Fire and Ice

CHAPTER TWENTY

Fire and Ice

I realised I should find out what Luna was doing. A scan of the dancing couples indicated that she was not on the floor, although Hermione Granger seemed to be having a very good time with Krum, and two members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team were throwing themselves around so energetically that it was hardly safe to cross the hall. For several minutes I was distracted by the sight of Ginny Weasley, whose happy chatting to Longbottom was regularly punctuated by her grimaces as he trod on her feet. A glance at Longbottom assured me that he was not aware of his own clumsiness. They were holding each other so closely that I couldn't help wondering whether their relationship were more intimate than they claimed. But when I tried to lip-read, the only word I could make out was "Quidditch".

Remembering to mind my own business, I moved around the edges until I found Luna sitting in a chair, holding a Butterbeer that she wasn't drinking and listening in rapt attention to a boy from Durmstrang.

"Cun send guide, if your faather is huvving brrraveness," he was saying.

"Oh, Daddy's brave enough, all right," Luna replied. She pulled out a small notebook and said, "Can you tell me that address again?"

After she had written down the address of someone in Moldavia, she saw me, and indicated I should sit with them. "Bogdan, this is Michael Corner. Michael, this is Bogdan Poliakoff, from Slovakia. He has the most exciting news – he has an uncle who knows where the giants are! He was just telling me that he can help arrange an expedition to meet them and negotiate an interview. Daddy will be so pleased!"

"Giants ... uh ... are you sure that will be safe?"

"It is not safe, defin-yitly," said Poliakoff, "but life of journalist is full of rrrisk. Best stories are coming from daangerrr." He slurped at a tankard of mulled mead. I noticed that he had gravy on his robes.

"I've had the most amazing evening," Luna enthused. "Lisa and Mandy saw the Loch Ness kelpie last summer. That's not really news – Daddy has already run five stories on the kelpie. But I'd love to see it for myself, and Lisa and Mandy found the perfect viewing point to catch it out. Then William Stebbins joined the conversation – and he has a photograph to prove that his parents really, truly saw a visible Demiguise in Korea last month. He's going to show me tomorrow. I don't know how I'm going to persuade him to let us publish it."

I vaguely remembered Sylvia Fawcett mentioning that Stebbins loved tall stories; I wondered what he would say tomorrow when he realised that Luna had believed him.

"Then Miles Bletchley arrived," she continued. "He met an alien on Ilkley Moor seven years ago. That story is well corroborated, of course – it was even in the Muggle newspapers that a Muggle please-man photographed a green alien on Ilkley Moor at about that time – but it's not so well known that the alien has made several visits. Bletchley saw it, and so did a witch named Gladys Gudgeon. Mrs Gudgeon described her experiences in a letter to the Quibbler. Anyway, the alien told Bletchley – "

"What!" I exclaimed. "It spoke English?"

"Oh, yes," said Luna serenely. "The alien told Bletchley that it visits Ilkley Moor every seven years and sends a report on Earth back to the Betelgeusean System. Naturally, it had to learn English in order to understand what was happening in Yorkshire. So the Bletchley family became very interested and marked the alien's return date in their diary. And Bletchley received their letter three weeks ago – his parents did see the alien again. They invited it to dinner, and took photographs, and everything!"

She looked so serious that I didn't have the heart to argue. And Bletchley was so large that I knew I'd never have the folly to tackle him either.

"It's an article dying to be written," said Luna happily. "If the Bletchleys don't turn out to be good writers, I'm sure I can polish up their information myself. And just now I've met Bogdan. His story will be the best of all. Daddy's already in Poland, so he's heading in the right direction to contact the guide in Moldavia and continue on to the Urals. I'm thinking we can get the giants' own version of why they left Britain and whether they'd ever return."

I had to concede that Poliakoff might not be teasing Luna: there probably were giants living in the Urals. But I hesitated to congratulate her on her eagerness to send her father to visit giants in the middle of winter. I could only say, "Are you sure you've thought enough about safety?"

The music stopped as Luna placidly informed me, "Daddy's no fool. He wouldn't have survived this long if he weren't able to outwit giants and aliens ... Oh, here's Anne-Marie back again, Bogdan."

Anne-Marie Lefèvre from Beauxbatons was approaching, looking extremely relieved to have torn herself away from Vincent Crabbe. Crabbe was in hot pursuit, eager to grab her back, and looking alarmingly ready to switch his attention to Luna should Anne-Marie prove elusive. Anne-Marie clasped Poliakoff's arm before she had stopped walking while Luna turned abruptly to me.

"I expect you'd like to dance," she said quickly. "Thanks for your help, Bogdan. Thanks for sharing your partner, Anne-Marie. Good evening, Vincent. Do you know how to do the Minuet, Michael?"

It was lucky I did, for Luna did not. We managed it because it was very slow. But the Gavotte was a hopeless mess. I managed to keep calm about that by realising that no-one was looking at us: the only people who were finding it easy were those couples where both had attended Madam Hooch's lessons. Madam Hooch herself was throwing herself around with Professor Flitwick, who looked as if he had charmed his own shoes with a Gavotte pattern.

"I suppose such a charm could exist," Luna replied in all earnestness when I mentioned it to her, "but we could never learn it in time. It's the Bourée next; that's said to be more difficult still."

In fact half the guests felt they could not tackle the Bourée. Luna and I sat down to watch, as only the best and most experienced dancers formed themselves into squares and prepared to hurl themselves dizzy. The steps were complicated, the formations varied, while the rhythm kept alternating between quills and whizzbees – but was always fast. Zacharias Smith and Tracey Davies were soon tripping over their own feet. Padma whirled around in Tahseen's arms while most people in the central square seemed to follow the dance by keeping their eyes firmly on Diggory and Cho Chang.

I became confused simply watching and gazed around at the non-dancers instead. In a far corner Potter and Weasley were deep in conversation, apparently with no further thought of dancing, while Longbottom was collapsed in his chair, too exhausted even to think of conversing. Ginny had given up fussing over him and was watching the dancers with an animated smile. Creevey was unabashedly snapping more photographs while Lilith Moon watched her friend Emma Spinks dancing with Hooper. Terry and Sally-Anne were sitting near me, but paying attention only to each other. Luna was not paying attention to anything: she seemed lost in a daydream.

When the Bourée finally ended, we in the audience applauded loudly the valiant souls who had attempted the ordeal. Roger Davies, without missing a beat, bowed down to his knees and kissed Fleur Delacour's hand. Cedric Diggory whispered something in Cho Chang's ear, and she, oblivious to her audience, laughed out loud.

Fortunately, the Weird Sisters had had enough of teasing us with difficult dances. They next announced a Congo.

"We can all do this!" I leapt to my feet. "Come on, Luna!"

"I won't be dancing any more," she said. "I have too much to think about. You go and enjoy yourself, Michael."

Since we didn't need partners, there was no point in arguing, so I followed Terry and Sally-Anne onto the floor. Terry had his hands on Ginny Weasley's shoulders, but Longbottom was still half asleep in his chair. By this late stage in the evening, and with no need to oblige one's partner, it was clear that some people really had had enough. Weasley and Potter, for example, did not even glance up from their conversation, and Padma and Parvati, having long since given up on expecting otherwise, were totally absorbed by the attentions of Tahseen and Beauvisage.

I wasn't tired. I could have gone on all night. I was holding onto Sally-Anne, but the person I was watching was Ginny Weasley. Ginny's hair was a flaming ball of fire. Ginny's fingers were lightly touching the fortunate Stebbins. By the time the Congo ended, my head was so full of Ginny that I had forgotten she couldn't have been thinking of me. I held out my hand and asked:

"Has Longbottom deserted you?"

"Poor Neville, late nights never suit him."

"So will you dance the next one with me?"

Ginny's eyes flickered to Luna, who was scribbling something in her notebook, and then back to me, with a smile.

The compère from the Weird Sisters was saying something about this dance being the opportunity for those who had come to the ball with someone special. "You'll never forget this moment, so select your partners carefully!"

I have, I have! I thought. Then the music began, a steady Strathspey, and Ginny Weasley was gazing up at me.

There were diamonds in her eyes, swimming somewhere in the amber. This time I didn't worry if she thought me stupid. I stared and stared. When I did remember that I was supposed to be speaking to her, I couldn't think of anything clever to say anyway. I only asked the obvious.

"So why isn't Longbottom your boyfriend? You seem terribly fond of one another."

"We are. Very. But I'm quite sure he doesn't want – I mean, he only asked me to the ball because he was certain we couldn't misunderstand each other. What about you, do you have a girlfriend?"

"No, not at all. I brought Luna this evening because – as you said – we both knew we couldn't misunderstand one another. But I can't believe a girl like you doesn't have a boyfriend hidden away somewhere. Surely there's someone you like?"

She missed the beat of the dance for a second, as if the question had thrown her. I had been tactless. She would despise me. But she regained her composure with a resolute shake of her head.

"No. No-one who counts for anything. I'm on my own." She laughed. "You see, a minimum requirement for any boyfriend of mine is that I'd have to like him – and he'd have to like me – more than I like Neville."

"Well, I couldn't begin to compete with anyone as heroic as Longbottom." I realised at once that I'd given myself away, but she chose not to comment. When she smiled, I knew that admiring Longbottom had been a wise move.

"You can call him by his first name, you know. Heroic ... yes, you're right ... people often don't notice what a hero Neville is."

I felt we had only begun to float into a living dream when suddenly the music died away. Students around us were applauding the band. I clapped too, not registering why, until the applause also died, and the clock finished striking midnight. People began to make their way towards the oak entrance doors.

The Yule Ball was over.

I inclined to Ginny. "Thank you for those two dances," I said. "Will I see you again tomorrow?"

"I enjoyed them too," she said. "I'll be around, I expect."

And with this non-committal answer and a final dazzling smile, she plunged into the crowd to awaken her friend Longbottom. Luna had given up her notebook and was wandering out to the Entrance Hall with no apparent thought of waiting for me. Terry was still speaking to Sally-Anne.

I moved out with the crowd, past embracing and hand-squeezing and cheek-pecking couples saying good night to one another, past Warrington and Montague supporting an immobile Bletchley (who had apparently drunk too much mulled mead), through giggling girls and boasting boys, and up the stairs to my dormitory.

Kevin and Robert thought the ball had been a laugh. Terry was humming happily, and Anthony grinned without words. I burrowed myself into my bed without listening to any of them.

Ginny ... I had met Ginny ... and all I could think about was a pair of amber eyes.