Open A Frosty Evening

[Ilija Olaf]

Ilija was still angry at himself for bailing out of asking Alice to come with him to the Yule Ball. He'd had all the right words planned in his head but when push came to shove, he hadn't been able to do it. The fourth year was stood by himself in the Great Hall, watching as Alice met up with her friend, and he wondered why he ever thought he had a chance to get with someone like her. She was the most popular girl in their year and everyone seemed to want to be her friend. If anything, he should have just counted himself lucky that Alice had even started to notice him instead of pining after the girl he could never have.

After an awkward encounter at the study session, he sat back down and got on with work, and a few days later had realised that it wasn't all bad news. While he may not have been able to go with Alice, he had wondered if Padme had been interested. The second year always seemed happy when they hung out, and she certainly seemed to test the boys comfort zone, and he found himself being more open as he experienced more social situations with her. He was glad when she'd said yes as it meant they were definitely going to have a fun evening, and he had been looking forward to it perhaps even more than he realised. As he waited by himself, watching the other students meet up with the friends and begin to dance, he stood to the side and waited for his own dance partner to join him, and wondered whether Alice would look over at him at any point.

 

[Padme Hume]

Padme had been so excited when Ilija had invited her to the yuleball. She hadn’t really expected it, but it was a welcome thing. She didn’t think he liked her much but she certainly liked him. He was cute and older and nice to her. He seemed nice. The girl had gone to extra lengths for this yuleball, where she hadn’t much tried in the year before, on this occasion, she had very much tried. Padme had put on a nice knee length dress, it was a nice yellow colour, her hair cascaded over her shoulders in a wavy style. She was smiling to herself a lot, thinking of all the fun that would be had. Padme had put on a pair of little kitten heels, unwilling to put on the larger heels she’d seen some of the other girl’s wearing at the last yuleball, she wanted to look nice, maybe a little older, but not be too uncomfortable. ​

​

Padme was finally ready and she headed from the dorm to the great hall. She was nervous, kept fiddling with the skirt of her dress. She spotted Ilija at the entrance of the hall, just inside of the room. She was a little nervous about this, would her brother mind that she was spending time with someone in his year. She hoped he was doing okay. Padme walked over, taking careful purposeful steps to ensure she didn’t go over her ankle or embarrass herself in some other manner. ”Ilija, hey,” she greeted with a tentative but eager tone. This would be a good night, she was sure of it.​

 

[Ilija Olaf]

Even though Ilija was shaking himself at the prospect of being out in the open where anyone and everyone could see him, he was still trying to think positively that this was going to go well, and his evening with Padme would be even better than their time spent at Halloween. He'd tried to teach himself how to dance, and how to take the right footsteps in order to not look like a fool, but whether or not his practise paid off was another issue. Besides he'd not even danced in front of anyone before, so who knew what others thought of it. The fourth year was completely lost in thought when he believed he'd heard someone say his name, and he looked over for a second, thinking that Alice might have actually come over, but it was actually Padme. A smile eventually found its way to his face a second later, as he glanced up and down. "Hey," he began, cheeks already turning red as he began to speak to a girl. He just hoped one day that would wear off. "You look really pretty," he added truthfully. All the girls this evening had seemed to put in a lot of effort into their outfits, and Padme too. The colour of her dress suited her perfectly. Now that he was face to face with the blonde, he was strangely nervous once again, although he tried to do his best to turn the focus to other things in the room rather than himself. "The hall.. it looks great," it was lame small talk, but he had to say something to break the ice. Usually it was Padme that seemed to be able to do that, but the Hufflepuff was determined to learn it for himself too. "Did you want to dance?" he offered slowly, watching for any body language that would help him figure out what was going through her mind. Perhaps she wanted to eat something first, but as usual, that was something he was too nervous to do immediately.

 

[Padme Hume]

Padme smiled at him when he greeted her, feeling her cheeks blush lightly at the compliment, ”Thanks,” she replied quietly, not sure what she was supposed to say, she didn’t know if she should say it back, after all Ilija did look nice and it might be the nice thing to say to him, but what if he didn’t particularly like that. What if he didn’t want her to say anything like that. Maybe she was being a bit silly. She looked around the room as he complimented that too and nodded, she found her brother briefly within the crowd, looking not great if she was honest, but Padme had no idea what to do or how to help him. ”The pictures of the yuleball used to be the ones that made me want to come to Hogwarts even more,” she said looking back at Ilija, ”Because of how amazing it was, just all of the effort that seemed to go into it. My brother’s the accio editor, so he tended to bring back excess pictures home to show me and Leia,” Padme told him. She nodded at his question and held out a hand to him. ”I’d love to dance,” she told him, Padme knew that dancing in even these kitten heels would be a pretty hard thing and her feet were going to be sore after but she was willing to have a little bit of fun during this and he had asked her to dance, it would probably rude to say no. It was an event with plenty of dancing so why not. ​

 

[Ilija Olaf]

If Padme was blushing, Ilija couldn't tell. Perhaps that was something he could relax in the knowledge of himself as he realised it was pretty dark in here and therefore it would have been hard to see anyone's complexions too clearly. He listened as the blonde explained about the photos Vader must have taken home, and tried to think whether his sisters had ever told him much before he'd joined. Mainly the just spoke about the things they learnt, and the youngest Olaf hadn't even realised events were a thing at the school until he was a first year himself. His family had their own things to be getting on with though, so he was used to having to find out things for himself. "Is it as good in person?" he asked. Vader's pictures that he'd seen in Accio! were certainly good, but he wondered how the real thing compared to her instead and if it was as she'd dreamt it to be. He smilied nervously when she agreed to dance, only realising now that it would mean he'd be out on the dance floor with many faces potentially looking at him. "Okay.. sure," perhaps if he just kept all his focus, complete and undivided, stuck on the Hufflepuff then he wouldn't be so aware of everyone else around them. He gestured across and told his legs to move as he headed further into the middle of the hall, before turning to face his dance partner who was a little shorter than himself. Placing his hands very very lightly on her waist and feeling like his head might explode from embarassment if anyone was looking his way, he kept his eyes locked on Padme's face to calm him down. "I've.. never done this by the way. At least, not in front of people," maybe now she would regret coming to the ball with him, but he just hoped she wasn't about to leave him stranded on the dance floor by himself.

 

[Padme Hume]

Padme nodded at the question, ”It’s better,” she loved the pictures that she had seen of it but it had always been nicer in person. It was easier to get the sense of the place, to be able to just breath in the air of the place and enjoy the event. The girl was pretty pleased when they started dancing, she could feel his hands on her waist and she after a moment of hesitation placed her hands on his shoulders. She looked at her feet for a brief moment before glancing back up at him when he spoke. He had never danced in front of people? But he was older, hadn’t he gone to other school events, ”How come?” she decided to ask, maybe he just hadn’t been that interested in the ball, or wasn’t that interested in dancing. She thought it was a lot of pressure on her to then show him how fun they could be, especially if this was his first yuleball, Padme had come to the last one, the one in her first year of the school. She hadn’t wanted to miss it but perhaps that was because she had seen pictures of it. Padme would take it slow if necessary, dancing wasn’t hard but she would go at Ilija’s pace if that was what he wanted to do. ​

 

[Ilija Olaf]

Ilija was pleased that the Yule Ball had lived up to her expectations. It would have been disapointing if she'd arrived and felt like the pictures had been lying to her. He thought about her question for a moment, "I've come to the Ball's before, but I've never had a partner to dance with." The fact that this was the first time Ilija had actually asked anyone to accompany him had a lot to do with it, and he didn't think it would count that previous he would turn up only because his sisters had dragged him along. He could even look up now to see if either of the twins were in the Great Hall because that would mean taking his eyes off Padme and he was quite sure that if he did that, his anxiety levels would sky rocket when he saw how obvious they were in the middle of the room. He had begun to move a little, but he was still stiff and awkward as it didn't feel entirely natural to be dancing not by himself in his bedroom. "Sorry," he mumbled, with so many things going on in his head he just didn't want to find himself tripping over anything. "Thank you by the way.. for agreeing to come with me." It sounded lame but she should know he was appreciative. "Did any of your friends come too?" he asked, realising he didn't really know who her friends were in her year. He knew a few older students, but not the younger ones.

 

[Padme Hume]

Padme didn’t really understand why anyone would come to this event and not dance with or without a partner, but perhaps that was just her perhaps other people felt more strongly about whether or not to dance alone. She danced with him, but she could tell that he didn’t feel that comfortable, if not made more obvious by the apology. Padme shook her head, ”You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” she told him. Before smiling a little at what he said ”Of course,” maybe he didn’t realise that she liked him..that was why he was thanking her, it was of no great stress to her to go with him, actually truly enjoying this event with him. It was a little weird if she was honest, but she liked it. He was nice. At the question she gave a little shrug, ”I’m sure they are, maybe, Cyrus and Jace aren’t really dancing types but they might be about here somewhere. What about you? Are your friends here?” She knew a little about his year because of her brother and the things he had talked about but she didn’t know who Ilija was friends with but she was still interested. [/B]​

 

[Ilija Olaf]

Ilija smiled to his friend, again grateful that she was so understanding. He still wasn’t entirely sure why she even wanted to be his friend in the first place, he wasn’t great at conversation and he relied heavily on other people’s leadership. Of course he didn’t want it to be that way, but he was working on his own confidence in a bid to be more dependent. His eyes still didn’t break away from the Hufflepuffs gaze, although now he’d been staring at her for almost too long, it was becoming awkward to the fourth year too. Thankful she took up his question and began talking about her friends instead, he listened although he wasn’t sure who either Cyrus or Jace were, but his smile widened when she mentioned they weren’t the dancing types, and Ilija was pleased he’d been able to someone she could have fun with in that respect, even if his dancing was terrible. “Are they in your year?” He was just about moving in time to the music, his hands still on her waist as they spoke. “They might be,” he was too worried to look up and check, “My dorm mates Marco and Abian are probably around somewhere. And I think Alice and Elsie are here with a partner,” he trailed off, trying not to let her think it bothered him to consider Alice attending with someone that wasn’t him. He realised that Padmes brother shared a few friends of his too, “I wonder if Vader is here with Isabelle or Avaria,” he didn’t really expect Padme to know, but it turned the attention away from him once more.