Risu needed a break. The muscles and nerves and bones in his arm, at his age already approaching their best-before date, felt strangely limp and exhausted after he'd been shaking hands with a positively infinite number of former students and professors for a time that seemed similarly unending.

One of the people whose hands he'd grasped, more or less on autopilot at that time, had turned out to be a long-forgotten fellow Slytherin from Risu's student days. She had recognised him, and, in a manner that had echoed faintly in his memory, pulled him onto the dance floor. Risu, usually fairly unenthusiastic about bodily exertion, was still a decent dancer - not a virtuoso by any measure, but the simple grace of his steps was perhaps more fitting in any case - and they'd weaved their way through the other students, past and present, for an enjoyable twenty minutes.

Risu's acquaintance had then excused herself to have some dinner with her husband, and Risu, a thin film of sweat on his face, grabbed a jug of pumpkin juice before climbing the staff dais where, he was pleased to see, he was not going to be on his own. "Good evening, Hecate. Iliana." He nodded and smiled at both of them as he joined the little group of teachers. "Professor Lawson," he added, stretching out his hand to Iliana's husband - the two of them had never exchanged more than a few words, so Risu did not feel comfortable going for the first name right away. "How are you?"