You’ll never make me leave
“The Yule Ball,” Professor McGonagall lectures while Filch messes with the gramophone unhelpfully and his cat, Mrs Norris, turns her lamplike eyes beseechingly on the entire assembled Gryffindor House, “has been a tradition of the Triwizard Tournament since its inception. On Christmas Eve night, we and our guests gather in the Great Hall for a night of well-mannered frivolity.”
James does not imagine the pointed look she gives him and Sirius as she says this, as though she is already mentally preparing for all the fires she’ll have to put out, were the two of them to misbehave. James doesn’t know how to tell her she only has Sirius to worry about.
McGonagall isn’t finished with her pre-admonishments, however. “As representatives of the host school, I expect each and every one of you to put your best foot forward – and I mean this literally because the Yule Ball is, first and foremost, a dance.”
Protestations break out amongst the general populace immediately, but James has nothing to say. Not after his spectacular row with Regulus.
“D-do you maybe want to, uh…be my date?”
“To…?” Regulus asked, looking quite like a deer in headlights.
James had straightened himself out, regaining his composure. “The Yule Ball.”
When Regulus snorted, James’ self-esteem had already begun its spiral to the darkest depths of hell. “You’re amazingly self-assured. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“I tell myself that every day, actually,” James made light to hide the anxiety rising to meet his plummeting self-worth in a no-doubt stupendous collision. “So, how about it?”
“Oh, you weren’t being facetious?” Regulus raised a wry eyebrow.
James forced out a heavy breath. “C’mon, Reg! Go with me.”
“No,” Regulus shot him down in cold blood.
“No?” How James had hated the quiver in his voice right then. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to,” had come the simple answer.
Simple to Regulus – heartbreaking to James. He’d really thought his vying for Reg had cured him of any lingering predisposition to shame, but it seems Regulus remains his kryptonite.
Picking up on James’ disappointment, Regulus pressed on, “It’s a stupid tradition.”
“It’s a dance,” James tried again. “We can both look nice and enjoy ourselves. We don’t even have to stay late.”
But Regulus’ good humour, such as it was, had disappeared entirely. “Why are you pushing this? What’s in it for you?”
“Oh? I need to have a motive to want to be with you?” James spun his wheels.
“You tell me,” Regulus crossed his arms, new gloves clasped loosely in one hand.
“There is nothing in it for me. Just the pleasure of your company,” James had spelled out. “Okay?”
At this, Regulus had promptly turned on his heel and marched back in the direction of the castle.
“Silence!” Minnie breaks James out of his self-deprecation.
Next to him, Sirius also hasn’t uttered a word, but looks conspicuously smug. James shoots him a frown, but faces front again immediately when McGonagall speaks.
“The House of Godrick Gryffindor has commanded the respect of the wizard world for nearly ten centuries. I will not have you, in the course of a single evening, besmirching that name by behaving like a babbling, bumbling band of baboons.”
Sirius sits up straighter, looking utterly enraptured. James can’t possibly fathom why, as Sirius does not lack in the dancing department. He knows for a fact that, like himself, Sirius’ family had him in ballroom dancing lessons until last year.
“To dance,” Minnie explains, going so far as to appear delighted at her role as dance instructor, “is to let the body breathe. Inside every girl, a secret swan slumbers longing to burst forth and take flight. Inside every boy, a lordly lion prepared to prance. Mr Black.”
“Professor,” Sirius lights up.
“Will you join me, please?” McGonagall gestures for him to get to his feet.
Sirius rises with more grace than James has ever seen him display. Across the room, James spies Lily, Mary and Marlene choking back laughter. They’ll be choking on that laughter in a minute.
Without any guidance whatsoever, Sirius gets into flawless form, turning at once from a willful schoolboy into a young nobleman as he places one light hand on their head of house’s waist and the other clasped around her outstretched leading arm. With a wink over her shoulder at James, the gramophone Filch is still tinkering with jerks out of the caretaker’s grip and begins playing a stately waltz.
Every smile or stifled laugh in the room dies, as Sirius leads Minnie in an exquisitely smooth waltz around the room, gliding as if on air. The three girls, James notes, wear one stunned expression after another, while some of the younger ones stare at the spectacle before them with equal parts swooning and longing. James smiles, satisfied. That’s his best friend, that is.
When McGonagall makes the mistake of calling on all of them to find practice partners, most of the girls trip all over themselves to ask Sirius. James, on the other hand, prepares to slink out and go mope on his bed. He gestures this to Sirius, pretending he doesn’t see how sad his best friend is for him.
* * *
The insistent tap-tap-tap on the common room window ceases when James opens it two days later, but when he tries to relieve the wicked-looking owl of its package, the fowl creature attempts to separate James from one of his digits.
“That’s for me!” Sirius singsongs, taking the package easily and slipping the owl a Galleon.
“What is it?” James asks, turning back to his Muggle Studies homework.
So far, his plan to throw himself into his academics to distract himself from the Regulus-shaped hole in his heart has proved pointless. Regulus has, to his credit, attempted reconciliation a few times, but James cannot quite bring himself to move on from his complicated feelings regarding the whole situation.
Yes, he had only begun his courting of Regulus as recompense for academic assistance. Yes, his feelings for the aforementioned have since become quite real and he no longer needs Remus’ help. Thus, he no longer has ulterior motives or desperate convictions for wanting to go to the ball with who may very well be the boy of his dreams. But he feels guilty and rejected at the same time, and therefore really wants to be as unaware of Ball proceedings as possible.
“Dress robes,” Sirius announces, removing the packaging to reveal a set of black velvet robes so stunning, it makes James’ heart ache anew.
“Oh, Sirius, they’re beautiful!” Lily gushes, having just come down the stairs from her room.
“Thank you, Lils. My mother would have wanted to send on some outdated affair from home, but I simply have not asked permission to go and deferred my tailoring to Madame Malkin. Remus will no doubt look stunning, and I am not going to be his ill-fit counterpart, even if I cannot be his ‘official’ date,” Sirius relays bitterly.
“It’s such bollocks, that,” Lily decides. “So being a werewolf in Serbia is okay, but being queer is what’s illegal? What a bloody joke.”
She’s no sooner expressed this than two sixth-years push through the portrait hole, practically carrying Marlene, with Mary babbling consolations.
“It’s alright, Marls. Yeah? It doesn’t matter.”
“What happened to you?” Sirius asks, his robes forgotten.
“She just asked Dorcas Meadowes out,” Mary recounts, making space for her on the sofa beside James.
Lily comes rushing over. “What?”
James sets down his homework to help make Marlene, who appears quite catatonic, comfortable. Thinking of what his mum would do, he levitates over a blanket and drapes it over her shoulders before sending one of the sixth-years for a strong cup of tea.
“Well?” Sirius presses. “What did she say?”
“‘No’, of course,” Lily answers, reading her friend’s expression.
Marlene rises from the dead, then, but only to shake her head. A collective gasp goes out.
“She said ‘yes’?” Lily’s hands go up to cover her mouth in shock.
“Oh, don’t be daft,” Marlene laments, suddenly animated enough to pull the blanket over her head in shame. The rest of her story comes out muffled, but not indistinct. “There I was, in the library for my Transfiguration essay. Finishing up, mind you, because I’m due in Hogsmeade during lessons tomorrow for a dress fitting. Then, Meadowes swans in, casual-as-you-please, to take the very book I was on the verge of returning from my hand with a wicked glint in her eye. I don’t know what possessed me – truly not – but she was so close to me and my sanity just fled…”
“Came out a bit of a shout, to be honest,” the remaining sixth-year shares. “It’s how we found her.”
“It’s a good thing, too. I wouldn’t have been able to carry her all the way here myself,” Mary puts in.
“Yeah, but you could at least chase her down,” the sixth-year volleys, eyes on Mary.
“Merlin’s beard, you yelled at the poor girl and then pissed off?” James stares so hard at Blanket-Ghost Marlene that he swears she must feel his eyes on her.
She yanks the blanket down, gaze already level with James’. “I know when I’ve been stupid, James. I don’t need to stick around and have it pointed out to me.”
Just then, the portrait bangs open and the other sixth-year returns, fear etched into her every feature. Over the rattle of the teacup in her shaking hands, everyone can hear, loudly enough that someone may have cast a Sonorous Charm, French resentment and reprimand spilling in from the corridor beyond before the painting swings itself back shut.
“It’s Meadowes,” the returning sixth-year whimpers, handing Marlene her tea. “She wants to see McKinnon. I tried telling her McKinnon’s in no fit state to be seen, but, well…”
Downing her tea in a single swallow, Marls rises to her feet, aiming for the door. They part for her, Lily helping to reposition the blanket comfortably around her shoulders. In true, fearless Gryffindor fashion, Marlene stalks toward the portrait hole and out, leaving the room behind her in stunned silence.
James gets to his feet to disperse the spectators, knowing that his friend may be a competitor, but she’s not a performer.
“Alright, everyone, go back to your knitting. This is going to be awkward enough without all you nosy sods listening in!”
“What is it with all these self-important snobs blowing off good people for no reason other than optics?” Sirius vents, throwing himself down in Marlene’s vacated spot.
“You can go with us, Jamie,” Mary offers, meaning her and Lily.
James smiles, albeit weakly. “That actually sounds lovely.”
Lily sinks onto the arm of the sofa beside him, rubbing his back. “If you want to match, we’re both wearing gold.”
James covers her soothing hand with his own, putting more enthusiasm in his words. “Shall I pick you ladies up here, at half-six?”
“It’s a date,” Mary winks at him.
When the Fat Lady’s portrait swings inward once more, it’s an entirely different Marlene that makes her way inside. Her eyes sparkle and her smile could light up the entire castle.
“She said ‘yes’?” Lily asks, hands going up to her mouth again, but to hide a grin this time.
“SHE SAID ‘YES’!” Marlene cries, throwing her fists in the air in triumph, her blanket dropping to the floor.
The entire common room goes mad, cheering and clapping her on the back. James doesn’t hold back with his congratulations, either. This is Marlene McKinnon’s year, and he’s only too happy to be a piece of furniture in her world.
* * *
Regulus is about ready to drown himself in the Black Lake.
It’s been three days since his Hogsmeade date with James, and although he smiles at Regulus in the corridors and the Great Hall, he seems to be avoiding Regulus at every other opportunity. It’s gotten to the point where Regulus isn’t altogether certain they’re still together, if they ever were.
As if the stupid Ball is really such an event. They could do anything that night – literally anything else. He simply cannot handle the Howler that is sure to make an appearance once his mother becomes privy to him going to the Yule Ball with a boy. Sure, he can claim to be going with Pandora, but then he’ll have to rehash to his parents how she and he can only ever be friends, and how that friendship will never include breeding – which would circle right back to his mother not letting him go.
Oh, how his heart had lept when James asked him. How it’d shattered when James had tottered around like a wounded deer at his rejection. Now, he won’t even speak to Regulus, and how can he blame him? After all James had done to prove he genuinely wanted to be with Regulus. Fuck, it’s all so complicated.
“…ere is he?”
Regulus jerks upright. He’d been resting his head on his one arm, doodling along the margins of his Charms notes miserably.
Striding across the common room is his brother, looking a little more than mildly murderous. Whatever he wants to say, he can just go ahead and get it off his chest. No shit Sirius can give him is worse than anything Regulus has already said to himself.
“You vapid, heartless, evil bitch,” Sirius spits, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
Lupin, for what it’s worth, comes trailing after him, looking sheepish.
Feeling somehow even more miserable than before, Regulus only sighs and replies, “I’m sorry, Siri. I know how badly you wanted to go. For whatever it’s worth, I didn’t rat you out to Mum. It was Slughorn.”
Sirius only sneers. “Fuck all the way off, alright? I can’t belie— Slughorn?” This brings Sirius up short. “You… Slughorn told Mum?”
Regulus sighs again, suddenly exhausted. “She wrote him. I didn’t know until she wrote me this morning.”
“Blimey…” Sirius runs a hand through his hair, staring off over Regulus’ head.
Lupin steps up, then, looking pensive. “Remind me again of the rule? Just…refresh my memory.”
“Sirius can date, if I do,” Regulus recalls. “It’s Noble Ruling: going around with whomever we like is fine, as long as we make ‘advantageous matches’ for marriage and children. That’s why James could take me to Hogsmeade without a problem. But the Ball is a public event – optics matter. If our mother finds out either or both of us went with boys, she’ll… Well, it won’t be pretty.”
Sirius drops into a vacant chair, looking about as despondent as Regulus. At least he has Lupin, who goes over to rub his shoulders. Regulus wants to be in his bed, then; duvet pulled over his head, drowned in heavy silence.
“I have an idea,” Lupin says, then. “It’s a bloody stupid one, but it could work if you’re both up for it.”
The brothers look at each other, silently agreeing they don’t have much left to lose.
“Go on, then,” Sirius says.
“It’ll take some elbow grease, but it’s so wacky we might just pull it off…”