The Weasley War
VI. Families spring from dancing
Just when everything seemed rosy, another difficulty would rear itself up annoyingly.
One week until the Yule and still no one asked Jules to the ball. Well, there was Leontes, but he hadn’t ever directly asked her. And he intimidated the rest of the fifteen-and-up male population of Beauxbatons, Durmstrang and Hogwarts, the bugger.
Tristan with his moroseness was out of the question. Cam had Lola. S.J would surely take Holly. Jules thought about asking Arthur to partner her, but she saw that he, too, had recently acquired a girlfriend, Brett. To her consternation, Janus and Mark had already asked girls out as well. This left her with Andrey and Gideon, who now always gave her sidelong glances as if tuning out who she’d pick between them. Every time she caught them at it, she had to dig her nails on her palms to keep from bursting into giggles. They were both stockier than lanky and barely reached her shoulder. Imagine her dancing with either of them.
The carriage was warm, its royal blue carpeting easily absorbing the heat from the fireplace and sconces. Jules sat on a bow seat, her slippered feet tucked under her, hugging her nightgown-clad knees. Mackerel lay curled beside her like a round furry orange pillow. Marcia and Xenita were already asleep. Jules felt restless tonight, and as she looked out at Hogwarts’ snowy grounds, she snorted at the thought that the Yule Ball was what brought her out of bed. What would her mother say to such a silly concern? That she should poison Leontes for being a slowpoke and be done with it?
“What’s so amusing out there?”
Jules nearly jumped. She turned her head and there he was, wrapped in a white fleece dressing gown and matching slippers...with bunny ears. She giggled.
“Oi, don’t make fun of my bunnies.”
“Goodness, Leontes! Stop it or I’ll wake the whole carriage!”
“Here, choke on this, so you’ll stop.” He offered her his steaming mug of cocoa. Jules took it hesitantly; he pushed it to her lips, placing his fingers over hers around the cup. It was all she could do not to let go as if burned. Instead, she focused on his offering. It was redolent of cinnamon and cloves. She inhaled deeply and drank.
“Merci, Leontes.” And because she couldn’t bear the tingles looking into his eyes gave her, she turned once more to the window, saw her brown moustache on the reflection, and promptly shook into another spasm of mirth, splattering Leontes’s immaculate robe with geysers of cocoa from the mug.
“Merlin! You’ll have to pay for this!”
“Scourgify! Sorry!”
Leontes only smirked and, to her astonishment, he wiped her lips with the hem of his robe. “As payment, you’ll have to go to the ball with me, mademoiselle. I don’t care if somebody asked you already; you’ll just have to dump him for me.”
He had turned away before she could get a breath in. When it dawned on her what he’d done, she pulled her own lambskin slipper and lobbed it on his retreating form. He ducked, looking back at her and grinning. His face was red. This rendered Jules speechless again. Leontes blushing? Nice.
***
The library sounded like a room full of mice. Like the fifty or so students congregated there that time, S.J also scratched away on his parchment with his own quill, but to his ears, something was drumming dug-dug, dug-dug, dug-dug, drowning out the mice and making him want to pull at his hair. But that would either give Holly a fright or make her hit him with a curse for startling her out of her homework, so he held the urge in and gritted his teeth.
“Holly.”
She looked up at him for a second and then hummed onto her parchment.
“Um, nothing.”
She scratched away. Dug-dug, dug-dug, dug-dug...
“Holly.”
“What?”
Now when she snapped that monosyllable, you had better have a good reply.
Dug-dug, dug-dug, dug-dug...
“Do”do you want t-to”go to”the...Restricted Section and reachowtobindinveri?”
“What? You’re not making sense.”
“I”I said ”” He felt deflated. He wanted to thump his chest to make sure it was still working. But where was the dug-dug, dug-dug, dug-dug... coming from? “This thing for Defense, about binding Inferi...”
Holly opened her mouth to answer, but before she could talk, Seamus Finnigan Jr. dropped onto the chair beside her.
“Er, Holly, do you””
“She doesn’t.”
“Oh, hi, S.J. What?”
“She doesn’t want to go to the ball with you. No, well, ‘course she would, but she’s already taken.” S.J bared his teeth, smiling.
“I am?” Holly asked, her face camouflaging her hair.
“Yep. You’re going to the ball with me, aren’t you?”
Merlin’s round things, where did that come from? His survival instincts were sending signals that he duck under the table, but he just looked at Holly’s daggers head on.
Miraculously, the daggers disappeared. She smiled at Seamus. “Thank you, Seamus, but””
“No, no, that’s fine, you and S.J. I’m off, then. See ye.”
The dug-dug, dug-dug, dug-dug... was painful now as he and Holly went back to being alone face to face on their alcove table. Her eyes were doing that sparkling trick again. He couldn’t look away, even when she kicked his shin under the table and tears clouded his vision.
***
No less than ten Weasleys were in that Tournament’s Yule Ball. The Weasley wives, his mother included, wanted to play with this fact to perfection by ‘designing’ their dress robes. So S.J had a modicum of trepidation as he opened the little valise containing his. He shook it out and held it to himself in front of the mirror. No insignia, no badges, no emblems, no seals.
There was just this simple, silky crimson and gold fourragére on the left shoulder of the black velvet.
“Dashing,” murmured Holly an hour later. S.J could have kissed his mother. But he wanted to kiss Holly more. She had on a sleek gold thing that sparkled all over with”what was it” sequins? However, the dazzle was downplayed elegantly by the flimsy red thing she wore over it, which was just as sleek, ending just below her knees, leaving the gold to shimmer from there to her ankles. Matching red and gold straps encased her feet.
“Is that lace?” he asked, in a voice unlike his own. Holly noticed; she smiled and shrugged nonchalantly, plucking at the red ‘lace’ as if she was only noticing it.
“It’s organza, S.J,” she said, scrunching her nose in a way that said she didn’t care much what the fabric was called either.
He nodded. She knew the Weasleys had strict orders to come down together, so she sat down on one of the couches and pulled him down beside her to wait for the rest of his cousins. Gideon, Maynard and Miguel came running down the staircase, tried to ‘examine’ S.J’s dress robes, but departed at a look from Holly.
Arthur and Olga came down in traditional Georgian costumes, his cravat and her contouche matching S.J’s fourragére. Cleo and Mark came one after the other, both in Ancient Egypt-inspired robes, both of them looking disgruntled even as the room went quiet at their entrance. Cleo had red satin pschent draped over her head, matching the red tassels over her white gown. Mark had a red scarab brooch on his, and faux rubies on his armbands.
“Hail, Your Majesties!” S.J bowed. This ‘rennervated’ the stupefied room. Even Cleo and Mark grinned.
“I’ll bet you anything Jan and Venus comes down in Roman attire,” S.J announced to the colourful common room at large.
“Our dads are clever that way,” Cleo called from the other side of the room where she sat with Charles Whitehorn.
Sure enough, Venus descended the staircase from the girl’s dormitories looking like a goddess, her red hair up in a knot, the colour perfectly matching the thin burgundy sash tied around her peacock blue gown’s waist. Her sandals were burgundy, too. There were cheers from the girls and sighs from the boys. S.J looked around the room and smirked. “Oy! Are you all her partner? Stop ogling my cousin!”
Jan ran down a moment later in what appeared to be ordinary black robes, but when he turned, the light glinted on garnet threads woven into the fabric, matching the subtle red ring of laurels fastened on his forehead under his black hair.
“Come on, then, let’s see what’s red with Jules, Cam and Jen, eh?” he said briskly, trying to hide the laurels with his fringe. When they all lined up to climb through the portrait hole, Jan muttered, “I could kill Mum, she charmed this thing so I can’t take it off, it jumped from the case the moment I opened it and clamped around my head!”
The Weasleys sniggered.
***
“But why do you not have a partner, boy?” Master Chekhov groaned, flicking at Tristan’s already impeccable slate dress robes. “You will open the ball, you will look ridiculous without a partner!”
“It’s alright, Master Chekhov, I’ll dance with him.”
Both of them jumped on the cleared path to the castle and looked around. The students from Beauxbatons had emerged from their carriage as well, and directly behind Tristan and his headmaster were Jules and five other people, two girls and three boys.
“I’m Xenita Weasley, Tristan, we’re cousins, and this is my brother, Cam. You know Jules, right? This is her date, Leontes Herrara. My boyfriend, Emmanuel Combé, and this is Cam’s ladylove, Lola Clemence. And yes, I’ll dance with you, if you will have me?”
They were all smiling at him, even Emmanuel; he would have been a fool to say ‘No’. Master Chekhov clapped him on the back, inclined his head to his cousins and their partners, and retreated to wait for and walk with Madame Calasanz. Tristan went on to the entrance hall, wondering how he felt at Xenita’s confident domineering. He couldn't believe he hadn't even an iota of annoyance over it at all.
Fortunately for his current musing, though they stayed by him, they didn’t force him to talk. They just smiled at him and looked at him whenever they spoke, making him feel like he was included in the chatter. This left him free to study them. He noticed the that Cam, Xenita and Jules seemed to have matching red accessories: Xenita had a red mantilla thrown back on her blond hair, Cam had this red sash across his chest like he was royalty, and Jules had plumes of faux phoenix feathers blossoming on her azure gown's left shoulder.
And then the rest of the Weasleys arrived, and he knew that this must have been an arrangement, they all had this defining crimson trimming, identifying each of them as a Weasley.
He looked down at himself, knowing he looked just exactly how he felt, gray all over. He almost jumped again for the second time that evening when he saw a red, red single-rounded geranium on his boutonnière, which he could have sworn wasn’t there when he first left his cabin.
Professor McGonagall descended upon them in red tartan. Tristan had to turn to the snow-covered, fairy-lit grounds for a moment to relieve his eyes of all the red in his vision. When he turned back, there was a house-elf beside the Hogwarts headmistress, a house-elf mounting a stool to reach a camera on a tripod.
“Your mother asked me to take this picture,” McGonagall was saying to Jules, who rolled her eyes. “Now then, gather together, all you Weasleys and your partners. No”no, no one should block anyone, spread out side by side, we don’t want your dress robes not showing””
Tristan had edged away, but one Weasley male in a cravat, tall as Cam, caught hold of his arm and dragged him over between Xenita and Jules.
The elf climbed down his stool and backed away, and did so at least half a dozen times before everyone was within the frame. The flash exploded. Tristan blinked. The afterimage stayed with him like a charm. A good charm that made his reservations disappear to nothing, making him smile at Xenita as she took his arm while the rest were herded by Professor McGonagall to the Great Hall.
“Oh no, what are you up to, Jen?” S.J asked.
“I will be dancing with our long-lost cousin, is all.”
“I think I’ll dance with him, too,” said the girl beside S.J. She was beautiful, and with a shade of hair that would have made the Weasleys proud.
“Me, too,” said Jules.
“Oho, mate, you’re in trouble,” S.J said.
Tristan surprised himself with his answer, but the pleased looks on their faces made up for it. “I could do with some Weasley trouble. I haven’t experienced it yet.”
***
The Great Hall was not as it was in the last Tournament’s Yule Ball pictures her mother had collected and archived. There had been frost then, and enchanted snow, to bring in the winter, but now, as they entered the great oak doors, the winter could have been forgotten.
The floor was covered in soft, glittering moss. Ferns scintillating with dew fanned in every direction. Vines formed intricate twists and knots to form the chairs, while the many tables looked like huge flattened tree trunks. The ceiling showed moonlight and starglow, giving the hall a dreamy silvery gleam. Braziers burning with perfumed flames hung from willows, whence colourful fairies flitted in and out. It was like entering a very sacred, very romantic woodland.
“C’est ravissante, eh?” Leontes whispered to her ear. Jules felt a thrill pass through her, and she just smiled at him and breathed the pleasant air deeply.
To her astonishment, the Champions were not led to a principal table to dine with their school heads. Instead, when she recovered from Leontes’s charms, she noticed that they were seated with...the rest of her cousins, all eleven of them plus their partners. She didn’t dare look around in fear of finding their table the largest in the hall.
“Isn’t this something? Gran would give anything to see this,” Jules said, looking around at them all.
S.J grinned. “Of course, she’d see it! Any second now, that elf with the camera would reappear” ”
CRACK. “Excuse me, sirs and misses, Dimply has to take your photograph.”
All of them burst into laughter. All of them except Tristan. Nevertheless, he also smiled. Jules caught his eye. She scrunched her nose at him, the same way he did to her younger siblings when she was feeling particularly fond of them.
Tristan scrunched his nose back at her. The whole table saw this.
“Tristan, I’m Arthur. This is my girlfriend, Brett Ashton and my sister, Olga”Who’s that bloke with you?”
Olga scowled at Arthur. “This is Charles Whitehorn, Tristan. Art and I have three more siblings, Andrey, a second year, Eleanor”she just started this year, and Almira, who’s four.”
“Beef stroganoff!” said S.J. The food appeared on his plate. Sensing their looks on him, he raised his eyebrows at them. “What?” Holly elbowed him. “Oh, right, sorry, carry on with the introductions, but fill your plates while we’re at it, why don’t you? This pushy girl beside me is Holly Jasmine Diana Lynton, Tristan” ow!”
The rest of the table placed their orders. “You choose for me, please,” Jules said to Leontes, and then turned to her cousin. “I have five more siblings, but for awhile, the whole family feared I’d be an only child. And then Fabiana, Robin, Rona and Josh came one after the other in quick succession. They’re five, four, three and two. And I also had a new sister this Halloween. You know, the one I induced my Mum into delivering early. Sylvia Candace.”
“Have you seen her yet?” asked Tristan.
“Oh, no, and Mum wouldn’t send me a picture either, she says it serves me right, I should have behaved and then I would have been there for the birth this Christmas hols.” She rolled her eyes. But she found it necessary to take a gulp of water at the affection to her mother that surged through her just then, and at the hand that tenderly squeezed hers under the table.
“Erm, do you mind, could you tell me who your fathers are?”
“And do you know who they could be?” asked Xenita. Jules winced, but Tristan withstood Jen’s straightforwardness.
“Bill, Charlie, Fred, George, and Ron. And there’s Aunt Ginny.”
Xenita smiled. Jules thought all of them smiled. “I and Cam are Bill’s. We have one elder sister, Abby, she’s twenty-one, the eldest of all of us. We also have twins, Joanna and Jonathan, they’re in Beauxbatons, second year.”
“Of course, I’m Aunt Ginny’s,” piped S.J. “With five brothers and another sibling on the way. Their Majesties, Cleopatra and Mark Antony, are Uncle Fred’s. They have other twin siblings, Queen Elizabeth and William Conqueror. Janus and Venus aren’t twins, their names just sound like they are. They’re Uncle George’s. Art and Olga are Uncle Charlie’s. And that other bossy girl there with the feathers, is Uncle Ron’s and Aunt Hermione’s, make no mistake.”
“Hermione Granger?”
Jules was not alone in staring at Tristan then. “Do you” ”
“Yes. My father buys her books right on release days. And we always get WWW Whizbangs every New Year.”
“Well, I never!” Venus sighed, drinking her butterbeer. “Why did you never” ”
“Don’t go there, Vi,” Jules mouthed. Venus caught her meaning and nodded, allowing Jen to ask, “I’ve wondered, why is your name Tristan? Do you know it means ””
“Sorrow? Yes. I think it’s apt, too.” Tristan forked salad into his mouth and chewed. “My mother died when I was born, you see.”
They went silent. All the tinkle of silverware and chatter from the other tables engulfed them. Leontes squeezed Jules’s hand again.
Tristan looked around at them all, fidgeting. “Hey, it was a long time ago, I don’t even know her, so there’s no call for this...awkwardness.”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” said Cam slowly, enunciating every syllable, looking at Tristan, smiling but the look on his eyes somber. Tristan flushed.
“Cam,” Jules said reproachfully.
“What?” Cam said nonchalantly. Turning once more to Tristan, he asked, “When is your birthday then?”
“May eighteenth.”
The whole table paused. Jules couldn’t help giggling. Cam scowled at her.
“What, really? We were born on the same day, the same year? I’m turning eighteen; are you?”
“I am.”
Cam shook his head in awe, grinning widely now. “Fancy that.”
Jen tutted and then got up. “I’ll deal with you later, Emman. Right now, I think we should dance this estrangement away, Tristan. What do you say?”
***
The commissioned musicians, The Potterites, were dressed in fairy garb, handkerchief- hemmed asymmetrical skirts complete with iridescent wings. They struck up a lively waltz for the Champions.
If there was something Leontes couldn’t do, dancing wasn’t one of them. He completely led her, whirling her, turning her and even dipping her and not a second did he look away from her eyes. If they didn’t switch partners, she would have melted like jelly right there on the dance floor.
But then he kissed her lightly before handing her off to Tristan, and it was lucky her cousin was quick to catch her. Holly stared at Leontes's fierce blush and then winked to Jules. Tristan quirked a brow at her.
"By the looks of things, I'm the only one now without a girlfriend among us cousins now."
"Oh, we'll find you one."
Tristan looked startled at her comeback, but then he shook his head in wonder. Jules thought he must still be getting used to this Weasley ribbing and banter. But he was nicely adapting to it, the way he commented about Leontes. She flushed-- she could still feel his lips on her the corner of her lips...
Tristan saw her, but just shrugged.
“Jen told me you’re about to turn fifteen at the stroke of midnight. Happy birthday, Juliet Natalie Clarisse.”
Jules half-smile, half-grimaced. “Thanks, Tristan. But I’ll let you in on a secret: No one calls me Juliet.”
“Oh, okay. No one calls me Abelard either.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t like its meaning.”
With that, Tristan gracefully handed her to S.J. “What does Abelard mean?”
“What does ‘you galumphing git’ mean?”
She thumped him. “Haven’t you been nice to Holly?”
“She hasn’t been nice to me! I’m not a galumphing git!”
“Ow! That was my foot! Yes, you are, you idiot.”
***
“I think your cousin Tristan is a nice bloke, you just have to get him out of his shell.”
“Holly, aren’t you getting chilled?”
“No. Come on, how often do you see a meteor shower in winter? Patience, Sirius.”
“I am patient. Just cold.”
Holly sniffed and shot him with a Heating charm. Sirius shuddered so fiercely at the sudden warmth that he toppled off the log they were perched on, and as the balance upset, Holly toppled right along with him, on top of him.
It seemed the earth stopped moving as they stared into each other’s eyes. And if the earth stopped moving, that meteor shower wouldn’t show at all...
Underbrush crackled from what seemed a long way off, and then a voice spoke, thunderously near.
“How dare you make the forest your trysting place! And you’re still green foals!”
S.J cricked his neck as he turned to the intruder. It was a dark centaur.
Holly scrambled off him, and even in the dimness of the forest canopy (which was the reason why they chose that spot, so that they wouldn’t be dazzled from the meteor shower by the castle’s light), he saw her face glowing crimson. “W-we weren’t trysting, sir. We were waiting for the meteor shower.”
“Ah, well. Good of you to have interest in the heavens. Still, see to it that you don’t get carried away by your wildfire emotions. You young humans are prone to that.”
Author’s Doodle: A fourragére is that braided, decorative military cord worn on the shoulder. Holly’s attire was inspired by one of Emma Watson’s in Tatler. A pschent is what they call the royalty’s headdress in Ancient Egypt. A contouche is that peignoir-like gown women wore during the 17th Century (I also used it in What is One Picture Worth?). The Yule Ball is held on Christmas, right? And Jules was born on the eve of Boxing Day. Natalie means ‘Christmas child’ while Abelard means ‘renowned’ or ‘great’. It is Tristan’s first name. Percy was unconscious of the meaning, he only named his son after Peter Abelard, a great philosopher who was also torn from his wife, but Tristan researched it.
Oh, Yahoo Babel Fish was in an annoying mood today so I gave up on it. ^_^ Just imagine Leontes and Jules speaking in French.