Short Stories, One Shots and Contest Entries

Can I Have This Dance?

Title: Can I have This Dance
Author: LiviieMarie
Type: Fandom one shot- Harry Potter
Reason: none
Note: This is just a little snippet based off my main Harry Potter OC, Leah Lestrange/Riddle and her love interest, Barry Crouch Jr. You can find both of them in my Dark Lord's Daughter series. This one shot is not actually in the books.

For  she once in her life, Leah had peace and quite. Her father had been spending a lot of time abroad, leaving Leah in charge. Finally free of the many complaints of her father's Death Eaters, Leah collapsed into a chair at the dinning room table. She ran her fingers through her long black hair. She didn't understand how her father put up with all of them. Her hand had twitched to her wand more than once.

Ordering the house elf to bring her a large glass of red wine, Leah closed her eyes, allowing herself to relax. The silence of the large manor pressed on her ears until a distant slam of a door echoed through the hall. Leah gripped the stem of her wine glass tightly, threatening to break it. She was about to stand up to face her newcomer when warm, familiar hands pressed on her shoulders, gently kneading them.

"Where are Seth and and Arya?" Leah asked Barty, referring to their son and her adopted daughter.

"With your aunt Narcissa. She took them to the park so we could have some time alone."

He rolled his thumbs in small circles along her shoulder blades. Leah sighed contently. "What should we do then?"

"I had an idea," he said. Leah suddenly felt cold as he removed her hands from her shoulders. She listened to his footsteps as he crossed the hall, into the other room. Taking a sip of she wine, she waited for him to return.

When he did, he was carrying a large object that Leah didn't recognize in his arms. He grunted as he set the heavy object on the table. "Do you remember the dances we shared at the Yule Ball?"

"Vividly," she smiled at him over the edge of her glass. "I do believe you were in the body of some crusty old Auror and we clanked around the dance floor on that silly wooden leg of yours. You stepped on my toes more than once."

"Sorry about that." He gave her a cheesy grin and began to fiddle with the object. "I found one of these in the attic. My parents had one. It plays music, so I thought we'd have another chance to dance."

"This thing plays music?" Leah eyed it apprehensively. As if on cue, Barty dropped the needle onto the smooth black surface of a disk. Leah didn't see how it would work, but then soft music started to emit from it. She didn't even know how such a muggle object had found its way into the Malfoy's home.

"My lady, can I have this dance?" Barty walked around the edge of the table and slipped his hand in hers, wrapping the other around her waist. She was still staring at the odd machine as he tucked her close to his body. He spun her around to the beat of the music.

"This is more like it," he whispered, pulling her back to him.

"More like what?" Leah asked him.

"Well I didn't like dancing with you in that body anymore than you did."

"And yet," she said, smiling up at him through her eyelashes, "you're still stepping on my feet."

"Ok, so I'm not the best dancer," he mumbled, pressing his forehead to hers. She smiled and lifted her lips up to meet his. He tasted like coffee, which she knew he liked to drink every morning.

The continued to waltz around the room, the flames in the fireplace cast long shadows of them on the wall. Leah's robes twirled as Barty continued to swirl her around the room. She giggled like a little school girl, feeling lighter than she had in a while. It felt nice to just spin around the room, letting the weight of responsibility lift from her shoulders.

When at last a slower song came on, Leah and Barty simply rotated on the spot. Leah rested her head on his chest, taking in his ever present scent of coffee and broomstick polish. She always wondered why he smelled like polish when he didn't even fly, but she never asked. Instead she asked, "Barty, do you ever think about the future?"

"Sure I do," he replied, wrapping his arms around her slim waist.

"What do you see?"

"I see you."

Leah leaned back so that her green eyes met his brown ones. "I'm being serious."

"So I am. I think about what will happen to me after all this blows over, and your face is alway there."

"And what is my face doing?" she asked, trying and failing to hide her smile.

"Smiling mostly," he responded, smiling down at her.

"The only way this war will end is if my father dies," Leah said seriously. "Otherwise there will always be people to oppose him and there will always be people to fight."

"Don't you want your father to win this fight?"

"Yes, but I also want to live in peace with you. And I don't think that will happen if my father wins this war. There's nothing for him to win. There will always be someone to fight back. There will be no peace for us. I do not want to raise my children in a world filled with war and death and destruction, but I can't oppose my father either." Leah sighed sadly, burying her face into his chest again.

Barty grabbed her chin and forced her to meet his eyes. "I promise, whether your father wins this war or not, we will be happy and have peace. I will marry you one day and we'll get a house, even if we have to live in hiding. We will raise Seth and Arya and any other children we might have and we will be happy. I promise."

"How can you be so sure that we'll both survive?" Leah dreaded hearing the answer, but she had to know.

"We will both survive. You wanna know how I know?" Leah nodded. "Because we have something to fight for. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix may think we're all just trained puppets to do the Dark Lord's bidding, but they don't understand we have families too. We have reasons to live and fight and love too. You have me and I have you. We both have Seth and Arya. That is why we'll survive."

"When did you become so wise?" Leah joked.

"You think about these sort of things when you face death more than once," he responded. Leah felt a shuddered run across his body as he thought about his time spent in Azkaban. A place Leah had promised she would never see him return to. She squeezed his waist, trying to reassure him and he squeezed her back in response.

The music had stopped playing minutes ago, but Barty continued to spin her around the room without it. Laughing again, she realized he was right. They would survive this war at all costs because they have something to live for too.