The first time that Ninette found herself dancing at Hogwarts, it was like moving into another world. Of course, the entire previous day had been another world, starting with Platform nine and three-quarters and continuing through the ride on the Hogwarts Express and finally Hogwarts itself “ but dancing was the greatest change, because it was the only thing which was remotely familiar. Familiar, yet at the same time it was completely different. For the first time since she was six, Aunt Edris was not around the corner, watching through the window, pen in hand, waiting with a list of corrections. For the first time in her life, she was not dancing for her aunt.
Yet, after the novelty of the first few days had worn off, she found that things were much the same. The surface had changed “ the people and the classes here were different “ but she was the same as she had always been, alone in class and dancing in all her spare time. And though her aunt was gone, the mirror was left, implacable and impossible to satisfy.
She had hoped, without even admitting it to herself, that she would find friends here. Her aunt had always told her that friends were unnecessary, even detrimental. “Anyone who does not dance is a distraction,” she had said. “Anyone who does is competition.” When Ninette had first started ballet classes, Aunt Edris never let her stay after to play and talk with the other girls; she took her home to practice. It had paid off “ in her aunt’s mind, at least. Ninette had soon been moved to a more advanced class; the girls here were older and had not been interested in the friendship of someone so much younger than themselves.
School had been no different. On the first day, Aunt Edris had informed the teacher that Ninette was not allowed to play on the playground, for fear of injuring her knees. The teacher, Miss Ellis, sought to be kind to the painfully shy little girl, and sat with her on the bench all through the breaks.
It had not taken long for the other children to catch on to this. “Teacher’s pet,” they taunted, whenever Miss Ellis was out of earshot. “Baby! Can’t play with the big kids!” As she got older, it got worse. Melissa Piper moved from London and joined her class, both in school and in ballet. Melissa was everything Ninette was not, and she led the girls in a new round of tormenting. “Ninny!” they would jeer. “Ninny, the baby ballerina! Isn’t she sweet?” Or, “Here comes Ninette the Marionette!” Then they would tug on her hair, pretending to pull her strings, and pinch her till she was left with bruises, taunting all the while, “Careful, mustn’t hurt precious little Ninny “ she doesn’t have a mother to take care of her, but she might tell her aunt on us!” Melissa made sure that even dancing was no longer safe. So Ninette hid, as she had always done, under a mask of silence.
She had hoped it might be different at Hogwarts. She had climbed onto the train with high hopes that she did not know existed until they were dashed. Arriving at the train early, as usual, she had sat in a compartment by herself. About half an hour later three boys had come in, and she had been too shy and too afraid to even look up. Boys had always frightened her beyond almost anything else. She knew nothing of them, living as she did with her aunt, attending an all-girls school and dancing ballet, where partners were hard to find.
These boys had talked, in their loud, rough, boy-talk, and she had been afraid. She stared at the floor, keeping her face as still as possible, pretending she was alone with her aunt. Then they had started talking to her. Harmless questions, at first “ who was she, where was she from, what year was she in? Hardly daring to raise her eyes, Ninette answered in a whisper.
That did it, for them “ she did not seem real, nothing more than a toy, so the next half-hour they amused themselves with her, throwing question after question, long after she had stopped answering. They were not trying to hurt her, merely using her as a prop to show off their masculinity to each other, but she did not know this and she was hurt.
“D’you have a boyfriend?”
“Have you ever been kissed?”
“D’you want to spend some time with me this afternoon?”
“ I’ll be your boyfriend!”
They interrupted each other constantly, and gales of laughter followed each question. Ninette withdrew farther and farther into her corner, staring steadfastly at the floor with an imperturbable countenance, wishing herself to disintegrate into nothingness.
They had grown tired of their game eventually, and moved back to the other side of the compartment to discuss other things, but she had not moved, not for that whole train ride. By the time they had arrived at school she had given up on friendship; she felt more alone than she had even at school on the worst days, for she had not even her aunt anymore.
People had spoken to her that first night, but pressured by her fear and her shyness, she enveloped herself in the iron cloak her aunt had bestowed upon her; a guard, which let nothing escape. Tonks smiled at her and seemed kind “ but Ninette did not know how to respond, any more than she had known how to answer the boys on the train. The confidence which seemed so natural in Tonks and the others was foreign to her nature when she was not dancing. She stuttered out her answers and fled from the others, and was not surprised when they began to avoid her. Justine was frankly contemptuous from the first, and Tonks soon lost her friendliness. She noticed the beseeching glances Tonks sent at the other girls when forced to be her partner, and she was glad she had not known the words to respond that first night.
She threw herself even more into her dancing.
Her new teacher was very different from what Ninette had expected. She knew all about her, of course “ Aunt Edris had taken care of that. At the age of nineteen, Cécile Dubois had become principle in the French Ballet; over the next three years she had become known through the world as one of the greatest living ballet dancers. She had danced practically every classical role imaginable, continuing as a principle dancer in her prime into her late thirties “ the world wondered at her stamina. Late in her career she fought with the director of the French Ballet, and defected to England to dance with the Royal Ballet in London. Even after she stopped dancing in the ballet, she continued as a teacher “ a private, selective teacher, choosing her students by hand. Nearly all of them went on to become dancers in their own right. She had retired from teaching fifteen years ago, though she still occasionally took a rising dancer under her wing. Theresa had promised that Ninette would be an exception.
Until Cécile Dubois actually joined her in the room that Dumbledore had allotted her for dancing, Ninette could not believe that she would actually come, that she would consider Ninette to be a fitting pupil. And when the famous dancer finally arrived (she was to floo into Dumbledore’s office before each lesson), Ninette was mortally afraid that she would turn around and floo back home as soon as she had seen her prospective student.
She did not. She smiled kindly and introduced herself, as if Ninette did not already know who she was nor her entire life’s history. “Ninette, chérie,” she greeted her, “I am Cécile Dubois, but you will please call me Madame, yes?” Ninette, of course, agreed. “Bien,” Madame continued. “Alors, we will start now. Show to me how it iz zat you dance.”
That first day Ninette danced for an hour without interruption “ Madame only spoke to tell her what combination to do next. She danced as well as she possibly could, determined to do her best for her new teacher, whom she wanted more than anything to keep. At the end Madame had her take off her shoes, and she herself stepped forward and took Ninette’s leg with her strong hands. She stretched Ninette’s legs upwards, seeing how high they could reach and how far they could turn out, pressing until Ninette almost “ but not quite “ gasped aloud in pain.
Finally she stepped back and stood looking at Ninette. Ninette dropped her head and stared at the ground, sure that she was about to be rejected. But Madame reached under her chin with two strong fingers and lifted it high. “You must stand like zis always,” she said sternly. “Show to ze people your long neck. You ‘ave a beautiful body for a dancer, but you must be careful. It iz not enough to ‘ave a body only “ you must use it. Alors, ma petite, let us go over zat chassé arabesque. You need to keep yourself centered “ over ze balls of your feet, like zis, you understand?”
She demonstrated, and Ninette found herself holding her breath to see this old lady dance with the beauty and strength of a young woman.
“Zere, can you do it like zat?”
Ninette tried. Though the mirror showed her that she did not have the old lady’s strength or extension, Madame seemed pleased. “Zere, you see? Eet was much better. Do not worry yourself about ze height of ze leg “ zat will come in time. You are a quick learner! Eh bien, but you must do it like zat all ze time! If you can do it like zat, why do you ever do it differently? It is much better zis way! Now keep it like zat, except you must support your arms from your back, not your shoulders “ like so!” And then the process would begin again.
With every lesson Madame seemed to show her new heights she might reach. Ninette became more determined than ever, both to please herself and to please Madame, for she began to care for Madame the way she had cared for only two others in all the time she could remember “ Janet and Theresa.
But Madame was strict “ stricter than Theresa, even more strict than Aunt Edris in her own way. A mistake, once corrected, was no longer excusable from that minute forth. They had returned to the basics, making sure that every movement was up to Madame’s standards, improving each until it was truly beautiful. Once Ninette had done a step, or even part of a step, the way Madame wanted it, she was expected to do it that way every time. While Ninette could feel herself improving and understanding more each lessons, she sometimes felt as if she could never catch up; every improvement she made was immediately followed with a new critique and a more difficult element to learn.
Madame, usually gentle, sometimes forgot that she was not coaching a grown dancer. “Non, non, not zat way!” she would exclaim. “How many times must I tell to you? “ you are holding your arms wrong, and you must bring your feet together “ like zis “ uzzerwise it looks terrible. Deed you hear? Terrible!
“You must improve zat! Concentrate! Learn it so zat you have no need to think about it. A danseur must be able to think of uzzer things, ze feeling, ze musique, ze story “ on stage, you must not have to tell your body how it iz zat your arms should go. Only when your body knows “ knows and understands “ ze movements so well zat it can do zem wizzout help, zen you will be able to do it as it is meant to be done. So, you must focus!”
Ninette started getting up earlier in the morning to practice. As soon as classes were over in the afternoon, she hurried to the made-over classroom and danced. She practiced even in the classes themselves, using class time to stretch her arches, pointing and flexing her toes to strengthen her feet. During meals, or while waiting to be dismissed, she went over the steps in her mind; “You must know zem well enough to dance zem in your sleep,” Madame had said.
Some days Madame praised her, and then she would feel a thrill of happiness run through her entire body. But other times, after her teacher had left and she stayed alone in the classroom to practice, the mirror would gloat at her, and the happiness would dissipate. “You call yourself a dancer?” her reflection in the mirror seemed to say. “You call that dancing?”
Yet she was not unhappy “ she was more free than she had been since her first day of dancing under Aunt Edris’ watchful eye.
She went through her days in a sort of haze; dancing and lessons and dancing again “ it was with surprise one day that she realized she could do magic. Not big magic “ but she could make her wand light up, or make an object rise up in the air before her. She was far from being the best in her class “ she sometimes struggled for a long time over simple spells that people like Tonks mastered during class time. Nonetheless, it gave her a warm glow inside, knowing that she could make things happen with a wave of her wand. It wasn’t like dancing at all “ it was concrete and tangible, something she could grasp. She began working harder on her lessons at night.
At the same time, she started noticing the other students around her more. Who they were, what they were likely to say in class, how they treated each other “ and her new observation stemmed from a short encounter with a boy.
It had been a hard day “ she had woken up earlier than usual, and pushed herself very hard in her morning practice. Madame had been displeased with her the day before, and Ninette felt that she had to make up for her mistakes in her next lesson. She was tired by lunch time, and when she entered the Great Hall to see that her usual place (the one at the end of the Gryffindor table) was occupied by a group of third years, she nearly skipped the meal altogether. The only thing that made her stay was that she wanted to have a good practice that evening, and dancing without eating was exhausting. The new seat she found was uncomfortably close to the section of the table occupied by the three other first year Gryffindor girls.
She saw them before they saw her and immediately stared down at her plate, watching out of the corner of her eye. Tonks and Marianne bypassed her without a glance, but as usual Justine had time for a whispered taunt.
“Why hello, Ninny! What a surprise to see you sitting so close to us. Are you sure you don’t mind dining with us lesser mortals?”
Ninette didn’t answer, and Justine continued on to her seat. Nevertheless, Ninette finished her meal much more quickly than usual, and escaped from the Great Hall with half an hour to spare. Too much time to wait, not enough time to dance. For want of anything better to do, she made her way to her next class “ Charms “ and sat down at her usual table in the corner.
Her table. It was hers because no one else ever sat there; by mutual consent, everyone avoided her seat, not only in Charms but in the other classes as well. She wondered if they thought she was contagious “ though she did not know of what disease she might be accused.
She glanced at the clock “ no one was due to come in for another fifteen minutes, and she had her leotard on underneath. Pulling up her robes to her waist, she began to stretch her legs, going through her splits and extensions.
Someone was ten minutes earlier than usual. She was lucky, and heard him at the door “ she managed to pull down her robes, covering her leotard, and was scrambling to her feet as he entered.
If he was surprised to see her half on the ground, he did not show it. His freckled face seemed to light up to see someone else in the room. It was Charlie Weasley “ one of the boys to whom she had not spoken since the first day. Dropping her gaze to the floor, Ninette slipped into her seat without a word.
“Hello,” he said brightly. She glanced back up in surprise to see him still looking at her, his grin broader than ever.
Her voice was sticking in her throat, but she managed to force out a quiet response.
He did the last thing she expected, and crossed the room, stopping right in front of her table. Automatically she shrank back, but he did not seem to notice.
“You’re Ninette, right?” he prompted. She managed a wordless nod, but he did not seem repulsed “ his face practically shone with goodwill. “I never see you around,” he remarked cheerfully. “You always disappear right after class.”
She made no response, but he pressed on undeterred. “D’you mind if I sit with you? My friend Kevin accidentally put the leg-locker hex on himself and then fell down the stairs, so he’s in the hospital wing.”
Without a word she moved her books to the side to make room for him.
“Thank you,” he said, smiling. Every particle of her body wanted to move away from him “ he was too close, and she was unused to sharing a desk with anyone, much less with a boy.
They sat in silence for a minute; Ninette thought she ought to say something, but couldn’t think of anything to say. “Is he alright?” she asked at last, scarcely daring to believe that she had spoken.
“Who?” Charlie looked mystified. The pause had been too long.
“Your friend.” She regretting having spoken at all. Silence would have been better.
“Oh, Kevin? He’s fine now, I’m sure. He broke his ankle, but Madam Pomfrey will have patched him up by now. Bill “ that’s my brother “ says Madam Pomfrey is excellent.”
“She can just fix his ankle “ just like that?” Ninette’s incredulity overcame her fear of speaking. A broken ankle was a major setback to a dancer.
Charlie just nodded matter-of-factly. “Of course.”
They lapsed back into silence. People were beginning to trickle into the room; several gave Ninette odd glances, probably surprised to see her sitting with someone for a change.
“Where did your name come from?”
Surprised, Ninette turned back to Charlie. “Sorry?”
“Your name is unusual “ where did it come from?” he asked again.
“My mother chose it,” she answered. “After Ninette de Valois.”
“Who?”
“Ninette de Valois.” Charlie still looked uncomprehending, so she continued. “The founder of the Royal Ballet.”
“What’s ballet?”
Ninette did not know how to answer that “ she dropped her gaze to the table, and was still sitting in silence when Professor Flitwick entered the room and began class.
She would not have been surprised if Charlie had repented of his actions and abandoned her when class was over. However, he turned to her as the bell rang. “D’you want to come play Exploding Snap?” he demanded. “Kevin’s probably out of the Hospital Wing by now.”
For one delightful moment she considered it; then she remembered Justine’s teasing, and an image of her aunt’s face flashed through her mind.
It was only Charlie’s kindness which made her answer him at all. “I have to go,” she whispered, before fleeing down the corridor towards the safe haven of her practice room.
That was all “ the entire incident. It did not develop into anything more, and Ninette remained as friendless as ever, though Charlie smiled at her once in a while in the halls. However, she started noticing the other students, connecting the names and faces even of students in other years.
“Now an elevé in first position. How does zat feel? Lift your weight out of your ‘ips “ it will take some of ze pressure off of ze toes. Yes, zat is better. Now, put your weight into ze right foot, left leg into a coupé. Passé “ toes back, heels forward. Non, do not sickle! Do not sickle!”
Ninette always came out of her lessons not only tired but often in pain. Aside from sore muscles, she had only in the last month started pointe work. She had looked forward to putting on pointe shoes for years. Her feet were strong “ she could walk on her toes quite easily “ and yet it had been a question of waiting until they were fully developed.
Now they were “ and her own dancing was a far cry from the easy gracefulness she had seen so often on stage. In the shoes, her feet felt twice their normal weight. For a long time she had pointed her feet without a thought, but now they felt stiff as wooden blocks.
“Not like zat! Not like zat!” came the cry, over and over again. “Do you not know why zey first began to use ze points? It was Taglioni “ graceful and light “ who began to dance on her toes. Do you know why? She wanted to give ze impression of a sylph, skimming along ze ground! A sylph “ not an elephant. Light! You must be light!”
She never danced en pointe for long; fifteen minutes, perhaps half an hour a day, and only under Madame’s close supervision. Even this was hard on her feet; they blistered and ached almost constantly.
One day she came back from her practice and examined them closely. She had always been secretly proud of her feet; they were small and white and dainty, with graceful toes and a strong arch “ perfect feet for a dancer, she had been told. However now they were changed; although she rubbed them with ointment and enclosed them in bandages, they had become rough and raw. Her toes were covered in blisters, and she was developing ugly calluses. They would get uglier still as time went on, she knew “ it was a secret dancers hid underneath their beautiful poise and grace. All the same, she could hardly bear to look at them “ they seemed hideous, physical reminders of all her blemishes.
She averted her eyes as she pulled her nightdress on, and put her clothes away quickly. Pressing her ankles together she lay stomach down on her bed in the frog position with her knees spread apart, and strove to push her ankles down. As she started her Transfiguration essay, she could not help but be distracted by the giggles from the other side of the room. The three girls were sitting on Marianne’s bed with their heads close together. She watched them wistfully for a minute, with a feeling that was new to her “ a yearning that seemed to have started at the time of her short encounter with Charlie. Even her aunt’s words echoing in her head “ “dancing must come first “ before friends, before family, before anything” “ did not stop her from wishing.
Then Justine looked up and met her eyes; she raised her eyebrows and sent Ninette a questioning look. “What are you doing, watching us?” the look seemed to ask. “You have no business intruding into our affairs. Leave us alone. There’s no room for you here.”
Ninette dropped her gaze; even if she had been able to overcome her aunt’s maxims, it would not have mattered “ they did not want her.
AN: Thanks to HermioneDancr, who very kindly beta-d all the ballet parts in this chapter.