Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Le Danseur	By : Escritora80 Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 15205 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction set in the Harry Potter universe – all recognisable characters and settings are the property of J. K. Rowling and her associates. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made from this work.

Chapter List
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Chapter Three

The three judges who would be deciding Harry's fate sat behind a long table placed at the front of the room. They talked quietly amongst themselves as he walked toward them. Lucius sat in the middle, his regal presence magnified by an air of haughty indifference as he presided over the auditions, while Snape and Sirius leaned in on each side of him, bickering with each other in low voices as they played up their personal recommendations to him.

Snape was the first to look up from his notes, his dark eyes narrowing as his gaze slid momentarily to Harry's long legs, then quickly up to his face.

“Number thirteen: Harry Potter,” Lucius read off his clipboard, checking off Harry's name with a flourish before looking up at him with a polite, reserved smile, adding cryptically, “Better late than never.”

“That remains to be seen,” Snape said.

“You show good taste in choosing dance over music, Harry,” Lucius carried on, ignoring Snape's remark. “I'm sure that wasn't an easy decision to make.”

Harry frowned, puzzled by Lucius's comments, but he nodded his head as if he understood and agreed.

Snape's eyes narrowed, apparently reading more into Harry's expression than Lucius did. “I don't think Mr. Potter gave it much thought, though if talent runs in the blood then I'm sure less savoury traits do as well ...”

Sirius, who had been silently staring at Harry all this time with a lopsided grin on his face, sat up straight and glared at his fellow judge. “Careful, Severus. Your bias is showing.”

“If anyone is biased here, it's you – but as it works in Potter's favor, I don't think he'll protest.”

“Still holding grudges? Harry's lucky I'm here to balance you out.”

Harry was bewildered by the sudden onslaught of sharp retorts being flung back and forth between the two men, unable to make sense of anything they were saying as it might pertain to himself. Obviously they had a past, but what did that have to do with Harry and his audition?

Lucius sighed in a way that made Harry think this wasn't the first time Lucius had been forced to deal with Sirius and Snape fighting. He rapped his knuckles on the table to bring some order back to the room, then smiled at Harry. “Whenever you're ready, Mr. Potter.”

Harry nodded and took his place in the center of the room. There was a brief moment of silence before the music began when Harry thought his nerves would overwhelm him, his muscles so stiff with fear that he doubted he could manage even a basic plié, but he rallied his courage just as the music started, forcing himself to forget the three men watching him and focus on the movement of his body. Sirius's choreography was complex, but Harry didn't miss a single step, his jumps high and his turns tight and controlled, and before long he had lost himself in the dance, using his body to convey all the energy and intensity of the music Sirius had chosen.

He was grinning by the time the music stopped and he could relax out of the final position he'd been holding. No matter what happened from this point on, Harry knew he couldn't have danced better than he just did. Dancing had never been just a performance for him: it was an interpretation, as if every piece of music had its own secret language, and it was Harry's responsibility to translate it. In this case, he was certain he'd managed to convey everything perfectly.

“Better late than never, indeed,” Lucius said, more alert and attentive now than he had been at the beginning of Harry's audition, clearly impressed by what he'd seen.

“But still late,” Snape argued, making no effort to lower his voice, much to Harry's chagrin, “and unpolished. If he'd been a student six years ago, there would be no question of his acceptance, but all those wasted years ...”

“Wasted?” Sirius looked up from his notes in disbelief, leaning across Lucius to glare at Snape. “Did we just watch the same audition?”

Snape leaned in from the other side, undaunted. “I can only guess at what you were watching, Black, but I doubt it was Potter's dancing.”

Lucius pushed the two men apart and forced a stiff smile at Harry, doing his best to remain professional despite the hostility and highly inappropriate comments coming from his fellow judges. “Tell me, Harry, have you taken any other classes along with ballet?”

“Mrs. Figg – my dance teacher – enrolled me in a tumbling class when I was younger. I think she just wanted me to get rid of some of my excess energy,” he admitted with a sheepish grin, “but I've always preferred ballet.”

“Would that be Arabella Figg?” Sirius grinned when Harry nodded. “Taught by a Hogwarts alumnus, even! Arabella seems to have been a little relaxed with you when it comes to technique, though that's not necessarily a flaw ...”

“I know what you're thinking, Black, and I heartily disagree.” Snape finished writing what Harry believed to be a scathing critique of his dancing and looked up at Sirius. “If we take him as a student, I won't have you corrupting him with your newfangled notions of modern ballet, having him flip around the stage like a demented monkey --”

“Demented monkey? ” Sirius said with an incredulous laugh.

“-- when what Mr. Potter really needs is to learn how to control his body. He needs a stricter dance regimen than you can provide.”

Lucius eyed the other two teachers with growing boredom, cutting in to say, “Mr. Potter is only number 13 on a long list of applicants. You can argue about his curriculum once I have decided if he has been accepted or not.”

Sirius shrugged and gave Harry a wink, hinting that his acceptance was all but assured. Snape glowered at Sirius, then turned his sharp gaze on Harry, stating in clipped tones, “That will be all, Mr. Potter. We will contact you within the week to let you know if you have been accepted.”

“Thank you for your time,” Harry said, nodding to each of the men, but his gaze lingered on Snape, perversely wanting one last glare from him, one last harsh rebuke, so he added with a saucy smile, “and thank you for sharing your umbrella with me, sir.”

Lucius raised an eyebrow. “You were sharing, Severus?”

Sirius snorted and wrote something on the sheet of paper in front of him.

“I said, that will be all, Mr. Potter,” Snape hissed, stabbing his finger in the direction of the door.

Harry obeyed this time, walking out of the audition room with far more confidence than he'd carried into it. He spotted Luna right away and walked over to where she was sitting cross-legged on the floor with her back to the wall, her eyes closed in what looked like deep meditation. He eased himself down on the floor next to her, not wanting to disturb her, but she broke the silence first.

“I can tell you blew them away,” she said, keeping her eyes closed. “You're giving off an 'I danced my arse off and it was brilliant' sort of vibe.”

Harry blushed. “I wouldn't say it was brilliant ...”

Luna shrugged and opened her eyes, grinning at him. “You don't have to say it, Harry. Truth is truth, whether it gets said or not.”

Harry just shrugged, but he couldn't help the pleased smile that curved his lips.

“Anyway, your arse alone should be enough to get you on Sirius's good side, and maybe even Snape's ...”

“You really need to stop going on about my arse.”

“Well, I'd talk about your cock, but I haven't seen it.”

“Luna!”

“I'm sure it's pretty, don't worry,” she said, patting his hand as if to reassure him.

“I wasn't worried,” Harry said, laughing in spite of his exasperation. He was starting to think that Luna's brain wasn't equipped with filters – if a thought popped into her head, it seemed to pop right out of her mouth as well – and that was going to make for some very awkward conversations in the future. He liked her bluntness, though, and he could tell he would never have to wonder if she was being honest when she said something.

I wonder how she and Hermione would get along, he wondered, and then suddenly his best friend was there, as if he'd conjured her out of thin air, fresh out of a sprint and bending over to catch her breath with one hand braced against the wall to steady herself. She wasn't carrying her violin case, so Harry assumed she'd already played her audition piece. Had she ran over to find him as soon as her audition ended? She was still puffing a little when she finally spoke.

“Harry, you … you aren't going to believe this, but --” Hermione stopped short when she saw Luna. “Oh, umm … hello.”

“This is Luna,” Harry said as he got up from his seat on the floor. “Luna, this is Hermione, my best friend. She's auditioning for the music department. How did that go, by the way? I just finished mine.”

“Oh, my audition? Everything went perfectly. It was amazing,” Hermione said, but in such an off-hand manner that Harry wondered if she really meant it. She seemed impatient and agitated, maybe even a little angry, though her eyes did brighten when Harry asked her if she recognized anyone. “Remus Lupin himself was one of the judges, and he's going to be the guest conductor for the orchestra. It's really exciting, but I hope the Arts Centre doesn't fall apart while he's gone.”

“Is he really that important? I know his last name is on the building, but why does that make him the glue that holds this place together?”

“If you knew anything about him, you'd know he's more than just his name. That's your problem -- if the guy's not wearing tights, you just aren't interested.”

“Is that true?” Luna grinned, intrigued by this personal turn in the conversation. “But I could see Harry falling for a musician … don't you think that would be a good combination? Dancing and music go hand in hand, so why not dancers and musicians?”

“This one wouldn't agree,” Harry said with a laugh, gesturing to Hermione. “She's had to put up with me for years, so she swore off dancers a long time ago.”

“A dancer and a musician,” Hermione murmured, preoccupied with her own thoughts again, her expression troubled as she looked at Harry.

“Am I wrong? Don't tell me you've had a change of heart.” Harry looked around at the male dancers still waiting to audition, bending down to whisper in Hermione's ear, “Is it someone you see here? None of these guys seem like your type, but ...”

Hermione snapped out of her strange funk with a startled look, forgetting to keep her voice down. “What? No!”

The hushed conversations that had been going on around them suddenly went silent, except for Luna's soft giggle and Hermione's groan of embarrassment. She waited until they were no longer the center of attention before clarifying in a low, strained voice, “The last thing I want right now is a boyfriend. I don't want any distractions while I'm at Hogwarts.”

“You're made of stronger stuff than I am,” Harry said, his thoughts making the immediate leap to Snape and the way his dark eyes made Harry's heart race. It had been so hard to concentrate on dancing while he knew Snape was watching him, and that was just for an audition! If he managed to make it into Hogwarts, forced to see Snape every day in class, he was going to need a distraction to distract him from his distraction. Just thinking about it made his head hurt.

“Even if you didn't want to get serious, a little stress relief now and then wouldn't hurt.” Luna said, looking at Harry as if she'd read his mind.

“That's what books are for,” Hermione said, but that troubled frown had returned, and Harry was positive the subject of boyfriends hadn't been the cause.

“Are you feeling okay?”

She waved off his concerns and turned to Luna. “It was nice to meet you, but Harry and I have to be somewhere. Good luck on your audition.”

Luna smiled sweetly. “Thanks. I'm sure we'll all be seeing each other again very soon.”

Harry barely had time to wave goodbye to Luna before Hermione was dragging him off down the hallway at a quick pace.

“Where are we going? Where are your parents?”

“I told them to wait for us outside. Harry, you aren't going to believe it – I didn't believe it at first – but it's got to be him. It's the right name and it's like looking at your twin. How could we go all this time without knowing? I've been to the Centre for concerts and classes, but never in that particular auditorium. It's mainly used for piano recitals, I think, and I've always been more interested in hearing a full orchestra.”

They were moving swiftly into the musical section of the Centre, passing Hogwarts hopefuls clutching violins and clarinets; Harry could hear a trumpet playing in the distance. He wanted to get a clearer answer from Hermione about where they were going, but she was barely taking the time to breathe between sentences.

“Those horrible Dursleys! What else have they been hiding from you? I don't want you going back there, Harry, not after this. We'll go to Hogwarts just like we planned and you'll never have to see them again. Ugh, it makes me sick!”

A baffled Harry let Hermione drag him around a corner and past another line of musicians waiting to audition, all holding some kind of brass instrument. The sound of the trumpet was getting louder. The hallway ended in double doors, the entrance to one of several smaller auditoriums within the Centre, and Hermione finally came to a stop.

“Look,” she said, pointing at a plaque above the doors. Harry squinted at the words carved there, reading them out loud in a voice that grew steadily softer as shock set in.

“The James Potter Memorial Auditorium.”

Hermione took him by the shoulders and turned him so he was facing the left side of the hallway. Hanging on the wall was a large framed photograph of a young man sitting at a grand piano, his fingers poised above the keys, his entire body tensed as he prepared to dive into the piece of music he was about to play, but underneath that fierce concentration was a boyish exuberance, as if attacking that first chord delighted the man beyond all measure. His face … his face looked so much like Harry's, maybe a little more square in the jaw, a little more rugged, but strikingly similar.

“Your dad was a pianist. A Hogwarts-trained pianist.” Hermione kept her voice low, aware of the curious stares they were getting from the musicians waiting to audition. “I asked Mr. Lupin what he knew about the name on the plaque and he told me that James Potter was one of his best friends from Hogwarts.”

Harry didn't know what to say. He knew so little about his parents, and the Dursleys had never even given him a photograph of them, but here perfect strangers could see his father's face every day as they went in and out of an auditorium dedicated to his memory. He couldn't stand the fact that people who had no connection to his father had still known more about him than Harry did – musicians, concert-goers, custodians: they'd all walked by this picture, perhaps smiling at the handsome man at the piano or thinking how tragic it was that he'd died so young, and Harry had never even known about it until now.

Hermione watched him quietly, waiting for the shocking revelation to truly sink in before she spoke again. “There's more.”

“More?” Harry wasn't sure his heart could take any more surprises.

“James Potter married a dancer.”

Harry spun around. “A dancer?”

Hermione smiled and nodded, grabbing his hands in her excitement as she added, “A ballet dancer.”

“What? No.” Harry shook his head, a shaky laugh tumbling out of his mouth. What Hermione was saying was ridiculous. “The Dursleys would have told me. They would have said something.”

“Do you really believe that?” Hermione asked softly, squeezing his hands.

No.

Harry couldn't bring himself to answer out loud. If everything Hermione said was true – and the picture of his father seemed proof enough that at least part of Mr. Lupin's story was valid – then the Dursleys hadn't been satisfied with simply neglecting Harry and making his childhood miserable. No, they had deliberately kept him in the dark about his parents, knowing that Harry's love of dance hadn't been as unnatural as they made it out to be. Was that why they'd never told him, so they wouldn't accidentally encourage him? He could believe that they didn't tell him about his father out of pure spite – the truth would have deprived them of the joy of constantly telling Harry he was as worthless as his father – but not talking about Lily must have been a calculated decision once they discovered Harry's own love of dance.

If your mother was alive, I'm sure she’d want this for you.

Mrs. Figg's words came back to Harry now and he wondered, stricken, if she'd known the truth as well. Why hadn't she ever said anything?

“Where is this Lupin? I need to talk to him.” Harry pulled his hands away, anxious to find the man who could give him some answers. One taste of the truth had left him hungry for more. He walked towards the auditorium doors, but Hermione held him back.

“You can't go in there while they're having auditions.”

“But I need –”

“I know, Harry, and I promise we'll get to the bottom of this, but for now let's just go home and get your things out of that awful place.”

Harry didn't resist when Hermione took him by the hand and led him away from the auditorium doors. He took one last look at his father's picture as they passed by it, hoping the image would burn itself into his memory.

Even if he didn't get into Hogwarts, this audition had changed his life completely.
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Le Danseur