Dinner—how I waited for you!
Delicious, fatty, filling meat dishes, tender, juicy ribs, chops and the like, vegetable sides and a little sweet for dessert—a feast for the stomach, nothing less. By the way, a rather simple but no less tasty dish, shepherd's pie, which, truthfully, is hard to even call a pie—a wonderful thing. And if the dish is prepared at Hogwarts—it's beyond praise. I think it's not just the experience of the local house-elves regarding cooking, but also the very high quality of the products. I mean, steaks of three degrees of doneness, spices, sauces are served here quite often, everything is wonderful, but a knowledgeable person would be much more surprised by the fact that the beef is marbled. Magic, what else can you say?
But is it possible to eat calmly and heartily? Of course not.
"Hector..."
Tasty meat melts in the mouth, and stewed vegetables, fresh bread, mmm...
"Hector..."
Expressing slight and feigned displeasure, I looked at the source of disturbance in the person of Justin.
"You invited Delacour."
I nodded, chewing and trying to enjoy the taste as much as possible.
"And how was it?"
Arching an eyebrow questioningly, I tried to make it clear that the essence of the question eludes my understanding.
"Justin wants to ask," Hannah decided to translate the question into generally accessible English with a slight smile, "what it was like, and how you feel now?"
"My humblest thanks," I smiled back and turned to Justin. "I don't know what to tell you. Normal. No changes. Seems she hasn't recovered from the dragons yet, hiding shock behind indifference. Well, like our lot can do."
"That's not what I'm about... She's a Veela... And how is she up close?"
"Exactly the same as from a distance. And she has a strong accent. I bet she puts a lot of effort into not inserting French words."
"The Veela stuff doesn't affect you, right?" Ernie asked, seeing that Justin was formulating his questions somewhat incorrectly.
"I already said that it does, but somewhat differently."
"Yeah. Was mentioned, I think. But she agreed anyway? Seeing that it affects you?"
"Guys, honestly—I have no idea what's in her head and why she agreed. Agreed—good. Wouldn't have agreed—also good, she's not the only one in the castle. Who did you invite?"
As soon as I asked this, the guys got a little embarrassed and decided that food was worthy of more attention than this conversation. Oh well.
Looking around the Great Hall, the gathered students, I began to notice glances, moods, and so on. I can say that my person attracts these glances a bit more than before. But in general, the poles of attention remained the same and only the proportions changed slightly—today a little more attention to Cedric than Krum, tomorrow it will be the other way around, and so on. Only with Fleur everything is stable, although the girls somewhat reduced the degree of hostility as soon as a rumor spread through the school about the French girl's agreement to go to the ball with me.
I didn't miss the opportunity to look at the situation with the Slytherins and one Ravenclaw who attacked me—neither shaky nor roll. It seems they haven't told anyone, including teachers, the reasons for their fantastic transformation into wizard larvae. Should I expect some new reaction? How badly have they lost their boundaries? It's not clear yet, but I need to think about it, because they might snap, and Hermione might get into the crosshairs. True, in that case, following the norms of local society, this will untie my hands completely and utterly, and they should understand this. On the other hand, they might understand this perfectly well, but not take it seriously. Hm... A riddle.
As soon as dinner came to an end, and the Headmaster in his slightly dismissive and eccentric manner sent everyone home, I intercepted Miss Delacour with her entourage of French girls in the corridor at the entrance to the Great Hall.
"Miss Delacour," I nodded with a polite smile on my face.
"Misteg Ggangeg," this Veela nodded just as politely with a slight smile.
"Unfortunately, I don't know a place where we could practice dancing."
"Do not twouble yougself. Pwofessog McGonagall oganized a hall fog zhis. Twue, fog heg house, but evewyone pwactices zhewe."
"Excellent," I almost drawled the sounds in the manner of a French accent myself, unintentionally adjusting to the interlocutor. "Shall we start now, or have other urgent matters arisen?"
"Now. Let us go..."
Well, I walked beside her, and her entourage—slightly behind us. They talked quietly in French, thinking that I don't understand a word, but that's not true. Though, these conversations were either about nothing, or something like: "What did she find in him...", "He is handsome, of course, but quite young...". In general, gossiping, as they say, without leaving the checkout.
On the approaches to one of the previously closed halls of the castle, one could notice a somewhat increased concentration of students per unit area—it seems this place has already begun to enjoy certain popularity.
Entering the hall, I immediately paid attention to the fact that it is indeed large. A distinctive feature of this hall was the perfectly flat polished stone floor with the Hogwarts crest, high and narrow stained-glass windows, and... A large gramophone, although the huge horn made it large. Right now, some waltz was playing in the hall, three-quarter time, though can a waltz have another time signature? The sound, by the way, of this strange device is quite high quality, although the appearance of the gramophone caused some concern.
. . .
Which students were in the hall? A lot of them. I'd even say, from small to great—a couple of people from all years and houses. Only the majority just sat on benches along the walls, talked quietly, and simply watched the older ones dance. Yes, only guys from the sixth-seventh years were dancing, or just learning. There were two guys from Durmstrang here, learning the difficult art of ballroom dancing under the strict guidance of both our girls and two French girls. These guys felt, I must note, rather ambivalent.
I also spotted Cedric in the company of a couple of guys from our house.
"One second," I turned to Fleur, noticing that almost all the girls from her entourage had already evaporated somewhere. "I'll entrust my things to comrades."
"Of course."
Quickly approaching ours, I nodded to them with a smile.
"Hi people. Are you here for long?"
"Hi," Cedric and Herbert nodded, and the others too.
"Until they kick us out," Herbert shrugged.
"Oh, excellent. I'll entrust you with the most important thing..." I threw my triangular backpack off my shoulder and shoved it into Herbert's hands. "Don't lose it."
"Oh how," Herbert twirled the backpack in his hands. "I already thought it was a part of the body, but it's a backpack..."
"Viper," Cedric smirked.
I didn't make Delacour wait and returned quickly.
"How shall we proceed?"
Delacour looked around the hall and nodded at a decently dancing couple. My gaze quite quickly and accurately noted the nuances, movements, steps, who holds whom and how, turns.
"Let us stagt with ze basics. We age to open ze ball..."
From this moment the most difficult part began. Understanding Fleur's explanations, given the accent and still insufficient vocabulary on her part, wasn't easy. She often used French terms, but praise Merlin, I knew and understood them. There was even a thought to ask the girl to speak French so my brain wouldn't load so much, but I decided to keep the information about my average understanding of the language to myself—what if I hear something interesting while the guests think I don't understand a word?
Then the first attempts at movements began. This hand there, this here, step-step-step, step-step-step... Cute, interesting, moderately fascinating—the Elf shard approves. It has vague images of different dances, but rather as some phantom sensation. It's good, after all, that I work on myself, otherwise it would be hard for me, oh hard. And Fleur keeps telling different nuances of the waltz—figured, Viennese, Boston... And wants to show everything, forcing me to make this or that movement. It even seems to me that she is impatiently waiting for me to finally make some mistake, and at the same time she keeps glancing into my eyes and at my face, looking for something, but not finding it. This is all curious...
. . . . . .
Cedric sat on a bench in the ballroom with his friends, watching with interest as a certain intriguing young wizard learned to dance three types of waltzes confidently and flawlessly in literally forty minutes.
Cedric himself, it could be said, stumbled through the Viennese Waltz no matter how hard he tried. He attributed this to his measured, steady nature; for him, the Viennese Waltz was like a sprint race in the world of dance.
"Cedri-i-ic," Herbert threw an arm over his friend's shoulder, feigning dramatic suffering and weeping. "Our baby Hector has grown u-u-up... How time flies, eh?"
"Did you invite Tamsin yet?" Cedric smirked, but his friend ignored him, continuing to rock him from side to side.
"I remember, literally yesterday we were teaching him to fly a broom... And look at him now: today he invited the French champion to the ball, learned to dance almost instantly, and look how much attention they're attracting. They grow up so fast..."
"Yeah. Something like that."
Herbert sobered up and removed his hand from Cedric's shoulder.
"I heard he was asking about relationships between purebloods and Muggle-borns. Think he's aiming in that direction?"
"No," Cedric shook his head. "I think he more or less likes the elder Greengrass girl..."
"And what am I talking about?" Herbert interrupted, but Cedric pretended not to hear.
"Hector is likely just testing the waters, evaluating prospects in all directions. Sort of... weighing all the pros and cons."
"So he doesn't give a damn about Greengrass?"
"I didn't say that. Generally, you look at things too one-sidedly. It's either this or that," Cedric turned to his friend. "It doesn't work that way."
"Works, doesn't work... tell me this instead," Herbert smirked. "When are you going to invite Miss Chang?"
"Um..."
"Watch out," Herbert nudged his friend's shoulder with a smile. "She's a pretty girl. She won't wait forever; she'll go with someone else."
"Look who's talking..."
However, Cedric thought about it and realized his friend was right—he shouldn't delay. Glancing once more at Granger and Delacour whirling in the dance, Cedric decided that tomorrow was a wonderful day. Tomorrow is always better than yesterday or today.
So, he would ask her tomorrow.
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