Les Misérables | Regulus A. Black [1]

Chapter Twelve

[Chapter Twelve]

Éponine would be the first to admit that she was not a dancer, she was not blessed with the ability to move to the rhythm of music and every movement of hers would only be considered awkward. However, for Regulus to actually ask her to dance, it had initially caught her off guard that she couldn't help but say yes. She only hoped that he had asked her on his own and that it wasn't a result of one of the adults prompting him to do so. Yet, all the adults seemed too busy and occupied with their own conversations to even bother looking over in the direction of the two. So perhaps it wasn't just wishful thinking, Regulus had taken the initiative to ask her to dance all on his own, which promptly brought a small grin to her face. 

However, the smile faded as Regulus led her over to the dance floor where others were beginning to sway to the music, only because she didn't want to make a fool out of herself. With only a few others dancing, it was going to be quite obvious that she didn't have a clue as to what she was doing. Suddenly, her hands gripped Regulus' arms, causing him to turn to her with a bewildered look, he could see the fear etched on her face as her eyes were scanning the room. He was venturing to ask what was bothering her when she started to pull away from him. He couldn't help but wonder what he had done wrong that time?

"What is it now?" He asked, feeling slightly frustrated. He had asked her to dance, she agreed and nothing wrong had happened in between the short span of time. Why was she backing out all of a sudden?

Her nervous gaze shifted to peer over at him before she looked down at her shoes. "I'm sorry, Regulus, it's just...I'm not the best dancer," she whispered to him. "In fact, I don't know how to dance at all. I don't want to embarrass you."

He stopped for a moment, trying to process what she said, wondering if he had heard her correctly. She was worried about embarrassing him rather than herself? That was where her priorities lied at the moment? Is that how her parents had practically trained her to be? To put others before herself in such a way that it didn't matter if she made a fool out of herself as long as she didn't make a fool out of others?

"You won't embarrass me," Regulus finally replied, " I'm not much of a dancer either, but I think we can manage just moving around a few steps in place, right? We'll just follow what the others are doing, it doesn't seem so difficult."

Looking over in her direction again, Éponine still seemed awfully nervous as she was chewing on the inside of her lower lip while looking at the other people. Suddenly, Regulus felt bad for even asking her to dance as it seemed to put so much pressure on her to do it, even if it was out of her comfort zone.

"O-on second thought," he began, " I don't really feel like dancing. We can do something else."

"Like what?"

He didn't have the slightest clue, but he knew he had to come up with something fast. "We could walk around outside," he suggested. "It's a really nice day out unless you rather stay in here?"