Benedict would have liked to say he enjoyed watching all the debutantes on display in their finery, they were beautiful after all and many of them had had the boys fawning over them for years, but Ben's eyes were only in one place, he wanted to watch Millie, watching them, getting to enjoy what she missed last year. And then they were done, mingled in with the crowd and dancing the last vestiges of their childhood away, seven years of work boiled down to a glance exchanged by eager men across the room.

He wasn't here to dwell on all that, he was here for Millie. The Gryffindor boy smiled as Millie accepted his gift warmly and seemed quite taken with both the gesture and the item itself. He enjoyed seeing her pretty smile, it was certainly a change from the anxiety ridden frowns she had been sporting in the last few weeks. I guess I must have been” he laughed as she commented on his error in recollection ”Next thing you know I'll be eating my salad with my fish fork like some kind of animal.” He would have made this gift anyway even if he had known, he loved her and wanted nothing more than to show her it.

Did he?

He had a private smile to himself as he asked himself a question he had considered a few times but suddenly it posed itself and seemed to demand a proper answer. The interlude of placing the new ribbon quietly around her wrist after she tore the old dance card away gave him a moment where he could hide the expression his face. He knew he dare not say it, but dare he think it? She had been in his life and his best friend for more than a year and he knew that if this fantasy of a courtship was happening between them in only a half dozen years time, society would expect him to have asked her father for her hand already. But now, right here, right now. The only truthful answer he could give himself was yes.

His heart fluttered as he finished tying the ribbon in its delicate bow and kissed the place where the threads met with the politeness of a ball goer, but with a softness that their personal connection demanded. ”Perfect! And now it's official that I have a dance booked with the diamond of the season.” he said with a slightly goofy. He held her hand a little longer and then turned to allow her to reposition next to him and place herself into the fold of his elbow.

The music for the previous dance was ongoing and he held her. It would be their first proper dance together so he wouldn't rush it, not just to savour it but he keenly suspected Millie might be nervous. He had missed the dancing last year for his own chosen priority so this would be the first for both of them. It would mean nothing to the multitude of other dancing couples swirling around. But it meant a lot to Ben and Millie.

"The next dance starts soon, you ready?