Magical Hogwarts

Phil’s resistance of the arts initiative was waning. His contrarian tendencies failing in favor of trying to help keep up the morale and spirits of his classmates. He had eased into it, allowing himself to be painted, even if Danielle did promise that it had had nothing to do with the Arts Initiative. Now, as they were offering dance lessons, Phil decided he could do his part, attend, learn one or two moves,  and then be done. I mean, if it hadn’t been for his second child instincts to be literally anything other than his sister he probably would have grown up on ballet, gymnastics, and artistic flying – so this could be something of a view into what an alternative life might have been for the boy.

Phil had been to enough ballet because of his older sister to know that guys could do ballet too, but it still didn’t feel the same to him. Ballet was for slim, pretty girls who liked jumping around in skin tight clothing. While Phil had only started to appreciate that last bit recently, he had always been able to see how impressive dance was from a physical standpoint. Who knows, with the physical demands, the control, and the concentration, it might even accidentally help out his Quidditch skill…anything physical was better than a full season taken off because of the move.

Making is way to the room that Mme Maxine had mentioned in the speech indicating what their new event would be this month, Phil paused in the door. He was the first there aside from their instructor, Jeanne Cézanne. Yet as he stepped into the room, he felt almost as if he had been transported to his sister’s dance studio from years past. The room had been completely redone to prepare for the lessons. There were bars that had been conjured along the walls, additional mirrors brought in and placed around the room, the floor had been cleaned and transfigured, not into wood per say, but into a hard surface that would make it a bit easier to dance on.

Stepping in, Phil acknowledged the instructor and went off to the side to stretch a bit. If he knew anything it was that any kind of ballet would require a bit of flexibility, some core strength, and a dexterity that would make the average cat seem clumsy. Since he had some of that, but was far from warmed up, he took a few minutes to prepare – allowing others to come and make sure this didn’t end up being a one on one lesson with Jeanne.

The arts initiative went into its eight round and this month it was all about dancing. Célestin had taken some ballet classes in the past, they were part of the artistic flying training he had gone through anyway and Jeanne Cézanne was a dancer that he knew. He had seen her once when his artistic flying group had gone to see a ballet together and that witch really knew how to do her spins with such control and elegance. She was also stunningly beautiful in Célestin’s opinion. So there was absolutely no doubt that the Papillonlisse boy would be present for as many of her courses as he could.

When he entered the room that had been changed into a ballet studio, his gaze landed on Jeanne immediately. She was warming up. Her purple leg warmers made his smile widen. Was this a secret confession that she was a Papillonlisse graduate?

“Mademoiselle Cézanne,” he said, approaching her. “My name is Célestin. I’m so excited that you’re teaching us. You’re such an amazing dancer. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a prima ballerina with more poise.” He felt his cheeks burn and suspected that they had taken on a noticeable red shade.

Jeanne said ’nice to meet you and thank you’ and Célestin’s heart skipped a beat. He had never heard her voice before but to him it sounded like the voice of an angel. He stared at her even after she turned around to proceed with her warmup. These legs, this bottom, this body control… Célestin watched her with deep fascination and only when he saw a movement from the corner of his eyes, he noticed that he wasn’t alone in the room with this goddess of ballet.

“Oh,” he said, looking at his cousin. “Phil, salut. Didn’t really expect you to be here.” He bent down to touch his feet, pretending to be stretching when he was really mostly avoiding Phil’s gaze.

Dancing?

The Arts Initiative rolled through an exhaustive list of art forms for the Beauxbatons students --there really was something for everyone to enjoy, and this time around those who wanted to learn how to move across the dancefloor were called to step up.

Florian wasn't the best dancer, admittedly, and a part of him was against structured dance forms like ballet. He believed that dancing, true dancing, came to be when someone lost themselves in the music booming around them and their body simply moved in response no matter how odd it looked.

It was okay to not be 'good'...that was what he used to believe anyway.

More recently he started to think that maybe -just maybe- having some coordination would be helpful and could be appealing to others as well. Florian had rhythm, something that some may say he was born with even, but that wasn't indicative of being a good dancer; the Breaux was tall and his limbs were long, so often times though he could groove to a beat he still wasn't quite sure with what to do with his arms and legs. He felt as if they were getting in the way or that they'd crash into others if he weren't keeping a careful eye out and being extra aware of his surroundings (which only served to take him out of the dancing mood if he were being honest).

He moved into the room and his trainers squeaked against the wooden floor. Black tights snugly hugged his legs underneath a pair of black basketball shorts and he wore a loose-fitting white tee up top. Philibert and Célestin? There was a smirk. "I was starting to think I'd be the only rookie in the room but with you two here I don't have anything to be nervous about." he teased, aiming to get their attention. In truth he was actually elated to see that they'd be participating as well! Florian was just alright at dancing, but having others at a similar skill level helped with not being nervous. As he moved along he'd offer both a tap on the shoulder in passing with a smile.

His eyes panned over to their instructor and his smile widened into a bigger grin. Beautiful!  "Good day Mademoiselle! I'm sorry that we're here instead of at the school but grateful that you came nonetheless; really looking forward to what you have to show us." With that said he moved to stretch in front of the mirrors, checking his balance and poise as he did so.

Opposite the door, Phil had to turn his head at a bit of an awkward angle to see who was coming into the transformed dance studio. As a result, he didn’t notice Cél come in until he heard voices from the front of the room. This was good, at least he wouldn’t be alone; and on top of that, making a fool of himself in front of close friends and family wasn’t nearly as bad as doing it in front of the general population of the school…As Phil kept stretching though, Cél seemed to be trying to strike up a conversation. He was being quite complimentary, and his voice sounded a little different too; sort of a mix between awe and infatuation. Phil knew that his cousin had taken some dance lessons before, mostly to help with his artistic flying, but Phil didn’t know that the other boy had liked it enough to know more than what he had been taught in the studio.

As Célestin made his way over to where Phil was stretching, he returned  the rather half-hearted greeting, “Oh, Cél…salut” matching his tone in a somewhat mocking fashion. “You didn’t expect me? I am shocked! What did you think I would miss the chance to see you meet the love of your life, drop out of school, and become a ballet groupie, did you?” He smiled warmly and gave his cousin a gentle shoulder check, “you hear of anybody else who was going to be coming?”

Just in the moment he asked it, another familiar face made its way through the door. Florian too? Things were going to be much easier with such a friendly audience. Phil was hardly worried at this point about screwing up. At least if he did, he would only have his friends to deal with. Flashing Florian a smile as he came by, Phil caught him by the shoulder and said, “hold on there mon ami, you may not know this, but you are in the presence of a dancing legend” before pushing him away gently. Phil left it vague enough that he could have been talking about himself or Célestin, but they both knew which he meant.

Not long after Florian, Julien, the Papillonlisse mousquetaire, came up and started warming up with them as well. Looking at the other three, Phil chuckled, “It looks as though I will be in the minority today…I will have to stand up for the pride of Bellefeuille.” Phil didn’t mind that he was the only one from his house there, especially this year. This year, everything felt more like one school rather than three houses. With all that had happened, the various house divisions seemed to matter less and what really mattered was getting back to the palace rather than being better than one house or another…at least that was how he felt when there weren’t any competitions going on at the moment.

Just as he was wondering when this class was going to kick off, Phil saw Giselle, the girl Ombrelune who had been on his team for the Transfiguration relay arrive. She made her way over to where the rest of them were warming up, but there wasn’t much by way of recognition or greeting to the three younger boys. It was fair of course, he didn’t really know her – and he assumed the same was true of the others – so why should she know who he was. After another few moments of warmup, it appeared Mme Cézanne was ready to begin the lesson. 

Phil made fun of him and Célestin grinned in response. “Eh, I wouldn’t become a ballet groupie,” he said, not seeing himself admiring someone else when he could be the one who got all the attention himself. “I’d much rather try to get a pas de deux with her,” he glanced at Jeanne. The petite brunette witch was absolutely in control of every movement she made.

Just as Phil asked him who else was going to show up for this ballet lesson, Florian made his entrance. “You think so?” Célestin asked, giving Florian a challenging look as he said he didn’t have anything to be nervous about with them there. Despite his warm-up not being completed - Célestin generally had a strict warm-up routine he followed - he decided to show off a little and showed the other boys (and Jeanne, of course) a split jump and then proceeded with a pirouette.

He bowed in front of his cousin and his housemate but was well aware that he could jump higher and hold a better spin position when he was properly warmed up. Sometimes he was just too impatient. He went on stretching now, putting his right leg on the bar and leaning towards his foot.

“You know,” he said quietly to his mates, “I saw Jeanne in Romeo and Juliet a while ago. Seeing her dance, makes you want to be her Romeo…”

“Haha” Phil had to laugh a bit at his cousin. “Being a groupie wouldn’t be that bad,” he lowered his voice “I mean, it is a lot harder to make a fool of yourself as a groupie than trying to be her partner…do you really think you could even hold a candle to the professionals she trains and performs with?” Phil knew enough about dance to know from the way she stood, the way she held herself, and the reputation that she carried that there was no way his cousin could hope to get the chance at a pas de deux, he would be fortunate to get into the Corps of a troupe she was in, and Phil knew that his cousin was no slouch.

But, of course, as soon as Florian made his comment, Cél had to show off…what was it about getting two paps together that caused so much strutting and preening? Or maybe it was just hormonal boys…regardless, was it really necessary? His split jump was pretty nicely executed, far better than he’d be able to manage. He might be more athletic (or so he told himself) with broom sports, but when it came to dance, Phil knew Cél was far his superior. He just liked to give his cousin a hard time.

“Yea yea…” Phil smirked and gave a mock round of applause. “I know, you trained quite a bit when we were younger. You know, I just never really saw the draw of it. I mean, I liked watching the performances, but there was something about all the effort and energy put into making them look good that just wasn’t my thing…plus if you had been dragged to as many recitals and practices as I had with Élodie, you’d probably never have been interested either even if you had seen Jeanne in Romeo and Juliet.”

 Phil could appreciate the art and beauty of dance, he just got worn out on it before ever even getting much of a chance to try it himself. From a relatively early age he had made it clear he was interested in Quidditch and not dance, gymnastics, or Artistic Flying – probably to his own detriment. He could have had all the best resources at his fingertips, but out of stubbornness he chose the path less traveled in his family. “Well,” Phil looked round the makeshift studio, “it looks like there are a few more guys than there are girls, looks like you two might end up getting paired up…good luck Cél, this one can be a bit of a handful as I am sure you already know.” He motioned his head over to Florian and gave a laugh as he did. He would keep stretching and staying limber, but he was also going to take advantage of a few moments of fun with his friends before the lesson began.