FINDING THE MUSE
By Rain Fletcher
Part 2
Monday's classes took somewhere between a century and eternity to drag by, and Harry was finding more and more that he could not focus as well as he needed. Never before had reading required such effort, not even studying for O.W.L.s the previous spring. The voices of his instructors, the words on the page, none of them were breaking through clearly over the noise in his head.
Nor, as he was coming to discover, was Quidditch practice. They were doing extensive Keeper drills today, which essentially meant that everyone rapidly took turns at being Chaser and attempting to fire the quaffle past Ron, giving him as many different "looks" to defend as possible. While Katie, Ginny and even some of the team's several newcomers had been able to give Ron all he could handle, Harry's goal-scoring attempts had been uninspired at best, and Ron had smothered every attempt handily.
And so it was that as the team made its way back to the castle in twos and threes, Ron fixed his friend with an odd look and said "Mate, be straight with me. Were you going soft on purpose?"
"What?" Harry blinked, having been lost in his own thoughts.
"Just now, at practice. Were you going easy on me? 'Cause you don't have to - I'm loads better now, I promise. You don't have to worry about squashing my ego."
"Oh, right. Er- no, I wasn't trying to go easy on you. I just… didn't have my head in the game today. And chaser's not my normal thing anyway."
"Intimidated by King Weasley," Ron nodded, airily. "I understand, of course. If I had to face me, I wouldn't have my head in the game either."
"Exactly," said Harry, absently.
After several more steps in silence, Ron gave a bark of laughter. "Harry, I was joking! You really are lost in the clouds lately, aren't you? Are you spending time with Looney Lovegood or something?"
A passage of bassoon music flitted through Harry's head, which he then shook. "I just have a lot on my mind, Ron. Sorry I haven't been the best company lately."
"Listen, Harry," Ron said, in a surprisingly serious tone, "if there's anything you need to talk about…"
Harry was trying to think of the right way to say that he didn't know what the anything was, when Ron finished his sentence: "…I'm sure you could catch Hermione in the common room later."
"What?" Harry said, pulling up short and turning to face Ron, who was giving him a quirky half-grin.
"Merlin's socks, Harry, that was a joke too. Seriously, mate, I'm trying here, but you're going to have to meet me halfway - I'm running out of witty quips. What's eating you?"
For perhaps the hundredth time, Harry almost told him about the Prophecy, but again, as every time before, a wall came down somewhere in his own mind, and he could not even begin the story. "That's just it," he said instead, wearily. "Whatever it is that's truly wrong, whatever it is that I need… I don't know what it is."
He started back toward the castle, Ron quickly falling into step beside him. "Okay," the older boy said after a while. "But if you figure it out, and you do want to talk about it?"
"I'll be sure to find Hermione, thanks."
"Good man. In the meantime, maybe what you need is to get your arse handed to you in a game of chess. Fancy a go later?"
"Maybe in a bit, sure."
The chess game did not immediately come about, however, as by the time Harry was out of the shower and changed, Ron was snoozing lightly on his four-poster. Harry decided not to wake him - Ron had a tendency to get worn out by Keeper drills at the best of times.
There was reading he should have been doing, and he knew it, but he couldn't bring himself to crack open any of his textbooks. He wondered darkly whether he'd be able to concentrate sufficiently to retain any of it anyway.
With the evening meal still a good distance off, Harry instead took to wandering the castle halls at random, replaying the conversation with Ron in his head. He had summed it up for himself beautifully, on reflection - he simply had no idea whatsoever what he needed.
It was then that the thought came, like lightning crashing through the fog in his brain. He may not have had an idea of what he needed, but there was something - or more accurately somewhere - that might know. Striding with a purpose, now, he took the nearest staircase upward, starting the winding path toward the Room of Requirement.
A few detours later (thanks to the constantly shifting staircases), he was in the correct hall, but to his dismay, he saw that the room was already in use, with the door propped open just slightly. It was probably just as well, though, as he was more than a little dubious at the thought of what he might have found there.
Before he could turn around, however, something oddly familiar reached his ears, and for the second time in three days he found himself stopped short by the nearby sound of music. Someone was playing a piano.
Harry started back down the hall toward the Room of Requirement, and sure enough, the music was coming from inside. He paused at the door, which was hanging open just enough for him to slip inside. Curious as to what (or who) he might find, he did so.
The Room of Requirement had become a cosy recital hall. Glass-fronted cabinets lined two of the walls, their shelves filled with musical instruments of every shape and size: horns, pipes, percussion, reeds, strings and more. The shelves on the remaining walls were filled to bursting with books of sheet music, books on technique, studies of instrument types, and other volumes simply beyond his experience. In one corner, an elaborate percussion kit was assembled. In another, three harps of varying size stood side by side.
And dominating the room, in the very center, stood a beautiful grand piano, its lid propped open. Seated at the keys, constantly looking between her sheet music and her fingers, face screwed up in almost comic concentration, was Hermione.
Harry blinked a few times, somewhat startled to find her there. Stumbling across Luna out by the lake playing a bassoon had been one thing, but Hermione? In all the years he had known her, she had never even hinted at this particular skill. Why hadn't she told him about it?
The song was distantly familiar to him, but he could not place it. It was slow and haunting, equal parts concert hall and horror movie. And for all her look of terrified focus, she was playing it rather well, to Harry's ear.
He stepped quietly closer, approaching her from one side. Just as he was trying to consider the least startling and most polite method of drawing her attention, though, she looked up and saw him.
The song stopped dead in its tracks as Hermione's face went through several different emotions at once, among them surprise, happiness to see him, and flat-out mortification, but she quickly reassembled them into an embarrassed smile. "Hello, Harry," she said, somewhat lamely.
"You play piano?" he asked, then mentally kicked himself. "I mean, obviously you do, sorry, I just had no idea."
"I started lessons three years before I came here to Hogwarts," she told him, absently massaging her fingers. "But since I've been here, I've really had no chance to practice, what with studies and homework and now prefect duties, and… I suppose I stopped thinking about it much."
Harry found himself a chair and pulled it up alongside the piano bench. "Well, you sounded great for being that far out of practice. What are you playing?" He craned his neck around to try to get a look at her sheet music, but could not find a title.
"Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata," she replied. "It was one of the last songs I ever learned to play, and even then I had to fudge it a little because my hands were too small to play it properly. I was so proud of myself, though."
Hermione was actually beaming with that pride as she remembered this, Harry noticed, though she still looked more than a little shy. It was a different sort of pride than he was used to seeing, too. He was far more used to the Hermione who expected perfection of herself, and who upon achieving it looked more relieved than anything else. This was something more akin to the Hermione who felt she had truly accomplished something by knitting elf-hats for S.P.E.W., or the one who had come up with the means for the D.A. to communicate their meeting times.
"What made you decide to come up here?" Harry asked, glancing around the room. "I mean, it's obvious enough what you came here for, but why?"
"I was thinking about how we met Luna out by the lake on Saturday," she said, suddenly appearing very interested in a speck that had gotten under her fingernail. "And… I was thinking about how I scarcely gave the piano a second thought once I arrived here. There was suddenly so much else to learn, and master. Every summer, I'd think about it again and practice a little, but less and less every year, and…" She looked up at him, frowning softly. "It never even occurred to me that I should ask McGonagall or Dumbledore if I could continue studying music, and looking at it now, I don't think I could have if I'd wanted to. There really is no music here."
"I wish I could tell you otherwise," said a soft voice, startling them both. Harry looked over to see that Luna was inexplicably standing there at the crook of the piano, looking at them sadly.
"Luna, do you always have to sneak up on people like that?" he sighed, running his hands back through his hair.
She cocked an eyebrow at him. "It behooves one to step quietly in a recital hall. Are the two of you playing a duet?"
"Oh, no, I was just… seeing how much I remembered," Hermione said, looking embarrassed all over again. "I was just telling Harry how I've hardly played in years."
Luna nodded, then turned sleepy eyes to Harry. "Do you play?"
"Me? No, not me. I've never tried, really."
"That's a shame. I like playing with others." She turned back to Hermione. "May we hear you play again, then?"
"Oh, I… I couldn't possibly."
"Why not?"
"Luna, I haven't played in front of other people since my last recital! I was eleven years old!"
"You played in front of me just a few moments ago," Harry pointed out, grinning in spite of himself at Hermione's expression of growing desperation.
"But I didn't know you were there!"
He shrugged. "Then pretend we're not here now." He scooted his chair back away from the piano to give her some room. "Here, I'll back up. I'll even look the other way if you like."
"Harry, don't be silly," Hermione snapped, but she looked more nervous than angry. She took a deep breath, let out a terse sigh, turned to the first page of her score, then nodded to herself more than to them. "Fine. I'll play."
There was a long silence, as Hermione stared at her hands, Harry tried to stare in any direction other than hers, and Luna stared toward the glass-fronted cabinets of instruments. Finally, Hermione began, letting the slow, haunting, three-count sonata gradually fill the room. Harry chanced a quick glance at her, and saw that she was completely absorbed in her work, her face creased more than ever with the effort of it.
Several measures into the song, Luna left the crook of the piano and started toward the display shelves, padding silently across the hardwood floor. Harry watched, curious as to what she might be up to, as she opened one of the glass-fronted cabinets and began rummaging through several of the shelves. She appeared to be assembling something.
Harry had a sudden uncomfortable mental image of Sonata for Piano and Bassoon, but when Luna came back, it was with a much different instrument: a flute made of a glossy, dark wood, with polished silvery stops. Still treading silently, the Ravenclaw made her way back around the piano, settled herself at the crook, and briefly gave Harry a particularly dreamy smile before bringing the flute to her lips.
And then, with the next change of movement (or tone, or mood, or chord, or whatever the technical term might be - Harry couldn't be sure), Luna added a surprisingly low-pitched trill (Harry would not have expected a flute could play so low), perfectly underscoring the mood, gradually broadening it into a melody that both matched and countered Hermione's own playing. Harry found himself again shocked at Luna, this time at the way she'd so quickly and effortlessly joined in.
Almost immediately, though, Hermione started making obvious mistakes, and finally ground to a halt. Luna took the flute from her lips and gazed blankly at the other girl for a moment, then said "Please, keep playing."
"I- I'm sorry, Luna," Hermione replied, looking a little flustered. "It's just that… I'm really very much out of practice, and… no offense meant, but that was very distracting."
Luna blinked slowly, but her expression did not change. "I thought you might like it."
"Yes, well… it sounded lovely, but… it's been years since I played much, and it's all I can do to get it right."
"Get it… right," Luna repeated, and now there was the trace of a smile on her lips.
"Yes, I used to have this song memorised, you see, but it's been years, and now I can scarcely keep up with the notes on the page."
Luna nodded slowly. "You want to play perfectly."
Hermione flushed slightly. "Well, no… not perfectly, but…"
"I think you do," Luna interrupted. "Writing is very powerful in its permanence. You've always trusted books to show you perfection. I think you exhaust yourself trying to live up to the written word." She pointed absently at the score. "Or the written notes."
For a moment, Hermione could not answer, and Harry was caught between amazed at Luna's observation and amused at the way Hermione was opening and closing her mouth like a fish out of water. "But- but-"
"It doesn't have to be perfect," Luna went on, patiently. "It's your song, after all."
"But it's not my song," Hermione protested. "It's Beethoven's song, and he wrote it this way." She waved her hand over the sheet music for emphasis.
Luna gave her a wide, drowsy smile. "What a silly thing to say," she chuckled. "It's not Beethoven's song. He's dead."
"Yes, I know that," Hermione sighed, showing the first telltale signs of genuine frustration, "but this is the way he meant it to be played. I have to be true to the music."
"True to the music," Luna echoed, nodding faintly. She looked thoughtfully into Hermione's eyes for a moment, then stepped closer to the keys, reached out, and plucked the pages from the stand atop the piano.
After making a show of studying them carefully, she handed the pages to Harry, then turned back to Hermione. "That isn't music," she said, in a voice barely over a whisper. "That's dots and lines. That's how Beethoven gave it to you, so it could be your song, too. But the music comes from here," Luna raised one hand to her chest, then lowered it to point to Hermione's hands "and here."
There was a long silence, and Harry looked from one girl to the other. Luna had the look of someone telling an important secret, and Hermione appeared puzzled, though no longer exasperated.
"Could you play it again, please?" Luna asked at last.
Hermione looked from Luna, to Harry, to the music in Harry's hands, "But… I do still need…"
"Try without it?" Luna insisted. "Trust me?"
"Al- alright," Hermione agreed, placing her hands over the keys. She stared down at them for a long while, as Luna took a step back toward the crook of the piano.
At length, Hermione started playing. At first, she continued glancing between her hands and the now-empty music stand atop the piano, but then she started focusing all her attention on the keys, her face now showing an odd mix of determination and dread.
Shortly thereafter, Luna raised the flute again to her lips. At first, she was barely audible, adding only a soft layer of accompaniment to the melody. Harry stared at her, watching her fingers glide over the stops, frankly amazed at the ease of her movements. Playing a flute seemed as natural to her as breathing. As Harry watched, she closed her eyes, but continued playing, swaying gently in time.
They played on, Luna's piping growing in complexity as they continued. More than once, Harry heard Hermione hit a wrong note and saw her wince, but she kept going, and the momentary lapses were quickly forgotten.
He closed his own eyes for a moment, letting the notes wash over him, around him, and through him, and for a while he could think of nothing else. The entire experience seemed impossible. Hermione Granger and Luna Lovegood, probably the two most dissimilar girls Harry had ever met, were somehow creating something together as they played: something with shape, color, texture, and… magic of its own. There was nothing else to call it.
Then and there, as each swell from the piano was met with rapid runs from the flute more delicate than birdsong, Harry understood what Luna had meant when they had met her under the tree on Saturday. How could there be no music at Hogwarts? How could anyone claim to be studying magic without moments like these?
Then the song faded to a close, and the feeling was gone, even as he tried to grasp it. Harry's eyes popped open, and he looked from Hermione, who appeared thoroughly confused, to Luna, who seemed almost sad.
The silence was broken by the sound of someone clapping, and the three looked over to see Ernie MacMillan, a sixth-year from Hufflepuff, leaning against the doorway. "Well done," he nodded, looking quite impressed.
"Er- th-thank you," Hermione stammered, now appearing almost disoriented. She stood up from the bench, again massaging her fingers absently.
"When I saw the door open, I thought you might have decided to have a D.A. meeting without me," Ernie smiled. "But this was certainly a pleasant surprise."
Luna cocked her head at their visitor. "Do you play?" she asked him.
Ernie was a bit taken aback by her answer. "In a manner of speaking," he said. "But… that's for another day. Please, carry on."
With that, he bowed slightly, waved, and headed off, but not before Harry saw an odd smile light up his face. He hoped it wasn't what he thought it was: the last thing they needed was more grist in their already overworked rumour mill.
Luna, meanwhile, had crossed over to Hermione, and with the hand that wasn't holding her flute, she reached out to take Hermione's own. "Thank you," she smiled. "Wasn't that nicer than dots and lines?"
"How did you do that?" Hermione asked her. "I should never have been able to play without the score. Did you do something?"
"I played a duet with you, silly."
"But… how was I able to..?"
"I haven't played a proper duet since before Mum died," Luna went on, the sad look returning. "She played the piano very well."
Hermione's mouth opened into a small "o" of surprise, and Harry remembered that she hadn't known about Luna's mother. "Oh, Luna," she whispered, "I'm so sorry." She then, without hesitation, reached out and hugged the younger girl.
"It's alright," Luna assured her, but returned the hug nonetheless. "She's never far."
The two broke, and Luna smiled more widely. "I have to finish an essay for Potions," she told them, the smile not flickering for even a moment at the mention of this subject (to Harry's continued surprise). "Can we do this again sometime, the three of us?"
"Oh, of course!" Hermione nodded.
"Only what do you mean by the three of us?" Harry put in. "I had nothing to do with it."
"You took part," Luna told him, in the You-Needn't-Bother-Arguing-With-Me tone she usually reserved for discussion of crumple-horned snorkacks and the like.
"I'm looking forward to it," Hermione smiled, and there was no questioning that she really meant it.
Luna gave the two of them one last contented smile, then without another word crossed the room to put the flute away. She disassembled it quickly, closed the cabinet, then left them alone, all without speaking.
Meanwhile, Hermione was looking dazed, but happily so. Once Luna was gone, she turned to Harry. "Be truthful with me, Harry. Did she use magic to make me play well? Did you see her do anything?"
"I didn't see her do a spell, if that's what you mean," Harry shrugged. "Wand stayed tucked behind the ear, like always."
"But she must have done something," Hermione insisted. "I had no business playing as well as that without the score."
As much the perfectionist as she was, Hermione was invariably the last one to give herself credit for doing something well. It was something that occasionally irritated Harry: he would be more than happy to even approach her level in most things, and couldn't understand how she could never be happy with her performance. Seeing her sitting here now, though, again in denial of her own talent (but this time happily so), Harry couldn't help but find it endearing.
"Or maybe," he said patiently, "you're just good."
- - - - -
Author's Note: Thanks to all who reviewed! Part three is going to be, er, a bit long, and may take a while to get here unless I can find a logical break point somewhere in the middle.
For those of you who have never heard Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (and you actually may have - it's one of those songs many people have heard, but do not necessarily know by name), you can listen to a MIDI of it at http://members.cox.net/rfletcher/music/sonata01.mid - I found this one on the net, and it actually sounds like someone playing it with two hands (including mistakes!). For a more technically accurate version, which could not possibly be played by a single person, try http://members.cox.net/rfletcher/music/sonata02.mid instead.