A Song About Ulysses

“Aren’t you going to dance with me?” asked Parvati.

“No,” said Harry. Parvati looked at him crossly and got up, walking over to a nearby Beauxbatons boy on the dance floor.

“Going to get some punch,” said Ron, who got up and walked off in the opposite direction.

“Weasley’s run off too, has he? I can’t say I blame him. I’d hide as well, in those robes.”

Harry turned around in his seat to see Malfoy, who had appeared next to him out of thin air.

“But I expected more from you, Potter,” she drawled. “Staring at another girl all evening and completely ignoring your date… How ungentlemanly.”

“Not tonight, Malfoy,” said Harry, turning back in his chair. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Tsk, Potter. Don’t you know anything about women?” She came around to face him. “The best way to get someone you fancy to notice you is to dance with someone else.”

Harry craned his neck sideways, about to retort, and noticed Malfoy properly for the first time that evening. She was in mint green, with a silver snake at her throat and her blonde hair in a braided bun, off her shoulders. She stood with one hand behind her back and the other toying with the snake, her chin lifted, smirking down at him as though daring him to argue. She didn’t look half bad, Harry had to admit. Actually, she looked rather pretty, like a winter fairy. But then again, all the girls were looking prettier than usual this evening.

“Since when do you care about my love life, Malfoy? Do I interest you that much?” Harry asked. Was he acting so pathetic about Cho tonight that even Malfoy had noticed?

She shrugged, and looked off towards the ice sculptures. “Perhaps you misunderstand me. Perhaps my date is off snogging some Beauxbatons hussy. Perhaps I’m bored.” She examined her gloved fingertips. “Who knows? Who cares? Ask me to dance and let’s make them jealous.”

Harry hesitated, and was about to say no, when Malfoy cut in, rolling her eyes. “Don’t worry, we’ll go back to hating each other tomorrow.” She smirked. “Let’s have some fun tonight. Might as well.”

Harry glanced at Cho, who was gazing happily up at Cedric as she did a twirl. She hadn’t looked his way once all evening. The song finished, and the band struck up another lively tune. Still he didn’t move.

“Scared, Potter?”

“All right,” said Harry. He got to his feet, hands in his pockets. “Dance with me, then.”

“At least make it convincing. Honestly, Potter, I’ve seen trolls with more charm.”

Harry rolled his eyes and gave her the most sarcastic bow he could manage. “Malfoy,” he said. “Would you care to dance?”

“It’s Miss Malfoy tonight, Potter. And, well,” she said, putting a gloved hand to her mouth and acting coy, “I suppose one dance wouldn’t hurt.”

She took his hand and followed him out to the dance floor. He noticed Parvati glaring at him as they took up a space just inside the outer edge of the floor, and he cringed inwardly, resolving not to show it on his face.

The song was already half over. Malfoy began to sway. Harry joined in, a beat late. He had never danced in his life before tonight, save for the champions’ dance, which Parvati had mostly steered him through.

“You’re meant to lead, Potter.”

“I am leading.”

“Then stop looking at your feet.”

The song ended before he could think of a reply. The next was some kind of lively polka jazz, which some of the couples were dancing to by holding one hand and bouncing along. Malfoy, to her credit, glided across the floor, making each of his steps seem as though it had been done on purpose. Harry found this more irritating than if she had been bad at it. He tried a turn he had seen Fred do with Angelina. She followed it without blinking and added one of her own.

By the third song, neither of them was looking to see who was watching. Malfoy had begun to wave her arms about in the air, and she was grinning, a small grin at first, which grew with each ridiculous move. Despite his best efforts, Harry started to laugh. It was mad. He was dancing with his nemesis, of all people, to make her date jealous.

“I don’t even know how to dance to this,” he yelled over the music.

“Just do anything!” she shouted back. “Imagine you’re flying, and just feel the music!”

Dean Thomas danced over briefly, shimmied with the pair of them, then shimmied back to his date.

Harry was sweating under his dress robes by the time it ended, and the music began to slow down.

“This one’s for the yearners in the crowd,” the singer crooned, and he began to sing a song about Ulysses and the sirens.

“That last one was awful,” said Malfoy, breathing hard. “One more? They’ll definitely look over at us during this one.” Harry hesitated, then took her waist and her hand. Truth be told, this was more fun than sitting and moping as he had been earlier.

Until now, they had been moving too much to look directly at each other. Now, Harry was forced to look into her eyes. They looked different tonight, sharper somehow, though he couldn’t have said why. He tried looking down instead, found himself facing the neckline of her dress — oh — and looked back up very quickly.

She was smirking at him, as usual, but for once there was no malice in it. “Not bad, Potter. You only stepped on me once.”

“You’re not so awful either,” Harry replied. “Training for the ballet, Malfoy?” he teased.

“Ha! I’ve been taking dance lessons since I was a child, Potter,” said Malfoy. She paused and went on thoughtfully, “When I leave Hogwarts I might start my own dance company. I’ll hire the best choreographers in the wizarding world, only accept the best dancers, and we’ll perform every Yule and Midsummer at the Green Witch Theatre in London. Father thinks it’s a phase, of course. Mother and I will bring him round.”

“Really?” said Harry. It was, as far as he could remember, the most Malfoy had ever said to him in one go without an insult in it. “I thought you wanted to play Quidditch?”

Malfoy chuckled. “I’m not one-dimensional, Potter. A girl can have many interests.”

Harry considered this for a moment, looking out over the floor. Ron was back with the punch, staring at Harry with confusion, confusion, and more confusion. It would, Harry supposed, make a funny story later.

“What would you do?”

“Hmm?” said Harry, returning his eyes to her.

“What would you do when you leave Hogwarts?” said Malfoy, making polite conversation as they kept dancing slowly. The whole thing was so strange, and so unlike her. But Harry supposed that balls like this didn’t come along at Hogwarts very often, and they could afford to be civil for one evening.

“Nobody’s ever asked me that,” said Harry, and found that it was true. “Something where nobody’s trying to kill me, ideally.”

They half smiled at each other. Malfoy looked down, and Harry looked at the braid in her hair. They danced in silence.

After a while the singer stepped back, and a witch’s voice took up the song. “Well, I think it’s working,” said Malfoy.

Harry glanced around and saw Cho, Padma and a number of other people watching them, including Professor Snape. Blaise Zabini, Malfoy’s date, was dancing with a Beauxbatons girl and a Durmstrang girl at once and hadn’t noticed a thing. Graham Montague had, though; he was frowning at them over his partner’s shoulder. “Yeah,” said Harry. “Maybe too well.”

“You’re still my nemesis, Potter, remember that,” she said quickly.

Harry looked down at Dracaena Malfoy. She couldn’t seem to work out where on his face to keep her eyes, a problem Harry understood. They were dancing too close. Looking into her eyes felt… intimate. “When the song ends, say something Potter-like so I can slap you,” she said in a quieter voice.

“What? Why?”

“So that he comes running to defend my honour, obviously.” She nodded towards her date. “Say something annoying.”

Harry had no intention of being slapped so that some Slytherin could feel gallant. But he knew what she was expecting to hear, having traded barbs with her over the years: that she was hideous, that she was the worst Quidditch player ever, that she was lucky her father had bribed her way on to the team. So he said the opposite.

He smirked, lowered his eyelashes, and said, “You look really pretty tonight, Dracaena.”

Malfoy blushed red, redder than Harry had ever seen her blush. “That’s— you— you can’t—” She seemed to have lost the end of her sentence, and Harry laughed. “That’s cheating, Potter,” she hissed. “I said annoying. Is that all you can think of?” She was still very pink.

It wasn’t. Harry had never in his life been short of things to say to Malfoy, and for once he was winning.

He grinned. He was still holding her hand and waist when he leaned close to her ear and dropped his voice.

“Scared, Malfoy?”

She slapped him so hard with one gloved hand that his glasses nearly fell off his face.

By the time Harry had straightened them, Dracaena was storming off through the crowd.

Harry rubbed his cheek, still grinning. He would take that as a yes.

Then he noticed the faces. Parvati, arm in arm with her Beauxbatons boy, was looking at him as though he were something she had found on the bottom of her shoe. A knot of Ravenclaw girls had stopped dancing altogether to stare. Zabini had stopped dancing with his two girls and was looking round, confused. Pansy Parkinson, in very frilly pale pink, was already hurrying after Dracaena, with Graham Montague close behind. Over by the staff table, Professor McGonagall’s eyebrows had risen very high indeed.

Harry’s heart began to beat very fast. All anyone had seen was Harry Potter whisper something in a girl’s ear and get slapped for it.

He had walked straight into it. Again.

Damn you, Malfoy.

---

“Did you see, Jo?!” All her friends had once called Cho Chang Jo, short for Joanna, which was her real name. Somehow the name had changed along the grapevine and now everyone called her Cho. Except for Padma Patil. “Harry Potter slapped Dracaena Malfoy! I mean, Dracaena Malfoy slapped Harry Potter on the dance floor!” She spoke so fast her words got mixed up.

“I saw,” said Cho. “I wonder what that was about?” She had noticed them two songs ago, if she was honest.

“She asked him out and he said no,” said Marietta Edgecombe at once. They were all getting punch after taking a break from dancing.

“Then why did she slap him?” said a Hufflepuff boy who had stopped to listen. “He asked her, obviously, and she turned him down.”

“I think they were about to kiss,” said Lavender Brown breathlessly.

“Dracaena wouldn’t ask Potter the time of day,” said Daphne Greengrass, from Slytherin. “He said something disgusting. You could tell from her face.”

“You couldn’t see her face, she had her back to us.”

“She was very red,” said Cho quietly. “But Harry isn’t like that. He was really nice about it when I—” She stopped.

“And what about Parvati!?” said Padma. “He asked her to be his date! He just walked off and left my sister! Just because he’s a champion he thinks he can go around breaking girls’ hearts. Jo, you were so lucky Cedric asked you before he did — if you had gone with Harry—”

“Parvati’s been dancing with that Beauxbatons boy for half an hour,” said Lavender.

“That’s not the point,” said Padma.

“Boys!” said Daphne. “They get a little taller and their voices get a little deeper, and suddenly they think they can do whatever they like!”

“Hang on,” said Marietta. “Since when do Harry Potter and Dracaena Malfoy say a civil word to each other?”

Nobody had an answer to that.

“She’s fancied him for ages, then,” said Lavender. “And he turned her down in front of the whole school.”

“Dracaena does not fancy Potter,” said Daphne, but nobody was listening.

“First Parvati, now Malfoy,” said Padma.

“Has anyone seen Hermione?” said Lavender, looking round.

“When did Harry Potter become such a heartbreaker?!”

And thus the rumour mill began to turn.

---

Pansy and Montague walked Dracaena all the way back to the dungeons. Pansy asked what Potter had said at least six times. Dracaena didn’t answer.

Montague waited until they reached the common room. “You can talk to me, Dracaena,” he said. “I won’t let someone like Potter disrespect our Seeker.”

That was somehow worse. She didn’t answer him either. At the foot of the girls’ staircase, she turned round.

“Go back to the ball,” she said. “Both of you. I’ve had quite enough for one night anyway. I’m going to bed.”

Neither of them moved. Pansy opened her mouth.

“Go.”

They went, Pansy with an anxious look over her shoulder, her pale pink frills bobbing away towards the door, and Montague just behind her. Both of them, Dracaena noticed, walked rather faster once they thought she wasn’t looking.

Dracaena went up alone. She flopped onto her four-poster bed, parched. She had undone her hair and brushed her teeth, but had not taken off her make-up, nor even changed out of her dress. She screamed into her silk pillowcase, muffling the sound, not bothering with a Silencing Charm.

Damn you, Potter. Damn you.

She was furious. Furious. She went on being furious, turning the night over and over in her head, until she fell asleep.

In her sleep, she smiled.