Ballet Shoes

Chapter 11

Lilleth was pleasantly surprised when they reached the classroom on the ground floor to discover that it was almost completely empty, with desks stacked up against the walls. One desk was stacked in the middle of the back wall, much bigger than all the others and clearly the teacher's desk from when the classroom was last used.

"Could I please have a volunteer?" asked Professor Lupin cheerfully.

When no one volunteered, his eyes roved around the classroom, trying to pick someone out. Lilleth could have sworn that his eyes stopped for a second on her, but he then moved on. Or so she thought.

"Miss Black-Lupin, perhaps you'd like to help me."

"Uh, okay?" Lilleth stammered.

"Please step forward." he said. "What would you say your biggest fear is?"

Lilleth had to pause to think. She had completely forgotten to think about her fear on the way down to the classroom, and now she couldn't think of one. Dudley, perhaps? No, he was just a big idiot who liked to push her around. She wasn't really scared of him. But what about Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon? They hated the very sight of her, locked her in the pantry for eleven years. But she didn't truly fear them. She just wanted to escape them.

"I don't know." she admitted.

"Perhaps, spiders?" he suggested.

She shook her head. "I grew up with them living in my socks. I'm sort of used to them."

She suddenly felt humiliated. Yes, she was certainly afraid of some things, but she wouldn't consider any of them her 'greatest fear'. But maybe now the entire class thought she had no fears, which certainly wasn't true.

"Maybe you certainly need more time to think." said Professor Lupin kindly. "Has anyone else thought of theirs?"

Jamie Foster, one of the Hufflepuff boys, put his hand up nervously.

"Yes, Mr Foster?"

"Dementors." he said quietly. "After the train."

"Ah, yes." said Professor Lupin, nodding understandingly. "Very reasonable. So, how could you make a dementor funny?"

"I – don't know." said Jamie hesitantly.

"Jamie, do you have a sister?"

"Yes."

"What kinds of things does she wear?" asked Professor Lupin. Lilleth couldn't help but notice a small, mischievous smile flickering on his face.

"Well, she's – she's six." Jamie stammered. "She likes wearing pink skirts and dresses and stuff."

"And what about her hair?"

"It's blonde and she usually wears it in little pigtails." said Jamie. "Mum ties them with little pink ribbons."

"I want you to picture your sister very, very clearly." said Professor Lupin. "Picture her clothes. Then, when that dementor comes out of the desk, I want you to picture it wearing your sister's clothes with blonde hair tied up in pink ribbons. Can you do that?"

"Uh – yeah." said Jamie, pulling out his wand. "I think I can do that."

"Just keep a steady head." Professor Lupin advised. "Don't let yourself get distracted."

Jamie nodded.

"Everyone please stand back." said Professor Lupin.

He pulled out his own wand and pointed it at the desk. With a flick, it opened and before Lilleth knew what was happening, a dementor flew out. The candles in the classroom were extinguished, and – just like it had on the train – a cold descended over them all. Lilleth shivered and hugged her robes closer to her.

Up at the front of the room, Jamie looked as if he was about to faint, but he held his wand high in front of him and shouted, 'Riddikulus'.

There was nothing Lilleth had ever seen that was funnier than what she witnessed in that moment.

The dementor that had appeared in its thick black robes and the hood over its face was now wearing a pair of bright pink dungarees – over the black cloak, luckily. Lilleth didn't think that it would be funny to find out what it wore underneath that. But under the dungarees, there was a white blouse with little flowers on it and a pretty little collar. On its head, there were two pigtails sticking out from the top of the black cloak that covered its head, tied with little pink ribbons.

Even though there was still a slight chill in the classroom, they couldn't help but burst out laughing. The boggart reeled back in confusion, seeming as if it was looking around them to find out what was happening. Lilleth burst out laughing along with the others.

"Next!" Professor Lupin shouted over the laughter.

Piper managed to get herself pushed to the front of the line that formed in the classroom. She pulled out her wand nervously as the boggart shifted around in shape.

Without warning, the floor shifted and the classroom seemed to fly three hundred feet into the air, leaving the castle far behind them. Nothing had appeared in front of them, and the boggart had just disappeared. Lilleth quickly realised that Piper's greatest fear must be heights.

"R-r-riddikulus." Piper stammered, doing her best not to look down.

Suddenly, the classroom turned into a giant slide that twisted and turned, sending them all flying downwards so fast that they screamed with laughter. When they reached the classroom back in the castle, it didn't look like they'd ever left, and the slide disappeared as if it had never even been there. Lilleth landed on the floor with a thud and roared with laughter, along with the others who were all climbing to their feet.

The next person stood up to face the boggart, and Piper walked back to the back of the classroom to join Lilleth, who was grinning.

"So how is it that you're afraid of heights, yet you love quidditch?" she asked.

"I don't know." Piper shrugged. "I guess I'm just too focused on the game to care about the fact that I'm three hundred feet in the air when I'm playing."

The third person to face their boggart, a Ravenclaw boy plunged the entire classroom into complete and utter darkness. Lilleth and Piper couldn't see a thing until they heard him shout, 'Riddikulus!' and glowing lights appeared in the room. There was a blue light that formed its way into a firework and exploded in the room, sparking a series of 'oohs' and 'ahs' from the classroom, and then a group of the colours morphed into triangles and squares and circles that formed a funny little dance for them in the darkened classroom, making them all laugh again.

"Miss Macmillan, you're up!" said Professor Lupin loudly.

A/N

Warning - next chapter, Lilleth faces her boggart and it's so sad. I wrote it at four am listening to sad music and cried.

You can always tell you're a good writer when you cry at your own work lol.