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“Parvati, have you got a date to the Yule Ball yet?”
Parvati looked up from the divination essay she was reading over for Harry curiously. “No, not yet. Why do you ask?”
He tapped his quill nervously next to her defense essay, careful not to get any stray ink on the words, and tried to find the words. “Can you keep a secret?” He asked finally and then peered up at her from under his bangs. “And I mean an actual secret, from Lavender and anyone else in your gossip circle.”
She gasped. “Gossip circle? The nerve. What kind of person do you take me for, honestly-“
“Parvati, please, I didn’t say it was a bad thing. Just,” he looked around and leaned closer, “I know you and Lav run the rumor mill for our year at the very least which is actually very smart of you but I can’t have this getting out. Please.”
She regarded him before sniffing haughtily and replying, “Fine, but not here. If you want this to remain a secret, follow me.”
They packed up their essays and Harry followed her to the back of the library before she picked a row of shelves seemingly at random. Coming out of the wall at the end of the row was a marble statue of an owl on a perch and when Parvati stroked its beak, a wave of magic passed over them.
“What was that?”
“A privacy charm. Now, what is it?” Her voice was sharp and a bit annoyed this time and Harry swallowed down the nerves bubbling up his throat before sliding down the wall to sit. Parvati eyed him warily and then sighed, sliding down next to him. She reached over and squeezed his hand once she was settled. “Harry, it’s okay. Tell me what’s bothering you.”
“I’ve done a lot of thinking this year,” he started cautiously, throwing the girl a dark look when she snorted. “Shut up, you’re not funny. Anyways- thinking- I have. Between the World Cup and the tournament and everything else in between, I’ve had a lot to think about and plenty of time to do so considering my friends abandoned me the second my name came out of that damned cup. It was bad enough being forced into this competition but now I’m expected to dance and, and have a date! Merlin, Parvati, I have to ask some poor girl to brave going to a ball with me. I can’t dance, I don’t know how, and,” Harry paused, swallowing loudly, before finishing quietly, ”and whoever I do go with will know that she isn’t my first choice. That if I were just a normal bloke without all the fame attached, she wouldn’t even be a consideration.” Parvati watched him quietly and said nothing while he steeled himself for those last few words. “Parvati, I’m gay. I think. I mean, maybe I could like both, but evidence suggests otherwise.”
Parvati squeezed his hand. “What evidence are you working off of?”
He gave a rueful smile and told her about seeing Cedric at the portkey before the World Cup, meeting Charlie and Bill Weasley who had no business being that hot, watching Viktor Krum on a broom for hours and barely being able to tear his gaze away. “And don’t get me started on…” he trailed off, dark cheeks going pink. “There’s this boy who I think I really like. Which is bizarre because he might be the worst option I could possibly choose but- did I tell you I finally saw an eye doctor this summer? Managed to blackmail my aunt and uncle into taking me finally and I’m sure a wizard eye healer would be better but I actually got an updated prescription and now I can see and he might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. Even more so than Cedric and the eldest Weasleys combined. I thought I was going mad when I saw him and my stomach lurched like something inside of it decided to do a backflip… Not to mention, Fleur- and even the full veelas at the World Cup- have zero effect on me.”
Parvati was snickering at him by the end of his rant. “Well, it sounds like there’s your answer. So, why don’t you ask Mystery Boy to go with you to the ball?”
“Are you mad? I can’t take another boy to the Yule Ball! Everyone hates me and stares at me enough for being in the tournament, I don’t need them to hate me for being gay too!”
“Harry,” Parvati scooted over to sit in front of him and take both of his hands. “Do muggles have a problem with gay people?”
“You mean the wizarding world doesn’t?”
“Of course not! That would be silly. There’s more than one way to produce an heir and plenty of wix have found themselves soulbonded to another of the same gender. Or even to one of each. It’s not common but it’s not uncommon either, it just is.”
Harry felt like the world was falling apart around his ears and reforming into a very different picture. “Even with that being the case, I couldn’t ask this boy to go with me. Even if he somehow miraculously wanted to, he’d never be allowed to.”
Parvati hummed consideringly, squeezing Harry’s hands again. “So, where do I come into all of this?”
Harry grimaced and put on his best pleading face. “Well… I was hoping you might agree to go with me? Just for the dinner and the opening dance and only if no one you like better asks you? I’ll even find someone to be your dance partner for the rest of the evening!”
“Why me? Out of everyone, why tell me all of this and ask me to go with you?”
“Parvati, I have so few friends, so few people I trust. Most of the ones I thought I had on my side abandoned me, refused to believe me, couldn’t see that I was terrified out of my mind and exhausted to the point of apathy. But you? You somehow saw right through me. We may not be close but you still badgered me into meeting you twice a week to go over defense essays and divination assignments. You sat with me at lunch, sat with me in class, and you had my back when others wouldn’t even look me in the eye. I hate to ask more of you when you’ve already done so much for me, but I don’t trust anyone else anymore. You’re all I’ve got right now.”
Parvati rose onto her knees and threw her arms around his neck, blinking rapidly. “Alright, fine, you sweet talker, I’ll go with you. On one condition,” she pulled back and sat back down, taking his hands again. “You’ve got to find Padma a date. She and I were going to go together.”
“Done. I overheard a few of the Beauxbaton boys say they didn’t have a date yet and they talked about going as a group instead. I bet one of them will gladly take her.”
Parvati giggled. “Oh, Padma will love that. Let them know she’ll be in turquoise. I’ll be wearing pink, of course. You do have dress robes, right?”
Harry nodded. “Mrs. Weasley picked them out for me. They’re green with gold accents. Will that work?”
“It should! I’ll look at them later and make sure but if a woman picked them out, I have high hopes for you.”
“Hey!”
“Oh please, we’ve all seen what you wear when you’re not in school robes,” she rolled her eyes.
“None of which I picked out for myself, thank you very much. They’re my cousin’s old cast-offs. He’s at least 4 sizes bigger than I am. My aunt and uncle refuse to spend money on me and no one will ever let me go to Diagon on my own long enough for me to visit the shops and buy my own clothes.”
“Seriously? Why don’t you just take your measurements and send off an owl order?”
Harry froze. “That’s an option?”
Parvati sighed. “Merlin, what are these people teaching you? Yes! That’s an option! Actually, you know what, come with me. We’ve got a few things to fix and I know just where to start.”
Parvati stood up and pulled Harry up behind her. She clamped a firm hand on his wrist and dragged him out of the library, not stopping until they reached an unused classroom on the 4th floor. She knocked on the door and then shoved Harry in before her when the door opened. He stumbled over a crack in the stone and turned red at all of the eyes watching him straighten up.
“Um. Hello?” Harry waved and then cringed at himself, turning desperately to Parvati to save him. She rolled her eyes and turned to the students in the room.
“Harry and I were in the library going over our essays and we had the most interesting conversation. As I told you at the last meeting, he and I have been meeting up to work on our assignments for weeks and I’ve come to a very alarming conclusion.” Harry looked at her with wide eyes, nervously tightening his grip on his tattered messenger bag. “Harry knows nothing about wixen culture. I suspect he didn’t even know magic was real until he got his Hogwarts letter.”
Harry winced at the gobsmacked faces that swiveled back to him.
“Potter,” started Daphne Greengrass, of all people, “is that true?”
“Er, yeah. I didn’t realize that all of those weird unexplainable things that kept happening around me happened because I had magic. Even the word ‘magic’ is taboo in my aunt and uncle’s house. Doesn’t matter what we’re talking about- they hate anything that doesn’t act like it’s supposed to, including me. If Hagrid hadn’t come along, they never would’ve let me come here.” Harry took a step back when multiple voices swore loudly. Even Parvati had turned to him with wide eyes. She spoke this time, almost carefully.
“What do you mean, Hagrid came along? Is he the one who told your aunt and uncle about magic and explained Hogwarts to them?”
“Well, apparently they already knew about magic and Hogwarts, but yeah, he’s the one who came and told me about magic and took me around Diagon Alley to buy all of my supplies. Why?” He narrowed his eyes at her. “What do you have against Hagrid?”
“Nothing! Hagrid is lovely, don’t get us wrong, but Harry, you’ve got to understand- Hagrid is never sent out to muggleborn or muggle-raised students. Professors McGonagall, Sprout, and sometimes Flitwick or Snape go and introduce magic and Hogwarts to the families. It’s part of their job as Head of House. Flitwick only goes if there are special circumstances and Snape only goes if there are too many for McGonagall and Sprout to handle on their own. This is the way it’s been for years. Those two are the best at explaining not only magic but also the customs and culture you’ll be diving into headfirst. Not to mention, they’ve got the muggleborn and raised supplemental book list memorized at this point.” Harry froze. “Hagrid has lived at Hogwarts full time for like 50 years. He just doesn’t know the culture of the wixen world as well as he does the culture of his creatures and beasts-”
“Parvati,” he interrupted, eyes glazing over, “What’d you mean by ‘supplemental book list’?”
By now, the students in the room had moved everything out of the center of the room and had produced pillows from somewhere. Distantly, Harry felt himself being led to one of the pillows. He sank down onto it and lost himself into Parvati’s soft voice explaining the list of supplemental books that were supposed to help muggleborn and muggle-raised students successfully acclimate into wixen society.
“Oh Merlin,” he croaked out. “How many people have I irreparably offended because Dumbledore saw it for to keep me in the dark?” He was going to be sick.
For the first time, Harry truly looked at the students gathered in the room. Parvati was there, of course, she had brought him, but so was Padma, Daphne and Astoria Greengrass, Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bulstrode, Crabbe and Goyle, Blaise Zabini, Theodore Nott, Hannah Abbott, Ernie McMillan, Lavender Brown, Zacharias Smith, and even Neville. There were a handful of older and younger students he didn’t recognize but one person stood out through the haze of betrayal he was wading through. Malfoy looked shell shocked behind that impassive mask. His face, more than any of the others, broke Harry out of his stupor.
“Parvati, what exactly is going on here?” His quiet voice cut through the chatter that had followed his previous question.
“Today? It was supposed to be a review of waltzing and proper Ball etiquette. In general? These are just a handful of the children of the elite- the heirs and heiresses of Noble and Ancient Houses, those set to inherit sizable estates and, even more importantly, seats in the Wizengamot. You were supposed to be included in these meetings from the start but you committed several faux pas right off the bat and we voted in first year to keep you out until we could figure out what your deal was.” Parvati grinned apologetically as Harry’s stomach lurched again. “Not only did I figure out your deal, you also told me point blank you had no idea how to dance. The Yule Ball is in a week. If I’m going to go with you to save your sorry arse then we don’t have much time to get you into shape!”
The next few hours were a blur for Harry. One half of the room passed him around from person to person, trying to get his feet moving properly and his hands in the right place while the other half looked at his Hogwarts letter from first year and began to argue over a list of books they thought would best help him catch up.
Surprisingly enough, it was mostly the Slytherins twirling him around the room and ruthlessly correcting his posture. He wasn’t surprised by the harsh criticisms and high standards but he was shocked at how often he had to stop dancing because he was laughing too hard at something they’d said. They were mostly unflappable themselves but Harry relished in the few disbelieving blinks he got in response to the few times he bit back a sarcastic or scathing reply.
When they finally deemed him acceptable, Parvati stepped up and had them reset the music. Harry bowed to her as she curtsied and then took her hand. As the music started, he forced himself to stop thinking so hard and was surprised at how easily the steps came to him.
When the dance finished, he bowed again and Parvati stared at him before nodding. “Yes. I think that’ll do just fine. We’ll review it once more before the Ball arrives, just to be safe, but I think, officially, you won’t be an utter embarrassment in front of all those people.”
“Parvati,” he whined, pushing her hands away from where she was trying to flatten his hair.
She snickered at him shamelessly and then pushed him toward his stuff. “Go on, go. You’ve got to go and secure a date for my sister.”
Harry grumbled but complied, oblivious to the grey eyes following him out the door.
——————
Christmas morning came with an early wake up call. After opening gifts with his dormmates, Harry hurried down to breakfast for a quick bite before he had to meet up with Parvati for one last review of the opening waltz.
Once they’d reviewed it a dozen times and Parvati was satisfied, they went over dinner etiquette again and Daphne went over how to look politely interested in even the most boring of conversations.
After lunch, Harry declined the snowball fight and followed Parvati back to the common room.
“Alright. Go shower and use these to wash your hair,” she said, handing over two bottles that had a faint woodsy scent to them. “Merry Christmas, please keep them, and use this one first. After that, don’t dry your hair yet. Just pull on some casual clothes and bring your dress clothes up to our dorm and we’ll help you finish getting ready.”
Harry looked down at the bottles in his hand and then back up to Parvati. “What if the stairs don’t let me up to your dorm?”
Parvati frowned consideringly. “That could be a problem. If you’re not up in 30 minutes, I’ll come back down here and we’ll figure something else out. I don’t think you’ll have any issues though.”
Harry shrugged, unconvinced, and turned to go follow orders. 25 minutes later, he was staring at the girls’ staircase with trepidation. He sighed, squared his shoulders, and placed one foot on the first stair. When nothing happened, he took another step. Letting out a breathless little chuckle, he continued up the stairs until he came to what he assumed was the 4th year girls’ dormitory and he knocked. He heard Parvati call out his name and he called back an affirmative. A minute later, she yanked open the door and pulled him inside the dorm.
In layout and color, the girls’ room was the same as the boys’ but that was where the similarities ended. One wall was covered in framed photos of the girls and their families and friends and a full length mirror was leant against another wall. There was an extra desk with a mirror attached and a bench seat.
The other girls smiled at Harry in greeting, all lounging at their beds and desks in muggle sweatpants and their plain uniform button downs, working on each other’s hair and makeup. Even Hermione was included. He smiled back at them and tried not to look as nervous as he was feeling.
Parvati took his dress robes and hung them up on the rack where all the girls had their own dresses and dress robes hanging and then tugged Harry over to the desk with the mirror.
“Sit.”
He saluted and said, “Yes ma’am,” throwing a cheeky wink her way. She swatted at him as she reached over him to grab a bottle that matched the ones she’d given him earlier. Despite her aggressive instructions, her hands were gentle as they ran through his hair, applying products he didn’t even recognize. When she applied the drying charm, Harry was surprised to see his hair falling in soft curls and waves instead of the frizzy unrelenting mop it usually settled into.
“Sweet Salazar, Par, I don’t think my hair has ever looked this…” Harry couldn’t even find the words but the other girls in the room were more than happy to supply him with some.
“Nice?”
“Tame?”
“Neat?”
“Soft?”
Harry laughed. “Yeah. What they said. Thanks, Parvati.”
Parvati smiled at him and patted his shoulder. “You’re welcome, Harry. Now, bathroom is just across the hall. Go put on the base layer of your robes and then come back.”
By the time Parvati was done with him, she’d added a thin gold chain to his wrist, a small gold ear cuff that was mostly hidden by his hair, simple gold cuff links, a light layer of smudged eyeliner that was supposed to make his eyes pop, and she’d charmed his glasses rims to shine golden in the light. When he’d finally put on the rest of his dress robes, Lavender and Padma were bemoaning his horrible eyesight.
“I’m just saying! It’s a damn shame he needs them so badly to see when his eyes look that bright without them. Remind me again why we haven’t kidnapped him and run away to Diagon to see the eye healer there?” Lavender asked as she slid on her heels.
“Because,” Padma said, stacking bangles on her wrist until she was satisfied, “Harry is too high profile and someone would notice him missing before we could succeed. We’ll need to master brewing Polyjuice or something before we can devise our master plan.”
Harry threw his head back and laughed. “Honestly, could you imagine the look on their faces when they noticed me gone? But no, as long as you lot knew where I was, and the other Champions I suppose, I think we could get away with me disappearing on a Sunday morning after breakfast. It wouldn’t be the first time I spent Sunday lunch elsewhere in the castle and no one besides you all would even notice I was gone.”
Padma hummed thoughtfully. “I bet we could talk Professor Flitwick into taking us. Then we could actually stop at Gringotts and you could finally meet with your account manager.”
“Table that thought, ladies! It’s time for us to go.” Parvati stood up and fastened the boutonniere to Harry’s lapel, sliding her wrist corsage on next to her own golden bangles. She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and he led her out behind the other girls as practiced.
Several of the Gryffindor boys were standing around in the common room waiting for their dates or friends so they could walk down together and all heads turned at their procession down the stairs. They all looked shocked at seeing Harry come down the stairs with them.
“Harry, mate, how’d you make it up those stairs without them becoming a slide?” One of his dorm mates called out.
Harry steeled himself, winked in response and said, “I think the stairs know that I’m not interested in anything they have to offer me.”
Parvati snickered under her breath. “Nice answer. Come on, offer Padma your other arm and let’s go find her date.”
He nodded and turned to follow directions, smiling easily when Padma took his other arm. His dorm mates’ jaws had dropped at the sight and Harry gave them a sly smirk as he led the twins out of the common room. They walked like that all the way down to the Great Hall where Padma’s date spotted them and headed to greet them at the bottom of the stairs. He bowed to Padma and offered his own arm and Harry and Parvati were free to join the other Champions and their dates.
The others greeted them and everyone passed around compliments on outfits and how well everyone cleaned up. Once everyone had sufficiently greeted one another, they all fell back into conversing with their dates and their friends. Harry had just been about to strike up a conversation with Parvati when all thoughts fled his mind.
Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson swept by regally, looking untouchably beautiful next to each other. Wrapped in silver, green so dark it was almost black, and a black velvet top robe, Draco looked ethereal. Pansy’s dress was an elegant black velvet to match her date and Harry could see the silver accents throughout both their outfits. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.
“Oh,” Parvati murmured softly beside him. “Oh, that makes so much sense.”
“Hm?” Harry managed a look over at her inquisitively before his eyes were again drawn to Draco’s form. Was that a silver chain on his ear?
Parvati squeezed his arm where she was still holding on. “I understand, now, why you said you could never take the person you wanted as your date to the Yule Ball.”
Harry froze and finally turned back to his friend. He gave her a sheepish smile, feeling his cheeks heat up as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, that was terrible of me, wasn’t it? I’m being a horrible date, after all you’ve done for me, not paying you any attention and letting someone else turn my head. Forgive me?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Oh please, Harry, I knew what I was getting myself into. I just wasn’t expecting to figure it out so quickly.” She paused, looking over at Draco thoughtfully. “Have you ever even had a civil conversation with him?”
Harry sighed. “No. And isn’t that just the worst part? Other than the badges he made right after Halloween, he’s not even antagonized me this year. He’s never had a good or nice thing to say about me or my friends but I thought maybe the absence of the bad meant we could at least try to have a conversation. Or something. But he would barely even look at me when his friends were teaching me how to dance. Hell, he won’t even look at me now. I thought him not antagonizing me would be better but I think I’d prefer that to not even existing to him.”
Parvati snorted. “Harry, he probably hasn’t realized he’s allowed to talk to you in a civilized manner.”
“What?”
“Sure, you look at him and you never start fights, but you’ve also never instigated any of your interactions in the past. And I don’t think you realize how guarded your face normally is. You’re a hard boy to read, Harry Potter, and I doubt he’s learned how to just yet. He might be mistaking your interest for suspicion because honestly, Harry, you’re not really looking at him any differently than you did before. If I hadn’t made it my mission to learn all your little micro expressions, I would still think you hated even the sight of him.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” She snorted again. “Well, I certainly can’t speak for him, but I can say that Pansy told us they were only going together because their parents told them to over the summer when they bought their dress robes. And that they were only going together as friends.”
Harry perked up at that. “Oh!”
Before Parvati could laugh at him again, the doors to the Great Hall opened and everyone was ushered inside to take their seats. McGonagall fussed over the Champions, lining them up with Viktor in the front with his date- was that Hermione he just saw?- followed by Fleur and her date, then Cedric and Cho, with Harry and Parvati at the back. They took their places in front of the large double doors and Harry straightened his back, dropping his ‘politely interested’ mask into place. He wiped away any and all invisible dust and wrinkles and then offered his elbow to Parvati once more. She grinned at him before dropping into her own mask that was all elegance and soft smiles.
The doors opened once more and the Champions began their procession up to the head table. He ignored the stares and the whispers and pointedly did not look around. When they reached the table, Percy Weasley gestured for Harry to take the seat next to him so he acquiesced, pulling Parvati’s out for her before sitting himself down.
Harry made himself peruse the menu and order, and made himself listen to Percy’s lecture and Parvati’s near-silent snide remarks, and didn’t let himself look out over the crowd of tables until he was almost through with his dinner. It wasn’t long until green met silver and Harry found Draco in the crowd and Harry almost choked on his water.
Merlin, he thought, he’s beautiful.
Draco turned away first and Harry felt himself flush with embarrassment. Parvati reached over and patted his hand in sympathy when she saw the exchange.
Once dinner was finished, Dumbledore cleared half of the tables in the room, leaving an arc of them on the opposite end of the stage set up for the band and Harry and the other Champions trailed down to the dance floor that had opened in the middle of the hall.
They danced perfectly. Parvati dragged him into two more waltzes before she released him with a pat on the shoulder and she walked off to find another dance partner.
Harry sighed in relief and decided to take a walk around outside to cool off. He’d just ducked behind a pillar to avoid being seen by Snape when he noticed an odd beetle. The markings were strange and Harry suddenly had a sinking suspicion about the beetle. He conjured a jar and a lid with small holes in the top and he quickly caught the bug.
Harry walked up to the professor he’d been avoiding and ignored Karkaroff’s displeased hiss.
“Professor Snape, I found this beetle and it was behaving rather oddly for a bug,” he began, as respectfully as he could. “Maybe I’m just paranoid after last year but would you check this beetle and see if it might be someone’s unregistered animagus form?”
Snape sighed impatiently. “Potter-“
“Please, sir. Just look at its markings. Don’t they remind you of someone?”
Snape paused and examined the beetle closer. He unscrewed the lid and dumped the beetle out, quickly casting the spell to force the reverse animagus transformation. A very disgruntled Rita Skeeter appeared sprawled out on the sidewalk.
Snape told him to go and grab McGonagall and Flitwick and then return to the party. Harry nodded and hurried off to follow directions without arguing.
Harry checked on Parvati and Padma before he slipped away again. This time, his feet took him up the staircase to the elegant form folded up on the stairs. Harry sat two steps below Draco and turned towards the other boy.
“Hello,” he said softly, startling Draco out of his own head. Draco didn’t respond, instead trailing his eyes over Harry and Harry could feel himself flushing slightly. He blew out a shaky breath, steeled himself, and continued, “You look beautiful tonight.”
Draco sucked in a sharp breath, mask dropping to give way to surprise. He quickly schooled his face again, though his normally pale cheeks were tinged with red. “I don’t think your date would like you saying such things to me.”
Harry snorted. “Mm no, she’d probably be proud of me for actually saying something.” Draco sent him a sharp look. “Seriously, she would be. She agreed to come with me as my friend because I trust her and because she knew going into it that she wasn’t my first choice. She couldn’t quite figure out why I couldn’t just ask the boy I was pining after, especially after she explained that the Wizarding world doesn’t have a problem with gay people like the muggles do, but she figured it out tonight.”
Draco stared, jaw slackening ever so slightly. “How?”
Harry chuckled and looked down at his hands. “You walked by with Pansy and the rest of the world ceased to exist.” He looked back up at the boy above him and had the sudden urge to catalogue every shade of grey he could see in Draco’s eyes. “Did you know your eyes have little flecks of blue in them?”
Draco flushed even brighter and looked away from Harry quickly.
“Draco,” he started and Draco startled, looking back at Harry with wide eyes. “D’you want to go for a walk with me? Maybe we could talk? Actually get to know each other without an audience?”
Draco studied him for a moment, probably searching for the sincerity and the reassurance that this wasn’t some elaborate prank. Finally, he nodded, just once, a small gesture. Harry grinned and stood up, reaching out a hand to help Draco up.
He looked from the hand to Harry’s smile twice before taking it and Harry pulled him up easily. Instead of letting go, he shook the boy’s hand and said, “Hello. I’m Harry and I think you’re beautiful. It’s nice to meet you.”
He finally smiled back. “Draco. You’re not too bad-looking yourself. Now, how about that walk?”