anxiously. "Loathe as I am to ask, what exactly are you?" Scorpius said once he was done. "The wings suggest fairy, but you never know." Rose nodded, confirming her identity and giving him a little twirl as if to prove her point.
"Okay then, fairy, do you want to dance?" Scorpius' request surprised her, but she accepted and they moved out onto the floor. Couples swirled around them, and Rose noticed Roxanne in her Veela outfit, which consisted of a white sheet draped to cover only the essentials. She looked stunning, but something in her eyes screamed danger and wildness. Their cousins were nowhere to be found; Rose guessed that they wouldn't want to be anywhere near Roxanne when she was dressed so provocatively. The absence of family from the dance floor was shocking. Rose almost felt incomplete, but it was a good feeling. Foreign, but pleasant. She could be herself without them around- heck, she could be someone else if she wanted to. She could do whatever she wanted without being judged by them.
Scorpius draped a black-robed arm around her waist in a way that she assumed he meant to seem casual. She could feel the tenseness in his muscles, however, and when she looked up her eyes came in contact with his Adam's apple. It bobbed continuously as he swallowed. Was he nervous touching her? They swayed naturally to the music, and Rose let her hands move up to his face. They passed his pale skin, however, and her hands took hold of the pulled-up Death Eater mask instead. With a gentle touch, she removed it from his head, looking at it curiously. It was quite unremarkable, this object that represented Lord Voldemort's reign of terror. She looked from the mask to Scorpius, taking in the greyness of his eyes that revealed nothing of his feelings, and went to put the mask back over his head. He took it from her hands before she could, though, and tossed it off the dance floor. It hit the wooden floor and spun, an indistinguishable blur of black and white, under the buffet table.
Rose watched it go, and when she turned back to Scorpius, found him closer than she'd expected. The beat of the music encouraged boldness; perhaps it was the feeling that nobody could see them in this dark hall, with the loud, impenetrable hum of the music. Her blue eyes lowered from his gaze to take in the rest of his features. His nose, long and pointed yet noticeably crooked from past injury; his cheekbones, so high that they gave him a constant haughty expression when he wasn't smiling; his chin, pale and pointed below thin, wide lips; and those lips, often curled into his trademark smirk that were now serious and still. The lack of conversation and banter didn't seem to bother either of them. In that moment, that long, drawn-out moment, they looked, for all the world, lost in each other. Perhaps it was just a trick of the light, but Rose was sure she saw Scorpius lean in to her slightly – almost as if to kiss her – but then the moment was gone.
A hard, strong shoulder was shoved into Scorpius' back. It sent him tumbling forwards into Rose, who held out her hands for protection but was knocked down anyway. He recovered his balance, frowning and wincing angrily as he looked around for the culprit. Rose stayed on the dance floor, somewhat winded, her fairy wings crushed beneath her like the baffling hope she'd felt just seconds before as she looked into the advancing face of Scorpius Malfoy.
Scorpius turned back, their attacker lost in the sea of writhing bodies, and a look of pure, dangerous frustration – as if it physically hurt him to see her – crossed his face when he saw Rose's crumpled form. Her pale legs stood out against the wide black expanse of black flooring and her pretty face was creased in pain. In the dim light with her blonde hair, she barely looked like the calm and casual friend he'd hung out with over the past month. He kneeled down, murmuring something vaguely coherent that sounded like, "C'mon, c'mon," as he lifted her to her feet. "Merlin, Rose, I'm sorry," he told her over the background noise, looking around again. "Some jerk rammed straight into the back of me. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Rose replied, though her voice was unusually strangled. She pushed one foot out in front of her, turning it from side to side and grimacing. "It's just my ankle. I think I kicked it when I fell." It was surprising how naturally they touched one another now: Scorpius held her hands to support her as she pressed down on her painful ankle and neither of them thought anything of it. It was completely different to the tentative, almost nervous way he'd handled her while they danced. The way they looked at each other was completely dissimilar to their intensity of their gazes under the bold trance of the music.
"Shit, Scorpius, it hurts," she said, biting on her lip gently. "Let's just get off the dance floor."
Scorpius obliged, helping her off to the side, but she could see the disappointment on his face. She didn't blame him; they'd been having a good time. But it had been James that had slammed into Scorpius; she'd seen his face over the blonde's shoulder. She'd seen the malice in his eyes and the spiteful curl of his lip. He'd done it on purpose, and if they went back on the dance floor he'd do it again. Knowing James, it could escalate into a full-blown duel within minutes.
"The fucker broke your wings," Scorpius growled, close enough to be heard in the loud room. He moved behind her and gently adjusted the wings, popping the netting back into place. They fluttered feebly in his hands, the enchantment on them worn weak from the fall.
Rose chuckled. "It's fine, Scorpius, forget about it. I think I just want to go to bed now."
"We've only been here half an hour, Rosie! C'mon..."
"I know," Rose answered. "But my ankle hurts and my head aches and you have no idea how long it takes me to get these sandals off." She gestured to the brown leather straps which wound up to her calves- they were straining around her ankle, which was swelling nastily and sporting a growing black bruise. Seeing the bruise, Scorpius reluctantly nodded.
"Alright, then, let's go."
"You stay here, okay?" Rose said, making her way slowly and steadily towards the door with a rather noticeable limp. "There's no point in you leaving so early."
"Don't be an idiot," he snapped back, hurrying forward to slip her arm around his shoulder. He hoisted her up straight, and heard her immediate sigh of relief. "It's not like I've got anyone else around here to hang out with anyway."
Ten or so minutes later, Rose found herself saying an awkward goodbye to Scorpius outside Gryffindor Tower, scrutinized by the portrait of the fat lady. As she limped upstairs to bed, her mind wandered lazily back to the short time she'd managed to spend at the Halloween party. She smiled as she unwrapped the ties of her shoes, rubbing her ankle gently and performing a couple of anti-pain spells to numb its consistent, mildly annoying throb. It hadn't been a very long night, but it had been a good one. It was only when she was tucked up under the covers of her four-poster, revelling in the silence of the empty dormitory that she remembered that moment on the dance floor, after Scorpius had thrown away his costume Death Eater mask. He'd been about to kiss her, she was sure of it.
And the scary thing was? She'd wanted him to.
Author's Note:
A quick note to MicheleHarper, who spoke in her review about hopes of a kiss sometime soon: this chapter must seem like it was written just to torment you, mustn't it? Haha!
They'll together eventually, guys. Just you wait and see. ;D
Review, please! I ADORE THEM. They make my day whenever I get them. I always announce to the general public of the place I'm in, 'GOT ANOTHER REVIEW!'
