The Years of Blue [2]

Chapter 15: End of a Term

Author's Note: I changed the name of Alejandra to Mariana since I made the silly mistake of thinking Alejandra was a popular name in Portugal when it's really not. Silly me. x

By the time parents weekend had ended, I had written off what happened at Hogwarts with Theo. For whatever reason, he was in a foul mood and was being weird. So why should it be my problem?

Rather than dwell on it, I turned back into my school studies and the delights Beauxbatons brought. I was getting better in my dance classes and transfiguration was no longer as hellish as I first remembered from Hogwarts. I soon learned that Beauxbatons had a speciality in Transfiguration, making sure their students were top casters before taking their OWLs in their 6th year, something different to what my brothers in Illvermorny had for exams. 

In fact, because Beauxbatons had so many extra circulars that involved transfiguration, the school became notorious for producing powerful transfigurations. 

In Ballet, we started to learn how to dance alongside transfixed butterflies we must cast with our wands. In later years, I was supposed to be able to cast this spell without a wand. There was even a rumor that if you were able to cast a patronus during your sixth year, you could learn how to bond and dance with that spell. For this reason, certain charm classes and transfiguration classes were held in the dance classrooms, so as to teach us how to cast charms while moving in a certain direction.

In Care for Magical creatures I was taught how to correctly shave a sheep's golden wool off it's back before it buckles away. Strange as it was, as a reward, each student was given a tuff of golden wool that many girls had spun into golden thread to give to family members. I was saving mine for my grand'mère. In my manner classes with the governess, Madam Benoît, I was working on the correct ways to carry oneself in public and the small mannerisms involved in carrying a bag verses a purse. How to carry your hat verses wearing it. Even how to position your feet when you stand in front of a crowd.

"All of you mademoiselles must be able to carry the name of Beauxbatons proudly on your shoulders after graduating. This means you must act like us and have the best form of ettiequte out there," Madam Benoît would say. Her intensity in correcting us carried outside of the classroom, making people like Mila and Marie get picked on often in-between classes about posture.

"Do you want to gain a hump on your back when you're an old witch, Mademoiselle Ament? Straighten up, if you please," she would say, directed at a grumpy Mila one morning after breakfast.

"If she comes at me one more time about my posture, I swear I'll end her."

I learned that when taking tea in a tea parlor I was to never cross my legs at the knee, but rather at the ankle. When standing in front of a group of people, I was to position one foot in front of the other in an angle, so as to have the correct posture to show off my figure. All of this was tested often during our once a week Reflection meetings, where we started to have seated coffee and tea meetings with our host speakers. It would have been a nice time had it not been for the fact that we were forced to sit in bewitched seats that poked us in the back whenever we tried to slouch.