[Advent fics]: The Grandeur of the Ball, H/D, PG-13
Title: The Grandeur of the Ball
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco
Warnings: Present tense, angst
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 4900
Summary: A Christmas ball at Malfoy Manor. An enchanted mirror. A fairy godmother by the name of Gregory Goyle. And a happy ending.
Author’s Notes: Advent fic for an anonymous request asking for Harry as a Healer, recently divorced and estranged from Weasleys, receiving an invitation to Malfoy Manor care of Goyle. Happy Advent!
The Grandeur of the Ball
“You’re fine now,” Harry says to Gregory Goyle, unable to imagine a reason for the man to want to linger in his company. Yes, he has managed to save Goyle’s hand, which was crushed by a spell gone awry in his work as a gemcutter, but that’s all in his work as a Healer.
If you’re such a great Healer, then you would have managed to cure your marriage.
Harry thinks he successfully manages to hide his grimace, although he’s not certain. That’s one of those voices of inner doubt that attacks him all the time now, and has since the divorce.
On the one hand, he thinks that he made the right decision to separate from Ginny, when they couldn’t be an hour together without fighting. On the other hand, if it was the right choice, then he would have retained some friendships among the Weasley family, wouldn’t he?
“It’s not enough,” says Goyle abruptly.
Harry stares at him, then at his hand. He thinks that he’s restored the full functionality and the grace of the fingers-such grace as it ever had; Goyle has told Harry that was never a lot---and he doesn’t understand how it can’t be enough.
“I did my best work,” he begins indignantly, but Goyle gives him a single heavy glance, and Harry finds himself silenced. Instead of backing off, though, he watches as Goyle reaches into his pocket and pulls out a thick white card edged with gold and covered with golden lettering.
“Can’t go anyway,” Goyle grunts as he thrusts the card at Harry. “I’ll have to stay at home and do some work to make up for the delays that I’ve had with this hand. But you can make use of it.”
Harry just blinks and stares harder than ever at the card, which says, The Malfoy Ball. 8 pm, Christmas Eve.
“Money’s not enough to pay for what you’ve done,” Goyle finally explains his elliptical utterance. “Need something more. This balances the debt.” He nods and turns towards the exit from the room as if satisfied.
"How?" Harry finally manages to choke out, and waves the card at the back of Goyle's head. "It's not like I can use this!" The mere thought of what Malfoy will do if Harry shows up at the most exclusive party he's ever hosted makes cold sweat run down his back. Harry received enough Howlers from him when he returned his wand six years ago, and there have been a few since then, whenever someone at the Daily Prophet gets bored and decides to dig up the notion of life-debts that Malfoy owes Harry.
Goyle turns around and stares at him as if Harry said that he can't use air to breathe. "Of course you can," he says. "Draco's lonely, isn't he? And you're lonely, you are." He nods. "It works out."
"No, I can't--"
But Goyle is already gone, muttering about all the work he's missed and might still miss, and he leaves Harry standing there and staring down at the invitation, wondering what in the world he's going to do with it.
*
For the next few days, at least, the answer to that problem is "hide it in his desk and pretend it doesn't exist."
But it's as though Goyle's comment about Harry being alone has opened his eyes to how much he really is. He has friends at work, of course--but the conversations about cures and potions and the funny stories about stubborn patients somehow never translate into drinks at the pub or invitations to dinner or impromptu Quidditch games. Harry wonders if he's lost the knack of making friends.
Or perhaps he never had it in the first place. Ron and Hermione were the ones who did most of the work. Harry thinks his only contribution to the whole process was his decision to go find Hermione in the bathroom before the mountain troll attacked.
Hermione isn't completely estranged from him, in that now and then she sends him an owl to make sure he's all right. But her bond with Ron is a deep and lasting affair of the heart, and she's also friends with Ginny, and, well, the whole mess makes it hard for her to pick sides, and means she's uncharacteristically diffident and hesitant about what to do.
Harry understands. He doesn't blame her. Well, all right, he tries not to blame her. It's complicated, the whole thing is.
He just wishes it was simple enough that he could have a few friends left.
But he has his job, and saving lives is something he's dreamed of doing for years, and when he looked at the set of Auror courses he'd have to pass and knew he couldn't do it, he was glad to have at least one path still open to him. He can smile at children he helps recover from magical accidents, and anxious patients whose limbs he can restore, and even people whose permanent conditions, like lycanthropy, he can ease if not cure.
It's enough, most of the time. It ought to be enough, all the time.
But the fact that Harry takes the card out of his desk again a week before Christmas Eve and stares at it, and then decides to go to the shops, pretty much proves it's not.
*
Harry leans his head against the back wall of Madam Malkin's, and sighs. Madam Malkin herself, as well as all the assistants she could summon, proved unable to give him robes that were both suitable for the Malfoys' ball and affordable. Harry asked if he could look on his own, and Madam Malkin agreed.
But Harry's dug through these robes for half an hour now, and he doesn't think he'll get any closer. No one could say they aren't fancy. They have lace and gilt on the cuffs and hems, or they have actual golden or silver buttons, or the cloth feels like Harry thinks sleeping on a pile of money would. None of that matters if Harry can't afford them or doesn't feel comfortable in them.
Harry finally sighs again and steps back. It was a foolish notion, this one of going to the Malfoys' ball, and even more foolish is the notion that it might finally ease his loneliness. Nothing is going to do that except getting out there and making new friends. He can't be scared of what the papers will say. He can't sit around waiting for Ron or Ginny to call on the Floo. They won't.
"What, are you giving up already?"
The voice is so like Malfoy's that Harry finds himself glancing around automatically, his cheeks flushing. If Malfoy finds out that Harry has been trying to dress up before he comes to the ball, Harry will never hear the end of it.
But the only thing capable of speaking is the large mirror hanging on the wall. Its frame is a mass of golden, or maybe bronze, or maybe platinum, curlicues. Harry approaches it cautiously. For one thing, it's already sneered at him.
The minute he can see his face in it, the mirror sighs. "Oh, I thought so. You have no idea what to do with all that beauty, do you?"
Harry looks down at his own worn Healer's robes and shrugs, not sure what beauty the mirror means. "I know that this isn't my best color," he offers lamely.
"Let me guess. Gryffindor?" The mirror doesn't even give Harry the chance to respond, but makes a nose like clucking its tongue, although Harry doesn't see how, given that it doesn't have a tongue. Maybe it rubs some of the curlicues together. "Yes, I thought so. Darling, you can't live in gold and red robes all your life. They don't suit you at all."
Harry stares at the robes he was looking through. He's sure that Madam Malkin and her assistants brought him other colors, but it's true: the robes against the wall, the ones that he gravitated to immediately, are all red and gold.
He shrugs and mutters, "Doesn't matter when I can't afford something comfortable anyway, does it?"
"Of course it matters!" The mirror shakes in its frame. "Everyone deserves something nice they can wear. Go to--yes, the shelf six steps to the right of me and around the corner. There you'll find something."
Although Harry doesn't think so, he also thinks he might as well humor the mirror, and so he dodges around the corner. He has to halt in silent amazement when he sees the stacks and stacks of folded robes there. The shop must be bigger than he thought.
The robes are also dark blue and dark green with silver accents, colors that Harry revolts instinctively against wearing, but he hasn't found anything else. He picks up one robe of each color and takes it back to the mirror.
The mirror has changed. It's lengthened itself down the wall, and it whistles a little when Harry comes back around the corner. "That's more like it! Now I can see what I'm working with." For a moment, the mirror considers Harry in silence, while Harry stands there and feels silly. Then it says, "All right, the blue one first."
Harry struggles into the blue robe, feeling it overlap his wrists. It's too big. He opens his mouth to say so, but the mirror interrupts. "There are such things as Resizing Charms, you know."
"I know," Harry mutters, feeling he's being too silent, but he obediently turns around when the mirror orders him to.
"No, no, no," the mirror declares after a long moment. "I like it in the abstract, but it's so dark, it makes it look like your hair just continues down your back in practice. Now the green one."
Harry struggles out of the blue robe, caught between satisfaction and misery. At least a magical mirror can't help either, and that means he has all the justification he needs to sit home in front of the fire and drink and feel sorry for himself.
The first thing he notices after he tugs the green robe over his head is the mirror's silence. Harry looks up. "So it's so awful you can't even comment, right?" he asks.
The mirror lets out a low whistle. "Change awful to amazing, and you might be right," it says. "Oh, darling. Look." And it expands its glass out to the sides as well.
Harry stares. He supposes the green robe does look nice. It fits, for one thing. And there's no lace on the cuffs, although there are those bloody silver accents. And he supposes that it makes his eyes glow, which might take some attention away from the scar on his forehead. And, well, it falls nicely around his body...
"I take it," says the mirror in smug tones, "that that will be one sale, then. And one party."
*
So Harry has the robe. And he has the invitation. And he has the polished dragonhide boots that he bought when he thought he would still make a go of it in the Aurors, and has rarely used since.
He just has to muster up the will to go.
It's seven-o'clock on Christmas Eve, and Harry still sits in front of the fire and stares at the robe, hung on a rack he got just for it. He looks at it, and he turns away.
He flushes when he thinks of how pathetic he'll look, showing up alone. Then he thinks of how it'll look when he shows up at all, and he buries his head in his hands.
And the notices in the papers. That will get heads shaken over the Weasley breakfast table. They'll murmur that he had to be desperate to try a stunt like this. Maybe they'll add that they knew it all along, that he would go trotting after anybody the minute his friends withdrew.
Oddly, it's that thought, so potent to sting him with embarrassment, that also makes Harry lower his hands and stand up.
So what if the Weasleys laugh at the way he went to the ball? So what? It's not like Harry will know about it, since he never talks to any of them anymore. And he can always burn the Howlers and the Prophets that people try to send him. He already has spells up around his office at St. Mungo's that do exactly that.
He's going to do this. And if it doesn't work out the way he wanted, well. At least he'll have tried.
He pulls the robe on as if it was armor.
*
Malfoy Manor looks like a fairy-tale castle from the outside.
Harry stands there for a long time, appreciating it. And absolutely not putting off the moment when he’ll have to go through the gates, wrought iron entwined with lines of flickering white and red fairy lights that look like they’re made of the Aurora Borealis, and present his invitation to the suspicious guard wizards that Malfoy has probably hired for the occasion.
Round golden towers of soft radiance, which Harry is virtually sure aren’t there in the manor’s day-to-day life, float in midair above the roof. Slender spires point up between them, each one capped with a spinning wheel of silver that holds swinging seats. Tilting his head back, Harry can see couples or children in each one, shrieking in delight as they swing up to the top of the wheel and then back down to what looks like a large door at the base of each spire.
Harry wonders if Malfoy got the idea from Muggle carnival rides. Not that he’ll ask.
The grounds themselves blaze with slowly turning balls of snow, each one holding a house-elf floating in midair and bearing a lantern. Here and there, white peacocks with blue tails (colored artificially, surely?) prance and squawk and fan them out. The snow at their feet seems to be made up of actual pearls, or at least small dots that look like it. Harry’s squinting through the gate at them when the guard wizard coughs next to him.
Harry straightens up, sure his face is utterly red. He holds out his invitation, wondering for the first time if this is an elaborate prank that Malfoy dreamed up and got Goyle to execute for him, since there was no way Harry would take an invitation from him directly.
But although the guard wizard examines the invitation gravely, he hands it back in a moment, touching his pointed black hat with two fingers. “You understand that we’ve got to check, Mr. Potter,” he says, and swings the gate wide. “You’ve got all sorts that try to sneak in when we’re holding a ball like this.”
Harry nods as if he understands, as if he’s not stunned to be politely called by name when it comes to a Malfoy guard wizard, and strides through the gate.
It is pearls rolling softly beneath his feet.
*
The ballroom seems to take up most of the house.
Rationally, Harry knows that it can't, that there must be other rooms besides this in the house. Besides, it looked as big as a castle from the outside. Probably it's been enlarged by use of wizardspace or temporarily removing walls.
But as he stands at the landing just inside the doors, facing the huge sweep of gently curving stairs that lead down into the ballroom, it really does seem as if he's looking at acres of floor, colored a deep blue as if made of pounded sapphires, with sparkles of silver here and there on it. The irrelevant thought flashes through Harry's head that he's glad he didn't take the dark blue robe, after all. He would look as if he was wearing the Invisibility Cloak from a distance, on this cloud of a floor.
There's no herald waiting to announce names, as he was afraid there would be. If the guests get through the gauntlet of guard wizards, apparently they're all assumed to have an invitation and a right to be there. Harry lingers near the railing that encircles the landing, though, his hands folded on top of the silvery iron, watching as witches in crystalline gowns and wizards in silver and green sweep the floor below.
I'll fit in, Harry thinks, and plucks a little at the sleeve of his robe.
He listens to the soft music that comes from great, glowing crystal chandeliers suspended on every arch of the ceiling, and wonders if he's come far enough. Perhaps he doesn't have to go down there and dance. Perhaps he should be able to stand here and watch the dancers and be content that he's done his duty by himself. It's been almost three months, since the breakup with Ginny, since he's come even this far into a social situation. Surely it's enough?
But he won't have done whatever duty Goyle thinks he could do by Malfoy. And weirdly enough, since Goyle gave him the invitation and shook him out of a kind of lethargy, that's important to Harry.
He finally walks down those steps, conscious of how he'll be a target of all eyes if someone happens to glance up. But no one does. The busily whirling couples have eyes only for each other, it seems. The people at the long tables that float back and forth on gleaming icy ponds have eyes only for the pies and pasties and cakes and roasted birds that they're eating. And the people along the walls--
Harry's gaze catches and snags. He wouldn't have thought that would happen. He knows what his taste runs to: red-haired witches that the ball attendees would think of as blood traitors. Not anything else.
On the other hand, those red-haired witches have a habit of breaking his heart. Perhaps he should try something else.
The figure lingering against the wall is wearing pale silver robes that make him shine like a snowflake against the blue of the walls and floor, and which blaze with a subtle shimmer in the light of the chandeliers. The figure takes a slow drink from a tall silver cup, and shakes his head at the whisper of a dark-haired witch beside him. She flounces out on the dance floor on the arm of a tall, black-skinned wizard a second later.
The pallor and the look of suffering on the high-cheekboned face are even more severe than Harry looked for, but they finally convince him of who he's looking at.
Draco's lonely, isn't he? And you're lonely, you are.
Maybe he is. Maybe they both are.
Harry pauses and looks back up the stairs. But no one else is coming down. It seems that most of the guests have arrived, and most of them are consumed with their particular passions, whatever they are. Food or company or dancing. Harry doubts anyone will much notice him unless he goes out on the dance floor.
Of course, that's exactly what he's thinking of doing, which just makes this even more mental.
But he feels cut away from his usual self, drifting in the atmosphere of jewels and gleaming colors that fills the ballroom. He didn't, until he saw Malfoy standing there. He felt like an awkward fraud who shouldn't have come.
But now, now he has the courage to go up to the wall and bow solemnly, his hand extended. Malfoy turns his head so slowly that it feels as if he has to cut more space than should belong to any one person. Harry has plenty of chances to feel stupid and decide to pull his hand back to his side. It almost seems Malfoy wants him to.
But he doesn't, and he hears, because he's standing so close, Malfoy's breath quicken when he meets Harry's eyes. It could be the robes, or the fact that Harry's here at all, where Malfoy obviously didn't expect to see him, but either way, the tension is suddenly sparkling like frost, like Malfoy's robes, between them.
"May I have this dance?" Harry asks softly.
*
They move out onto the ballroom floor, and although there are dozens of others pirouetting around them or swaying with gazes locked or languishing in each other's arms, Harry knows they are alone in all the important ways.
Malfoy changes the music coming from the chandeliers with a sweep of his wand. Then he lowers it and tucks it away, and Harry knows he won't reach for it again unless something drastic changes between them.
Harry doesn't intend for that to happen.
He forgets about how he can't dance, how Malfoy probably dances a hundred times better than he does anyway, and how much it would be hurt to be rejected after he's taken this chance. He sways with the music, and Malfoy is in front of him, still shimmering, eyes narrowed as though Harry is the brightly-shining one and it's hard to see through the nimbus of light that surrounds him.
Harry can feel Malfoy's robes slipping past his hands. They seem to be made of snow; they're as slick and soft as that, although not as cold. Maybe they're like the pearls outside, or the globes of floating snow that encircle the house-elves.
He can feel Malfoy's soft breaths, and the heat of his heart as he leans against Harry. He can feel the way that Malfoy's chest moves in and out with those breaths. Harry leans his head against Malfoy's shoulder, and he can feel the sharp angle of bone there, too, and the round of his collarbone. It feels strangely, inexplicably precious.
He can see Malfoy's eyes fixed on him, only looking away when they cross a difficult portion of the floor and Malfoy needs to look down to keep his footing. Those moments are almost necessary for Harry to regain his mental balance. No one else has ever looked at him as Malfoy does.
As if he's not the general Savior of the Wizarding World, the Chosen One, or any other title that the Daily Prophet wants to bestow on him, but someone's own personal savior. Why Malfoy accepted his invitation to dance, Harry doesn't know, but he does know that he saved Malfoy by offering.
He can smell the scent that Malfoy seems to have draped himself in. It's artificial, but Harry can't tell much about it other than that. Some kind of flower? Some kind of fruit? Maybe even burning peacock feathers, assuming they smell sweeter than other kinds when they're burning. It could be all of those, and Harry wouldn't know.
He can hear the way that Malfoy's breath catches when they spin, the flutter of his robes around him, how he leans near and then leans away. Bone creaks in his chest when he does that, in his legs, in his arms. Or maybe it's something else, just the general shifts of muscle. Harry can't tell. He knows that he hears the sound, and he likes it, because he thinks that you have to be pretty bloody close to someone else to hear that.
There's taste, nothing to satisfy that yet. Harry hasn't gone over to eat any of the food from the floating tables, and he hasn't tasted Malfoy's skin when he leaned his head on his shoulder, and he hasn't even got a mouthful of hair during the times when they apparently have to spin around. Malfoy leads in those moments, but Harry other times.
Harry knows what he would like to taste. But he doesn't know if Malfoy would agree, and as long as they float in this enchanted blue world, surrounded by magic and music and the necessity of the dance, he won't know. He thinks he can live with the uncertainty.
Of course, in the end, they come back to earth. Not even Malfoy can command the song to play any longer. Or perhaps he's got too caught up in Harry's eyes, which he seems to like staring into, to remember to start another one. Either way, the music glides to a halt, and they do the same thing at the same moment. Malfoy leans against Harry, the same height as him, all the better for staring into his eyes.
Harry stares back. He waits for--something. A continuation of the moment, of the magic of the dance settling around them like snowdrifts, or something else. He doesn't know what. He aches with the longing to find out.
Malfoy places a hand on Harry's cheek, and spreads out his fingers so that he's cupping most of it. His eyes remain steady. His nostrils flare, and he tilts his head as if listening, and it occurs to Harry, abruptly, that Malfoy has the same five senses that Harry does, and seems to want a chance to indulge them. Perhaps he wants a chance to indulge the fifth one, too, and doesn't know how to end this moment any more than Harry does.
So Harry does it for him. He leans forwards and claims Malfoy's lips in a long, careful kiss.
Neither one of them opens his mouth. No one comes forwards and showers them with rose petals to let them know what a perfect moment it is. Harry will have to wait for some other time, some later one, to taste the inside of Malfoy's mouth.
But he can taste slickness and firmness, and perhaps those are all the sensations he needs for right now.
That is how their moment ends, in the center of the ballroom at the Malfoy Christmas Eve ball with everyone gaping at them, and Draco drawing back to regard Harry with steady happiness in his eyes.
*
"What made you take the risk and come up to me?"
Harry can hardly believe that those are the first words they've spoken to each other since he asked Draco to dance. They didn't seem to need them when they were dancing, though. They had the music and the movements.
Now he and Draco stand on a balcony that projects out over the snowy gardens, lit by the house-elves in their globes and, now and then, the boom of fireworks. Harry didn't look around to see what expressions were on the other guests' faces when Draco led him out here. He didn't want to. He didn't need to.
Only one expression matters to him now, and it's not even his own. After all, it's not as if Madam Malkin's mirror is here to show him his own face.
"Because Goyle told me you were lonely and I was lonely, and I knew the second part was true." Harry turns his back on the fireworks, even though right now they're bursting in a particularly beautiful flower of green light with a yellow center, and looks at Draco. "I came here because I thought maybe I could change that. Then I saw you over by the wall."
Draco blinks at him, before he chuckles. Harry relaxes. He likes the sight of Draco's face crinkled in humor, the way he likes the sight of it when Draco is kissing him. "I looked that way? I thought I'd hidden it so successfully. I talked with people most of the evening, you know, playing the perfect host. I thought no one would notice if I took a few moments for myself."
"I don't know if I would have looked if Goyle hadn't told me about you," Harry admits. Strange as it is to say, when he feels as if Draco has been with him for centuries full of heartbeats, they were enemies a few years ago, and virtual strangers an hour ago. "But I looked, and there you were. I think I was worried that you might toss me out for coming into your party when you didn't invite me."
"You were permitted here if Greg gave you his invitation." Draco steps up and thoughtfully curves an arm around Harry's waist. Harry finds it suddenly hard to breathe. "What I find harder to understand is why you took the risk to reach out to me."
"Because I wanted to dance with you," Harry begins, then stops, hearing how inadequate the reason is coming from his own mouth, how small it seems in the steady light from Draco's eyes. "Because I wanted to."
That's the real reason, and although Draco stirs for a moment as if he would ask about why Harry wanted that, in the end he shuts his mouth and leans forwards and murmurs, "Well, then I want to do this."
He kisses Harry again, in the full light of the fireworks, on the balcony where anyone could look up and see him, the same way anyone could have seen them on the floor in the Malfoy ballroom. A little amused, Harry hopes that they'll soon actually have a kiss in private.
But for now, with Draco's hands in his hair and his tongue at last finding its way into Harry's mouth so that Harry can get a hint of the taste there, what he hopes for is merely another kiss, and another one, and the continuance of this light, this different dance, this grandeur.
The End.
Give the Moment Wings.
This entry was originally posted at http://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/713108.html. Comment wherever you like.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco
Warnings: Present tense, angst
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 4900
Summary: A Christmas ball at Malfoy Manor. An enchanted mirror. A fairy godmother by the name of Gregory Goyle. And a happy ending.
Author’s Notes: Advent fic for an anonymous request asking for Harry as a Healer, recently divorced and estranged from Weasleys, receiving an invitation to Malfoy Manor care of Goyle. Happy Advent!
The Grandeur of the Ball
“You’re fine now,” Harry says to Gregory Goyle, unable to imagine a reason for the man to want to linger in his company. Yes, he has managed to save Goyle’s hand, which was crushed by a spell gone awry in his work as a gemcutter, but that’s all in his work as a Healer.
If you’re such a great Healer, then you would have managed to cure your marriage.
Harry thinks he successfully manages to hide his grimace, although he’s not certain. That’s one of those voices of inner doubt that attacks him all the time now, and has since the divorce.
On the one hand, he thinks that he made the right decision to separate from Ginny, when they couldn’t be an hour together without fighting. On the other hand, if it was the right choice, then he would have retained some friendships among the Weasley family, wouldn’t he?
“It’s not enough,” says Goyle abruptly.
Harry stares at him, then at his hand. He thinks that he’s restored the full functionality and the grace of the fingers-such grace as it ever had; Goyle has told Harry that was never a lot---and he doesn’t understand how it can’t be enough.
“I did my best work,” he begins indignantly, but Goyle gives him a single heavy glance, and Harry finds himself silenced. Instead of backing off, though, he watches as Goyle reaches into his pocket and pulls out a thick white card edged with gold and covered with golden lettering.
“Can’t go anyway,” Goyle grunts as he thrusts the card at Harry. “I’ll have to stay at home and do some work to make up for the delays that I’ve had with this hand. But you can make use of it.”
Harry just blinks and stares harder than ever at the card, which says, The Malfoy Ball. 8 pm, Christmas Eve.
“Money’s not enough to pay for what you’ve done,” Goyle finally explains his elliptical utterance. “Need something more. This balances the debt.” He nods and turns towards the exit from the room as if satisfied.
"How?" Harry finally manages to choke out, and waves the card at the back of Goyle's head. "It's not like I can use this!" The mere thought of what Malfoy will do if Harry shows up at the most exclusive party he's ever hosted makes cold sweat run down his back. Harry received enough Howlers from him when he returned his wand six years ago, and there have been a few since then, whenever someone at the Daily Prophet gets bored and decides to dig up the notion of life-debts that Malfoy owes Harry.
Goyle turns around and stares at him as if Harry said that he can't use air to breathe. "Of course you can," he says. "Draco's lonely, isn't he? And you're lonely, you are." He nods. "It works out."
"No, I can't--"
But Goyle is already gone, muttering about all the work he's missed and might still miss, and he leaves Harry standing there and staring down at the invitation, wondering what in the world he's going to do with it.
*
For the next few days, at least, the answer to that problem is "hide it in his desk and pretend it doesn't exist."
But it's as though Goyle's comment about Harry being alone has opened his eyes to how much he really is. He has friends at work, of course--but the conversations about cures and potions and the funny stories about stubborn patients somehow never translate into drinks at the pub or invitations to dinner or impromptu Quidditch games. Harry wonders if he's lost the knack of making friends.
Or perhaps he never had it in the first place. Ron and Hermione were the ones who did most of the work. Harry thinks his only contribution to the whole process was his decision to go find Hermione in the bathroom before the mountain troll attacked.
Hermione isn't completely estranged from him, in that now and then she sends him an owl to make sure he's all right. But her bond with Ron is a deep and lasting affair of the heart, and she's also friends with Ginny, and, well, the whole mess makes it hard for her to pick sides, and means she's uncharacteristically diffident and hesitant about what to do.
Harry understands. He doesn't blame her. Well, all right, he tries not to blame her. It's complicated, the whole thing is.
He just wishes it was simple enough that he could have a few friends left.
But he has his job, and saving lives is something he's dreamed of doing for years, and when he looked at the set of Auror courses he'd have to pass and knew he couldn't do it, he was glad to have at least one path still open to him. He can smile at children he helps recover from magical accidents, and anxious patients whose limbs he can restore, and even people whose permanent conditions, like lycanthropy, he can ease if not cure.
It's enough, most of the time. It ought to be enough, all the time.
But the fact that Harry takes the card out of his desk again a week before Christmas Eve and stares at it, and then decides to go to the shops, pretty much proves it's not.
*
Harry leans his head against the back wall of Madam Malkin's, and sighs. Madam Malkin herself, as well as all the assistants she could summon, proved unable to give him robes that were both suitable for the Malfoys' ball and affordable. Harry asked if he could look on his own, and Madam Malkin agreed.
But Harry's dug through these robes for half an hour now, and he doesn't think he'll get any closer. No one could say they aren't fancy. They have lace and gilt on the cuffs and hems, or they have actual golden or silver buttons, or the cloth feels like Harry thinks sleeping on a pile of money would. None of that matters if Harry can't afford them or doesn't feel comfortable in them.
Harry finally sighs again and steps back. It was a foolish notion, this one of going to the Malfoys' ball, and even more foolish is the notion that it might finally ease his loneliness. Nothing is going to do that except getting out there and making new friends. He can't be scared of what the papers will say. He can't sit around waiting for Ron or Ginny to call on the Floo. They won't.
"What, are you giving up already?"
The voice is so like Malfoy's that Harry finds himself glancing around automatically, his cheeks flushing. If Malfoy finds out that Harry has been trying to dress up before he comes to the ball, Harry will never hear the end of it.
But the only thing capable of speaking is the large mirror hanging on the wall. Its frame is a mass of golden, or maybe bronze, or maybe platinum, curlicues. Harry approaches it cautiously. For one thing, it's already sneered at him.
The minute he can see his face in it, the mirror sighs. "Oh, I thought so. You have no idea what to do with all that beauty, do you?"
Harry looks down at his own worn Healer's robes and shrugs, not sure what beauty the mirror means. "I know that this isn't my best color," he offers lamely.
"Let me guess. Gryffindor?" The mirror doesn't even give Harry the chance to respond, but makes a nose like clucking its tongue, although Harry doesn't see how, given that it doesn't have a tongue. Maybe it rubs some of the curlicues together. "Yes, I thought so. Darling, you can't live in gold and red robes all your life. They don't suit you at all."
Harry stares at the robes he was looking through. He's sure that Madam Malkin and her assistants brought him other colors, but it's true: the robes against the wall, the ones that he gravitated to immediately, are all red and gold.
He shrugs and mutters, "Doesn't matter when I can't afford something comfortable anyway, does it?"
"Of course it matters!" The mirror shakes in its frame. "Everyone deserves something nice they can wear. Go to--yes, the shelf six steps to the right of me and around the corner. There you'll find something."
Although Harry doesn't think so, he also thinks he might as well humor the mirror, and so he dodges around the corner. He has to halt in silent amazement when he sees the stacks and stacks of folded robes there. The shop must be bigger than he thought.
The robes are also dark blue and dark green with silver accents, colors that Harry revolts instinctively against wearing, but he hasn't found anything else. He picks up one robe of each color and takes it back to the mirror.
The mirror has changed. It's lengthened itself down the wall, and it whistles a little when Harry comes back around the corner. "That's more like it! Now I can see what I'm working with." For a moment, the mirror considers Harry in silence, while Harry stands there and feels silly. Then it says, "All right, the blue one first."
Harry struggles into the blue robe, feeling it overlap his wrists. It's too big. He opens his mouth to say so, but the mirror interrupts. "There are such things as Resizing Charms, you know."
"I know," Harry mutters, feeling he's being too silent, but he obediently turns around when the mirror orders him to.
"No, no, no," the mirror declares after a long moment. "I like it in the abstract, but it's so dark, it makes it look like your hair just continues down your back in practice. Now the green one."
Harry struggles out of the blue robe, caught between satisfaction and misery. At least a magical mirror can't help either, and that means he has all the justification he needs to sit home in front of the fire and drink and feel sorry for himself.
The first thing he notices after he tugs the green robe over his head is the mirror's silence. Harry looks up. "So it's so awful you can't even comment, right?" he asks.
The mirror lets out a low whistle. "Change awful to amazing, and you might be right," it says. "Oh, darling. Look." And it expands its glass out to the sides as well.
Harry stares. He supposes the green robe does look nice. It fits, for one thing. And there's no lace on the cuffs, although there are those bloody silver accents. And he supposes that it makes his eyes glow, which might take some attention away from the scar on his forehead. And, well, it falls nicely around his body...
"I take it," says the mirror in smug tones, "that that will be one sale, then. And one party."
*
So Harry has the robe. And he has the invitation. And he has the polished dragonhide boots that he bought when he thought he would still make a go of it in the Aurors, and has rarely used since.
He just has to muster up the will to go.
It's seven-o'clock on Christmas Eve, and Harry still sits in front of the fire and stares at the robe, hung on a rack he got just for it. He looks at it, and he turns away.
He flushes when he thinks of how pathetic he'll look, showing up alone. Then he thinks of how it'll look when he shows up at all, and he buries his head in his hands.
And the notices in the papers. That will get heads shaken over the Weasley breakfast table. They'll murmur that he had to be desperate to try a stunt like this. Maybe they'll add that they knew it all along, that he would go trotting after anybody the minute his friends withdrew.
Oddly, it's that thought, so potent to sting him with embarrassment, that also makes Harry lower his hands and stand up.
So what if the Weasleys laugh at the way he went to the ball? So what? It's not like Harry will know about it, since he never talks to any of them anymore. And he can always burn the Howlers and the Prophets that people try to send him. He already has spells up around his office at St. Mungo's that do exactly that.
He's going to do this. And if it doesn't work out the way he wanted, well. At least he'll have tried.
He pulls the robe on as if it was armor.
*
Malfoy Manor looks like a fairy-tale castle from the outside.
Harry stands there for a long time, appreciating it. And absolutely not putting off the moment when he’ll have to go through the gates, wrought iron entwined with lines of flickering white and red fairy lights that look like they’re made of the Aurora Borealis, and present his invitation to the suspicious guard wizards that Malfoy has probably hired for the occasion.
Round golden towers of soft radiance, which Harry is virtually sure aren’t there in the manor’s day-to-day life, float in midair above the roof. Slender spires point up between them, each one capped with a spinning wheel of silver that holds swinging seats. Tilting his head back, Harry can see couples or children in each one, shrieking in delight as they swing up to the top of the wheel and then back down to what looks like a large door at the base of each spire.
Harry wonders if Malfoy got the idea from Muggle carnival rides. Not that he’ll ask.
The grounds themselves blaze with slowly turning balls of snow, each one holding a house-elf floating in midair and bearing a lantern. Here and there, white peacocks with blue tails (colored artificially, surely?) prance and squawk and fan them out. The snow at their feet seems to be made up of actual pearls, or at least small dots that look like it. Harry’s squinting through the gate at them when the guard wizard coughs next to him.
Harry straightens up, sure his face is utterly red. He holds out his invitation, wondering for the first time if this is an elaborate prank that Malfoy dreamed up and got Goyle to execute for him, since there was no way Harry would take an invitation from him directly.
But although the guard wizard examines the invitation gravely, he hands it back in a moment, touching his pointed black hat with two fingers. “You understand that we’ve got to check, Mr. Potter,” he says, and swings the gate wide. “You’ve got all sorts that try to sneak in when we’re holding a ball like this.”
Harry nods as if he understands, as if he’s not stunned to be politely called by name when it comes to a Malfoy guard wizard, and strides through the gate.
It is pearls rolling softly beneath his feet.
*
The ballroom seems to take up most of the house.
Rationally, Harry knows that it can't, that there must be other rooms besides this in the house. Besides, it looked as big as a castle from the outside. Probably it's been enlarged by use of wizardspace or temporarily removing walls.
But as he stands at the landing just inside the doors, facing the huge sweep of gently curving stairs that lead down into the ballroom, it really does seem as if he's looking at acres of floor, colored a deep blue as if made of pounded sapphires, with sparkles of silver here and there on it. The irrelevant thought flashes through Harry's head that he's glad he didn't take the dark blue robe, after all. He would look as if he was wearing the Invisibility Cloak from a distance, on this cloud of a floor.
There's no herald waiting to announce names, as he was afraid there would be. If the guests get through the gauntlet of guard wizards, apparently they're all assumed to have an invitation and a right to be there. Harry lingers near the railing that encircles the landing, though, his hands folded on top of the silvery iron, watching as witches in crystalline gowns and wizards in silver and green sweep the floor below.
I'll fit in, Harry thinks, and plucks a little at the sleeve of his robe.
He listens to the soft music that comes from great, glowing crystal chandeliers suspended on every arch of the ceiling, and wonders if he's come far enough. Perhaps he doesn't have to go down there and dance. Perhaps he should be able to stand here and watch the dancers and be content that he's done his duty by himself. It's been almost three months, since the breakup with Ginny, since he's come even this far into a social situation. Surely it's enough?
But he won't have done whatever duty Goyle thinks he could do by Malfoy. And weirdly enough, since Goyle gave him the invitation and shook him out of a kind of lethargy, that's important to Harry.
He finally walks down those steps, conscious of how he'll be a target of all eyes if someone happens to glance up. But no one does. The busily whirling couples have eyes only for each other, it seems. The people at the long tables that float back and forth on gleaming icy ponds have eyes only for the pies and pasties and cakes and roasted birds that they're eating. And the people along the walls--
Harry's gaze catches and snags. He wouldn't have thought that would happen. He knows what his taste runs to: red-haired witches that the ball attendees would think of as blood traitors. Not anything else.
On the other hand, those red-haired witches have a habit of breaking his heart. Perhaps he should try something else.
The figure lingering against the wall is wearing pale silver robes that make him shine like a snowflake against the blue of the walls and floor, and which blaze with a subtle shimmer in the light of the chandeliers. The figure takes a slow drink from a tall silver cup, and shakes his head at the whisper of a dark-haired witch beside him. She flounces out on the dance floor on the arm of a tall, black-skinned wizard a second later.
The pallor and the look of suffering on the high-cheekboned face are even more severe than Harry looked for, but they finally convince him of who he's looking at.
Draco's lonely, isn't he? And you're lonely, you are.
Maybe he is. Maybe they both are.
Harry pauses and looks back up the stairs. But no one else is coming down. It seems that most of the guests have arrived, and most of them are consumed with their particular passions, whatever they are. Food or company or dancing. Harry doubts anyone will much notice him unless he goes out on the dance floor.
Of course, that's exactly what he's thinking of doing, which just makes this even more mental.
But he feels cut away from his usual self, drifting in the atmosphere of jewels and gleaming colors that fills the ballroom. He didn't, until he saw Malfoy standing there. He felt like an awkward fraud who shouldn't have come.
But now, now he has the courage to go up to the wall and bow solemnly, his hand extended. Malfoy turns his head so slowly that it feels as if he has to cut more space than should belong to any one person. Harry has plenty of chances to feel stupid and decide to pull his hand back to his side. It almost seems Malfoy wants him to.
But he doesn't, and he hears, because he's standing so close, Malfoy's breath quicken when he meets Harry's eyes. It could be the robes, or the fact that Harry's here at all, where Malfoy obviously didn't expect to see him, but either way, the tension is suddenly sparkling like frost, like Malfoy's robes, between them.
"May I have this dance?" Harry asks softly.
*
They move out onto the ballroom floor, and although there are dozens of others pirouetting around them or swaying with gazes locked or languishing in each other's arms, Harry knows they are alone in all the important ways.
Malfoy changes the music coming from the chandeliers with a sweep of his wand. Then he lowers it and tucks it away, and Harry knows he won't reach for it again unless something drastic changes between them.
Harry doesn't intend for that to happen.
He forgets about how he can't dance, how Malfoy probably dances a hundred times better than he does anyway, and how much it would be hurt to be rejected after he's taken this chance. He sways with the music, and Malfoy is in front of him, still shimmering, eyes narrowed as though Harry is the brightly-shining one and it's hard to see through the nimbus of light that surrounds him.
Harry can feel Malfoy's robes slipping past his hands. They seem to be made of snow; they're as slick and soft as that, although not as cold. Maybe they're like the pearls outside, or the globes of floating snow that encircle the house-elves.
He can feel Malfoy's soft breaths, and the heat of his heart as he leans against Harry. He can feel the way that Malfoy's chest moves in and out with those breaths. Harry leans his head against Malfoy's shoulder, and he can feel the sharp angle of bone there, too, and the round of his collarbone. It feels strangely, inexplicably precious.
He can see Malfoy's eyes fixed on him, only looking away when they cross a difficult portion of the floor and Malfoy needs to look down to keep his footing. Those moments are almost necessary for Harry to regain his mental balance. No one else has ever looked at him as Malfoy does.
As if he's not the general Savior of the Wizarding World, the Chosen One, or any other title that the Daily Prophet wants to bestow on him, but someone's own personal savior. Why Malfoy accepted his invitation to dance, Harry doesn't know, but he does know that he saved Malfoy by offering.
He can smell the scent that Malfoy seems to have draped himself in. It's artificial, but Harry can't tell much about it other than that. Some kind of flower? Some kind of fruit? Maybe even burning peacock feathers, assuming they smell sweeter than other kinds when they're burning. It could be all of those, and Harry wouldn't know.
He can hear the way that Malfoy's breath catches when they spin, the flutter of his robes around him, how he leans near and then leans away. Bone creaks in his chest when he does that, in his legs, in his arms. Or maybe it's something else, just the general shifts of muscle. Harry can't tell. He knows that he hears the sound, and he likes it, because he thinks that you have to be pretty bloody close to someone else to hear that.
There's taste, nothing to satisfy that yet. Harry hasn't gone over to eat any of the food from the floating tables, and he hasn't tasted Malfoy's skin when he leaned his head on his shoulder, and he hasn't even got a mouthful of hair during the times when they apparently have to spin around. Malfoy leads in those moments, but Harry other times.
Harry knows what he would like to taste. But he doesn't know if Malfoy would agree, and as long as they float in this enchanted blue world, surrounded by magic and music and the necessity of the dance, he won't know. He thinks he can live with the uncertainty.
Of course, in the end, they come back to earth. Not even Malfoy can command the song to play any longer. Or perhaps he's got too caught up in Harry's eyes, which he seems to like staring into, to remember to start another one. Either way, the music glides to a halt, and they do the same thing at the same moment. Malfoy leans against Harry, the same height as him, all the better for staring into his eyes.
Harry stares back. He waits for--something. A continuation of the moment, of the magic of the dance settling around them like snowdrifts, or something else. He doesn't know what. He aches with the longing to find out.
Malfoy places a hand on Harry's cheek, and spreads out his fingers so that he's cupping most of it. His eyes remain steady. His nostrils flare, and he tilts his head as if listening, and it occurs to Harry, abruptly, that Malfoy has the same five senses that Harry does, and seems to want a chance to indulge them. Perhaps he wants a chance to indulge the fifth one, too, and doesn't know how to end this moment any more than Harry does.
So Harry does it for him. He leans forwards and claims Malfoy's lips in a long, careful kiss.
Neither one of them opens his mouth. No one comes forwards and showers them with rose petals to let them know what a perfect moment it is. Harry will have to wait for some other time, some later one, to taste the inside of Malfoy's mouth.
But he can taste slickness and firmness, and perhaps those are all the sensations he needs for right now.
That is how their moment ends, in the center of the ballroom at the Malfoy Christmas Eve ball with everyone gaping at them, and Draco drawing back to regard Harry with steady happiness in his eyes.
*
"What made you take the risk and come up to me?"
Harry can hardly believe that those are the first words they've spoken to each other since he asked Draco to dance. They didn't seem to need them when they were dancing, though. They had the music and the movements.
Now he and Draco stand on a balcony that projects out over the snowy gardens, lit by the house-elves in their globes and, now and then, the boom of fireworks. Harry didn't look around to see what expressions were on the other guests' faces when Draco led him out here. He didn't want to. He didn't need to.
Only one expression matters to him now, and it's not even his own. After all, it's not as if Madam Malkin's mirror is here to show him his own face.
"Because Goyle told me you were lonely and I was lonely, and I knew the second part was true." Harry turns his back on the fireworks, even though right now they're bursting in a particularly beautiful flower of green light with a yellow center, and looks at Draco. "I came here because I thought maybe I could change that. Then I saw you over by the wall."
Draco blinks at him, before he chuckles. Harry relaxes. He likes the sight of Draco's face crinkled in humor, the way he likes the sight of it when Draco is kissing him. "I looked that way? I thought I'd hidden it so successfully. I talked with people most of the evening, you know, playing the perfect host. I thought no one would notice if I took a few moments for myself."
"I don't know if I would have looked if Goyle hadn't told me about you," Harry admits. Strange as it is to say, when he feels as if Draco has been with him for centuries full of heartbeats, they were enemies a few years ago, and virtual strangers an hour ago. "But I looked, and there you were. I think I was worried that you might toss me out for coming into your party when you didn't invite me."
"You were permitted here if Greg gave you his invitation." Draco steps up and thoughtfully curves an arm around Harry's waist. Harry finds it suddenly hard to breathe. "What I find harder to understand is why you took the risk to reach out to me."
"Because I wanted to dance with you," Harry begins, then stops, hearing how inadequate the reason is coming from his own mouth, how small it seems in the steady light from Draco's eyes. "Because I wanted to."
That's the real reason, and although Draco stirs for a moment as if he would ask about why Harry wanted that, in the end he shuts his mouth and leans forwards and murmurs, "Well, then I want to do this."
He kisses Harry again, in the full light of the fireworks, on the balcony where anyone could look up and see him, the same way anyone could have seen them on the floor in the Malfoy ballroom. A little amused, Harry hopes that they'll soon actually have a kiss in private.
But for now, with Draco's hands in his hair and his tongue at last finding its way into Harry's mouth so that Harry can get a hint of the taste there, what he hopes for is merely another kiss, and another one, and the continuance of this light, this different dance, this grandeur.
The End.
Give the Moment Wings.
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