Be Careful
24: What You Dance To
By Anne B. Walsh
When Ray and Neenie had recovered from draining themselves, the Beauvois led the way upstairs, Draco following them. Abby had claimed his arm, and Charlie had firm hold of his other hand.
I hope they're planning to let go at some point…
Professor Riddle and his daughter and grandchildren walked behind them, though Diana scurried forward as soon as they were out of the stairs and into the wide main floor hallway and held out her hand to Charlie. The Dragon looked at the girl, then at Draco. His expression was equal parts bafflement and uncertainty.
He's a little young, but girls don't bite. Usually. Draco nodded to the boy and produced the best reassuring smile he could on short notice. It must have been good enough, as Charlie straightened his shoulders and gallantly offered Diana his elbow.
A bit rough, but he'll learn. Draco watched the miniature couple trot away down the hall. It took him a few moments to realize he was still smiling.
They're cute, he rationalized. Everyone smiles at cute kids.
It's just, your definition of ‘kids’ changes as you get older…
A soft cough from behind him reminded him that he was still supposed to be walking. He hurried ahead, Abby keeping pace beside him easily, bouncing on her toes. "Promise to dance with me once before you go?" she whispered.
"Are you sure there'll be dancing? I don't want to make a promise I can't keep."
Abby scoffed. "It's a party. There's always dancing."
Somehow I thought so. "All right. If they play a song I know, I'll dance with you."
"Thank you!" Abby squeezed his arm.
They came past the main staircase and to the front doors, where Moony and Danger were standing. Danger stepped aside to allow Draco and Abby passage along one side, and Abby guided Draco to a spot on the edge of the front walk. Draco glanced around him—nearly everyone he knew in this world was standing on the lawn. Harry and Ginny, a few feet from him, waved when they saw him, waited for his return wave, then went back to watching the doors.
Probably some grand entrance is traditional. Except in this case it's a grand exit…
"My friends!" Moony called out, pitching his voice to carry. "Today the heirs of my house and line come of age! Today they are a man and a woman!"
"Many of you were here to welcome them into the world when they were born," Danger took over, her smile wide but her eyes shimmering. "Welcome them now with us into their new world of adulthood!"
"My daughter!" Moony held out a hand, and Neenie stepped out the door into the sun. "Hermione Jeanette Beauvoi!"
"My son!" Danger called Ray forward with her own outstretched hand, and he joined his twin in the light. "Reynard Alexander Beauvoi!"
Ray and Neenie joined hands and lifted their arms on high.
The cheer that greeted them shook the ground under Draco's feet.
After a moment, the twins glanced at each other with secret smiles, then released their hands and turned outward, leaving the hand now forward—Neenie's right and Ray's left—upthrust. Both hands were fisted, and the wrists held stiffly.
It almost looks like they expect something to come and—
A scream from above, and a red-and-brown blur descended on Neenie. The crowd gasped. Draco took a step back. Abby jumped, then giggled. "He always surprises me when he does that!"
"He?" Draco stared at the hawk which was now settling onto Neenie's wrist, shifting its weight from one foot to the other and mantling its wings. "Is that a person?"
"Mm-hmm." Abby shifted back and forth herself. Draco put a hand on her shoulder, and she quieted. "Now we just have to wait for…"
With silent grace, a snowy owl landed neatly on Ray's outstretched arm, folding her wings and ruffling all her feathers. Ray stroked her head, and she stretched out her neck and nibbled at his fingers. "Friends," he called, his voice sounding very like his father's. "I give you those who will help us to carry our house forward to the future!"
"The mother of the next generation of Beauvois, and the father of their cousins!" Neenie added, though her cheeks pinked as she said it. "Welcome them as part of our family, as we, the heirs, already have!"
"Except for those of us for whom that would be incest," Ginny murmured. Harry rapped a finger on the top of her head, and she snapped her teeth at it.
Draco focused his attention on the grass at his feet. I really didn't need to think about that…
A cheer brought his eyes back up. The birds, held high side by side, bated their wings and gave voice, hawk's challenge cry and owl's hunting scream mingling in what almost sounded like harmony.
It probably is. They're human under the feathers, and I already knew they could sing. Why wouldn't they try it in their other forms?
"And now—" Ray tossed Luna into the air, and she soared once around his head and landed beside him as a human again. "To the celebration!"
Neenie leaned back and flung Ron high. He flapped his way level with the second floor windows and popped back into human form. The crowd gasped.
Is he mad? He'll fall—
But Ron snapped his left wrist twice, then swung a leg around the thing which appeared in his hand and leaned into his dive, leveling off three feet above the ground.
"Where'd he get that?" Draco asked Abby as Ron pulled his broom to a halt beside Neenie.
"It's his portable one. Pocket size. He was so happy the day he saved up enough to get it." Abby was watching the scene eagerly. "Is he going to—I think he's going to—"
Ron hooked an arm around Neenie's waist and lifted. She squealed as she was draped across the broom, and again as it lifted off.
"Oi!" Ray shook his fist at Ron. "Come back here with my sister!"
"I don't have to," Ron called down, flying lazy circles above. Neenie squirmed her way upright and got a leg over the broomstick, her robes flapping back over Ron's, the two shades of blue blending with the sky above. "I'm legal, and now so is she."
"I don't like the sound of that," Ray said darkly.
"You don't have to like anything," Neenie informed him. She turned back to Ron. "Shall we?"
"Are you sure you want to?" This was in a quieter tone than the rest, and Draco got the feeling it hadn't been meant to be overheard. "It's your decision. I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do."
Neenie peered at the sun. "Can we get there and back before dark?"
"On this baby?" Ron patted the side of the broom with affection. "Easily."
"Then yes. I'm sure." Neenie leaned back and whispered something into Ron's ear. Whatever it was, it made him turn a red almost indistinguishable from his hair, and the broom leaped forward as if stung by a billiwig.
"Where're you going?" Harry shouted after the rapidly receding figures.
"Where do you think?" Neenie's voice shrilled back. "Gretna Green!"
"What?" Ray yelped, his voice almost lost in the spontaneous cheer that went up from the crowd. On the front steps, Moony and Danger looked at one another, then out at their friends. Draco followed their line of sight and came up with the Weasleys, Mr. Weasley looking fondly after his son's broom, Mrs. Weasley not sure whether to be embarrassed or proud.
Abby was grinning ear to ear. "My sister's a Weasley," she chanted. "My sister's a Weasley!"
"Not yet she's not," Draco contradicted. "It's a long way to Gretna Green."
"She will be soon," Abby said with confidence.
That, Draco couldn't gainsay. He chose to change the subject instead. "Where's this dancing going to be?"
"Probably right out here." Abby stood on her tiptoes, trying to see over the heads of the crowd.
"Come here." Draco went to one knee and patted his back. "I'll give you a boost."
Abby looped her arms over his shoulders and her legs around his waist, and Draco stood up, staggering a pace. Harry's arm went out to catch him. "Fast worker, isn't he?" the image of Draco's nemesis remarked, his eyes still on his friends’ dwindling forms.
Ah yes. Surreality, how much fun it is. Draco hooked his own arms under Abby's legs and lifted her a bit higher. Though at this point, it might be surreal to me to see the real Potter, or my world's version of him, because he'd probably try to kill me, and I've got used to this…
"Yeah, I guess," he answered belatedly. "You didn't know?"
"I did," said Ginny.
"Of course you did," Harry grumbled. "You know everything. And you never tell me any of it."
"Because you'd be able to figure it out on your own if you'd just try."
Abby squirmed, and Draco removed his arms. She slid down his back and landed lightly on her feet. "That way," she proclaimed, pointing. "And we need to hurry—they're going to play the Rainbow Reel!"
"The Rainbow Reel!" Ginny's eyes lit up, and she grabbed Harry's hand and darted off across the lawn, dragging him for a few steps until he found his pace and caught up with her. "Bags we red ones!"
Draco looked back at Abby, who was watching him eagerly.
I wish she wouldn't do that. It makes me feel like I'm kicking a puppy.
"I'm… not sure I know it," he admitted. "How does it go?"
Abby began to whistle. Draco listened carefully. "Hold up," he said after a few bars. "Try that bit again, slower."
"But that's how fast it goes!"
"I know. Try it slower anyway. And without the bounce in it."
"That's no fun." Abby whistled it anyway, slow and determinedly square. "There. Happy?"
Draco grinned. "I am." And I really am.
"Why?"
"Because I know it after all. If it starts like this." Draco took Abby's hands and swung her back and forth, as though he were the center and she the outside of an imaginary circle, then stepped gravely outward and held his hands wide as if clasping others in the circle realized.
"Yes!" Abby leapt into the air. "Yes, that's how it starts! But it goes much faster than that—do you know it slow?"
"That's how I learned it. But I think I can keep up with it."
"Are you sure?" Abby giggled. "It goes really, really fast…"
"I'll manage," Draco said quellingly. "Unless you don't want to dance with me after all."
Abby covered her mouth with both hands and shook her head hard.
"No, you don't want to dance? What a shame." Draco turned away, nose in the air.
"Draco!" Abby protested, her voice half a whine.
Draco looked over his shoulder at her. "What do you say, then?"
"Please? Pretty please? With sugar and a broomstick on top?"
"I can't resist a pretty girl who says pretty please." Draco held out his hand. "Let's go dance the Rainbow Reel."
Swing your partner, circle up, around we go and split in time, girls spin out and boys come in, then switch around and circle again…
The steps of the Rainbow Reel, so called because each dancer wore a scarf in a color denoting which of the six original circles he or she had started in, were still working themselves out of Draco's feet the next morning, back at Malfoy Manor. He'd learned the dance as a solemn and slow-paced pattern, one of the things every modern pureblood groaned inwardly to hear the music for. Speeded up, it was almost intoxicating.
Spin around and come away, find your partner and take their hand, circle ’round them once or twice, make a line of only two…
They'd danced it twice the day before, once in the morning and again when Ron and Neenie, flushed and triumphant, returned late in the afternoon to face congratulations and parental scrutiny. Even Mrs. Weasley, after a few motherly huffs, had had to admit neither of them had done anything wrong, and had hugged Hermione and wished them both all the best.
Pass a line and make them four, go between another set, little circle and spin out to nice long lines of boys and girls…
Draco danced down the hallway, half-hoping someone would come across him and ask what he was doing. He could have used the entertainment of their face to take his mind off what he was thinking of doing today. As it was, the dance steps were doing a halfway decent job of that, but he kept coming back to it.
Spin your partner ’round again, every boy now take a knee, lead your partner right around and stand back up to dance some more…
Flourishing his arm as though a green scarf were still tied there, Draco let the skipping steps of the interweaving lines carry him to the stairs and down them. Halfway down, though, voices from below stopped him cold.
"…sure it will be tonight, Severus?"
"Quite sure, my lord. Fletcher told me so himself. They will have quite a few members of the Order on hand to defend Potter, of course."
"Then we shall simply have to outnumber them." The Dark Lord laughed. "Excellent work, Severus."
"I live to serve, my lord."
Draco shuddered inwardly, pressing against the wall as if it could hide him.
After what I'm going to try, it might. If it works. If it's real.
But Fidelus Manor and Malfoy Manor were in the same place, had the same layout and rooms, seemed to have started off as the same thing. Somewhere along the timeline, one had split away from the other, but as long as no one had purposefully changed it, the room he was looking for should exist in this house as it did in the other.
But will what's inside it?
Only one way to find out.
The voices below were gone. Touching the memory of a laughing Abby dancing her way around him for courage, Draco started down the rest of the stairs, headed for the cellar.
Time to see if Malfoy Manor still has a Manor-core…
If you'd like to see what the Rainbow Reel might look like, try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIKDymPPk4k