A gentle sway PV Closed

Tina never stuck to a dance class long enough to master it. She believed if she spent too long doing one type of dance that she would never get the chance to learn the next one. She decided to head to the ballroom to attempt to combine ballet with tango. She put on a red ruffle skirt over her black leggings before placing her red ballet shoes over her feet. She then wore a fitting plain red shirt and tied her hair into a high ponytail. 

On her way, she couldn't help but to think of the numerous dance combinations she could make. She could twirl then leap before doing a basic box dance. Or maybe she should try something more complex then that. She could spin twice (once in each direction), follow the slow, slow quick quick, slow rhythm with my feet while waving her arms gracefully then make a double flip landing on one foot. That's probably too much she thought as she reached her destination.

When she saw the girl in a black leotard dancing, she could tell she was experienced. She seemed to dance without a single thought and allowed the music move her. On impulse, Tina did something she's never done before. She yelled, "Do you want to dance together?!"

Elia was so caught up in dancing, that she failed to hear the large cream of the door that was opening, as she began to prep for a double stag turning leap. Just as she pushed off from the ground,

“Do you want to dance together?” A voice shouted stirring Elia from her thoughts. She was mid leap when this happened and landed sparaticlly in a haphazard first position. 

She turned to the person who had shouted the question. A girl stood with a red ruffle skirt, black tights and red ballet shoes awaiting an answer from her. 

Elia pondered for a moment. A duet? Well. She had never done a duet before so she might as well try it. Besides it had been sometime since she had danced with others around her. She smiled at the girl and happily walked over to her. 

“Yes. I’d love to dance with you. What type of dance where you thinking?” She questioned merrily. In her mind lots of combinations began to put themselves in place for different types of dances. Lyrical, Jazz, Modern, Hipllet, Salsa, Tango. So many choices. 

It seemed to her that the girl was thinking. Or perhaps just stunned that she had gotten a positive reply. Elia wipes the sweat from her forehead and flicked it from her hand. 

Thea opened the door and immediately regretted it.

She was waiting hours for any bit of free time she could've gotten to come to this room. It was peaceful for many reasons and she'd at least try to come here when she could to relax if the place wasn't locked away of course. It'd usually be empty since going into a ballroom when there are so many other things you could do wasn't the most common one, and yet here she was, stupidly standing in front of two girls who looked about her age.

One of them was wearing tights and a leotard, something Thea would sometimes see whenever her mother tried to teach Anna how to dance in the small cottage belonging to her family, but it was never often since both T and Anna didn't have a way with dancing or singing, while her mother did. What made up for it was that they both had a way with instruments, making learning ukulele easy... at least for Thea, she wasn't sure how Anna was doing with her lessons since she left to go to Hogwarts.
The other girl had red hair, pure red and Thea only paid attention to that color. It was quite the distraction if she were to say so herself.

The Hufflepuff shook her head. "Sorry. I came here to write something, Shouldn't bother you. If you do get bothered.... well, too bad, I'm not really planning on leaving," she said, realizing why she came here. She wanted to write something. A letter to her sister. She loved the little girl and even if she wanted to stop herself from writing a letter, she wouldn't be able to.

Thea sharply inhaled, hoping to not interrupt them and sat down in the corner, quietly, putting a piece of parchment on her knees, the ink and quill next to her.

Reducio

You are more than welcome. It’s open for everyone. 

Elia turned her attention to the newcomer. She was not dressed in dance clothes, in fact she still had school clothes on. She had come in and stood in front of them before hitting out about how if they didn’t like the fact she was there then too bad. 

Elia giggled at her outburst. 

“That’s ok! We where just about to start a duet. You are more than welcome to jump in with us.” Elia offered as she walked to the barre to stretch. The other girls just stood silent as Elia began to stretch. The silence continued on almost uncomfortably. The gramophone changed its time to a jazzy upbeat number and Elia began to dance. 

“Well I think it’s time for introductions. My name is Elia. Elia Wilfor.” She stated as she posed for the mirror.  “I’m a first year in Slytherin and I love to dance.” 

Elia filled the silence with cheerful stories of her dance experience and happily dance around to the music. Soon her head filled with the sound of silence as she spun around and ended. 

Turning to the girls who had come in, she smiled. 

“Shall we dance?” She asked with a beam. 

"Przepraszam co?"

Realizing that instead of writing she started drawing, and when she did that, she usually went into some sort of a trans, not bothered by her surroundings. Funny enough, she drew a ballerina. Startled by the girl's question, she realized what she asked and laughed a bit.

"Thank you, I guess, and if I were my sister I'd probably LOVE to join, but unlike my sister, I don't really have a way with dancing?"

The girl looked around nervously. She didn't like conversations. She got back into drawing, but because of the upbeat music playing, her mind decided to remind her of her sister's recently favorite song, which to be completely honest wasn't the most recent. She started humming the melody as the girl introduced herself, startling the Hufflepuff once again.

"Oh. Thea Knott. First-year Hufflepuff and muggle-born, if that makes any difference." DID IT make any difference? Apparently for some people. The girl turned back to her drawing slash failed letter, with the corner of her eye seeing how the Slytherin girl - Eila? - was happily jumping around, and she smiled. She stopped her drawing of a girl with a strangely big smile on her face and looked at the girl. It reminded her of her mother, she was a great dancer, singer and played some instruments, including the violin, the guitar, the trumpet, and the ukulele which Thea loved to play herself.

The Slytherin spoke again. "As I said, I don't dance. The closest thing to me doing any type of musical activity would be trying to play the ukulele. Still nowhere near my mother." Thea smirked and turned her head back to the drawing. The girl had vampire fangs now. Why? No idea.

Elia smiles as Thea introduce herself. She then poured a bit when Thea said she didn’t dance. 

“If you want to join in at anytime, that would be fine Thea. And don’t worry about being muggleborn. I’m a pure blood but I find muggles fascinating.” Elia chirped. She began to move towards her water bottle and took a large swig. 

“My family was mostly in Ravenclaw, but I’m the first to be in Slytherin. I don’t know why that happened but it did.” Elia pondered as she walked over to Thea who was sitting down with a pad of paper and a pencil in hand. Elia took a glimpse at the drawing over the girls shoulder and saw an intricate Ballerina with... Wait. 

Where those vampire teeth??

“What a nice drawing! I wish I could draw.” Elia smiled. It was a very nice drawing and Elia was telling the truth. She could barely draw a circle or square. Elia took a seat next to the girl and sighed. 

“Do you come here often? I just found this room yesterday and have spent most of the day in here.” Elia started. “It’s quite enjoyable.”

The gramophone began to wind down into a smooth jazz tune that was making Elia want to slip some sunglasses on and fall halfway off a seat. 

"Fascinating? Like, I get that there was magic in your life and all, but how much is your life different from a muggle's life? How different can it be? Unless you never do anything "the muggle way", is it really that different?" Thea replied. She knew she sounded a bit rude, but really, she was confused. How different can a muggle's life be different from a witch's life? "No offense, I just don't get it."

The girl sat down, making Thea scooch a little bit further away. She didn't really like human contact. She looked at her drawing, making Thea sharply inhale again. She learned that from when her father would give her critique - he was a great art teacher for the girl, and it was great to learn with him and improve using his critique, but he was a bit harsh, so when anytime someone looks at her drawings she's scared they'll be harsh.

"Her smile's a bit too big, and I think she should have a partner. You know, draw a universe, not a character? That's what my father taught me." the girl pointed out. The girl instead praised her drawings and said she wished she could draw. "Everybody can. It's a matter of practice." she rolled her eyes and smirked. "God, I learned a lot of inspirational quotes from my dad." She chuckled.

"I think about two weeks? Unless it's closed, then I go to the owlery or the grounds. "

"I just don't get it." 

Elia understood. After all. There where things that she didn't understand herself.

"My family and I live in Manchester." Elia started. "During the year while I'm at Hogwarts, my parents stay in that flat. However, I grew up in Whitby along the coast in a cottage. I lived in a small town where everyone knew anyone and it was mostly muggles. My best friends are muggles and I attended muggle schooling. They actually think I'm at a private boarding school in London and are coming with my parents to fetch me from the train. I've spent days with them doing everything the "muggle" way. I think that if we had advancements in technology in the Wizarding world, we might be able to interact with muggles in a gentler way. When I said the muggle way, I meant a unique way. Without the dependency of magic and wands. That's what I find interesting."

Elia hoped that Thea could see her side of the story. When Thea began to point out things wrong with her drawing. Elia felt bad. She hadn't meant for her to feel bad about her work. Elia also noticed that Thea had scooted away from her. Elia stood back up and walked over to the mirror. 

She looked at herself in the mirror and placed her arms in a resting position. Carefully, Elia stood on her toes and began to twirl slowly like a doll perched on a music box. 

"What I'm about to say, may irk you. And I don't mean it to. Even though I can't draw on paper, I find that dance lets me draw on peoples eyes.The way we see each other is like how critics make a living.  Everyone has a part of them that makes them unique and a part of them that makes them ordinary. Just like your drawing. She has a large mouth because she likes to smile when she dances. That's my view. To you, it might be because she's loud or mean. Either way, both are special to her. And that's my opinion." Elia explained as she spun and made gentle movements with her arms. 

The gramophone played a sad classical tune that prompted Elia to turn from a happy girl, to a sad doll. With every step of her dance, she erased and recreated. Just like an artist.

Hopefully Thea wouldn't be mad about her way of wording it. After all. 

It'd be nice to have a friend.

Tina couldn’t hide her shock. A large part of her didn’t expect the girl to say yes. She thought for sure that she would be bothering her, but here she was letting her choose the dance style. She was really in the mood for a high power dance. After stealing a glance at the gramophone, she decided she should probably choose the salsa. It was actually a record player that was used for her very first dance lesson.

Her mother had taken her to a dance studio when she was four. She vaguely remembered the dance instructor who made her repeat the step until it was perfection before moving to the next one. After one lesson, her mother got her another teacher who taught her the passion of dance. The teacher’s favorite quote was “dancing is a reaction to the rhythm of music”, which shaped her into the original dancer she was today. The teacher would show her a few steps before letting her combine them on her own.

When she finally snapped out of her deep thoughts. She saw a girl sitting on a bench and the girl in the leotard dancing to a sad but beautiful song. How long has she been thinking? She shook her head as she began to mirror the dancing girl’s movements. She said, softly, “I never got the chance to ask you what your name was. What is it?”