Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Acts of Life	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21189 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Twenty-Nine—Dancing
            “So you do need dance lessons, Mr. Potter. I was half-convinced Draco was joking with me.”
            Harry straightened the collar of his dress robes nervously. Draco had insisted he wear them today, and somehow Harry had imagined that only he and Draco would be whirling around the floor of the Malfoys’ formal ballroom (of course they had a formal ballroom) listening to the strains of some ancient wizarding song.
            Instead, he’d stepped in and found Narcissa Malfoy there, in a set of powder-blue robes of her own, without Draco. She smiled at him, but Harry pulled at his collar again and asked, “Do you need to teach Draco how to dance, too, Mrs. Malfoy?”
            “Do call me Narcissa. The other is such a mouthful. And no. Dearest Draco has been dancing well since he was a child.” Narcissa lowered her voice as if she was imparting a great secret to Harry. “It’s behind the graceful way he moves. Surely you’ve noticed how well he does it? You must have spent more time than anyone else looking at him.
            Since Harry had no idea how to respond to that—especially since even “Narcissa” would stick in his throat—he turned with gratitude to the sound of footfalls. Draco came through the door in his own pale grey robes.
            “Sorry I’m late, Harry. I couldn’t find these robes. All the way at the back of the wardrobe! I swear I don’t know why we keep the bloody house-elves—”
            “Because most of the time, they do a more than tolerable job,” Narcissa interrupted. Her voice was icy, and Harry blinked at her. “What have I told you about swearing in front of guests, Draco?”
            Oh. Harry opened his mouth to say that he didn’t mind, but Draco got there first. “I hardly feel Harry is a guest now,” he muttered, and gave Harry a shy, beautiful smile behind his mother’s back. It made Harry return it.
            Narcissa either knew the smile was there or didn’t, but didn’t think there was any excuse for Draco’s, because her voice cooled even more. “In this room, you will follow all the conventions of the etiquette that the Ministry gala will require you to adhere to. Is that clear, Draco?”
            “But Harry doesn’t know most of those conventions,” Draco responded, his eyes wide open and looking more blue than grey. “How are we supposed to follow them when half of what we do will be incomprehensible to him?”
            Harry felt as though Draco had started to tickle him. He’d never got to see his partner like this, acting like a pouty child who wasn’t indulged enough.
            Narcissa’s stare didn’t lessen one bit, though. She turned it on Harry instead. “How much do you know of the etiquette of galas, Mr. Potter?”
            “If I can call you by your first name, then I insist you call me Harry,” Harry said, and looked her in the face, keeping his expression as friendly as he could, until Narcissa at last nodded. Then he smiled. “I know a lot, actually. It’s one of the things that Draco started me studying earlier, and I’ve kept up since. I’ve been to a few formal functions since last year.”
            “And never invited me as your date to any of them?”
            Harry started to answer, but Narcissa interrupted again. “Draco, one of the conventions is never to make your guest or dance partner feel less than gracious. If they begin the insults, that is one thing, but you may not.”
            Draco looked down, and he really was pouting now. Harry, by contrast, couldn’t stop smiling. It felt so good to be standing here in the ballroom, with only small things of ordinary life troubling them, instead of huge political considerations or Voldemort or even drama with his adopted family. He said, “I don’t mind answering the question, Narcissa. Formal etiquette allows that, doesn’t it?”
            Narcissa turned to study him. Her answering smile was small and reluctant. “If you wish to answer, Mr. Potter, then you may.”
            “The last few formal occasions were all times when I went there to talk business,” Harry told Draco, apologetically. At least Draco had lifted his head and was listening. “There was no question of me bringing a partner because we wouldn’t be dancing. And we hadn’t announced we were dating then. I thought it would have made you uncomfortable.”
            “It would make me a lot more uncomfortable to see you dance with someone else.” Draco put his hands on his hips and stared Harry down. “You did dance with someone else, didn’t you?”
            “A few times. Visiting dignitaries that Kingsley wanted me to dance with, most of them. With Hermione once, as a favor.”
            Draco snorted and turned his head. Narcissa spoke calmly into the silence. “Partners do not dance exclusively with each other at such events, you know, Mr.—Harry. They are obliged to respect what their host asks them to do, and often the families have alliances or arrangements with each other that necessitate polite dances. No one wants political allies to be offended.”
            “But he didn’t dance with political allies. Granger.” Draco’s voice was withering.
            Narcissa got there before Harry could, surprisingly. “Miss Granger is Harry’s longtime friend,” she said, and her voice had descended so it sounded it was coming from like the freezing depths of space. “Friends are also passable reasons to act within the rules. Which dancing with someone else is, Draco.”
            Draco turned around with an almost desperate face and spoke directly to Harry. “I just want to know that I’m the most special to you.”
            “You’re definitely the most special,” Harry breathed, and stepped forwards, acutely conscious of Narcissa watching them. At least she seemed to approve of what Harry was saying, so he didn’t need to worry about that. “For one thing, I didn’t study dancing before I danced with anyone else. It went horribly.
            “The Ministry didn’t make you?”
            Harry snorted. “The Ministry thought I could dance. You ought to have seen the look on Kingsley’s face when I tried to waltz with the German ambassador’s wife.”
            Draco smiled for the first time. “And you’ll learn what you should know,” he said, holding out a hand. After a glance at Narcissa, who nodded, Harry placed his arm under Draco’s fingers. Draco curled his hand into the cloth, his glance searching out Harry’s face. “You’ll be what you always should have been.”
            “Someone dancing with you?”
            “No.” Draco tugged his arm a little so that Harry nearly stumbled across the floor to him. “By my side.”
*
            “We’ll begin with a simple formal dance first,” Mother said, standing back near the corner of the ballroom that was enchanted to play music through the open mouth of a carved nightingale on the wall. “Not a waltz, or anything so complicated. We need to see what kind of expertise we’re dealing with in Mr.—Harry.”
            “None,” Harry said promptly.
            Draco snickered while Mother gave Harry a gentle frown. It really did hearten him to know that Harry hadn’t thought even his political reputation enough reason to take dance lessons. But he would do it for Draco.
            “Surely you can think of dance as a series of regular movements,” said Mother, and flicked her wand. A gentle song that Draco had heard more times than he could count began to play from the mouth of the nightingale. “The way that you think of Quidditch as a series of regular plays.”
            Harry blinked at her. “But I don’t play that way.”
            “He doesn’t,” Draco had to confirm. Now that he wasn’t blinded by eagerness to defeat Harry and seething resentment when he didn’t, he saw Harry’s play as brilliant improvisation instead. Harry would do what he had to do to get the Snitch and make sure someone else didn’t manage to knock him out of the sky.
            Draco had thought at one point that Harry was simply too cowardly or clumsy to cheat. Now he realized Harry didn’t think about the other Seeker when he was on the field. The Snitch was all that mattered.
            Mother put her hands on her hips. “It seems to me you are determined to be difficult, Mr. Potter.”
            Harry gave her a melting smile. “And so are you, since you won’t call me Harry.”
            Mother chuckled at that. Draco was relieved. She turned stern a moment later, though, and added, “You can let the music guide your movements. It should give you a balance, something to brace yourself against, that you don’t have in Quidditch.”
            Harry gave his feet a dubious glance. Draco carefully maneuvered Harry’s arms, touching him until Harry relaxed and his face grew brighter. “Watch my eyes,” Draco whispered. “Not my feet.”
            He positioned Harry’s arms around his waist and neck, and then leaned his head on Harry’s shoulder. He hummed under his breath as he began to move. The music was such an old and familiar song that he didn’t need to really listen to it.
            Instead, he watched the way Harry moved, and immediately saw part of the problem. Harry didn’t have time to be nervous on a broom. All his movements would melt into the same continuous dodge and dart, because he had a goal beyond the moment. But he was so nervous when dancing that he got tangled all up. Draco had to give him a Snitch, something to fix on that wasn’t the steps.
            “It would make me happy if you would look at my face and not my feet, the way I already asked you to.”
            Harry jerked his head up, his cheeks going as bright as coals. Draco nodded calmly to him and continued moving, and murmured, “It would please me if you could be a little looser in my arms, so it’s less like holding a statue.”
            Harry snorted and visibly relaxed, rolling his shoulders and nearly stumbling over Draco’s right foot. “Less statue, more doll?”
            “That’s right,” said Draco, and softened his voice. “You don’t need to worry about all the people watching you and what they’re going to think, Harry. Really, you don’t.”
            “I don’t?” Harry sounded as though he would like to believe that.
            “No.” Draco laid the back of his hand on Harry’s cheek, and stopped moving for a minute, until Harry’s intense blush started to fade. “You only need to worry about me. What I think, what I want. I want to enjoy dancing with you.”
            “All right,” Harry whispered. “But I don’t really know how to give you that enjoyment.”
            “Look at me, and do your best.”
            Harry relaxed again, with a small laugh. “You mean it can be that easy?”
            Draco nodded at Harry’s feet, which were already moving more gracefully than they had a moment ago. But he tugged on Harry’s shoulders when he tried to look down at them. “No. Only focus on me.”
            “There are days when I have to spend time with so many boring people, and I always wish I could do nothing but that.”
            “You’re doing fine,” Draco told him, and heard his voice get husky. It was his turn to flush. He hadn’t anticipated talking like that in front of his mother.
            Maybe Harry knew why he looked that way, because he didn’t try to tease Draco about it or tempt him into talking more about intimate things. He spun Draco easily through a pattern of simple steps, but tensed and stuttered when the music got faster.
            “I did tell you that I didn’t want you to think about anything else,” Draco muttered in his ear when they stood with their backs to Mother for a moment. “That includes the music.”
            Harry relaxed again. Draco watched him in silent wonder for a moment. He had to try to imagine what it would be like if Harry played Quidditch the same way, but he gave it up a second later. Harry doing Quidditch that way wouldn’t be Harry.
            “Thinking about you is easier than I thought,” Harry whispered, and one of his hands rose and traced along the line of Draco’s cheekbone.
            Draco blinked at him again and again, and in the meantime, the world around him did cease to exist. He and Harry whirled and turned and backed each other up, he knew, and at one point he even spun under Harry’s raised arm. But he lost track of everything else, until the moment when he heard his mother applauding.
            “If you dance like that at the gala, then the other guests will only be able to stare in envy,” she said, thick satisfaction in her voice. “And they will not want to interrupt such grace, so you should not be troubled by requests to honor other partners.”
            Draco breathed out and turned to Harry. He was smiling, not embarrassed by Mother’s praise the way Draco had thought he would be.
            “That would be acceptable,” Harry whispered, and picked up Draco’s hand to press a kiss against his knuckles.
            Draco could feel himself turning a desperately bright red, but he didn’t let himself move or flinch. They had carried off a dance even his mother felt was credible. She wouldn’t embarrass them on purpose.
            And from the shine in Harry’s eyes, Draco had fulfilled his purpose of making him think about one thing and one thing only.
*
SP777: Well, Harry doesn’t care about people being difficult, and Draco at least thinks he doesn’t care.
I won’t be doing an mpreg story. However, someone requested a sequel to Nature of the Beast for Advent, so I’ll be writing a one-shot about Harry and Draco having an egg.
Green-Extreme-Ninjetti13: I probably won’t mention Ginny much for the rest of the story.
Severus1snape: Thank you!
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Acts of Life