Harry Potter and the Forest of Shadows

Harry Potter and

the Forest of Shadows

Chapter 21: The Ball

Harry figured he must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew, Malfoy was standing over him.

"The door's open," he said shortly. "Er- if you don't mind, don't tell anyone about last night."

Still dazed, Harry nodded. "Yea, sure. No problem."

Malfoy nodded stiffly and said, "Thank you. I guess." And with that he was gone.

For the next few minutes Harry lay on the couch, quite confused. Maybe he and Malfoy both had similar summers. He remembered haunted eyes from Diagon Alley. Did this mean that Malfoy wasn't a Death Eater? Did he really hate his father? Did this mean that Malfoy and he were going to be being somewhat civil to each other? Harry shuddered.

He finally got off the couch and went to the window that had not been there last night. The sun was just breaking through the cover of night and there was a cool breeze. Perfect quidditch weather, he thought. Oh, God. He had just remembered. Today he had booked the pitch for tryouts for the Gryffindor team. The first tryouts were supposed to be at ten o'clock. He glanced at the clock. Eight.

Deciding it was better to get them done with than postpone everything, he walked out the door. The corridors were silent. It was a Sunday and everyone was probably sleeping in. Vaguely he wondered who would be going out for the team. He figured Ginny would. That would be nice. In a split-second, though, his feelings suddenly changed.

She and Melany and Hermione had locked him in a room with Draco Malfoy. Not a horrible experience, but not on his list of favorite things to do. With a resigned sigh, he trudged his way back up to the Gryffindor common room.

There were a few people sitting around the fire, one or two of them with brooms. Most were in their third or fourth year; he did not recognize many of them. Ignoring their stares, he went to wait by the girls' dormitory stairs. Not long after, Parvati and Lavender came down, chatting and laughing.

"Harry," Parvati said when she saw him standing there. "If you're waiting for Hermione, she's not even up yet. But Ginny went outside. She wanted you to meet her out there." The two girls looked at Harry, exchanged glances and went into a fit of giggles.

Harry felt himself go red and quickly made his way up to his dormitory. The four other boys he shared the room with were still sleeping. As quietly as he could, he dressed in his red and gold quidditch robes and grabbed his firebolt.

The sun was now shining brightly and it was slightly warmer. Harry walked across the damp grounds and entered the quidditch pitch. Ginny was jogging around the perimeter. Her face was flushed and covered in a sheen of sweat; her red hair was falling from the ponytail she had had it in and into her face. When she noticed that he was present, she grinned and waved and started making her way over to him. Harry observed her brilliant charm wondering if he was going to be able to be angry with her for locking him up with Malfoy.

"Hey," she said sweetly, running up and putting her arms around his neck. After she kissed him, he was positive he could not stay mad with her. "Have fun last night?" she teased.

"And what was the point of it?" he asked, playfully jabbing her ribs.

"Oh, I don't know," she said innocently. "Did it make your feelings about him a little more open and a little less... hostile?"

Harry shrugged. "I guess. Why do you care all of the sudden anyways?"

"Maybe someone close to you has a thing for him."

"Foul play?" he asked her. She laughed.

"Guess again."

"Hermione?" Ginny shook her head 'no'. He was taken aback. There was only one other girl (he did not think he knew any guys) who was close to him and was crazy enough to like Malfoy. "Melany?"

Ginny gave a small, secretive smile. "Want to play a little one-on-one? You are captain, you know. You need to brush up on those quidditch skills of yours."

"Bring it on," he laughed.

Thirty minutes later, Harry landed on the ground, out of breath. "Okay," he gasped. "You win."

Ginny flew down beside him. "I believe that makes Ginny twenty-five goals- Harry, two."

Both had played dual parts of keeper and chaser. It turned out that Ginny was a much better chaser than she let on,

"You are trying out for chaser position, aren't you?" he asked. She had skills to rival those of the three previous chasers.

"If you'd like me to," she said, dismounting. "I was going to stay position of reserve seeker so I could help you with picking a new team. But if you insist..."

He smiled and nodded. "Yea, it would be nice to have you out there playing with me- I mean us. The new team, that is."

"Sure you could keep your eyes off me?" she asked, walking dangerously closer to him. She was just leaning in for a kiss when-

"Harry! Hey, Harry!"

A look of aggravation passed Harry's face. He forced a smile at Colin Creevey. "He always manages to do that," he muttered to Ginny who was now laughing.

"Now Harry," she admonished, "you're captain now. You have a team to form and take care of."

With a wink, she walked over to the edge of the pitch and conjured herself a chair to sit in. Harry turned to look at the entrance to the field and was surprised to see what had to be at least a quarter of all of Gryffindor. Somewhat embarrassed about being so unprepared, he walked over to where Ginny now had a card table and another chair for him.

"Here's a clipboard where they can sign up. I would separate them each into the different positions and test them against opposing positions," Ginny said. "But that's just me."

"Just one problem," Harry muttered, glancing over at the mob of candidates coming towards them. "I have no team. I have no one to play against them."

Ginny smiled. "Got you covered."

"Oy! You...hey, you lot!" Harry looked over, amazed to Fred and George in brand new uniforms, with brand new brooms.

"How did you-" Harry asked, looking amazedly at Ginny. She smiled and patted his cheek.

"It told you I had you covered."

In the end, the whole ordeal turned out to be a lot less stressful than Harry had anticipated. One at a time, each person mounted a broom and attempted to get past Fred and George. They were easy to eliminate and once he had about two people for each position, he sent them up as teams to see who worked well together. Finally, after about two hours Gryffindor had a new team. He did a trial game with them playing their own positions and found a quick sort of camaraderie that he had missed from the old team.

Filling the positions of beaters were Miranda Stimpson and Jack Sloper, both in their fourth year. According to Ginny's gossip, they had been friends for quite some time and had been known to finish each other's sentences. On the field, they seemed to have a sort of telepathic connection that could rival that of the Weasley twins'.

Second year Natalie MacDonald was one of the new chasers. She was extremely fit and new how to handle the broom and ball. To his amazement, Colin was better than he ever let on. The last chaser was a third year student. His name was Geoffrey Hooper. He was a muggleborn and small with not much build to him. But, had let it known that he played basketball. Although most people were clueless to what that was Harry recognized his talents with scoring and moving quickly through other players.

To complete the team, seventh year Vicky Frobisher took the position of keeper. She was a tall, lean girl with amazing skill. Harry had to admit he was a bit put out that Ginny had not tried for the position. It cheered him a bit though with her promise to play reserve keeper along with reserve seeker.

Once they had run through a few techniques, Harry set up practice dates to prepare for their first game in three weeks. Although he was nowhere near as psychotic as Oliver Wood, he decided to have three practices each week and two each weekend.

Most of the school was already in lunch by the time they had all agreed on practice times and gotten them affirmed. Ginny had left a few minutes ago and Harry was happy to see her wandering towards him. He stayed by the pitch and waited for her to come over so that his new team would already be halfway up to the castle.

"I brought some food down," she said, smiling slyly. "Melany's talking to Draco and Hermione is tutoring Neville. I thought we could have a picnic."

Harry grinned and kissed her. "What a brilliant idea my dear," he said, offering his arm. Giving a small curtsy, she took it and they headed off to the edge of the lake.

~~~

"So, a little bird tells me that you and a certain redhead were out by the lake all day."

Harry blushed at his godfather's remark. "Well, those little birds, they are nice sources of info," he muttered.

After spending a whole day talking and joking with Ginny, he had gone up to Sirius' quarters for dinner. They were now digging through boxes of Sirius' and Remus' old school things. Needless to say, they had found some rather interesting things.

Eager to change the subject, Harry gave a snort of laughter as he picked up a long, flowing cloth. Sirius looked at it with a smile.

"What's so funny?" he asked defensively.

"What is this?"

Sirius snatched it from him and inspected it. "They're your father's old dress robes. Here let me fix them."

He turned his back and cast a few spells on the dusty, dirty robes before giving out a shout of triumph. Harry found himself staring at an amazingly nice set of black satin dress robes, embroidered with a rich emerald.

"They're great," he said, running his fingers down a line of green. And they had belonged to his father.

"Yep. James...wooed your mother in these." Harry laughed. "Y'know, kid, you should wear them."

Harry looked at his godfather. "What? To the ball?"

Sirius shrugged. "Why not. You have the same build James did. Don't see why they wouldn't fit you."

"Yea, but they're just so...nice."

"Then what are you going to wear."

"I don't know. My old pair I guess."

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Your old ones. No. First rule of fashion: never, ever wear dress robes more than once if you're in the same company as you were the first time you wore them. No. You're wearing these."

"You mean my dad had more than one pair of these? This one pair must have cost a fortune."

"Yes, well, his mother kept him well-stocked with dress robes. Too bad he kept destroying them."

"What was so special about this one?"

"Got his first kiss from Lily," Sirius said, grinning. "Hoping to get lucky as well?"

Harry slapped Sirius' arm, his face a deep shade of red.

~~~

"My Lord, the boy brings you information."

"Bring him forward," Lord Voldemort hissed.

Without hood, Ron stepped forward, gave a short bow and stood up straight. "My Lord, a ball will be held at Hogwarts soon. That night, defenses will be able to be broke. Three other students and I will be at-"

Harry jerked awake. He let out a growl of frustration. The potion he had been taking and his nightmares were fighting against each other every night. He had been having the same dream every night, only able to find that Voldemort knew there was going to be a ball and somehow Ron and three others were going to knock down the lines of defenses the castle held.

With a groan, he rolled out of bed, taking vague notice that Ron was not in his own. Moonlight was streaming through the open window and Neville's snores were echoing in the room. Knowing he would not get back to sleep, he put on his slippers and walked down to the common room where Hermione was sprawled on the couch, staring into the dying fire.

"Hey," he said, walking over and sitting on the part of the couch unoccupied by her legs. "What're you doing up so late."

"Couldn't sleep," she replied, sitting up so she could face him. "Too much to think about."

"Oh, like what?"

"It's just weird, y'know? Not having Ron around. I mean the past five years it's been you, Ron, and me. We always did everything together and told each other pretty much everything. And now..." She trailed off, looking back at the dying embers.

"I know what you mean," he said.

"So," Hermione said, her demeanor changing in a flash, "Ginny tells me you two are going to the ball together."

Harry blushed and became interested in the frayed edges of his old pajamas. At Sirius' insistence, he had gotten new pairs of pajamas but felt somewhat attached to his old ones.

"Wait till you see what she's wearing."

His heart skipped a beat. He hadn't even thought of that. Growing up with six brothers had made Ginny a tomboy and he wasn't sure he had ever seen her in anything girly; even under her robes she elected to wear pants instead of the skirt that most girls wore.

Grinning at his reaction, she continued, "I hope you are going to look nice because she is doing herself up for you."

"Are you going with someone?" he asked, regretting the words as soon as they came out.

She shrugged. "I was asked by one or two people but I don't think I'm going with anyone. Just alone. And are you going to be doing a lot of dancing?" she teased.

"Yea," he laughed. "If I could."

"Here," she said, standing up and holding her arms out. He got off the couch and placed one hand on her hip and another on her shoulder. "Okay, I'll lead. All you have to do is make sure you don't step on the girl's feet and follow." They moved clumsily through the cluttered common room. "Now stop looking down. I think you can look at me and manage to not step on my feet."

He lifted his eyes from the floor and looked at Hermione.

"Now you're getting it. So, why are you up so late, Mr. Potter?"

Harry laughed. "It was just a dream." She raised a worried eyebrow. "It was nothing. The potion's helping. I only dream for like a second and then it goes away."

"Yea, by waking you up. The potion isn't supposed to make you an insomniac. And are you practicing occlumency?"

"I have a lesson with Snape tomorrow night after detention for-"

The portrait hole creaked open and Ron walked in. Hermione and Harry both froze under Ron's glare. With a furious look at both of them, he stormed up the stairs to the dormitory. Hermione jerked out of Harry's grasp, looking slightly hurt.

"I should go to bed," she said, and without another word left Harry alone in the common room where he sat in silence until breakfast.

"I say you skip."

"Oh, Sir, don't be ridiculous. No offense to myself or you two but we do not know occlumency as well as Snape does."

Harry was having dinner with Remus, Sirius, and Rosy. They were arguing about Harry's detention and occlumency lesson with Snape.

"Well, he should at least be able to skip the detention," Sirius said grudgingly, taking a vicious bite out of his chicken.

With a resigned sigh, Harry rose and took his plate to the sink of Rosy's small kitchen that was in her quarters.

"You're barely even done," cried Sirius indignantly.

Harry shrugged. "I'm full."

"Yea, only because you made it," Remus laughed.

Sirius grimaced at him. "Good luck with Snape," he called to Harry.

Harry waved thanks and hurried down to Snape's office.

"What are you doing here?" Snape asked disgruntled.

"You told me to come for detention and occlumency lessons tonight," he said, confused. How could Snape have forgotten? Didn't he look forward to torturing his students?

"I did nothing of the sort," he snapped, rising from behind his desk. "Now get out of my office." He took Harry by the arm and practically threw him out of the room. With one more glare at him he slammed the door.

For the next few seconds Harry stared at the door, trying to figure out what had happened. Furious about coming down to the dungeons for nothing, he went to the door and boldly started knocking.

Snape answered again. Harry wasn't sure he had ever seen the potions look as vicious as he did right then.

"Stop banging! You-Know-Who himself can hear you!"

He threw a piece of paper at Harry, gave him a knowing look and once again slammed the door.

Curious, he picked the paper up and quickly read through it.

Potter~

You-Know-Who is suspicious. Weasley told him something. He is listening. I cannot talk to you. Keep eyes open at ball and CLEAR YOUR MIND!

"Incendio," Harry whispered and left the ashes of the letter outside of the professors' room.

~~~

"Death Eaters, we are ready."

Harry shuddered. He had not taken the potion and was willingly standing in a room with over a hundred hooded figures.

"Hogwarts is weakened. We have a complete army. Within the next twenty-four hours Hogwarts and all its occupants will be under the rule of the Dark!"

The Death Eaters gave a unanimous shout.

"Tonight," Voldemort whispered above the sudden silence. "Tonight is the downfall of Light."

~~~

It was Saturday. Ginny and Hermione had gone to Hogsmeade along with the rest of the school a few hours ago. With their reassurances he would have no fun shopping for last minute accessories with them, he had headed down to Sirius' rooms where the boxes of Sirius and his father's old school things were.

Sirius was nowhere to be found, but the dress robes were lying out on the sofa. There was a small blue velvet box on top of them. He took the lid of to find a jewelry box inside. Opening that, he found what he was sure was the most beautiful necklace he had ever seen.

The charm was a real diamond cut into the shape of an angel. Behind the diamond was the same shape but made of sapphire. It hung from a delicate silver chain.

"Your father gave that to your mother for her seventeenth birthday." Rosy was smiling at Harry's awed expression. "We figured you might want something nice to give to Ginny for hers."

He had not completely forgotten it was Ginny's birthday. He just could not think of anything to get for her. It had been put into the back of his mind as just another thing to worry about.

"Thank you," he said, staring at the beautiful piece of jewelry. He closed the jewelry box and put that back inside of the small blue one.

"Now, what are you still doing here? The ball begins in like two hours. Go get ready."

Deciding to somewhat comply with Rosy's demands, he headed back to the Gryffindor tower that was now filled with mostly guys and people who weren't going. All the girls had gone to get ready. He walked up to the dorm that he was happy to find empty.

Thinking about his dream from last night, a shiver went down his back. He had debated all day whether he was going to tell somebody. Then, he reminded himself about what had happened when he overreacted about a dream at the end of last term. Besides, if anything were truly wrong, Snape would definitely tell Dumbledore.

Putting his worries aside, he instead started looking forward to the ball. Seamus, Dean, and Neville eventually came up and the four of them started getting ready. Ron never showed up.

It was ten until eight when Harry made his way down into the common room. He was wearing the dress robes that Sirius had provided him with and the necklace was in his pocket. Hermione was standing by herself by the fireplace. She was wearing new lacy robes of a pale pink and her hair had been set straight. Harry grinned when he saw her.

"You look great," he said.

"You too," she replied, looking at his robes. "Where did you get these from? They're wonderful."

"They were my dad's."

She smiled, knowing how much that meant to him. "Ginny said we should go ahead and go down to the entrance hall. She said she would just be a minute." Harry offered Hermione his arm and the headed downstairs.

The entrance hall was crowded with most of the school already there. A few people stared as Harry led Hermione down but they soon eased into the crowd. It was five minutes before the head boy and head girl would open the dance.

Harry had his back turned towards the stairs and therefore did not immediately realize what had cause a hush to go over the entire room. Slowly, he turned around and was stunned.

Ginny was smiling as she made her way down the grand staircase. She was wearing a gorgeous dress. The bodice, made of purely white silk, was tight around her torso and chest and cut to show enough but not too much. At the waist, layers of white lace made up the skirt that fell below her slippered feet. Two thin straps held up the whole thing. Her hair hung in freely around her shoulders in loose curls. A crown of small white flowers was pinned to the top of her head, strands of silver string tangled in with her hair.

People began murmuring as she finally reached the bottom of the stairs. Not even a hint of embarrassment or nervousness on her face, she lightly kissed Harry.

And just like that, any worries he had, had suddenly vanished.