Beltane
She chose a silken ribbon the color of a maiden's blush. Around her, other participants chose their ribbons and scrambled into place. A man dressed in a fool's costume waved his inflated pig's bladder-on-a-stick and gestured for alternating people to face left or right. The Maypole towered high above, fifty feet high and crowned with a circle of flowers, proud and beautiful beneath the blue sky. Soft grass brushed Hermione's ankles, and the wind blew a strand of hair across her face. She moved to push it away but paused as someone stepped in front of her and bent to retrieve the trailing blue ribbon that lay on the grass before her.
When he stood and faced her, she sucked in a breath. There was no mistaking that bright hair or those cool gray eyes. His lips curled into a smirk beneath his mask, and his eyes seemed to darken to almost blue as he looked her up and down, from the top of her dragonfly mask to the tips of her bare feet.
She hardly heard the call to begin, but started moving automatically into the dance as the others circled around her. The Maypole glistened with fragments of magical fire, its interweaving ribbons forming a spell -- for luck, for love, for life, as the chant went. Then the pipers started, and when she next passed Malfoy, ducking beneath his blue streamer, she was surprised to see his lips moving along with the song:
Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweþ sed and bloweþ med
And springþ þe wde nu,
Sing cuccu!
Awe bleteþ after lomb,
Lhouþ after calue cu.
Bulluc sterteþ, bucke uerteþ,
Murie sing cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu, wel singes þu cuccu;
Ne swik þu nauer nu.
As they danced in ever-tightening circles around the pole, Hermione noticed that every time he passed her, Malfoy looked directly into her eyes. His penetrating gaze made the dragon mask he wore seem to come alive. The Maypole was covered in a shimmering glow now, the flower crown having sunk nearly to the bottom in a graphic symbolic demonstration of the spell's ultimate power source: the union of male and female.
When the dancers were huddled in the shadow of the pole, giggling and unable to move any further, the call came to tie off the ribbons. Between all the jostling and joking, Hermione felt someone touch her free hand, turning it and grasping her fingers in his. She didn't have to turn her head to see who had done it, and she couldn't, anyway; her heart was beating against her ribs like a trapped bird in a cage beats its wings. But there was no fear there, only excitement.
Just as the flower crown slid to the ground when the last dancers finished tying off their ribbons, amidst shouts of celebration, a luminous spark rippled back up the pole from the earth in which it was planted, crackling into the sky above. Hermione gasped as the magic soared through the ground and into her body, pooling between her legs. Beside her, she heard a low groan from beneath the dragon mask.
The spectators were hooting and catcalling as those who'd participating in the Maypole dance began to disappear into the forest in pairs, or occasionally in small groups. Malfoy hadn't let go of her hand. Finally, she turned to look at him and saw the promise behind the challenge in his eyes. Ne swik þu nauer nu. She let him lead her into the inviting shade of the trees.
Summer had arrived.
(Note: The song "Somer Is Icumin In" is in Middle English and dates roughly from the 13th century. It is traditionally sung as a round. The last line of the verse means "Now don't ever you stop now.")
When he stood and faced her, she sucked in a breath. There was no mistaking that bright hair or those cool gray eyes. His lips curled into a smirk beneath his mask, and his eyes seemed to darken to almost blue as he looked her up and down, from the top of her dragonfly mask to the tips of her bare feet.
She hardly heard the call to begin, but started moving automatically into the dance as the others circled around her. The Maypole glistened with fragments of magical fire, its interweaving ribbons forming a spell -- for luck, for love, for life, as the chant went. Then the pipers started, and when she next passed Malfoy, ducking beneath his blue streamer, she was surprised to see his lips moving along with the song:
Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweþ sed and bloweþ med
And springþ þe wde nu,
Sing cuccu!
Awe bleteþ after lomb,
Lhouþ after calue cu.
Bulluc sterteþ, bucke uerteþ,
Murie sing cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu, wel singes þu cuccu;
Ne swik þu nauer nu.
As they danced in ever-tightening circles around the pole, Hermione noticed that every time he passed her, Malfoy looked directly into her eyes. His penetrating gaze made the dragon mask he wore seem to come alive. The Maypole was covered in a shimmering glow now, the flower crown having sunk nearly to the bottom in a graphic symbolic demonstration of the spell's ultimate power source: the union of male and female.
When the dancers were huddled in the shadow of the pole, giggling and unable to move any further, the call came to tie off the ribbons. Between all the jostling and joking, Hermione felt someone touch her free hand, turning it and grasping her fingers in his. She didn't have to turn her head to see who had done it, and she couldn't, anyway; her heart was beating against her ribs like a trapped bird in a cage beats its wings. But there was no fear there, only excitement.
Just as the flower crown slid to the ground when the last dancers finished tying off their ribbons, amidst shouts of celebration, a luminous spark rippled back up the pole from the earth in which it was planted, crackling into the sky above. Hermione gasped as the magic soared through the ground and into her body, pooling between her legs. Beside her, she heard a low groan from beneath the dragon mask.
The spectators were hooting and catcalling as those who'd participating in the Maypole dance began to disappear into the forest in pairs, or occasionally in small groups. Malfoy hadn't let go of her hand. Finally, she turned to look at him and saw the promise behind the challenge in his eyes. Ne swik þu nauer nu. She let him lead her into the inviting shade of the trees.
Summer had arrived.
(Note: The song "Somer Is Icumin In" is in Middle English and dates roughly from the 13th century. It is traditionally sung as a round. The last line of the verse means "Now don't ever you stop now.")