You Still Look Like a Movie / You Still Sound Like a Song

Harry leaned against the cool stone wall, arms crossed over his chest, thinking that the music was too loud and the bass turned up far too high. He could feel it thrumming through the flagstones beneath his feet, vibrating through the stone at his back as Celestina Warbeck's voice crooned. He winced at the syrupy sweet lyrics, wishing he was anywhere else. Hermione had talked him into attending tonight — badgered him into it, more like, he thought grumpily.

He was working late, finishing up some paperwork, when Hermione stormed into their shared office and leaned over his desk, thrusting a crumpled piece of parchment in front of his face.

A piece of parchment he recognized, as he'd crumpled it himself and thrown it in the bin that morning, moments after the owl had dropped it on his desk.

He stared up at her, stubbornly silent in the face of her indignation. She glanced over her shoulder at the interested faces of their coworkers peering in their open office door, then slammed it shut with a wave of her wand, turning back to him to whisper-yell, "What sort of message would it send if Harry Potter, Savior of the Wizarding World and the public face of the Ministry were to skip his ten-year Hogwarts Reunion Ball?"

"Hermione--" he started, but she cut him off before he could get out any excuses.

"You know there's been unrest lately. You've helped me hold this sodding world together for the past ten years — you know the public needs this. Needs to see their leaders united. Needs to see them having a little fun and renewing old bonds."

She took a breath, let it out slowly, unclenching her fists. "You promised me, the last time you skipped out of a press conference and left me to fend for myself. The next time I asked, you said, you'd be there. Well, I'm asking now."

He glanced around, irritated, as someone jostled him back to the present. The music blaring through the magically-amplified speakers had changed to a fast, fist-pumping beat. The other dancers had broken out of one another's arms and were jumping up and down, yelling along with the lyrics.

He grimaced and turned away again; he hated the Weird Sisters even more than he hated Celestina Warbeck.

"Harry," Hermione said, sagging back against the wall beside him with a small sigh of relief and kicking off her black velvet heels, "this is a dance. You're supposed to be, well, dancing." One strap of her dress — black velvet, to match the shoes — slipped down her shoulder and she sighed in annoyance as she pushed it up again, muttering a quick spell to make it stay.

"I don't see you dancing," he returned, knowing as he said it that it was petty. Her face was still flushed from dancing with Ron, which she'd been doing from practically the moment they'd arrived until Seamus had dragged him away to settle some bet.

Hermione sighed and took a sip of her drink.

"Just for that," she said, nudging his shoulder again, "I'm keeping this instead of giving it to you like I was planning to." Then she turned to face him and her hair, which she was currently wearing piled atop her head, cut off his view of the crowd.

"I mean it, Harry," she said, voice dropping lower. "I know you're not in the mood for dancing. But you need this."

"I don't know what you're—"

"It's been years," she said, exasperated now. "Harry, I love you, but you have to move on. He's not coming back."

Harry winced, her words cutting as deep as they had the first time she'd said them, or any of the hundreds of times since. "He said—"