My Time to Shine (Dance Moms/Harry Potter Crossover - Part 1)

Chapter 10: A Place To Practice

Mackenzie
November 20th, 2015

Well, the Room of Requirement is still not completely fixed. We've managed to stretch it out a little bit from its broom cupboard size into a square. If I stay directly in the center of the room, I can practice my turns without hitting anything. It has actually been very good for me to do and Miss Abby did say they were getting stronger! Yay!

The room was partially destroyed by fiend fire during the battle of Hogwarts resulting in a lack of ability to change into something else to suit the user's needs. The progress we have made, however, has been the result of Rosie's mom,  Hermione's hard work. Professor Longbottom and Hermione had been students and fought in the Battle of Hogwarts together. She actually saw the fire that destroyed the room, taking along a part of Lord Voldemort's soul, so can we complain? Not really. She has been developing ideas and sending them to Longbottom to try out. She has had only a small amount of success so far but is confident she will eventually find something to repair it to full function!

Other than the small success with my improved turns, dancing is not going very well. Miss Abby has taken me out of two more group dances and I haven't gotten to do a solo at all yet. Meanwhile, Maddie has gotten and won a solo for every competition we have done and been the featured dancer in the group piece EVERY time too. She's barely even there and is still Abby's favourite, I don't understand! Our mom keeps yelling at me too. She says if I get kicked off the Junior Elite Competition team, I won't be able to attend Hogwarts anymore. It's horrible. All I want to do is spend time with Scorpius, Abbie, Alison, and Kevin! PLUS she doesn't even care that I have top grades. The fact that I actually WANT to do my homework doesn't even matter to her. To be fair, these subjects are so much more interesting than muggle school subjects. I wouldn't ever want to do my math homework but give me charms homework and it's basically free time!

Don't even get me started on Maddie. She continues to call me lazy and fat (since we sleep near the kitchens, big deal!) and won't let up on the Hufflepuff "jokes". She says we aren't special or smart and don't do anything but eat and sit around. Meanwhile, she hasn't gotten above an A for "Acceptable" and is even failing charms. I told her I could help her if she wanted, it's my best subject, but she started yelling at me about how I'm a bad dancer and charms aren't important. Mom also told me to mind my own business and that Maddie's grades are of no importance to me. Shouldn't that also mean that my dancing is of no importance to her? You'd think so.

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Mackenzie, Maddie, and Melissa had spent Christmas in Scotland. They didn't have enough time to go back to the United States, as Abby had made a rigorous schedule for her team to do some intense training and rehearsal while the Ziegler sisters were on a week-long break from Hogwarts.

Their days were at least eight hours long. Maddie and Mackenzie had to stay late for some extra private lessons, as Abby felt they needed some work after being at school and not in the studio as much as the other girls. They had ballet, jazz, floor work, and legs and feet classes every single day and Abby made them do fitness workouts when she wasn't working directly with them. They had never been pushed so hard in their lives.

Abby taught and cleaned several routines so they wouldn't have to use as much weekend time once January rolled around. They would be having a more intense competition schedule once the break was over. The girls would be learning their dances on Fridays and going to competitions on Saturdays and Sundays. This meant Maddie and Mackenzie would be missing lessons now, a fact that Kenzie was less than pleased with. She felt the impending doom that she would be kicked off the team and also that her marks may suffer.

On her first day back at school, Mackenzie felt so relieved to be back. While she enjoyed the company of her fellow first years, she also had nagging stress following her. She couldn't help it. She had to learn routines one day and perform them the next almost every week until Nationals which were to take place at the beginning of April here in the UK.