For Those With a Lack of Grace [Winter Solstice Dance Lessons For Gryffindor Students]

[Declan Murphy]

Declan walked into the Gryffindor common room and looked around at the space, humming a bit to himself as he thought, "This'll do," he said to himself, though he had gotten several students' attention that were still in the room. He had put a notice out that he would be doing dance practice this day, about a week and a half before the dance, in the common room, though he was a bit early. He clapped his hands together before looking at the students, "You might want to move out of the way, I'm about to rearrange some things," he said, making a shooing motion at them. The students looked at each other before getting up and moving towards the stairs before Declan gave a wave of his wand. The furniture started to slide back up against the wall (though not in front of the furnace obviously, even it wasn't lit), or stack neatly on top of other pieces that were against the wall, leaving the center of the room open, but making it where people couldn't just sit and watch. He put his wand away before putting his hands on his hips.

Zeke was among the people on the stairs, but he scoffed and turned to make his way back up to his bunk. He had zero intention to be a part of this, but suddenly he felt himself being dragged back and found himself standing next to Declan, who had once more drawn his wand.

"Ezekial, how kind of you to volunteer," Declan smiled though Zeke was glaring daggers at the man, "I think you of all people could stand to learn what I'm teaching today."

"I don't plan on going to that dumb ball, so why should I?" Zeke crossed his arms.

"Oh I'm sure you'll find someone," Sophie quipped from where she leaned against the wall though she paled as Declan's attention locked on her.

"Ah, perfect, another volunteer."

Sophie groaned but she knew better from how he'd forced Zeke over to try and get away. She trudged over and stood on the other side of Declan, crossing her arms with a "hmph".

"Now we just need to wait for the rest of them to gather and we can begin the lesson."

Declan had been hinting in his notices that to know the art of proper dancing was a good way to impress people, both in the means of dating and perhaps people in the grand scheme should they hope to gain positions of prestige within the community. Though the people at his sides did not care for such things, he figured he could make them good enough examples for those who did that even the most resistant could manage it.

[Laguna Lestrange]

This would be one of the highlights of the year and Laguna was not going to miss an opportunity like this. So when he entered the room and spotted that Zeke and Sophie were already voluntold, the young Gryffindor found it to be just icing on the cake that these two were on display for the entirety of the Gryffindor house. He almost couldn’t contain the urge to snicker out loud, in fact, deciding that the entertainment value outweighed the annoyance of his best friend. But he managed to contain the snicker and instead opted to allow a smug smile spread over his face as he strutted further into the room.

“Hello, hello! Lovely day for a dance lesson, isn’t it?” He called out to nobody in particular. He caught Zeke's eyes, a gleam of pure joy clear. "And what a lovely pairing we have to be our example." Laguna was absolutely eating this scenario up. He moved toward a section of the room where he'd be sure to get a perfect view of the pair. Though he was tempted, he didn't press any further to ensure that he, too, was not used as an example. A couple of comments would not get him there, but if he continued to taunt his friend, he would soon be right beside him.

The difference, however, being that Laguna wouldn't really mind being in front of a crowd. Most of the time he enjoyed having attention on him. Dancing wasn't an issue either. From a young age he'd been expected to at least be able to manage basic dances to appease the many guests at house parties. What he didn't want to happen, was that he miss the opportunity to watch Zeke be put on display for the dancing. This would provide ammo for some great jokes for the rest of this year...maybe even the rest of their time at Hogwarts. Hell, might even be funny years from now when they were both well into their careers.