Glowing lights:
Yannick somehow felt something was amiss when he looked through the veranda windows and saw lights flashing at regular intervals and different colors coming from the greenhouse. While it was summer, the time was coming close to late evening and normally no-one beside himself and his father would be working in the greenhouse at this hour. Dominic being in London, he could not explain who was there and thus decided to investigate.
He walked towards the greenhouse and at the same time could not stop but feel that there was a certain rhythm to the lights. As if they were occurring following some tempo. He reached the door and entered without a sound, not wanting to startle whoever was the cause of the phenomenon. After having gone a few meters towards the source of the lights, he was startled to see Gran standing there, looking obviously at the cause of the lights. She saw him and motioned him to come closer with a smile. What Yannick saw then left him speechless.
Aidan, his son, was sitting cross-legged in one of the greenhouse's alleys facing a wall of flowers that Yannick only knew too well. It was the work of several years from himself and Dominic to create this delicate puzzle of different living flowers. Its survival for the moment depended on the power Yannick was giving it regularly. It was not finished and when it would be, Dominic would then cast a spell on it in order to keep the structure from the effect of time. It was a challenge for both Yannick and his father and one that he took an immense pleasure to work on. Aidan had helped him on it several times and more recently by using his treeshaping gift, now that it had awakened during his first year at Hogwarts. On each side of the alley where Aidan was sitting were also all different types of flowers that they took care of in the greenhouse.
What amazed Yannick was the fact that the lights he had seen were actually being emitted by the flowers themselves, at different intervals, intensity and with different colors but all of it seemingly part of a whole coordinated choreography. Yannick reached out with his power to feel the greenhouse and what he suspected was confirmed, Aidan was using his own power to create all this. His son was looking very concentrated and had his eyes closed, thus oblivious to the fact that he was actually being watched.
"How long has this been going on Gran?" Yannick asked softly.
"I would say a good half hour," Gran replied, "I saw Aidan heading to the greenhouse and a while after saw the lights from my window. He is using his gift, isn't he?"
"In a way I never imagined to use it," Yannick said, mesmerized by the show, "He is using it to make each flower glow. There are spells for that, like the ones Flora Dafodil uses in her shop at Hogsmeade, but here Aidan is using his gift to create it. This is simply amazing. I have a hard time to believe that he can do this with so little training."
"Well, you did say he was catching on quite quickly," Gran replied smiling.
"I would say he is," Yannick said, "But it is kind of scary too, Gran. If he is able to do this now, what will he be able to do when he reaches his full potential?"
"Only good my dear," Gran said reassuringly, "Especially with you teaching him."
"Thanks," Yannick replied chuckling, "Do you have any idea if he is just inventing the patterns or following a set plan? It almost looks like music."
"It is music my dear," Gran replied, "It took me a bit to recognize it but if I am not mistaken, your son is at the moment playing with Tchaikovsky's 'The Swan Lake' and a bit before it was from the piece 'The Nutcracker' of the same artist."
"Now where did he learn that piece? I did not know my son was listening to classical music," Yannick said.
"Most probably from Yves," Gran said, "Your uncle has quite an amount of muggle and wizard music you know."
Yannick nodded and continued watching his son's show. After a few minutes the lights quickened in pace and intensity, as if coming to the finale, the last note was shown by many flowers glowing brightly and then stopping. Yannick quickly felt the flowers that had been used for this display and could not find any in ill health from what Aidan had done. His son had been apparently very considerate in their use.
Aidan got to his feet and took out little things from his ears. It took a few seconds for Yannick to recognize those as earphones. Looking at where the cable went, he was that Aidan had a little box at his belt. His son turned as he saw this and suddenly realized that both Gran and his father had seen his little display. The look of embarrassment on his face almost made Yannick laugh.
"This was a very impressive display Aidan," Gran said with a warm smile, causing him to blush at the compliment.
"Thank you Gran," Aidan replied, "It is not much actually."
"Not much?" Yannick laughed, "Son, you have just used your treeshaping gift in a way I never thought of using. I know how delicate it is to manipulate plants to make them do what you were doing. This was very impressive indeed."
"It's actually not my idea, dad," Aidan replied, "just a homework idea Mr Lockenburn asked me to try out during the holidays."
"Really?"
"Yes," Aidan said, "He told me he got the idea from something the Odinson twins had been able to do in their first year under his teaching. However, they had been altering a simple lumos spell for that. He wanted to see if I could do it on plants and he said it was a good exercise to learn to use my power accurately and with the right amount of power each time."
"And the musicplayer?" Yannick asked, pointing to the little box on his son's belt.
"Well, Mr Lockenburn told me they were also creating music to go with the lights shows they created," Aidan replied, "But I can't do that with my gift yet so I used that to have some music to take the pattern from."
"Tchaikovsky, if I am not wrong?" Gran asked. Aidan nodded in reply, smiling.
"Where did you get that player by the way?" Yannick asked, "I don't seem to recall you having one of those."
"I got it from Mr Ramsay the last time I went over to Lisa's," Aidan said, "I needed a way to be able to hear music while being in the greenhouse and he gave me the player, after having shown me how to add music to it. When I got back to the manor I asked uncle Yves if I could use his collection and he agreed."
Yannick smiled and held his son by both shoulders.
"I'm very proud of what you have just done Aidan," he said, causing his son to blush once more, "You have shown very good reasoning in your use of your power for this and I cannot detect any ill effects on the flowers you just used for your test. It also shows me that you are very able in your use of your gift as well. Well done son," He added, kissing him on the forehead.
Aidan beamed at him and hugged him tightly, causing Yannick to smile even more. He looked at Gran and saw she was smiling brightly as well.
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I got the idea on this little ficlet when listening to Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker piece called "The dance of the sugar-plum fairy". I love when music inspires me to write. :)