The Forest - R.L.

Chapter 43 - The Ball

When Grace, Peter, James and Remus entered the Great Hall, they were absolutely gobsmacked by the transformation it had undergone.

Gone were the four house tables, leaving a large area of space in the middle for dancing and a few tables here and there with food and drink. There was a gigantic Christmas tree in the corner, covered tinsel and baubles in the colours of the four houses.

The magical ceiling and changed as well. It looked as if snow was falling down, except it never reached the lower half of the room, mysteriously fading out above their heads. A stage was set up where the teachers usually sat, with a few instruments set up ready to go for when the all witch band named Spellbound was set to arrive.

"So, what do you think?" Remus asked. As one of the Gryffindor prefects, he had been heavily involved in the organisation of the ball, as well as Lily and Abbey.

"Yeah, it's alright I suppose..." Grace replied jokingly.

"Just alright?"

"If alright means absolutely magical, then yeah," she answered with a grin.

"Is Sirius here yet?" James questioned. "Because I really want to know who his date is."

"I haven't seen him yet, but this is Sirius we're talking about. If he isn't at least an hour late then something's wrong," Peter suggested.

Remus sighed. "When we left he was still in the shower."

They spent the next hour or two dancing as a group and looking like a bunch of clowns, but they were having so much fun that none of them cared. Once their feet were beginning to ache, the four made their way over to a cluster of chairs and sat down, watching as couples swirled past them in time to the orchestral song that was playing, snacking from a plate of finger food that Peter had stolen from one of the nearby tables.

They were soon joined by a rather sad looking Lily Evans.

"Is everything alright, Lily?" Remus asked, as the girl in question sat between him and Grace.

"Yeah," Lily solemnly replied with a sigh. "Basil just blew me off for some blonde seventh year. We were in the middle of a dance and she came up and asked to dance with him and then he just left with her. He didn't even say anything to me."

"I'll punch him so hard that-" James began, but was quickly cut off when Grace jammed her elbow into his side.

"James! Don't!" Grace whispered to him, harshly. "That is the last thing she wants to hear right now. She's sad, so cheer her up and... ask her to dance. She loves yelling at you."

Much to Grace's surprise, James actually too her advice and got up from his seat, walking over to stand in front of Lily.

"Since I'm apparently not allowed to go and beat Basil up, may I have this dance, Miss Evans?" James asked, trying to sound as polite as he could.

Lily laughed for a few seconds, before replying with "You know what, why not?"

A huge grin broke out on James' face.

"But," Lily continued, standing up. "If you do anything immature or silly... anything, then I will hex you all the way to Australia."

"Understood," James said with a nod, and the disappeared into the crowd of dancing students together.

With James and Lily gone, Peter, Remus and Grace were left to sit in a slightly awkward silence.

Grace's eyes wandered through the crowd, spotting Abbey and Sam as they went twirling past them. She was so glad that they were finally getting somewhere.

Grace on the other hand, was getting no-where with Remus, which may have had something to do with the fact that she was too scared to tell him how she felt. Her eyes then drifted to Remus who was still sat beside her, gazing up at the magical snow falling from the ceiling.

She was scared of change, of what would happen to their relationship. Would it destroy their friendship? Or was she being too dramatic? Would they just laugh about it and get over it? They were best friends after all, and Grace knew she had a habit of over thinking things.

Her thoughts were disturbed by a nudge to her foot. She turned to see Peter, who was sitting on her other side. Just ask him to dance Peter mouthed I'll be fine.

Grace nodded, took a deep breath in and awkwardly cleared her throat. It was just a dance after all. "Hey, Moony?"

"Yes, Fel?" Remus asked, looking down from the ceiling.

"Since we're not really doing anything, I was wondering if you... wanted to... dance? With me?"

"Oh, uh," Remus began with a small laugh. "Yeah sure. Why not?"

They both got up and Remus held out his arm. Grace accepted it with a giggle, and the two walked through the dancing students to find a slightly less crowded spot. The first song the danced to was a slow love song by Spellbound that Grace couldn't remember the name of for the life of her.

Together they spun to the song around and made a bit of a fool of themselves but laughed the whole way through, singing the words where they could.

The second song, as Professor McGonagall announced, was the Wizard Waltz, a slow, orchestral song that anyone who lived during the past thirty years knew, including Grace. She didn't, however, know how to Waltz.

Of course, Professor McGonagall had the Gryffindors lessons in preparation for the ball, covering a number of common dances that would no doubt appear at some time during the ball, but the Marauders had spent the majority of those lessons mucking around instead of actually dancing.

"Do you know how to-"

"Not really," Remus cut her off, already knowing what she was going to ask. "I spent the entirety of those lessons telling off you four for not paying attention. My mum did teach me ages ago, though. It's time to see what I remember."

The song quickly began, and everyone around them began to waltz with their partners at varying skills levels. It seems that they may have not been the only ones who weren't listening during their dance lessons.

Grace stumbled along with Remus as they attempted to copy the moves of the Slytherin couple next to them who seemed to know what they were doing.

Eventually, they began to get the hang of it.

"We're doing it! We're actually waltzing!" Grace cheered, looking at Remus and trying not to focus on how close together they were.

"We are indeed," Remus chuckled, before glancing over Grace's shoulder and spotting a familiar face, or rather two familiar faces, over her should. "Merlin's beard! It's Sirius and..."

"What? Where?"

"Behind you. Here, I'll spin us around so you can see," Remus said, and they quickly spun and swapped sides.

Sure enough, Sirius was there, dancing and laughing with a red faced Ely.

"Ely!" Grace exclaimed. "That actually kind of makes sense."

"It explains why this year he's always wanted to come with us when we went over to sit with the Hufflepuff's. I thought he'd just had enough of sitting with James," Remus said, chuckling as their eyes met once more.

Eventually the song came to an end and Remus twirled Grace one final time before stopping. They stood in front of each other, smiling.

"Well, that was fun."

"Indeed," Grace agreed. "Thank you." She then did something that surprised even herself: she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, grinning as his face went bright red.

"C'mon, we should head back to the chairs. Peter will be wondering what's taking so long," Grace, walking off with a slight spring in her step and a flabbergasted Remus trailing behind.

---

So, Elius? Yay or nay? Thoughts overall?

- Grace