The Slytherin Saga: Book One: The Year Without Quidditch

Chapter Four: Christmas Day

The entire day of the Ball had been thoroughly dreadful. The campus had been buzzing all day and Draco had been on the edge of letting go of his sanity altogether. Afternoon classes had been cancelled in order to allow for preparations for the blasted Ball and the students had taken the afternoon as a chance to turn into complete fools. The boys had begun to act almost as daft as the girls had been acting. They were darting back and forth from one year's dormitory to the other trying to bully themselves into a space in front of the one mirror in each room. All of them had acted repugnantly foolish as far as Draco was concerned. They had called Orinda in with an hour left until the Ball so that they could all get their ties fastened. Orinda, displaying her usual disregard for her own appearance, had shown up wearing an overlong tee shirt over plaid tights and striped Quidditch socks with holes in them. And Draco couldn't help but find it amusing that she could put them under a sort of inspection even as she had rag scraps tied in her hair. The boys were gossiping and griping; about the girls they were taking, about the girls they wished they were taking, and about the possibilities that might lie ahead of them at the end of the night. Draco rolled his eyes at the memory of Orinda offering him and Pansy use of her room 'in case it comes to that.' There would be no such behavior tonight. Draco had every intention of keeping his hands completely to himself. He had no interest in kissing Pansy Parkinson or anybody else anytime soon. He felt a kind of queasiness in his stomach thinking about what Pansy might be expecting of him, though. If the boys were discussing such things then certainly the girls' dorm was clamoring with similar plans. He shuddered at the thought.

The thought, it turned out, had been decidedly more pleasant than the actual event. Draco had hated almost every minute of it. The Weird Sisters were for the most part quite good, Draco conceded, and he hadn't minded dancing with Pansy so much when the music was fast and loud. Unfortunately, the fun and fast pieces of music had been few and far between early in the night. Instead, he'd been forced to waltz and to fox trot, to polka (damn the Poles for that one) and to slow dance through the majority of the first hour, all the time listening to Pansy drone on about this thing or that and having to fend off her pathetic attempts at flirting. He had managed to escape her and dance with a much quieter Liese a few times, and once with an audibly counting Millicent while Pansy had dashed off to get punch with Daphne Greengrass and Ashleigh Mitton. And to add to the miserable experience; Viktor Krum, who he had once admired, had the audacity to show up at the Ball with that filthy Mudblood, Granger. It was thoroughly disgusting the way they were carrying on. Pansy tried her best to make any remarks that might help him be a little less affected by this, but more often than not she only succeeded in being that much more annoying. Silently, Draco had been grateful when Pansy had run off again, this time with a whole gaggle of her girlfriends. He realized that he was truly enjoying the few minutes he'd had without her. His friends seemed to have left already, so Pansy's dashing about with the other girls had become his only visible means of escape from her. He thought he had caught sight of Blaise leaving with one of the girls from Beauxbatons, but other than that he hadn't seen hide nor hair of any of his friends for quite some time. Sitting at the table with his empty butter beer in his hand, Draco thought he might just leave. Throwing his jacket back on he stalked towards the door, determined to find what had become of his 'date'. He made sure to be careful to skirt the dance floor and to avoid the whispered conversations in the corners.

As the door came into view, he spotted Orinda leaning against a wall, looking almost as bored as he was. She had griped about being forced to chaperone this 'blasted party' as she had called it, and she appeared to be having exactly as much fun as she had predicted. At least he thought it was Orinda, the look on her face was recognizable, but there was something weird about her. She didn't rightly look like herself. Her hair was almost tame and it hung in long waves, free from the bands and pins she usually wore, and with no sign of this afternoon's rag scraps at all. She was wearing makeup, and her glasses were noticeably absent. And she was wearing a dress; a black dress that laced up both sides and showed off her shape, which Draco had never even noticed she had before now. He smiled as he approached her. "Hello," he said to her.

"Well, Mr. Malfoy," she addressed him. "You look like a bona fide gentleman."

"And you look...." He trailed off. He was honestly unable to think of a compliment that wouldn't sound just a little bit insulting; telling her that she looked like a girl wouldn't likely go over well.

"I know..." She allowed, gesturing to the super snug bodice of her dress. "Can you believe it?" Orinda sounded as amazed at the way she looked as he was. "Underneath all of that Quidditch gear I was a girl this whole time," she joked. Draco laughed a little with her, glad that she had been the one to say it.

"I was just looking for Pansy," he said. "Have you seen her?"

"Aye," Orinda answered, nodding her head.

"She took off to the loo with about seven other girls half an hour ago and I haven't seen her since. I think they must have fallen in."

"She'll be back," Orinda encouraged. "That's what they do."

"What who do?"

"Fourteen year old girls," she answered him. "They go to the loo in groups," she explained. "Only one of them has the lip gloss, another likely has the perfume, someone has dusting powder, and another will be having her turn with their single, communal brain..." Draco looked at her, his complete lack of a clue obvious across his face. "And they're telling each other everything," Orinda added. "Keep that in mind," she warned him, "anything that happens tonight, all of her friends will know in the morning... and the rest of the school by supper time. Someone is always watching."

"Well that's a comforting thought," Draco cringed. He looked toward the door and back at Orinda. He was thoroughly annoyed. There were enough people crowding the dance floor that his intended path to the door now appeared blocked. "Do you..." Draco paused, trying to remember what he was doing again. "Would you like to dance?" he asked her. She shrugged her shoulders.

"Umm... okay," she agreed. The Weird Sisters were cranking out a spirited and bouncy tune as they made their way onto the dance floor. He held out his hand in a gallant gesture and she took hold of it. He had to say he was pleased at how easy Orinda was to dance with as compared to Pansy. She didn't try and hold a conversation while he was thinking about the steps and the counts, and she followed his lead without imposing her own idea of what the steps were supposed to be. He was all of the sudden thankful for all of the nights he had previously thought had been wasted taking Junior Cotillion at his mother's insistence. Orinda had a smile on her face while they danced that made her look even more feminine than she had leaning on the wall. Draco would dare say that she even looked pretty. The song was about halfway over when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He grimaced; just sure it was Pansy, about to lay into him for dancing while she was gone. But, much to his surprise, it was Miles Bletchley with a wild look in his face.

"Hey, Malfoy," he said. Draco stopped dancing and looked his friend in the eye.

"Bletchley," he answered.

"Pucey's all hopped up on a bottle of Ogden's that he smuggled here from Hogsmeade and he said he's going to swim out to the Durmstrang ship and board it like a pirate. We're all going to watch, want to come?" Draco couldn't resist grinning at the thought of that. He looked back over his shoulder at Orinda, who was already shooing him off. She was being very understanding about his wanting to leave in the middle of a dance. Pansy would have gone ballistic. In fact, he figured she still would when she returned to the dance and found him missing. But truly, he couldn't resist the lure of a classmate doing something asinine.

"I...um," he started. He wasn't sure if he should ask her permission or just excuse himself.

"Go," she insisted, laughing. And to Miles she directed, "and I'll pretend I didn't hear any of that." Miles smiled and shook his head and the two boys dashed off in the direction of the lake.

*------- *------- *------- *------- *------- *-------

Draco poked his head into Orinda's room. He wasn't sure if he was feeling guilty for leaving her on the dance floor or just curious to see if he still found her attractive at this hour of the night, either way it was two o'clock in the morning and he felt like talking to her. "Orinda," he called out into the dim room.

"Draco," she greeted him, turning her head so that he could see her where she sat, in the chair nearest the door. She closed up the folio that had been on her lap and placed it on the table next to her as he sat on the arm of the far chair. "You're here to take me up on my offer, I presume," she said to him, standing from her seat. "Where's Pansy?" she added. "The snogging is not as fun when there's not another person involved."

Draco laughed a little, looking over at her; whatever impression he had gotten of her at the ball was fading quickly. Her dress was draped over the back of her chair and she was wearing a pair of long sleeved pajamas with black and purple stripes on them, she hadn't washed any of the makeup off of her face, and her hair was still down, but she had her glasses back on and seemed to Draco to look altogether like her usual self again. He wondered what had gotten into him that he had ever thought she looked pretty in the first place.

"She's off with a bunch of other girls," he told her. "Something about Blaise leaving the ball with Virginie Aubertin, you know, the olive skinned girl from Beauxbatons.... Well, Blaise was supposed to have been there with Millicent and apparently she wasn't too keen on him leaving with another girl and she's spent the last three hours in the bathroom crying and she won't come out. So of course all of the girls are in there with her telling Millie what a fat cow Aubertin is, and that the French are nothing but a bunch of cheese eating surrender monkeys anyway, and, well, they're not coming out either."

Orinda's forehead crinkled. "Do I need to go and take care of that?" she asked him. Draco slid backwards until he was slung across the chair and shook his head.

"Leave them," he said. "I must admit that I had begun to find Pansy completely insufferable the moment she made me polka."

"So I'm safe to assume that you'll not be needing my room for some privacy tonight?" she asked him.

"Yeah, um... no," Draco answered her.

"Sorry," she consoled.

"No need to be," he told her, "as it was I doubt I'd be getting anywhere near her right now even if she wasn't locked in a bathroom with eleven other girls. Did I mention she was a horrible bore?"

"No," Orinda chuckled, "but I get your drift. You know she's only such an intolerable prat because she likes you?"

"Lovely way of showing it," he commented.

"Little things are big to girls your age," she told him. "I'm sure Millicent feels like her heart will never heal from the humiliation she suffered at the callous hands of Blaise Zabini, but I promise you- she'll get over it. Give her a year and she won't even remember it. And as for Pansy, I'm sure she's just trying to say something that you'll find interesting enough to ask her to spend time alone with you again."

"I wish she wouldn't," Draco commented. Orinda laughed.

"You won't always feel that way," she assured him.

"You're wrong about that," he told her, "at least where Pansy Parkinson is concerned," he finished. Orinda set the folio in her lap on the stool at her feet, then she got up from her chair and took a few steps toward the bed.

"May be," she allowed, "but I think you'll surprise yourself." She turned to look back at him and changed the subject. "So did Pucey really get into the lake?" she asked.

Draco smiled remembering the stunt his friend had tried to pull. "Oh he did. On the first attempt he just got in up to his chin and then got right back out and took his jacket and cape and his shoes off. He got back in and tried swimming and got out again and took off his shirt and tie."

"Damn, I did a great job on his tie, too," Orinda added with a giggle. As he told his story she went to the cabinet and fetched a bottle and a pair of glasses.

"And then he tried again to swim and couldn't get more than a few feet so he got out again and decided it was his pants keeping him from getting anywhere. He tried again, of course, just in his underwear and socks, and that's when Madame Hooch came by and told all of us that we should get him out of there because Professor Karkaroff had put a hex on the lake for the night so that none of his boys could get too drunk and try to swim back to the ship and freeze to death or drown." Draco was laughing so hard that he could hardly keep speaking. "And so, after all of that, Pucey was frozen nearly solid, half naked, and had managed nothing but to make a fool of himself in front of thirty or forty people."

"Oh God," Orinda laughed, plopping herself back in to the chair she had just vacated and pouring herself a drink. "I can only imagine the look on his face."

"It was priceless," Draco commented, "it really was."

"Who was his date?" she asked, taking a sip from the glass in her hand, "was she there for all of this?"

"He went with Caroline Connnorsly, from Ravenclaw," Draco answered, "but she was nowhere to be found out by the lake."

"I'm surprised the lot of you didn't freeze to death," Orinda told him. "You do know it's below freezing outside?"

"I think there was enough of Ogden's between us that we didn't notice," he allowed.

"I see," she said back, "a little bit of banned Firewhiskey will do it every time. It makes the lowliest of men in to superheroes. In fact, I think that was their slogan at one time." Orinda tossed an empty glass to him and laughed as he fumbled to catch it. Draco chuckled.

"It does that," he confirmed. Draco reached out to take the bottle from her and he poured a drink for himself. He looked over at the door to the armoire, which was still standing ajar and beginning to bug him. Draco liked order, he thrived on it, and he had thought Orinda agreed with him on that. He didn't know just why, but that one door was thoroughly annoying to him. "Did you know you left the door to the cabinet open?" he asked her, trying not to sound as annoyed as he was.

"Oh," she sat up straight in her seat, "that's because I want you to close it," she told him. He frowned and shook his head at her and then began to stand from his seat. "No," she called, putting a hand out to keep him in his seat, "I meant I was going to show you something that you can use to close it. Take out your wand," she instructed him. Draco did as he was told. She took the folio off of the stool next to her and placed it on the floor. "I'm going to push this toward you, and then you'll push it back to me, okay?" she asked. Orinda pointed her wand at the folio on the floor and called out, "Digis!" the folio moved an inch toward Draco.

"Digis!" he mimicked her, his wand pointed at the folio. To his surprise, it moved even farther than it had when Orinda had cast.

"Good," she told him. "All this charm really does," she explained, "is to extend the reach of a single finger. This is the one you've been bugging me about."

Draco nodded eagerly. "But I want to do it silently," he reminded her, a touch of tension in his voice.

"All in good time; Rome wasn't built in a day, Draco," she sang. "But I'm going to teach you, just be patient."

"I'm no good at patience," he told her, stamping his feet childishly.

"So I've noticed," she replied. "Alright," she began again, "this time you're going to cast the same way, but with a whisper," she instructed.

Draco frowned, but then looked down at the folio again and pointed his wand. "Digis!" he called again, this time in a loud whisper. The folio moved again, but not as far as it had the previous time.

"Good," she encouraged, "now again, quieter this time." Draco nodded and pointed his wand again.

"Digis!" he whispered softly, but intently. The folio shifted another inch.

"Once again," she instructed, "just mouth the word, don't make a sound." Draco, who could now see where this lesson was going, pointed his wand and concentrated as hard as he could.

"Digis!" his mouth moved and no sound came out of it. The folio moved once more and ran into the leg of Orinda's chair.

She smiled gleefully at him. "You just did it," she confirmed for him. "You've just cast without saying a word. Now the next part is harder," she told him, "and you won't get it tonight. You have to practice doing it moving your mouth less and less until you can do it with only your wand and your thoughts," she explained. "But now you can shut the cabinet," she informed him.

Draco, feeling very proud of himself for having accomplished something so difficult in such a short time, turned to the cabinet and mouthed, "Digis!" The door swung shut. Draco turned back to Orinda, his eyes wide and with a very self satisfied grin across his face.

"Excellent!" she told him. "Once you've gotten to where you don't have to even make the motion with your lips, it gets to be a great fun charm to do to your classmates," she chuckled a little under her breath, "it's a real hoot, actually. Especially if you have a class with someone you do not particularly care for. It can be quite a distraction during an examination." Draco grinned mischievously. He had never thought about that. Yes, this charm would be tremendous fun for him.

"And I can knock the blankets off of the drunken blokes in their bunks," he added.

"Yes, I suppose you can," she chuckled back at him. "A truly fiendish plot if ever there was. And speaking of such," she continued, "I don't know why you always choose to come in here at all maddening hours of the night and I don't mind at all - I'm happy to have you, but right now my feet hurt and I'm tired. I have met my obligation to be up until two in case of any necktie emergencies and now I am going to bed. You ought to re-think your decision not to go look for Pansy. I promise she won't talk enough to be boring as long as you've got your tongue in her mouth."

"Oh shut up," he told her, laughing a little as he got out of his seat. "And I'll only leave you in peace if you swear to me you'll never suggest such a thing again."

Orinda stood and followed him to the door. "I swear I will not bring it up again unless you do," she assured him. "Now go to bed." She pushed him out the door and into the hallway. Draco smirked as she pointed her wand at the door, a smile on her face as it closed. He would have to practice that.

When he returned to the common room, he found Adrian Pucey sitting on one of the couches, wrapped from head to toe in blankets and shivering. The others had obviously given up on keeping him company and most of them, Draco figured, had long since gone to bed. Draco shook his head and frowned at Adrian.

"H-h-hi, Dr-r-raco," Adrian addressed him, his teeth still chattering.

"I'm sure there's a better way to warm yourself than sitting under a sodding wet blanket in front of the fireplace in the middle of the night," he suggested.

"C-c Caroline will probably never speak to me again," Adrian whined.

"Have the girls come out of the bathroom yet?" Draco asked. Adrian shook his head. "So you're waiting to apologize?" he asked. Adrian shook his head again, he looked to Draco as though he were about to break down and cry.

"It was too cold," he explained, "sitting outside of the bathroom. And I got into trouble for waiting by the door to Ravenclaw. By the time the girls get back here I'm sure she'll be back in her common room telling people what an arse I've been. Better I leave it for tonight and try again tomorrow."

"Well," Draco told him, "I don't fancy dealing with Pansy when they get done in there, so I am going up to bed while I have the chance." Adrian nodded pathetically causing Draco to snicker as he darted across the room. He was both happy and relieved to be heading toward the stairs to his room and the relative peace of a place where there was no chance of encountering Pansy, or any girls at all for that matter.