Captain
First day of practice as a part of A-troup, the feelings are on top. It’s great to be back in the danceroom. It’s been a couple of months since the last practice, of course Emma stays on top by dancing at home but she doesn't have as much space and it’s always an amazing feeling to just be in this room, the atmosphere is just on another level.
“Alright everyone gather around.” Ms. Sinistra comes out of her office and gets everyone to round up. “It’s the first day of practice and to start we have to get a dance captain. As usual this is gonna be a student from year 13 if any of you are interested. So Noah, Theo, Riley and Stella are any of you up for it?” Ms. Sinistra asks the four students on the team from year 13.
They all look around to each other seeming like they are asking each other before saying anything out loud. “I would love to.” Stella pipes up. “So would I.” Noah says right after.
Looking back at Ms. Sinistra, she looks at the two students thinking how she is gonna choose this. “Alright well to decide this we are gonna have a small competition.” She declares. Everyone looks around kind of confused.
Normally there would only be one that wants the spot because of the pressure it puts on the captain. Nonetheless sometimes there is more than one that wants the spot, then Ms. Sinistra usually just decides who she thinks is gonna fit the role the best. So why there is gonna be a competition leaves everyone a bit confused.
“You are gonna choreograph a routine for a small group of three each and teach it to the group you are gonna get.” Alright this could be interesting. “To make it as fair as possible I’m gonna write everyone's names on a piece of paper.”
A moment later she comes back with a hat and a bunch of small pieces of paper. “Stella, Noah, take three papers each and say who you got. Those are your groups.”
Stella and Noah walk up to Ms. Sinistra and pick three peppers each. “Cleo, Theo and Olive.” Stella reads from her papers.
“Daisy, Josh and William.” Noah reads who is in his group.
“Alright then. You have your groups. Now you have until Thursday where you have an hour of that practice as well to make a routine and teach it to your groups. You have to choose how to divide your time to make this as good as possible.” The groups went to different sides of the room to start. “Ellie, Simon, Riley and Emma.” Ms. Sinistra addressed the remaining group. “Ye will start to learn to work together. Learn from each other.”
That was how the rest of training was spent. They showed each other their favourite tricks and moves and tried to teach them to the others.
Emma
[16.07]
Are you still at school?
Sara
[16.09]
Yes
I’m in the music room, why?
Emma
[16.10]
I’m done with practice and I wondered if you could give me a ride home if you still were at school.
Sara
[16.11]
Sure
Come here
I am almost done and then we can drive home
Emma
[16.12]
Omw
You’re the best<3
Arriving at the music room the door is open a crack and Emma can hear voices talking. Walking in she sees Sara and Sirius Black, they are sitting on chairs Sara with an acoustic guitar and Sirius with an electric. Guess they are doing a song together or something.
As she walks in closer Sara catches her eye. “Hey. You ready to go?” Sara asks, putting down the guitar. Sirius who had his back to her turned around to see who she was talking to, apparently not having heard her coming in.
“Yeah.” She smiles to her friend.
“Let me just get my bag. And Sirius I think it is great, just think about what I said and it will be amazing.” Sara turned to Sirius to finish the conversation they had just before.
“Thank you and I will.” He smiled at her putting away his guitar as well standing up to get his things.
“Yeah by the way I said I could drive Sirius home as well since he kinda got ditched by his friends who had to head home earlier. Is that okay?” Sara remembered turning to Emma to ask if it was alright.
“Of course.” She said with a small smile looking a little at Sirius. Sure she knew who he was but she had never actually talked to him, but if Sara was alright with him then so was Emma.
“Oh right. Sirius, this is Emma, my best friend, practically sister, who I have talked about. Emma, Sirius.” She introduced the two.
“Hi.” “Hello.”
“Let's go.”
The teens left the building heading for the car. “So you're a dancer?” Sirius asked, starting up a conversation breaking up the silence.
“I am. Just made A-troup this year.” Emma confirmed.
“That’s cool. What type of dance do you dance?” Sirius asked further.
“I started as a ballet dancer but as I got older I started dancing more acro and contemporary dance.” Emma beamed. She loved to talk about dance and just thinking back at her growth, though most people didn’t want to hear about it or already knew all about it so they never asked and just moved on with their day.
“Damn. Acro, so tricks and stuff, right?” He confirms if he got it right.
“Amongst other things, but yeah I do love tricks.” Replied.
“She used to compete back in Sweden.” Sara braged for her friend.
“Really?! Were you good enough to win too?” Sirius asked, surprised to hear that she was a competitive dancer before coming here.
“Of course. I won’t take any other place than first.” Emma grinned at him. Obviously she didn’t actually win every time, that would almost be impossible. Nonetheless she did win or atleast got a podium place pretty often. When it is something you love to do like this and you have been doing it for a lifetime you are bound to be good at it.
“Yes, that’s the attitude.” Sirius agreed with Emma's confidence she showed for her skills.
As they all got to the car Emma got in the front passenger seat and Sirius went in behind her. When they were strapped in, Sara got to driving. The drive went smooth with small talk filling the car.
It was the first time Emma actually had a conversation with Sirius and she was pleasantly surprised. She has always seen him as the loud obnoxious popular rich kid. However he proved her wrong in the car. Sure he is kinda loud, he is popular and he is seriously rich but he’s more than that. He is a nice person and seems to care dearly for his friends, something Emma really can respect.
After the girls had dropped off Sirius they headed home to Emmas where they would spend the afternoon and evening with each other.
****
The next two days flew past in a blur. School continued and nothing that interesting happened until the next dance practice on thursday.
After an hour of practice it was time for the Small groups to perform their routines. It was a tight battle and if you only would have been going on the dance this decision would have been extremely tough. Ms. Sinistra does not only go on that though. She goes on how good of a leader the dance captain is and if they can make a decision even if the choice becomes hard and everyone might not agree.
Based on all of this the decision gets significantly easier. Stella is a phenomenal dancer and can come up with great choreography. However she does not have the patience and does not take everyone into account. She gets impatient when someone takes a bit longer to learn the choreography or a new move. Then even if the dance captain is the one to make most of the decisions they still have to think about everyone and make a choice they think will benefit the whole team, this is also where Stella lacks.
But then on the other hand Noah is great at just these things. He listens and is okay with taking extra time for the people that need the extra time and assistance. He takes everyone into account and thinks of what is the best for the team. Plus he’s an impressive dancer and is gonna take this team to the next win.
“Based on your dances and how I have seen you teaching and coaching your teammates to learn, I have made the decision to make Noah this year's dance captain.” Ms. Sinistra announces to the team and the two competing for the spot. Excitement fills the room. They are now ready to officially start to prepare for Regionals.
The next step before getting everything ready is auditions for the different dances. There is gonna be a solo, duet, small group and the two big group dances.
“So next week we are gonna decide the different dances for the different categories. THink what you wanna do and set up groups or pairs and write your names on the papers I’m gonna set up over there.” Ms. Sinistra instructed, pointing over to the empty wall next to her office.”You can sign up for more than one category just keep in mind that if you get more than one you will have to dedicate a lot of time to learn all the dances.” She dismissed the class for the day.
“Hey you guys wanna do a small group together?” Olive came over to Emma and Daisy.
They did a quick glance at each other before Emma answered. “Yeah that would be fun.” Emma and Daisy had planned before meeting Olive that if they made the team they would want to do a duet with each other but now that they had met Olive it would be fun to do something different with someone new. Then Emma was also planning on trying for the solo although it most often went to someone in their last year, but it could be fun to try at least.
“You guys wanna stay a bit and try to brainstorm some ideas for the dance.” Olive asked excitedly, having gotten a yes for the girls to do a dance together.
“Yeah, that sounds like a smart idea.” Daisy replied. They walked over to the papers to sign up for the small group and they saw the song they had to choreograph the dance to, Belong by Ryan McLarnon.
They spend about forty minutes in the dance room coming up with ideas and cooperating them into the dance. They are doing good so far and they make a great team having fun along the way.
They are rehearing the small part they have and try to come up with the next part when the door opens abruptly. Startled, they all stop and look at the door to see no other than Sirius Black, James Potter, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. Emma looks at the boys unimpressed with how they arrived. Doing a scan over them she felt how her breath caught weirdly as her eyes looked at the last boy.
That’s weird.
Walking into the room it looked like they were expecting it to be empty seeing their surprised faces as they looked at the girl.
“What… What are you doing in here?” Sirius then spoke up as his surprise of seeing them had washed away.
“Rehearsing a dance.” Emma replied like it was obvious, which it kinda should be. “What are you doing in here?” She turned the question to the guys, since it wasn't obvious what they were doing here.
“Ehh.” Sirius looked at her like she had caught her right in the act and didn’t know how to explain.
“We were just exploring the parts of the school that we never are in, you know, really getting to know all the parts before officially leaving next year.” James lied extremely badly, clearly trying to cover up what they really were doing here.
“Uh huh.” She stared at them unimpressed. “And now maybe the truth or at least come up with a better lie.”
“Wha... What? That wasn't a lie.” James tried again and failed badly again.
“Mate, stop talking.” Peter chimed up trying to stop James from making even more of a fool of him again.
“Okay fine. We were gonna use the room to set something up for a prank.” Sirius gave up explaining poorly what they were doing. At least now she knew it was something stupid they were gonna use the room for.
“Dude.” James exclaimed, slapping his friend's arm. He was shocked that his friend would just tell someone what they were doing. “Why would you tell them that?”
“Relax. I know Emma.” He started to explain.
“Ehh, know, is a strong word. We have talked once.” Emma cut him off, earning a glare from Sirius. She just responded by just putting her hands up in the air in defence. “Just saying.” She mumbled.
“She’s friends with Sara, the girl I’m practising with. She won’t tell anyone, right?” He said the last part to Emma earning everyone's eyes on her.
“I won’t. Just like I haven't told anyone that it was you guys that released the chickens in the cafeteria.” She answered him nonchalantly.
“How do you know about that?” Remus, Peter and James asked at the same time. “That was you guys?” Olive And Daisy asked, eyes big in surprise.
“I saw you realise the last ones before disappearing in the crowd.” She explained to the stunned boys.
“See. If she hasn't told anyone about that, why would she say anything about this?” Sirius argued for his case.
“As long as you don’t ruin anything in here then we couldn’t care less what you’re doing.”
“Alright, fine.” James said, dropping it.
“I guess we are done for the day then.” Daisy said, walking over to their bags, starting to put on her shoes.
“Guess so.” Emma and Olive followed suit doing the same thing. “Don’t break or destroy anything or something like that or I will tell McGonagall and Ms. Sinistra what you were up to.” Emma threatened them before leaving the room with the other two girls.
“She’s nice, isn't she?” She heard Sirius say as the door was closing behind her.