It is the twelfth of December, and Harry is waltzing. The turntable sits on the edge of a desk, and he holds George close to him as they go through each of the steps. George lets him lead, and although he keeps waggling his eyebrows and making kissy faces at Fred over Harry's shoulder, Harry does his best to focus on the one two three four, one two three four...

"There," George says with a flourish, clapping Harry's shoulders, and Harry grins as they draw apart. Fred is copying Hermione as she moves, and Harry can't help but laugh at the exaggerated movements of his hips and his arms. "What dance is that?"

"It's the cha cha," Hermione says, shifting on her feet and turning in a smooth movement as her and Fred come together again, feet moving to mirror each other on the floor. "Dad wanted me to do ballet when I was younger, but I hated it, so we went to a local dance class instead." Harry tries to imagine Hermione in a tutu and a set of ballet shoes, up on her toes with her arms held above her, three books balanced on her head. He grins.

"I like it," Fred says, but he's cut off before he can say more. There's a loud bang in the corridor, and Harry pulls the needle off the record, setting it on its holder as he opens the door and peers out into the corridor. Covered in green dust and cackling at the top of his lungs, Peeves flies past at speed, leaving three Hufflepuff first years dazed and dusty in the corridor. "We'd best scarper, Fred. They'll blame us for that." Fred and George run down the corridor, and as Hermione puts the record in its case and closes up the turntable, Harry walks down the corridor to the Hufflepuffs.

It doesn't take much - cleaning charms are easy, and removing the mint-scented, green icing sugar isn't different to getting rid of regular dust. He doesn't even think of why he does it - the three of them just look a little shocked and surprised, and it's his instinct to go and clean the little idiots up. They're only first years, after all, and he knows if Snape sees them he'll take points off them for the state of their robes.

"Are you a prefect?" asks one of them, a fat little girl with round glasses like his. The dust clings to her hair, and Harry can't quite get every speck of it off, but he tries his best.

"Nope," Harry says, tapping her on the bridge of her glasses and ridding the dust from the glass. "No badge, see?"

"You're Harry Potter," says another one in an authoritative tone. He has four Weird Sisters badges pinned to the front of his robes, just under his Hufflepuff crest. They come to Hogwarts with plain black robes, but adding crests and coloured bands is the norm - it's very rare that Harry sees children with no indication of their house other than the colour of their under robe. His Slytherin crest sits proudly over his heart, and Hermione's crest does the same. "You took the spotlight off Cedric."

"I took the spotlight off Voldemort, too, if you remember," Harry points out in a dry tone, and he gasps, astonished at Harry's saying the name. Harry gives the Hufflepuffs a once-over, making sure he has the last of the dust off them. "There you go."

"Thank you," says the last of them. She's taller than her friends by a few inches, and wears a golden badger pendant around her neck. "Are those spells hard?"

"Nah," Harry says. "Sprout'll teach you this one for cleaning up soil, if you ask her." He turns away, heading back to Hermione, who's holding the turntable's case in her left hand and smiling at him in an extremely irritating way. He sticks his tongue out at her, and is about to say something, but then he feels a tug at the back of his robes, and he turns. The fat one with the glasses is holding out her hand, and he stares at it. He takes the Chocolate Frog card, and he looks down at its animated image: the man is pale, with a neatly trimmed black beard, and he's inspecting his fingernails. "Salazar Slytherin," he murmurs quietly, and his lips twitch in slight fondness - Slytherins know the history of their Founder better than any of the other houses know their own, and while he knows he was a terrible man, elitist and and too focused on the nonsense of blood purity, Harry can't help but find an affection in himself for the history of the man.

"I've got two, so you can have this one," she says. He smiles at her, mildly surprised: first years in Slytherin house will often ask upperclassmen for help, but said upperclassmen are rarely Harry, and it's never the case that first years of the other houses will come and talk to him. The little Hufflepuff displays her confidence plainly, but the gift surprises him, and his smile is honest.

"Thanks," Harry says. "What's your name?"

"Beth, Beth Wei," she says, "and that's Ned Buttress and Artemis Henderson." When she smiles, her slightly uneven teeth are all on show, and Harry arches his eyebrows at Hermione as the girl runs back to her friends. He slips the card into his pocket, and he walks in line with Hermione down the corridor. With just two weeks left until the Yule Ball, they've been practising dancing with the twins regularly, and Harry's actually getting a little bit excited. At the Malfoys' Christmas Gala a few years ago there'd been no dancing, but it's not actually that hard.

The waltz isn't, at least - he's not planning on having a go at the cha cha or the Hippogriff.

Harry takes the record player back from Hermione as they make their way to the Hall of Staircases, and despite keeping his gaze forwards he can feel her glances at him, becoming more and more disapproving as the moments tick by. She hadn't brought it up in front of the twins, who Harry hasn't yet explained his arrangement with Blaise to, but he knows she wants him to do something.

"Well?" she demands, and Harry sighs as they wait for one of the staircases to slowly come and meet the landing they're standing on.

"Blaise is fine with it," he says evasively.

"Of course he's fine with it," Hermione says sharply, but not in too loud of a voice. "He thinks gay people belong behind curtains. What did Luna say?"

"Nothing."

"Because you haven't told her."

"I don't want to tell everyone that I-"

"So just tell her it's a girl, and-"

"Hermione, I don't see a reason to-"

"Well, Neville's going to do something, I hope you realize."

Harry sighs, rubbing at his eyes. Hermione's doesn't actually like Luna all that much, from what Harry can usually see, but she's also sort of protective over her. Apparently, she often overhears the other Ravenclaws speaking nastily about her in the library. "I'll explain when I ask her to Yule Ball."

"It's dishonest, Harry," Hermione says. "How would you feel?" Harry doesn't know how he'd feel. Luna's feelings on most subjects are very different to Harry's own, but even with that disparity laid aside, he has no idea how he'd feel. He doesn't even know he feels from his own end, let alone from Luna's.

"Did you say yes to Krum?" Harry asks before Hermione can ask him anything else, and Hermione coughs. She looks away, her gaze innocently scanning the portraits hung around the hall of staircases.

"Er, yes. Yes, I did." She doesn't say anything more for a long few moments as they make their way down the stairs, but by the time they reach the entrance hall, she breaks. "Do you think my dress will be okay? And my hair? I mean, I know I normally don't care about that sort of thing, but I'll be opening up the ball with you and the others, and everyone will be looking at me, and I don't-"

"Stop worrying," Harry says quietly. He nudges her gently in the shoulder, and she gives him a worried look, biting on her lip, and he says, "You've got that hair stuff, and those dress robes. You should focus on how Viktor feels about you, and he wouldn't mind if you showed up in nothing but bodypaint." Hermione laughs. "I'll help you with that, if you want to go for it. I think we could put some puffskeins over your boobs, maybe a dragon on your back-" She thumps him on the shoulder, and he grins.

"I think I'll just go with my dress, thanks," Hermione says, shaking her head, and she nods her head. In the doorway to the great hall, Luna is talking with Ginny, a smile on her face and a look of polite confusion on Ginny's. Ginny looks grateful when Harry and Hermione approach: Hermione and Ginny walk into the great hall together, settling at the Gryffindor table, and Harry stands alone with Luna.

"I like the hair," Harry says: Luna's hair is loose around her shoulders, but a hairpin with a blue dragonfly draws her fringe back from her eyes, and she offers him a smile.

"Thank you." Luna reaches out, adjusting the collar of Harry's robes, and says, "I fear you've come to invite me to the Yule Ball, Harry." Luna's gaze is focused on Harry's neck as she speaks, and Harry elects to wait rather than asking questions. "But I must decline. Neville's already asked me, you see, as friends." Harry blinks, staring at Luna's porcelain-pale features with his lips parted.

"Did he?" Harry says, tone mildly stiff. "Right. Well, don't worry about it, Luna. So long as you get to go, right?"

"Right," Luna says sweetly, and she reaches up to pat the side of Harry's face, walking off to the Ravenclaw table. Harry walks to sit with the Gryffindors, sitting with Hermione, and he tries to force his expression into something more neutral, but Hermione and Ginny both know him too well to let him hide his irritation entirely. Of course Neville would do this - the other boy's downright terrified of confrontation at times, but wouldn't want to tell Harry's secrets to Luna either, and this was obviously his solution. The Gryffindor is nowhere in sight, and Harry sets his turntable down at Hermione's feet, wondering which greenhouse Neville will be in at the moment. It's early in the lunch hour, and when Neville works in the greenhouses on a Saturday Harry knows he often eats food with Sprout or gets something from the Kitchens, so he'll probably be out there right now.

He's about to stand to go and find out when there's a harsh cry of sound from the staff table, and they all whip their heads around. Aurora Sinistra has her hand clapped over her mouth, and is staring with obvious horror down at a piece of parchment in her hands. Tears are rolling down her cheeks, the wetness shining in the candlelight, and Harry stares in shock and confusion as she tries to stand and crumples slightly on shaky knees, leaving Snape to hold her up. He puts one of his arms around her, supporting her, and at a nod from him Flitwick snatches the parchment out of Sinistra's hands, folding it up and placing it out of sight.

Snape moves quickly to support Sinistra out of the room, but she's sobbing - normally, Sinistra is as upright witch, and although she'll occasionally offer a tight smile to a student who knows their astronomy, she's normally as emotionless as Snape is. She shakes violently, clinging to Snape's robes and leaning heavily on him, despite his being a good four or five inches shorter than her, and even as Dumbledore tries to call attention to the staff table, every student watches her get all but carried out of the room.

Harry looks to Flitwick, who is seriously looking at the parchment with McGonagall: the both of them are pale, and Harry frowns as Dumbledore stands.

"Professor Sinistra has been taken ill," he says, and the parchment in McGonagall's hand abruptly Vanishes when Harry next looks to her. "Please, children, return to your lunch." Harry frowns, standing up from the table, and he slips out of the great hall, heading out and down onto the grounds. He heads down to the greenhouses, and he hovers in the doorway of Greenhouse Two: on one of the platforms suspended about twenty feet above the rest of the building, Neville, Sprout and a Hufflepuff girl called Hannah are trying to coax a thickly flowered plant to drink something.

All three of them are talking quietly to it as it shivers and lets out strange, whining sounds, but it finally relents, letting the petals of its huge flowers part so that the three of them can pour the liquid into its... Throat?

"Professor Sprout," Harry calls, and she leans over the edge of the platform.

"Potter?"

"I think Dumbledore's going to want you, Ma'am. Professor Sinistra just got something nasty in the post at lunch - she was sobbing in front of everyone, and Snape's taken her out." Sprout's face, round and rosy and spattered with dirt, becomes serious, She carefully makes her way past Neville and Hannah, rushing down the stairs and clapping Harry on the back as she makes her way up to the castle. Neville has the keys to the greenhouse in his hands as he and the Hufflepuff make their way down the stairs, and his expression is quietly serious as he looks at Harry.

Harry wants to yell at him, but he can't in front of Hannah, and yelling at Neville always feels like yelling at a sad puppy anyway.

"What did she get?" Hannah asks. There are pieces of petal and soil in her hair, her robes dirty, but she doesn't care - Neville's in the same state of dishevelment as he pulls off his dragonhide gloves.

"I don't know," Harry says. "I doubt it was good. Could I, uh, have a second with Neville please, Hannah?" She stares at him, narrowing her eyes just slightly, but when she glances at Neville he nods her head, and Hannah walks quickly out of the greenhouse to make her way up the hill.

"I need to put some stuff away," Neville says quietly, looking resigned to his fate, and Harry nods, taking up a watering can at the bottom of the metal stairs and following Neville into the next room. The greenhouses are all huge, with high ceilings and ridiculously wide floorplans, but Greenhouse Three has the most dangerous plants, and Harry is careful not to get too close to any of the pots as they approach the storecupboard.

He sets the watering can on a shelf as Neville hangs up trowels and tools and potions bottles, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the archway.

"You're angry at me," Neville says. "But I don't care." He speaks firmly, his voice quavering slightly. "It's not fair to her, Harry - she's such a nice girl, Luna is, and people are already horrible to her, and carrying on with both her and- and Blaise... It's wrong." Neville isn't looking at him: instead, he's turning bottles around on the shelves so that all of their labels face outward, his head down and his shoulders raised slightly, like he's waiting for Harry to try and hit him.

"I know," Harry says simply. He doesn't say anything else: he doesn't need to. "I know, Neville." Neville looks like making different conversation is momentarily beyond him, so Harry asks, "You think Sinistra's going to be alright? I've never seen her upset before." The relief on the other boy's face is positively palpable, and he sighs as he sets his gloves on a work surface, grabbing for the keys and leading Harry out towards the exit.

"I dunno," he says. "I hope it's nothing too bad, though. With Lockhart, and with the Death Eaters around-" he shakes his head, seeming almost tortured for a second, and he goes quiet before he says, "I'm sure she'll be okay." Harry nods his head, pulling the doors to the greenhouse closed so that Neville can lock up, and the two of them walk up to the castle in silence, saying not another word between them.