My first post:  (Character description: Bob Walker is a fifth-year student at Hogwarts.  He is Muggle born.  He was sorted into Ravenclaw, and he fits the stereotype of Ravenclaws: intelligent, creative, and eccentric.  His main interests are astronomy and classical music.  He is a good student: in each of his first four years he obtained a grade of Outstanding in all his subjects except Defense Against the Dark Arts, where his total lack of athleticism prevented him from winning most of his duels in the practical examinations.  Before being invited to Hogwarts he took piano and composition lessons, and at the age of eleven he won first prize in a contest for child composers.  He still practises the piano during Christmas and summer breaks, and has become as proficient at it as his poor physical coordination will allow.  He is as awkward socially as he is physically.)

When the Year End Ball was announced, Bob was undecided whether or not to go to it.  He dared not ask any of the girls to be his date.  They would surely reject him, and everyone would soon know of his failure.  After much deliberation he decided to go alone.  If he managed to get any of the girls to dance with him even once, it would be worth any number of refusals.  On the evening of the ball, he took a shower, shaved and changed into his dress robes, and then went to the Great Hall.  The first three pieces played by the musicians were fast, the sort of music that was meant for jiving, and he didn't know how to jive; so he sat and watched the dancers.  But the fourth piece was slow.  You could do the box step to that music, and this he was able to do.  He stood up and walked slowly around the perimeter of the Great Hall, looking for a girl who wasn't dancing.  Eventually he spotted one.  He approached her, bowed awkwardly and said, "May I have this dance?"

My partner's first post: (Character description: Isabel Rhodesse is a Ravenclaw in her Fourth Year at Hogwarts. She is uncertain as to her blood status due to her father's death a few years ago before she even knew to ask. She is either Muggle-born, a Half-blood or potentially just a smidge non-human. She gets overly excited and passionate about her main loves: languages, literature, and nature and her uncalled for enthusiasm and sometimes puts people off (or more likely bores them). She is an unfailingly curious person which often gets her into trouble with both her peers for being too nosy and her superiors for breaking rules in the name of higher education and experimentation. She is incredibly uncomfortable with social interaction, especially in large groups --though she's developed a few strategies for coping with age-- and has a hard time knowing the appropriate way to behave when she meets a new person or encounters a new situation.)

Lost in thought about how well the year had gone-- at first she had been hesitant to take so many career paths at once- Isabel whirled her head around in surprise when she heard a voice off to her left. She was greeted by the face of a boy who looked just as alarmed as she had originally felt --doubtless, he had not expected her to be terrified. Isabel mentally scrambled to recall and process what he said, finally realizing he had asked her to dance. Her heart immediately felt like it had been seized in a vice. Dancing? With an strange boy? There were so many ways that this could go horribly wrong... It dawned on her suddenly that her face may have been reflecting her inner thoughts and worries, as it was wont to do. And, as her hesitation had nothing to do with the male in front of her, she made a split-second decision she hoped she wouldn't regret later.

"Oh, uh--of course!" she replied, managing to affect a bright smile. "Sorry, I don't have the best hearing". Attempting to leave her social anxiety behind, she shifted her focus onto the music around her. The band -- she thought they were called the Leth I. Fold-- was playing a slower, sort of swingy song. Her partner, seemingly well-versed in dancing etiquette, had already taken her hand in his and placed his other at the small of her waist. He began a sort of box step and Isabel again scrambled, though this time physically, to keep up. She had taken some dancing classes but they had done nothing to make her more graceful or light on her feet. After a few moments of watching her feet to make sure they knew what they were doing (and make sure that her partner wasn't going to switch up his dance moves), Isabel looked up to look at her partner face-on for the first time. Making sure she was now smiling, unsure if she had accidentally been frowning in concentration, she locked eyes with her partner, hoping to mask her inevitable awkwardness with some conversation.

My second post:  To Bob's surprise and delight, the girl agreed to dance with him!  She wasn't a particularly good dancer, but that made him feel better rather than worse, because he too wasn't a good dancer and he didn't want her to regret having agreed to dance with him.  He locked eyes with her and saw that she was smiling.  This indicated to him that she wanted to make the moment less awkward by engaging him in conversation but was too shy to initiate the conversation.  It was up to him to do so.  The music was too loud for them to hear each other, but when the band paused between numbers, he led her back to her seat, sat down beside her and said, "Hello, my name is Bob.  It was a pleasure dancing with you.  I'd like to dance with you again, but not to any fast music.  I can't jive, you see, and ... "

Suddenly Bob was interrupted by the band, which had started playing again – a fast number.  Bob put his mouth close to the girl's ear so that she could hear him over the loud music and said, "I think I'll sit this one out – away from you so that the boys who can jive won't think you're unavailable and you'll be able to dance.  I'll be back the next time they play a slow number and I hope you'll agree to dance with me again."

The girl nodded wordlessly.  Bob moved to another empty seat and waited for the band to play another slow number, but they played one fast number after another until they announced that they were taking a break for ten minutes and walked off the stage, leaving their instruments on the stage.  They were all acoustic instruments, since electricity doesn't work at Hogwarts.  And one of them was a piano.

This gave Bob an idea.  He climbed onto the stage and sat down on the piano bench.  To attract a crowd around him, he played the only jazz piece he knew: "Bumble Boogie", a jazzed-up version composed by Jack Fina of Rimsky-Korsakov's famous piano piece "Flight of the Bumblebee".  He was a bit rusty because he hadn't been near a piano since Christmas, but he had played that piece so often that he managed to play it reasonably well.  Several people gathered around the piano while he played, and when he finished playing, many people applauded his performance.

For his next number he played his most recent composition: a romantic nocturne in the style of his favourite composer, Chopin.  His music teacher had told him that he would never be able to make a living as a composer if he kept composing in the 19th century style, because only atonal music was accepted by the musical community.  Bob didn't like atonal music, and in any case he hadn't planned to become a professional composer but rather to study mathematics, physics and astronomy in a Muggle university after graduating from Hogwarts and eventually become a professor of astronomy.  Music was always going to be just a hobby for him.

When he had finished, the boy nearest to the piano said, "That piece sounds like a Chopin nocturne.  I thought I knew all of Chopin's nocturnes but I don't recognize that piece."

"That's not surprising," said Bob.  "You see, Chopin didn't compose that piece.  I did."

Before anyone could react, the musicians came back onto the stage.  "How dare you touch my piano!?" yelled one of the musicians, striding over to the piano with a scowl on his face.  "Get the off the stage!  All of you!"  Bob didn't need telling twice: he hurried off the stage and sat down, waiting for the band to play a slow number.  After three fast numbers, they did.  He went back to where the girl he had danced with was sitting.  To his delight, she was still there.  Once more he asked her to dance with him.

My partner's second reply: The song seemed to be over before it truly began, despite Isabel's initial hesitance. While the blonde-haired boy didn't say much, due to edging closer to the band than originally intended, his silence was not the kind that made her anxious. As the number ended, the boy immediately headed back over to where she had originally been standing. Wondering as to his intent, she went along and joined him. As soon as they were both seated, it broke whatever Silencing Spell had been on him. Words tumbled out of his mouth, tripping over each other, as he hurried to get out what he had to say before the next song started up. His name, a heart-warmingly awkward confession about "jiving" and a request to dance with her later, and then, just as abruptly as it started, he left.

As Bob moved away in the crowd, she couldn't help but let a little chuckle escape --not at the boy, certainly, but at the situation. It seemed he was just as uncomfortable here as she was, from the way he talked. She would have been glad to sit and chat with him, as she suspected he had a quick mind to go with his antiquated words, but she completely understood the desire to be alone.

She got up, hoping to get some air and distance herself from the crowds a bit. Leaving her seat, her wandering feet took her just outside to the courtyard. Grateful she hadn't run into any amorous couples, she drank in the night sky and couldn't help but smile slightly when notes from a lone piano wafted to her. It's clear notes were the perfect accompaniment to the stars and the night sounds stirring around her. What an excellent evening. She wasn't even upset that her friends were late in joining her.

Breathing in deeply one last time, Isabel headed back into the noise and clamor unique to the Great Hall of Hogwarts. As she made her way to her seat, she heard strains of shouting and something angry. She looked around, spotting a crowd of milling students. For moments, her curiosity warred with her aversion to large crowds, but group dispersed like a pricked bubble before she had even gotten close. Materializing from the melee, she thought she saw a familiar sandy head, though she couldn't be sure.

Busying herself with people-watching (though some of her associates lovingly called it "snooping"), she was again distracted when Bob came up to her to ask her to dance. His blue eyes serious and searching. While she had to admit, he was just a little bit odd, what person wasn't? Surely the girl who preferred the company of stars and rustling leaves had no room to talk. And anyway, as always, she was curious to see what would happen next. With an amused smile on her face, directed more at her line of thought than anything else, she stood up and joined Bob on the dance floor a second time.

My last post: To Bob's delight, Isabel agreed to dance with him a second time, despite how awkwardly he had danced the first time.  He led her as far as possible from the stage so that the music wouldn't be too loud for them to talk to each other.  He asked her whether she had enjoyed his piano playing and she told him that she had left the Great Hall and heard the piano only from a distance.  He boasted to her that the second piece he had played was his own composition and she asked him to play it for her again so that she could hear it properly.  When the slow music stopped and the fast music started, instead of walking away from her, he sat down beside her and they carried on a conversation.

After a few more numbers, all of them fast, the musicians announced a second ten-minute break. Thinking that he would have ten minutes to play the piano, Bob again climbed onto the stage, followed by Isabel and several others. He sat down at the piano and began to play another of his romantic compositions.  He had played for barely thirty seconds when he heard a familiar voice shout "Petrificus Totalus!" and felt his body go completely stiff.  He heard footsteps approaching him from behind, accompanied by a string of unprintable words.  The piano bench was pushed to the edge of the stage and then tipped over, dumping him off the stage and onto the floor a meter and a half lower.  Unable to break his fall, he landed hard on the floor, hitting it with several parts of his body including his head.  Although his muscles were paralysed, his nerves were not.  Through the pain he heard gasps from the students in the Great Hall, followed by the Headmistress shouting "Finite!", after which he felt the paralysis leave his body.  He stood up, turned around and saw the Headmistress striding onto the stage, her nostrils dilated in fury.

"How DARE you attack a student!" she fairly screamed at the musician.  "Gather up the other musicians and all your instruments and GET OUT!"  After they had left, she said "Sorry for the interruption, folks, but the Year End Ball still has fifteen minutes left to run, and it must and will go on.  If I can transfigure myself into a cat, I can surely conjure up an inanimate object, even one as complicated as a piano."  It took five minutes of intense concentration on her part, but there, on the stage, was a new piano.  Then she asked Bob, "Do you feel well enough to play?"  He nodded and then she said, "Play three more dance numbers for us, then."

Bob had never played dance music before, but having heard the musicians play it this evening, he had a pretty good idea of the appropriate style.  He improvised two slow pieces for the benefit of other klutzes like him and finished off with a fast one for the benefit of his own reputation as being less than a total square.  As he left the stage, everyone applauded him.  Isabel accompanied him to the Ravenclaw Common Room, and then they went to their respective dormitories.

Bob was still sore from the fall he had taken, but it was well worth while.  He had been applauded for his piano playing and, more important, he had been able to dance not once but twice with a girl who must surely have noticed his awkwardness but did not think any less of him for it.  He was going to have to get to know her!