Chapter 7 Since our outfits match, would you like to dance?

The girls were talking about Musa's playlist when they were joined by their green eyed friend.

"Where were you? We were starting to get worried when we didn't see you enter the ballroom after us." Stella asked while grabbing a drink from the buffet. Fortunately, Flora had already prepared an answer for her friends' questions.

"I went to help some teachers do some last minute touches on the decorations." She said, adding an innocent smile to the end of her excuse.

"Well don't worry you didn't miss much." Tecna informed her.

However, before she could continue to brief her on what she missed, Bloom entered the Ballroom still in her casual outfit and ran to their sides. Stopping to catch her breath after her exhausting little sprint.

Flora would have really wanted to talk to Bloom in private about what she walked in earlier, but she decided to confront her about it later. Now was not the time. She appeared to have something important to tell them.

Dimitri walked in the ballroom a few minutes after her and joined his colleagues talking in one of the corners of the spacious room. But his walk was cut off by three of his second year students, all wearing the same flirty smiles on their faces.

"Professor Darkell, would you like to come and dance with us?" the one in the middle asked him in her annoying high pitched voice.

"Sorry girls, but I can't."

"Why not!?" they all whined at the same time.

"It's forbidden for a teacher to have any relationship with his students outside of class and sadly that includes slow dancing."

When he saw their dejected expressions he quickly added:

"I would have loved dancing with you girls but I really don't want you getting in trouble with Mrs. Griselda because of me. It would be too selfish of me." His words made the fairies smile at his "kindness". After wishing him a good evening before taking their leave.

When he turned around to continue his conversation with professor Wizgiz on the history of shape shifting he noticed Flora and her friends in the distance.

'What are they up to?'

The girls couldn't believe what their red-headed friend had just told them. In a few minutes little nasty creatures would pop out of the eggs that the specialist had planned to offer them, all because of a curse created by the Trix.

"What are we going to do?" Musa said to no one in particular, when she saw the chest being brought in and opened.

"Do a counter curse." A voice ordered firmly behind them.

And for the second time of the day, they turned around and were faced with their history teacher. But contrary to last time he was not smiling, his face only showed seriousness.

"Make a circle and hold hands." They followed his instructions without any questions, well except Stella of course.

"Are you not going to do it with us?" She asked curiously when she noticed that he didn't join the circle.

"My powers are not compatible with yours. Now repeat after me." They nodded their heads to signal him that they were ready.

"What it once was, let it be again." And they said it until the spell worked, wrapping the eggs with a gold glow. And just in time.

After their use of magic, they were all exhausted. They were all breathing hard and leaning on the wall. If someone had seen them then they would have thought that they had run five laps around the school grounds.

"Brilliant, you did a good job. I will inform Faragonda of your talent in counter spelling, I'm sure she will be proud of you five." He congratulated them. They smiled at his words.

A handsome specialist gave Stella a golden egg, but before she could even open it Musa snatched it from her and handed it to Flora.

"Flo are you thinking what I'm thinking by any chance?"

"I am indeed, luckily I studied Palladium's lesson very well. Now I'll make a little surprise blossom for our three little witch friends." And her green magic enveloped the egg before disappearing as quickly as it appeared.

"What did you do to the egg?" Bloom asked her, confused.

"I'll tell you later now run and go change." But her red friend didn't leave immediately, her gaze passed from Flora to the teacher standing next to her to land back on Flora.

"And about….?" But this time Darkell spoke up.

"Like your friend said, she'll explain later. Now go or you'll miss out on the ball." Bloom chose to listen to him and ran as fast she could to her bedroom.

"Well girls, because of all that, I didn't even have the chance to compliment your dresses. You all look lovely tonight." Professor Darkell automatically returned to his usual charming mode. He looked at all of their outfits and they instinctively stopped on the red roses of Flora's dress. Now that he noticed the closet had been too dark, she looked stunning tonight.

Remembering that they had not yet finished their conversation, he extended a hand to her, shocking all the girls' including Flora. "Since our outfits match, would you like to dance?"

She understood immediately that he wanted to talk, so she agreed by placing her hand in his.

"I'd love to."

They heard and tried to ignore Stella's yells in the background. "I KNEW IT! YOU ARE DAT..." Fortunately Musa put a hand on her mouth muffling the rest of her blond friend's words.

He led them away from the others. While she placed quite timidly her other hand on his shoulder, he wrapped an arm around her waist. They swayed to the music's rhythm. Flora was looking past his shoulder trying to avoid eye contact with him and the people around them. Dancing with a teacher was already embarrassing enough. She could swear that she could feel every Alfea girls' glare on her and maybe even Griselda's. She knew she was going to regret this.

"I'm going to do something that I thought I would never do." His breath was tickling her ear making her shiver a little bit. He continued.

"I'm going to let you keep your promise..."

"You mean you're going to trust me." Rephrasing his words in her way.

The mage's eyebrow twitched annoyed at being corrected.

"Yes…I'm going to try and trust..." he said, gritting his teeth. Saying these words was killing him inside.

Flora raised her eyes to meet his.

"I won't betray your trust, don't worry." He could sense the honesty pouring out of her voice. And she smiled sweetly at him. He smirked back at her, and she was ecstatic about it.

You're probably asking yourself why, it's not even a real smile. Maybe. But it was one of those rare times that she saw professor Darkell without his mask on. There wasn't any fake charm or politeness covering up that smirk. And she liked it. After that they just continued to dance, laughing at professor Wizgiz getting scolded by Griselda after transforming into a mouse and passing between everybody's legs to get to the buffet faster, resulting in a lot of scared screams.

But good things always came to an end. Flora caught a glimpse of her friends running out of the ball room. Something bad had happened. She turned to tell Darkell but he had already noticed.

"Let's go, I think something happened to your friend Bloom."