Unofficial Portkey Archive

Wherein the girls prepare for the ball, Hermione is disappointed, Harry needs help, Hermione is no longer disappointed, Harry gets a bit carried away, Hermione has a problem, Ginny is angry, Luna sees all, Ron faints at the sight of Cho, the ball is held, Luna and Harry confess, Ginny reacts, there are several incidents on the dance floor, Moody gives permission, and Harry and Hermione escape.

Thanks once again to betas Mark Gardiner, Shane, and Mathiasgranger.

Disclaimer: I neither own nor claim any other rights in the characters and other concepts created by J.K. Rowling. I make no money, nor do I seek any commercial advantage from this work. As such it constitutes "fair use" as defined in 17 U.S.C. §107. "Something," ^©1969 George Harrison, Apple Records.

Chapter 57 - The Masked Ball

The girls in the Gryffindor sixth-year dormitory chattered ebulliently as they prepared for the Masked Ball. Lavender Brown was showing off a two-piece cave witch outfit made out of (probably) real fur. To Hermione she resembled something out of an old, bad Muggle movie she had once seen called "One Million Years BC." Lavender had just finished passing about a photo of her date, Jim Dorny, a seventh-year Ravenclaw, in his supposedly matching cave wizard outfit. Hermione kept her opinions to herself - that he looked more like a troll than anyone Paleolithic.

Lavender's attention was primarily directed towards helping Parvati Patil master the complicated charms needed to coordinate all of the extra arms that her costume sported. Parvati was going to the ball as Shiva - an Indian god with as many arms as an octopus. Whilst somewhat sacrilegious to dress as a male deity, especially as was her own namesake's husband, Parvati shrugged that off. It was all make believe anyway. The magically animated arms wandering about Parvati held various objects, including a rather limp looking rubber cobra.

When Marona was not preoccupied with trying to distance herself from Parvati's damn fake cobra (snakes, especially poisonous ones, scared the daylights out of her), she fussed with Avvie's hair, trying to charm her now jet black curls so they flowed down her back but did not interfere with the set of goat horns that extended out five inches from either side just behind her forehead. Hanging in Avvie's bed chamber was a metallic blue, full length body stocking and matching cloak. She was going as the Lithuanian enchantress Jauterita, but still had to change out of her pastel pink silk wrap.

Marona's hair was already done up in exotic plaits coloured with yellow and red ochre. She was going as a pre-historic enchantress. Like Lavender, her costume put her physical assets on display - a tight fitting leather halter top vest and skirt, both sporting several centimetres of red fringe around the edges. Underneath she wore a flesh coloured body stocking that came complete with ivory navel jewelry.

Hermione ran a bit behind as she had struggled with deciphering the list of goblin charms that came with her princess outfit. Having only just now stepped out of the shower, she dried her hair with her wand whilst wrapped in a red and gold terrycloth bathrobe.

Her hair was one issue. Since goblins had essentially no hair, one option had been to go to the ball bald. That was a nonstarter, though. Harry really liked her long hair - and so did she - especially since her near-immolation required rejuvenated follicles, and those made her hair so much less bushy. She decided that to wear her hair absolutely straight and unadorned, which meant that it fell close to her waist. To keep it out of her eyes she used a black leather headband that emerged from her hair only across her forehead, where it sported a piece of light green jade cut in the shape of a pentacle.

But Hermione's hair was not really the problem. Looking at the others, and then at her costume laid out on her bed, Hermione wrinkled her nose. Compared to her dorm mates' quite flattering outfits (putting aside Parvati's extra appendages), this goblin clothing looked downright frumpy. The Basilisk hide dress had very little in the way of curves, and it dropped almost to her knees.

Not only that, it was a one-piece. Hermione distinctly remembered the goblin who measured her, Meoli she thought (the goblin's English had been poor), telling her that most, if not all, of the midriff was supposedly detachable. If it were, Hermione could not fathom how to detach it. The dress' only really distinctive features were some lace around the bodice and a high collar. Those were the only parts not fashioned from Basilisk hide - the fabric was also green, but with a metallic sheen.

Still, because she ordered it, Hermione was stuck. She sighed. Her knickers - which nobody would be seeing (except Harry if she, and he, were lucky) were by far the sexiest thing she had - the second pair in the package of Lover's Touchâ"¢ Evanescing Lingerie she had bought in Hogsmeade. At the moment, they were on the bed, hidden under her dress. Hermione debated which concealment spell to use so she could put them on without the other girls noticing.

Before she figured that out, there came a knock at the door.

"Can I come in?" asked a familiar, and obviously troubled, voice.

"It's unlocked, Ginny." Lavender answered.

The door sprang open, and a very upset Ginny Weasley bustled into the room. Her costume was - no doubt about it - stunning. She was dressed as a wood nymph. Ginny's long, bouncy red hair was elaborately festooned with holly leaves, ferns, and two matching golden anthurium flowers. A delicate gold and lacquer chain shaped as a miniature strand of ivy circled her forehead and held her herbaceous tiara in place. A second chain, identical to the first, served as a necklace, and supported strands of faux emeralds and tourmalines.

The arrow-like shape of her necklace pointed towards Ginny's pronounced décolletage. Her low cut, form fitting gown was copper coloured, and its metallic sheen almost glowed. Its pattern of oak and maple leaves shimmered in the light. About thirty centimeters above the floor Ginny's gown dissolved into innumerable tendrils that swayed as she walked. Actually, her entire gown swayed since it had slits up both sides almost farther than was decent. The slits revealed green fishnet stockings, and below them colour-coordinated high-heeled sandals with individual straps for each toe.

As beautiful as she looked, mentally Ginny was a mess. Angry tears marred her mascara.

"Please listen to me," she asked everybody and nobody at once. "I - I - I just have to vent."

Taking the sixth-years' silence as assent, Ginny flopped herself down on Hermione's bed with enough force that the owner's carefully laid out outfit bounced and became disarranged.

"I'm going to be a bloody laughingstock," the redhead declared loudly. "I mean, even Luna has a date to the ball."

"But … but what about Neville?" Parvati inquired, the additional arms on her costume waving aimlessly behind her. "Surely, you made…."

"Neville?" Ginny angrily spat her boyfriend's name. "It just so happens that Neville took off and left me high and dry without so much as a `sorry about that.' Some date he turned out to be!"

"But Ginny," Hermione intervened, "Neville's family home was attacked - just like yours. Surely you understand how much his family needs him right now."

"Oh, stop defending him," Ginny snapped back. "My family was attacked too, you know. You don't see me abandoning everything and everyone just to go running home to Mummy and Daddy, do you?"

Hermione tried reasoning. "That's because you have a great big supportive family. Neville doesn't. You saw that yourself. Speaking of your family, can't your brother help out as an escort at least?"

"Ron? Don't be daft, Hermione," Ginny sniped with bitter laughter. "He doesn't pay attention to me anymore. Just like he ignores the rest of his family - and anyone else except that … that … slut of his."

"Ginny!" came astonished gasps from the various onlookers. Hermione said nothing that would indicate how much closer to the truth the angry girl had struck than she could possibly know.

"Well it's true," Ginny maintained. "All he really wants to do, besides play Quidditch and read his stupid Potions book, is find new and more creative ways to get his hands into Cho's bloody pants. And Merlin, how she encourages him! It's unseemly. You should see him strutting about down there in the common room in those animal skins of his - pretending to be some sort of ape man. Greystoke somebody or other, I think he said…."

"Oh, dear, Tarzan!" Hermione replied, successfully managing not to laugh - but just barely. "Please tell me Ron's going to be wearing something more than just a loincloth."

"Honestly, Hermione, get your mind out of the gutter," Lavender chided. "That's my job, after all."

"Oh, yes, Ron's got a couple of furry capes to keep him decent," Ginny pointed out. "But Circe only knows what that Chang woman will wear. Maybe she'll come as a succubus - that would be fitting."

Again the onlookers gasped.

"Anyway, I don't know what more to say," Hermione gently sympathised, trying to devise a mannered way of getting Ginny off of her bed so she could change. "You can sit with us if you like. Harry really doesn't like to dance all that much."

Ginny got the hint and stood up. "Anyway, thanks, Hermione, but I might have to see who's left from Beauxbatons. They've got a…. Well…."

The girl's eyes fell on something that had bounced into view courtesy of her hard flop onto Hermione's bed.

"…My, my…. I think I know what Harry prefers to dancing." Ginny held up Hermione's scarlet and orange fancy knickers.

"Oh, honestly, give me those," Hermione huffed as she pulled the undergarment from Ginny's hands. Fortunately, Ginny did not have a very good grip on the somewhat flimsy item.

Regarding Hermione's rather formless green outfit, the younger girl remarked cattily, "I guess it doesn't matter what your costume is, Hermione. It doesn't seem that you plan to be wearing it very long."

Hermione's hand reflexively rose to her blushing cheek. "That's really none of your business," she responded stoutly. She was not one who kissed and told.

"I suppose not," Ginny replied evenly. She no longer seemed distraught over Neville - which was not to say that she felt much better. Nevertheless, she made for the door. "See you at the ball," she said vaguely to nobody in particular as she left.

Hermione's roommates were all watching her wondering what she would do next. Consciously biting her tongue, she chose to act as mundanely as possible. Silently, methodically, she pulled the blazingly colourful and blatantly sexual knickers up one leg and then the other. The goblin princess outfit followed in similar fashion.

Her purposeful attempt at being boring had the desired effect. Soon Hermione's roommates stopped paying attention to her and went back to prattling amongst themselves.

The goblin outfit lacked shoes, so Hermione Transfigured a pair of her school flats into something more fitting - black slippers with straps that criss-crossed at the ankle and wrapped around the back of her calves. They had no heels to speak of, since in one respect her conversation with Ginny had been misleading. Harry had discovered that he liked to dance more than the other girl knew. Ginny had been away at Quidditch camp over the summer holiday. She had missed Harry's birthday party.

Finally, only one thing was left. Hermione unfastened the felt bag that had been supplied with her outfit. Goblin instructions were often difficult to read, as their English language translations tended to be phrased rather backwards. Her instructions, however, made one thing certain - this bag's contents were intended to be added last to her ensemble.

Inside, Hermione found a delicate goblin-forged necklace of four separate golden strands braided together. Suspended from the necklace, a fiery opal hung like a pendulum. It sparkled with red, blue, yellow, and other highlights - every colour, it seemed, save the green of the Basilisk skin.

Rereading the goblin instructions, Hermione concluded that her "Prince," not herself, was to fasten this about her neck. That action, the accompanying parchment told her, was essential to "energise the Charms."

Almost before she had time to wonder where Harry was, he was there - or, at least his Patronus. As the streaking silver stag surged into her mind, she heard his voice, sounding peeved. "Hermione, can you help me? I think I've bollixed these Vestmentae spells somehow. My bloody baldric's tangled in my belt and I can't get them undone…. I'm in the same dressing room we used for the ceremony this morning…."

Hermione was out the door in under a minute, leaving her classmates to speculate about Harry's fancy Patronus magic.

Harry was, if anything, in even worse shape by the time Hermione knocked on the door. He had just discovered that he had managed to get his frog entangled as well, and was rather vocally displeased at this latest setback.

"Harry …. I know you're in there. I heard you cursing."

"Hermione, I'm…."

"Alohomora," Hermione incanted, letting herself in. "Oh…, maybe I should have asked if you were decent…."

The scene would have been laughable had Harry not looked so frustrated one moment and embarrassed the next. He was on his knees, clad only in a pair of boxers and a thin wife-beater T-shirt. He had his wand trained on his chain mail Knight-of-the-Realm robes, which lay on the floor in a shiny blue-grey heap. Wrapped haphazardly about those robes were a belt, a baldric, and a frog - all hopelessly jumbled. The broadsword that this equipment was supposed to support rested uselessly in its scabbard on a bench against the near wall.

Hermione's cheeks went pink at the sight - especially of a half-clothed Harry. "What on earth happened?" she gasped.

"I don't bloody know," a very vexed Harry complained - quite red-faced himself. "I must not have packed the sword-related gear correctly the last time I had these robes out. I haven't worn this effing getup since Reims, and I didn't use a sword then. I'm afraid when I recast the Vestmentae spell, it must have been with the bloody belt and the bloody baldric tangled up, because I can't separate them now."

"Why not just end the spell, then?" Hermione asked.

"Because I've no clue how to put on this stuff without it, that's why," Harry grumbled. "Do you know how to mount a frog on a baldric?"

"I'm afraid I'm not that much of a know-it-all," Hermione admitted. "What spells have you tried?"

"I've used the standard Disentangling Charm, but the Vestmentae spell was stronger," Harry recounted. "Then I tried a Knot-Untying Charm, but that only works on ropes and things like that, and not on this kind of leatherwork. All the metal buckles fell off, and I had to reverse it. Then I had another not-so-bright idea. I Transfigured the baldric into water in hope that it might just flow away from the belt, but when I Retransfigured it, I realised I'd forgotten to move the frog out of the way, and now that's all snarled in this bloody mess, too."

Hermione knelt down next to Harry and examined the morass. Her attempt at the Disentangling Charm fared no better than his. She ran her fingers along some of the entwined leather strips, confirming how twisted they had become. At least one of the pieces was now configured as a Möbius strip. That meant it had but one side, which might account for its peculiar reaction to magic.

She shivered when she felt Harry's hand on the nape of her neck. "Have any bright ideas?" the now calmer boy asked her.

"For dealing with this mess, no," she said. "Why not forget about the sword altogether? You could just end the spell and remove the belt."

"But what good is a knight without a sword?" Harry protested. "It won't be much of a costume without it."

"Then join the club," Hermione reacted. "I'm not too happy with how mine turned out either. I look like a frump."

"Then you'll just be my frump," Harry soothed her. He started to rub her neck underneath her hair. "If you dressed the way you had in fourth year, I probably couldn't string a sentence together. You know I'm pants at chatting up girls like Fleur."

Hermione's cheeks flushed in remembrance of that night. "So you noticed more than you let on?"

"Umm…. Quite a bit more, actually," Harry answered wistfully. "I was just … stupid…."

She leaned into him, relaxing with his touch. "No less than I…. Sometimes I think we've grown up so fast. Other times I think it … it took so damn long…."

Having Hermione cuddle him like that was enjoyable. "Well, I'm still pants at chatting up pretty girls…. Other than you, that is…."

"Well, maybe there's something to be said for that," Hermione responded with a knowing smile. She turned back to the here and now. "But seriously, your robes are quite impressive enough, and I think you'd regret wearing a metre-long sword like that to the ball."

"Why? What's wrong with it?" Harry asked.

"Because you'll be dancing," Hermione explained whilst wobbling her head to take full advantage of Harry's dancing fingers on her neck. "You'd probably trip over it or else trip up someone else … like me…. And you'd best stop that if you want me to let you get dressed at all…."

Harry recalled when he stumbled over his sword during the Death Eater attack on the Ashrak. "You might be right, and that certainly makes virtue out of necessity. I guess I'll just leave the sword. It's not like it's Gryffindor's or anything…."

"You mean you were wearing the sword of Godric Gryffindor in that photo you sent me?" Hermione asked.

"None other," Harry confirmed. "But this sword isn't it - just something I found in the Room of Requirement after my last D.A. session. I guess I can make do without it."

That decided, they ended all the spells and extracted Harry's belt (along with his chain mail robes) without too much difficulty. Harry dressed promptly.

Hermione had never seen Harry in his Knight-of-the-Realm robes up close - except for a brief, uncomfortable moment in Reims when the aforementioned Fleur was hanging all over him (in Hermione's opinion, anyway). Something about shiny chain mail was just so overwhelmingly masculine…. To say nothing about the classic English heraldry - three stylised lions d'or on a solid red field - lacquered on his chest. It rather enhanced Harry's presence.

Enhanced? Hell, just looking at him left her rather weak in the knees - but not weak enough to stop Hermione from suggesting improvements.

"The belt, by itself, it's just not enough," she commented shortly after he finished buckling it. "The chain mail just overpowers it. Here, take a look. Specularis."

Hermione conjured a mirror on the adjacent wall.

"Yeah, I see what you mean," Harry agreed. "It's just too small and not nearly bright enough…. I know. How about if we made it striped with the Ministry's colours?"

Hermione had no idea what might be the spell for that, but knowing how to add single colours, she improvised. One by one, she added bands to Harry's belt until she was done.

In the mirror, Harry regarded the result sceptically. "Umm … what do you think, Hermione?"

"Truthfully?"

"Yeah."

"Yecch," Hermione responded. "It's both too busy, and some of the colours clash."

"How about just Gryffindor colours?" Harry offered. "I think they'd match the rest of it."

"Sounds like an excellent idea," Hermione agreed. In short order, she had his belt recoloured in the red-gold-red pattern of a Spanish flag. "And now, for the finishing touch…." Hermione twisted her wand, and Transfigured Harry's belt buckle into something more elaborate. It reminded Harry of the centrepiece of a boxing championship belt that his cousin Dudley once won. With a Duplicus Charm, Hermione emblazoned it with the same coat of arms that adorned Harry's robes.

Harry admired Hermione's handiwork. "That'll do quite nicely, I think." He summoned his cape from its hook in the corner and draped it over the mail. The cape was cut from extremely dark - almost black - purple velvet and had bright yellow drawstrings.

"A cape, too," Hermione remarked appreciatively. "I suppose I could transfigure the lions into a big yellow `S' if you'd like."

"Nah," Harry deadpanned after a moment's thought, giving no indication of knowing she had been making a joke. Hermione was poised to lecture him about Muggle comic book figures when his sly smile let her know that he was having her on. As much as he loved winding her up, this was not the time for another installment of the world according to Hermione.

Most immediately, they had to finalise their costumes.

Hermione opined that Harry's lemon yellow drawstrings clashed horribly with the gold in his belt and on his chest. Harry let her recolour them to match.

"Now, you need to do something for me," Hermione told him as she fished the goblin necklace from its protective sack. "As best I can tell, the instructions say you have to fasten this around my neck."

"I'd be delighted," Harry grinned as she handed him the necklace. He admired it briefly ("that's really something"), before stepping behind her.

Hermione lifted her hair to give Harry access. His fingers' light touch about her shoulder and neck produced a bumper crop of goose pimples. It felt so divine that she wanted to melt into his arms….

After a bit of fumbling, Harry closed the clasp in the necklace.

Then it happened.

Almost at once, Harry's delicious touch yielded to other sensations that were decidedly odd. The entire dress began undulating almost as if the Basilisk skin were still alive. Hermione felt a sudden tightness that she ordinarily associated with the first moments of Apparition. The fabric about her waist seemed to roll against her midsection whilst pushing everything up from below. It tickled.

"Harry!" she squealed. "What did you do? What spell is this?"

Harry, of course, had only done what Hermione had asked. He remained mute whilst the goblin magic ran its course.

"Harry!" Hermione repeated, "What's going on?"

"Umm … I don't know, Hermione … but … wow!" was his belated reply.

When the bizarre feelings finally ceased after less than a minute (although it seemed much longer), Hermione turned to Harry.

His jaw was hanging open. If his eyes were any larger, he could have passed for a house elf. She shuddered at the unmistakable glint of lust in his eyes. That alone provided some idea what had just taken place.

"Harry, I don't think we have time," Hermione protested weakly.

He was right next to her now. She felt his hands settle on either side of her waist - skin on skin just above her hips. "Take a look, Hermione," he whispered in her ear as he spun her halfway around to face the mirror she had conjured earlier.

Hermione did a double take - no, a triple take.

Her image was nothing short of amazing. Even she thought she looked beautiful - which said something. She had no trouble at all understanding Harry's reaction.

The rather shapeless green dress she had been wearing was almost totally transformed. Now, it was a gown, like the image in the wax museum, only more dramatic. The hem that had ended at her knees, now extended all the way to the floor, and then some - although some sort of charm kept it from dragging. No longer loose fitting, it hugged, almost caressed, her shape. No more was it featureless and stolid. Instead, it was slit so far up her thighs on both sides that Hermione had another reason to appreciate the scanty size of her Lover's Touchâ"¢ knickers.

Above her waist, the former sleeves had disappeared entirely, leaving her arms bare. The metallic green lace around the bodice appeared unchanged, but the previously conservative neckline now plunged dramatically to a large clasp located strategically between her breasts. For propriety's sake she hoped it was brass. Knowing the goblins, it was more likely solid gold.

In the back, her once small collar had expanded dramatically, until its wingtips extended fully as wide as her shoulders. The top of the collar defined her rear neckline. Beneath her hair, it arced halfway down her back.

But more than that had caused the flare of Harry's basic instincts. Hermione had remembered correctly - most of her midriff was now quite exposed. From the base of the bosom clasp, her gown fell away on either side in a teardrop shape all the way to her hips. From there the cut-out area narrowed as Basilisk skin borders rejoined in a second v-shaped plunge that ended in a point almost ten centimeters below her now exposed navel. The curves of her midriff line essentially duplicated her neckline.

It was utterly unlike anything she had ever worn before. Never one to fret overly about her appearance, Hermione was almost thankful for her ordeal in August and September. It had cost her more than half a stone. She had never been overweight, but even the slightest amount of flab would have shown with this outfit. Fortunately, she had none.

For a moment, Hermione wondered how the whole thing could possibly hold together with so much abdominal exposure. But after taking a few steps, she could tell that the Basilisk hide's edges had more or less doubled over to provide a supportive elastic seam around all of the edges. The excess material had mostly moved upwards, where it now provided better support for her breasts than any brassiere she had ever worn.

The goblin seamstresses were geniuses.

Her bra was not only superfluous but visible in several places. Hermione promptly Vanished it.

The gold necklace that started all of this had undergone its own transformation. The chain was now twice as long - and twice as thin. The opal pendant's position now approximated her Order of Merlin medal. Instead of nestling in Hermione's cleavage, the golden chain cascaded over her breasts and the jewel hung freely at the base of her ribcage.

"Hermione, I've never seen anything like it," Harry spluttered, his throat suddenly gone dry.

"I've never worn anything like it," she responded, quite stunned herself. "What do you think of it?"

Holding up his index finger, Harry motioned, "Just one thing…."

He grasped the opal pendant and its golden chain. With some doing (and quite a few additional goose pimples on Hermione's part), he rearranged the chain so that it passed between her breasts and behind the clasp holding the upper part of her gown together. The opal ended up hanging nearly in the same place, but would not move about nearly as much.

"There, perfect," he murmured. Any further verbal response was superfluous. Harry's arms went around her and he pulled her into a soul-searing kiss.

For an instant, his boldness surprised her. After all, he had made no significant amorous advances towards her in a week's time. Her momentary awkwardness soon passed, and she relaxed into his caress.

She ran her hands through Harry's hair as their tongues indulged one another. Then her lazily closed eyes popped open. Harry's hands were no longer around her midsection. Instead he had inserted them underneath the elastic bands supporting her midriff cut-out.

He was her prince. The goblin outfit seemingly understood that and offered as little resistance to his advances as Hermione herself did.

She clutched at him harder as she felt his hands slide around her hips. She felt hot and cold at the same time. Sweat glistened on Hermione's brow whilst wave upon wave of goose pimples crossed her bum as Harry's hands made their way southwards.

She gasped. Did he mean to do it right here in the changing room?

`What about the ball?' she Legilimenced to him.

`Let them start without us for once,' Harry sent back. `I'd much rather be with you.'

Sometimes abandoning rationality could be beneficial. Hermione concluded that this was such a time. She felt an ache deep within her. It had been just as long for her as for him. She needed him just as much.

Ironically, they had just struggled mightily to get all Harry's chain mail properly dressed. Now she clutched at him - trying to find some quick way of reversing the process.

Fresh from their successful campaign of conquest across her backside, Harry's hands now angled towards the source of her aching need. She squeed softly in anticipation, and positioned her arms around him. Once he started, she would no longer be able to support her own weight.

She needed him so badly. Blindly she thrust her hands towards him - as if, in her arousal, she could shred Damascus steel. Her right hand somehow found its way into an inside pocket of his cloak. It encountered something unexpected: some sort of folded paper.

`Harry, what's in your pocket?' she Legilimenced.

Harry had other things on his mind. His fingers twined her nether curls. `Marauders' Map, I suppose. I don't go anywhere without it. Oh, Merlin, Hermione, I need you so much right now.'

No way the object was the Marauders' Map. It was tied with a ribbon, the way the Headmaster sent messages. But at this particular moment, she was past caring about anything beyond Harry's and her own needs.

She broke their frantic caresses. "I really … need … to cast a … couple of spells," she panted.

"Sure … precautions?" Harry groaned, impatient yet understanding. He started to extricate himself from that infernal chain mail by pulling it over his head.

"No, just a Cushioning…."

Suddenly two blurs of bluish-white light burst into the room and immediately found their targets. Dumbledore's irked voice boomed through their minds.

To him: "Mister Potter, where are you? We need you to open the ball. Everyone's waiting."

To her: "Miss Granger, where are you? We need you to open the ball. Everyone's waiting."

"Dammit!" Harry cursed. "I guess we can't right now."

Hermione sighed loudly. She was just as deflated as Harry - albeit mentally rather than physically. As she stepped away to straighten up, she pulled the mystery document from Harry's inside pocket.

It was a letter, addressed to Harry, neatly bound with a yellow and white ribbon and sealed the old fashioned way with a yellow dollop of wax. Hermione recognised the crossed-key pattern of the seal - this was formal Vatican City correspondence.

But what could the Vatican possibly want with Harry?

"When did you get this, Harry?" Hermione asked. "It looks awfully official."

"Oh, I remember," Harry recalled. "I haven't worn this cape since Reims. One of the priests gave it to me when I was admitted into the cathedral. I haven't a clue what it is. I've never opened it."

"You should, Harry," Hermione replied tersely.

"I know, but now's not the time," Harry grunted. "Bloody Dumbledore calls. Why don't you keep it, so I don't forget again?"

"But you have pockets and I don't," Hermione protested.

"All right," Harry conceded and took the letter back. He was about to return to the same pocket from whence it came when Hermione remembered something.

"Actually … no. Give it to me," she said. Harry did, and watched with considerable interest - most, but not all, hormonally driven - as Hermione reached down, flipped over the front flap of her dramatically slit gown, and deftly slipped the letter into a pocket she found there.

Seeing Harry's curious stare, she told him. "The instructions mentioned a place for a concealed dagger, but I didn't pay it any mind. Apparently goblin princesses are expected to defend their honour to the death, and are quite capable of doing so."

"I'll remember that," Harry remarked dryly. "Now let's go get this over with."

Harry took Hermione's hand and moved towards the door. They had not taken more than four steps when he heard her exclaim, "Oh, bollocks." For Hermione that was rather strong language.

Harry stopped. "What is it, Hermione?" he asked worriedly.

"Look," she said, pointing at something on the floor.

Harry looked and saw a scrap of something or other. It was very bright red, with orange edges in places.

"I wanted it to be a surprise," Hermione moaned with a disgusted look on her face. "I wore my last pair of those knickers that disappear when you touch them. But I'm afraid I must have left them out too long in the light and they activated before I wanted."

Harry gawked at her. "You mean…."

Hermione had her wand out. "Reparo," she incanted.

Nothing happened.

"A priori," she tried again.

Again nothing.

"I'm afraid so," she told him. "They're irreparable - for commercial reasons, I suppose."

"You … you … don't have any knickers on?" Harry asked incredulously.

"Not anymore, really. Only a couple of shreds left, thanks to your touch," she replied. "Well, the show must go on."

"What….? Wait a minute…, you can't," Harry spluttered.

"Well I've nothing to work with to conjure a pair - I don't fancy wearing goblin felt, it's too scratchy. And I'm not about to use a Summoning Charm and have my knickers go flying through the halls for anyone to see," she replied brusquely. "There's no choice, really…."

"So you're going to go…?"

"That's right, Harry," she said with finality. "I'll just have to go commando."

"You … you're serious about that aren't you?" he persisted.

"I see no choice at the moment," she stood her ground. "It's not that big of a deal, anyway. You're the only one who'll know."

Needless to say, Harry felt quite differently about this turn of events. But he knew better than to pick this particular fight with this particular person at this particular moment.

"Roger that," Harry replied, using humour to mask his disquiet. "Regimental it is."

"Later, Harry. Let's go. Our ruddy public is waiting."

She smiled to herself as she led Harry out. `If Isadora could do this, so can I.'

* * * *

Since the Headmaster had sent two Patronuses, Harry and Hermione had the option of splitting up and pretending to arrive separately. Harry refused to consider it, acting like he did not want her out of his sight. Nor did Hermione see any point in concealing that they had been together.

They made their way to the Great Hall's antechamber so quickly that Hermione was thankful for wearing flats. She had no regrets in any case. She had seen herself in the mirror, and was almost as shocked at her attractiveness as Harry was. Heels of the sort Ginny had been wearing would have been overkill.

But making she swayed her hips properly was not.

Harry pulled her closer as they rounded the final corner and saw the queue in the Entrance Hall. Present were pirates and princesses, dragon-masters and duchesses, gangsters and goddesses, Quidditch stars and queens. There was even a Dementor. Almost all of the wizards and witches depicted in the Cadbury Chocolate Frogâ"¢ Card series were depicted, although (Harry noted thankfully) nobody else had come as Harry Potter.

A thoroughly cleaned up (and shifty looking) Hagrid was waiting for them, undoubtedly at the Headmaster's behest. Even Hagrid did a double-take when he saw the pair. "`Arry an' `Ermione!" he called out. "Yeh look great … er … the both of yeh. But `Ermione, them goblins outdid themselves, they did. Come along, though, yer late."

With steadfast straight-on gazes they ignored any and all stares and whispers as they passed through the crowd in Hagrid's wake towards the massive - and closed - timber doors to the Great Hall itself. Hagrid then took his leave, muttering something about "carriages," "horses," and "mash whiskey."

The pair arrived hand in hand, to a rather lukewarm reception. Ron's height and distinctively red hair ensured that he would be the first "boom-win" that Harry spotted. Also noticeable was a rather threadbare stuffed chimpanzee perched on Ron's shoulder that must have been as large as that roaring hat that Luna had once worn.

The poor chimp had seen better days. Its tail was bent, and it sported large bald spots on its head and its arse.

Ron saw the pair at almost the exact moment they laid eyes on him. Red-faced, he stared at Hermione as if not recognising her. When he did, his jaw dropped.

Only for an instant, however.

As the couple reached the front of the queue, Ron ignored Hermione and addressed himself to Harry. "It's about time," Ron groused. "Where have you been?"

"Umm … that's none of your business, Ron," Harry responded in a measured voice. "But there's one thing…."

"Bloody Hell it isn't," Ron answered. "I'm starved, and you've made us wait for…."

Harry replied softly but firmly, "Ron, if you ever say anything like that about Hermione again, I won't be responsible for my actions."

Ron purpled, and probably would have said something untoward, except Cho gave his arm a little yank. When Ron turned, she gave him a curious look about Harry's remark concerning Hermione. Thus distracted, Ron did not respond to Harry's challenge.

Hermione had tuned out Ron's peevish remarks. Her expression upon seeing Cho glued to his side must have mirrored Ron's reaction to her. Cho's costume was every bit as stunning and unique as hers - but in a decidedly darker way. She wore a skintight sleeveless shiny black body suit. It was spandex, accentuating her every curve, from her neck, to her bosom, to her hips. It ended about ten centimeters down her thighs. A filmy, smoky grey half-cape, also glittering in the light, hung from an elaborate black stand up collar that framed her heavily made up face. She had one arm around Ron, and the outer edge of her cape, hanging from a wrist clip, partially enveloped him.

At first Hermione thought Cho also wore a cherry-red bikini bottom over the body suit, but it gradually dawned on her that the hour-glass-shaped swath of colour was in fact integral to the design itself. The narrowest part of the hourglass fit right over…. Well, Hermione was not going to think about that.

Never very tall, Cho wore black platform slippers (if you could call them that) with three-inch heels and matching silver straps that wound all the way up her calves and thighs where garters attached them to the lower end of her body suit.

Cho had charmed her normally straight, jet black hair to form eight coiling tendrils that made corkscrewing motions as she moved.

None of that, however, would have prompted Hermione to gawk the way she did. Atop the black body suit spread an intricate open mesh contraption consisting of silver wire and ringlets. This outer "garment" was arranged in a spider web pattern with four interconnecting orbs. The spokes of the orbs came together over her breasts, navel and naughty bits.

Hermione had seen images of Cho wearing this silver costume before - minus the underlying body suit - in some of the "Liko Mee" Muggle photo sets she had accessed through the Internet. She was appalled at the girl's cheek. She found it unbelievable that Cho would even think of wearing something like that at Hogwarts.

Ron, of course, plainly did not mind a bit.

Someone else did mind, however.

Tearing her eyes from Cho, Hermione saw Luna staring at the arachnid-costumed girl, also with pronounced disapproval. But not just Luna - her entire costume - stared, that is. The Ravenclaw girl wore a sweeping triple layered long dress, each layer tie-dyed with irregular hemlines. The outer layer, which ended at her hips, was mostly maroon on top, but with pronounced green streaks towards the bottom. The second layer started out largely green, but melded into turquoise and blue as it ended just above the knees. The innermost layer was predominately blue, but changed to deep amber before stopping at Luna's ankles.

From a distance, each layer also appeared polka dotted. On closer examination each of the dozens of "dots" actually was an eye that blinked and focused independently. Each eye was different - some wide, some narrow; some with long lashes, others with almost none. Their colours ranged across the spectrum from deepest black-brown to Luna's own pale grayish-blue.

Similarly, her earrings and necklace featured disembodied eyeballs - this was Luna after all.

Luna was barefooted, with eye patterns tattooed on each ankle. Each of her toes was also painted to resemble an eye, so when Hermione looked at Luna's feet, they looked back at her. Luna's left big toe even gave the older girl a wink.

Hermione could sympathise with Luna's blind date, a French boy from Beauxbatons, who seemed more than a little unnerved by her eccentricities. He dressed in what passed for a Greek hoplite's uniform, decorated with some sort of animal-skin vest that exactly matched the colour and shininess of Hermione's bosom clasp.

Hermione wondered why so many of her cohorts had chosen animal furs as part of their costume of choice - the practice seemed so barbaric. She already had enough causes, though; much (if not most) of the wizarding community would say too many.

Taking pity on the poor boy (who had dropped his eyes once he saw Hermione looking at him), Hermione introduced herself, "Est-que je peux me presenter? Je suis Hermione Granger."

He evidently knew exactly who she was. For a moment, he looked like he would faint away. Then he answered her in halting English. "I'm honoured. Je … I am Etienne Duvalier. I am come as Jason … of the Argo. I thought … we had agreed…."

Luna started laughing. Neither Hermione nor Etienne could understand what she found so hilarious. Finally, Luna explained, "Oh I'm sorry, it's probably my fault. I must have said `Argo' when I meant `Argus.'"

Last - and in her own mind, least - was Ginny. As before, she looked stunning in her wood nymph outfit. Her fiery red hair, however, framed her icy expression. No longer devastated, she simply looked angry. Her anger turned to astonishment when she saw Harry and Hermione, especially Hermione.

Next to Ginny, and transparently uncertain as to whether he should try to hold her hand, was a fourth year Hufflepuff whom Hermione knew vaguely from the D.A. His name was Julian Haldane, and Hermione was relatively certain that someone or other had plucked him from the stag line as Neville's stand.

`Poor Julian,' Hermione thought, `and poor Neville.' Ginny had a well-earned reputation for flightiness in romantic matters. Although keeping it to herself, Hermione wondered whether the day's events would cause the Weasley girl to take flight once more.

Tutting over their tardiness, Professor McGonagall shooed Harry and Hermione to the front of the queue. That proved difficult since blocking their path was Titania Prod, a seventh year Hufflepuff. She was clad in a pale yellow dress, at least as wide as it was tall, topped by a high, circular frilled collar that may have gone out of style before Nick had become Nearly Headless.

Titania had also done something to her ordinarily brunette hair. She had it all piled atop her head with a streak of platinum blonde running through it. In Hermione's opinion, she looked like a cross between Good Queen Bess and the Bride of Frankenstein - another thought that Hermione tactfully kept to herself.

The start for the masked ball was already late, but one more obstacle briefly threw Harry for a loop, Fleur Delacour. She wore an impossibly bright, impossibly sparkly full length gown - bare-shouldered, puffy-sleeved, and crinolined. Fleur seemed to float rather than walk.

When all was finally in readiness, the Headmaster waved his wand and announced, "I hereby declare that the first Hogwarts-Beauxbatons Masked Ball has commenced."

Hermione looked around for Madame Maxime, as she thought it strange that the heads of both schools were not present for the opening. The Beauxbatons Headmistress was not there - as otherwise she would have been impossible to miss.

The doors creaked open, revealing the Great Hall as never before. At the hall's exact centre was a gigantic Jack-O'Lantern pumpkin, nearly three metres high and half again as wide, topped by a platform. Standing atop the platform, waving to Harry and the rest, was "Magic" Lee Jordan. He had been engaged (to the considerable consternation of certain better-known WWN disc jockeys) to act as DJ for the ball. To avoid unnecessary competition, both schools had agreed not to hire live bands.

Evidently, Lee also controlled the lighting, and he dialed it up a couple of notches. The usual overhead candles were gone. Rather, the walls themselves glowed.

That is, if they could be called walls at all.

Surrounding the Great Hall, from a height of ten metres, gushed what appeared to be surging torrents of water - except what should have been a thunderous deluge made no sound at all and disappeared from sight at floor level. The cascading cataracts silently poured downwards, obscuring anything and everything behind them. The illusion had the dance floor seemingly surrounded on all sides by the High Force, but without the spray, the wind, the noise, and the damp of a real waterfall.

As Harry, Hermione, and the rest of the Order of Merlin winners led everyone into the Hall, they were met by Hogwarts house-elves, who pressed what appeared to be plain white ceramic Venetian masks into each attendee's hands.

The Great Hall's sound system emitted a loud thumping noise.

Curious, Harry put the mask to his face and looked at Hermione through the eye holes. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, but heard Hermione give a little squee. She did the same, and a mask that had been pale and featureless now bore the face of a goblin.

A fanfare sounded, followed by another thump.

"What did you see that was so odd?" Harry asked Hermione.

"You … but in an armoured helmet like the suits near the trophy room," she told him matter-of-factly.

A second fanfare sounded, but they also heard a disturbance behind them. Harry and Hermione whirled around and saw Ron lying unconscious on the floor, with Cho kneeling on one side of him and Luna on the other. That caused considerable confusion.

Repeated fanfares blared, and the trumpet blasts began to merge into an electronic rhythm.

Instinctively, Hermione moved to help Ron, but Harry caught her by the arm and held her back. "Best let me," Harry told her. "Ron might not appreciate your help right now."

Hermione nodded. Harry was right.

"What happened?" Harry called out as he reached his downed friend.

"I don't know," wailed Cho. "We were having a lark with these masks and all of a sudden he sounded like he was being strangled. The next thing I know, he's limp on the floor. I didn't even touch him…."

"He's all right. He just fainted - from fright, I think," Luna remarked. She had one hand planted flat on his chest. All the eyes on her gown, and those on her earrings and necklace, seemed to be examining Ron.

Harry remembered Hermione telling him that Luna was an empath. Realisation dawned. He put his own mask in front of his face and asked Cho. "What do you see?"

"A shiny metal knight's helmet," she replied. "Why?"

"I don't know if Ron's told you, but he's had bad experiences with some pretty big spiders," Harry told Cho, whilst trying to avoid staring at her rather visible curvature. "He's deathly afraid of them. Look at me through your mask."

Still shaken, Cho complied. Harry saw the multiple eyes and clicking fangs of a large black spider. The fangs closely resembled the oddly shaped points on Cho's collar.

"That's what happened," Harry confirmed. "These are charmed. If he doesn't see you looking through it again, you both should be all right."

By then, Madame Pomfrey arrived and shooed Harry away. He returned straightaway to Hermione. She had started to sway with the compelling beat of the music.

"You look like you're ready to dance," Harry observed.

"And you look like you're ready to join me," Hermione countered.

They danced together, making up moves as they went along, for the remainder of that song. Towards the end, Hermione could not help commenting about how Harry was staring at her. "You're still thinking about it, aren't you?" she asked.

Harry warily replied, "Umm … I'm not sure what you mean."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure you do, Harry," she continued. "On this, I can read you like a book. You're still quite aware that I haven't any knickers."

"Guilty as charged," Harry confessed. "I just can't get that image out of my head. You should know that I'm not planning on letting anyone else near you."

Hermione went rational on him. "Now, Harry you know that we have to be sociable tonight, with all our Beauxbatons guests here."

"I suppose you're right, as usual," Harry grudgingly conceded, "but I get you for all the slow songs. I'm not keen on anybody else learning our little secret."

"Oh … fine then," Hermione let him have his way, even though - and probably because - he was being delightfully irrational. "But what are you going to do about it?"

"What?"

"Your obsession," Hermione specified. "We can't leave now, of course, because we're the centre of attention, and we'd be missed in an instant. But maybe later…."

"I'm on it," Harry grinned.

"Not yet, you're not," Hermione added suggestively.

Whilst they were talking, the initial song, which Lee identified as "Fanfare For The Common Man," as interpreted by the Muggle band Emerson, Lake and Palmer, finished playing itself out. They stayed on the floor for the next number, introduced as "another fast one." It was probably inevitable, but it turned out to be "Potter's Marauders." Harry was much too self-conscious to dance to that, and in any event it brought out Dean Thomas and the other break dancers, just as it did at Harry's birthday party. Before it was over, Harry and Hermione were looking for a place to sit.

Around the edge of the dance floor, save in front of the main entrance, were rows of round tables that sat four comfortably. Each had a Halloween-themed design. Hermione stopped at a first-row table that had bats fluttering in the tablecloth. Harry motioned that he wanted to move farther back, but she Legilimenced him, `Most of the Beauxbatons guests will want to drop by. It would be rude to everyone else to make them deal with our traffic.'

Harry gave her a crooked smile and said aloud, "All right. Might as well get it over and done with."

As the song ended, Lee Jordan announced, "That's a taste of what will come, but for the next half-hour, I'll be keeping it low and light whilst dinner is served."

At almost that same moment, Ginny appeared out of the dissipating crowd and plopped herself down at the same table as Harry and Hermione. Harry flinched as she did so, but only Ginny noticed. Her airs were just as aggravated as before the ball's start. The unfortunate Hufflepuff she had paired with was nowhere in evidence.

"Umm … where's this dinner going to be served?" Harry asked nobody in particular. The tables had no plates, silverware, or other utensils.

"If you want to find the food, I'd say follow Ron," Ginny remarked acidly.

Harry looked over the rapidly emptying dance floor and spotted Ron - sans the stuffed chimpanzee - striding purposefully towards the waterfall on what was ordinarily the Gryffindor side of the Great Hall. Effortlessly, he disappeared through the mirage of cascading water.

Ron was not alone. The food was evidently on the other side of the mirage.

"What do you think, Hermione?" Harry asked.

It was her turn to sigh, "All right." It was quite obvious that Harry would not let her out of his sight if he could possibly help it.

"Don't let anyone take our spots, okay, Gin?"

The Hogwarts and Beauxbatons house elves had set up a buffet in the three-metre wide space behind the faux waterfall that ran the length of the Great Hall. Half of the fare was British, and the other French. The French cuisine was gaining considerably more attention (much to the annoyance of the Hogwarts elves).

Ron took advantage of the shorter queue on the Hogwarts side to load up on pork pies, pigs in blankets, honey bread, treacle tarts, and jam doughnuts.

Harry guided Hermione towards the Beauxbatons offerings.

A short while later, the pair were back at their table with plates full of French bread, endive salad, cheese soufflé, filet mignon, escargot bouillabaisse (Hermione avoided telling Harry exactly what this was), congolais drenched in chocolate sauce, and because it was Halloween, pumpkin crêpes.

The buffet did not serve drinks, but a sign indicated that beverages were available on the opposite side of the Great Hall, near the staff entrance. By promising Harry that she would "stay right here," Hermione finally coaxed him to leave her side for a couple of minutes and go get something to quench their thirst without dragging her along.

It took Harry longer than would have liked. At least a half-dozen Beauxbatons students gravitated to shake his hand and try making small talk. Finally, he passed through the waterfall on the other side. Several Hogwarts house-elves were starting to fill a huge punchbowl. Beside them, a rather bored Beauxbatons elf (they all wore sky blue fluffy towels) tended a large selection of bottled drinks. In a hurry, Harry grabbed the first thing he recognised - a couple of bottles of "Limonade" - which he took to mean lemonade in French.

"Oh, Harry, this is excellent!" Hermione enthused when, after a similarly interrupted return journey, he returned to their table. "I don't know how you knew, but I fell in love with this stuff when I was in France a couple of years ago."

Harry was perplexed until he took a swig and realised that the stuff was hardly what he would call lemonade. "Luck, I guess … and maybe falling in love myself."

"Are you flirting with me?" she replied.

"I'm trying."

Behind them, unnoticed, Ginny suppressed a scowl.

Presciently, Hermione had placed a Warming Charm on Harry's dinner. Whilst they ate, the pair received a steady stream of French-speaking well-wishers. Harry and Hermione made small talk - in French - and they both politely declined invitations to dance.

Ginny had no such compunctions, and assiduously sought to fill her dance card. Still she was not pleased. Mostly she was taking Hermione's leavings - a new experience for her. Ginny had no idea how that girl's clothing had transformed from the stodgy dress Hermione had worn in the Gryffindor dormitory to the sleek, borderline risqué serpent-skin gown she now had on.

For the first time in her life, Ginny was jealous of Hermione's appearance.

In due course mealtime concluded and "Magic" Lee Jordan began cranking up the volume again. Fortunately for Harry's psyche, Lee was prone to letting his audience know in advance whether the upcoming number was a "rocker" or "something for boogying down," on the one hand, or was "bluesy" or would "slow the pace down," on the other. The former outnumbered the latter by a little less than two to one.

Although professing exasperation with Harry's "obsessiveness," Hermione was content to abide their agreement about the music. Thus, she saved all the slower "touch" songs for Harry. In short order, she was glad she did. Most of Harry's other dance partners were star-struck French girls inclined to ask him for an autograph (one actually did, much to Harry's dismay) - precisely the type he would ignore even if they stripped starkers in front of him. But every now and then bigger game was afoot.

Thus, the arrangement suited Hermione just fine when, less than half an hour into the dance portion of the evening, Fleur flounced over in her dazzling puffy white "good witch" outfit - all sparkling silver lamé and white lace in just the right places (and extremely low cut as well). Eyeing Hermione's dress, she asked, "Versace?"

"No, goblin," Hermione answered equally succinctly.

Fleur gave her a "you can't be serious" look and returned to her primary purpose, which was asking Harry to dance.

Hermione found it far preferable for Harry and Fleur to dance to "Police on My Back," with the waterfalls around the hall blue and flashing.

That meant Hermione got her next turn when the waterfalls turned gauzy pastel sunset colours during the Shondells' "Crimson and Clover," which followed.

Likewise, Hermione's blood pressure stayed in double digits when, shortly thereafter, Daphne Greengrass sought out Harry. The willowy Slytherin showed up resplendent in a skeleton costume that was anything but skeletal - drawing far too much attention (in Hermione's opinion) to regions near the sternum and pelvis. That Daphne drew "Whole Lotta Love" (drum solo and all), rather than the next song, "Stirring the Cauldron of Love," struck Hermione as entirely appropriate.

Hermione much preferred her waterfalls glowing aquamarine than strobing intense scarlet, and she suspected that Daphne would have too.

It was her droit de seigness.

The upshot was that Harry found himself on his feet most of the time. He danced with Hermione during the slow songs, and some of the faster ones if nobody else had queued up. Other admirers, taking their turns, kept him busy most of the rest of the time.

Although hardly as active as Harry, Hermione did not lack for attention. When she consented to dance with another, however, Harry never seemed to be very far away. Obsessed he was, and obsessed he would remain.

Ginny sat with them, or more precisely with their chairs, most of the evening. With no date of her own, she was much less active. She did dance occasionally, mostly with Beauxbatons boys, at the beginning. But as the evening progressed, she grew progressively more morose and sullen - which tended to deter would-be partners. Ginny was all dressed up with no place to go, and felt it.

Hermione noticed how Ginny watched her and Harry on the dance floor. Always the clever one, she deduced why Ginny was acting as she was. Harry gave no clue if he was aware of anything at all amiss. If anything, he seemed to be ignoring Ginny to the maximum extent possible.

After dancing to "Vogue," the pair called a time out. Staying away from the crowd around the now operational punchbowl, Harry and Hermione helped themselves to the last three bottles of Limonade.

They had barely started quenching their thirst after their return when Luna arrived to occupy in the one remaining empty chair. "So where's your date now?" Ginny asked Luna whilst nursing a Butterbeer.

"Oh, I suppose he found other things to do than dance with me," Luna shrugged, unnerving Ginny just a bit with all the staring eyes. "He wasn't very mature, as it turned out. But then, maybe I'm not either…."

Harry wondered if "immature" was how Parvati viewed him at the Yule Ball, but he was not afforded any time to sit back and muse.

Luna was staring at Hermione, transparently eager to talk about something, but unwilling to speak in the presence of either a Weasley or a boy - Hermione was not sure which.

Hermione brokered the obvious solution. `Harry,' she Legilimenced, `why don't you go dance with Ginny? She's been waiting for you ask all evening.'

Harry's face flushed at Hermione's suggestion. He had, after all, been studiously avoiding Ginny, not just during the ball, but ever since encountering a monster in his own chest that day on the Quidditch pitch.

`Go ahead, Harry,' Hermione persisted. `I think Luna wants to speak with me - alone.'

Harry gulped. He knew he had been unfair to Ginny. Those were his improper feelings, after all. Waiting until hearing Lee preface the next song as "a light, snappy number," he turned to Ginny and asked, "Er … would you like to dance?"

Just like that, Ginny's eyes lit up. By the time the first few notes of the "decades old but still groovy" (Lee Jordan's description) Eurovision winner "Waterloo" were wafting over the dance floor. The surrounding waterfalls were alight with the French tricolour. Most importantly, Hermione and Luna were alone.

Luna leaned into Hermione and whispered, "Did you see Cho's outfit?"

"How could I not?" Hermione replied. "More importantly, though, did you recognise it?"

"How could I not?" Luna echoed. "That's sort of what I wanted to talk about. I saw how Harry stopped you from assisting Ronald when he fainted. You and he … you're not on speaking terms right now, are you?"

"No, we're not," Hermione hissed at the mention of that painful subject. "Now, what do you want?"

"It's about that, actually," Luna continued. "I want to apologise."

"You have nothing to apologise for," Hermione said dismissively. "It's Ronald's fault."

"I don't think it is," Luna confessed. "I think it's mine."

Luna proceeded to tell Hermione how she had grown increasingly aggravated about Cho's extracurricular activities whilst investigating her fellow Ravenclaw's tattoos at Hermione's request. By the time Luna's mission was accomplished, in a fit of pique she deliberately left an incriminating photograph under Cho's pillow as "a shot across her overdeveloped bow."

Once she deciphered the timing, Hermione realised that Luna's nasty little prank must have been the intimidation incident Ron had blamed on her. Not knowing, she had informed Ron that he was mental; Ron had done worse; and the Ron-Hermione Cold War had begun.

Meanwhile, Harry was pleasantly surprised that, whilst dancing with the now quite reanimated Ginny, his disquieting urges from before had not recurred.

Ginny was a very smooth and enthusiastic dancer.

In practically no time, Napoleon had surrendered and the song was over.

Both of them could see Hermione and Luna still deep in conversation.

"They're still at it," Ginny announced enthusiastically. "How about another?"

"Umm…."

Harry hesitated until he heard Lee Jordan announce "another number to get you all hot and sweaty."

"…Okay."

Ginny really knew how to dance. Harry had learnt a few things over the summer, but when the girl with the long red hair started gyrating to the chorus of J. Geils "Flamethrower," he had to admit he was beat. In his opinion, Neville had no idea what he was missing - however much he was needed at home.

In due time, even "Flamethrower" flamed out.

"Let's get something to drink, I'm parched," she declared. Taking his hand, Ginny guided him through the waterfall near to where he recently obtained that Limonade he never had the chance to finish.

The grand scrum around the punchbowl persisted. "You wait here," Ginny told Harry. "I'll get us both something to drink. I've plenty of experience at this, with six brothers." Leaving Harry at the other end of the table, Ginny waded into the thirsty crowd.

Harry heard Lee crank up another fast song. He ducked his head through the imaginary waterfall that was flashing red and green to the beat of the Weird Sisters' "Battle of Avalon" and ascertained that Hermione and Luna were still talking.

He ascertained that nobody else had asked Hermione to dance.

Turning around, he nearly collided with Cormac McLaggen - wearing Viking robes and a horned helmet - who was hurrying back to wherever he came from with several glasses of punch. As Harry tried to steady himself, his left foot slid under the tartan-patterned tablecloth and knocked over something hollow. He regained his balance in time to see an empty bottle roll out the far end of the table.

Because the bottle bore a Weasley Wizard Wheezes logo, Harry picked it up. Its label read, "Sweet Sixteen Additive - Extra-Jumbo Size." Harry shook his head. He had learnt from the horse's mouth (George's) exactly what that stuff was intended to do. Knowing the Twins, Harry had no doubt it would do that job very well.

It would affect him, because he was of age, but not Ginny.

After Eliza died, he had promised himself never to let his guard down that way again.

Scowling, he flung the bottle into a nearby bin.

Smiling, but looking a little flustered, Ginny eventually reemerged holding two large glasses of bright red punch. Confronted with Harry's unhappy expression, she hesitated briefly, but then offered him the glass in her right hand. "Here, Harry, drink up. You must be parched. I know I am after dancing like that."

Harry took the glass reluctantly. "Umm … I'm not really all that thirsty after all."

Now Ginny looked surprised. "But you said you were…. And I went to all that trouble. Go ahead, drink up and we can have another dance. It's perfectly all right." She ostentatiously took a huge gulp from her own glass.

Harry felt guilty about her having braved that throng for naught, but a promise was a promise. A gap in the crowd opened as Moose Montague, dressed as some sort of medieval warlock, pushed his way out. "I don't think so. Sorry, Ginny." With Seeker's reflexes, he dodged several steps to the punch bowl and emptied his untouched cup into it.

Ginny looked so badly disappointed, that when she muttered, "Well, at least I hope I've earned another dance for my trouble," Harry readily agreed.

He got more than he bargained for. Harry had missed Lee's introduction whilst darting for the punch bowl. Now he found himself dancing with Ginny to Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" - precisely the sort of slow song he had been saving for Hermione all evening.

Ginny's arms slithered around Harry's neck and she started swaying to the music. Reluctantly and awkwardly, Harry placed his hands woodenly on Ginny's waist. He started dancing in a manner that even Al Gore would have ridiculed as too stiff.

After a couple of minutes Ginny gave up in disgust. "You're not dancing, Harry," she rebuked. "You're holding me like I'm a ticking time bomb, not like I'm one of your best friends. What makes me so repulsive to you?"

Seeing Ginny before him, angry and hurt, made Harry lower his head in shame.

She was absolutely right.

For over a week he had deliberately shut Ginny out. It was his fault, not hers, for the impure thoughts he had entertained about her. What had she done - except get knocked off her broom? She had not even been conscious. Come to think of it, he really ought to apologise….

"Umm … Ginny, you're right," Harry struggled to explain. "It's not you, it's … well, me."

Ginny went from furious to curious in less time than it took Harry to form a coherent sentence. She looked at him like his hair had suddenly turned blue.

"I didn't mean … er … to make you feel left out, or anything…. It's just that I don't trust … umm … me…." Harry was not doing very well, and he knew it.

"Harry, you're not making any sense," Ginny replied impatiently.

"That's because I'm not," Harry had to agree. He paused to regroup. "Oh, hell," he snorted, grabbing her hand. "Come with me."

He half led, half dragged her to the end wall of the Great Hall, where the staff table was ordinarily located.

"Where are we going?" Ginny protested.

"Someplace private," Harry replied. "I need to explain myself."

They passed through the illusory waterfall just as it began to change colour for the next song. This part was deserted.

"Look, Ginny, I…."

"All right, yeh two, there'll be no snoggin' back here!" barked a harsh, but familiar voice from Harry's right. He jumped back from Ginny, turned, and saw Mad-Eye Moody staring at him with his oscillating magical eye. The old Auror occupied a chair in front of a doorway that Harry knew well.

"Mad-Eye!" Harry exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"Iff'n it ain't me ward Harry Potter," Moody replied, training both eyes on Harry. "I could be asking yeh the same question…. An is that…?"

Moody just registered that Harry was with a girl other than Hermione.

"Merlin's bollocks! Jes what in blazes do yeh think yeh're doing?"

Ginny caught the implied premise of Moody's question before Harry did. "He's not doing a bloody thing," she declared. "He just wanted somewhere private to talk."

Moody looked suspiciously at them both. But then, Moody was a naturally suspicious person. "All right, then, talk. But don't try going where I can't see yeh…."

"Yes … Dad," Harry replied huffily.

"And no snoggin'," Moody repeated pointedly.

Harry led Ginny along the wall until he thought he was beyond his guardian's earshot.

"Ginny, I don't want you thinking that you're disgusting, or that I think you are," Harry began. "It's my problem, not yours."

"And just what problem is that?" Ginny asked, regarding him almost as cautiously as Moody had.

"It's just…. Well, you remember that Quidditch practice when you were knocked unconscious?" Harry asked.

That question got Ginny's full attention. "I remember the practice, but I don't remember when I was unconscious - because I was unconscious," Ginny answered snarkily.

"Well, umm … I didn't exactly ask that right, but what I'm trying to say is that, I caught you when you fell off your broom, and…." His voice trailed off.

Ginny had already believed that her Lust Powder worked. At that moment she knew for sure - a critical bit of information as she pondered her next move.

"And what, Harry?" she prompted, with as innocent an expression as she could muster under the circumstances.

"And … well … after I caught you, I couldn't help myself," he explained as his brain seemed to go fuzzy on him. "You were so close, and I started having … improper thoughts about you."

"Oh, really?" she gasped, feigning innocence.

"Please, I wouldn't lie about something like that," Harry went on.

"So that's why you've been avoiding me like the plague ever since?" Ginny asked. "Because you're afraid you'll want to snog me?"

"I'm sorry about all this, but you're right," Harry admitted. "I'm afraid I haven't been a very good friend and all…."

"Don't be sorry, Harry," Ginny told him, cranking up her warmest smile. "Well, now that you've gathered the nerve to tell me this, what do you want to do about it?"

"Do about what?" Harry echoed. He had expected Ginny to be offended, but she hardly seemed that.

He was even more befuddled when she took his hand. "Us," she said slowly, her eyes demurely downcast. "I don't think your feelings were at all improper, and I thought you might like to go somewhere a little more private and, well, explore them further…."

She moved very close to him. Harry felt like he'd just had a wardrobe malfunction - that the cooling charm on his chain mail armour had stopped working.

"But Ginny … you're … Neville. And I'm…."

"In case you haven't noticed, Neville's not here right now," she said breathily putting her other hand on the red and yellow lacquered lions on his chest. "And you are…."

By now her eyes had raised and bore into his. Somewhere in Harry's fevered brain came the realisation that, unless he did something in the next few seconds, he would find himself violating his guardian's last directive to him.

Stammering, he pulled himself out of Ginny's clutches. "No, Gin. I can't … I won't do this. I've pro… promised Hermione, and, well, I love her. And you're with … won't betray Neville. All I wanted to do was apologise … don't want to lead you on…. Well, bye…."

Harry turned on his heel and positively fled through the glowing torrent, putting as much distance between them as quickly as he possibly could without calling undue attention to himself.

Her face a mask of fury and frustration, Ginny emerged soon after. Her roll of the dice had backfired and backfired badly. The sum of her romantic experience to that moment had taught her one thing - all men (maybe even Neville) were sluts. Now she had found at least one exception to that rule.

And her rotten luck was that this one exception just happened to be the man she had always wanted most.

Ginny kicked her foot bitterly at the floor. She was not just back to square zero - she was back to ground zero, with all her plans reduced to rubble.

"I had such high hopes for you when you went in there," a familiar voice hissed into her ear.

Agitated, Ginny turned towards the voice, but jumped back when she found herself face to face with a looming Dementor. "Malfoy, don't do that again," she warned.

"Couldn't resist," he drawled. "So what happened this time with the Great Git?"

"He wanted to apologise to me for his supposedly `improper' feelings - and that's bloody all. I thought at first he was trying to gauge my interest. Fat chance. Slughorn would sooner fit through the eye of a needle…."

"Well, at least you know that the stuff works," Draco observed, trying to lift her rather depressed spirits.

"I think your definition of `works' is rather different from mine," she replied forlornly.

"Well, I warned you that it was a bit of a blunt instrument," Draco reminded. "You didn't believe me."

"Yeah, yeah, rub it in," Ginny groaned, no longer even trying to resist his snide remarks. "I suppose this is probably curtains for me. I can only hope Harry has the grace not to tell Neville…."

From the depths of his Dementor costume, Malfoy gulped. This was not good. Not good at all. If the Weasley girl threw in the towel, he would suffer grave setback - one that just might knock the entire mission he had been assigned into a cocked hat.

Failure would have catastrophic consequences.

Unbeknownst to Ginny, Malfoy pulled out his wand and tapped it once against a talisman he kept with him at all times he might possibly meet the redheaded girl.

"…I mean what's the use. I've only embarrassed myself…."

Then her voice hitched just a bit. At that same moment, Malfoy (watching intently) saw a ruddy something briefly flash through - or perhaps it was behind - the girl's eyes. If not looking specifically for it, he surely would have missed it entirely.

"So, I've something I want to show you at our next Potions tutoring session," she told him. "I'm sick and tired of blunt instruments…."

Malfoy relaxed. He could breath easy again. He had salvaged the situation - with the antithesis of a blunt instrument.

But at the same time, she aroused his curiosity. "And just what could you possibly have that you would want to show me about Potions?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out when I deign to tell you," she shot back.

"All right then," Malfoy retreated - although genuinely fascinated with what the mystery item might be. "And now I think we should try Plan B."

"And just what is that?" Ginny demanded.

Malfoy whispered one word in her ear. "Jealousy."

"That - I'm quite familiar with," Ginny allowed, feeling sorry for herself again. "There's nothing like crazed jealousy to clear the mind."

"Your words, Red, not mine," Draco replied mysteriously. "Well, it's time for the Git Who Lived to get jealous of you, rather than the other way around."

"Okay, how?" Ginny put the penny in the slot.

"May I have this dance?" Malfoy responded. He had to do it, although the thought of touching a Weasley (other than in anger) made Draco's skin crawl.

For his part, Harry had gone storming across the dance floor practically blinded by fierce emotions - shock, disbelief, and embarrassment chief amongst them. All he wanted was to apologise, and then Ginny made a most blatant pass at him…. She had been going to snog him…. She tried to get him to cheat on Hermione. Hermione! What could he possibly tell her…?

Then, just like that, her voice was in her head. `Don't do anything, Harry. I can handle this myself.'

Harry stopped in his tracks and, for the first time since emerging from behind the waterfall, took in his surroundings. Slow, soft music was playing, and Celine Dion was crooning in the background. The surrounding waterfall images had dimmed to almost as deep a purple as his cape.

There, on the dance floor, Hermione was with some bloke he did not recognise.

Brought up short by Hermione's Legilimenced command, Harry could only stare as that man's hand, which started at her waist - her bare waist - gradually drifted lower.

All night he had feared that exactly this would happen, and in a moment of weakness he had allowed Ginny to distract him. It would not be long now.

Harry wondered if he should just find somewhere to hide. If he had to stand there and watch much longer, he would spontaneously combust in agony and impotent rage. Nothing would be left of him but a pile of cinders for the house-elves to sweep into the dustbin.

But as to the combustion bit, Hermione got there first.

A crackling yellow glow flared about the offending fingers. As if slapped, they withdrew to a more legitimate (or as Harry viewed it, a less illegitimate) location.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. Hermione had been as good as her word.

Still, his glaring eyes did not leave the pair as he made his way to their table.

The song ended and Hermione made a point of bringing the not-so-gentleman to their table. Harry bit his tongue. "Harry, I'd like you to meet Guillaume Ménière. He's préfet en chef at Beauxbatons. That's their equivalent of Head Boy."

Gritting his teeth, Harry shook hands. After all, this evening he was supposed to cement alliances, not cause international incidents. "Glad to meet you," Harry lied, a faked grin clinging precariously to his face. "I'm Harry Potter, Hermione's boyfriend," he added pointedly, as he ostentatiously slipped his other arm around her waist.

The tense conversation did not last long, and the Ménière boy took his leave. "You look rather peckish all of a sudden," she remarked. "What happened to Ginny?"

"I got tired of dancing with her," Harry said truthfully enough. "I left her somewhere out on the dance floor."

"So would you like to dance some more with me?" Hermione helpfully suggested. Although she knew he would say yes, she was still full of nervous anticipation.

She was ready for the ball to be over - more than ready.

Harry nodded. "I never get tired of you," he affirmed as she slid under his arm. Together they slinked back to the dance floor as Lee Jordan teed up "Syncopated Sorcery." As they broke apart to face each other, Hermione produced her wand, lit it with pure white sparkling light, and held it over her head. Then she put it away.

"What was that for?" Harry inquired.

"You'll see," she said mysteriously.

At the end of the song, Harry started for the tables, but Hermione held him back. The next number would be a slow song, Lee announced. Momentarily, the teased opening guitar notes of "Something" sprung from the sound system.

"They're playing our song," Harry observed, "and you told them to, didn't you?"

Hermione nodded. "He owed me one," she said. She put both arms around his neck and whispered in his ear, "Do have your Invisibility Cloak?"

"Always," he whispered back. "That and the Map."

"You'll be needing both," she informed him as she began rocking back and forth in time to the Beatles' melody.

Harry reached for her hips, but Hermione requested, "First, throw the Cloak over us."

Harry's expression changed to one of intrigue. He did as told, but when he started fussing with the Cloak, which did not cover anywhere near all of them, she told him to "leave it."

"What now, then?" he asked curiously.

"This," Hermione purred as she brought her lips to his.

Harry forgot about the world beyond the Cloak as she flicked her tongue around his lips and teeth. Who cared if people could see their feet, anyway? Feet were greatly overrated. His arms started for her hips again. This time she encouraged him.

"…Somewhere in her smile, she knows. That I don't need no other lover…."

Suitably encouraged, he slipped his arms inside the elastic bands surrounding her exposed midriff. His hands went around, then down, and soon he was massaging her bum whilst their kisses grew more and more feverish.

Finally she broke it. Breathily she gasped, "Merlin, Harry, please don't ask…. Because I'd probably let you…."

"You mean, right here?" Harry asked. "Don't worry, I wouldn't. Mad-Eye's around somewhere."

"What does your guardian have to do with anything?" Hermione asked. She was still close enough that Harry could feel her words as well as hear them.

"His magical eye can see through this Cloak," Harry said.

That was a mood changer. Harry had never mentioned this tidbit - acquired two years ago through first-hand experience - to her before. "You're sure about that?" she asked.

"Positive," Harry replied.

"Damn. Well maybe there's another way out," Hermione snipped. Her mental wheels beginning to turn, she lost interest in making out … for the moment.

"You want out?" Harry wondered.

"I want to sneak out of here with you, precisely," Hermione made herself clear. "I might not obsess like you, but all this business about my knickers - or lack of them - has made me so randy I can hardly see straight. How about you, Mister Potter?"

He chuckled. "You really have to ask? Hermione, for most of this stupid ball, every time I've looked at you.… No knickers…. Well, I could bloody well pound nails without a hammer. You can check if you'd like."

"I'll check later…. I believe you. Let's see that Map of yours, then," she prompted.

He did not have to be asked twice. Since the song was over, they made their way back to their now unoccupied table, still partially covered by the Cloak. With alacrity, Harry produced the Map from the same pocket that had held the Cloak, said the incantation that activated it, and started taking a census.

"Dumbledore's back in his office," Harry pointed out. "That's good, because he might be able to see through the Cloak, too. Let's see … in the staff quarters I see, Trelawney, Vector, Sinistra, and Hooch. No real surprises there. I've never thought of them as up for this sort of thing."

"And there's Mad-Eye," Hermione added, "guarding the right hand exit, and Asimov's on the left. Where's Hagrid? I haven't seen him since the ball started."

Harry turned a couple of folds in the map. "There he is, in his hut…. And he's not alone…."

"Oh, my," Hermione snickered. "To think how scandalised her students would be if they knew."

"Anyway, I don't think we need worry about either of them any time soon," Harry agreed, turning the map back to the more immediate vicinity. "Let's see, Professor McGonagall and Flitwick are…."

"Harry, I was thinking, with Professor Sinistra in her quarters … what's the Astronomy Tower look like?" Hermione wondered.

"Good idea," Harry agreed, flipping the Map. "Nope, not so good an idea," he quickly added after consulting the relevant portion. "Mannock's up there."

More flipping.

"Damn, and Sprout's stationed in the corridor outside the Room of Requirement," Harry pointed out.

"That'd be too clichéd, anyway," Hermione observed. "How about the Prefect's Bathroom?"

More flipping.

"Looks like our noble Head Boy has beaten us to it," Harry recounted. "Along with somebody named Cécile Trousseau. Do you want to dock him points?"

"No," Hermione replied, giving no indication she'd understood he was joking. "I just want to be doing the same thing with you as soon as possible."

"Well, Tonks is over there watching the elves' entrance, and Slughorn's in the Ceremonial Library, with a lot of folks with French names…."

"That must be where the portal to Beauxbatons is located," Hermione surmised. "So, what do you think?"

Harry was pessimistic. "Unless we can somehow magically summon the Twins and have them set off a load of Dungbombs for a diversion, I don't think we're likely to get very far. Dumbledore's been thorough. He's got all the exits covered - and I saw Filch and Firenze … talk about an odd pairing … patrolling the grounds."

Hermione's shoulders sank as she muttered, "darn it."

"Can't hurt to ask then, can it?" Harry mused aloud.

"Ask whom about what?" Hermione asked.

"Mad-Eye, most likely - that is, unless you think Tonks is a better bet," Harry went on. "They're not staff. We've got nothing to lose by being honest, so why not just ask one of them to let us out? The worst they can do is say no."

"Just what are you planning on telling Mad-Eye that we're going to do, Mister Truthful?" Hermione asked pointedly.

Harry thought a bit. It would be rather touchy despite - and indeed, because of - Mad-Eye being his guardian. "As little as possible," he replied, "but as much as necessary."

"Oh, very well. I don't have a better idea, and if I don't get to have my way with you soon, I may well go mental," Hermione told him bluntly. "Just … let me wait outside, okay? I'd really rather not hear what you're going to say." She gave him a quick kiss.

"Right," he agreed. He needed no more urging.

Harry checked the Map and verified Mad-Eye's location. Then he carefully closed it up. He pulled the Invisibility Cloak off them both and uttered a charm that made it fold itself away. Rising to his feet, he nodded to Hermione and gently took her hand. The look in his eyes said it all. Hermione would follow him anywhere.

Ignoring the dance music - and the dancers all about them - the pair crossed the Great Hall. Harry dropped her hand just before the threshold of the waterfall mirage.

"Wish me luck," he said.

"I wish us both luck," she replied. Then she added, "Right about now, don't you wish we'd stopped Ron from using that bloody book?"

Harry snickered, nodded, and ducked through the waterfall.

"Back again, Potter?" Mad-Eye queried the moment Harry came into view. Leaning back in his plain metal folding chair, the aged wizard looked not the least bit surprised to see Harry.

Because he was not.

"And yeh've the Granger girl waitin' right outside," Mad-Eye continued, his magical, unnaturally blue eye whirling in its socket. "A right better choice than last time."

Mad-Eye's knowledge threw Harry for a loop. His carefully cultivated sang froid evaporated.

"I … umm … wanted to ask for your help … er … no, your permission…."

"Ta do what?" the ex-Auror asked with arched eyebrows (what were left of them).

"Well, I … er … no, Hermione and I, we…. Well, we'd like to be … umm … together, and we don't think that we can unless you allow it…."

"Yer awfully young, Potter … Harry, the both of yeh. Am I ta understand that you're asking me ta let yeh…?"

A bright blue something flashed in Mad-Eye's ear.

"Merlin's balls!" the old man yelped as he leapt to his feet - well, foot, to be precise. "A fight on the dance floor!"

Moody brandished his wand.

As the one-legged Auror stumped past Harry, he turned and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "If'n I had my druthers, I'd chat with yeh more `bout this. Yer young and it's a big step. But yeh've my blessin' no matter what yeh do. Better yer way than mine…."

Once Mad-Eye left, Harry poked his head through the waterfall and waved frantically for Hermione to come.

She was wide-eyed with interest. "What happened?" she asked. "Mad-Eye ran off…."

"He has to go break up a fight," Harry told her, his voice transparently gleeful. "But he said it was okay."

"So that's what all that racket is. You told him, then?" she continued. "I still have a hard time believing…."

"Yeah, he knew," Harry declared. "Now let's go before somebody else comes along." They left the Masked Ball behind under cover of a cacophonous dancehall brawl mixed with the raucous chorus to "You Shook Me All Night Long."

He hoped they could live up to that song.

Hand in hand, they rushed through the back room where, two years before, Harry had faced down the first wave of detractors after his name came out of the Goblet of Fire. In no time they reached the back hallway.

Needing no prompting, Harry whipped out the Marauders' Map once again.

"Now let's see, where to…? What the Hell is going on over there?" Harry exclaimed, barely able to believe what the Map was showing.

Hermione was looking over his shoulder. "It looks like a mass break out. There are Lavender and Jim, and Romilda and Rodney, and Mandy and Justin…."

"Forget them," Harry cut across her and pointed to the Map. "All the staff's headed over that way…." Tracing his finger along one of the corridors, he explained. "That means if we go this way, we're free."

She gave him a squeeze in the backside. "Well, what are you waiting for?"

Throwing the Invisibility Cloak over themselves, they trotted off in the indicated direction. Down one hall, through an interconnected room, out a second corridor, and up a stairway that shifted whilst they were on it, they soon found their way to one of the Castle's interior courtyards.

"I know where we should go," Hermione declared, and she brought them both to a halt. "If only I can remember how to get there…." Holding Harry close, she took a good look at the Map. "This way!"

Under the Cloak, the two burst diagonally across the courtyard. In front of them, looming darkly overhead, soared the North Tower. About half-way across, Hermione said breathlessly to Harry, "Wait a second."

"Why? Somebody might see us out here in the open," Harry complained.

"I promised you that I'd show you something," she mentioned.

Harry smiled at her. "Let's get back inside. Then you can show me everything."

Ignoring the innuendo, she answered, "This will only take an instant." Hermione pulled on one side of the Cloak so that it came off their heads. She wrapped it around them tightly in the autumnal chill.

With one arm around Harry's shoulders Hermione pointed the other towards the heavens. "There," she said triumphantly, "passing from Perseus and stretching through Auriga. That's it."

Harry had to admire the diffuse, softly glowing streak. "So that's your discovery? I've never seen a comet before, meteors, yes, but never one of those. What's it called again?"

"Well, technically it's known as Comet C/1996S1, but everybody calls it Granger-Shoemaker," she said proudly. "It's at magnitude 2.3, and that's about as bright as it'll get, since its perigee - when it was closest to us - was just yesterday."

"Remarkable…." Harry murmured. His voice trailed off as he contemplated Hermione's heavenly discovery.

"Not really," Hermione explained. "Several dozen new comets are discovered every year. Shoemaker alone has discovered quite a few…."

Harry talked over her. "No, you're remarkable…."

They gazed in silence at the comet Hermione had found for a few more moments, until Harry could no longer resist nibbling on her neck. He gave into temptation, Hermione responded in kind, and in no time they were kissing - nothing but their heads visible to anyone who might have been looking.

Thankfully, nobody was.

"Up … upstairs," Hermione moaned as she broke their kiss. "Then we can do anything we want."

Pulling the Invisibility Cloak back over them, they reentered the Castle almost directly beneath the tower.

Harry tried to study the Map.

"Now, up six floors," Hermione instructed, as she began bounding up the first stair case. Harry leapt on after her, as it started to pivot to the right.

She could not see it, but Harry gave her a very suggestive look. "Are we headed where I think we're going?"

"That depends on where you think we're going," she called over her shoulder.

"Someplace you didn't like very much before, I'd reckon," he suggested.

"Right you are," she said jauntily as they reached the top of that stairway and headed for the next. "I'm hoping to have happier memories once we've used it for what's most definitely not its intended purpose. Oh yes, and that's worth ten points for assisting a Prefect."

"You can be such a wench," Harry replied.

"What can I say? You bring out the best in me," she shot back at him.

In due course they reached the sixth floor. They entered a familiar room, where they saw a familiar ladder leading to a familiar trapdoor. Catching her breath before their last climb, Hermione told Harry, "We don't want anybody thinking we've been taken again. I'm going to send a Patronus to Tonks telling her not to worry. I think you should do the same to Mad-Eye."

"Good idea."

For once, neither of them had any trouble finding a happy enough thought to conjure a Patronus.

That done, Hermione flipped out her wand from its wrist holster, pointed it at her hips and muttered, "Finite,"

Harry threw her a questioning look. "You haven't changed your mind about having children already, have you?"

"Oh, no!" Hermione answered in a startled voice. "Nothing like that. I just ended the spell I'd put on this gown. You don't think I was just trusting to chance all evening, do you?"

"I don't know what I was thinking," Harry told her truthfully. "All I could think about was how bare you were under there around your tender bits. That's what I kept seeing all night long."

"Well, I'll have you know that, as soon as we got situated, I performed a Proximity Sticking Charm. That kept this gown from ever going more than ten centimetres away from me. Didn't you notice that, even when I twirled, my gown never rode up at all?"

"Truthfully, no," he admitted. "I was too busy imagining your bits."

Almost squirming in anticipation, Hermione brought one hand to his face and whispered, "Ending my spell means you don't have to imagine any more. Let's go. I think you'll find everything quite to your liking."

Giving him a kiss that was more like a lick, Hermione lit her wand and started up the ladder to the Divination classroom.

Harry did the same. Looking up as he followed close behind, he no longer had to imagine anything.

Pulling her head and shoulders through the trapdoor, Hermione gazed into the darkened classroom. Everything in the circular room was just as she had remembered it - the sweet-smelling odours, the squashy armchairs, and especially the pouffes.

Brandishing her wand, Hermione paused. For a moment she shivered with delightful sensations as Harry's arms reached around her from beneath. "Circe, it's about time," she muttered before incanting, "Accio pouffes," followed almost immediately by, "Accio cushions."

She felt the soft wetness of Harry's tongue on the insides of her thighs. "Let me go, just for a moment," she begged him. "Then I promise I won't ask you to stop again."

All she heard back was, "Mmmmmmmmm" - but he did release his grip.

Almost mad with lust, Hermione clambered through the trapdoor and practically flung herself, face first, into the pile of cushions and pouffes she had created. Quivering with anticipation she flipped up the back of her gown all the way to the top of the slits on each side.

As he pulled himself through the trap door, Harry heard her muffled call, "Please, Harry, just get over here and do it! I need you so badly, I'm aching…."

Harry could not help but smile.

* * * *

Far below, in another part of the Castle, Mad-Eye Moody was putting his magical eye to good use, rousting the last escapees of the mass student breakout from their hiding places. He had been so occupied for quite some time. He had not finished pulling the two fighting boys off of one another when that breakout happened. Indeed, if Mad-Eye had not known the two fight participants so well, he might have thought the entire thing had been staged as a diversion.

"All right, yeh two," Mad-Eye's battered face growled roughly at this latest terrified pair. "Get yerselves decent and get out of there, and yeh'll get off with only detentions."

Just then, a streak of white sought him out and in the next instant disappeared inside his body.

He heard Harry's voice, "Mad-Eye, this is Harry. I'm with Hermione. We're safe, and somewhere inside the Castle. If you need to tell people this, you can, but please don't go looking for us."

Moody's ravaged old face softened into a smile. `I guess that means that she said `yes',' he thought to himself. "Good fer the both of `em."

* * * *

Author's notes: See Raquel Welch's two-piece fur outfit in "One Million Years BC"

Hindu mythology is accurate

Marona and Avalon are the "missing" Gryffindor girls, Marona had the rattlesnake boggart in PoA

Jauterita is accurately described

Marona is a composite crossover with Jean Auel's "Shelters of Stone"

Hermione's evanescing lingere disappeared in Chapter 53

The golden anthurium flower appeared in Chapter 20

Tarzan was lord of Greystoke

In one way, Ginny is prophetic

The "don't plan to be wearing it very long" line is by Mae Mordabito in "A League of Their Own"

Baldrics, frogs, and other broadsword equipment appeared in Chapter 14

Mobius strips have unusual properties making them hard to disentangle

Of all flags, Spain's best presents the Gryffindor color scheme

The "S" reference was to Superman

In medieval times, when chain mail was used, Damascus made the best steel

Harry's map statement parallels the American Express slogan

The contents of the Vatican letter will be revealed soon

The Isadora reference is to a similar situation in Erica Jong's "Fear of Flying." If it seems that Hermione didn't try too hard to replace her knickers, that's true

The chimp represents Cheeta

The eyes on Luna's ankles are a nod to Lemony Snickett

Luna's date went as Jason, with a Golden Fleece

Julian Haldane combines Julian Huxley and J.B.S. Haldane, British scientists

Good Queen Bess is Queen Elizabeth I

Fleur's dressed as Glinda the Good Witch

I believe High Force is the largest British waterfall

"Fanfare for the Common Man" is by Aaron Copland, and covered by ELP

Potter's Marauders appeared in Chapter 22

Head-to-head, French cuisine beats British every time

"Droit de seigness" is a play on droit de seigneur

Partially identified songs: "Police on My Back" by the Clash; "Nottingham Lace" by Buckethead; "Vogue" by Madonna; "Waterloo" by ABBA; "Power of Love" by Celine Dion; "You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC

Sweet Sixteen Additive appeared in Chapter 52; Harry will regret his curiosity

As Vice President, Al Gore was noted for extremely impassivity

The "eye of a needle" phrase is biblical and usually refers to camels

The "cocked hat" phrase comes from a difficult pin position in nine-pin bowling

What Ginny will show Malfoy is more interesting than she knows

"Crazed jealosy to clear the mind," comes from a line from "My Best Friend's Wedding"

I took the name "Ménière" from a medical condition

In this pre-DH fic, I created Arthur C. Asimov as Muggle Studies professor, see Chapter 11

Hagrid is, of course, with Madame Maxim

This Mannock appeared in Chapter 32

The "bloody book" comment is about Ron winning Felix Felicis in Chapter 48

Mad-Eye thinks Harry's asking him something much more consequential

The blue flash resembles Bluetooth

Constellations are accurately placed, both date and time of night; comet numbering and naming notation are realistic

Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker discovered many comets

They went to the Divination classroom

65

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\HP & The Fifth Element.ch51 Padfoot's legacy.doc 9/22/2007

Document created with wvWare/wvWare version 1.2.7

-->