Music & Letters

Bertie was sat by the piano in the music room on the fifth floor. It was a glorious Friday, making up for the showers throughout April. Orange sunlight poured through the window panes, causing the brass instruments to a shimmer almost gold-like. It was six o clock and Bertie had just come from the feast twenty minutes ago. In front of him on top of the piano was a piece of parchment, a bottle of ink and his quill. Bertie was writing a letter to the Daily Prophet although at the moment all he had put was 'Dear Sir/ Madame.'

Bertie placed his fingers on the A, D & F keys. The melancholic sound hummed off the walls around the room. He slowly paced his fingers from A to D to F to D to A. Increasing the tempo with each sequence. After that he moved up to a Bm chord and continued to do the same.

After repeating this three times he paused and reached for the quill writing the words. My name is Bertie Nogard and I am currently a third year student at Hogwarts. I love to write about events and invent some of my own using my imagination.
'No.' Bertie said aloud to himself before screwing up the parchment and knocking it on the floor where it joined other balls of parchment that gathered around the harp besides the piano.

Returning to the piano he began to repeat the sequence he'd previously played, although doing the same with a C and a Gm chord after he'd arpeggiated with Bm. 'I want to write. I want to shout. I want to tell the world my story.' He sung along. 'I want people to know my name. I want to leave them in awe as they reach the end of my words. I want to write for the Daily Prophet.' He hadn't really sung the words so to speak, more spoke them melodically. Why writing this letter was so difficult he had no idea, perhaps it was the perfectionist in him?

[[OOC: What year's Bertie in? Molly is fifth.]]

Molly was walking down the corridor, when she heard something coming from the music room. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she poked her head around the door. She stood there for a moment, listening to some guy playing the piano. She couldn't see who it was, the piano was blocking her view from there.

Molly then realised she'd been standing there for a few minutes, neither entering nor leaving. She didn't want the guy to think she was spying or anything, but it probably looked like she was. One of these days, she would learn how to talk to people without them thinking she was a psychopath. She wasn't or anything, she just wasn't that good with people.

She hovered at the door, not wanting to surprise him or anything. She just liked listening. She hadn't been brought up in the most musical of households. Molly wondered if she would have been any good at playing an instrument. She could sing alright-ish, she thought, which was better than her ability for most things magical. Aside from Quidditch, of course.

Bertie continued to run his fingers up and down the keys. 'Or do I?' Bertie said, this time stopping the melody and thinking. Did he really want to write for the daily prophet? Throughout it's history there had been periods of biased poisoning the paper. Although he did enjoy being creative. 

He stood up and leant over writing on the parchment:
Putting my defences up, I don't want to think about it. If mind gets on it I think I'll scream and shout. Scream and shout. It'll make me want to scream and shout.
 So now he was writing a song about how he didn't want to think about his future and a career. 

'Maybe I could be a musician?' Bertie murmured to himself, then he looked up, facing him across the piano in the doorway was a red haired girl, and for a change it wasn't Vivianna.

'Sorry. Was I being too loud? I'll leave if you like.' Bertie spoke swiftly, stumbled upon the odd vowel as he bent down to gather up the balls of parchment that would soon take residence in the waste paper basket in the corner of the music room.

Hearing a voice, Molly came back to reality. Sometimes she just went off into her thoughts, the music seemed to help that.

"Oh, sorry." she said, not even knowing what she was apologizing for. "I mean, no, it wasn't too loud. I was just listening." she explained, hoping she didn't sound too stalker-like.

"You're really good." she added. She meant it as well, not saying it to clear the air. Though it might help, not that she knew it. "I don't know much about music, my family don't really care about it. But I think it sounded good." she added, half helping and half hindering herself.

Molly made a mental note to stop talking. She would end up saying something offensive, she always seemed to. Saying her family didn't like music wasn't bad, right? It was just an opinion. Opinions weren't offensive. Ok, maybe sometimes, but this wasn't. She thought she liked music. She liked singing to songs on the radio in her room at home, when her parents didn't ask her to turn it off.

Bertie's shyness quickly evaporated. The girl was older than him yes, but like him equally as bad at socialising with new people. He took the balls of parchment to the bin and let them drop from his arms. 

'Thanks.' He smiled, a pale pink populating his cheeks embarrassed at the compliment. He wasn't technically amazing although Bertie was creative with his music, people could play but they couldn't always compose. 

'Don't worry.' He replied, walking back to the piano. 'My family aren't musical. One of my cousins is musical though and maybe- maybe some people on my Dads side.' He cut short. He couldn't remember his Father although he did have a faint memory of causing a piano to play by itself and a sudden scream and shouting - it was a mans voice who shouted, he could hear his Mums voice too, or what would have been his Mums voice years ago. He wasn't always sure if it was a memory, maybe he had imagined it as he did everything else. His Mum had never spoken about how her and his Father split up, not that this bothered Bertie. He loved his Mother and if anything it just being the two of them had brought them closer.

'Want me to teach you?' Bertie asked, moving sideways to make room on the piano stool. 'If you don't want to learn piano I can show you another instrument, or perhaps you'd just like to listen?' 

Molly smiled as he thanked her, glad he didn't seem to think she was strange for hanging around the corridors, listening in on people. She always got on better with people one-on-one, in big groups she just never said anything and ended up daydreaming and not getting involved.

"Your welcome." Molly responded. "Lots of wizarding families aren't that musical, I don't know why. Some of them think it's too muggle-like, I guess." she added, before she realized Bertie might not be from a wizarding family. Would that sound bad?

"I don't mind, I mean. Just some people might. I don't seem to be good at much wizarding stuff anyway. I'm ok at magic, but not great at most subjects, apart from Magical Creatures." Molly rambled on a bit, trying to not offend Bertie. It was unlike her to ramble, as soon as she realized what she was doing, she shut up.

Not wanting to risk saying anything else, she nodded and sat beside him on the piano stool. "I'll be rubbish, but you can try." she simply said, to clarify. She knew she needed to work on her social skills. Today wouldn't be the day, she decided, though she did often say that to herself. Today would be the day for music, she justified in her mind.

Bertie sat confused, staring at the way the Gryffindor began to ramble on. He himself knew when he tried to compensate for treading somewhere he shouldn't in a conversation and Molly was displaying these signs, although he didn't know why, nothing she had said offended him. 'I am sure you have other talents.' He said encouragingly.

Bertie gave the girl a comforting smile as she sat besides him. 'I'm Bertie.' He said, hoping to ease her timidness. He was only thirteen and it seemed weird to be the non-shy one in a conversation. It was refreshing and he could empathise with the girl, he knew the feeling she was experience. He'd felt it when he first saw her but her own behavior had eased him.

'I am sure you will be.' He said thinking what to teach her. Something simply if it was her first time. He placed his thumb and four fingers side by side on the keys. 'The thumb is finger one, the pinky is finger five.' Then, with finger five on G and one on C he began to played the following melody: E D C D E E E D D D E G G E D C D E E E D D E D C.

'Mary had a little lamb. It's a muggle nursery rhyme' Bertie informed her. 'I'll teach you that? Or we could do London Bridges' Bertie loved to teach and help people, he got a thrill out of it and wanted those he helped have some enjoyment out of what they were doing. Learning was mean't to be fun.

Molly smiled. She played Quidditch and seemed to have a talent with magical creatures, she wasn't completely hopeless. Just anything involving essays, memorising theory and taking exams made her want to slam her head against the desk. School was so not for her, she was glad she only had another two years left.

"Oh sorry, I'm Molly." she introduced herself. Molly cursed herself for forgetting the basics. This is why she never had any friends.

She carefully watched what he was doing with his hands. She was better at practical things than writing stuff, so she had hope that she might not be too bad at it. It was her first time though.

"That's fine, I'll try that one." Molly said whilst nodding, wishing that some wizarding nursary rhymes at tunes, thinking it would be easier to learn something that she knew the tune to.

She placed her fingers on the keys as Bertie had, and tried to remember the tune that he just played. She remembered it started with the middle finger, went down then back up again. Molly got to E D C D E E E, before forgetting what was next. She paused, trying to think.

"How did it go again?" she asked Bertie, knowing that she was never going to remember it. She kind of liked this piano playing. She liked singing along to songs, but strictly kept it to the bedroom, fearing she was no good. Molly wondered if music was something she could ever be good at. It had never really crossed her mind before now, but it was starting to.

Bertie watched as Molly Weasley play the start of the melody that he had just showed her. When Bertie often started learning a new song, especially one that he didn't know, he found that singing along helped him. Placing his fingers on the upper octave he played the melody again, this time singing: 'three two one two three three three two two two three five five three two one two three three three two two three two one.'

He blushed slightly when he finished singing. He wasn't the best, or at least he didn't think so. There was a warm, crispiness to his voice that he disliked. 'Sorry.' He murmured, embarrassed that the girl had just heard him sing on their first meeting. 'I often find singing along can help me pick it up easier.' He hastily added, hoping to recover.

'This is rather easy, but if you like we can move onto more advanced stuff?' Bertie's eyes lit up. 'Or we could even try a different instrument!' The excitement of all the creativity ahead of him, creativity that he got to share with an acquaintance was clearly visible in his face.

Molly watched him playing the tune again, following his fingers up and down the piano. He then started singing the finger-numbers along to it. He didn't have a bad voice, Molly noted. She noticed him blushing though once he'd finished, though she couldn't tell why.

"You're not bad at singing." she told him, not wanting him to feel embarrassed. "Maybe that will help." she added.

Molly placed her fingers on the keys as she did before, and sung aloud whilst she played some of the tune.

"Three, two, one, two, three, three, three, two, two two, three, five three." she got halfway through, before forgetting what the next number and note was. She had gotten further than the previous time, which was surely a good sign. She was a decent enough singer, though she thought she was pretty average herself.

"Well I can only do half of it, but that's probably my memory. If I wrote it down, it would probably be easier." Molly suggested. "And yeah, another instrument would be fun, though I can barely do this one at the moment." she commented, not wanting to sound stupid. Bertie had had a lot more practice than her, after all. She was glad he was excited, and she couldn't deny that she'd been having fun. It was much better than memorizing transfiguration theory, that was for sure!