Chapter 18:
"You are going to the Yule Ball," Sue informed him.
Harry blinked once, then again, like she’d just told him his shoes were on fire. He looked up from the library table where he’d been hunched over a small mountain of parchment, flashcards, and beginner’s Japanese grammar guides. His head was still swimming with verb particles and the maddeningly fluid logic of hiragana.
"Well, that’s an odd way to start a study session," he said, narrowing his eyes. "Good afternoon to you, too."
Sue ignored the sarcasm, slipping into the seat across from him and folding her arms in the way that usually meant she’d already won the argument. She’d come without her school bag, her uniform crisp and buttoned to the collar, eyes like obsidian slits.
"Don’t deflect. I’m serious. You are going." she insisted.
He sighed, pushing aside his copybook. He’d been trying to work through a passage about cooking verbs and had only just realized that "yaku" could mean both "to grill" and "to burn with searing magical hatred." The nuance had not escaped him.
"Why the sudden change of heart?" he asked. "Last I checked, you weren't exactly planning to waltz through public events with me. Now my delicate wallflower wants to slow dance in front of a crowd?"
She tilted her head.
"Oh, I’m not going." she said.
He stared at her. Then blinked. Then stared some more.
"...What?"
Sue allowed a small, smug smile.
"I said you are going. Not 'we' are going."
Harry closed the grammar book with a deliberate thud and folded his arms.
"Alright. What's the angle?" he asked.
"Public image," she replied, tapping a manicured nail against the tabletop. "You’re not just some moody British boy anymore. You’re a member of a foreign delegation. And unfortunately, a delegation that’s now deeply terrified of you."
He grimaced.
"Because of Sirius."
She nodded.
"Because of Sirius," she repeated. "Which, I will remind you, was partially your idea."
"We agreed a false flag would keep people away from the real threat." he said.
"And now it’s worked so well, even your own classmates won't sit next to you." she almost growled.
She wasn't wrong. The Mahoutokoro students gave him a wide berth. Hell, even the Hogwarts students were back to whispering behind hands and sneaking glances when they thought he wasn't looking. It had made his study of the language much more difficult.
"So," she continued, "you need to present yourself as safe, normal, charming. The kind of boy who can go to a dance without setting the building on fire."
"And I’m doing that by wearing school colors and asking a date from the same contingent that’s scared of me?"
"Precisely."
He ran a hand through his hair, considering it.
"We only have four days until the ball. That would normally send me into a panic." he said.
"Luckily, there’s a whole new group of girls without partners. An entire boatload of options, as it were." she said.
That echoed his thoughts exactly. Save that they were all terrified of him.
"Okay," he said, resting his chin on one hand. "Who did you pick out for me?"
"Whatever do you mean?" she asked innocently.
He gave her a flat look.
"You’re a protective and jealous girlfriend. You wouldn’t leave this to chance. You also wouldn’t force me to choose myself, because that might offend your pride or leave you second-guessing my taste. Or questioning your own nonexistent shortcomings."
Her lips formed a pout but his hidden compliment still tugged a smile out of her eyes.
"You make me sound so controlling."
"No," he said in complete honesty. "Just a little Machiavellain. In a hot way."
"I have a cousin," she said at last. "She’s agreed to be your partner. You’ll have dance lessons and language practice together. In return, she gets to be the centerpiece of your next public scandal."
"Scandal?" he asked.
"Yes. Imagine the headlines: 'Potter Ditches Girlfriend for Foreign Beauty!'" she said theatrically.
He groaned.
"The boy who lived," she started again. "... with insatiable yellow fever."
He groaned again. Even the British journalists weren't that tasteless. Well, save for one.
"We have Skeeter on a leash." he reminded her.
"There are other journalists," Sue said flatly. "And besides, it’s time we start giving Rita what she wants."
That sentence stalled his brain and it took a few moments for the gears to start grinding correctly again.
"You want to feed her gossip?" he clarified.
"We want to own the gossip. If we give her the right story, one we’ve prepared, she won’t go sniffing for ones we haven’t." she corrected.
"You know I hate this kind of attention, right?" he pleaded.
"I know." she said in a tone that, for her, was apologetic.
She leaned forward, fingers threading together.
"But you need it. The more eyes on you, the safer you are. The more enemies you have, the more people you have watching those enemies. And none of them will be as dangerous as Voldemort. Or those cultists. So let them glare. Let them whisper. Let them print lies. You’ll shine brighter for it."
He didn’t answer right away. He could neither argue with her reasoning, nor come up with the desire to do so.
Eventually, he asked.
"What’s her name?"
"Li Mei."
"And she’s your cousin?"
"Second cousin." She corrected.
"And why would she possibly agree to do this?" he asked.
He was worried he was about to have a very unwilling date to the Yule Ball.
“She’s actually a dancer, you know,” Sue added casually. “Wants to go professional after graduation. This little scandal? Being perceived as the ex-girlfriend of the most famous boy in the magical world? That kind of exposure is gold for someone like her.”
Harry tilted his head, skepticism creeping in. “Okay... so I see what she gets out of it. What do I get out of it?”
Sue didn’t hesitate.
“Dancing lessons. Language practice. And a second girlfriend.”
He blinked at her.
She smiled sweetly.
“Isn’t it every boy’s fantasy to have two girls in his bed at the same time?” she asked.
Harry gagged. Actually gagged.
“I—I haven't even had one girl in my bed at the... he reminded her.
“You had the chance,” she interrupted. “You rejected it.”
“Come on, you know I’m not ready for—”
“I’m not ready either,” she said, cutting him off again raising her hands in surrender. “I’m just saying.”
He nodded. So long as they had an understanding. He decided not to bring up that she seemed ready in that brook cupboard, but that had been her acting rashly thinking that was what she was supposed to do, not what she wanted to do.
"Why are you in such a chipper mood today anyways? You're usually much more toned backed?" he finally asked.
She smiled wanly at him.
"You never asked what I get out of this arrangement." she reminded him.
"Okay. What do you get out of it?" he asked.
"It's going to really enrage my mother." she told him.
And if that wasn't the primary purpose for existence for many a teenaged girl, Harry didn't know what was.
-
Harry had expected a quiet walk, maybe a classroom. Not the roof of the Astronomy Tower in December.
He stepped out into the biting wind, the cold slamming into him like a brick wall. The stars above were pale behind the cloud veil, and the horizon burned in a dusky orange where the sun had only just dipped below. The air smelled of frost, magic, and—oddly—sweat.
Sue gave him a little push.
"Go on."
A group was already gathered on the roof, maybe half a dozen students in total, all dressed in colorful workout clothes. Headbands, jumpers, hoodies tied at the waist. One girl wore sweatpants patterned with leaping frogs. Another had tiny bells sewn into her sleeves, jingling as she stretched. It was a full calisthenics party.
And standing in the middle, clearly the ringleader, was a girl shorter than Sue by at least a head. Jet-black hair in a ponytail. Narrow eyes with sharp eyeliner. And a ferocious grin that could crack stone.
"You are Harry?" she asked.
He nodded.
"I am Mei. We will dance now."
Her English was awful. But better than his Japanese. He would soon discover this was true for all of them. But they also all spoke Japanese.
They danced for four days straight, that rooftop becoming his battlefield.
Mei Li and her little group were relentless. Energetic Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese girls plus one Filipino boy with frosted tips and a suspiciously well-tailored hoodie who Harry was 90% sure was gay. He didn’t mind. The boy danced like lightning and didn’t once make it weird. That was good enough for Harry.
They drilled him. First with posture, then rhythm, then steps. Then they told him he was doing everything wrong and started over.
"No, no," Mei said more than once, thwacking him gently on the chest. "Feet must glide. Not stomp. You are not troll."
He supposed that was a compliment.
The wind never let up. They danced in the cold until breath turned to fog and fingers went numb. The girls layered up with coats and scarves. Harry didn’t.
That eventually got noticed.
"How you not cold?" asked Yuna, the Korean girl with orange earmuffs and combat boots. "Without extra coat?"
"I am," Harry said.
He then reached a finger into the collar of his shirt, tugging it down to show his mild chest hair.
"See? Fur coat. Al naturale."
The girls spent the rest of that day giggling as they practiced.
When not correcting his rhythm or footwork, the group tried to steer things toward more energetic dances. Pop songs, hip-hop, full-on group choreographies.
"You know 'Thriller'?" the Filipino boy asked.
"Of course I know 'Thriller'," Harry grumbled.
He was quickly roped into performing it with the whole squad. Apparently, they were convinced some version of it would play at the ball.
"What prom not have Michael?" the boy asked, dead serious.
But Harry was firm. There were limits. No elaborate choreography. No coordinated line dances.
"I’m only doing the opening dance," he declared. "The fancy one. With a partner. That’s it."
So they drilled that. Waltz. Foxtrot. Cha Cha. Swing.
What do those words mean? To hell if Harry knew! But he could do them. And surprisingly, he wasn’t terrible. It was almost fun.
Almost.
He wouldn’t be caught dead doing it for entertainment. Well, aside from the mandatory time he would have to.
-
The ballroom was still echoing with laughter and music when Harry stepped out beneath the sharp winter stars, Mei at his side, the last notes of a slow waltz still clinging to his ears like spider silk.
"You know," Mei said in halting English, a mischievous smile playing at the corners of her mouth, "Journalists will say you left early for... private time with your new girlfriend."
Harry snorted.
"Let them." he said nonchalantly.
She gave him a look. Sue had warned him that Japanese, or asian in general, people could misconstrue a lot as arrogance and he was under no illusions that Mei viewed him as such right now.
The next song to play behind them made them both laugh.
"It's close to mdnight, and something evil's lurking in the dark!" came the high pitched voice of everyone's favorite member of the Jackson Five.
Mei looked back longingly.
"You know you love to dance, Mei. You can go back in. I’ll be fine." he told her.
She gasped, putting a hand over her heart in exaggerated scandal.
"They will say you ditch date!"
He shrugged, tucking his hands into his pockets as they walked down the path.
"Tell them I got handsy and you dumped me with a slap. Or that I wandered off into the rose bushes with a girl from Beauxbatons. I won’t confirm or deny." he teased back.
Mei stopped, looked at him like he had offered to burn down her family shrine.
"No! I say nothing bad about you. Never. But... I do want dance more."
Harry turned to her, his expression softening.
"Then go. Honestly, Mei. You were great. The ball was... okay. But I’m done for the night."
She hesitated, then nodded.
"I kiss cheek, but... Sue get mad."
He smiled faintly, placing a hand over his cheek.
"I’ll just have to imagine it."
She laughed, waved, and darted back toward the great hall, light on her feet even in heels. He turned and continued alone, crunching down the icy path toward the greenhouses.
The music faded behind him, replaced by a faint, off-key rendition of something orchestral and nerdy filtering from the greenhouse windows. Lights twinkled inside—someone had hung enchanted paper lanterns and Christmas lights around the glass walls. From here, it looked almost magical. And the people inside... well, they looked like what he wanted to look like. Casual clothes, party hats, calm and quiet. He could see the board games, warm cider, maybe some awkward flirting going on, but no pressure to spin or dip or smile for the camera. Just teens finding their own way to celebrate instead of doing it the way they were "supposed" to.
Just like Hermione had told him. The cool nerds, his people, would be having their own party away from the noise and sweat of the ball.
He was almost smiling when someone stepped into his path.
He smiled at Sue as he approached, then stopped dead in his tracks.
Something was off. Her posture was the same—graceful, poised, perfectly still—but the smile didn’t belong. Too smooth. Too measured. Sue never smiled like that. Not even when she was pretending.
And the wand in her hand. It was bone white, not the slick black of his girlfriend.
A chill ran down his spine. He blinked, and for the first time in weeks, he felt it. The pain.A warning.
His scar ignited like a brand, sharp and sudden and merciless. His vision swam, knees buckling as fire lanced through his skull.
That wasn’t Sue. That wasn’t Sue at all.
His instincts moved faster than thought.
"Bombarda!" he roared, wand snapping into his hand like it had always been there, and a blast of force rocketed toward the figure just as her lips parted.
"Avada Kedavra." Voldemort retaliated, still smiling as he wore Sue's face.
The world exploded in green.