Dancing With Ben Hall

A/N:

I want to thank Kitty Kelly and Blackadder for giving me such a warped, and most likely entirely accurate, view of royalty. Also, this story was directly inspired by a certain picture drawn by flimpy entitled "En Garde, Potter!" I hope I haven't desecrated its memory too much.

I: A Minor Miscalculation

Many words, most of them derived from four-letter adjectives, could be used to describe the feeling. However, Harry later settled on 'a world of hurts' as the term that best encapsulated exactly what it felt like to be hit with a simple Banishing Charm through seventeen dimensions.

It had of course been Hermione's idea to hold the final duel with Voldemort in what she called 'potential space' and what Ron called 'Harry lying on the floor groaning and clutching his head like he's got a really bad dose of constipation in his brain.'

"You see, Harry," said Hermione, as patiently as someone mopping a brow with a damp cloth and thumbing though crumbling reference books thicker than an elephant's instep at the same time could, "it's been a long accepted theory that time has a width as well as a depth. In other words, all those things you didn't do, all the paths you turned away from --"

"All the seconds you turned down because you were sure that you couldn't fit in another bite," Ron mused.

"Yes, that --"

"Or all the times you didn't bother to change your underwear because it was still practically fresh and you had no clean sets left."

"Thank you, Ron, for providing us with that spectacularly graphic image!" snapped Hermione. "As I was saying --"

"Or all the chances you had to put baking soda in Percy's tea instead of sugar but couldn't because Mum was giving you the eagle eye."

"Permission granted to hurt Ron with a book," croaked Harry. His voice rasped in his inner throat like a metal file over a flower petal. He couldn't remember doing much talking. The space between the dimensions was full of heat and colour, but speech seemed something of an irrelevance. Back in reality, however, that was not the case. According to Hermione, he'd been doing a lot of shouting and thrashing around.

"Harry!" Hermione sounded scandalised. "As if I'd do something like that to a book!" She tossed the wet cloth at Ron's face, displaying a beautifully keen control of brute force. The effect was much the same as that of ground-to-air missile on a marshmallow.

Over Ron's whimpers, Hermione continued espousing the merits of time evolution, or perhaps it was poached eggs -- Harry was too tired to concentrate. He drifted in and out of sleep, catching fragments as darkness seeped in through the windows.

"-- essentially suggests that in all the possible realities that can exist --"

"-- thousands created in the turning of seconds --"

"-- one in which Voldemort did not exist, or was defeated, or was killed, or grew up to be a chartered accountant --"

"-- magic does not always have to exist --"

"-- no need to throw it at me, Hermione. It had Harry's sweat all over it. He may very well piss gold and shit opals, but he's got sweat like soup."

"-- sue Witch Weekly --"

"-- need to find the world where Voldemort isn't, and somehow push him into it, or find one where you vanquished him and ask your other self how --"

"-- completely impossible, Hermione!"

"-- and what choice do we have?"

"Harry, dear. You must wake up. You've got to go back under."

There was such a lot of colour, Harry remembered.

::

::

Hermione looked down at her lap and found it full of her jeans-covered legs, but categorically empty of anything Harry-shaped. She swivelled her head wildly around the room, as if in the space of five nanoseconds Harry could have run away and hidden under the bed.

She looked at Ron blankly. Her boyfriend was wearing a look of profound shock, and for once Hermione didn't think it had anything to do with his natural state of being.

"He's gone!"

::

::

Technically, it was earlier the same day. However, everyone who possessed watches would have said it was nine o'clock and always had been, ever since it was eight o'clock, and they'd have been right.

They also, if they wished to remain in favour at the Court of St Elton, would have been wearing the only fashionable watch of the season. This was a gold-embellished confection of a timepiece, which brought strongly to mind the words 'twiddly bits.' Hot on their heels would have been the next prose it inspired, which was 'rare, precious and wildly expensive gems.'

King Lucius, first of his name, considered himself a leader in fashion, as in politics ('Do what I say'), foreign policy ('Do what I say, only in foreign') and romance ('Lie back and think of England, and also do what I say'). He was, to be fair, as reasonable and just as any a past King of England, which was to say he was of French extraction, mad as bat with diurnal ocular difficulties and prone to fits of abominably un-gentlemen-like behaviour.

However, the English liked a laugh as much as any other monarchy in Europe. They also prided themselves on owning a trim and impeccably garbed king. In that sense His Royal Majesty King Lucius stood in direct contrast to the other heads of state in the British Isles, usually with both high-heeled feet turned out in a becoming fashion.

There was His Rather Royal, But Really One Of The People, Majesty King 'You can call me Albus' Dumbledore of Scotland, who had a beard so wild and bushy that a herd of sheep could have got lost in it and not been discovered for a week. According to reliable sources in dark pubs, this was reputedly a fortunate occurrence in the barren wastes of the North.

Wales had been a staunchly Catholic country for hundreds of years, and so the person who did the waving from carriages was His Grace the Archbishop of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. In times past, when he went by the name of Snotty Severus, he and King Lucius had won many a battle for the lunch money of tinchy first-years on the playing fields of Eton. They'd gone up to Corpus Christi in the same year, at which point Severus had discovered God -- or at least, how much God got paid in terms of penal indulgences, envelopes after funeral masses and before conducting wedding ceremonies, and the odd solid silver chalice or sapphire-studded reliquary. His Grace had hair the same colour and texture as an earthworm's snot and was reputed to only bathe every Easter Sunday.

Across the water Dustin, High King of Tara, held court. Either the Irish were very easy going when it came to the species of their sovereign, or they hadn't yet realised that they were being ruled by a talking turkey. With the Irish, or rather with the Irish plus the three extra pints of Guinness every Irish person had in their circulatory system, it was hard to tell. However, all were agreed that Dustin's queen was a woman of rare beauty. Grainne Seoige was her name, and she had been one of the most powerful of the clan of Sky Weather Witches before consenting to wed the High King. Or a turkey. Or both.

So all in all, King Lucius was the best of a pretty bad lot. He had firm calves that were shown to perfection in the current fad for tights and breeches, and he'd taken great care to institute the trend so that this should be so. His hair shone brighter than his vast collection of crowns and he had almost more hairdressers, jewellers and couturiers in his retinue than in the entire borough of Soho. This neatly balanced his habit of cutting the heads off people, servants, house-elves and frogs that annoyed him, and passing edicts such as the Bloody Great Rule Against People Rustling Sweet Papers At The Theatre And Then Not Giving Me Any, And They Damn Well Should Have Because, As I Would Jolly Well Like To Remind The House, I Am The King.

There were any number of onion kings on the continent, but English people lived very happy lives pretending that there was no such thing as France. Their king was much the same, except when it came to wine or invading somewhere because he was bored.

It was widely known that the Royal Coffers took rent from half of London. It was less widely known, but equally as profitable for said coffers, that the King owned all of Shropshire. In fact, while the King was exceptionally good at spending this income on things like rare and exotic tropical houseplants (so that he could plant them in the garden and punish the house-elves when they died), he was one of the many people who didn't know the embarrassing fact about Shropshire. As far as the King was concerned, life happened in Diagon Palace, Windsor Manor in Wiltshire, and his country estate of Hogwarts in Scotland. What happened outside these places was anyone's guess, and probably had something to do with boiled potatoes.

At that moment, the King was breaking his fast with his only son and heir, the Prince Regent. Traditionally, when a King and a Regent dined, protocol granted them seats of equal honour at the head and end of the table. The fact that the table in the Great Ballroom was seventy yards long, and that there was no one else at it because the Queen was still in bed with a rotten hangover, were particulars that the King absolutely refused to take into account. He was a stickler for etiquette, even if it did mean having a relay of house-elves at the ready to ask his son to pass the salt.

The fact that Draco had turned up to dine dressed in a white shirt, leather breeches and a worn riding jacket was annoying the King. The ruffles on Draco's shirt were the only things standing between him and the appearance of an utter prole, and even they looked a bit ratty and weren't so much as dyed an exciting colour. Not only was Draco not sporting what was without doubt the most delectable watch du jour -- or so Pettigrew, the King's current favourite watchmaker, had assured him -- but his entire outfit was bereft of the smallest piece of jewellery. Worst of all, he wasn't wearing his royal insignia.

In between sending his eggs back because they weren't the right shade of yellow and claiming his wine to be 'poorly disguised horse's piss' and tipping it over the footman's head, the King thumbed his well-worn copy of Mrs Skower's All Purpose Guide to Correct Etiquette. Much to his disgust, he couldn't find anything that suggested the Prince Regent should wear peacock feathers and cloth-of-gold to an informal breakfast with his father, not even to match said father who just happened to be the King.

After parsing a whole chapter devoted to addressing senior members of the clergy, and snorting, "'s easy, I just go to Severus 'Do what I say or I shall cut your bloody head off,'" the King decided that enough was enough. He summoned his butler and gave him Mrs Skower's All Purpose Guide to Correct Etiquette, with instructions to find another and better one after he'd eaten the first.

"Very good, your Majesty," said the butler, bowing deeply. The King hit him over the head with his goblet for not bowing deeply enough and gestured for a house elf to attend him. The creature saw which way the wind was blowing that morning and bowed so low that its long nose cut a swath through the carpet.

"Tell my son why he isn't attired in something suitable for the occasion!" snapped the King.

"At once, your Majesty." The house elf paused, trembling. It had been years since the King had touched a bow or sword, but his aim with cutlery was second to none. "Your Majesty, what is the reason you required me to tell your son, his Royal Highness the Prince Regent?"

"Eh?"

"The reason, your Majesty." The house elf was quivering so badly that his face resembled a turnip hanging on a washing line. "Your Majesty said to tell your son, his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, why he isn't attired in something suitable for the occasion."

"Yes? And? Why are you still here, you infernal thorn in my royal backside?"

"But, your Majesty," the creature wailed, "I do not know why his Royal Highness the Prince Regent is not attired in something suitable for the occasion!"

"Damn your eyes!" roared the King, rising from his seat like a late-night curry from the morning after stomach. "I've half a mind to stab them out! What is the meaning of this impertinence?"

"I rather think, Dobby, that my royal father doesn't know what it is to 'ask' for something," said a dry voice. Draco, who had been approaching unnoticed for the last twenty or so yards, came to a halt before the King's heavily ornamented chair. He sketched a bow, his blonde hair falling into his eyes in what the King felt was a most insolent manner.

"And who gave you permission to have someone cut your hair?" the King demanded of his Regent. "Do not you know that the fashion is for hair 'well past the shoulder, and gathered into a bow, velvet for preference, silk if otherwise, and cotton in plain colours for tradesmen'?"

"Father, even if I did know I should think it desperately unlikely that I would care." Draco braced a hand on the damask-covered tabletop and reached over to spear a fried tomato from one of the King's side plates with one of the King's very own twenty forks. Lucius verily swelled with the unbridled impudence of it all.

"Besides," added Draco, "I didn't get someone to cut my hair. I did it myself."

"Good grief." Lucius eyed Draco with the same reluctant admiration and apprehension one would bestow upon a naked crocodile wrestler. "And how did you do that, pray?"

"I got hold of this amazing invention called a 'sci-ssors,'" said Draco, "and I practised for ages until I got the hang of 'cut-ting' with them, and then I used it on my hair, and voilà ! Here we are! It was shockingly easy, after I mastered the basics."

Lucius considered this for a moment, decided that as it was beyond his comprehension it was probably treasonous, and said, "I should have you horsewhipped, sir!"

"For what? Dastardly and devious use of a pair of scissors?" Draco bit into the tomato, dribbling juice on to his chin, and smirked.

The expression reminded Lucius uncomfortably of the memorable occasion of the Royal Family's first -- and last -- group portrait. Prior to the sitting, Lucius had done some piddling little thing to make Draco angry. Oh, Lucius could hardly remember what it was now. Perhaps deporting a family of servants to the Americas because he'd discovered one of his favourite antique chamber pots missing.

It turned out that Draco was close friends with the son of the family, which was wildly inappropriate in any case. Draco had found out about Lucius' sentence on the same day as Lucius unearthed the chamber pot in the Green Antechamber, where it had been all along. Mixing up the Green Antechamber and the Sort Of Purplish-Pink Drawing Room, which were in different wings on different sides of the palace, was the sort of mistake anyone could make. However, Draco could be dreadfully wilful at times -- not to mention more bull-headed than a cow with horns -- and he had refused to be placated by Lucius' explanation.

Lucius had wonderful things planned for that portrait, such as a grand unveiling in St Elton's Court followed by a wine and cheese reception back at the Palace. It wasn't the sort of thing an eight-year-old child needed to bother his head about, but Draco had always had an uncanny way of finding out things he wasn't supposed to know.

Her Royal Majesty Queen Narcissa would have been called a raging alcoholic if she hadn't, in fact, been Her Royal Majesty Queen Narcissa of England. As such, she was reputed to indulge in the odd tipple that, purely by chance, made her bang into furniture, put her crowns on the cats and declare in a slurred voice that, "By golly, Spoono, I loved that girl." She hadn't taken much notice of her son since the day he was born, on which occasion he turned out to be a slight inconvenience to her. By a strange coincidence, his evil plans quite passed her by.

Lucius had noticed that the painter seemed on the verge of laughter during the entire sitting. However, Dean Thomas was a practising wizard and that was a very unusual thing in these liberated times. Some eccentricity was to be expected.

The servants kept as silent as the tomb, as they were specifically ordered to be by Lucius himself. This did not stop him putting each and every one of them on dwarf bread and Thames water rations for a month afterwards.

As for Lucius himself, well, he was wearing ornate and heavy robes of state in a very flattering shade of green. Resisting the temptation to straighten the clasp in the shape of the Royal Crest every five minutes, as Dean had asked for them to keep quite still, was enough to keep Lucius occupied for the two hours. He could hardly have been expected to realise that the heir to the throne, damn his royal arse, had covered his finger in horse glue and stuck it up his nose for the entire duration of the sitting.

Draco's screams as a team of house elves endeavoured to pull his finger out afterwards had almost made Lucius feel better, but, oddly enough, Draco had seemed to be smirking the entire time. Much as he was now.

Draco turned to the elf, who was prostrating itself on the floor. The carpet was so thick that he could have been mistaken for a bump in the floorboards underneath. "Dobby, be so good as to fetch Cornelius for me. And ready my fencing things."

"At once, your Royal Highness the Prince Regent!" squeaked the elf. It disappeared with a quiet pop.

"I do believe you used French," said the King. Now he'd got the idea of whipping his son into his head, he quite fancied trying it out. He had a vague suspicion that Draco would somehow wriggle out of it, but Lucius was nothing if not willing to cling on to an idea long after it had died a natural death and his attachment to it took on shades of necrophilia.

"Did I? And that's a crime now, is it?" Draco raised one fine eyebrow. Lucius resolved to find a way to subtly ask his son who plucked them for him. They were much nicer than Lucius' own. Perhaps he'd better pass an edict banning eyebrow plucking for everyone except the royal person of the King of England.

"It is now I've bloody well invaded them again," blustered Lucius. "Talking in Froggie language is tantamount to a crime against the state!"

"I never knew you spoke it, Father." Draco studied his nails.

"Of course I don't, you damn fool boy! Would I commit a crime against my own state?"

"Well then." Draco flashed him a winning smile. "How do you know I was speaking French? For your information, 'voilà ' is Serbo-Croat."

"Serbo what now?"

"It is a country in the West Indies, Your Majesty, governed by a carrot. Their national costume consists of pineapple leaves fetchingly arranged to leave room for their traditional peppermint spears. Its principle exports are voluptuous prostitutes and sexual diseases. Its people worship a small piece of coal, and there are only two men of above-par intelligence in the whole population." Draco paused. "In fact, it bears many striking similarities to England. Perhaps you should consider invading, or marrying me to the Head Tribeswoman."

"And where did you learn all this nonsense?" demanded Lucius. "I mean, principal export? What the hell's that when it's at home? An import?" He chuckled at his own wit.

Draco gave him a long, cool look, of the sort perfected by monks who had reached a zen-like state of complete connection with the universe or most polar bears. "Indeed, sir. You are completely correct. As for where I, ah, learned this, I had a history tutor for a spell, before you decided that his brocade waistcoat was embroidered with the wrong sort of gilt thread and had him summarily executed."

"Egad, I did?" The King felt a little uneasy. It was one thing to kill house elves who were tardy with his toast, but history tutors could have gone to Oxford Brookes University, which was practically in the same country as his alma mater, Oxford University. It was doubtless very bad etiquette indeed.

"Yes. However, you rescinded your decision a week later."

"Really? That is unlike me."

"Yes, but I believe that was the period in which you were troubled in your mind. Something about --" Draco coughed into his fist "-- ghosts in the bathtub?"

"By George, I remember those!" The King shuddered, accidentally rubbing off his rouge in distress. "That was jolly awful!"

"I can well imagine, Father." Draco's eyes suddenly went from slate to ash. "But Remus said it was too dangerous for him to stay, all the same. I believe he went to France ..."

"Best place for him." The King nodded. "Should fit in well. Don't believe those Frenchie bastards even wear waistcoats."

"I can barely conceive of the horror," replied Draco.

"I must say, your marriage idea has merit, my son." The King tapped at his mouth, quite forgetting that it would ruin his lipstick. Perhaps this make-up lark had been a bad move, vogue-wise. "Come, walk with me, and we shall discuss brides."

In turning to powder his nose in one of the gilt mirrors lining the ballroom, Lucius failed to notice that, with a wave of his hand, Draco had made the forks line up so that they spelled 'THE KING IS A TIT.'

"But of course, Father. Where shall we walk to?"

"Oh." Lucius pondered this for a while. "Well, one foot in front of the other always works for me." His eyes lit on the cutlery. "By gum, would you look at that!"

"At what, Father?"

"Those forks!" Lucius laughed heartily. "They are quite out of dining order! Where's my butler? I think I shall have him castrated for this one."

"You didn't happen to notice ... anything else?"

Lucius stared at the forks for a time, then narrowed his eyes. "Yes! The third from last on the left sports a minute difference in the hand-tooled vine leaves. Shocking." He smiled at his son. Draco's devotion to duty wiped the sin of his complete lack of fashion-sense from the King's mind. "I commend you."

"Really? To what deity or institution?"

"Oh, just generally commenditing. I fancy we shall take a stroll in the Cloisters. What say you?"

"Whatever my royal father commands." Draco swept a deep bow. Lucius noted with approval that he'd got the hand flick just right, although the fact that his shoulders were shaking so badly somewhat ruined the effect.

"Miggins!" bawled Lucius. "Fetch the Prince his wildly unfashionable jacket. I fear he is taking a chill. Also some mulled wine, but without any cloves, you horrible little man. And my muffler."

"Perhaps it would be easier to stay here and talk?" ventured Draco.

"Nonsense! You look rather peaky, my son. A brisk trot in the fresh air will do you a world of good." Lucius sniffed. "Also my wool-shot-with-samite cloak, Miggins. Chop chop."