Chapter 5
The chiming of the morning bells had awoken both Simona and I perfectly on time but, of course, Clarissa was behaving even worse than usual. Every usual way Simona and I would try to wake her wasn't working.
"Let's just pour water on her and be done with it" Simona finally says turning to face me. She had left her hair down today and we were both wearing our leotards for dance under our uniforms, already ready for the day and just trying to wake up our roommate before we left to eat breakfast.
"Ok, I'll do it" I say stepping forward, I grab my wand and point it towards the sleeping brown haired girl. "Aguamenti" I muttered, and a jet of cold water shot out of my wand landing directly onto Clarissa's back as she bolted up with a loud yelp.
"Hey" she yelled her messy brown hair falling crazily around her as she angrily stared at the two of us quickly trying to get out of her tangled sheets.
"It's 7:20 we're supposed to be at the Crystal Lake at 7:25" Simona declares from behind me and Clarissa stands up quickly immediately forgetting her previous anger and hurrying to get dressed. As Clarissa runs around our room, I touch up on my lipstick which had gotten slightly smudged. My hair today was pulled up into a messy bun our hair wasn't down at dance unless it was chin length so as long as Simona's and I didn't want short hair today, so I had decided on this hairstyle. I hadn't done much for makeup today, just a smoky eye and a nude lip. Clarissa walked out of the bathroom fully dressed. She walked over to the mirror and started lining her lips with a dusty pink lip pencil.
"Could you please-" she started.
"I'll do your hair" I say as Simona collects our dance bags making sure each of us have everything. I start by braiding her hair back making sure to grab more hair each time, once I got to the base of her neck, I tied it off. Then I started on the other half, so her hair was halfway French braided and out of her face. She pulled the ponytails over her shoulders letting them rest over her chest.
Once we had all finally finished getting ready, we walked out of our dorm room, the halls were bare as we had left the room at 7:26, so the three of us started running. I clutched my bag to my side as I ran so it didn't hit my legs. We reached the Crystal Lake, which is one of three lakes at Beauxbatons, the other two being Emerald Lake and the Central Lake. Simona and Clarissa squeezed their way through the throng of students to a group of their friends. I scanned the crowd for Celeste or Fleur. My eyes stopping on Madame Maxime as she gestured for me to come forward and I weaved through the crowd to get to her. She pushed me up next to Celeste. Gabrielle, Fleur and the rest of the seventh years standing on the other side of my best friend.
"Did I miss anything" I asked her.
"Madame Maxime just told us to look at the lake" Celeste answers me her dark blue eyes fixated on it's surface once again.
"I don't really know why it's been pretty boring so far" She continues eyes flirting between me and the lake.
But as I looked back to the water, the surface of the lake rippled, everyone held their breaths as a wooden pole pierced the surface of the water. Soon enough a pristine white sail came above the water followed by more sails and a huge dark ship. As the ship finished coming up out of the lake, and started moving towards land Madame Maxime directed everyone but, Celeste, myself, Gabrielle, and the seventh years back to the castle, to head to class. The boat hit the shore and a wooden panel fell opening up a doorway into the belly of the ship. A man stepped out he had shoulder length brown hair that curled slightly at the end. He had a slightly greying goatee and a hard face. Behind him coming out in two neat lines were many seventeen-year-old boys wearing coarse brown pants and shirts. At the front flanking their headmaster were two very well-known faces, Viktor Krum seeker for the Bulgarian quidditch team and on the other side Ivan Volkov the youngest chaser on the Bulgarian quidditch team and also youngest player being only 17 while Krum had recently turned 18. Celeste's jaw actually dropped in surprise, I knocked my shoulder against hers as I giggled, and she snapped her mouth shut. She was obsessed with the game and knew a lot of the famous players.
"Gabrielle you can head to class, just tell Madame Croix that I made you late" Madame Maxime says to Gabrielle who scampers off quickly. "Fleur" Madame Maxime says beckoning the older blonde girl to her side. "Please lead the boys to Madame Dupont's classroom, they will be joining your guy's studies" Madame Maxime explains gesturing for Fleur to lead the way as the Bulgarians follow, and the rest of the seventh years hurry along behind them. Celeste and I walk closer to our headmistress, and now I could see that Karkaroff had held both Ivan and Viktor back.
"Girls this is Igor Karkaroff" Madame Maxime says switching to English.
"Hello" Celeste and I say, he nods at each of us in turn.
"Violetta Dandenua" Madame Maxime says gesturing towards me "and Celeste Beaumont" she says now looking at my best friend. Krum steps forwards towards me, and I snap out of my mind remembering my manners I hold out my hand which he takes, before placing a kiss to the back of before standing.
"Pleasure, Viktor Krum" he tells me, I know that the same interaction happened with Ivan and Celeste because when I turn to look at her a slight blush colors her cheeks, she had always found the quidditch player very attractive.
"Great" Madame Maxime says "Now you two stands in front of them" she says positioning me in front of Viktor and Celeste in front of Ivan. "Yes, I can make this work" she says her hands coming together in a singular clap. "Show them where your solo lessons are held, then take them to the seventh-year classroom, you two will also be joining the seventh years" Madame Maxime says directing the instructions to Celeste and me.
We show them to the room where we practice with Madame Maxime which is right across from the level 4 classroom. Then we walk to the end of the hall. The thirty-six seventeen-year old's from our school and the sixteen kids from Durmstrang excluding Ivan and Viktor were already in the class. We walked in, Viktor and Ivan a step behind us. Madame Dupont gestured for us to join in. Celeste and I at the front of the barre. We focused on plies and extensions until Madame Maxime walked into the classroom, Gabrielle was watching timidly from her side as she walked into the center of the room shyly looking down at her feet when she realized a majority of the class were Looking at her.
"We will begin with the girls" Madame Maxime says in English so that the Durmstrang students understand. She makes two neat lines, Gabrielle and Fleur in front. She has them prance forwards then lean an arm out to the side, then prance forward again this time leaning the other arm out to the other side. She moves a couple of the girls around and fixes up their speed before finding the movements acceptable.
"There needs to be something else in-between" Madame Dupont says as the boys start working on strength building at the back of the room.
"Sparks or glitter coming out in between the girls" Madame Maxime asks and Madame Dupont shakes her head. Celeste and I aren't in the group of girls but watching from the sidelines, Madame Maxime said she had a different idea for us. I quickly act out the movement but change the last step instead of extending one arm out I extend both upwards and Madame Maxime nods.
"Let's try that" she calls out to the girls, and they all turn to look at me as I demonstrate what I had just done.
"Now instead of running in the two lines at the end weave in between each other and end on the other side" Madame Dupont says. As we watch the girls again Celeste's eyes sparkle
"Butterflies" she says
"Hmm" Madame Maxime asks turning to the blonde girl.
"Butterflies at the end with both arms, charmed butterflies" Celeste says bouncing on the balls of her feet as she speaks excitedly.
"That could work" Madame Dupont adds as the girl run through it once more.
"Then the boys will each grab a girl and a ball dance or a waltz" Madame Maxime asks as Madame Dupont calls over the boys from both Beauxbaton and Durmstrang.
"A waltz" Madame Dupont says, as she directs each boy to a girl. There are two extra girls without a partner, so they are paired together.
As the rest of the class works on their ball dancing steps Celeste and I walk over to where Ivan and Victor are taking a break from their training.
"Are your classes always this tense" Victor asks as he watches Madame Maxime snap at one of his classmates who ducks his head in embarrassment before repeating the step he had done wrong correctly.
"Pretty much" I answer with a light laugh.
"She's a bit more stressed then usual since we've never performed at Hogwarts before" Celeste answers as she twirls a light green colored pencil around her fingers. I watch Ivan’s eyes trail the path the pencil makes before raising them to look over Celeste.
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As the class finished up Madame Maxime and Karkaroff walked out of the room together, deep in conversation. Leaving Madame Dupont to lead the students in the end of the class stretches. After going through each of our splits and stretching our shoulders we each packed our bags and headed to our next classes. Since we weren’t following our normal schedules and we had spent about three hours working on the performance, Celeste and I went down to the banquet hall to grab a snack before we went up to one of the cushioned study booths in the library. As we reached the banquet hall, I spotted a familiar red-haired girl.
Emmie.
I saw her eyes pause on us before she quickly walked out of the room avoiding looking straight at either Celeste or me. I brushed off the awkward interaction and Celeste reached between us to comfortingly squeeze my hand. I gave her a grateful smile before grabbing a croissant off one of the nearer tables. It seemed that a number of the younger students had a free period at the moment and some of the tables were filled with 1st and 2nd year friend groups talking about things they'd done this past summer.
Celeste grabbed a strawberry tart before tugging her bag up over her shoulder into a more comfortable position. We headed towards the grand staircase and turned right where two large doors met our view. They opened upon us stepping close to them and we stepped into the beautiful library. We trekked the short distance to our favorite booth one of the few with a window on the other side. This window showed us a stunning view of the Emerald Lake. Since we had just recently started school, we didn't have too much homework. Celeste started on her transfiguration homework taking out a large light grey feather and attempting to turn it into a sharp silver dagger. I started on my one-foot Astronomy essay from our observations of the stars from the past week.
We worked for a little over an hour, in that time I had written pretty much my entire essay and was doing quick revisions on the paragraphs before writing my conclusion. Meanwhile Celeste had succeeded in turning the feather into the sharp part of the dagger but was still having a bit of trouble turning the last part into the handle, we worked for around fifteen more minutes before I started rolling up my parchment. We walked into lunch around ten minutes late but quickly found a table with a couple of free seats. We quickly sat down and started talking about the things we remembered from class the past couple of weeks.
When lunch ended around thirty minutes later Celeste, and I walked back into the dance wing of the school. We walked into our Private Classroom where Madame Maxime was already standing reading over a letter she had on her small desk in the right corner of the room. Her head snapped up when she saw us, and she quickly wound her way around the desk and chair to meet us in the middle of the room.
"Quickly, quickly" she snapped at us, "Bags in the corner and go stand at barre, first position" she calls over to us as she goes to set the letter she had been reading down, having noticed she still carried it as she came to talk to us. We quickly set our bags down and jogged over to the barre in the middle of the room. Standing on either side of the bar we mimicked each other our feet landing in first position.
"And Kick" She instructed.
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We finished our warm-up and Madame Maxime instructed us to practice our leaps as she stepped out of the room. Celeste and I took turns leaping across the room, and of course goofed off a bit in-between leaps until Madame Maxime walked back into the classroom with Victor, Ivan and Karkaroff behind her.
The boys waved a quick hello to us before Madame Maxime’s instructions began.
“Violetta over here” she called over to me in English, pointing for me to stand in front of Ivan. I quickly followed her orders and she looked between us for a moment before sighing and shaking her head.
” Celeste” she called instead lightly tapping me out of the way and to the side so Celeste could stand in front of Ivan both of them facing Madame Maxime as she thoughtfully looked over the pairing.
” Better” she says a smile making its way onto her large face, “and Violetta in front of Victor here” she told me pointing to the open spot in front of the eighteen-year-old.
I scurried over and Madame Maxime brought Karkaroff in front of us so he could see as well.
” Good now boys' hands on the girls' waists” Madame Maxime begins and out of the corner of my eye I see a light dusting of blush spread across Celeste’s cheeks a smile creeping onto my own face at my friend's happiness.
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I spun under Victor’s arm before placing both my hands on his shoulders his hands coming to rest on my waist before gripping hard lifting me off the ground and above his head as he turns in a circle, I kick one of my legs above my head and point my feet hard in my pointe shoes. Quickly I feel myself falling Victor’s hands still gripping my waist as he pulls me down and I land lightly on one foot his arms still bearing most of my weight. He spun me in fast circles on my one foot and as my vision warped around me, I could see glimpses of Celeste and Ivan on the other side of the room doing the same movements.
As the spins finished Victor dropped me to one of his arms and I let my other one fall over my head pulling one of my legs up to hit the ending pose. Victor quickly raised me out of the position the both of us breathing hard as we look over to Madame Maxime. Karkaroff had left around an hour ago stating that he had some letters to send off.
“That was good for now off to your dorms” Madame Maxime tells us quickly shuffling us out of the room. We stand out in the hallway as Madame Maxime hurried down the hallway probably up to her office. Ivan and Victor walk Celeste and I to the dorm pathways and we say goodnight to them before walking down the girl's hallway.