Title: Dance
Rating: Any Age
Character: Michael Corner
Summary: Michael doesn’t dance
Word Count: 375
Day 16
31_october_days Michael doesn’t dance. When Terry and Anthony insist they attend the Yule Ball because ‘everyone else is’, he asks if they’d jump off the Astronomy Tower if everyone else was doing it. That earns him a laugh from Terry and a glare from Anthony, who really needs to lighten up. While Ravenclaw isn’t known as a humorous or fun-loving House, Michael likes to think of them as being diverse and simply beyond basic classification.
Despite his best arguments, which vary from logical (who wants to go to some silly dance when they could play cards) to creative (there is a rumor that dancing stunts growth in brain cells as well as other more, uh, intimate parts of one’s anatomy), he finds himself putting on a dark blue dress robe while listening to Terry talk about the girls from Beauxbatons in terms that earn him scolding from a red-faced Anthony.
Terry takes longer to get ready than a girl, an observation that Michael freely makes with a smug smile before ducking to avoid the hex thrown at him. Finally, they’re ready, not that he’s in a hurry to go stand around and watch people dance. He just hates waiting, regardless of the reason why. Anthony is talking about the probability of them finding anyone to dance with, going into a numbers-mumbling mode that he and Terry have gotten used to tuning out over the years.
The Great Hall does look really nice, and the promise of a performance by the Weird Sisters is almost enough to make it worth being here, Michael decides. After the champions and their dates arrive (which receives a ‘Cho looks great’ and ‘Is that Granger?’), the music starts and people are soon dancing all over the place. Michael exchanges a look with Anthony, who is looking at the students as if they’re an interesting exhibit, and with Terry, who is scanning the crowd but not making any move to ask someone to dance.
He smiles and finds a table away from the crowd. Anthony and Terry soon follow him, taking a seat and drinking rather weak punch. He pulls out a deck of exploding snap from the pocket of his robe and shuffles, tapping his foot to the music as he starts to deal.
End