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Harry Potter and the Cracked Reservoir
Chapter 27: Get the Ball Rolling
By Musings of Apathy
Chapter 27: Get the Ball Rolling
Thank you to my Betas Donalddeutsch, Cateagle and Sparky40sw.
In the Gryffindor common room, at fifteen minutes after six on October 31st, the only older students to be found were all nervous males. There were many younger students, decked out in their best robes, running around without a care, but the older students looked at this event as something much more serious. Oh how nice life was before thoughts turned to the opposite sex. Times when you could just be friends and not think about holding her, kissing her and…well, where is she? Ron asked mentally. Why couldn’t Harry be here waiting with me?
Another Ball. The Ball two years ago had been an unmitigated disaster. Ronald Bilius Weasley had not come to realize until painfully too close to the last Ball that the perfect woman was out of his grasp. He had waited too long to open his eyes. But, even then, with his eyes open, he hadn’t acted as he should have. He had craved any interaction with the bushy haired genius. He would seek any conversation, any chance to speak with her. Unfortunately this, more often than not, led to an argument and eventual fighting. They seemed to thrive on the arguments, but it did neither of them any good. Ron never did get the sense or the courage to truly start the relationship by approaching the beautiful woman directly. He was saved from that task, ultimately, by his sister. She, through his twin brothers, forced him into admitting his affection for Hermione after a most solid and satisfying kiss.
Another Ball and there he stood by the great fire in the common room, waiting. Luckily his brothers, the twins, had been successful in their joke shop and had bought him new dress robes. He looked quite dapper and ready to escort a lady to the Ball, quite the opposite of the ruffled and lace bedecked outfit of nearly two years ago.
Okay, he admitted it. He was nervous. Come on man, this is just Hermione. You’ve known her since the first day on the train back in first year. You’ve been friends since Halloween that first year. You’ve been friends for five years. Ron gulped. Exactly five years tonight. Five years ago Harry forced him to go looking for a crying girl that he had hurt. Had he ever apologized? Ron thought…and thought. Oh how daft. Of course not! I made a girl cry and never had the sense to apologize. Great. I am such a git sometimes.
Ron ended his musings and inner-contemplation when the girl’s staircase showed activity. One by one the girls came down the staircase, pausing near the bottom to find their escort in the crowd of male students. If possible, the wait became more torturous as his Hermione was, one by one, not the next to come.
Ron barely registered that Hermione was indeed the next to descend the steps before his brain gave up the ghost and he could no longer think. The only thought to bounce around the confines of his skull was that an angel had descended from heaven. Her ice blue gown hugged her form so much differently than her day-to-day robes that he could hardly think that she could be his girlfriend. His thoughts, so recently on the eleven year old that he had first met and saved from the troll, ground to a halt as his brain tried frantically to update archaic information of just last week with the image of the most beautiful being in existence. Last week it had been a Hermione in a green flower print sundress. His thoughts mapped every detail in minutia. How she could have ever thought that he was good enough for her was beyond him, but he was not stupid enough to point that out. He could only savor the look of her bare shoulders and petite neck. Her normally bushy hair pulled up and shiny in an indefinable sculpture of beauty. The dress showed off what was missed under the generic robes she normally wore. He admired her legs, her waist, her *gulp* breasts.
She was a vision of splendor.
And then she turned to him and smiled.
Hermione was having her princess fantasy night. She was to attend a ball with the man that she loved, had loved for years, who had finally screwed up the courage to admit what, it seems, he too had been feeling for years.
Oh, the wasted time. But he needed to grow and mature to be ready for her (of course, he still needed to, some). So the wait was not all in vain.
She stepped back to the princess fantasy. She was attending the Ball in an ice blue formal gown that was guaranteed to fry his cortex. She was showing off a conservative amount of skin, but the where was well chosen, a bit of shoulder (okay, all of the shoulder), the front not low enough for a lot of cleavage but enough for a beautiful pearl necklace and a large tear drop spot in the back that ensured that she need only get him to dance one dance and he would dance the night away, just for a chance to rest his hand on her bare back.
She shivered at the thought with a smile on her face.
She descended the stairs and stopped to catch a glimpse of her handsome prince in his cascading silk dress robes, royal blue to offset his hair and complexion. She had to smile at the care Ron had taken to find the right outfit the night. The man hated to shop, but was willing to endure it for her.
This would be the perfect night. She screwed up her own courage and walked to the apparently dumbstruck man that she perhaps loved. She took his hand in hers when she was close enough, in an attempt to bring him from his stupor. Inside, her Id was dancing a dance of victory. She wanted to stun him, and his reaction was screaming to her subconscious that he found her beautiful. Every second that he stared at her like that was further reaffirmation that she was desired. Her Id could have basked in that for eternity.
Her taking his hand broke Ron from his stupor and allowed him to connect his screaming subconscious to his mouth once again, luckily with his sometimes deficient conscious mind doing full work on keeping him from embarrassing himself with the often inappropriate inner thoughts that would have tried to rush through his lips.
"Wow," Ron articulated, "Hermione, you look gorgeous."
The entrance hall was crowding with the school’s students in various states of formal dress. The younger students, in general, were simply in their best school robes. However, by third year, the students had dressed more elegantly. Milling about, some nervously, some with delight, the mixed students filled the spacious area with their movements and their voices.
"Hermione?" whispered Ron into his date’s ear. "What are we doing here in the entrance hall?"
"I don’t know," Hermione said, the admission seeming to cost her. "All that I know is that Professor Dumbledore said that Harry was providing the venue and to be here at 6:30 to go there and here we are."
"Do you think that Harry is loaning the Professor one of the Potter mansions?" Ron asked, hopefully deluded.
"No, Ron," said Hermione. "I think we both know that he meant the Chamber of Secrets."
Ron visibly gulped. He had not approached the Chamber since Harry had rescued his sister in second year and even then he hadn’t make it past the cave mouth. That was still a heavy day on his emotions. "But, we’re in the entrance hall not Moaning Myrtle’s Bathroom."
"Well," Hermione surmised, "I guess that they don’t expect the students to slide down a pipe."
Ron looked at her like she would offer more of an explanation, but none came. In truth, she really didn’t know how they would get there.
Sara Molina was with all of her friends, waiting like everyone else for something to happen that would announce the start of the Ball. Being just a second year student, she didn’t have a date, mostly because the boys her age were completely clueless about gender of certain people (her) and what that really meant. Nothing to get too depressed about, but if Bobby doesn’t start noticing the existence of a certain female soon he will be hexed up one side and down the other!
"Sara," said one of her friends as she approached. "You look totally awesome! Where did you get the dress?"
"Owled my mom for it," Sara explained. "Once she got over the bird in her kitchen, she went down to the shop, bought it, and sent it to me with the owl."
"Oh," said the girl, crestfallen. "Wish I’d thought of that."
They stood on the edge of the great crest in the entrance hall. For some reason the only patch of empty ground was directly over the crest, leaving it was inexplicably vacant. Some, however, stood admiring the crest for its artistry.
"The new crest is sure pretty, isn’t it?" Sara asked.
"Yeah, beautiful. I wonder who the artist was," said Sara’s blond friend.
"Dunno. But it looks like it was a lot of work-yaaa-aa-a!" she screamed at the end. A dull grey stone rose from the crest, as if coming from beneath.
"What the…?" several of the onlookers asked.
The stone got wider as it came up into existence, slowly revealing the surface covered in runes that the group of second years had no chance of translating. Another few inches and an underside came from the floor in the center of the stone, beginning the evidence of an arch. The stone ribbon continued to rise, spreading wider as it was revealed.
"Wow."
The stone seemed to rise at a painfully slow rate, eventually drawing itself to a width of around five feet; revealing age marks and chips in the stone surface. An agonizing period later, time filled with students jockeying for position to see the happenings, another feature started to rise from the floor. This was a well-worn wood fence, the boards at odd angles and the wood distressed with obvious age, the softer wood between the grains having left the surface of the wood long ago. This rough appearance was only punctuated by the occasional patch of white paint that, rather than offering any protection from the elements, highlighted the lack of maintenance that must have typified its life.
At final stop, the arch stood at nearly eight feet in height and stood five feet wide. The wooden fences spread out from the arch on one side, beckoning passage.
"What do you suppose we are supposed to do?" a male voice on the other side of the crest asked.
Just as he finished his question, a fog formed from nowhere, creating a curtain in the archway.
"Ooh."
To the surprise of everyone present save Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore, the fog condensed, slowly, into a vertical liquid metal surface, defying all precepts of gravity.
That completed, Professor Dumbledore stepped to the forefront and addressed the students.
"If you will all proceed through the arch, this Ball may commence," he said with a definite twinkle in his eye. Funnily enough, this twinkle did not especially reassure young Sara Molina.
"Attention everyone," came a high, authoritative voice in the kitchen. "All house elves! We’s is just thirty minutes from dinner. You’s all is knowing your where’s and what’s, yes?"
In the kitchen of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry nearly a hundred heads with tennis ball sized eyes and long ears nodded.
"Good good!" said the commanding voice. "Remember the lessons of the greats before us." The house elves turned to previously concealed paintings adorning the walls of the kitchen. "We must remember Jubby, who commanded this kitchen during the great food fight of 1936. Did he let any of the food used be less than great? And Seffy, who single-handedly fed the great armies of 1862 after the Dark Lord Malfizzy poisoned all the rest of the elves. Was her Christmas pudding at the Yule feast any less than perfectly formed?" Each house elf in the kitchen puffed his or her chest as they took heart in the reminders given, turning from portrait to portrait. "And we must never forget Mrs. Weezy, while she is not a house elf, she embodies what an elf must strive for. She keeps a kitchen for nine Weezy’s, each similar to the current Master Weezy and still she has enough to bring many more to her table. Her house is the gathering point for many on occasion and none shall ever leave her house hungry. It is these lessons that we must learn!"
A hardy cheer of agreement echoed through the kitchen.
"Speaking of lessons, who had Master Weezy for the last menu feast?"
A shiver ran through the population of house elves at the mention of a menu feast. A hand at the back rose timidly.
"I did, commandant."
"Yes, Sebby," said the leader of the Hogwarts house elves. "And what happened last time?"
"Master ate all of his food and finished Mistress Patil’s, commandant."
"From this we shall learn," said the lead elf. "Whoever gets Master Weezy’s table, remember who you is serving and give him more. That goes for the rest of you, too. Remember, whoever gets Master Dumbledore, to put two peppermint humbugs on his plate. Whoever gets Mistress Hayeck to make her portion spicy and remember that Mistress Ginny wants Master Harry to eat bigger, so make Master Harry’s meat thick and add more gravy." Heads around the room nodded in understanding.
"It is almost time, so being ready!"
As the students entered a dark chamber lined with viper statues with mouths open and fangs bared greeted them. The end of the Chamber, some could see, held a statue of a demented looking bearded man with wild eyes and a sinister sneer. The ceiling was rugged rock, dripping with putrid water. Nothing of the Chamber seemed welcoming.
The entire school had made their way ‘through the arch’ by the time the first student cracked and let out a scream. The forth year Hufflepuff had had too much of a fright for the limited fortitude that she contained.
"Calm down everyone," came the booming voice of the Headboy. "I am sure that this is just a little mistake and if everyone would just calmly go back the way that we came, everything will be all right."
Professor Dumbledore looked at the seventh year student and smiled with confidence that the young man was doing his job excellently.
Obviously, someone took his advice, as there was a shuffle from the groups closest to the ‘arch’.
"It won’t let me through. We’re stuck!" screamed a Ravenclaw.
"Welcome," said a booming, breathy voice, "to the Chamber of Secrets!"
Two younger students, a Slytherin second year and a Gryffindor first year, screamed. Nearly all others murmured in hushed exclamation.
"We’re in the Chamber of Secrets!?" several exclaimed in unbelieving question.
"Isn’t this where Slytherin’s monster is!?" others thought to point out.
None of the teachers were given a chance to respond as the mysterious voice spoke again.
"Four-Hundred and Twenty-Seven have entered," the mysterious, booming voice continued, "Six have left alive!"
Another scream echoed through the chamber.