Holiday Cheer

[Jeremy Thorne]

Going to the Yule ball stag did not bother Jeremy Thorne in the slightest. He enjoyed seeing how the house elves decorated the Great Hall and he especially loved the wonderful food that they cooked up. In fact, if it weren't for the food, Jeremy was fairly certain that he would never have attended another Yule ball after the first. He enjoyed the cookies, cakes and pies and anyone who said otherwise had no idea what they were talking about. As he walked down the steps from the Ravenclaw tower, Jeremy nodded his head towards several of his house and year mates. It always amazed him that despite his being fairly shy, he'd managed to get to know a large amount of people throughout his six years in the school.

As he entered the Great Hall, a smile crossed the sixteen year old's face. He couldn't believe that this was actually his second to last Yule ball in the school. It made him a bit sad to consider that. The thought only lasted a moment, however, as the spread of the buffet table lured him in. Quickly, Jeremy joined the queue of people waiting to grab a glass of punch and some holiday desserts.

 

[Nora Herrington]

Nora did not have any friends at Hogwarts and certainly no love interests so when the Yule Ball came up she had decided that she probably should not go but her mother, probably as another apology for sending her to Durmstrang, had sent her a dress that would once stir up so much joy in her. The vanity that Nora Herrington once had was astounding but she had decided that she figured she shouldn't let a dress as nice as this go to waste. The opportunities to wear lovely clothes were few and far between back at her home even if she dressed more respectably than anyone else in her little town.

So after showering, brushing her hair and styling it ever so slightly, and putting on make up Nora found herself ready for the ball so she walked down to the Great Hall and sighed softly as she entered and was greeted with ouples ad friends dancing. Even if it was her own fault for not being so social Nora couldn't help but feel lonesome so she decided to get a drink with the rest of the wallflowers and stood in the queue patiently behind a boy she didn't recognize.​

 

[Jeremy Thorne]

The line wasn't terribly long, but it was still long enough that Jeremy first watched the dance floor, where couples were happily dancing to the sounds of the stringed instruments. As he moved up in the line, he looked to see who was in front of him. About two people in front of him was none other than the school's Headmaster, and then some younger student he didn't know. Glancing behind him, Jeremy saw a girl he didn't know. She appeared to be around his age, but he'd never seen her in any of his classes, so he knew that she had to be either a fifth or seventh year. He gave her a brief smile and then quickly faced forward once more, so that she wouldn't think it awkward of him to have been looking back at her.

When it came to his turn in line, Jeremy looked back once more. "Ladies first" he said as he stepped aside, and waited to see if she would accept the offer. Jeremy's father was a stickler for chivalry and he had brought Jeremy up to open doors for his mother and sister and to pull out chairs for them as well. When he'd finally received his first wand, being chivalrous had become much more easy for the young boy and his father had raised his expectations concerning his son's treatment of women. Not that the elder Thorne had anything to worry about when it came to his son.

 

[Nora Herrington]

Nora had let her mind wonder while she was along so only the slight shuffles forward would make her realize she ought to do the same so when she was addressed she couldn't help but be startled and let out a breathless gasp. She glanced towards the boy who spoke and smiled kindly at him before she flatly said, "I wouldn't be so quick to offer that, I might take all the food on the table." Of course Nora was joking and showed this by offering a short chortle. It was not often that Nora laughed anymore because she tended to be so busy or in solitary confinement in one of the busiest places she had ever been so she couldn't help but be glad that she had come even if she was humiliated to be going to the festivities by her lonesome.

Although Nora had joked with the student beside her there was a tickle in her throat so she touched a hand to his arm as a small 'thank you' as she scooted by him and grabbed a glass and scooped herself some punch. When she had finished she stood aside and put out her free arm and waved it as if she was presenting the table to him. "Gentlemen second." She flashed him a smile before she turned and looked over to the crowd and sighed less sorrowfully than one might think with her previous attitude towards the whole event. She was here and might as well make the most of it so she turned her head to the side and said, "I'm Nora," then took a drink of the punch as she internally thanked her parents for not giving her as foolish a middle name as her first. Pippa would not be a name she would want to be called by anyone so Nora did just the job.

The cup lingered on her lips as Nora hummed out the melody of the song being played by the lovely string instruments she imagined would take quite a lot of effort to learn but appreciated the effort because it made the event much nicer than one that might play modern music, or so Nora assumed. Durmstrang had not had many of these events and when they had she had not gone and the only other experience with them she had was preparing her cousin, Clarice, for one in her first year at Hogwarts. Although Nora had loved the idea of flowing gowns and old romance she thought an eleven year old attending such an event was foolish and still thought so as she saw a few poor souls looking about completely overwhelmed.​

 

[Jeremy Thorne]

Jeremy wasn't expecting the response he was given, so he responded in an uncharacteristic way for him - he laughed loudly. It wasn't a long laugh, but enough to show that he had been pleasantly surprised by what she'd said. The blue eyed sixth year didn't even bother to look around the room to see if anyone had noticed his reaction or anything either. He just enjoyed the laugh. When she had gestured that she was done, Jeremy bowed his head slightly as he walked forward. "Thanks" he added as he picked up the top cup from the pile of cups by the punch bowl. He poured the punch slowly into his cup as he heard the girl speak once more. Turning his head to face her for a second, Jeremy turned his attention back to his cup in time to realize that the punch was dangerously close to spilling over. Lifting it ever so slowly to his lips, Jeremy sipped at the cup until the drink was at a safer level in his cup.

"Nice to meet you, Nora. I'm Jeremy" he responded, before lifting his cup up more quickly and taking another sip. The punch was really good. The Ravenclaw moved away from the punch bowl so that he could stop getting the evil eye from the teenager who'd been standing behind Nora. Jeremy stood beside the girl and watched the other students dancing around. As a prefect, he had to keep an eye out for trouble and report any to the professors. He really hoped he wouldn't have to do that tonight though because he wanted to enjoy himself. He looked over his shoulder and saw that there was a plate of cookies that looked like it had just been replenished. His eyes lit up as if it were Christmas. The teen quickly turned and grabbed a couple. "Cookie?" he offered.

With some food in hand, the Ravenclaw became much more relaxed. "Do you think Professor Le Fey and that Flying professor are an item?" he asked, eyebrow raised as he noticed them together. Seeing the professors together was pretty weird.

 

[Nora Herrington]

When Jeremy had introduced himself Nora smiled kindly and said, "Likewise." Nora glanced back to the crowd before back at the boy and thought he looked vaguely familiar but everyone seemed to be at this school simply because of the many times you might see one person in a day in opposition to Durmstrang where the corridors seemed to be perpetually empty which only added to the ominous feeling the school had much like the dungeons where the Slytherins dwelled. She often thought that the architect had some sort of vendetta against the Slytherin house and had placed them in the grimiest place because of it but supposed she ought to be thankful that Hufflepuff was not there. Nora briefly wondered which house Jeremy was in but blinked it away when he offered her cookies and thought jovially, A boy on his way to my heart. Nora happened to be one of those people with whom you could apply the phrase "a way to a person's heart is through their stomach" because Nora rather loved food so she answered, "I don't mind if I do." She held out her hand carefully as she said, "Thank you."

When your Professors lived in such close quarters as those of Hogwarts it was difficult to have the naive notion that they never left the school or didn't have lives of their own because you saw a lot of things and many of the Professors had family who attended the school so when Jeremy inquired about whether two professors were dating she simply shrugged her narrow shoulders and mumbled quietly, "Perhaps." What Nora did think was curious was the two Headmasters as she believed they were both married to other people but if she did not want to go to the ball alone perhaps they had not wanted to either. Nora did not mention this however. "Why?" she asked, curious more about Jeremy's question than the pairings themselves. Perhaps Jeremy, Nora thought, has a crush on Professor Le Fey. It wasn't unheard of so Nora glanced over to the kind young man and awaited his response.​

 

[Jeremy Thorne]

Jeremy was glad that Nora had taken the cookie. He never really got those girls who wouldn't accept offers of food, especially desserts because they feared it would go 'straight to their hips' or some other odd place. Biting the head off of his gingerbread cookie, Jeremy chewed quietly as he continued to stand beside the brunette and watch the dance floor. He bit the body off of his cookie before noting that Nora didn't seem to be too interested in whether or not the professors were together. Jeremy couldn't say that he cared too much. His curiosity came more from the fact that Professor Le Fey, as she was now known, had been a housemate of his. They hadn't been very close, but they had both been prefects and he'd seen her quite often in their house.

Shrugging his shoulders, Jeremy looked down at Nora as he responded. "No reason really. Professor Le Fey and I were housemates just last year." The blue- eyed guy finished off his cookie and then wiped his chin to make sure that there weren't any cookie crumbs hanging out there. "I'm in Ravenclaw" he added after a second. "What about you?" he asked. Jeremy knew that she wasn't in Ravenclaw and he had the feeling that she wasn't in Slytherin either. She seemed too...nice. That only left two houses, but Jeremy didn't want to assume which one she was a part of.

 

[Nora Herrington]

For a moment between Jeremy and Nora there was silence as they ate their gingerbread men, Nora starting from the foot and Jeremy at the head of his own. With the music and talking that was happening all around them it hardly felt awkward more like they were people watching which was something Nora often did because there was a lot of funny things you noticed when people thought they weren't being watched. But her attention was returned to her new found friend as she awaited his answer.

As Jeremy said that he and Professor Le Fey had been house mates she nodded, understanding his curiousity now. "I see. I hadn't recognized her if I'm being honest." This was due to the fact that last year she had spent half of the year in Durmstrang and the other half cooped inside the library or in the Hufflepuff common room when she was not in class. It was a sort of torture for the girl who absolutely loathed school but she was literally scared straight and there was nothing she could do other than hope she was not sent back to Durmstrang. "I'm a Hufflepuff," she answered with pride people often thought was unwarranted because people in Hufflepuff were those who were not brave,smart or ambitious enough to be in the other houses. They were Hogwarts' trash can but Nora didn't see it this way, instead she found that they were the nicer students not that Jeremy wasn't a perfectly lovely person or that she had met some rather unpleasant Hufflepuffs, it tended to be correct in general. Nora opened her mouth to add that she had gone to Durmstrang previously as well be she decided it was unimportant so instead she continued to nibble on the cookie he had given her until it was finished.

Nora quickly washed down her cookie with the rest of her drink before setting the cup down on a nearby table which was empty before she asked with a shrug of her shoulders, "Do you want to dance?" She hadn't thought much of how this might look, her asking someone to dance but she wanted to dance and didn't know anybody else at this school except an infuriating prefect. "That is, of course, only if you can stay off my feet," she said with a cheeky smile as she waited for his answer whilst listening to the song that was now slightly faster than all the waltzes one might associate with pre-Revolution France.​

 

[Jeremy Thorne]

A smile crossed Jeremy's face when Nora informed him of her house. He couldn't say that he was terribly surprised. For one reason or another, Jeremy seemed to get along incredibly well with people from that particular house. One of his better friends, Dymetris, was from that house, and he knew other people whom he liked a lot who were from there. "Cool" he replied easily, his free, cookie-less hand going into his pocket.

The Ravenclaw found his feet tapping to the beat of the song that was playing now. It was a little faster than what had been playing when he first arrived and he figured that as the night wore on the music would continue to speed up. Jeremy couldn't say that he minded. Since he was at the ball alone, he preferred not having to awkwardly stand around as 'couple' songs played.

Following suit, Jeremy drained the rest of his cup and placed it on the table beside Nora's cup. He was just getting ready to ask Nora if she wanted another cookie, when she asked him to dance. Jeremy's blue eyes regarded the Hufflepuff for a moment. It certainly wasn't that he didn't want to dance, he just didn't really know how to. Snorting at her comment, Jeremy couldn't help but blush slightly. He'd had dancing lessons with his other Hufflepuff friend, Sapphire, but he didn't know how much the lessons would help with this type of music. "Have you spoken to anyone about my dancing skills?" he tried to joke before shrugging his shoulders. "I have to warn you that I'm not that great of a dancer. If I step on your foot, you're free to step on mine" he added.

 

[Nora Herrington]

Nora shrugged her shoulders and answered truthfully, "No. I don't know anyone else here." So it goes. The young witch wasn't particularly bothered by this except perhaps in social events such as this when going alone seemed more pathetic. Other than that she was indifferent to her social status when in her first year this might have just been her boggart. "I promise you I will," Nora said with a dangerous grin as she rested one of her feet on the heal of her pump before smiling brightly to show that she truly wouldn't. Not on purpose, at least. She had to admit that she wasn't the best of dancers but Nora could make it without embarrassing herself and because she was feeling particularly eager she challenged Jeremy, "C'mon 'claw." Nora was slowly walking backwards into the dance floor as she waited for her new, food-offering friend. She was aware that it was mostly couples dancing together but like with Professor Le Fey and Professor Stratis she didn't care very much. It was one of the positives of being a loner.

Jeremy seemed like a perfectly nice person so Nora could imagine hanging out with him later so long as he got his butt on the dance floor because with the large crowds she felt like she could get swallowed up by the moving bodies which would hardly be fun considering she didn't much care for large crowds of complete strangers so she hoped that Jeremy would get his sorts together and join her.​