Le Danseur

Summary: Harry knew that attending Hogwarts School of Music and Dance would help him achieve his dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer, but then lust-at-first-sight and an unfortunate misunderstanding put him at odds with the school's ballet master, Severus Snape, and Harry finds it harder and harder to focus on dancing and not on his teacher. [This fic is directly inspired by an anonymous prompt for HP Cross Fest on livejournal: prompt #28 -- Harry wants to be a ballet dancer, but of course the Dursleys don't allow that, dancing is only for *nancy-boys*. Harry sneaks away for an audition to Hogwarts School of Music and Dance. Snape is one of his dance instructors; the strictest one.]

Warnings/Kinks: non-magic, extreme AU (including some anachronisms, for those who notice that sort of thing), inevitable OOCness, light D/s, UST, filthy language, explicit sex, improper use of ribbons and elastics, dance belt fondling, and a highly inappropriate teacher/student relationship. Also, Harry is underage (17).

A/N: I want to say a big thank you to my anonymous prompter for the lovely story idea! Sorry I couldn't finish the story in time for the fest, but it's given me a chance to expand the story beyond its original scope. Also, lots of love and gratitude go to Kei for all the feedback and encouragement!



Chapter One

Harry lay on his bed in a jumble of clean clothes that he hadn't bothered to fold and put away, staring glassily at the ceiling. He could hear the laugh track from some sitcom playing on the telly downstairs, joined here and there by the high-pitched whinny of his aunt Petunia or the deep guffaws of her husband, Vernon. Dudley, Harry's cousin, was off with his friends, no doubt harassing the elderly or stealing from someone smaller and weaker than him, his favourite forms of entertainment when he wasn't using Harry as his personal punching bag.

With all of the Dursleys otherwise occupied, this was the perfect time for Harry to indulge in his own secret addiction, but his supplier was later than usual and withdrawal was starting to set in.

Tap, tap, tap.

"Harry?"

Thump, thump, thump.

"Harry Potter, open this window right now!"

Harry shook himself out of his stupor and looked across his small, shabby bedroom towards the source of that incessant pounding. He had almost given up hope of getting his next fix, but joy soon replaced desperation as he spotted a pair of brown eyes peering in at him through the glass.

Finally, he thought. His last stash of contraband had been discovered and destroyed by his tyrant of an uncle, so he'd been more impatient than usual for Hermione Granger, his best friend and feeder of his addictions, to show up with a fresh supply of his favourite distraction.

He opened the window with an enthusiasm that echoed in his bright green eyes, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet as he grinned at Hermione. "Did you get them?"

"Yes, yes, I've got them tucked under my jumper."

"I suppose that's as safe a place as any."

"Very funny. It wasn't as if I had a choice," Hermione said crossly as she climbed through the window into Harry's bedroom. She'd been climbing up and down the tree that stood next to the Dursleys' house for so long that she'd mastered the art of sneaking into Harry's room undetected, her bushy brown hair free of stray leaves and hardly a scratch on her palms from gripping the rough bark of the tree's branches. She reached under her light blue jumper and pulled out three magazines. "I couldn't find any brown paper bags, so I had to improvise just in case your uncle caught me. His face turned ten shades of purple the last time he spotted me up that tree with a copy of Modern Dancer under my arm."

"Sorry about that," Harry said, but he wasn't really listening to her, having snatched the magazines out of her hands. He turned and walked back to his clothes-strewn bed, shoving the freshly-laundered shirts, trousers and dance-wear aside as he began flipping through the first magazine, his tense posture gradually relaxing into a satisfied slump with every page he turned.

Hermione closed the window and dusted off her hands. "I don't have copies of these, but you can keep them anyway. I learned my lesson after the 'Sticky Page Incident' last month."

"I told you, I had jam on my fingers."

Hermione gave a disbelieving snort and cleared a seat for herself on Harry's bed, taking over the task of folding his clothes as she pulled a pile of tights, t-shirts and sweatpants into her lap. "Jam or not, you have to admit your fingers were selective in which pages they ruined -- not a sticky ballerina in sight, only scantily-clad danseurs ... mostly dark-haired ones, come to think of it. Still looking for the male version of Eileen Prince, are we?"

"If she was a bloke, she'd be perfect," Harry said with a sigh, looking up at the poster of the Polish-born ballerina that held a place of honour above his bed (Vernon allowed him to hang it on the basis that at least the poster was of a woman -- Harry's Baryshnikov poster had not fared so well). Dark of hair and eyes, the former prima ballerina and founder of the famous Hogsmeade Ballet Company struck an imposing arabesque, strong but graceful, displaying a fierceness in both her expression and her pose that had been distinctly male until Eileen came along and turned convention on its head. The features of her face were too strong to be pretty, from the bold slash of her mouth to her less-than-dainty nose, but the magnetism of her dark eyes mesmerized Harry. A war orphan, Eileen had been adopted by a British family who encouraged her dreams of dancing, and she'd emerged as one of the greatest ballerinas of her generation. Harry, an orphan himself after his parents died in a car accident when he was a baby, looked up to her as his ideal -- ideal dancer, that is, since he'd known for a long time that he'd never be turned on by a tutu. Eileen was old enough to be his grandmother by now, so there would have been road blocks to their romance even if Harry hadn't been batting for the other team, but he still held out hope for a man with all her admirable qualities, especially her love of ballet.

"Maybe you'll find someone like her at Hogwarts." Hermione tried to keep her tone light, but the mere mention of the famous school for the performing arts had Harry tensing up again.

"If I get in, you mean."

Auditions for the new school year were taking place that Saturday, and Hermione had promised to be Harry's alibi so he could get out of the house and take his chances with all the other ambitious teenagers who wanted to study at Hogwarts School of Music and Dance. He'd tried to audition the previous summer since the upper class at Hogwarts started at age 16, but his Aunt Petunia had seen him shimmying down the tree trunk with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and his great escape was foiled. Vernon had threatened to cut the tree down if Harry didn't go back inside and put 'that damned dancing nonsense' out of his head. He'd complied with the first part, but telling Harry to forget about dancing was like telling him not to breathe.

"We're going to ace our auditions," Hermione said firmly. "We've both worked too hard to give up now. All the sneaking around and lying we did so you could attend classes ... was that for nothing? Those people you live with -- I hate to call them your family -- they've done nothing but make your life hell all these years and they can't even let you have the one thing that makes you happy. How many times have you been too sore to dance because your awful cousin and his gang of imbeciles beat you up before you could get to practice? How many times did your Uncle threaten to chuck you out of this house for even mentioning the word 'ballet' because he's convinced that dancing turned you gay and the only way to turn you 'back to normal' is to stop you from doing what you love? The hurt and humiliation -- talk about suffering for your art! Do you remember when your Aunt found one of your dance belts?"

Harry cringed. He'd carelessly left one of his dance belts on his bed, and when Petunia came in with fresh sheets for Harry's bed, she'd picked it up out of curiosity. Dance belts were the ballet version of athletic cups, padded in front and nothing but a thong in the back, and Petunia hadn't known what to make of it except to surmise that what she held in her hands was some accessory in sexual role-play ("that nasty business with all the letters," Vernon would later say, which Harry guessed to mean bdsm), or at the very least it was the gay male version of fancy knickers, and Petunia had run screaming from the room holding the offending article in front of her as if she were holding a rat by the tail.

"What sort of filthy boy are we raising under our roof?" Harry mimicked Petunia's high-pitched squeal as he moved on to the next magazine. "Hmph, I should be so lucky. With all the chores they give me, I barely have time to sneak out to class. Dancing on the sly is hard enough without juggling a secret boyfriend at the same time."

"You won't have to keep secrets at Hogwarts," Hermione said, steering Harry's focus away from sex and back to what she felt was the more important topic. "This is your opportunity to get free of them, Harry."

Harry shrugged. "I'll be eighteen next year. That's free enough for me ... and I'll dance anywhere they'll have me, whether it's on the finest stages in Europe or on the warped floor of Mrs. Figg's studio. Hogwarts would be ... well, it'd be fantastic ... but if I don't get in, it won't mean I'll never dance again."

"Well, I didn't sacrifice my childhood for violin lessons just so I could play Ave Maria for my Aunt Agatha every Christmas." Hermione slapped another folded t-shirt down onto the neat pile she was making, remaining organized even under the influence of passionate ambition. "There are no 'ifs' here. We are getting into that school, Harry. We made a promise, remember?”

Harry smirked and turned another page in the magazine. “When we were six.”

“It was a verbal contract,” Hermione insisted.

“Between six-year-olds,” Harry countered again without looking up from an article on limbering exercises, but he couldn’t hold back his smile as he recalled the childish promise they’d made to each other.

When we grow up, we’ll go to Hogwarts together. They’d decided their futures after Hermione’s parents took them on a trip to Hogsmeade to see a Christmas production of The Nutcracker performed by students from the school. Hermione had fallen in love with Tchaikovsky’s music, and Harry had been swept away by the beauty, grace and strength of the dancing. He was practicing wobbly pirouettes as soon as he got home, much to the dismay of his aunt and uncle.

“I was seven, actually,” Hermione said as she eased herself off of the bed, careful not to jostle the stacks of neatly-folded laundry she'd left behind her, "which means I'm older and wiser than you, so if I say we're getting in, we're getting in."

"You know, one day you're not going to be so smug about the fact that you're older than me," Harry warned her with a grin, finally looking up from the magazine. His smile slipped when he saw her walking towards the window. "Hey, are you leaving already?"

"I did my duty smuggling you those magazines. I think it's better if I leave you alone to ... enjoy the articles." She batted away the bundled pair of socks that Harry threw at her, laughing as she opened the window and straddled the windowsill. "Look, I'd love to stay, but I have to practice as much as I can before Saturday. What about you? Didn't Mrs. Figg give you a key to the studio so you could practice whenever you want? Sometimes I think she's more excited about this audition than you are."

Mrs. Figg was Harry’s neighbour and dance teacher. Whenever the Dursleys went out of town on holiday or took Dudley someplace special, they always left Harry with Mrs. Figg. For the first six years of his life, he’d only seen her as the crazy old lady with an odd penchant for turbans and too many cats, but after his life-changing experience at the ballet he’d discovered a wonderful secret about his baby-sitter: she was a dancer. Granted, time had taken its toll on Arabella Figg, and she couldn’t bend and sway like she once did, but when she caught Harry pirouetting his way down her hallway during one of his stays, she’d promptly bundled him up and walked him over to the tiny dance studio she owned and taught at part-time. There, she’d started him on the basics, from the various positions of the feet and arms, to how to spot himself during his turns so he didn’t get so dizzy.

“A natural dancer, that’s what you are,” she’d told him, and from then on she’d made every excuse she could think of to get him out of the Dursleys' house and into dance classes. His attendance was haphazard in the beginning; being so young, he was entirely dependent on the whims of the Dursleys as to whether he got out of the house or was forced to stay inside, pining away for the small studio with its warped wooden floors and mirror-lined walls. As he got older, it was easier for Harry to sneak out of the house without Mrs. Figg’s help. Sometimes he resorted to using Hermione as his cover, claiming they wanted to study together, and his uncle was more than happy to believe Harry was finally acting ‘normal’ by spending so much time with a girl. His lessons were free, thanks to Mrs. Figg, and she supplied him with everything he needed but could never afford to buy for himself: tights, shoes, even the infamous dance belts.

“If your mother was alive, I'm sure she’d want this for you,” she’d explained once when Harry asked her why she went out of her way for him. “This is what you were meant to do, Harry.”

Harry didn’t know much about his parents – the Dursleys rarely mentioned the Potters unless it was to complain about being saddled with Harry after their deaths, and Mrs. Figg only responded to his queries with sad looks and long sighs – but hearing her say that his mother would approve of his choice to be a dancer really stuck with Harry. He liked to think that becoming a dancer would have made his parents proud of him had they been alive, especially when his aunt and uncle treated his love of dance like a shameful addiction, as if ballet was only a step or two up from cocaine or heroin. Mrs. Figg’s encouragement kept him going on those days when his life with the Dursleys made him want to give up.

"She did give me a key, but I can't go to the studio until the last evening class is over, and that won't be for another two hours. I'll just wait until after everyone here is asleep."

"I hate the thought of you creeping out of the house in the dark of night. You should just come stay at my house until Saturday; then you can practice at a decent hour and no one will scream at you if they catch you in your tights. You're riding with us to the audition anyway, and Mum and Dad adore you. They'd love to have you over."

Harry laughed. "And listen to you sawing away at that violin of yours morning, noon and night? No thanks. When would I get any sleep?"

"I'm sure Dad has an extra set of earplugs lying around," Hermione said dryly.

Harry chuckled, tempted by the offer, but he hated being a bother to Hermione's parents after they'd been so kind and generous to him over the years. In the back of his mind, he always expected them to get sick of him, and he couldn't help but be amazed when they kept welcoming him back with open arms. "Let's see how tonight goes before I commit to running away from home. I have a feeling that once I'm gone, Vernon's going to change the locks, and I can't very well move into your parents' house if this audition goes badly."

"Are you crazy? You'd be the son they've always wanted! Well, whatever you decide, this is the last time I'm climbing this tree of yours. Hogwarts won't want a violin player with a broken arm. Give me a ring if you change your mind about staying over. You could always imply that we're sleeping together if your aunt and uncle make a fuss. I'm sure they'd send you off in style if the thought you were having it off with the girl next door." Hermione winked at him before carefully manoeuvring her body out of the window and back into the tree to begin her descent. She gave a quick wave before climbing down the tree and out of sight.

Harry sighed and went back to reading his magazines, but the initial rush of pleasure he got from reading them had faded now and he was starting to feel restless again. It was nothing that some time in the dance studio wouldn't fix, but it would be several agonizing hours before it was safe for him to sneak out. Hermione's offer was looking better and better ...

He tossed the magazines aside and ran to the window, intending to call after Hermione to let her know he was coming over, but when he looked outside he saw his friend grinning up at him from the bottom of the tree, just waiting for him to appear.

"Took you long enough."

How does she always know? Harry wondered, a little spooked by Hermione's eerie ability to read his mind.

"Pack whatever you need and throw it down to me. I suggest you take the tree instead of the stairs on your way out. We wouldn't want to give your aunt and uncle a chance to say no to our plan, right? I'll have Mum call them when we get to my house. I'm sure she'll make them see reason. She's lovely, my mum, but she's got a scary knack for intimidating people into doing what she wants."

"Yeah, Aunt Petunia's terrified of her," Harry conceded with a laugh. "Give me five minutes and I'll meet you on the ground."

"Whatever you say, Juliet," Hermione joked, clearly getting a kick out of this backwards balcony scene they were acting out. "Just don't hurt yourself on the way down. Hogwarts doesn't want danseurs with broken legs, either."

Five minutes later, they were racing towards Hermione's house, as giddy as they'd been eleven years ago when one performance of The Nutcracker had changed both of their lives forever.