The Viennese Affliction

Chapter 42: The Viennese Affliction

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

It was the queerest sensation: sitting down one afternoon to bang out a Transfiguration essay, looking up, and finding that November’s sleet in the window had transformed to the first tepid snowfalls of December.

He did not know when, if at all, Cassius or the other champions were finding time to study the egg. McGonagall and Sprout both doubled their homework assignments in the last weeks of term, claiming — wholly erroneously — that the tournament had set classes behind. The result was chronic aches of the brain and tiredness of the soul. He and Hermione had cleared out the library shelves on rune systems, to no avail; Hermione suggested at one point that it might go faster if they got Harry and Ron to help, which showed that puberty was doing wonders for her sense of humor.

“We’d do a lot better with more eyes.”

“Not theirs.”

“They can recognize symbols, you know. They’re not entirely useless.”

“If that was all it took, Longbottom could ace the Runes O.W.L.”

Hermione opened her mouth to say something in the boys’ defense — she was always doing that, it was rather irritating — and the portrait-hole swung open. She began shoveling pages of runes under her Arithmancy homework as if they held nuclear codes, but it was followed by the spurt of brash laughter: Harry and Ron ambled into the common room, brushing gray crystals of frost from their hair and robes, and dumped their wet cloaks in soggy bundles near the fireplace.

“It’s called a coat rack, you know,” said Draco. “That big wooden thing, with the arms? It isn’t a bomb.”

“I’ve got a letter from Padfoot,” announced Harry.

Hermione surreptitiously directed her wand at his cloak and levitated it. Draco angled his wand across hers and hit it with an Itching Jinx.

“What?” said Harry, a bit tetchily. “Nothing?”

“Ignore them, they’re sore you broke up their Arithmancy,” said Ron, slumping into the chair next to Hermione. He poked his head over his shoulder. “Or demon summoning.”

“Heaven’s sake, Ron, it’s only numbers. Anyway, that’s wonderful, Harry. What’s he said?”

“Not much. But he wants to Floo me tonight, in the common room.”

“You can Floo into the Gryffindor commons?” Hermione arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t that a security risk?”

“No,” said Draco and Ron at once. Ron gestured lazily at Draco.

“You can’t travel. The headmaster’s office has the only operable Floo grate in Hogwarts. If you try to fit more than head-and-shoulders through the common room fires, it’ll sever the connection. It’s so students can communicate with their families.”

“If their parents are wizards, that is,” she muttered.

“Buy your parents a bottle of Floo powder,” he suggested, draping his arm over the back of his chair. He gestured at her with his quill. “Pay them a call.”

“My parents aren’t going to stick their heads in a fireplace, no matter what I tell them it does.”

He twirled his quill, equal parts exasperated and amused, as always, by the bizarre neuroses of muggles. “And what exactly do they think you do here?”

“They know very well what I do, but it’s one thing to know and another thing to understand, and it’s not as if I can show them any of it over the summer.”

“Fine, but you must admit that’s their fault. No one’s stopping them. You can lead a muggle to water, and so forth.”

“They’re not s— never mind.” With a huff, she turned to Ron. “When have you used it, then? I haven’t seen you do it once.”

Ron cleared his throat. “Er — I mean, they know I’m alright,” he said. “It’s a busy line, the Floo, and everyone’s always trying to get on… Ginny calls home often enough, and Percy used to have weeklies with Mum…”

“Ronald Weasley, don’t you call your mother at all?”

“Draco doesn’t call his!”

“Excuse me, my mother’s been traveling this year, and we write letters. Don’t you enter into a pissing contest over filial piety with me, young Weasley.”

Ron sulked.

“Are you supposed to call your parents often?” Harry asked thoughtfully.

This was such a well-crafted indicator of tragically orphaned obliviousness that it pitched them all into a uniform silence of horrified sympathy. Draco suspected that this was on some level intentional, because a moment later Harry snapped into a smile, and said, “Blimey, I can’t wait to tell him about the dragons. You’re all invited, of course,” and trotted upstairs to change out of his wet robes, as if he knew very well that he had ended their bickering, and was plum pleased about it, too.

“Do you know, I think he’s getting smarter,” said Draco, mildly impressed.

“Yeah,” said Ron, with foreboding. “Reckon so. Better watch out, us three.”

That evening, they had the pleasant task of clearing the common room for Harry’s call. Ron stole a dungbomb from Fred and detonated it at the foot of the girls’ stairwell. The resultant combustion so polluted the air that the prefects erected Siphoning Charms across the top of the stairs and had to shout punishments down at Ron through the billows of pungent green smoke, while he grinned and sheepishly lifted his hands. Hermione cast Muffliato on the fireplace and a Notice-Me-Not charm on the grate itself, got nervous, and re-did them both twice. Draco put his feet on the ottoman and read a book.

“What if he’s forgotten?”

“Mm. I expect he’s probably distracted with his other godson.”

“But what if he doesn’t call?”

“I don’t know. Did you two discuss funeral arrangements?”

The clock struck eleven, and Harry blinked not once in the next five minutes he spent watching the fireplace. At the turn of the sixth, he stood up and announced: “I knew it. He’s not coming,” and, thusly tempted, the fire blazed green.

“Thank God,” said Draco, tossing his book to the side.

Sirius’s head came nosing out of the ashes and announced himself with a furious sneeze.

“God, I hate the Floo,” he said, and spat a gob of cinders onto the carpet. “What kind of a worthless addlebrained warlock thought, let’s all dunk our heads in ashes, there’s a way to communicate. Do you know where you have to stick your head in order to use a telephone, these days, Moony? Nowhere! They invented wireless ones while I was in the clink! Muggles! Anyway, I hope I’ve got the right grate; Monty and Phemes were always ringing up the Hufflepuffs by mistake—”

Harry shot out of his chair. The three of them were treated to the amusing charade of watching a boy try to figure out how to hug a fireplace, and wilt when he realized it could not be done.

Sirius had changed. In fitness, he had made great progress from nail-thin to pencil, and the ragged mat of curls á la Hagrid had been pruned to a choppy mane. The hollows under his face had been paved with fat and muscle, and when he grinned it glittered with mischief, not murder.

“Harry! Wotcher! You’re the size of a tree!”

“You think?” Harry consulted his frame with pride. “I grew a lot at the Burrow.”

“Molly will do that for you,” he said sagely. “For a while there she was feeding the whole Order on about four potatoes and a box of cornmeal every week, and I never ate better in my life—” A muffled noise came from somewhere behind him. “What do you want me to — he’s bigger now. Yes, exactly like him, it’s sort of w— fine. For a minute.”

He burrowed back into the flames, and was nosed aside by a second face, this one bony and long-nosed, with jagged scars bisecting his cheeks.

“Remus!”

“Harry!” He swept his eyes ravenously over Harry and beamed. “Good to see you! Great, in fact! You look well! How are you? How are your friends?”

“Oh, we’re fine. The First Task is over. We fought a dragon the other day—”

“What?”

A piercing grumble came from behind the flames. Remus twisted over his shoulder.

“He said he fought a dragon!”

A high-pitched sound.

“Yes, a dragon — no, I didn’t — oh, fine, you jealous old goat. Harry, I’m sorry, I’ll be back in a moment — your godfather’s a nosy narcissist, and he can’t stand being left out—”

“You had him for a whole year, you hog!” Sirius’s face came wrestling back into the ashes, wedging Remus out of the grate with a yelp of surprise. “This was my idea! You, Mr. ‘Risk Management,’ can go watch the door! Thank you! Goodbye! Alright, Harry,” he said, breathlessly, “that’s stark raving. Bloody incredible. I wish I could’ve seen it. I’m sorry, but we haven’t got long here — broke into a wizarding house to use the fire, they could be back at any time. But I reckon I’ve figured out who put your name in the Goblet. It’s Karkaroff.”

Harry blinked. “What?”

“He was a Death Eater. He was in Azkaban with me. They released him in exchange for names. Not very good names, of course, nobody they didn’t already have — Mulciber, Avery, Bulstrode—”

“But Karkaroff tried to stop me competing. He argued with Mr. Crouch—”

“He had to, in front of Dumbledore, didn’t he? Listen. Things are getting dicey out here, Harry. The things I’m hearing… Death Eaters at the World Cup… the Dark Mark… people are going missing, have you heard about this? At the Ministry of Magic?”

“Like Bertha Jorkins,” said Hermione, wrapping her arms around her knees. Her eyes were dark. Draco rolled his wand restlessly between his fingers, irritable at the wind for howling, irritable for no reason at all. “Percy mentioned her. She works in Games and Sports, doesn’t she? She would’ve known about the Tournament.”

“Exactly right. And she disappeared in Romania. That whole region is a mire for Dark magic. It’s not a safe place for muggle-borns, especially not alone.”

“She was muggle-born?”

Sirius paused uncomfortably, like a man just noticing a crushed egg under his bootheel.

“She was,” he allowed. “But not like you, Hermione. She wasn’t… she had no brains at all, I mean, very easy to fool. She’d walk right into a deathtrap and complain about the upholstery.”

“Oh, good. So long as it’s only the stupid muggle-borns who have to worry,” said Hermione acidly. She stalked over to an armchair and sat down.

Sirius grimaced.

“What about the Minister?” whispered Ron. “He could have it in for Harry, doesn’t he? He’s with Nott, and Nott was a Death Eater.”

“Yeah, but Runcorn wasn’t,” said Sirius, frowning. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, you lie down with jarveys, you’ll wake up with nargles, but Runcorn’s too young to have been much more than… what, twelve, thirteen, during the War? He might’ve supported them, but even at the peak of the fighting, Death Eaters didn’t take any younger than sixteen.”

Hermione cleared her throat like a battery of cannonfire. “Obviously it’s not the Minister,” she said flatly. “First of all, if he wanted to kill Harry, I can think of a dozen ways easier than a live death match with a thousand witnesses. But more importantly—”

“Love this conversation,” said Harry. “Makes me feel great, this conversation.”

“More importantly, it’s got to be someone from the Ministry. Whoever put his name has to have some sway there, because they’d have to have known that Harry would be made to compete anyway. Which means they either knew how the Ministry officials would rule beforehand, or they were one of the Ministry officials.”

“Who? Ludo Bagman?” snorted Ron. “Barty Crouch? That’s your big guess?”

“Well, why not Crouch?”

Draco was in the difficult position of agreeing with both of them: Ron’s idea was terrible, but so was Hermione’s. “Granger. Don’t take this the wrong way—”

She snorted. “This is going to be good.”

“But if you’d known who Crouch was — speaking as someone who perhaps has more of an an appreciation for his reputation—”

“An appreciation, yes, of course, let’s have it for another rendition of ‘Things Only Purebloods Understand’!”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

She sat up, eyes blazing, and that feeling skittered down his spine again — heat and danger and prickling eagerness, and he wanted to hurl all his irritation and watch her crack it cleanly in half on her own. The feeling was knotting up under his skin and the pressure was generating heat, pressing all his thoughts into diamond-sharpness, and he just knew if they fought they’d both be magnificent.

But she gave a queenly sniff and curled up in her armchair, like the conquering general of a territory she’d not even touched. He leaned back on the carpet and marveled at the fact that apparently you could be as irritated by not fighting as by fighting itself. And in the middle of all that, he still wanted her not to be upset.

She caused feelings that ought to have been listed with psychiatric disorders. She gave him migraines. He really didn’t know why he was so attached to her.

“He’s not a Dark wizard, Hermione,” Sirius interrupted brusquely. “Take it from me. Aside from Moody and the Order, he’s the only man in the Ministry I’d trust with your lives. Got the personality of a splintery knob, but I’d trust him.”

“Maybe we can ask him for help with the Second Task,” said Harry blandly. “‘Say, do you want me to die? Reckon not, right? Well, can I offer you a look at this egg?’”

Hermione practically erupted out of her chair. Draco startled and hiked his legs out of her way. “Runes! Of course! Sirius, can you put Lupin on? We need him to look at something! Harry, where’s the egg?”

Sirius turned. There was an uncharacteristically long pause, a bang!, and a muttered curse, and then Lupin’s head appeared in the fire.

“Sorry,” he gasped. “Got to run. They’re coming home now. Hermione — whatever it is, write me, alright? And Harry — you, too — take care of each other — I love you — talk soon!”

He vanished. With a pop, the flames waxed yellow, and dwindled to their normal size, and Harry sat back on his haunches, looking bereft.

---

The last day of classes brought a fleeing gasp of sunshine, which Harry and Ron got to see none of, having put off their homework until the last possible moment. This meant Draco and Hermione had an early breakfast to themselves, sneaking mouthfuls of fried eggs and toast between helpings of Ancient Runes, and when Harry and Ron did stumble downstairs, they looked like they’d been dragged homework-first through a hurricane: smears of ink decorated their wrists and one blotted Ron’s eyebrow.

“That was a nightmare,” gasped Ron, toppling down next to Hermione. “If I never see a cauldron again, it’ll be too soon. What does Snape think he’s doing, assigning all that?”

“In your case, not much,” said Draco, mostly into his teacup.

“Oi! Wanker.”

Harry merely grunted. He was moving bacon into his mouth as if they were about to make it illegal. Hermione subtly Vanished a splotch of ink from his chin.

“Any progress on the egg?” said Ron, peering at Hermione’s worksheet.

“What does it look like, Ron?”

“Hell if I could tell you. Come to think of it, are we sure it’s Runes?”

“There’s nothing else it could be,” she said impatiently. “The inscription has to carry a clue, because there’s nothing else on the egg that could explain how to open it, unless Harry’s right, and you’re really supposed to just smash it on something. But that’s stupid, so it can’t be—”

They were interrupted by someone saying, at a volume terribly unfit for that hour of the morning: “Hail and well met, you chaps!”

It was Daphne. And Daphne wasn’t well. A sweep of pincurls sat under a lacquer of hair gel, a bouffant with volume most purebloods would bathe in maidens’ blood to attain, and a face painted in reds and blacks and pinks so vivid that she looked like she’d bathed in formaldehyde. Her scars had been caked in with powder, giving her face a gravelly, poreless sheen that made it look like her cosmetic surgeon had withdrawal jitters. The overall effect was supreme prettiness and extraordinary misery.

“I don’t suppose any of you would mind if I squeezed in, did I?” she said. “Draco once made a terribly daring voyage to the Slytherin table, and I realized we never repaid the visit.”

“You look different,” said Ron.

Her smile grew pained. “Stop, really, I insist,” she said, strained. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

There was a pause like a dropped glass.

“Goodness, I understand why you haven’t many visitors, if this is how you greet them.” She wet her lips. “But of course, I shouldn’t dream of intruding.”

“Er — sure,” said Hermione, shuffling her Runes out of the way. “Sorry.”

Daphne closed her eyes for a moment, and exhaled through her nose. Then she piled herself into the table and planted her elbows on either side of her plate, and said, through a thousand-watt beam: “Thanks. So! What’s on the schedule for the Gryffindor foursome, eh? The Golden Quartet? The Chosen One’s Chosen Ones! I feel so cool and rebellious. I think it’s the banners, they make me want to skip class and break all the rules. Shall we set off some fireworks? Raid the kitchens? I know a secret way into the tunnels—”

“Greengrass, what are you doing here?”

Her mouth was frozen ajar in anticipation of another percussive vowel; she slowly sealed it up. “Paying a visit,” she said. “I know it’s hard to explain, but some people do desire your company. Mostly because they’ve never seen your table manners, one supposes!”

Ron let out a delighted guffaw. Hermione shushed him.

“If you refrain from any further remarks like that, you’re welcome to stay,” he said tartly, “but for all your charms, this isn’t your table. I can think of at least two people wondering where you are.”

“Teddy and Pans are making great progress in their object permanence. They’ll manage a breakfast without me. You know, I always wondered why they had us eat by table? Isn’t the point of inter-house unity to make lots of friends? And except for classes we never see each other, so when else are we supposed to get a sense of unity, I mean, we’re in competition for practically everything else…”

“That’s actually an interesting question,” said Hermione. “It’s quite recent. The Great Hall was destroyed during a duel in 1919, and when it was rebuilt, the architect put places to hang the House banners overhead, but they didn’t mean for them to indicate— well, never mind. I don’t suppose you’re actually interested in this, are you?”

“Oh, please finish,” said Daphne, throwing her hand across the table. It landed on Hermione’s, who jumped and spilled her pumpkin juice onto Ron’s lap. “Tell me everything.”

She was doing her best you are the smartest person I, Daphne Greengrass, have ever met, which would have been suspicious alone —Ron was so dazed he barely noticed the loch of pumpkin juice forming over his groin — if it hadn’t also been far more flirtatious than anyone had a right to be at half eight in the morning, especially when Hermione was looking like four hours of sleep with a garnish of jam on her chin. This bemused no one more than Hermione herself, who said: “Er. That’s it, really,” which was a relief to Draco, because the mere thought of her falling for Daphne’s pucker-mouthed eyelash-fluttering made him want to go Obliviate himself in the bathroom sink.

He put two and two together, and found it made four.

“Is something wrong in the dungeons?”

Daphne jerked her head, not a yes, not a no, just a cut of movement that answered the question.

“Of course there is. What happened? Where’s Theodore?”

“Theo’s fine,” she said. “Theo’s perfect. Theo’s lovely and diplomatic and never makes anyone mad. God, I love Theo, he’s such a wonderful person, I think we should all get together and have a party for him!”

“Oh,” said Harry, eyeing the pumpkin juice lake. “Alright. So, he put his foot in it, then?”

“Theodore,” she said, “has been a perfect gentleman. He has conducted himself in ways immaculate and unimpeachable by any involved. He has made many sacrifices for my sake and for others’, as it does so tickle Pansy to remind me, and, to wit, dear Theodore has most recently made me a very kind suggestion that would have solved a lot of problems.” She stabbed a large sausage. “And if I don’t kill him for it, it’ll prove him not merely a good man, but a lucky one.”

“So… he was… nice to you?” said Harry weakly. “And now you’re angry at him?”

“I’m not angry at him!”

She sawed into the sausage with so much force it split the plate.

There was a beat of silent appreciation. The Hogwarts plates were solid bronze.

“Accidental magic!” she cried. “At my age! I’m so embarrassed.”

“Daph,” said Ron slowly, “why don’t you just… have some toast, say? Don’t even need a knife, for toast. Can just go at it. No faff.”

She stared at him miserably. “Why is it,” she said, “that whenever I see you, you’ve dyed some of your hair?”

He checked his reflection in a spoon and hastily scrubbed his eyebrow with a napkin. “Honest mistake,” he admitted. “I would’ve asked, but seems like you were pretty busy with your meltdown, and what-all.”

She gave a hoarse honk of a laugh.

“Millicent told her father I hit her,” she said.

“You hit her?” said Hermione, baffled. “With your hand?”

“With my hand,” confirmed Daphne. “It was a good hit, too.”

“You’re lying,” said Ron. “Millie Bulstrode? With the warts? The one who sat on Ginny?”

“That was an accident,” said Daphne primly. “She felt bad about it later. But yes. And I can’t even be mad at her. I’m the dummy. I slapped her silly, and I knew her daddy was a Board member, I knew it. And it’s not like she was the only one saying those things. Poor Millie didn’t even start the rumor, I just — couldn’t stand it.”

“But that’s great! Ten points to Slytherin!”

“No, it’s not,” hissed Hermione, “because, as she was just telling us, Millie’s father is on the Board, and he can… well, what did he do to you?”

“Nothing that will kill me, I assure you,” she sniffed. “He only had a… a bit of a chat, with me and Dumbledore and my parents, about me and his daughter, and… how he doesn’t quite feel safe, having someone so violent and aggressive living in the same place as Millie, so — but he wouldn’t want to deny another pureblood the chance at an education, of course—”

“Of course,” said Hermione dryly. She quirked an eyebrow at Draco.

“So they’ve arranged to separate us.”

Hermione set down her fork, frowning. “So you’re sleeping in another dorm? With the third years?”

“Nope!” she said brightly. “I have a room all my own, off the Slytherin commons. With a bed and a desk and my own bathroom, and everything. My parents agreed to it, it’s all quite civilized. They’ve been petitioning for me to have special accommodations for years, so this honestly isn’t even a punishment, for them, and they said it’ll give me a place for — well, if I ever need my space, because of the urges. I don’t know what ‘the urges’ are, but apparently I am well prepared for them! And I believe,” she added, shredding the crust from a piece of toast with her fingers, “the word ‘infection’ was also used, at some point, though in what context, I confess I couldn’t tell you! I wasn’t hardly listening, by then.”

He didn’t know what to say except that he was sorry for her, and he knew she would die a little to hear it, so he kept quiet.

“Many find this hilarious,” said Daphne. “You would be in good company to laugh.”

“Where are Theo and Pansy in all this?” he said, rendered uncomprehending by the possibility that they might not care. They were cold and callous and they had salt rinds where much of their kindness ought to have been, but they loved Daphne so obviously it was an embarrassment. Pansy! Who had schemed and connived her way into Daphne’s room fortnightly during a long and lonely summer — Theo, who had sworn to kill Remus Lupin on sight, if he ever encountered him — who had lived in the Hospital Wing with her, ferried her homework, read to her, held her hand — he understood that. He thought he’d understood.

“Well, Pansy is owling her father about it, for what I do not know, less she expects him to kill Baxter Bulstrode in an honor duel. And I’m not talking to Theo for a year and a day, or some other mythologically appropriate amount of time, or until I decide he’s been punished enough. Whichever comes first. Don’t ask why.”

“Why—?”

The hour-bell struck. Daphne swore and folded three slices of toast neatly into her mouth, one after the other, with such velocity that Ron peered at her in impressment.

“Training for the quidditch team?”

“Nf. I’m starving,” she managed. “Is this what a working metabolism is supposed to feel like? I don’t know how any of you get anything done. Anyway, got to run, chaps. Thanks for the toast. Ronald, I swear to Merlin, if you don’t put your hair to rights by the next time I see you, I’m going at it with a Stasis Charm.”

She liberated an éclair from his platter, braced it between her teeth, and rolled herself neatly out of the bench.

Her exit from the hall would have been flawless if not for Vincent Crabbe, whose arm connected with her shoulder, and knocked her so hard she nearly spun fully around; Draco and Ron both rose from their seats; but she stumbled upright, shoved off the Ravenclaw girls who stopped to help her, and ran out without stopping or looking at anyone.

“She should really talk to a teacher,” said Hermione, in hushed tones. “Do you think if I spoke to McGonagall—”

“She’d never forgive you,” said Draco.

“I don’t care if she’d forgive me. She’s getting bullied. And clearly, Snape isn’t doing enough to stop it.”

“What do you want him to do? Have a sit with Bulstrode’s parents? Baxter’s on the Board.”

“Then move her out of there! House her somewhere else! It’s a big castle!”

“You can’t change Houses,” he said, watching Crabbe exchange a friendly jostle with Marcus Flint. He reserved the point that Daphne would never consent to a move, if offered. Slytherin was her home. It was that simple, and that difficult. “Things would only get worse if she tried.”

She stared as if he’d dyed his eyebrows in ink.

“You know,” she said, after a moment, “I never thought this before — I really did put off saying so — but I think I’m really starting to hate purebloods.”

He threw back the bitter dregs of a cold cup of tea, and it snaked past a twinge of pain in his throat. “Strong words,” he said briskly, standing up. “I recommend you delay judgment until you’ve been to one of our parties.”

On Fridays their breakfast preceded a visit to the airy, stone-capped cathedral of the Transfiguration classroom. All the desks, the chipped wooden two-seaters with age-gnarled clawfeet, had been swept out of their usual files and piled in a soldier’s barricade to one side of the room. Gryffindors and Ravenclaws milled around in pure bedlam, with neither chairs nor tables to assert the formal order of the classroom, and into this windstorm of murmurs swept Professor McGonagall, leading her hardy lieutenant Filch. The caretaker wheeled behind him a gramophone whose last performance could not have fallen during his lifetime.

“Attention! Attention! Would you give me your attention, please! Thank you. There will be no class today.”

A bellow of gratitude and goodwill broke out. Hermione’s hand shot up. Draco grabbed it and put it back down.

“Silence! No! You have not — Finnigan, come back — would someone go get him? Thank you, Thomas. For the next ninety minutes, I expect to enjoy the full breadth of attention you would otherwise bring to bear on Transfiguration,” she said, “if not, perhaps, more. It was brought to the attention of the headmaster that some of our students may require instruction pertaining to an upcoming event in which you will all be strongly encouraged to participate.”

Her accent turned her R’s into a spray of artillery.

Filch began fiddling with the gramophone, which reacted like an exceptionally old gelding being prodded with spurs. “The Yule Ball,” said McGonagall, and then jumped at a screech of feedback. Filch grunted.

“The Yule Ball,” she continued, only to close her eyes at another interjectory squeal of a needle on a record. “The Yule Ball is a tradit— do you require assistance, Mr. Filch?”

“I’ve gottem, ma’am!” Seamus wiggled through the crowd, joined by a sweaty-faced Dean. “Sorry! Jumped the gun!”

“Thank you for joining us, Mr. Finnigan,” she said thinly. Giggles circulated. “You may apologize for your haste by helping Mr. Filch. Now. The Yule Ball is a tradition of the Triwizard Tournament.”

She paused. “It is an opportunity to promote camaraderie, to cultivate professional friendships, and represent ourselves to our guests from abroad. It will be open only to fourth years and above, though you may invite a younger student if you wish. The champions and their partners will open the ball—”

There was a gasp. Lavender and Parvati had both rounded on Harry as if he were the last morsel on an island of dogs.

Draco would have felt sorry for the bloke, who was doing his level best to hide somewhere in Ron’s pockets, if this hadn’t also been the funniest thing that had ever happened to anyone, ever, in the history of the world. He might very well manage a patronus on the mere idea of it. Tall, scruffy-haired, God-awfully awkward Harry Potter, dolled up in dress robes with the stays done loose and wrong tie knot, stalwartly mashing some poor girl’s toes, while Krum and Fleur and Warrington waltzed neat circles around him.

His shoulders were shaking. He put his hand to his mouth.

Hermione whacked his elbow with her Transfiguration textbook. “It’s not funny! It’s easy for you to laugh when you don’t have to dance in front of the whole school, but if it was you in his place I’m sure you wouldn’t be quite so amused—”

“Firstly, I would never be caught in this position, I’m a magnificent dancer. Secondly, the fact that it’s Potter is what makes this hilarious, and thirdly, Granger, look at me and tell me you don’t find this funny.”

She stared at him with the anguish of a woman who knew very damn well it was. “It’s not,” she managed, all wobbly with suppressed laughter.

He grinned. “Convincing.”

McGonagall had finally grappled the room back to attention. “On Christmas Eve — Miss Brown, hold your questions until the end, thank you! On Christmas Eve, we and our guests will gather — Miss Patil, I assure you, Mr. Potter will still be there when I am finished talking — and the same assurances to you, Mr. Weasley! — we will gather in the Great Hall for an evening of well-mannered frivolity. As representatives of the host school, I expect each and every one of you to put your best foot forward — and I mean this quite literally.”

Seamus and Dean, having shouldered Filch away from the gramophone, gave a shout of victory, and a spatter of music burst forth from its ancient loins. A watery blossom of strings crested into the rolling three-footed trot of a waltz, slow and syrupy and punctuated with the occasional syncopation of static. Draco’s mother would have been in spasms of ecstasy. He was in spasms of something else altogether.

“Very good! No commentary will be necessary! Thank you!” cried McGonagall. “Today’s lesson — and you will find the door is quite locked, Mr. Boot — will prepare you all for the first dance, which is, traditionally, a Viennese waltz.”

“All of us?” said Seamus, astonished. “Not just Harry?”

“Yes! All of you. Because, while some of you have had the opportunity to learn such things since childhood, many of you have not, and it is incumbent on us as teachers to make clear that such differences should not embarrass you,” she said fiercely. “You may see me after class if you require further elaboration. Mr. Filch, will you assist me?”

Mr. Filch, ostensibly under duress of some arcane and vigorous threat, obliged her. She forcefully relocated his hand to her waist, sank the claw of her hand deep into his trapezius, and began steering him in tight mechanical circles around the room.

Draco, to his own pride, was not the first person to lose control under such circumstances; that honor went to Ron, who wheezed so loudly that it cut through the music, and nearly passed out.

“You each will find a partner, and practice — is something funny, Mr. Weasley?”

“No, professor.”

“Indeed not! Miss Midgen, why don’t you help Mr. Weasley find his feet? I trust it will be easy for him, since he finds this exercise so amusing! And the rest of you, go on—”

A scramble ensued for partners. Eloise Midgen, who had an asymmetrical nose and a smile as persistent as her boils, pulled Ron up; Neville blushingly offered his hand to a Ravenclaw named Marietta Edgecombe; Lavender nearly punted Hermione to the floor in her haste to get to Harry, but she was beaten by Cho, who grabbed his arm and said, “Better stick with me; seekers are good with our hands,” and grinned when he turned pink.

“Granger.”

She jumped. She’d been knitting her fingers and raptly observing the floor, but at the sound of her name, she jumped.

“Yes?”

“I was going to ask you to dance, but if you’re having an attack of nerves, perhaps I’d better inquire after Patil.”

“Oh,” she said, as if this weren’t the most predictable thing he could have possibly said. “Yes. Well. I would. But I don’t know how.”

“There are these things called lessons,” he said. “Marvelous devices, really.”

“Shut up.” She lowered her voice, and he had to lean in to hear her, which was an inconvenience, to say nothing of highly uncharacteristic also. “This is sort of awkward, isn’t it? I mean, most of us aren’t going to be good at it.”

“You’re not supposed to be good at it, that’s what I’m for. Listen, do you want to dance or not? Because if you don’t, I’m not going to stand here trying to convince you—”

“I’m just warning you,” she said, glancing at her nails, probably to hide the lamentably obvious attack of nerves. “It’s for your benefit, not mine. So I don’t get out there and do something stupid and then have you accuse me of entrapment or something.”

“Granger, it is plainly adorable that you think, after all this time, I harbor any delusions about your skills of physical coordination. That is entrapment like a box on a stick is an ambush.”

“You’ve made your point!”

Her shyness crumbled away under the pressure of indignation and pride, and he was pleased. He could do this, sometimes. He could poke a few levers and pull a string in her head, and she would come back to herself. He liked doing this. He liked that he could.

He held out his palm. She slapped hers into it and marched forward with a doomed finality. He followed, ordering the corner of his mouth to sort out what the hell it was about.

She planted herself in front of him, shoulders square, with so much confidence it took a beat to realize she hadn’t a single idea what to do. That amused him, too, and so he toyed with her a little — so what, it wasn’t a crime — by slipping his hands in his pockets, shifting his weight back on his heels, to see how long it would take her pride to ebb.

The answer was forever. The answer was one billion years. She stood there in the hex of swaying couples and the flush slowly gathered around her neck, spreading a rosy finger up to her jaw, while she ran her eyes up and down him as if figuring out which part she’d like to skin first. He put his tongue between his teeth and exerted a frankly ungentlemanly amount of effort not to laugh at her.

“Well?” she said belligerently.

He cocked his head. “Well, what?”

“What are you waiting for? Show me.”

“You’re supposed to curtsy, first.”

She snorted and folded her arms, rolling her weight onto one hip.

“I’m serious,” he said, amused. “That’s how it starts. For the traditional waltz.”

“Oh, yeah. And then I hop on one foot in a circle, rubbing my belly and patting my head?”

“It’s not part of the dance, but however the music moves you.”

“Draco!”

“What!”

“Show me how to waltz! Properly, I mean! If you don’t want to teach me, I’ll go dance with Neville, who seems quite competent, by the way, as he’s already doing spins with Marietta—”

“Fine,” he said sharply, sliding his hands out of his pockets. “I will. You ought to be glad of your own luck, by the way. My dancing tutor said I was the finest waltzer she’d taught in three generations.”

“After three generations, one has to question her memory,” she muttered, which he decided was the appropriate moment to teach her a lesson or two in hubris.

He twitched back his sleeves and swept into a low bow at the waist. It was tradition. When he came up he had a rising look at her slightly parted mouth, and her eyes, which had turned owlish. She looked like he had performed a dizzying aerial stunt on his broom.

It was, without exaggeration, incredibly satisfying.

He stepped into her space and took her hand. She tried to lace their fingers, and frowned when he didn’t let her, which turned into a thousand-yard stare of embarrassment when he guided it to his shoulder instead. He smirked.

It was a great day.

“Bend the elbow. You’re not erecting a perimeter. You’re supposed to be close to your partner.”

“What if my partner is annoying?” she said plaintively, but she did it, shuffling until the tips of their shoes touched.

“Alas, should’ve tried a gavotte. Hold my hand. Hold it, I said.”

“I am holding it.”

“My mistake. Keep holding, then, while I fix your footwork.”

He kicked one of her legs wider, and she stumbled with an indignant squeak. The nails on his shoulder bit down so deep it would leave a welt. “And leave as much of your partner’s blood inside them as possible,” he said stiffly. “That’s not a rule, it’s just good maintenance. Now. When I step with my left foot, you’re going to step forward with your right—”

“I know!”

“Oh, of course you do. That’s why you asked me to teach you, isn’t it, because you already knew.”

“Well, I haven’t done it. But I’ve seen it. I know the theory.”

“Then I expect you’ll be a natural.” He laid his hand on her waist.

Under the soft wools of her robe, her body was warm. Ridiculously warm, compared to her hands, which were tiny and also warm, especially for extremities, but not compared to her body. There was a hard curve where her waist flared into her hipbone, and above it, the first round of her ribcage, a slight edge of pressure under his thumb. There was a softness between fabric and bone that disappeared when he pressed, and she made a sound, not hurt, but startled, and he quickly stopped pressing. His fingers curved around to her back. He could span her rib to her hip with pinky and thumb.

“Right,” he said, casting around for a train of thought. He found one, not where he put it, but lingering around in a different region of his brain altogether, and hauled it back to the fore with some irritation. “I’m going to move.”

“Alright,” said Hermione, sounding utterly terrified.

“Don’t say it like — have a little — never mind.”

He stepped forward, pushing her back with the slightest pressure on her hand and her waist, and she stepped half a beat after she was supposed to. The second step was the same, her tagging belatedly where he moved, and on the third beat, she was faster, stepping nearly in time. She was not good at it; she was not even in the same hemisphere of skill with anyone who was, in fact, good at it; but she learned quickly where her feet were supposed to go, even if her actual feet stayed out of the loop on the subject. By the fourth or fifth turn, she was trying to steer them into tighter circles, leaning on their joined hands as if it was a rudder.

“You know, Granger,” he said conversationally, “I don’t know how it is for muggles, but here, traditionally, gents lead.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Which means — and I’m sorry to break it to you — but you are, in fact, going to have to follow.”

“Oh. Am I not?”

He gave a short, surprised laugh. She was so earnest. “No; in fact, most efforts at steering, pushing, or otherwise hauling the other person into your preferred figure—”

“Fine! Yes! I get it!”

“—are signs of leading, yes — besides which, a fellow likes to feel that he’s more than his partner’s luggage, if you catch my drift.”

“But — hm.”

“What?”

She worked her mouth around a question. He tapped the back of her hand with his finger, twice, like a knock on the front door to her mind.

“What if I want to do something?” she said, and the question had a certain philosophical intensity. He gave it fair consideration.

“Then you tell me.”

She tilted her head. “Really?”

“Yes. Now, I might not agree—”

“Oh, I knew it. You had me there, you know—”

“Wait a minute. If you want to move somewhere, you can tell the lead. Or show him. Move your arms, lean — gently, mind you — in one direction or another, he’ll catch on. If he’s not unpardonably thick, he’ll take a hint.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“If he doesn’t…? I don’t know. Then he doesn’t. Why would it matter?”

“Why would it matter if I don’t get a say? Really?”

“Yes, really. It’s not a binding contract. You can stop always dancing, if you don’t like it.”

“Hm,” she said thoughtfully. Then, upon great rumination: “Can we do a spin?”

“The question is: ‘can you do a spin.’”

“Prat! Try me.”

He thought it would be very funny if she said this and immediately floundered it, so he said nothing, but cut his steps and whisked her hand up into the pendulum from which she would twirl; she went under his arm quickly, did a shy little twist on her heel, and then came hurrying back into position. What it wanted for grace she repaid in enthusiasm.

“See? You see?”

“Well done, then. You very nearly didn’t trip.”

“This is fun,” she decided. The movement had driven some blood into her cheeks, and stirred hairs loose from the clasp at the back of her head, and her heart rate was up; it was a funny thing to notice, but he could tell, because it was rabbiting along under his thumb. “I get it. It’s sort of a game.”

“You could see it that way. It’s also a kind of sport.”

“You would see it that way,” she said, amused, and the maddening lilt in her tone put him in half a mind to assert that sport was the difference between man and beast — why, he didn’t know, he would figure out an argument for it while she was delivering her rant on why it wasn’t — but he looked down and found her gazing thoughtfully at Neville and Marietta. The pair had flown through the beginner’s steps and were now perambulating merrily around the gramophone.

“Alright, Longbottom.”

“He’s quite clever,” she said automatically. “And he’s kind, too. I helped him with his Transfiguration, once, and when he gets the hang of something, he’s actually quite… good to work with.”

“I know that. I only tutored him for three years.” Neville hadn’t asked again, for their fourth. His grade in Potions seemed to be buoyant for the moment, which was a relief, because between the Tournament and his own work, he hadn’t any idea where he would have found the time.

“I suppose he’s a pureblood,” she said. “So he’s had lessons and things.”

“He is. Of course, he’s not me.”

This finally dragged her attention away from Neville, but it was a pyrrhic victory, considering that she looked at him like he was fully stupid.

“I meant that he’s not some virtuoso of dancing. He’s fine at it. Had lessons, I expect. But I can do better.”

“If you weren’t saddled with me as a partner, is that what you’re saying?”

“No. First of all — you have a niffler’s nose for insults, you know, and it isn’t a good thing, but second of all — I could do better with any partner.”

“Oh, you’re just desperate for me to ask you to prove it, aren’t you?” She was far too cheeky; her voice on desperate pitched into some low, breathy mockery of yearning. It put up the hairs on the back of his neck.

“I’ve never been desperate for anything in my life,” he said coolly, and did a quick contracheck that had her stumbling. Good. “If I wanted to prove it, I would.”

“I’m not going to ask you.” She was still enjoying herself. Disastrous. Time for extreme measures. “If you want to show off, you’ll have to just do it, I’m not going to beg you like some— what are we doing stop.”

He laughed. He had switched directions and waltzed backward on his own rotation, drawing her forward instead of back, which was easier for her to fudge — it meant he had to dance everything backward, but he could do that like he could tie his own shoelaces — and therefore easier to go faster. Much faster. He swept into double- and triple- time and whirled her under his arm and made her scream, a little, which was funny and also drew attention, even better. The motion slid her back into the curve of his arm and he put his hand on her waist and lifted — her feet left the ground, and she shrieked — after a spin he dropped her back on her feet.

“I told you—”

“Draco Malfoy, I’m going to skin you.”

“Marvelous, wasn’t it?” His heart rate was up, too. Maybe he ought to have kept training for quidditch. She wasn’t heavy, it shouldn’t have come up from just lifting her.

“It was,” she said, “many parts terrible, to one part, if at all, marvelous. Stop spinning.”

“I’m not.”

“Oh. That’s just the room, then.”

She leaned into his shoulder, vaguely gray. Her forehead met the point of his shoulder and rested there. He could see down into her hair, through the many volumes of static billow, where the gold threads latticed the brown, and the pearly thread of her part. Her fingers pressed little white indentations into his hand. With every breath, his hand moved in the lift and fall of her side. They were breathing together, he noticed. He’d forgotten if that was normal for dance partners. He’d learned so long ago.

Some people had looked over when she screamed, among them Harry and Ron and the virtuoso himself, Neville Longbottom. He fixed his mouth into a cool smirk and waltzed past them. Ron rolled his eyes so hard he ought to have strained a nerve.

Draco didn’t so much as sniff back at him. “We’re faster than Longbottom and Edgecombe, you know.”

“It’s not a competition!”

“So you think, because I’m winning it for us.”

“Poor Neville doesn’t even know what you’re doing, you realize that?”

“Longbottom knows what he knows,” he said vaguely.

“And it’s not winning if your partner’s sick.”

He slowed. He could always be moved by threats of mess.

She tipped her head back and smirked like she was laughing at him. He could twirl her again, just to teach her something about arrogance, but he didn’t want to. There were other things to consider. Ever since she’d had her braces off she’d been smiling more, and she had nice teeth, very clean and straight. There was a freckle under her right eye that moved when she smiled. It migrated around like an orbiting satellite. During a contracheck she folded neatly into the curve of his elbow and if he dipped down he could bend her further, and it was curious, how her body moved where he wanted it to go, how she let him do that. It was Hermione, letting him do that. The fact that she could let anyone else move her at all was a sort of revelation.

It was impossible not to wonder what she was thinking, when her eyes went wide and dark and curious, like telescopic lenses. Her mouth was parted and the full round of her bottom lip had a ridge of scars where she bit them; he wondered if the skin was rougher there, if it was soft everywhere else. There were ways to check.

He had the thought and then slammed the door on it, frightened, like something had come racing out of the dark.

Self-awareness crept along all the planes of his body like a slow-moving fire. It wasn’t his fault; she kept looking at him, like there were a thousand of her favorite secrets written all over his skin. She made looking feel like something that it wasn’t. It had been too long since he’d said anything. There was a jerking double-tap against the inside of his ribcage. In the dust and the sunlight and the violin music the movement of his mind had slowed, and there was something easy about moving, like flying and running, letting the route machinations of the body roll ceaselessly into each other, while he drifted somewhere else.

The hour-bell tolled deeply over the syrup of strings. Filch cut the gramophone. Then he was holding her waist and her hand in a silent classroom in the middle of a giggling mass of embarrassed fourth years, standing halfway through a beam of the midmorning sunlight, waiting for the nerves between his brain and his fingers to reconnect.

Somewhere a synapse flared. He took his hand off her waist and stepped back. She curled her fingers off his shoulder and wrung them in front of her chest, working anxiously at the knuckles there, like there was an ache in them.

He bowed to her. When he came up her stare was gone and she snorted, muttered something about poshness, and shouldered past him to collect her bag.

---

Word of the ball spread through the castle like a disease. It infected all organs of society. The division of the sexes came down with unexpected force, and across that iron wall only the bravest soldiers dared climb. Girls traveled the castle walls in packs, boys in haggard defensive formations. Established couples swanned smugly through the halls, aware of the envy they incited from dodging the gauntlet altogether. Relationships in budding or nebulous stages, meanwhile, were punted into a hash of negotiations. The Gryffindor common room became a swamp of gossip, for the question of whom to go with was superior only to the other, juicier question of who was going with everyone else.

Draco considered himself by and large above it all. Of course he thought about girls, abstractly, in the way that most boys did, and specifically, in some cases, because he was — well — see teenage boy; but that was a different thing from having anything to do with them. It would be a lie to say he hadn’t noticed girls loosening their collars or rolling up their skirts. He knew what it meant when Saoirse O’Donnell asked if he was coming to Hogsmeade that weekend, and why Romilda Vane offered him her spare ticket to the opera. But the idea of doing anything with them, of taking them out, the way so many of the upperclassmen did every weekend — walking out with one on his arm, holding her hand, or giving her his cloak — did nothing for him. It didn’t raise his pulse or turn his brains to soup, the way it seemed to do everyone else. Which was excellent luck, because with the exception of him and Hermione, it appeared all of Gryffindor Tower was cheerfully cartwheeling into madness.

Harry, as a champion, was an immediate target. It was bad enough that hordes of girls had apparently been longing for him beforehand, on charges of heroism and dashing nature — Draco had never known so many women suffered from acute blindness — but once it was announced that champions opened the ball, he became the prize ticket. This meant every meal became theater: as many as four or five girls might come up to ask him out, and once, hilariously, altogether, in the world’s most awkward queue. Harry’s answers were always so immediate and nakedly fearful that he spent the rest of the day paying it off in teasing.

Classes ended, and very few people went home. Draco, torn between the chance to see his mother again and the luring gravity of goings-on at Hogwarts, ended up writing a somewhat ungenerous and spurious letter offering to come home, only to be rebuffed, to his surprise, when his mother said she was still traveling, and could not possibly host him, but to have the best of times at the Yule Ball. She had attended hers with Draco’s father, she said, wearing a gown of silver acromantula silk, with an emerald and peacock-feather brooch — see enclosure — if he was struck by the inclination to confer it, in turn, on some lucky lady. He shoved the brooch and the letter in his bedside drawer and swathed them with so many Notice-Me-Not spells that Ron, walking by, accidentally steered himself into the wall.

So even mothers were not immune to insanity.

Meanwhile, Hermione had found a new ax to grind, and which was good for her, since grinding axes was a beloved hobby.

“One more day of this,” she said, “and I’m going to beat them both over the head with a textbook.”

“Lovely. Business or pleasure?”

“A really big, mean, thick one, like Runes,” she added, with relish. It seemed to give her great joy to think about. “Or Arithmancy. With the appendix. I love them, and I treasure them, and they’re going to drive me mad, and so I’m going to beat them, with an Arithmancy textbook, with an appendix.”

“A good plan, well-researched. Is this cumulative retribution, or acute?”

She rubbed her eyes. “It’s this sodding stupid ball.”

“Ah. Both.”

“It wouldn’t be any problem if they could just shut up and ask someone instead of complaining, but of course, they won’t. And if they don’t find some mettle somewhere before the week’s out, they’re going to end up going alone, and they’ll complain even more. It’s a mess. At least Ron’s only passively complaining — but Harry hasn’t any excuse. You’d think he’d have landed one date, he’s only been asked out by half the girls in our year—”

“His hesitation is understandable, their taste is clearly dubious.”

“God! I know.” She slammed down the Runes textbook. They were in the library, their table nestled in a small ray of winter sunlight, as whorls of dust inside the window-light orbited in time with the whorls of snow outside it. Hermione was wearing a lush red scarf that fountained over her shoulders and a thick white jumper that made her hair look like coffee spilling into cream, and she had tucked her wand behind one ear. He had tired of the Runes and started practicing Snowing Charms over her head, to see how long it would take her to notice.

“It’s getting ridiculous, honestly. Did you hear what he said about Susan Bones?”

“I would have preferred not to.”

Glittering flakes were starting to accumulate in her hair. She brushed it off absently, and it showered onto her shoulder; he smiled.

“And it’s even sillier, because obviously neither of them have even thought to ask me,” she said hotly, “when any of us could’ve gone as friends, and it would’ve solved the whole problem.”

“I’ll thank you to refrain from suggesting that sort of farce. Too much laughter is bad for digestion.”

“…Why is that funny?”

“Why? Why is it funny? Because you don’t want Potter to break your toes in front of three schools. Because you’d have to stand for pictures next to Ronald’s dress robes, which I can confirm for an abomination. Because neither of them are even remotely suitable partners, especially not for an international event. In fact, you should thank Merlin they haven’t asked you, and made you come up with an excuse to say no.”

“Why would I need an excuse?” she said coolly.

“Because unless you’ve another date—”

“Don’t I?”

“Do you?” he said, taken aback.

“There’ve been — offers.”

“Who?”

“Neville.”

“Longbottom?”

“Yes. He found me at breakfast, and told me that he assumed I had already had lots of invitations, but he wanted to ask me, in case I wanted to go as friends,” she said stiffly, turning a page with such force it nearly ripped. “He was very sweet.”

“So? Are you going?”

“No!” She did tear it, this time. Swearing, she whisked her wand out of her hair and traced a Mending Charm over the page. “I don’t like him that way.”

“As friends? Uncommonly cold, Granger.”

He sprawled in his chair, at ease. She cast him a glare. He smiled back, indolent and breezy.

“He’s a dear friend, in fact, I’m very fond of him. But I thought — you know, it really doesn’t matter. And anyway,” she said, with some venom, “at least Neville has asked someone. What have you done for the ball, besides sneer at other people trying?”

He snorted. “It’s not a sodding horse race. I’ll not go running after the first girl that’ll have me for fear of going alone. I’ll end up going with someone suitable, I expect.”

Hermione went still. Her fingers curled into crescents, like tiny sea-life retreating into their shells.

“Granger? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m thinking.”

“I know, it’s boring. Think louder.”

“I won’t, because it’s very stupid,” she said, with surprising anger. Rarely did he hear her wield that tone against herself, being normally reserved for the rare idiocy of Gryffindor boys. “I suppose I should’ve just gone with Neville, and been glad that someone asked me at all, instead of sitting around like — I’m as bad as Ron.”

“Don’t be daft. Just because Longbottom’s quick off the mark doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a lady’s choice.”

She shook her head, muttering. He watched her swat some snow off her shoulders without much gentleness.

“Were you waiting for someone?”

“No! I didn’t even think about it, I just looked at him and thought — it was mean,” she said furiously. “It wasn’t kind. I only wanted to go with someone as friends, anyway, this date rubbish has everyone acting like beasts—”

“Hear, hear.”

“—and it’s bad enough, you know, going to bed and listening to Lavender brag that she’s got four boys waiting on an answer, but she’s holding out for Harry — she doesn’t even like him, she just wants to be the center of attention—”

“Four? Good woman.”

“It doesn’t matter! Lavender Brown and her perfect blonde hair and her stupid giggle and her snogging partners have absolutely nothing to do with me getting a date to the dumb ball everyone’s so mad about, where I’d have to bother with a dress and hair and figure out whatever it is about makeup I’ve never understood, which is more time than I’ve got anyway, since I’m pressed enough between nine classes and a club and the Tournament, so I don’t even know where I’d find the room in my schedule for three hours of garrulous folderol.”

He wondered if he ought to ask her.

The snow had started to melt and stained the emergent layer of her curls, gilding the rest in glimmers from the afternoon sun. One flake clung to the curly tip of a piece of fringe, swept over her eyes, and it irritated him like a dog-eared page or a misplaced crease, yearning for correction. Her hair never stayed up, was the problem, it always wanted adjustment. His fingers twitched.

They could go as friends. It would put to bed all this nonsense with Neville and Ron and Lavender Brown. He was by far the best choice. He knew how to dance and drink and comport himself, not to mention how to actually wear white tie, which put him head and shoulders above anyone else she knew. He wouldn’t embarrass her. And it would be fun to put up their feet and chat about runes while everyone else frayed their nerves to shreds over dates.

He cleared his throat. She tilted her head at him, and a stroke of static blotted out whatever he was going to say.

Go to the ball with me was, apparently, a much more complicated incantation than anyone had let on, because his tongue went dead and he was staring at her like he’d never seen a sodding girl before.

She was staring at him. Her fingers fiddled with her quill, unconsciously smearing ink over her thumb.

“What?” she said. His eyes flickered down. The shape of the word ‘ what,’ which for some reason he’d never thought about before, was a sort of strange thing. It rolled off the mouth, like a blown kiss.

“What?” she said again. “You look like—”

A shriek split the air. Hermione jumped, smacked her knee on the table, and broke into a train of swearing that almost dwarfed the sound of the three Hufflepuff girls tearing around the corner. They ducked into the bookshelf, giggling and pawing at each other. One had a Bulgarian scarf knotted around her waist.

“—sodding bloody buggering goddamn pain in my arse, this is a library. What are they doing?” she snarled, and then, at him, sharply: “What are you smiling at?” which was a terrible shock.

“Quiet! Shut up! I think he saw us!”

“He did, I made eye contact—”

One darted her head around the bookshelf and squealed. “Wait! Wait! He’s coming by now—”

They fled to the next aisle and dissolved into cackling like a legislature of hags. Not much later, sharp footsteps swelled down the aisle, and Viktor Krum appeared, blinking in confusion.

“Herm-ow-nee,” he said, with dignified surprise. “Pale Man.”

“Hello, Viktor,” said Hermione politely. She massaged her knee. “Happy Christmas.”

“If you’re looking for your fan club,” said Draco, “they’re in the next aisle over.”

“Fan… club?”

“The admirers,” Hermione clarified. “The girls. They’re not here.”

“Oh,” he said, fervently, “good,” and to Draco’s dismay, he shuffled closer. This so happened to let him peer over Hermione’s shoulder at her notes.

Draco flicked his wand. The textbooks closed themselves with the same crisp snap, while the notes whisked themselves into piles and dove under innocuous volumes of Arithmancy.

Krum’s cheek twitched. “Is private?”

“Personal, actually. It’s nothing against you, but I’m sure you understand.”

“Ah.” He turned to Hermione and tapped the table. “Reasonably private? Eh? This?”

“Obviously,” said Draco.

“No,” she said, oblivious. “Why? Would you like to join us?”

Draco glared at her.

Krum broke into a lopsided, toothy smile. “Thank you for kind offer,” he said. “But I vill not stay. I am hiding from the girls.”

“Really? I think you could just wink at them, and they’d faint dead away.”

“No. You are vrong about this. They are always hiding when I am trying to talk to them,” he said, frowning. “I am suspecting this is the work of Warrington. He is having me followed.”

She was amused. “What, as espionage? An elite squadron of simpering third years?”

“He’s got a point,” muttered Draco.

“Ah. Right. You’re both ridiculous. Viktor, they want you to ask one of them to the ball.”

Viktor peered at her.

“The ball?” She rolled her hand expressively. “The dance, the Yule Ball? Didn’t Karkaroff tell you?”

“I know vhat the ball is. But vhy do they vant me to ask?”

“I suppose going to a ball on the arm of an international quidditch star who fights dragons is just the sort of thing some girls are interested in,” she said dryly, reaching for the textbook. “Did you bury my notes? Draco Malfoy, if you smeared them I’ll hex you silly, those were still wet.”

“They vould like it, you are thinking?” said Krum pensively. “Even from Hogvarts? Vhen ve are rivals?”

“If they didn’t have a heart attack first,” she said absently. “It’s not a real rivalry, nobody takes it that seriously.”

“Excuse you.”

“They are not thinking: ‘He is no good boy, from Durmstrang, dark magic’? Their families — they are not care?”

“Do not,” said Draco thinly, twirling his wand. The Knockback Jinx was tremendously effective at close range. “It’s ‘do not’ care. As in ‘I do not care to discuss this any further.’”

“Maybe they do,” she admitted, “but honestly, I can’t see why. And if they’re like mine, they’re muggles, so they don’t care one way or another.”

Krum nodded. “Thank you,” he said shortly. “I am leaving you to your privacy now.”

Draco ignored the look Hermione shot him as Krum left. His eyes followed the Bulgarian to the door, and thereafter he took care to cast Muffliato when they went to the library.

Sometimes he thought he was the only one in Gryffindor Tower with the slightest nose for subterfuge.

That evening, over a game of wizard’s chess with Harry, Ron lamented the deluge of work that had skated in over the deadline. Snape had assigned a take-home test on common antidotes in Potions, and both Draco and Hermione had refused to do it for him.

“Evil, he is,” Ron said bitterly that night in the Gryffindor common room. “Ruining the break with a lot of studying.”

Hermione turned her nose up over the edge of her notebook. “Mmm. You’re not exactly straining yourself, are you?”

“It’s Christmas!”

“It’s December nineteenth.”

The portrait-door whinged. Fred, George, and Angelina tumbled in, levitating a barrel of apple cider and a wheelcart of spiced fruitcakes, which the room greeted with a cry of appreciation. Ron stumbled up to help them, leaving Harry to puzzle out the four different ways he was in check.

“So. Harry,” said Angelina, flopping down in a chair. “Who’s our Hogwarts Crown Princess?”

Harry groaned, and a round of friendly jeering took up.

“Better hurry up, boy-o. It’s a big night. She’ll need time to plan her outfit.” Angelina leaned against the mantelpiece, grinning. “Besides, the good ones go fast, don’t you know.”

“Lay off him, he’s working up to it,” said Ron loyally. “We’re planning a strategy.”

“Does this strategy involve asking a girl to the ball?” said Draco. “Or is the plan to stare mournfully at the Ravenclaw Table until the idea transmits? Because so far, the results are uninspiring.”

Harry, sprawled despairingly spread-eagle by the fireplace, lifted a single finger. Draco fired off two in return.

“Who’re you taking, then, wanker?” yawned Ron. “At least Harry’s got a game plan.”

“I say again: can we confirm this plan involves eye contact?”

“He’s got irons in the fire! Leave him alone!”

“Ah, young love,” sighed Fred, perching on the back of the sofa. He clasped his hands over his heart. “Faint heart never won fair seeker, dear Potter. Go to her. Fly to her, serenade her — tell her she has bewitched you with her broom-handling skills and robust arms — shower her in flowers and quidditch gear—”

“You are so full of shit,” said Angelina fondly, crossing her arms.

He grinned. “I reckon,” he said. “By the way. Nearly forgot. We’re going to the ball, yeah?”

“Are we! Are we, now! And just what do you expect to hear, Fred Weasley, Mr. Serenade Her, when you come up to a girl and say ‘we’re going to the ball’ like you’re taking me to buy broomstick ointment?”

“…Yes?”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “Reckon so. Wear pink, it’ll match my dress.”

“But Georgie wants to go twinsies.”

“Great, then he can match, too.”

“Fair ’nuff. Cheers,” said Fred, and wandered off to help Lee Jordan deface a poster of Viktor Krum on the notice board. Angelina gave a small pleased smile and went over to chat with Katie Bell.

Each day new decorations appeared in the Great Hall, like a coruscating countdown to ritual sacrifice. Long talons of everlasting icicles dripped from the banisters of the grand staircase, and thick robes of holly wound up the ever-shifting arms of the staircases above. Twelve fir trees of gigantic height emerged overnight in the Great Hall, decked in the colors of each Hogwarts house, and each topped with a moving porcelain figurine of a lion, eagle, badger, or snakes. The tiny roars and hisses of these little creatures were lost under the sound of Christmas carols, for the suits of armor had been enchanted to sing whenever someone passed by, and the acoustics of their empty helmets gave these songs a hollow, mournful quality, like they were being played from far away. The gloomy strains of “O Tannenbaum” echoed long and deep through the stone vaults of the castle, and accompanied by the humming croons of the ghosts, as if the rock itself were singing.

It was a strange evening. Daphne was there. Ginny, too, had joined them late, bundling in beside Hermione and haughtily spooning lamb cawl into her bowl, so preoccupied with her own smugness she didn’t even notice Daphne until the girl turned to her and said admiringly: “I say! How many of you are there? Your mother must be a drill sergeant,” and she dropped a chunk of lamb into her pumpkin juice.

He interceded.

“Weasley, Daphne Greengrass. She’s here on good behavior. Daphne, this is Ginevra. The terminal Weasley, or so one hopes.”

“You’re in Slytherin,” observed Ginny.

Daphne levitated the lamb chunk out of Ginny’s goblet. “And you have the loveliest hair I’ve ever seen. What is that color? Garnet? Copper? I should simply die to see you in green. You’d be mesmerizing.”

Ginny, who had dirt on her nose and looked like she had never mesmerized anybody, flushed pink beneath her freckles. “Huh,” she said suspiciously. “Thanks, I guess.”

Satisfied that the risk of violence was low, he returned to Hermione’s conversation with Harry, who was scraping a spoon listlessly across his bowl.

“Just tell her you like her, and want to go to the ball, she’s going to say yes — honestly, you might do it now, she’s coming in.”

A set of Ravenclaws had indeed arrived from the courtyard, glazed in rain-drizzle, and Cho’s dark hair shone amongst them. Harry groaned. Ron thwacked him on the back and he stumbled to his feet.

With a foreboding sigh, he went over to her group and mumbled something, his hands in his pockets. Cho blinked and then said something, and Harry let out a loud, wild honk of laughter, like a startled goose; and then both of them smiled very brightly.

When he stumbled back, he still looked like he’d been clubbed.

“Ah, no, she rejected you,” said Hermione dryly.

“She asked me,” he said, in disbelief at his own luck. “I brought up the ball, and she just… asked me.”

“You’re joking,” said Ron.

He wasn’t. Whatever poor overclocked angel was responsible for Harry Potter’s good luck had burned the midnight oil down to its smoking wick, for Cho, trained in warfare on the cold mud of the quidditch pitch, had come out from the tall grasses and seized her man while the getting was good. Her reward was a burst of congratulatory shrieks and the full rights to extreme smugness. She settled at the Ravenclaw table like a cat that had glutted itself on cream.

Ginny, opposite, looked like someone had smashed the empty cream jar over her head.

Daphne squealed and fluttered her fingers on the heel of her palm. “Brava, brava! What a handsome couple! It’ll make quidditch matches complicated, of course, but I suppose a bit of friendly competition whets the blood, doesn’t it?”

“Nicely done, Harry,” said Ron, only slightly strained. “Taken care of.”

“Indeed. And who all are the rest you taking?”

There was a pause. Clearly, she had expected a more resounding answer, because she paled and glanced desperately around the table, looking for someone to rescue her. Draco, who was not feeling terribly warm towards her at the moment, declined to do so.

“He hasn’t asked anybody,” muttered Ginny, jerking her head at Ron.

“Hey! Oi! At least I’m going! You’re not even invited, so why don’t you hop off—”

“Actually, I am going. With Neville, in fact.” She stabbed a carrot.

His jaw dropped.

“Neville? You’re serious?”

“Yes, I am! And what’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing! And I like Neville, but — Merlin, so everyone has dates but me, don’t they?”

“No, they don’t,” said Hermione patiently. “For example, Eloise hasn’t got a date yet, and neither has Parvati.”

“I’m not taking Eloise.”

“And what’s wrong with her?”

Ron rolled his eyes and put a finger alongside his nose.

“Ron!”

“Come on,” he said, tilting his head at her. He trailed off, and his stare waxed keen and contemplative, as if wheels were turning under that ruddy hair that had never known movement before.

Draco directed the full force of his attention to his baked potato. That was fine. Ron was allowed to look at Hermione, if he wanted.

“Hermione,” Ron said. It was soft and thoughtful. “You’re a girl, aren’t you?”

Said girl promptly coughed up half a goblet of pumpkin juice. Ginny thumped her mightily on the back, and the blockage vanished from her airway with a thoroughly un-girlish wheeze. The ginger shot a glare at her brother.

“Well spotted!”

“Right, right.” Ron kicked away Ginny’s foot, which was attempting to locate and terrorize his shinbone under the table. “Reckon you’ll — quit it, Gin! — reckon you’ll want a date then, won’t you?”

The shriek of cutlery on porcelain made them all flinch.

“I quite apologize,” said Draco calmly, setting aside his fork. The baked potato was no more. “Granger, would you pass me—”

“You’ve just now thought of that?” she said disbelievingly. “Now you’ve exhausted your other options?”

“I dunno. I didn’t think about it before, to be honest.” Ron rubbed his neck, exerting the minimum of decency to look sheepish.

“Oh, that’s charming. Pray tell: didn’t think that I was a girl, or didn’t think I’d want a date?”

Ginny’s foot dealt a tremendously powerful blow to its victim’s kneecap, which, if received, would have surely silenced Ron as desired; unfortunately, the victim was not Ron but Harry, who wheezed and doubled over.

“Either, I guess.”

“Granger, I asked you to pass a new setting. You know how I loathe being made to repeat myself.”

She ignored him. “Because either way, Ron,” she snapped, “it’s pretty hard for a girl to feel wanted—”

“Feel wanted? Come off it! You’re our friend, and you might have offered, anyway.”

“Offered? Offered? Like an owl service?”

Realizing that he had stuck his foot in the bear trap, Ron set his jaw, girded his loins, and firmly wedged the other one in after it.

“You know what, yeah! I mean, not for nothing, Mione, but you didn’t ask me or Harry, either!”

Ginny was fingering her fork, gazing at Ron’s arm with savage intent, as if calculating the odds of getting a howler for puncturing her brother’s cephalic vein.

Hermione’s knuckles turned white on her knife. Draco eyed them with appreciative concern.

“That’s beside the point,” she said. “If you wanted to go with me, you should’ve asked me, and not waited until I was the last girl in eyeshot without a date.”

This bizarre bloodletting had gone on long enough. Entertaining as it was to watch Ron whale furiously at the bottom of the hole he was digging, Hermione was starting to look a bit genuinely hurt, and it took the joy out of the thing.

“Ronald, enough of this. Ritual humiliation is out of vogue, and it clashes with your complexion. Now, Granger, about the setting—”

“Well, I’m asking you now,” Ron said stubbornly. “Do you wanna go with me?”

Something cramped in Draco’s stomach. He set down his silverware and reached for his water, immediately relieved of appetite. He had never known the Hogwarts food to betray him before.

“I — you know what, Ron, actually, I would have,” she said flatly. He set down the waterglass hard and it splashed over the rim. The cramp spiked, and now a hot little curl of irritation was snaking up his throat.

She was lying. Why was she lying to him? To make fun of him? She wouldn’t have wanted to go with Ron, it would have humiliated her. What a joke that would have been, him hauling her around on his big oafish arm, wearing those ridiculous dress robes, embarrassing her, making her look stupid—

“—going with someone else.”

“What.”

Hermione and Ron both stared at him.

“I’m going with someone else,” she repeated clearly.

The cramp was swiftly becoming awful. His stomach had folded into a small pitted stone and slithered down his abdomen, sending a roil of nausea up his throat. What she was saying kept slipping in and out of his focus, and so it took him a few seconds to process, by which time his stomach had landed painfully in his appendix.

“…not telling you, it’s a surprise,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. He stared at her.

She was being demure. She was being bashful. Hermione Granger, who fought a mountain troll and stood down a dementor and outran a werewolf, who brewed an illegal N.E.W.T-level potion in the girls’ bathroom between classes, and shouted someone down about every other day, was fidgeting and curling her hair behind her ear because someone had asked her on a date.

He was really in profound pain.

“Who is it?”

She averted her eyes. “I just said it’s a surprise.”

“Piss off. Who is it?”

“Oh, never mind, since you asked so nicely.”

“Is it Finnigan?”

“No, he’s taking Lavender,” said Ginny. Harry had hidden his face behind his goblet.

“Fine. Thomas?”

“It’s not Dean,” she said, “and I wouldn’t tell you if it was, because, as I’ve said three times now, it’s a surprise.”

“But there’s no one else,” said Ron, after a moment. His expression was stunned and more than a little hurt. “Is that — are you serious? Because if you’re not — there’s no point to us both going alone. Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t ask you, okay? I should’ve done it sooner. That’s my fault.”

This dumbfounded her.

“You think I’m lying to spite you? Are you joking, Ronald Weasley?”

“Granger, forget about that. It’s irrelevant. Is it Jordan?”

“Lee?” she said, distracted by glaring at Ron. Her lack of priorities offended: she ought to have been glaring at him, if anyone. “No, he’s taking Katie. And stop guessing, you’re not going to get it.”

He wanted her to look at him. She seemed to be putting a lot of effort into not looking at him. What was her problem?

Ron stood up. “Fine,” he snapped. “No, that’s fine. I get the point. Literally anyone else, before me, right?”

“What? You’re being ridiculous! Come back! Ron!”

But he had stalked off. She stood up, and Draco hauled her back down.

“Don’t bother.”

“I never said that!”

“Of course you didn’t. Don’t be daft. He’s delusional.” His fingers fully encircled her wrist. He noticed this, involuntarily, and then threw away both wrist and idea in a fit of self-disgust. What was his problem, that was the better question.

The silence clambered down onto the table and sat in the worst possible place.

Daphne cleared her throat. “Please, everyone, try the treacle tart. I think the puddings are better here than our table. I blame the house-elves, I think they pick favorites.”

“Not a very close contest, when one house likes to enslave them,” snapped Hermione. Ginny snorted.

The silence turned around three times and resettled itself with one foot in the pudding.

“I envy your mind for politics, Hermione,” she said timidly. “I feel like I’m watching you go at it with swords whenever you talk. I should like to introduce you to some of Daddy’s friends at the Ministry of Magic; a lot of them ought to have their noses smashed in, and you seem like you could do with a good chance to smash some noses.”

Hermione tossed her hair back and blew out a short breath.

“I wouldn’t want to give them the pleasure,” she said, but it was less heated than she’d been a moment ago.

Daphne smiled at her with evident relief, and then set down her knife. “Steering the conversation back to something I’m good at,” she announced, “I, er — well, say I’ve been inspired by Cho’s example. And I — this is a teensy bit embarrassing, but I haven’t got a date.”

Even distracted, Draco found this surprising. “Not Theo?”

“I don’t think so,” she said evasively. “We haven’t spoken about it, but I don’t expect much. I imagine he’ll want to take Pansy, and a girl doesn’t like to stick her foot in.”

“Reckon not,” said Ginny darkly. “If one half is Pansy Parkinson, you’d get slime all over it.”

“Yes, well. Pans is quite set on going. But you see, so am I, and I’m not of a mind to maverick, it’s not done. Quite proud of the girls who do, of course, all power to women, but I’m a lady of the old school. So. Draco. You won’t leave a girl hanging, will you?”

Draco looked up at the same time as Hermione dropped a forkful of treacle tart. It was hard to say who was more stunned.

“You want me to take you? Why?”

“Your natural abundance of charm, obviously,” muttered Ginny, sawing her lamb.

“Not if it’s such a chore as you make it sound,” Daphne said pleasantly, “but otherwise, yes, I’d be much obliged. You’re perfectly suitable.”

“Suitable,” repeated Hermione. Ginny watched him like he had the World Cup Final playing on his forehead. She seemed to be trying to communicate something with eyebrows and mouth movements, but unproficient as he was in the Late Weasley Dialect, it told him nothing.

He thought about it.

“Alright,” he said. Daphne beamed and nodded at him, and then tucked into her pudding.

“What,” said Hermione. “You’re just — like that? Because he’s ‘suitable’?”

“Why, yes,” agreed Daphne. “Though ‘suitable’ doesn’t mean half a hot toot to me. It’s just to make the families happy. I’m sure I shouldn’t care who I dance with; I’d go with a leprechaun if I knew my parents wouldn’t find out.”

“Because anyone who isn’t pureblood is as good as a non-wizard, aren’t they?”

Ginny sighed and started rubbing her eyes. “Had to, did you?” she muttered to Daphne, under her breath. Draco hardly caught it, being distracted by a mounting row, but Daphne must have, because she stiffened. “You just had to.”

Daphne turned pink, and looked at the table.

“Granger, it doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s a nothing-term. Anyway—”

“That’s not true, though,” she said loudly. “Is it? Because Daphne didn’t ask anyone, she asked you, and she said suitable, and you knew exactly what she meant.”

He couldn’t understand how she had ended up yelling at him. Under most circumstances he knew what he’d done wrong, but she’d never been this angry without some sort of understandable cause before.

He scowled at her, and she scowled right back. Well, that was fine. If it was yelling she wanted, she’d get it. She’d more than earned a row, anyway, she and her ‘surprises,’ the little sneak—

And there was still that troublesome whisper of eagerness — are we going to row, now? Are we going to fight? — that darted through the wall of discomfort in his stomach.

“I’m not suitable for most people in Slytherin,” said Daphne suddenly.

Hermione rounded on her. “Oh, really? You’re plenty suitable for a Malfoy, though, so I wonder where the line is? Not blonde enough? You can’t be pureblood if you don’t rank between platinum and alabaster?”

“No,” she said. She drew a finger across the scars on her face.

“That’s why I asked him,” she added, after a beat of silence. “Seeing as Draco doesn’t mind, and people won’t talk so much, if I’m spoken for. Sorry. I didn’t think it would be a problem, Hermione. I thought — well, you said you already had a date.”

Hermione was a quiet rictus of horror.

“I didn’t think,” she said. “I’m — I’m quite — I didn’t mean to. I mean—”

“My darling, I’ve already forgotten it. What were we talking about?”

It was a Herculean effort, truly, but it failed because no one stepped in to relieve her.

“I have to go,” blurted Hermione. “To. The library. I just remembered.”

They had spent three hours on Runes together earlier that morning; it was also almost nine o’clock at night, and the library would close soon.

“For what?”

She looked at him wildly, as if she’d never heard of such a thing as a library in her life.

“Charms,” she said. “I have Charms.”

She leapt up and carried this lie on swift feet out of the Great Hall. He stared after her.

“We have Charms homework?” said Harry miserably.

“No, we don’t.”

“Oh. Good. But what’s her problem, then?”

Daphne glanced at Draco, sipped her pumpkin juice, and said nothing.

“Harry,” said Ginny emphatically.

“What?”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Ginny, what?” he said, annoyed.

She hit the table and stood up.

“You know, I really hope all of you die alone,” she snapped. She stormed out after Hermione.

It had started raining. It pattered against the tall windows and washed out the melancholy strains of Nearly Headless Nick and the Grey Lady singing “A Coventry Carol” among the candles overhead. The sound was dull and gloomy, and the Great Hall glittered like a bronze relief in the dark mirror of the windows. Someone down the table was saying the bad weather would last through Christmas, and Draco was of a mood to believe them.

“Goodness,” said Daphne worriedly. “Do you think she meant me, too?”

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-Written to one of the hardest serves James Fitzpatrick and Patrick Doyle ever whipped up. Not nearly enough conversation about how those two provided for us after John Williams bowed out.

-They and Mike Newell also gave us the Weird Sisters as an all-male glam rock band, and personally I think you should be allowed to go to heaven for that.

-This chapter goes out in loving memory of my dance teacher, who would have been aghast at the mere idea of intentionally doing a contra check without communicating it to the follow. Jail-worthy.

-As has been litigated in the fandom, the scene of McGonagall teaching dance lessons does, in fact, imply an equivalent with Snape; however, since Slytherins are mostly purebloods and therefore expected in general to have some training in it, I think he probably doesn’t, or he sends the few half-bloods and untrained purebloods to go sit in on a Ravenclaw lesson or something. (Covering the fact that I’m fairly certain Snape has never danced a step of anything in his life, and could not teach it even if asked.)

-It’s a rare treat for me to get more Ginny. She’s still a bit of a cipher, and I’m looking forward to more of her in fifth and sixth year. There’s always a balancing act, in a series with this many characters, of trying to do everyone justice without spreading the attention too thin. I like the idea that she and the twins have this unique friendship — Ron’s distant with her because he’s trying to strike out on his own, but the twins are old enough that they’re not threatened by a kid tagging along with them, and plus, they think Ginny’s hilarious. Which she is.

-I wrote the line “she’d walk into a death trap and complain about the upholstery” and then realized that I was, in fact, describing myself.

-The comments have been amazing this past week — reading my inbox is my treat after a long day. I hope everyone who left a comment has something lucky and unexpected happen to them today.

-Anyway: you all know when the next chapter goes up! It’s called “Eine Kleine Nachtmagik.” And it’s exactly what you think. Insane love to all of you. <3

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