2.
When everyone received their schedule for the coming semester, Hermione noticed there was something markedly different about hers.
She and the rest of the girls had ballet classes all through Monday and Wednesday, while Thursday was reserved for working with their personal mentor. The weekend was supposed to be their leisure time, when they rested their overworked bodies, soaked them in hot water and applied ice to whatever muscle had been strained. In reality, they would probably spend Friday morning practicing in one of the empty classrooms. Except, Hermione's Friday had already been booked...by Professor Riddle. Unlike all the other mentors, he seemed to require two days of rehearsal instead of one.
Ginny and Hannah commiserated with her in their common room.
"It's overkill, is what it is. What does he need a second class for? As if we don't already work ourselves to the bone!"
"Perhaps he's the one who is feeling insecure and needs a second meeting to impress me," Hermione joked lightly. The girls laughed. She mustered a smile, although she knew she was pretending. Deep down, she felt extremely uncertain about this addition to her schedule.
She got the feeling that the man wanted to teach her a lesson, and had singled her out to make an example of her. Then again, he was Voldemort, the young god of ballet. It couldn't hurt to listen. It was just that, she had never met a teacher who was so thoroughly displeased with her.
Hermione had been dancing since the tender age of four, and something she had realized a long time ago was that she was a people pleaser. Or rather, a teacher pleaser. In her short lifespan, she had not once made a teacher unhappy. In fact, this is what she excelled at. Technique and etiquette. She was always perfect at the barre, anticipating the way in which the teacher would tell her to lift her shoulders or stick out her fingers; she was always patient during centre exercises where a teacher might make her repeat an adagio combination ad infinitum. And she always performed the big jumps on the diagonal with a smile on her face, even if she was bored or tired. Class for her was where she shone as a ballerina. Class tested one's stamina and power of concentration. Class was for perfectionists.
The only hang-up in this almost too-good-to-be-true story was the actual dancing. A ballerina was not a ballerina unless she let go of the barre. When Hermione had to rehearse a piece, in a corps or as a soloist, when her movements had to convey a story or even a feeling, she performed well and correctly, but always with a sense of restraint. There was so much of dancing that was objective, and yet there was also a great unknown that was subjective and ambiguous and totally unpredictable. It was this artistic shadow which always gave her trouble, because technique alone could never secure it. And since ballet portended to be an art, this shadow mattered a great deal.
Hermione liked the abstract idea of dancing, not its concrete, sweat-and-blood reality. She did not like the shadow. She preferred the light.
Tom Riddle seemed to belong to a different school of thought, judging from his Bacchanale commentary.
But she would prove to him that she was worthy of Hogwarts, even though she might have different ideas about dancing.
"And dégagés! Port de bras and slowly, soutenu,...Now, in, in, and out, plié and rondes de jambe en l'air!"
Hermione followed Professor Sinistra's mixture of French and English instructions with total focus. They were getting their bodies in shape at the barre. She enjoyed how perfectly straight and rigid her leg could be one second and then malleable and soft during a pique turn. She never tired of seeing her body's potential in abstract form.
She hadn't even noticed someone else had entered the classroom. It was Parvati who coughed behind her and drew her attention, but she could hardly turn her head to see as she was straining every muscle for a perfect ronde de jambe en l'air. The newcomer walked among them as Professor Sinistra shouted further instructions.
She finally saw him in the mirror's reflection. Professor Riddle. He was dressed in a silk shirt and loose trousers. He looked as if he had returned from a fashionable soiree, and yet he also gave one an air of urban casualty. Meanwhile, her newly purchased leotard and skirt looked ratty by comparison. She suddenly felt self-conscious about her appearance, a thing she normally ignored. Her face looked wan in the mirror. She wished there was more colour in her cheeks.
He stopped a few feet behind her, watching her shoulder line intently. Hermione felt herself tense. Was it not good? The shoulders should always be down during this exercise. Should she bring them up? No, no, follow the instructions. He's not your professor here.
Suddenly, she felt a cold tap between her shoulder blades. He had taken out a long metal stick and was lightly poking her, as if to test her balance.
Hermione kept perfectly straight.
He hit her shoulder blades several times without result. Dissatisfied with her reaction, he jabbed the end of the stick into the side of her neck.
Hermione visibly winced, making her leg falter. She quickly regained position.
What do you want me to do?
But he did not say a single word. He only kept pressing the cool tip into her flesh, making her shiver and flinch. He was expecting something...she just did not know what. She tried to relax and let the metal stick guide her. But it still hurt. Whichever way she moved, he was always hurting her.
Hermione struggled through her ronde anyway, because finishing the exercise was what really mattered. She tried to act as if the pain was not there, as if she could push it to the back of her mind. She almost succeeded for a while, until he dragged the stick down to her waist and jabbed it cruelly in the small of her back. She didn't know what she might have done next if Professor Sinistra hadn't spoken up.
"Professor Riddle? While it is an honour to have you watch us, I'm afraid you are disrupting my class. As you can see, my girls need no distraction." She had spoken in a honeyed but crisp tone that allowed for no further argument.
He stepped away from her. Hermione could see him smile in the mirror's reflection. It was fractured.
"Carry on, please. I got what I came for," he spoke in a soft voice and walked away without so much as a glance back. She wondered what he had possibly gotten out of tormenting her.
Oh. That.
Thursday morning came too soon and Hermione was a bundle of nerves. Her unease had nothing to do with normal anxiety. She was not afraid of hard work, she was afraid of dubious work. What would he make her do? If Professor Sinistra's class had been any indication, she was going to be very uncomfortable.
He had selected a room on the lower levels of the school, which some students had dubbed "the dungeons" because they were below ground and usually darker and colder than their normal classrooms. Their advantage was an aural insulation and a better sound system. You could scream and cry and lose yourself in the music, if you wanted to. Some dancers did. She didn't.
She did not relish the thought of descending down those stairs to meet him. Ginny had to physically push her to do it.
"Don't be silly! He can't kill you, can he?"
"He might try."
"Then he'll have me to deal with."
Hermione rolled her eyes, but smiled. "And what are you going to do? Hit him with your pointes?"
"Oh, no, they're too expensive. But I'll throw the rosin box at him."
She shouldn't have worried so much. For the better part of an hour, Riddle did not even look at her.
She came into the room with her stomach in a tight coil and found him leafing distractedly through a book. He pressed start on the compact CD-player on the table next to him and told her to begin stretching and warming up. After which, he told her to rehearse the 3rd furiant movement in Dvorak's Symphony No. 6.
And then she could leave.
Leave? Just like that? Hermione couldn't believe it. This is what he had requested two days for?
She did not argue, however, as the relaxed programme suited her very well. She watched him surreptitiously as she did her routine warm-ups. He did not once look up from his book. He sat with his head propped in his hand, completely absorbed by whatever he was reading. He was also dressed down today in a grey V-necked T-shirt and comfortable slacks. He still looked glacial and forbidding, but as long as he did not focus his intimidating stare on her, she could breathe easily.
She actually enjoyed Dvorak – well, anything by him that was not a romantic waltz – and she pulled through it quite admirably; at least she thought she did. When the last movements were over and the track ended, she stood in the middle of the room and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She had barely broken a light sweat. She figured that she could schedule a hardcore practice session later that afternoon and not feel any worse for wear.
"Are you finished then?" he asked lightly, finally looking up from his book.
"Yes, Professor."
"And you feel you have danced the furiant as it was meant to be danced?" His tone was innocent of criticism, but there was a mischievous glint in his eyes that made her waver.
"As it was meant to be danced, Sir?"
"Yes. As thousands of ballerinas have done it before you and a thousand more will."
"I – I don't know. The piece reflects an individual interpretation every time it is performed –"
"I asked you a simple question." His tone was no longer light. "But I will repeat myself. Do you feel you have done Dvorak and his symphony justice?"
"Well...no one can truly do justice to such a brilliant and lyrical –"
He raised his hand and cut her off. "I see. Well, then, you shall simply have to dance until you feel comfortable to say you've done it justice."
"Sir...?"
He had picked up his book and was walking to the door. "I will be checking in, now and then, to see how you are doing. I will know if you left the room. I will know if you stopped dancing. Now...carry on."
Hermione gulped, feeling utterly lost.
He cast her one last glance before he shut the door behind him. Defy me if you dare, the glance seemed to say.
She stood there, alone and perplexed. He had not told her when she was meant to stop. He had not even told her – anything really. She marched to the CD-player and pressed play and began again.
She looked into the mirror at her movements as she pirouetted and performed grand battements with the same precision as the first time. There was no mistake in her technique, but if he objected to her "acting", she could improve that too. This symphony was usually staged as a village celebration where young men and women danced in the town square. Her dancing should reflect that. Fine. Remove the stiffness. Pretend you're in a Hungarian village. She tried to seem more celebratory as she rounded each move with a little throw of her head. Now she looked as if she was spinning uncontrollably. No, slower...maybe gentler? But gentler did not work with furiant.
She kept staring at her reflection and turning and turning and turning...like a mouse in a trap.
Was this his purpose? To drive her insane with her own thoughts? She couldn't pretend this was any other practice. Something had been wrong about her Dvorak and he wouldn't tell her what, and now she had to guess by confronting herself in the mirror. It was a nightmare. And he probably knew it.
By the fifth time around, she was swimming in her own sweat, but still she twirled her feet in the air and jumped and made the little embôités look like child's play. By the eighth time around, the embôités looked...less like play and more like pain.
By the tenth time she felt her knee would give out. By the twelfth, she almost collapsed on the floor, but she pulled herself up quickly and let her movements be more wide and generous so she might rest in between pauses.
It was only on the fifteenth turn around the room that he deigned to look in and see her progress.
"A little tired, are we?"
Hermione could hardly hide it. She was panting heavily and she could not even form a reply, as all her energy was spent on standing up and moving. Her steps were languid, much too languid, but stubborn in their persistence. She went forward and forward and forward...
And she almost tripped and fell into him.
He had walked into her path, a solid wall of ice, blocking her.
He grabbed her arms and spun her around, so that her back hit his chest. It was only now that she noticed the music had changed.
"Dvorak's Symphony No. 8, movement 3, waltz."
Hermione opened her mouth to issue a protest – she hated waltzes, she wasn't even ready – but one of his hands pinched the sensitive flesh under her armpit, settling below her breast. She could feel him against her sweat-soaked leotard. He was perfectly dry. She dropped her hand in his palm, her heart beating wildly in her chest. He was already guiding her in the four-step, which was even more taxing when performed en pointe.
His grip was not kind, but nor was it rough. It promised pain if she did not comply, but it also made a thrill run down her spine because he held her like a professional.
She complied.
For this particular dance, she was supposed to be "willowy", or at least this is what the textbooks informed her. The popular staging was that of a shy girl who was pretending to dance by herself because no one would ask her. When she finally found a partner, she was so relieved, she let herself float, almost as if she were boneless. The movements were supposed to be sedated.
On a regular day, she could not have done it because she found neither the story nor the girl compelling.
Yet, since she was so thoroughly exhausted, her body naturally slouched and leaned into his without hesitation. When he turned her around to face him, he only had to exert a little pressure on her middle for her to tilt her head back in a perfect rendition of a willow.
She was dancing in a way, but she felt it was only a series of chutes. She kept falling and being picked up by him. He moved effortlessly, like he was skating instead of dancing, and if she had been a little more alert, she might have admired his grace.
When it was time for the final movement, she was supposed to sway with him while keeping her back perfectly arched. She was so tired that she did not feel embarrassed by the position. Usually, she would have gone stiff and tense and focused on technique, but right now, she just wanted it to be over.
When the music stopped, she still felt his fingers on the small of her back, mean and hard and skilled. And then he let her go for good. She dropped inelegantly on the floor. She lay there like a sack of potatoes, entirely spent.
He looked down at her in triumph.
"There was nothing wrong with your furiant, by the way."
Hermione squinted at him, breathing in and out with great effort. Of course. The sole purpose of Symphony No. 6 had been to tire her enough for Symphony No. 8. He had known she would not be comfortable with the waltz. So, he had exhausted her to the point of not caring.
It was horrid and diabolical and entirely genius.
He bent forward. His jaw looked cut from hard diamond. She did not know if it was make-up or simply the hardness of his face.
"If I have to break every bone in your body and turn you into a shell of your former self in order to get you to dance, I will." There was a pregnant pause during which she forgot to breathe. "You may leave now."
Hermione struggled to gather her bearings. She didn't even know where she was anymore. She remembered now. The "dungeons". How fitting.
She felt angry and sad and confused. But most of all, she felt hollow, as if there was an important piece of knowledge which had slipped through her fingers.
"Professor...?"
"Yes?"
"What did you mean by what you said in Professor Sinistra's class?"
"You will have to spell it out."
"You said – you said you had got what you'd come for."
"Did I?" he echoed, giving her an amused look. "Oh, yes, I did say that when I was beating you with a stick."
Hermione's cheeks flushed deeply. "You weren't–"
"But I was. And if that dull woman had not been in the room, I would have beaten you more thoroughly. In fact, I am tempted to do it again very soon."
"But why?"
Her question seemed out of place. She should have told him he was insane and walked out of the room instead of asking why. Her nagging curiosity always trumped her sense of preservation.
Riddle's eyes almost flashed red for a moment. "Why? Because I discovered I was right."
"Right about what?" she asked in a small voice.
"You, Miss Granger," he said, picking up his jacket from the chair, "you enjoy pain. You perform better when you are hurt. Badly."
Hermione's mouth fell open. "I absolutely do not enjoy pain."
He cocked his head to the side, considering her for a moment. "Nine o'clock sharp tomorrow. And do sew some fresh ribbons on those pointes. You seem to have torn them."
So, I'm extremely grateful for all your reviews! I hope you enjoyed this second chapter and that it wasn't too amateurish. I'm also reading a bit about ballet, so I am trying to apply that knowledge here. Please share your thoughts!