Those twenty-eight soldiers had formed a circle that was about the same diameter as the gap between the House tables and the High Table’s dais. Two of the soldiers had the toes of their boots pressed against the side of the dais, on either side of Headmaster Dumbledore; whilst halfway round the circle, another soldier had his legs close to a corner of the Hufflepuff table and a fourth soldier had his legs close to a corner of the Ravenclaw table. The "gap" that the Royal Wizard referred to in the circle of outwards-facing soldiers, was that there was about a one-foot distance between one soldier in the circle and the next, at the shoulders.