Dance of the Faithless

Meetings: Clandestine or Otherwise

I am not drowning myself in the shower. I am not Oliver Wood. I will not make any attempt on my own life by trying to commit suicide with a bar of soap and a loofah.

Oh fuck it. I deserve to die for losing to Malfoy. What’s worst is that it was the OPENING match of the season.

On the other hand I could come up with some funny excuse. After all, the entire year of him missing is sufficient for my imagination to create a good enough excuse for my loss. Who knows, he might have spent the entire year in some secret Quidditch camp where he was placed under inhuman training and thus was able to beat me.

With the acrobatic feat of a BACK BEND.

Oh screw it. The loofah’s a better choice. And there’s Ron’s rubber ducky to help out.

Harry leaned his head against the walls of the shower. He couldn’t understand, for his life, how he lost to, of all people, Draco Malfoy in Quidditch. And he even went up to him and said congratulations, and then instigated a fight. In the end, the two of them had been separated, interestingly enough, by a tickling charm from Dumbledore which had left them wheezing on the pitch, followed by a swiftly cast cheering charm, causing them to grin like idiots at one another and then apologise to one another in extremely good humour. It was altogether, very unnatural.

Another episode of self entertainment courtesy of the Headmaster.

Actually, it was really strange how Malfoy caught the Snitch. Undeniably, Malfoy had always been a good flier. In the past Slytherin won the other two houses purely on his skills, which were based on speed and strength. Malfoy was agile, yes, but by no means was he flexible. At least not to the standard of a gymnast or a dancer. And he definitely did not have the control of his broom like Harry did. In fact, he had fallen for most of the Wronski Feints that Harry had pulled on him over the past years.

Maybe Malfoy had been to Quidditch camp for the last entire year.

***

Draco loved baths. Oh yes. He loved the big pools of foam, the shining taps and the multitudes of different statues around the room. It was amazing how you could get so many different species into positions to spew water from some part or another of their anatomy. If he were to be asked to name his favourite place in the entire school compound, would be the prefect’s bathroom. It was his hideout. He came here to bathe after every match, and every time he needed to think. He had spent so much time in it that he knew how many tiles made up the picture of the conch shell in the mosaic picture on the ceiling depicting the seashore. He even had a favourite flavour of foam. Strawberry vanilla. It made him think of the pudding which his mom used to make. Undeniably, it was the only thing that she could make, but still, it was what his heaven was made of.

Together with videos and more videos showing him catching the snitch before Harry Potter got his fingers around it.

It had taken one goddamned year for Draco to beat Potter, and the exhilaration, it was amazing. There really was nothing like beating your greatest rival at his game. Though, not my greatest rival now, I’ve found him a replacement. He ran the sponge lazily over his arm. He knew that he would have to get out of the bath sooner or later. Well, better later then sooner. Maybe Potter only lost because of the lack of practice from his past year. The Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw seekers simply could not be thought of as competition. Pre-match warm up, maybe. Charity match, perhaps. But far from any form of competition. So it was probably the rust getting in the way of his victory. Apparently Potter had been so bored that he had turned Quidditch into an extreme sport for himself. Playing with one arm tied behind his back, riding his broom backwards. It was all to increase the level of challenge for himself. No doubt about it, Potter was glad to have Draco back on the pitch.

He just didn’t expect to lose.

Time to get out of the bath. Draco had a meeting with the Headmaster to go to.

***

“Psst! Ron! In here!”

Ron shook his head slightly. The depression. Yes, it must be the depression of losing the first Quidditch match of the season getting to him. He was hearing voices in his head, and they were telling him to go into an invisible place. Somewhere called “here”. After all, he was in a straight, empty corridor in a more secluded part of the school. There was no “here” to go into. There were stone walls and stone floors, but no doors leading to anywhere. That was until…

“Oomph!”

A hand clasped over his mouth roughly as he was dragged straight into the wall roughly. Hit head hit the wall hard, making him see stars before he heard a soft sucking sound, followed by the sensation of his body sinking into soft mud. After he emerged on the other side of the wall, the stones repaired themselves with a gentle “gloop”. Ron stumbled and regained his balance, then raising a hand to rub at his forehead, he squinted to see who was it that pulled him in. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he opened his mouth…

“Ginny?!”

“Oops. Did you hit your head that hard? The area on the wall in which you can pass through is pretty low.”

“That’s not the point! What did you drag me in here for?”

“Well my dearest brother, I just wanted to tell you what happened during the match while you were in the air and your future wifey was sitting next to me.”

Ron sputtered.

“...”

“Shhh. Don’t deny it. Anyway she was gushing and cooing and shrieking over Malfoy and Harry. I thought you’d better know about it, before you lose her to Harry. She did seem quite anxious for both of them when they starting throwing punches at one another.”

“What the hell are you talking about?! Harry and ‘Mione, they’re just friends!”

“I’m just saying, if you don’t make your move on Hermione, you’re going to be not even have a chance. So now, Ron, while you’ve got your temper worked up, and looking fine and dandy from your shower, why don’t you go look for Hermione and prevent her from falling for Harry…or Malfoy? Oh the horrors...”

Ginny ended off her speech with a dramatic sigh, as she leaned back against the wall behind her while she stood next to Ron talking. Watching her brother turn red in the face, she couldn’t help but smirk.

“Well Ron, you really should be on your way. It’s not like you don’t know about Firewhiskey and doped Butterbeer in the after Quidditch parties...”

Ron nodded his head numbly. Hermione and Harry? There’s alliteration, sure, but they weren’t supposed to be that way. Or ‘Mione and Malfoy? Yuck yuck yuck! Ginny was just talking rubbish. Yes. That was it. But if so, why was ‘Mione shrieking for them? She normally had her head buried in books even during Quidditch matches, just occasionally raising her head to look into the skies when the crowd got too loud, and if he caught her eye, she would smile that oh-so-gorgeous smile of her which would go right to her eyes and...

Ron shook his head.

“You’re right. I’m off then.”

Then, without even asking what Ginny was doing in a room behind a wall in an isolated corridor, he spun on his heel and made his way out the wall. The only thing that had registered in Ron’s head throughout the whole conversation was that he might miss his chance of getting together with Hermione, and so Ron forgot to duck his head as he stepped into the wall…

“Oww!”

Ginny smirked back in the room. In the corner, a light from a wand burst into view with a quiet Lumos.

“Well, that gets him off my back,” Ginny said as she made her way over to the other figure in the room.

***

Draco stood by the gargoyle and straightened out his robe. He needed to look presentable, after all, it was the first time he was meeting Dumbledore again after more than a year. His finances and future were pretty much in the hands of the other man, so there was no harm in looking good when meeting him. He opened his mouth to say the password, when the gargoyle jumped aside and the door behind it swung open to reveal twinkling blue eyes and a richly decorated purple robe. Draco stepped back in shock, only to find himself being engulfed in a hug by the Headmaster.

“Welcome back, Draco.”

Draco stood stiffly in his mentor’s arms. He wasn’t used to affection from anyone, being brought up in a cold and frigid household. But it felt good. Damn, it felt good to have someone care about him.

“Thank you sir,” he whispered.

Dumbledore let go off him, and wordlessly guided him up the stairs to his office.

“Sit down. We have so much to talk about.”

“Yes sir.”

“How have you been?”

“Excellent sir. But I’m ready to come back to do my duty. no just on the Quidditch pitch, but for the war. There’s something that me and my project partner came up with which we think that we can use to defeat Voldemort.”

“And dance?”

The blonde settled back quietly into his chair and closed his eyes. Across the table, his mentor kept silent, giving the young man time to think. Draco recalled the smell of freshly polished floorboards, learning how to control every muscle in his body, doing his first pirouette, finding out that he could leap from flat ground and lift off into the air, as free as he ever was flying through the skies on his broom. Most of all, he recalled his first performance, the gasp of surprise from the one and only witch in the audience, then a mischievous grin from the same witch as he suddenly found roses transfigured from ticket stubs being thrown on stage at his feet.

“It will be providing the basis for the power by which the Dark Lord will be destroyed.”

Dumbledore stared at Draco wordlessly for a moment. He had not understood what the young man had said. Sure enough, he was one of the two most powerful wizards in the world at the moment, but he had absolutely no clue what Draco was talking about. He recalled his own words from seven years back, when he said that ‘music was a magic beyond all’, but dance as a form of magic? He needed explanation on this one. He knew that dancing over the past year had become an integral part of Draco’s life, but he couldn’t see a link between a stage performance and defeating the Dark Lord. As he looked quietly at Draco, he remembered his own surprise a year ago when he learnt that the young man had picked up dance while he was in the Muggle world through the first letter sent to him by Draco himself.

Dear Sir,

You would be please to know that I have found accommodations as well as an interest in my new surroundings.

Two days after I left Hogwarts, I found myself wandering aimlessly in the streets of London. You advised me to find something to occupy my time while I was away on my vacation in one of the many conversations we had before I left school, but I would have to say that the ‘something’ found me. Perhaps it was because I was still weak from my ordeal over the holidays, but I lost consciousness somewhere along the streets of the big city. Luckily for me, help was not far off.

Apparently I had blanked out in front of the theatre cum practice centre of a dance troop for orphans. Known as Lonely Movements, the head, Miss Lorna Wiles kindly took me in and decided I could stay for as long as I like. When I woke up from my little stint of unconsciousness, I wandered around the building and I found a large studio, in which I had my first encounter with Muggle dance, and I fell in love with it. The movements were disciplined and elegant, yet strong and supple at the same time. I’ve found my interest sir, and with the blessing of the fates, I turned out to be, as Lorna said, ‘gifted’ at it.

It’s only been a fortnight since I’ve started training in dance, but Lorna feels that I would be able to perform in a month. Do hope for me.

I hope that this letter finds you well. I will be in touch.

Yours obediently,
Draco Malfoy

Draco noticed that Dumbledore had spaced out. This was very unlike the usual demeanour of the sharp man. Knowing that he and his partner had discovered something which was probably unknown to the Headmaster, he chuckled inwardly, pleased at his achievements.

“Sir?”

Dumbledore snapped back.

“Yes, Draco, would you care to elaborate?”

“Erm… we call the brand of magic we came up with as Penitus Esse, meaning ‘inner being’ magic. It was because we couldn’t come up with a better word for it, and it’s the closeness we could come to describing it.

Basically it relies on something to unlock a person’s magical core. For me apparently it’s dance, and when I do so, I am able to manipulate magical force fields, a little like magnetic fields, and direct my magical energy to a particular point. It differs from using a wand in the sense that it’s more like the usage of the staff in the olden days. The power that comes from the wizard is a lot stronger, more like raw magic.”

“But how did you two come up with it?”

“She saw something funny when she watched me dance. I can’t see it myself, neither can the Muggles. I’m not sure how to describe it, but I know from the Muggles point of view, they are able to feel every emotion that I am trying to portray when I dance. If the dance is joyful, they leave the theatre in happiness; if the dance is a tragedy, they leave in tears.

But by what she says, it’s not so simple for magical beings. For her, she described what I had around me as an aura. Maybe it would be better if I got her to come up here and explain it to you personally?”

“Yes, I think it would be. So Draco, would you like to return to the Slytherin dorms now that you’re back?”

“Sir…”

Dumbledore saw the look of apprehension on Draco’s face. As much as he had matured over the past year, Draco was still a child, and he did not want to be anywhere in which he did not fit in.

“Very well, I shall see to the arrangements. But first, there’s something that belongs to you.”

Draco looked at the bearded old man in puzzlement. He was sure he had not left anything behind, as for the property and such, he had hoped that the old man would help him out a little longer for his stay at Hogwarts, after all, research work for spells to kill a Dark Lord was time consuming and exhausting enough without having to care about his inheritance from Lucius and Narcissa.

Dumbledore reached out his right hand, and nestled in its palm, was the Head Boy’s badge.

“Go on Draco. The place is rightfully yours. Not by bribery, not by the power of your family name. You’ve earned it for showing the strength to do what’s right. I trust you would do well in leading the school.”

Draco felt his mouth dry up. This he did not expect, but he knew that it was a show of trust from Dumbledore. It told him that he was needed by the school. Hell, since it was from the head of the Wizengamot, he had the trust of the Wizarding world. No matter what others said of the badge just being a symbol, Draco appreciated the act of faith. And so he reached for it and accepted it.

“Thank you sir.”

Dumbledore smiled, anticipating the next question.

“But I don’t believe, sir, that you expected my return. I gave you no notice of it. School had started almost a fortnight ago, and how could the school function without a Head Boy?”

“It couldn’t, so our Head Girl has been having a rather tough time. I do hope you’ll give her all the help she needs,” Dumbledore said, smiling at Draco.

“Well sir, thank you for the honour. I reckon I’ll be staying in the Head Boy’s quarters then?”

Dumbledore nodded.

“I best be on my way then. I want to attend lessons tomorrow.”

As Draco made his way out of the room, thinking about how Dumbledore had avoided his question of how he knew when he was coming back to school, he heard his name being called out. He turned around, only to see the old wizard unwrapping a new tube of sweets.

“Lemon sherbet?” he offered.

Draco smiled. Some things will never change.

***

Harry was sitting by the lake with an extremely sulky look on his face. Not that he would admit that he was being sulky, in fact, the last person (i.e. Seamus Finnigen) who had told him to stop sulking, received a pretty neat right hook across his jaw. The depressing part about beating a roommate up was that the other roommates decided to help the victim and deprived Harry of any alcohol for the night.

Even after all his hard work on the pitch.

Yes, Harry was being very very sulky.

But that wasn’t the only reason why he was being a pain in the ass. Harry was being ignored. Not like he wanted the usual attention that came with the stupid scar, or the kind of let’s-stalk-Potter-and-make-a-nice-splat-on-Diagon-Alley kind of attention, but shouldn’t he even get a little bit of sympathy from his team mates and house mates after losing his first match of the season? But no, they were all fawning over other things. Like just as he was happily sitting with Hermione in the common room, drinking his hot chocolate from Dobby (having being banned from the drinks counter) and listening to her kind comforting words of ‘it really wasn’t your fault’ and ‘the season isn’t over yet’, Ron had came barging in and grabbed the girl by the hand, saying that he had something to say to her, and dragged her out of the Gryffindor dorm into the corridor. What followed was people piling up by the doorway behind the portrait, trying to listen to the happenings outside the door.

Kissing noises were reported.

Then, the Creevey brothers who were usually so caring and kind and bloody annoying with their attention that it drove Harry crazy decided that it was more important to find out how much they could get from the different Wizarding tabloids and the Daily Prophet for a picture of Draco Malfoy in his first appearance in over a year than to say ‘Hi’ to Harry when he walked past them. Harry even tried to make conversation with them to take his mind off things with their annoying fawning, only to be snubbed by a “Shh. Go away.”

That was the last straw. Harry grabbed his cloak and made his way out of the common room in a huff, pushing aside the many audiences of the performance outside the door. He opened the door then slammed it closed, causing many a Gryffindor inside the room to fall over from the impact like dominos, and simultaneously shocking Hermione and Ron into jumping apart from their first ever snog session. Ron looked at him in annoyance, while Hermione...

“Harry!”

“Harry”, didn’t give a hoot about what was going on. He felt childish at wanting the attention, but what the hell, he deserved the attention her wanted. So he stomped off and walked out of the school building to go and sit beside the lake. At least their the Giant Squid acknowledged his presence with the waving of its long tentacles.

But it turned out that the giant squid wasn’t in the mood for surfacing, so the lake was just a calm, peaceful basin of murky water.

It just wasn\'t his day.

***

Ginerva Weasley had a devious mind. It was the kind of mind you wouldn’t find behind the face of an evil overlord because he would be cackling so hard that he had such a brain that he would cough it right up. Perhaps it was being born into a poor family, she learnt to spot chances in a flash, and seize the moment and wring it so hard that it either gave her what she wanted or got its neck broken. And when she saw Hermione, her closest friend out of the Golden Trio and her brother’s crush, shrieking after the two seekers on court just now, she saw a golden opportunity.

The chance to get her brother off her back.

Don’t get her wrong, Ginny loved her brother. It was just that, he was an over protective relationship-dictator of a brother. Ginny was sixteen, a girl fast becoming a woman, and she knew what she wanted in a man. Ron, on the other hand, knew that he wanted whoever Ginny ended up with to be someone that he liked. Which meant he consistently set her up with dates with people like Colin Creevey (Kept talking bout Harry, surely gay.), Ernie Macmillan (My family is Pureblooded with blahblahblah generations of wizards and witches and warlocks, and our children will surely be powerful wizards.) and many others of the same calibre.

And of course, there was that date with Harry Potter himself.

The two of them had laughed themselves silly over a candlelight dinner that Ron had ‘kindly’ prepared for them in order to create a ‘romantic ambience’. All he successfully did was ruin dinner for the many other pairs of actual lovers around them. Harry and Ginny did eventually get back at him, with a little Muggle hair dye (purple and pink to be exact) in the middle of the night, some ropes and a couple of nailing charms to the ceiling. Ginny remembered howling with laughter when she saw Ron the next morning with his new hair colour. The whole purpose of using Muggle hair dye, instead of Wizarding charms, was that it could not be removed by any charms or magical methods until it faded on its own.

Ron had his funny hair for a full month.

One would have thought that he might have learnt a lesson from this experience, but that only made him more determined to find a good match for Ginny. He went to lengths to find a suitable boy, even right down to third years who were younger than Ginny. Ginny’s theory was that because Ron did not have the guts to approach Hermione, he was directing all the pent up sexual frustration into finding a mate for her.

Yes, a mate, he didn’t usually take into account it the other party was good looking or not.

So when Ginny found a way to let him release the energy today, she wasn’t going to let the chance pass by so easily. What she didn’t expect, was for Ron to be so easily convinced. He must really like her then, she mused. But right now, she had more enjoyable things on her mind.

Or rather, on her.

A swipe of the tongue across the collarbone...

A nail raked gently down her sternum...

A trail of kisses marking her jaw, before finding her lips...

Ginny gasped loudly. Oh, this was so much better than anyone her brother set her up with...

***

Sorry for the late update, but, well, been having my exams. So read and review please. Thank you!