Dance Class (5-7 YEARS)

The Ballroom: highly polished, cleaned and preened, without the trace of a scuff. It was everything Leythan could have wished for, as though Professor Riddle had traced through the image in his mind and painted it just as it was.

To avoid overcrowding, the classes were split between the lower school (first- and second-years), the mid section (third- and fourth-years) and the upper school (fifth-, sixth- and seventh-years). But as the upper school was the biggest group, he had also split them into two classes randomly. It also meant that nobody had a chance at hiding away, and that's what he was most bothered about.

Once his first class had assembled and were ambling around the edges of the room surrounding him, Leythan called to them to put a stop to idle conversation:

"Get yourself a partner - girls with boys, girls with girls, boys with boys - it doesn't matter. In boy and girl pairings, the boy is the leader and the girl is the follower. If you are of the same gender, you simply have to decide which is leading and which is following."

He stood, poised on the spot, looking between them irritably.

"Come on, hurry up. We haven't got all afternoon," he snapped, drawing his hands behind his back and shaking his long locks from his eyes.

The ballroom was very spacious, but Saburo suddenly felt very boxed in. The castle itself was very dark, despite having windows, and he wondered why they hadn't used lighter, brighter colours or white for any of its interior decor. That would have really opened it up and made the best of the dreary weather outside.

But he set aside his discomfort on that matter for the time being. The here and the now: what he should be committed to, was finding a dance partner. Perhaps he should pair with his sister, knowing that they had similar experience, but he doubted the British style of dancing matched the style of their own country. Perhaps they should be using this opportunity to get to know some of the other students, but Saburo was struck by shyness.

His deep, brown eyes moved amongst the sea of unfamiliar faces, urging himself to step forward and ask for one of the girls to be his partner.

Was it completely crazy that she was looking forward to this class? She hadn't done much dancing before, but she certainly had a sense of rhythm! It was just this bit that she had been worried about: somehow she thought she'd prefer being paired up than having to ask one of the boys. It was just so embarrassing!

That Professor Selwyn was cute, too. It was a shame, because supposedly that meant he was from one of those families. It didn't make it any easier that she'd be messing up and embarrassing herself in front of peers and him!

Maybe she was just thinking too much about this...

"I take it all back - I can't do this!" she whined quietly to someone nearby.

Had MacKenna actually skipped this class, Jerome thought, after overhearing him at the feast. He pursed his lips irritably. He definitely didn't want to do dance classes - this was practically torture for him - but he'd never think of skipping a lesson. He'd have to confront MacKenna about it later, but for now, he had other things to worry about.

Sighing, he turned to one of his female friends. "Do you have any experience with this? Because I'm definitely going to be rubbish."

ARGH! Confound it!

He was staring, glaring straight ahead. It was as if plumes of steam were rising off his head as he boiled and stewed at the thought of his brother ruining at least the next year of his schooling. Hell hath no fury. Dragon flames furled inside his eyes.

When they were instructed to pair up, Comarth immediately presented his hand to Dahlia with a long, exasperated sigh.

"Let's just get this over with."

@Dahlia Travers

This was the one class Lazar definitely wasn't looking forward to; he was able to dance enough to barely get through one of the school functions, that was about it. The room felt uninviting, the professor intimidated him, he couldn't get away from the mean, scary classmates. Lazar didn't know what he was supposed to do!

Crossing his arms, Lazar tried to minimize his appearance. If he couldn't be noticed, maybe his inability to make a twist without feeling some kind of motion sickness wouldn't be detectable. He looked around the ballroom, his stomach in absolute shambles.

As she was wearing her everyday class makeup, Jeneva stood far on the side, meticulously adding glitter eyeliner to her look so it felt more suitable for dance. She was the hottest girl at Hogwarts, all eyes had to be on her as she did her dance!

Squinting, Jeneva let out many groans of disgust as she evaluated some of her options.

"Ugh, professor, who am I supposed to dance with? This room's full of gross weirdos!"

@Leythan Selwyn

Thius took the idea of being taught by Leythan much better than Comarth did; somehow, everything worked out just right for him and Bellona to prove that they are superbly capable dancers. They simply were given a horrid deck of cards the last time.

"May I have this dance, my lady?" he wondered, bowing to her, ready to give her hand a kiss.

@Bellona Lestrange

"That is your problem, Avery," he snorted, holding his nose aloft to the ceiling, unamused by her. "Find a partner or fail. You won't want to find out what happens to anyone who fails my class, but let me put it into perspective: the grossest and weirdest of the bunch will definitely be joining you."

He checked the condition of his nail beds dismissively, prompting for her to stop bothering him.

@Jeneva Avery

"Urgh..."

Putting her compact away, her eyes scattered around once more until they landed on the new boy. He was cute enough, he at least appeared to be less disgusting and weird than most in the room. He also didn't look like he could be a mudblood. Jeneva strutted across the room as her heels loudly clattered against the floor.

"You're cute enough, are you going to dance with me?"

She glanced over at creepy Selwyn with Dahlia; at least he was leaving her alone for once!

@Saburo Tokugawa

Dahlia hated this. She hated every moment of it. But at least she didn’t have to worry about who she would choose to be her dance partner. That much was confirmed when Comarth presented his hand to her. She placed her hand in his. This wasn’t the first time she had participated in some sort of ballroom dance. It was pretty commonplace among the crowd her family was part of. ”Dont sound so bloody excited.” she said as she rolled her eyes. Of course, she wasn’t excited either but she could have told him to find another partner! He didn’t have to be all moody with her.

@Comarth Selwyn