M: Musicality
Part Five of the "M" Series
By Kick Flaw
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Disclaimer: Is there any cross-dressing in Harry Potter? No? Then I still don’t own it.
Notes: Fifth in the M series. Be in awe, I finally figured out what happened at the detention. Kinda. Who needs detail? Ah heh…^^;;;
M: Musicality
Part Five of the "M" Series
By Kick Flaw
I hate mornings.
“Crabbers, wakey uppy timey.”
Shut up, Goyle.
“Cra~abbers!”
I hate that nickname.
“Vince, you’ll miss breakfast.”
As I fly into my robes, I ignore Draco’s smirk. He knows me too well, knows that mentioning the prospect of losing chow will whip me into action immediately. And he uses that, you better believe it. Just because he doesn’t believe that food is anything other than fuel for the body doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it myself. I look forward to breakfast, even if I sometimes feel like a troll while relishing in it. It’s just the way Draco’s mouth twists slightly when he catches sight of me and Goyle stuffing our faces.
I feel bad thinking it, but sometimes Draco can be a real jerk without realizing it.
“I’m going down to the table. I promised Pansy,” Goyle’s voice squeaks, “that I’d save her a seat next to me. Cool, huh? Seeya there.”
Draco waves idly, not looking up from clasping his robes. I nod at Goyle and grin, knowing that he’ll grin back.
Stupid Goyle --he left without making his bed. Snape’s gonna get him for that.
“Vince?” calls Draco. “Could you help me with this? I’ll help you.”
Why does he say that every morning? He knows I’ll help with the daily bed making, I would even if he didn’t help with mine. Still he continues the formality. I was halfway to his bunk anyway.
Together we scoop the thick coverlets over his mattress, me taking the right and he the left when it’s time to tuck in. From the looks of it he didn’t sleep well last night. Everything’s twisted and tangled worse than usual. And it’s usually pretty bad; Draco isn’t a peaceful sleeper.
I remember the first time he woke me up with his thrashing. When you’re eleven, and suddenly your new roommate’s pillow smacks you across the face at a god-awful time in the morning, there is very little you can do to restrain yourself from retaliation. Hey, how was I supposed to know he was sleeping? All I knew was that I had a mouthful of feather and cotton and wasn’t about to let go easily. Before long Goyle and Blaise were up as well, and the pillow fight to end all pillow fights was being waged. We all got a week’s worth of detention for waking up the girls. It was fun.
It’s not nightmares that make Draco a nervous sleeper, I don’t think. He’s never complained of any, or woken up screaming. Unlike Blaise, who screams like a bloody banshee every Wednesday. Wednesdays are his “Rats! Rats everywhere!” nightmare days. Like clockwork. No, Draco’s never been that way. Come to think of it, Draco never wakes up when Blaise goes off. Maybe Malfoy Manor has real banshees. I’ll have to ask.
“Does Malfoy Manor have banshees?”
Draco looks up from smoothing his last corner. “Yes.”
So I thought.
You see Draco’s problem is that he moves a lot. He twitches, jerks, tosses, turns, throws himself all over the place in almost continuous spasms throughout the night. He falls out of the bed, ends up diagonally across it with his head at the wrong end, once he even managed to hook his right knee over the headboard and droop over the edge so that his head was upside down. Let me tell you, * that * was a funny forenoon. All the blood pooled in his temples made Draco dizzy as a vampire on penguin blood –he spent all morning tripping and trying to fix his gravity-defying hair. The image still makes me laugh.
“What are you chuckling about?”
“Nothing.”
I think he has such a problem remaining still because he’s still so much while awake. Draco’s one of those naturally restless people who’s constantly in motion. A trait that was trained out of him when his family was making sure he fit their standards. Standards, which mean an unmoving grace and economy of motion, control of all expressions and movements, and absolutely no ‘idle twiddling’. The only way for him deal with it is to release it in his sleep.
Though from the looks of it, I doubt sleep was in any way involved last night.
Once it’s begun, it’s very hard to stop.
And I’ve been wondering…
We’re working on my bed now.
“Draco?”
“Yes?”
“What happened at your detention yesterday?”
He slows his motions slightly, tidying up the wrinkles in my blankets with cautious thoughtfulness. “I’m not exactly sure, Vince.”
“Well, what was the detention?”
“Did you know Hogwarts used to have a choir?”
Really? Well, it is a school, it would. I wonder why they don’t have it anymore. “No.”
His thin hands fold the thick cotton of my bedspread and I watch them.
“They did. But one of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s first attacks was on one of their tour performances for Beauxbaton and Durmstraang. Every student was killed. Dumbledore had the music room shut down in their honor until He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is finally defeated.”
…wow.
He has long, deft fingers.
“Snape had Potter and I sweep out the old choral practice room for the detention. You should see the place, Vince, dust everywhere. Even on the piano. I don’t understand how they can let such a magnificent instrument rot like that. It’s not…right.”
Fingers that pat my pillow, bemused, before we move to Goyle’s bed. (He owes us.)
“Did you know I play the piano?”
“Yeah. You told us.”
“Oh…I remember.”
I look up, and find him silent, obviously not willing -or not able- to say any more. In silence we begin the ritual of making Goyle’s bunk. Scooping and tucking and folding and smoothing. My hands look clumsy doing menial labor, as ironic as that is, while Draco’s make it look like a sacred rite, a precious chore only meant for hands such as his. Piano-players’ hands.
Yes, I remember. It was the day Goyle revealed his art to us. He was embarrassed, so Draco admitted to playing the piano just to make him feel better. Somehow he ended up explaining for hours the finesse of musicality.
It’s a bit hazy, the intricate details of being a musician. I’ve never been exposed to that kind of learning, I’m as tone-deaf as the next guy. I do recall one thing. I guess because it was interesting. Who knows? Maybe I recall it all and this is the only thing that’s clear because my mind has fitted it into the picture.
Diatonic Transposition is the fancy term for it.
Basically, the exact same melody played in different scale. You start with Do-Re-Mi-Do, ‘diatonically transpose’ the tune, lets say up two steps, and you end up with Mi-Fa-Sol-Mi. The same composition played on a different clef.
Imagine an entire aria made up of one melody, soaring upwards, flying across a range of notes without the complication of harmonies and entangling euphony. Not a fugue or a florid or any such dissonance involving multiple diapasons. A simple, unvarnished melody.
The style of music that would play soundtrack to Romeo and Juliet, and Tristan and Isolde --the crescendo of soulmating.
Two people, two sets of divergent notes, the same melody.
And I wonder why it brings tears to my eyes.
El’Endo
* * *
There’s an end in site…somewhere….