What is a Game?

Chapter 21 - The Spring Ball

The weeks following the invitation were a bit odd - I did more dance practice, and made sure to include Sarah in these practices. Oftentimes we would discuss various things that were hot on the current political landscape, as shown in the prophet and as said by word of mouth in Hogwarts, but eventually we settled into a more relaxed routine.

It isn't like we'd get too much better by hyper-focusing on one or two things, we decided. We were plenty good at doing the basic ballroom dances, and it was doubtful we'd be asked to do more. We could, of course, do more. That, for now, would not be the focus.

When I was asked about the 'why', I gave her the simple deflecting response of "We've decided to focus on the basic movements for now. Once we've mastered a few basic dances, which use all the forms of movement, we'll move on to advanced things." It was a good deflection, and how you were taught in dance academies in my last life.

Mastering a form of movement makes dancing in that form much easier. It was true for all forms of dancing. This, of course, is including verbal dances. When I really tried to verbally joust with Sarah, my past life and all the experience born from it shined through.

I still took bad arguments, to get her sense more acutely honed for 'I have an advantage to press here' but for the most part I showed her how to keep up with a superior opponent, verbally. What was most important is her being able to give the illusion of being of similar level to whomever she's talking with.

That's something any politician can do, and it's also something they respect if you can do it decently.

Something I'm sure helped was the fact that the discussions often led themselves. I would take a position and knowledge place I knew was highly defensible to the average Pureblood and guided her (through lots of trial and error) to the best possible conversation path.

Often I would bait poor responses or unfavorable ones with simple tricks, like "Don't worry about me, you can tell me how you actually feel about..." or similar. Very common ways and tricks used by people to test if you actually knew anything about 'the game'. Previously I'd been giving her more general knowledge, and while she'd understood... she never had to apply it before now, and was quickly learning why there is no replacement for experience.

It was two weeks before the Ball when I ordered our dresses. They were very similar, but as close to opposites on the color scale as I could allow with our color pallets. Mine is a white and sky-blue, while hers was White and a lighter shade of Bronze. The Dresses arrived a couple days after they were ordered, along with the shoes - heeled ballroom affairs - and jewelry. All of that was simple, complimentary bits of jewelry. Children don't need elaborate junk.

I showed her how to apply 'proper' makeup, and then we practiced, on three occasions in our 'full regalia.' and three times in just the dresses and heels. I drafted Cedric and Adrian to help us dance with male Partners, too, in this time, though I only let Cedric see us fully dolled up, since he wasn't going to be able to make it to the ball, for certain. Adrian's family almost certainly wouldn't show up but may be contacted for some reason.

His reaction was suitable enough for what we needed.

.*****.

"Wha..?" He started, as we entered the room, mouth agape. "Who are you and what have you done with my bookish friends?" He asks jokingly. "I'm afraid they don't dress up quite as nice as you, and are a bit shorter.." he says and I slap his arm in a friendly way.

"Prat. We need help dancing, and you're to help. I told you to dress up, I suppose you'll do." I tell him, joking right back. He was in a set of formal robes, last season's styles, but close to what we'd see at the party. Wearing formal shoes as well, which I'm told are killer on the feet (though not so much as heels).