Cradling a plateful of food against her chest with her mouth already stuffed with a pumpkin pasty, the blonde swallowed hard as her eyes fell to the dance floor. Strangely, she wasn’t too bothered by not having a date. In fact, she almost enjoyed the freedom to sample all the food she wanted and not worry what her breath smelt like by the end of it all.
“I broke a plate,” she whispered to the body beside her, ducking her head down as her eyes scanned the plate of treats for her next victim. “Or three...” she confessed while shoveling a miniature lemon dessert in her mouth.
Somehow, and by pure accident, Keller found himself in the girl's bathrooms. He'd never been in here before, and he was surprised by how much cleaner they seemed than the boys' bathrooms, but when he heard a sob from by the sinks, he remembered why he was in here at all: Grace Farrow. Keller had been standing by the doors of the Great Hall when his friend had rushed past, a face full of running make up and looking more like Cinderella than ever before as she ran from the room and disappeared. Naturally concerned, Keller had followed, and found her in the bathroom, hunched over a sink and crying. Without hesitation, Keller moved forward and hugged her, and she buried her face in his chest and continued to cry - and kept crying long after Keller would have thought her tears would have ran out. He wanted to ask what was wrong - he wanted to help her if he could, but it seemed inappropriate to ask those kinds of questions as she cried against him, hands fisted in his suit jacket and knuckles white. Keller just wrapped his arms around her and waited, and eventually, she quieted down as Keller rubbed soothing circles on her back.
"I'm sorry," she sniffed, pulling back from his chest and wiping at her eyes - her cheeks were stained black from her make up.
"It's alright," he returned, and he grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser, wet it, and started rubbing at the black smudges on her face, watching as the make up cleared away and left her with red eyes and a red nose. "Do you want to talk about what's wrong?" he asked quietly as he worked, looking into her eyes then back to the make up smudges, wiping them away.
Grace seemed to contemplate the question before shaking her head. "No," she said, and looked down. "I'd rather not... not right now, anyway."
Keller could understand that, and as he wiped away the last black smudge, he smiled. "Alright, you're fixed," he announced, and he watched Grace turn to look in the mirror. She seemed to frown at what she saw but running her fingers through her hair, fixing it and making sure it was back in its style before grimacing, looking back at Keller.
"Thanks, Kell," she said, trying to offer him a smile.
Shrugging, Keller threw the paper towel into the waste bin and looked back at her. "The way I see it, we have two options," he said, and he put his hands on her shoulders. "One, I walk you back up to Ravenclaw Tower and you can call it an early night, or two, you can come back into the Hall with me and have a dance." Keller smiled, squeezing her shoulders and trying not to sound like he was hoping for one option over the other. "What do you say?"
Grace really didn't feel like dancing or going back into the Great Hall - after all, what if she Autumn? Or worse, what if she saw Benjy? - but going back to the dorm room alone without one of her friends there to talk to seemed worse. Despite the lack of appeal to either option, Grace really only had to glance into Keller's eyes to see the excitement he held there at the thought of dancing with her - and she couldn't disappoint him now, not when he was so sick. Time had seemed shorter lately, Grace thought to herself, and if there was a limit to how much they all had left together, then she didn't want to waste it crying in bathrooms. She gave Keller a smile, one that was more genuine, and nodded. "I don't think a dance would be out of the question," she said, and she felt Keller take her hand at that, squeezing it gently. They left the bathroom together, hands joined easily and naturally, and Keller led them both back into the Great Hall, passing a few aurors on the way in. Once immersed back in the black and white themed hall, Keller started weaving his way through the tables, heading toward the music like a moth drawn to the flame. He was not usually one for dancing, but he'd always found a slow dance - more rocking and spinning than anything - was nice, and didn't require much skill on his behalf.
The pair of them naturally moved together, bodies close and hands linked, and though they originally started in the position of a traditional waltz, in a second it turned to Grace's arms around his neck and her head buried into his shoulder, leaving Keller to place his arms around her back and holding her tightly. Though he was curious to know what had happened to leave Grace feeling like this - and whether it was connected to what had happened when they'd talked the other day - Keller learned not to ask questions or to push a topic unless he was sure it was dire and important. That wasn't to say that Grace's well being wasn't important, but he knew that if she had a problem that he could fix, she'd tell him in a heartbeat. In the gap between the two poles, Keller knew that in her own time, Grace would tell him if she wanted to, and if she didn't, then he would just try to be with her and as supportive as he could. They danced slow and steady, swaying slightly from side to side and turning on the spot occasionally, holding onto one another as though to do anything else would result in them floating away.
Keller allowed himself to think about how far they'd all come that year alone: the struggles and the pain and the fear, and how it had shaped all of them into new people. He worried about Grace; he worried that she was losing herself to some kind of thought or problem, and it was slowly eating away at her until, soon enough, there'd be nothing left. Grace was really the only person that was completely optimistic in Keller's life - over the last year, he'd watched that positive thinking deteriorate as the problems of the school eventually broke down the people that used to smile the most. Grace had been the last refuge, but now it seemed like every time they were together, she was crying, and Keller hated that - he would have given everything not to see her break like the rest of them. And for Grace, everything did seem to be falling apart - everything did seem to be dark, but for that moment, as she clung to Keller, it was easy to pretend that she was stronger than that - that he'd be there to help her through it. She knew that he would be there, if she asked him to; she knew he'd help, but Grace though that perhaps this was something she had to do alone - this was her battle, not his. Despite that resolution, for the moment she wanted to be weak and she wanted to be loved, and so she allowed Keller to hold her tightly and sway them around the dance floor to The Beatles, as if the world could be forgotten about and taken care of within one dance.
The night had been full of what Keller could only summarise as happiness: the time spent with his friends had been something he would keep with him for a long time, and for once, nothing bad had gone wrong. It seemed almost too good to be true, he thought, and usually when things seemed too good to be true in his life, it's because they were. But looking around the Hall, Keller thought that maybe, just maybe, things would be different this time: perhaps he'd finally earned a break from the universe and was allowed to have a good time. After several dances and several more hours sitting and talking, Keller could feel the hour of the ball's end soon approaching - but the couples on the dance floor didn't seem to be slowing down at all. He watched them as he drifted around the edge, keeping his eyes out for the one person he'd only seen flashes of all night: Ambrosia. Keller knew that she probably hadn't wanted to come, and he wanted to make sure that she'd had a good time, and when he spotted the small girl with the beautiful dress, he made a beeline for her. A smile already on his face, Keller awkwardly sidled up beside her and paused. "Hey," he said, nudging her with his elbow and smiling wider as he looked down at her happily.
In a sea of white and black, it became hard to distinguish faces and Fiona often found herself trapped in groups of people that she hardly knew when she had originally been trailing a friend. The theme and décor was lovely, but it made finding friends difficult and it came as little surprise that she eventual gave up the chase and settled for a far corner of the Great Hall where friends could find her if they wanted to talk or dance and she could be left alone when they did not. The only trouble was finding Keller for the crowds of people made it impossible for them to lock eyes across the room. As the mood of the dance slowly shifted toward softer music that was aimed towards the many couples in attendance, Fiona decided to brave the crowd again and find Keller. They could not leave the ball without having one dance together, reminiscent of their first slow dance as a couple. It was a moment they could never recapture perfectly, but Fiona still did not want the night to pass on without the feeling of being in Keller’s arms and swaying to the music. Fiona knew to look along the walls of the Great Hall to find Keller and sure enough, she spotted him in a secluded spot that closely resembled the one she had just left. Reaching his side quickly, Fiona slipped her hand into his and squeezed lightly. “Would you care to dance?”
