Their Arms Are Reaching Out To Hold You Tight

Three days. Only three days left until he left for America with his friends. He couldn't believe his parents were finally letting him go on his own without them. Of course he'd still be going with adult supervision. He was just glad that it was going to be with his Uncle Jamison. He was the most child-like out of all his uncles, Dylan absolutely loved his uncle. He could always do what he wanted when he was around.

Imagine spending the summer with someone who let you do whatever you wanted. Staying with his uncle was even cooler than that.

Dylan had promised his mother that he'd be back home in time for dinner. That meant he had more than half the day to do whatever in Diagon Alley and get ready for his trip. After about two hours of going around Diagon and finding most of what he thought he would need - there was plenty more he needed to do, but he was going to go back another day before he left - Dylan figured he would go to the Leaky Cauldron for some lunch.

He knew that today there would be an Open Mic there too. Maybe he'd finally get up on the stage to perform for the first time since Zandell died. He hoped he wouldn't mess it up if he did. Dylan looked at the stage, where a girl was getting ready to perform and he sat near the stage. He wasn't sure if performing was a good idea.

Coralie was practically drowning in boredom. There just wasn't anything for her to occupy her time with, besides reading of course. But, even that did grow old after awhile, and her parents were starting to become much more pushy in getting her out of the house. It was almost an everyday thing now that she would be forced out of the house until around dinner time, and Coralie never put in much effort to fight her parent's wishes.

She had been in Diagon all morning, and just aimlessly walked around. She did go into a few shops but mostly spending her time staring in awe at some of the complex window displays.Cora lost track of time completely, and it was only when her stomach started to growl was when she realized that it must have been nearing lunch time.

Cora had made her way into the Leaky Cauldron and was surprised to see that it was Open Mic. She quickly scanned some of the seats near the stage, and found a pretty good one that was considerably close. Coralie quickly made her way over to the seat, and on her way she asked one of the workers to bring her over a cup of tea. Once she had gotten her cup of tea, she took a small sip that made a bit of a slurping noise. Cora did, in fact, notice a few glances her way which caused her to look down in embarrassment.

[OOC: So Dylan's going to get on stage now. Maybe Coralie recognizes him and when he gets off she goes over to him or something?]

Staring down at his music book, Dylan barely paid attention to the girl who was on stage. He could hear the beat to her song and sometimes let his attention be drawn by what she sang. But most of the time he worked on finishing the song he had been working on for two days now. Once she was off the stage, Dylan was drawn out of his thoughts by the manager saying,

"Anyone else want to share their talents with us?"

Dylan bit his lip and stood up from his seat. "I will." he said, raising his hand and walking over to the stage. The manager handed him the mic and wished him good luck before he got off the stage. Dylan looked at the crowd and suddenly felt something he'd never felt before when he was on stage.

Fear.

He'd never been scared to perform before. But that was before, Zandell was always there to help him through it. Taking a deep breath he looked at the everyone and smiled, imagining that his best friends were there with him. "I'm going to sing a song I wrote. It's called I'll Be For You. I hope you all enjoy."

The music started playing and Dylan looked down while he waited for the part where the lyrics started.

[OOC: Sounds good haha!]

Coralie watched as a girl got on the stage. She ended up being a pretty good performer, but it didn't really keep Cora's attention focus on her. It was only nice background music to her never ending floating mind. So when the music came to a stop, it shook her quite abruptly from her thoughts.

She paid barely any attention to the manager asking for other volunteers to perform for the audience in the pub, but the voice that answered did spark her interest. She followed the sound to the voice to a boy who was getting on to the stage. At first she had no idea why she felt like she knew who the boy was, but that was understandable as Cora guessed she must have seen him around during the school year. But, when he had looked out at the crowd it clicked, it was Dylan , the boy she had fancied for most of the past school year.

Cora couldn't help but smile when the music had started, there had been talk about him being very good, but she had never heard him herself. She quickly picked up the cup to conceal a bit of her now red cheeks, and took a few more sips. Though, there might have been others staring at the boy on the stage, Cora had to look away as she felt a bit weird for staring at him, even if it hadn't been that long.

"I'll be for you... I'll be for you..."

Dylan opened his eyes as he finished singing and replaced the mic back onto the stand where it had been before the manager had given it to him. Before walking off the stage, he moved closer to the mic and said, "Thank you." with a smile.

As he walked off the stage, people clapped and a few cheered. He didn't think they'd like the song that much, but Dylan did have a knack for writing songs, though he always doubted his ability. He always thought his songs were no good and he never really wanted to perform them on his own.

Performing the way he did today, well it was something major and he only wished Zandell had been there to see him. He sat down in his seat again and opened his book. Writing down a few new lyrics for a new song, Dylan wrote in the corner of the page, I know you aren't here anymore. But that doesn't mean we've stopped being friends.

She had expected him to be good, but not as great as he was. Cora was certainly impressed, but the question that wouldn't leave her mind was beginning to haunt her; Do you want to talk to him? It was on a nonstop cycle on an endless repeat of itself ever since he began to sing.

It seemed like such a simple thing, but to Coralie it was not the easiest thing for her to do. She wasn't very good at making conversation, especially since this was a boy who she fancied, and even with that aside, she rarely started conversations. There was a first time for everything, though.

Once the clapping and cheering ended, Coralie abandoned her seat and the half full cup of tea. She watched to where he had walked, and slowly made her way over to him. The closer she got the more nervous she seemed to get, and Cora was pretty sure there was a faint blush on her cheeks, but she knew if she was going to go through with it she had to at least act confident.

"Er, hi? Um, your voice is pretty amazing..." She spoke, looking down at her feet. It was different for her to approach someone, and she managed to not make a big fool of herself, she just hoped it paid off.

Dylan had already launched himself into another song making section when the next volunteer got up onto the stage. He had stopped listening to the other performers and only focused on his song that was already close to being finished. He knew that later on he would go back to it and find some things that needed to be changed.

But for now at least, he would just write down lyrics that sounded good to him. He was already quite proud the the songs and he had about three fourths of it finished. As he started to finish, he had trouble thinking of what else he could write down so he slowly allowed himself to be plunged back into the 'world of the living' as he and Zandell always called it after they had been working on music.

He came back just in time to notice someone had approached him and was speaking to him. ... Voice is pretty amazing... he looked up at who it was and smiled when he recognized the girl. "Er, thanks." he said, half unsure of what she had been talking about. "Hey, you're Coralie right? You're in my house?" he asked her.

Coralie was considering running away from the conversation as she waited for him to reply. She most likely just made the biggest fool out of herself, and did not want him to think of her any more badly.

So when he did reply, it certainly did surprise her. Cora was even more surprised that he knew who she was, she barely spoke to anyone. "Uh, yeah, that's me, I guess. You're Dylan, right? I honestly did not expect for you to be that good." Cora rushed out, then immediately  regretted it. Her cheeks turned a pinkish color out of embarrassment, she had wished she thought what she said through.

While she stood there willing her cheeks to go back to their normal color, Coralie glanced down at what he was focused on seconds before. It seemed like he had been really into what he was doing, so Cora could not help but be curious. She could not tell what it was, it was just words on paper from her view.

Dylan couldn't help the chuckle that escaped his lips when she said she hadn't expected him to be that good of a singer. He couldn't be angry at her for thinking that, not that he would've been if he'd actually been able to anyways.

Dylan didn't seem like he could actually sing to most people. The amount of people that said they hadn't expected him to be a good singer was unbelievable but Dylan didn't judge. He honestly couldn't believe the way he sang most of the time either. He'd never had much confidence in himself to sing in front of people before.

It was Zandell that had actually gotten him on stage the first time he did it. Dylan had been so certain that he couldn't sing that he was about to just run off but Zan had convinced him to try and after he heard the cheering, he believed he had some skill. But he always doubted his ability.

"That's right, I'm Dylan." he smiled at her. "I don't blame you for that. I don't seem like I can sing." he added, laughing a bit at his own words. They sounded so ridiculous coming from him.