A/N: Took an unplanned break from working on this story while I finished the gargantuan fic that this one is a spin-off of. Sorry! But now we're back.


"What I am about to tell you is to go no further than this room," Madame Garnier said sternly in French, her boots clicking on the floor as she paced the length of the room.

Whenever they practised, she used a spell to cover the dungeon's stony floor in wood. It was just slightly less of a hard surface for them to jump around on, but that was like saying that lava was cooler than fire. Still, it allowed them to do their turns more smoothly, and it made Marilyn's shoes last a little longer between cleaning and repairing spells. Christ knew what she'd do if she'd been born an all-out Muggle, for her parents certainly wouldn't be sending her money for three pairs of pointe shoes a week.

The girls waited in silence, and Madame Garnier didn't bother doubling down on her point as far as the confidentiality went. She told them not to speak of it, and so they wouldn't speak of it. It was as simple as that.

"Part of the tradition of the Triwizard Tournament is a Yule Ball on Christmas day. It allows a chance to showcase the champions once they have been chosen, and yes - for a bit of dignified revelry. However, it puts Beauxbatons in a unique position, seeing as the other schools cannot boast you among their students. It is, therefore, Madame Maxime's wish that we put on a performance during the dinner portion of the ball."

Marilyn perked up - quite literally. Her back straightened where she sat on the floor, her shoulders squaring and her chin lifting. She wasn't the only one, but they all knew better than to ask questions before their mistress was done speaking.

"We will be performing an act from The Veela and The Vampire - the Waltz of the Pixies."

Her green eyes roamed over them now - expectantly. Now it was safe to ask questions.

"Will there be auditions?" Marilyn asked immediately.

They wouldn't be too extensive if they were to happen at all - there were only two roles available, and only one of those roles was a solo part. The rest was all group dancing.

"Non. I have assigned the roles, we haven't the time for auditions, nor the number of students to make it necessary. Marilyn will have the solo as head pixie."

Marilyn grinned - but she was the only one who did so.

"What? Her? Why?!" The girl to her right, Chloe frowned as she shot a venomous look her way.

"Because I'm the best dancer here," Marilyn shot back, giving her an equally nasty glare before she rolled her eyes "It's not my fault you couldn't keep to a beat if you were told to do so under the Imperius Curse."

"It's not my fault that I have a life outside of ballet - a monkey could learn the choreography if it was all they ever had to do."

"Enough," Madam Garnier snapped "The choice is purely an aesthetic one. Marilyn is the youngest and she is therefore the shortest - she will look out of place if we put her in line with all of the seventh years. The outcome would always be this one, regardless of talent or skill. I'll hear no arguments on the matter, is it decided. Do you understand?"

Nobody answered - nobody was stupid enough to argue the matter further.

"If there is to be a drama over this, I shall tell Madame Maxime that you are not up to this task, and you can all go back to Beauxbatons tomorrow morning," she continued sternly.

There were pursed lips all round, punctuated by murmurs of "oui".

"We begin rehearsals tomorrow - with fresh attitudes. You can go."

They all rose to their feet and offered demure, shallow curtsies to their teacher before making for the door. The moment Marilyn's back was to the woman, though, she called after her.

"Mademoiselle Baxter. A word."

A few snickers sounded from the older girls, but Marilyn ignored them and slowly turned back to Madame Garnier. They both waited patiently for the other girls to file out and close the door behind them, Marilyn's cool demeanour a great deal more feigned than that of her teacher. Finally, the heavy wooden door closed with a thud and the woman arched a thin black eyebrow at her.

"What are you doing?"

"What do you mean, Madame?"

"You know exactly what I mean."

"I'm a better dancer than them," she said.

"By a foot, not by a mile. Will it be a mile one day? Probably - but not if you antagonise your sisters into putting glass in your shoes before every performance. Would you be able to out-dance them to any role your heart might desire? Perhaps. If you can do it at fourteen, I'll be surprised if you cannot manage it at eighteen. But they are just as capable - if not more so - of making life in this world, the world of ballet, so unpleasant for you that you no longer wish to."

Marilyn pursed her lips.

"You think they couldn't? They absolutely could. They'll make it their raison d'être if you keep motivating them to do so. You're a good dancer, girl - a damn good dancer, but don't ruin this for yourself because you can't pretend to be modest when necessary."

By the end of the scolding, Marilyn's cheeks were pink and her pride was sorely bruised.

"Oui, madame," she murmured.

"Good. You can go."

Bowing her head, she forced herself to make for the door at a speed that was neither so quick as to seem embarrassed, nor so slow as to suggest that she was licking her wounds. She was doing both, but she didn't need to show it. The walk back to the Beauxbatons carriage would be a long one - longer still given that she didn't pause during her exit to change out of her pointe shoes, but she could always clean them up with a spell or two when they got inevitably muddy and scuffed on her walk back.

Stepping into the hallway, she shut the door behind her and then sighed, finally allowing her annoyance to show. Smoothing a hand over her hair, she shook her head and allowed her brow to furrow as she turned left towards the stairs that led out of the dungeon. But then a voice sounded behind her and she almost jumped out of her skin.

"Bad day?"

Spinning on her heel, she was met with the sight of Draco Malfoy - and the very smug smile on his face, and she knew immediately that he'd heard every word of her scolding.

"What do you want?" she huffed.

"My, my, somebody's in a mood," he smirked.

"Goodnight, Draco," she ground out, turning her back on him once again.

But she wasn't so lucky as to be left alone. His stupid fancy leather shoes clacked against the flagstone floors as he strode to catch up with her - he was taller than she was, so it wasn't much of a task.

"I don't need an escort, thank you."

"I'm not offering to escort you."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"My common room happens to be down here," he pointed out.

"You're walking away from it."

"You're being terribly unfriendly to somebody who comes bearing gifts."

Heaving a sigh of sheer exasperation, Marilyn folded her arms and turned to regard him, eyebrows rising in impatience. Draco didn't seem too bothered by it - no, his face remained insufferably smug as he reached into his robes and produced the bottle he'd been keeping, hidden where it was wedged beneath his arm. Blinking in surprise, it took her a moment to register what she was looking at and then another moment after that to make sense of the bottle. Wine. Good wine, too, as far as she could tell.

"Where did you get that?"

"Funniest thing - one of my friends snuck into McGonagall's office and stole it. He's in detention for it as we speak, but nobody quite managed to track the bottle down in the end."

"So you had one of your lackeys take it for you and then take the fall."

"You've got no sense of mystique to you at all, you know that, Baxter?" he admonished with a scoff.

"I'm sorry that my discussion of thievery isn't elegant enough for you. So now, what? You want to give it to me? Is this some kind of trick?"

"I want to drink it with you," he rolled his eyes "We won't get caught."

"Why me?"

He blinked, apparently taken aback by the question, and then shrugged "It's French wine."

"I'm not French."

"You go to a French school, you speak French. It's not so much of a stretch that you might drink French wine."

"Well don't I feel special."

"Is that a yes or a no?"

Marilyn looked at the bottle, weighing up her options. Draco was a prat at the best of times, but returning to a group of girls she knew were currently sitting and bitching about her (girls who were older, at that) after a dressing down from Madame Garnier just did not appeal to her. The wine in Draco's hand? That did. She could hold her wine decently, anyway, and she knew well enough by now to look out for any tricks. She had her wand on her, too. It would be fine. He probably just wanted to boast to his goons about getting tipsy with the Beauxbatons ballerina.

"Where do we go?" she asked finally.


They moved across the grounds under the cover of darkness - Marilyn had been forced to wait by the entrance to the Slytherin common room while Draco ducked inside and grabbed a spare set of robes for her, thanks to his insistence that the blue of her Beauxbatons robes would stand out like a sore thumb. She didn't really argue, and she was glad that she hadn't when she felt how much warmer the Hogwarts robes were. Mostly she was just grateful that it hadn't yet proven to be some elaborate prank - that he hadn't left her waiting there for hours, snickering to himself and wondering how much longer she'd hang around before she realised. Oh, she still wasn't ruling out the idea of this being some nasty prank, and she wouldn't do so until she'd tasted the wine and was satisfied that it wasn't vinegar (or worse). But it sure as hell beat what she'd originally had planned for the evening.

Draco led the way across the grounds and then around the shore of the lake, the hood of his robes pulled up so his platinum blond hair was less easily spottable.

"Won't your absence be conspicuous? I can sneak away from my classmates unnoticed far more easily than you," Draco only spoke when they reached the trees, picking their way through the tree line.

He didn't try to lead her into the forest proper, thank god, and once they were a handful of trees in, and therefore out of sight, he finally slowed to a stop.

"Are you saying I have more of a presence than you?"

"There are more of us than there are of you - and you're the only fourth year. I don't want search parties tearing through the castle just because you didn't think," he rolled his eyes.

He did that rather a lot. It was a wonder it didn't give him a sore head.

"They'll just think I'm practising. Usually I would be at this time. It's fine."

"Didn't feel like it this time round?"

Drawing his wand, he tapped the bottle of wine and the cork sprang from it. He glanced towards her after, and she hated that she knew she'd let her face slip and show that she found the trick impressive. He watched her expectantly for a response.

"You heard, then," she replied flatly.

He shrugged and took a gulp from the bottle, and then held it out to her. Marilyn accepted it, then inspected it before taking a gulp of her own…and tried not to think about the fact that his lips had just been in the same spot. A prat he might've been, but he was still fit. Hopefully the dark would cover the blush she felt rising to her cheeks.

"If it's any consolation, I think your professor is a fool," he sniffed.

"Madame Garnier is a genius," Marilyn disagreed, taking another swig before returning the bottle to him when he extended a hand for it.

"She's a fool," Draco countered flatly "If you're the better dancer and she knows it, why should you pretend otherwise? So the lesser ones can cling to their delusions? That's the sort of tripe that has us pandering to mudbloods."

Marilyn stayed carefully silent. The precarious nature of her situation was not lost on her, and she knew that at some point or another Draco would discover the truth of her blood status. She just didn't particularly want him to discover it when they were alone together in the woods, in the dark. That would not be…ideal. Only when he turned to her, pale eyebrows raised as he waited for a response did she offer one, and even then it was only to cast off any suspicion.

"It's not the same," she shrugged.

He handed the bottle back to her "It sounds like it's the same."

"You're not a ballerina."

"Thank Merlin for that."

She snorted "It's complicated."

Taking another few swigs, she regarded the bottle. She wasn't well versed in wine - certainly not enough to know the good from the bad - but it certainly tasted decent. In the past she'd snuck stuff from her mum's stash to drink with her Muggle friends during summer, and she'd barely been able to stomach it. This? This wasn't a challenge to drink at all.

"This seems a bit risky for you," she changed the subject "Don't you have a reputation to uphold?"

"I'm breaking curfew, not massacring house-elves," he replied drily "And my grades are just fine, so it doesn't really matter, does it?"

Marilyn laughed again - this time a real laugh. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was because she hadn't expected him to be funny. Dark, sure, but still funny.

"Somebody's already taken the blame for the wine, and I don't know about you but I'm not stupid enough to get caught sneaking back."

"From what I've seen, your grades are more than fine," she pointed out.

When they'd first met, she'd expected him to be a stupid little asshole who took himself more seriously than his classes. Instead, he seemed to get consistent Os on his essays. Well, in everything other than Muggle studies.

"You might define fine as As and Es. We do not," he replied simply.

It was supposed to be a boast. Yet another show of superiority. But tiredness crept through into his voice and his eyes both, and she knew it was a slip. He'd rather die than show it intentionally, she knew that well enough. And still, against all odds, she felt sorry for him. Marilyn handed the bottle back to him.


A/N: The situation in which our leading man and lady are currently in is a homage to the time-honoured British tradition of getting drunk in a park-and-or-field with your friends as a teen. More in the next chapter.

I'm of the opinion that Draco isn't the only one who would've had a somewhat more abrasive personality as a teen than he does as an adult in Little By Little. I do think with Marilyn's ability and her confidence (that even strays into arrogance in Little By Little, even if it's founded on genuine ability), she would've been a wee bit insufferable about it in her younger years and I want to explore that here. Draco isn't the only one with flaws here, people, and who among us wasn't annoying as a teen? Hell, I'm still annoying as an adult.