Okay. Second set over. Addi was still considering sneaking out and leaving. But sigh. She felt she had to stick around, mainly because West had seen her. She put a smile on her face and walked over to where he was talking with that Olly girl. "Hey West. You guys are fantastic." They really were...even if she was in a sort of debbie downer mood.

"Wow.." Brynn's slightly widened eyes looked from Fern's sparkly shoes up to the space between her fingers. The most her mom ever let her wear were kitten heels so she was actually sort of impressed by how grown up Fern looked and totally understood the practicing part. It was just too bad that Brynn's feet hurt so much that she couldn't even think of anything quite as fancy. "Maybe when I'm almost 13 too.." she sort of mumbled. Perhaps she would fall back into that interest again when she grew closer to her teen years.. and it would sure be nice if she didn't look like she had long surpassed that point too.

And Fern must have realized how drab Brynn was feeling sitting next to her because she was soon glancing up curiously when the tablecloth was draped over her legs. "Oh.. thanks," she said quietly, managing a small smile. She knew Fern was trying to be helpful but that was sort of embarrassing. Her friend sitting next to her looking all grown up and stylish while Brynn sat looking glum and.. comfy. But she didn't blame her really.. not if she was anticipating a special date. And her shirt wasn't so bad, was it? It was at least Valentine themed.

And even though she was feeling kind of mopey, Brynn couldn't help the grin that grew on her face from Fern's contagious enthusiasm. "A.. a makeover? That does sound like fun.. and cool and grown-up.." Brynn forgot all about her comfy clothes and grey hair for a moment as her mind drifted in thought. "Oh, I can't wait.. we are going to be popular," she beamed back at Fern, happy to have such a sophisticated and fashionable best friend. They were going to rule the school next year.. or maybe in a couple years. Hm. She wasn't sure she knew who this Tallulah was, but if Fern said she was popular, she must be. She'd have to ask Fern to point her out later.

But as excited as the Hufflepuff was about Dante Dark being her Valentine - and she had every right to be - Brynn was far too preoccupied to share in the enthusiasm. No, she was busy twisting the hem of her shirt nervously as the distress was visible on her face. This had been her chance. And now she had screwed it up. Not that she had been aware that she had this opportunity, but still.. it was presenting itself to her and she was going to blow it before it even got here. And she might never get another one.

Brown eyes snapped to Fern upon hearing her words, Brynn's face still marked with panic. She took a few deep breaths to swallow the lump in her throat, then bit her lip to stop the wibbling. "DC.. he could have brought DC Fontaine. Fern, we could have had a double Valentine date! But now look at me. You know Dante isn't going to say one word about me to him at all now.. I just look.. blah." And at that, the eleven year old put her face in her hands and burst into tears.

Kace chuckled when he saw the lawn mower. "Oh i forgot about that one!" he said copying Anna's dance move. He move his hand up and down to get the mower starting motion. He was having so much. He knew people were looking at them but he didn't care.

Then he heard Lesta had something to contribute. She was doing the Tennis Player? He gave her a quizzical look. He never heard of that one. He saw her doing it and chuckled. How could he top that? He went to his Plan B.

"I think i am going to go with....the all time classic...the ROBOT!!" he said moving like a robot would. He was even getting his arms and legs to work. He hoped he was doing it right.

"Finally! Zere is justice in zee vorld!!" Justine exclaimed triumphantly, laughing loudly all the while as Andrew decided that hanging was too good for the villainous macaroon and promptly devoured him. Goodness, she was practically shrieking with laughter it was just that funny. Andrew was that funny. "Oh? but vhat is zis?" Justine said, picking up one of the other macaroons (the same color and shape as the "ringleader,"). "Secretly 'e 'ad a twin brother all along! ve executed zee vrong man!" Justine exclaimed in mock horror, with her hand held lightly over her mouth.

"Vhat a lovely place to be born in," Justine said, with a small smile, she herself had not often been to borax, but when she had visited the area, it had been very beautiful.
Andrew's hesitant words and his actions made Justine feel sure that he did not want to talk about his family, something the young girl understood perfectly, however he did explain, somewhat about there being two different family lines, one in England, the other in her beloved France, but that the two factions were still quite close, when he said this, Justine found herself confused, she had expected him to say that they were unhappily disconnected, still, it was a happy mistake. "So, you 'ave French blood in you, I knew zhere vas a reason I liked you," Justine said with a coy smirk. And now she was flirting again, oh to hell with it, she wasn't even going to try to stop herself anymore.
Did you say, the LaCroix family?" Justine asked, suddenly hit by the familiar sound of the name. Actually, now that she thought on it, she realized that it all sounded very familiar... She just couldn't pinpoint why....

"Merci, I need all the 'elp I can get," Justine said, with a light laugh. Popping another of the delicious macaroons into her mouth. "I should 'ope not!" Justine replied, she really would hate to be the ignorant foreigner.

"Ahh, but I could do better, certainly your family, even yourself, you are a testament to that fact," The Ravenclaw said, biting her painted pink lip. She was quite pleased to have such a normal conversation as a distraction, because if she didn't her mind would still be racing with the fact that Andrew had called her beautiful.
But Justine's small relief it seemed, was not permanent, because there was Andrew, telling her all he thought she was. The blush that had slowly disappeared from her countenance was back with a wicked vengeance and she was completely at a loss of what to say.
"I, uh... You are too, I mean, I zink you are too, but you know, you're 'andsome," No, what was she saying? Why on earth was she so flustered? Justine didn't fluster, or flirt, or any that and now she was practically rambling at him, and - She needed to escape or something, or do something that didn't require talking.

"You're very welcome, 'onestly it feels good to 'ear French," Justine said wistfully.

If there was one thing about Toby, it was that he was definitely not one of those really self-conscious people. He was good at playing up the theatrics and generally making a fool of himself, if that was what it took to be happy (and it often helped). Because of this, he honestly wasn't all that bothered if he made a complete and utter flobberworm of himself pm the dance floor... which was quite likely.

Tobias paused for a moment to let the music reach his very sooouuuuuulllllllllll. He was ONE with the music (kinda) and when the Hufflepuff was ready, he began to shuffle about and bop his head to the rhythm of the music. Even a few random arm gestures in there too which totally passed as dancing. Yep.

He couldn't help it; Tobias had a sudden mental image of what he must look like at that moment and giggled at himself, but continued dancing. It was a shame they had to have the dance when agility and finesse wasn't really working out. Tobias would usually LOVE to be properly bouncing around the the music. Maybe some other time?

The Hufflepuff kept grinning. "So whadya think?" he asked Sophie. "Do I astound you?"

Finishing up their second set, Ascanius took a moment to wipe his face free of some sweat and gulp down some water. And, y'know, do that whole hugging thing that Vesper was forcing on him before she bounced away.

Once everyone else, though, was relaxing inbetween sets, Ascanius sat next to West and nodded at both Olly and Adi who had joined their frontman. "Sup ladies. You're both looking gorgeous, yeah?" Killing two birds with one stone.

Pause, "By the way, we should get moving on that next set...." Requests and all needed to be announced.

Even though Sophie didn't know a whole lot about dancing, she had a good sense of rhythm and continued boogying in place while Tobes did... something weird. What was he waiting for? She watched him, amused, as he hesitated and seemed to be collecting himself or something of the sort - he was a bit dramatic, wasn't he?

Her amused glimmer of a smile turned into outright laughter, then - laughing with him, of course - as he started his own strange movements to the beat of the music that probably did count as some sort of dancing. He looked silly, though, but not in an unappealing, embarrassing kind of way. She was glad he was laughing, too, so she didn't feel like she was laughing at him, and she clapped a bit teasingly for him as he looked up at her expectantly.

Was he astounding?

"Always," was her simple, casual reply, then she added smoothly, "like a modern-day Prince Charming." She reached out to give his shoulder the gentlest of shoves accompanied with a big grin. Just to get her point across that she totally didn't mean anything by that.

Which she totally didn't. Eh hem.

The music had shifted to a slower song, and Sophie awkwardly stopped her own grooving to the music and looked around. HMMMmmmmmm. Slow dance? Could they continue dancing like fools to that kind of music, or would Tobes want to be more serious? Sophie had avoided his gaze for many seconds before forcing herself to look at him. "D'you wanna keep dancing, or should we go check out the other areas and stuff?" she decided upon asking. That sounded innocent enough. If he wanted to keep dancing with her, he'd say so, then.

Oomph. Whyyyy was Goldie poking his face? Mitchell needed that. For face related activities.

Oh wait what, clapping? For why? Was the band done? Good. Because then Goldilocks could pay attention to him.

He then blinked several times. "What are you talking about?" he asked. Withdrawing? Who was withdrawing?

And why was she blushing?

... and then granddad stuff. This conversation has been all over the place. "That's sweet." he said slowly. He watched her carefully. Yeah. He was afraid she'd start crying again.

Glancing towards the food area as he did, it took her a moment to figure out who he was waving to. Sorta. Not really. There were plenty of people over there. Could've been anyone. She smiled though, to everyone cause it could've been anyooooooooone, before she looked back towards the man in front of her. "Oh, no, ve can stay. I don't need anything."

Right now anyway.

Raising an eyebrow, somewhat mischievously, she moved a step to his side and leaned in closer to speak. "So, Mister Flamsteed, ven do ve get to hear you sing up there on the stage?"

Text Cut: Vesper!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Govoni

"Yes, I do remember Halloween.".....Somewhat. That had been a crazy night for everyone, from what she did remember. Vesper had played games and then parked herself at the piano for the remainder of her time there, busying herself with music so she didn't make wrong decisions. Merlin, she was boring..."Ascanius and Nigel were there, too.....I think." Erm, it was fuzzy...

HAHA. "Lottie, slooooooow down. Who said we're going to be mega famous?" Though, it was compliments to her and her bandmates as a whole, Vesper blushed furiously. It was amazing to think and dream about, of course...but was it really a possibility? For them? Ves hoped that if it did happen, they'd stay together. It was depressing to hear about fame splitting up bands....and she had to agree with Lottie about something. Yes, West was amazing. "He knows it, too." It wasn't hard to spot him in the crowd, grabbing food and water. She didn't allow herself to look for too long.

"I'll draw on you sometime if you want." Ves latched onto the distraction...The ink she'd used on hers was semi-permanent. So, it'd stay for a week or so. Since Spring was so close...it'd be good for that, right? People would enjoy showing off some art...like she did. Maybe. "...for free, too." BEAM.

The Ravenclaw was just nodding to her about Tag when West started heading back towards the stage. Ves didn't know how she'd known he was doing as much...she wasn't staring or anything...but she'd noticed. That was odd. "I suppose that's my cue." Looking down at her hand, she hadn't realized she'd been eating pieces of pepperoni off a nearby pizza. How absentminded of her, gosh. "Erm...sorry to anyone that was hungry for this particular pizza."

Blush.

"I'll see you a bit later, okay? Enjoy the next set!" She leaned in to give Lottie a one-armed hug before snatching up her watch bottle and making her way back towards the stage. Quickly...because MORE MUSIC. Ugh, there was that adrenaline that had never truly left...ROARING back into full focus and making her want to fling herself at random people...Shiver. Excitement was weird. Made people weird. Was making her weird.

There you go. Vesper totally remembered Halloween, then, or at least the same bit Lottie was referring to. Probably didn't remember her words, seeing as it was over a year ago and one usually tends to forget what was said the first time some meet. But the Hogwartian definitely nodded, "Yup, they were there too."

NOPE. No slowing down. And Lottie was BEAMING. She was probably forgetting a tiny fact, though. She didn't know what it was they wanted to do after Hogwarts, but if it was music they wanted to pursue, though West would probably also take the Quidditch route, then they'd be a success. Honest. "I still ask for tickets and backstage passes." Wink. And, yes, West must know it. Probably reason one why he did it so well up there, too.

"Really? That sounds brilliant! I'll let you know what I want, then." Nod, nod. The fifth year was gonna take up this offer. WHAT will she request, though? Now, that was the question.

AND...yes, that was Vesper's cue. "It's alright, don't worry about it." Both the pizza and her having to go up the stage again. They'll talk later. Or tomorrow. Because now Lottie was getting kind of hungry and... well, she was kinda thinking of something.

"Okay! And I will!" BEAM! The one-armed hug was returned, of course! And her eyes focused on the stage once more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lady of Light

"Absolutely." Delilah eyed Lottie some more. You know, eyeing. The girl just cleared her throat and continued, "These guys are amazing... and Vesper's voice is lovely." Nod.

Also. She smirked a little before she bent her head down to look at Lottie's shoes. Heels. Heh, she knew it. "You look tall."

Quote:

Originally Posted by JennMarie

talk about embarrassing..

>.<

he was totally lost in his own world of sorts just staring off in Delilah's general direction.. more at her really.. until he felt a smack poke of his shoulder from Lottie over here, and that was when he blinked and shook his head and realized he had been staring... totally staring and all he wanted to do was hide.. just back into his room, no one else allowed and die.. was a good plan really.
"Ugh.. Durmstrang.. yeah." she did ask where he was from before here right, that's what he meant not like location where were you born from, ugh.. crap.. this was horrible.. the slow music didnt help the awkwardness he created either. nope.

HE knew he shouldnt of came!

What was all the eyeiiiing for, Delilah? Honestly, she was here for the band, and some food, which she'll be gathering soon, actually. But most importantly, the band. "They are. I must agree with you on that." Surely everyone else did?

BEAMING AGAIN. "Oh, do I? I didn't even notice." Wink. She was shorter and that could be easily noticeable by everyone else. Easily noticeable because of high heels. Always.

Always. Always amusing, Jeremiah. Smirk. "Interesting." How he was from Durmstrang and all. And by 'all' Lottie was obviously referring to a certain reaction she noticed. Particularly since he wasn't staring at the STAGE. But we can just go ahead and pretend none of this ever happened (or that she took no notice), and move on, yes?

Good, because she was hungry. "Good luck, Jeremiah. And I'll see you later, Delilah." Mmhmm, she was gonna get food now.

Everything was just snowballing into a giant mess. Lily wasn’t even sure how it had ended up here, and she desperately wanted to somehow fix it, but she didn’t know how. All she knew was that somehow her irritation had hurt Austin, and now he was trying to convince her that she wasn’t to blame. Maybe it was more that he was trying to explain what had happened and hoping that it would help her believe she wasn’t at fault. Either way, she still felt guilty and it was apparently going to take more to pull her out of it. The problem was that she knew he had even less ideas as to how to accomplish that than she did herself, and if they didn’t figure something out, she was afraid it would end up as bad as last summer. Obviously he couldn’t sing to her to make her feel better if the problem was that she felt like she’d hurt him, not that someone else had hurt her. She’d hurt herself, really. It hadn’t been his fault that she’d wanted West and everyone else not to look at him badly. Honestly, she hadn’t even known that until he’d interrupted her conversation with the other Slytherin. She’d stayed quiet as he’d gone back to explaining, though. Just in case it actually did help. “I don’t remember any stuttering since I’ve known you,” she mumbled, curious about what the other way of triggering it was, only so hopefully they could avoid it. She just didn’t want to say that, and he’d said he’d tell her anyway. Just not there, which she understood.

It was hard enough talking about what they actually had while they were here at the ball. She also understood why he wouldn’t have wanted to explain it in public. There just weren’t really many private places here at Hogwarts, and now they didn’t even have the music to hide behind. She could hope that the ball would be over soon, and then maybe they could go elsewhere to talk, but for now she was just stuck. She wasn’t going to leave, and she felt guilty staying there. Until he’d spoken again, and she’d looked up in surprise. She hadn’t expected him to concede and agree with her, and it hurt to see him looking down at the table like a lost puppy. She’d bit her lip, thinking about what he had said, then pushed the almost empty bowl of berries away from herself as she reached over to touch his hand. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t know, and it hurt me to think you could actually be that rude. That’s why I got irritated. I still will help you get better at talking to people if you want,” she continued, not knowing if any of that would help. She wanted to explain too, though. It wasn’t just him that needed to explain, and maybe it would start to make things better.

Kill.
Him.
Now.
Plz.

it was bad enough that he was already a social hermit and would right now rather be locked away in the library or in his room but he just had to agree to come here, he just had to. Then they stick a Delilah in front of him and expect him to stay sane, its like people didnt know him at all!

He was nervous, he didnt know why he was but he was and it only got worse when Lottie said she was leaving, thanks Lottie, thanks a lot. waving her off to where ever she was off to he gave her a smile and muttered a goodbye of sorts before turning back to Delilah, who had just asked him to dance.

..............

What, No HE was going to do that! He was working that up, it was going to be a BIG deal! didn't she see that, Big deal with lots of, !!!!!!!!!!!!, and him possible fainting in the end but he was going to do it. smiling he looked up at her "Funny, i was about to ask you the same thing."
Smooth Walker, smooth. Keep it that way too. HE was giving her a look cause he wasnt sure if she really wanted to dance or not, dance with him better yet but, eh, you win some you lose some, right? He just hoped that tonight he won.

There was definitely no question now that things needed to be fixed and rather quickly since Austin had the feeling that the worst was over, that Lily couldn’t have possibly found something else to say which could have made the situation about fifteen times as complicated as it had been to begin with. Honestly he just wanted to stop it before it started to do any damage to their relationship, which had been pretty challenging. The real problem had been that there was nothing he could have usually done to fix everything since normally to be able to make his girlfriend feel better, he would end up singing to her but of course it really would only allow everyone else to be able to get the knowledge of how good of a singer he was. Before there was the chance to continue thinking, he heard the murmur coming from her and blinked for a second. “Well that’s because I’ve been keeping it under control, it was going to come back sooner or later, the fact that it chose to return now just seems to be bad timing. But you still deserve to know either way since I wouldn’t want you to worry later on.” he replied, trying to not speak too loudly but at this point that practically was a challenge due to the fact that the music was back to the recorded stuff so it wasn’t as loud.

Obviously he wanted nothing more than to be able to explain all of this in an area of the school which would have been considered quiet but the chances of that happening anytime soon were pretty much slim to nil, the fact that it was at least being discussed at all was a good thing. Meant that there wouldn’t have been a secret to attempt to keep from her. But that didn’t exactly help how he felt since admitting that he was trying to keep her from feeling upset definitely make him feel any better, it was a complicated situation though as soon as Lily reached over to touch his hand and started speaking; he looked back up at her. “I’m not like that usually. I never have been before, you know how I am in conversations but I do appreciate the help, hopefully things will get better.” he said before shifting closer to give her a small kiss. Things really didn’t feel all that bad now.

OH, LOOK.

A West was coming her way. Yay.

She kinda wanted to hug him tight as soon as he was close enough to allow that, but reasons stopped her. Mainly the fact that his hands were full of food/drink. So she settled with flashing him a big grin. "Hey, it's really good to see you, Westy!" Hm. "Of course! You and the band ... you're really something. You're all so talented," she said, distracted for a second as she remembered how they all sounded when they were playing and lost in the moment. Really something.

Bliss nodded. "Sure thing, I'll be around." It wasn't exactly as if she had anywhere else to be. Plus she wanted to listen to the music until it was over, so that meant she'd still be here when West was done. In the mean time, she'd just have to find people to talk to or something. Or she could stand around and do nothing. Whatever. "Later," she called, grinning, as he rushed off to finish his break elsewhere.

Now to wait for music .. and possibly some social interactions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roselyn

Glancing towards the food area as he did, it took her a moment to figure out who he was waving to. Sorta. Not really. There were plenty of people over there. Could've been anyone. She smiled though, to everyone cause it could've been anyooooooooone, before she looked back towards the man in front of her. "Oh, no, ve can stay. I don't need anything."

Right now anyway.

Raising an eyebrow, somewhat mischievously, she moved a step to his side and leaned in closer to speak. "So, Mister Flamsteed, ven do ve get to hear you sing up there on the stage?"

He really wanted some prunes, but he was positive he hadn't seen any when they had come in. Not that his eyesight was really all that it should be anyway, but his nose still functioned well enough and there had been no aroma of them. Alas. Prunes were so delicious.

Leaning towards her when she spoke, his eyes widened and a smirk characteristic of his younger self tugged at his lips. "Now seems like as good a time as ever," he replied, giving her a wrinkly lipped kiss on the cheek before heading towards the stage and waving his arms around to draw attention to himself. OLD PERSON WITH A REQUEST COMING THROUGH! Perfect timing considering they were on a break, yes? Impeccable timing if he said so himself.

"Are there any Kneazles still living up in here?!"

The worst part of everything that was happening right now was that it was making Lily wonder if maybe certain people had a point when they’d said she was stupid and immature. Maybe a normal person wouldn’t have gotten so irritated at the idea that her boyfriend only had eyes for her, although that hadn’t exactly been what had happened before. She knew Austin wasn’t likely to cheat on her. It had just been that she’d been hurt when it looked like he wasn’t even trying to join into her conversation, or anything that would have made her feel like he wasn’t the person who all his dorm mates disliked. That hurt her, and she didn’t know why. Honestly, that was probably what had upset her even more than the guilt over making him so tense that he’d stuttered. Although, that had really come as a surprise to her too, since she wouldn’t have thought he had any issues like that. That was the thing with secrets, though. They came out, and messed everything up most of the time. Which was sort of what Austin had said, even if she hadn’t expected him to have heard her mumbled comment. “That’s true,” she replied, still quietly. “I’m not sure why I’d worry if you had, though. I just don’t like knowing I made you stutter.” It hadn’t been a good stutter, after all.

She hadn’t expected him to want to explain here, either. She understood why he wouldn’t have wanted to, since it was something that she wouldn’t have wanted the whole school to know about if she had been the one who had stuttered. She had barely gotten used to letting people know about her musical ability, and even then most people only knew that she could play the guitar. Even Austin didn’t know she could sing. She knew that would get out eventually, but right now she just wanted him to stop looking like a lost puppy. She hadn’t known if her apology and attempt at explaining would have worked, but at least he had looked up at her. It was a start. “I know you aren’t. That’s why it was so weird,” she replied, before her words had gotten cut off by him giving her practically a butterfly kiss. It had distracted her from her train of thought, anyway. Things like that usually did, not that they happened often. It had taken her a minute to gather her thoughts again, and she’d opened her mouth to ask another question only to end up turning her head to look over t the stage in surprise as she heard a loud voice that sort of sounded like Professor Flamsteed, and saw him up on the stage. Okay, that was definitely not expected.

Wait a second, was that Professor Glitter Dude from the dance lesson? What in Merlin’s name was he on about? Something about asking if there were live kneazles around, which definitely confused Austin seeing as he wasn’t entirely aware of magical creatures hanging around the ball; maybe it was a bit of a misunderstanding. But that all seemed to be enough of a discussion to alleviate the tension between himself and Lily since the sadness and frustration was bound to lead to an awkward moment but hopefully that could have been avoided altogether. “I still feel bad for coming off like a rude guy. I don’t know why I hadn’t waited to talk to you, I guess.. I just couldn’t hold back the compliment I wanted to give you. But still not really an excuse.” he commented, pushing his chair right beside hers so that he was able to put his arm over her shoulders and grabbed another one of the chocolates, then started to eat it. Really that was another moment for him to be not talking since really there had been enough of that over the past little while that it wouldn’t have been a bad thing if there was a bit of a break.

All he had known now was somehow he needed to make it up to his girlfriend, she deserved that at least because of everything that just happened; sure the blame ended up going both ways but that still didn’t mean he didn’t feel responsible for making her sad. That was definitely not something he wanted to do ever again. “You know I was thinking, why don’t we write a song together at some point since I don’t think many couples do that. It’s definitely awesome that we can both play guitar seeing as that’s a good start, course I can sing but that’s not important.” he said, randomly rambling on with the first idea that somehow managed to find its way from his brain. Okay there was nothing saying that had been a bad idea. Actually quite far from it.

Much like Justine, Andrew was having difficulty keeping his laughter down, and eventually gave up again, only managing to stop once Justine presented her horrifying revelation. "The wrong man?" Andrew whimpered, putting his hands on his cheeks. "What have I done?!" He cried in mock feigning terror and disgust. "I'm a monster!" He almost giggled, the laughter forcing it's way through his act.

"Haha, yes, it's lovely there!" He nodded in agreement, remembering his many visits to France. The rolling hills and the beautiful green forests were always a delight for him, and there was certainly very little greenery around Hogwarts at this time of year. He smirked happily when he heard her say she liked him. "Yes, I definitely have a lot of French in me." He grinned, nodding along with her question. "Yes, the LaCroix family." He confirmed. The two sides of the family had split apart long ago, but they still remained very close. The distinction was made between the two sides using pronunciation; The English side would pronounce the name 'Lacroy', while the French side would pronounce it 'Lacraw'. That way, it was easy to tell which side of the family one was referring to. "Why, have you heard of us?" he asked curiously. The family was known for it's famous academics and financial success, and certain members of the family had very high profiles. Andrew wouldn't have been surprised at all if someone had heard his surname before.

"Let me rephrase that: I KNOW I won't need to correct you very often." He smiled at Justine.

"There's always room for improvement, no matter who you are.. But that doesn't mean there's always a need for improvement." Andrew replied to her comment. His father had told him that often, even if his mother had always been adamant about striving for perfection in all things. Justine's English was perfectly fine as far as Andrew was concerned, and she had nothing to worry about.
It took him slightly by surprise when she called him handsome in her adorably flustered manner. His already-present blush deepened considerably, and he couldn't have looked more like a tomato even if he tried to transfigure into one. "Th- Thank you." He smiled, unable to hold back a widening grin on his face. She was obviously a bit embarrassed, and it was ridiculously adorable. Andrew had never been much of a flirt, but he found himself unable to hold it back at this point.

"De Rien." He replied to her appreciations. "I can imagine!" He laughed with her.

"Prince Charming is the kind of vibe I tend to aim for," Tobias joked with a grin of his own. It wasn't true, of course; Tobias didn't really aim to be anyone other than Tobias. Or Toby. Or Tobes. Being Prince Charming as well was just purely coincidental you see.

At the shove, Toby simply beamed and retorted with a gentle shoulder poke for Soph. Just 'cause. Seemed fair. He barely registered the changing of the music, what with focusing on the actual dancing, and the whole hard of hearing thing. Because of this, he completely missed the potentially awkward moment there, but Tobias did not miss what Sophie asked. Y'know, considering she was like right in front of him.

He grinned yet again, and stopped 'dancing'.

"Maybe we could check out the other places for a bit," he nodded. "Dancing's a bit more exhausting than I remember." Plus, Tobias still didn't know what else there was to do.

And because he was enjoying playing up to the occasion, Tobias stepped closer and then offered his arm for her to like, hook onto, like in the movies. "Shall we, my lady?"

Ehehehe.

"I. Know," Fern answered, eyes even wider than Brynny's. "Oh definitely! When is your birthday, anyway? You must be turning 12 super soon."

The Hufflepuff flapped a sparkly manicured hand, "No problem!" Anything for her BFF, and besides, helping people with their fashion faux pas made Fern feel just like her favorite style columnist, Victoria Bunbury. Speaking of which, Fern had totally chosen a lilac purple dress and kept her signature color to her accessories because of that last article.

Fern squealed in response to her friend's enthusiasm. "And you will love it Brynny! Trust me, I know! I had makeovers all the time with Claudette and Minnie - they're these two super popular teenagers, you don't know them - and we did each other's nails and hair! It'll be just like that, but we'll makeover your wardrobe TOO!"

"The MOST popular." she held up an index finger at most, and jabbed the air when she repeated, "the MOST!" Then Fern tucked in her index finger and stuck out her pinky. "Let's pinky swear on it!"

Only one second after Brynny named the keyboardist, Fern cried, "D.C.!?!?" and stopped listening. This was so exciting! How did she not know this!? Fern was bursting with questions. How long had Brynny liked him? Had she sent him fan mail? Did she need help writing fan mail? Fern would so help her!

Wait. Wait wait wait. Why was Brynny crying? One minute she had been telling Fern all about her love for D.C. Fontaine, and now! "Brynny, Brynny don't cry! Oh don't cry! It's okay. It's okay." Fern reached out to put her arm around her friend, but Dante's seat was in the way.

But Dante wasn't here yet. Fern moved the napkin to the table, and scooted over. If anyone sat in her seat they'd be puking slugs for a month...as soon as Fern learned the spell, that is. "Brynny," Fern gave the first year a gentle tug on the wrist, trying to pull her hands away from her face. "If I had known I could have told Dante in his message to bring D.C. too, but don't worry because there's still our wedding. You'll meet him then."

It was hard not to be amused by Professor Flamsteed’s way of asking if any of West’s band was still hanging around. Odds were, they were there somewhere. Lily couldn’t believe that they would only have the two sets, unless the ball was already ending. That wasn’t a nice thought, either, even if she’d gotten to dance with Austin at least once. That had gotten all messed up by her guilt, and she really didn’t want to go back to that place. At least it seemed like somehow they’d gotten to an end to it all, or at least an escape. She wasn’t positive that they wouldn’t end up back at the topic again later, but at least it sort of felt like maybe things were getting better. She didn’t want to think that she’d damaged their relationship permanently. Except she couldn’t stop herself from commenting on what he had said once he’d spoken. “No, it isn’t. Because complimenting me doesn’t convince other people that you’re not rude,” she said softly, leaning into him just the tiniest bit as he had put his arm over her shoulders. She’d turned her head to look up at him as he’d eaten yet another chocolate after everything, too. “It’d be nice if you offered some of those to me.” At least she wasn’t stealing them.

Stealing chocolate didn’t quite seem like the best idea at the moment, and she hadn’t felt like getting up to go get some of her own either. She was too comfortable right where she was to want to move, if she hadn’t needed to. At least she was back to wanting to eat something, which meant that she had gotten away from a lot of the guilt. She just didn’t know if he’d take her request the wrong way. But then, apparently he was thinking about entirely different things now, as there had been the sudden suggestion of writing a song together. “Actually, I think a lot of couples do, but I’m not a song writer,” she argued half-heartedly, back to thinking about how he hadn’t heard her sing. He knew she played guitar, but not that she did other things too. She’d gotten close to revealing her singing ability to him at Christmas, but it hadn’t happened. By now, she almost wondered if he’d feel like she’d lied to him if he found out, too, and that wasn’t what she wanted at all.

There was a bit of a consolation here and at this point Austin would have taken anything rather than being stuck feeling bad because he made Lily frustrated with him as well as upset which wasn’t something he ever wanted to do again, it was all one mistake that managed to snowball almost to the point of entirely being out of control but seeing as they got things somewhat fixed to where at least any negative feelings had slowly been dissipating. It was a good start. At least better than before. “I know it doesn’t. I could have at least waited until after you were finished talking to mention it but since I didn’t, we ended up in the situation which I do not want to have happen again.” he explained, just trying to push away all of the bad things to the back of his mind where they wouldn’t have bothered him anymore. Honestly though there was nothing saying that he needed to worry about any potential damage to their relationship since that definitely wouldn’t have been good. As soon as she made the comment about the chocolates, he picked up the little plate in front of him and offered it out to her. “Well then, would you like a chocolate? Actually you can have as many as you want.” Apparently his manners seemed to disappear a long time ago.

Well at least she didn’t just take the chocolates from him since that really would have only brought things back to being bad and they really hadn’t needed to go through all of that again. Not now. Or ever for his liking. It appeared that his random comment about how they should write a song together didn’t get overlooked by his girlfriend which sort of was the intention, even if it was completely out of the blue. The point was to veer away from any potential return of the negativity. “Have you ever tried to write a song before? If not, I could always teach you; since you taught me how to play guitar and that worked out really well.” he explained, giving her a small smile since he was trying to convince her everything was going to be okay. There was still the curiosity of whether or not she could sing since there was almost an attempt at it over Christmas but it wasn’t exactly singing, more just humming but that didn’t mean he would have gotten her to prove whether or not she could; merely because it could have pushed limits and he was trying his best to keep things at a level of normality.

In any other situation, Lily would have almost found it funny how both she and Austin had ended up frustrated for different reasons. Actually, the funny part was that it was the same reason, just from two entirely different perspectives. One little thing had snowballed in to close to a complete disaster, considering she’d been close to feeling like she had after the confrontation with Shane, when she’d told him she was breaking up with him. The only thing that had saved her from really ending up back there was that Austin hadn’t been accusing her of anything. Actually, all the guilt had been on her side, and he hadn’t put any of it on her. That was still new to her, but then they hadn’t ever really argued before. Maybe in a weird way this was good. There were still things to discuss, though, no matter how much she’d rather just let it all go away entirely. Remembering this was better, because then it was possible they could avoid a repeat later on. “It wasn’t really that you interrupted. It was like you hadn’t even tried to notice there was someone else there, even given West a nod or something,” she said quietly, knowing her words could easily end up putting them back into the frustration. She understood his reasons, but that didn’t mean she wanted to just pretend there wasn’t ways to fix it without him even having to talk to people. At least her little teasing comment about the chocolate hadn’t been misunderstood. “I would like some chocolate. I’d offer you some berries, but I sort of ate them all.” She hadn’t really meant to. It had just sort of happened when she’d been trying to distract herself from feeling guilty.

She didn’t need to distract herself anymore. That didn’t mean she didn’t take a couple chocolates off of the plate as it had been offered to her. It would have been rude to decline, and weird. She had only managed to eat one of them before he had spoken again on the topic of songwriting, anyway. Stupid logic, poking holes in her halfhearted argument from before. “No, I haven’t. But I’m not a writer. I don’t even like writing a journal,” she replied, just because she didn’t want him thinking she’d been lying about having the ability to write songs. She wasn’t, and technically she wasn’t lying about being able to sing either. It wasn’t her fault he hadn’t asked, or tricked her into revealing the ability. That was usually how people found out, unless they just snuck up on her while she was singing, like Alec had done last year out by the lake. “I don’t think it’s the same, either. I didn’t actually do that much to teach you to play guitar.” He’d already known at least some things about how to play. She’d just helped him get better. She had absolutely no skills in songwriting. All she could do was read the music once the song had been written.

By now there was no question that any irritation regarding the earlier situation managed to disappear which had been more than simply just a good thing because Austin didn’t need to worry about the stutter potentially returning, he had understood everything Lily said to him and really didn’t want to be dealing with a repeat performance of making her upset especially considering everything she dealt with the previous summer with her last relationship ending. He wasn’t a bad guy. It was just that not everyone had managed to see that because of the fact that there was the problem with talking to people he hadn’t known and hopefully that could have been fixed just as easily as this issue had been. “I know. Really at the end of the day, this was all my fault. Simple as that. But with your help, maybe there’s a chance that we won’t have to deal with this again because I don’t like making you irritated with me.” he explained. Clearly their conversation was attempting to tiptoe around what had just happened which was a smart move since feeling all meh wasn’t fun, not when this was supposed to be a good time for both of them. Before he even had the opportunity to consider what to say next, the response to his offer of the chocolate caused him to laugh a little bit since it was amusing; the magically disappearing berries which almost made him remember what had happened that one Halloween before they were dating. “That’s alright. I know how much you like berries so I probably wouldn’t have wanted to take away any from you.” Wasn’t a big deal to him although there was at least some proof now that he hadn’t lost his manners after all.

The whole chocolate discussion apparently was enough to make them forget about other things and weirdly segue into somewhat of a debate on writing a song together which could have been fun, it was another excuse for getting alone time with his girlfriend and he was always willing to get time for that when they both were usually too busy with everything else. “You don’t have to be a writer, you just have to have an idea of what you’d want the song to turn out to be. It’s actually a lot more visual then writing anything down.” he said, trying to convince her that she would have been able to write something even if it might not have been good. It took practice. Like everything else in life, people weren’t just naturally talented at everything after all. “I guess. But I still want to teach you and also I have a question that I’ve been trying to get an answer to so I figured I could ask, can you actually sing? Since it seemed like you were trying to when I played you the song I wrote on Christmas but it was more like humming." There, the question had finally been asked and that meant there was a chance of finally getting an answer especially since it could have been far more interesting to come up with something they could both sing. All depended on what she answered.