Chapter 5
He’d known how to dance for what felt like his whole life. His gran had made sure of that.
Of course, all her lessons and insistence that “young ladies need to know how to handle themselves at balls and other functions” didn’t mean he was any good at dancing.
It just meant that his brain knew how. His body... not so much.
And now that he’d come out, everything was backward. Sure, he could be a boy and follow someone else’s lead while dancing. But he wanted to learn how to lead.
“It’s not that I want to uphold heteronormative standards,” he explained to Seamus, his hands all caught up in his hair in agony. “It’s just that Gran taught me how to follow, not lead, and the Yule Ball is coming up, and she got me these fancy new men’s dress robes and I love them, but I want to feel worthy of wearing them, and -”
“And you don’t know how to lead,” Dean said from behind a bookcase.
Seamus started to aim a hex at him before realizing who it was.
“Blimey, Dean, you can’t just pop up out of nowhere like that.” He scowled at his boyfriend, but there was a smile in his glare.
“Apparently, I can, because I just did,” Dean said, clearly pleased with himself. He leaned down to give Seamus a small kiss. Neville’s face burned, but he still smiled as he looked away.
“Do you know how to dance, Dean? Can you show me? For the Ball?”
Dean glanced at Madam Pince, who was watching them all with narrowed eyes.
“It just so happens that I can. But not here.” He lowered his voice and leaned into Neville and Seamus conspiratorially. “Pince might murder us, and how will we dance when we’re dead?”
“Don’t ask Nick that question,” Seamus muttered as they gathered their things and tiptoed out of the library before a severe case of the giggles overtook them.
They trooped up to the Gryffindor common room, dumping their bags unceremoniously in front of the fireplace.
“Alright, so,” Dean said. He cleared his throat and stared down the small group of sixth years that had given him a problem when he had come out. He, Seamus, Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Ron - well, everyone, really, with Fred and George really stepping up their Puking Pastilles game to lead the charge - had made sure they didn’t so much as look at Neville the wrong way when he, too, came out.
“One hand here,” Dean said without preamble, taking Neville’s hand into his own and cupping them together just so. “And then one hand on my waist.”
“Your waist?” Neville’s eyes grew wide.
“Don’t worry, Longbottom, he’s giving consent and I promise I won’t hex you for touching my boyfriend’s rather excellent waist,” Seamus said.
Hermione snorted from a corner. All three boys jumped - they hadn’t seen her behind her massive pile of books.
“Okay,” Neville said. He’d put his hand on Dean’s waist, comforted by the solid fabric of his binder underneath his shirt.
I know there are wizarding ways of doing it, Dean had told him once. But the Muggle way just feels right for me sometimes, you know?
“Now what?”
“Now,” Dean said, his eyes sparkling. “We waltz.”