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‘I heard it’s a prank,’ a Ravenclaw sixth-year whispers to her friend. ‘As soon as we all start dancing, Potter’s going to levicorpus Snape in front of everybody.’
‘Well, I heard they both asked Evans,’ the other girl whispers back. ‘She rejected them, so now they’re going with each other to pay her back.’
‘Why would Evans care about them going together if she rejected them?’
‘I don’t know, it’s just what I–’
‘You’re both wrong,’ says a seventh-year Hufflepuff boy, squeezing in between them on one of the delicate wrought benches lining the Yule Ball dance floor. ‘What I heard – from a good source, mind you – is that Potter lost a bet with Black, and romancing old Snivellus is his punishment.’
At an impasse, the three students stare across the transformed Great Hall to where tonight’s two sources of surprise entertainment sit together under a chandelier that drips sparkling light down on their shoulders like ice melt. Potter’s dress robes are a handsome affair, wine red with subtle gold trimming, a tasteful nod to his House colours; Snape’s are old and fit him badly, but at least he looks to have washed his hair for the occasion. Neither of them is behaving as though they’re being pranked or punished. They don’t look vengeful, and they’re paying no attention to Evans. They’re engrossed in conversation with each other, and as the spectators look on with only the thinnest pretense of not staring, Potter’s hand creeps tentatively towards Snape’s. It takes him three tries – on the first two, he loses his nerve and pulls his hand back – but when finally his fingers brush Snape’s, Snape reciprocates without hesitation.
‘Do you think…’ The first girl’s brow furrows as she hesitates. ‘Do you think it’s possible that they really do fancy each other?’ Her companions gape at her, incredulous, and she sets her jaw in something like defiance. ‘Little Bobby Timmins used to pull my pigtails all the time, and it turned out that was his way of trying to get my attention. Maybe that’s what Snape and Potter have been up to all this time, with all the hexes and so on. Maybe they just wanted each other’s attention.’
Silence reigns for a long moment. ‘No,’ says the Hufflepuff boy at last. ‘No, there’s no way. You mark my words, this is Black having his joke at the expense of–’ But his sentence comes to an abrupt halt as Potter suddenly leans in and plants a kiss on Snape’s lips.
It’s not much of a kiss. It’s a nervous, jerky sort of thing, over almost before the onlookers can believe their eyes – but only almost. ‘You really think Potter would go that far on a dare for Black?’ the first girl asks, raising an eyebrow at the Hufflepuff boy.
‘Bloody hell,’ is all the boy can say in response. But it’s all that needs saying. Because Potter and Snape are already kissing again, and this time, they seem to be doing it properly.
The trio by the dance floor are no longer the only ones staring. Neither Potter nor Snape pays their audience a lick of attention. They’re kissing each other like it’s all they’ve ever wanted to do, like the years of hexes and jinxes and nasty name-calling were just a leadup to this moment, and when they finally break apart, they’re both red in the cheeks and smiling at each other like they’re the only two people in the Great Hall, maybe in the world.
They really do fancy each other, then. Who’d have thought?