A/N: In my mind, Hugo is a secret musician. But he doesn't want to tell his family because the Weasleys always make everything a huge deal.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. It all belongs to Queen Jo.

Hugo told no one of his affinity for music. He'd always felt stuck between two worlds: the happy-go-lucky Gryffindors and the creative Ravenclaws. And although he had been sorted into Gryffindor, he'd always felt a special connection towards Ravenclaw.

He knew that if his family found out about his frequent composing and the way his fingers could coax sounds out of any instrument, that then his talent would become some sort of "Weasley Clan Trait" and it would be exploited and showed off until he didn't even want it anymore. He didn't want to be in the Daily Prophet; he just wanted to be left alone. So he put Silencing Charms on his room and magical locks on the door every time he practiced so that no one could accidentally barge in on him.

It'd been obvious when he was younger, of course, that he'd loved music. But when he was around six he grew sick of the little talent shows that his parents would have him put on; he wanted to keep his music to himself. He told them he'd grown tired of it and put all of his sheet music in a large trunk underneath his bed. He never went near the piano in the house; instead, he visited his neighbor, an old woman who used to give him music lessons (and still did, although his mother thought he went over there just to keep her company) and used her piano. His father often joked that he spent more time with her than he did with his own family, but Hugo didn't mind. Mrs. Aria loved having him over and he loved spending time with her. She would bake him things and give him little mints; he would practice and practice and practice until he perfected a song and then would perform it for her in an old tuxedo of her son's. The first time he'd composed a song for her, she had cried. "Hugo, Hugo," she exclaimed, slipping back into her Italian accent. "Oh, Hugo, that was beautiful. Beautiful." He'd thought about the way she sobbed when Hugo had first come out in her son's tuxedo (he was long dead; a casualty of the First Wizarding War) and composed a piece. It hadn't taken long.

Mrs. Aria was the one person in his life who was always there; no matter how much his family fought and argued; no matter how bad his grades got; no matter how tall he was or how irritating he got or how little he smiled or how few girlfriends he had... She was always there to tell him, "Practice makes better, not perfect, Mr. Weasley," and offer him a mint.

Today, he was standing in her son's tuxedo as it started to rain. How cliché, he thought, but he supposed it wasn't as unexpected as he'd first thought. It'd been raining for months now, flooding the streets and his own basement; Mrs. Aria had had to move all of her sheet music and instruments that she usually stored in the basement to the first floor. It had annoyed her so much that she swore in front of him; she'd lost a couple piano books to the rain.

Mum was begging him to get in the car but he could barely hear her. He just stared at the ground. There was a strange feeling in his throat; an ache that refused to disappear. Someone touched his arm. Rose. "Hugh, come on," she said. Her flaming signature Weasley hair (it matched his) was tied back into a loose bun with a black ribbon. "It's time to go."

He shook her arm off. "I'll catch up with you later," he said. "I... I have to stay."

Unlike most weddings and funerals where a Weasley was invited, the entire Weasley clan had not showed up at this funeral. Sure, they knew that Hugo had a strange relationship with this little old Italian woman on the house a twenty-minute broomstick ride away, but they had never even met her. Rose had only seen her a couple times; she had never caught onto the music like Hugo had. Only Rose and his parents had come to the funeral. Mrs. Aria had few other loved ones; the only other guest was a balding, middle-aged man who claimed to be her lawyer. Her son was an only child and most of her surviving family members were still in Italy. Her husband had been dead long before her son had even died, and was an orphan. No one was sorry to see her die, except him.

All she had... All Hugo had... They only had each other.

"Sweetheart," said Mum, and she was on his other side, raising her arm to give his hair a ruffle. He ducked. "I know this is hard, but we have to go. Your father has a—"

"Then go," he snapped. He never would have been allowed to speak his mother that way, but he could see the exception in her eyes. "Go."

"Hugo—" his father began, out of the car now, and Hugo turned his back to his family and his front to the grave, his hands shoved as deep as they would go into his pockets.

"You heard me," he growled, barely tipping his chin as he spoke. "Go."

Rose began to speak again, gripping more firmly on his upper arm, but one of his parents pulled her back. "Give him time," Dad said, interlacing fingers with Mum. "He just needs time, that's all."

As they left, Hugo shook his head. He didn't need time. He didn't need any time at all.

He needed Mrs. Aria.

He knocked twice on the door; she usually took a minute or two to get to the door, so it wasn't a surprise when a couple minutes had passed and Hugo was still waiting outside, flipping through his copy of Arabesque I by Debussy. He had perfected it this afternoon and had Flooed her to let her know that he was coming to show it to her. Oh, she would be so happy...

However, when he knocked again and four, five, six minutes had passed, he frowned. Perhaps she had forgotten about their lesson and had gone out to dinner. He shook his head, examining his watch. That couldn't be right. She never left the house without letting him know because they spent so much time together.

"Mrs. Aria?" he called out, standing on his tiptoes so that he could peek in through the small window on the old wooden door. "You home?" She did not reply. All Hugo could hear was the little dog across the street constantly yapping; he wished it would shut up, just like its owner, a Miss Saanvi Miller who talked his ear off once when he was waiting for Mrs. Aria.

Hugo moved around to the back of the house, taking care to avoid her carefully tended garden. Liam always paid such care to those daffodils, those roses, so that Mrs. Aria would be happy. He never wanted to ruin her happiness. He had a key to the back door; he'd received it a couple years ago when he'd turned thirteen. He quickly unlocked and called his teacher's name again. "Mrs. Aria? Are you home?"

The lights were all on; the fan was spinning overhead; the television was playing a rugby game in the corner; her bright white workout shoes were still sitting by the front door. Mrs. Aria had not left the house. "Mrs. Aria?" The oven was on, set to three hundred and twenty five degrees; it was preheating. She would never leave something cooking at home. "Hello?"

Hugo entered his favorite room: the practice room. She had two pianos; one was a glossy black and the other was a worn, antique wood. His favorite had always been the wooden one; hers was the black.

Mrs. Aria was sprawled on the floor, her eyes half-open and her wrinkled face slack. Her lips were slightly parted, and in her right hand she held a thick book of sheet music. Hugo cried out and rushed forward, his hands fumbling for a pulse and his mouth screaming for a response...

The Aurors told him that she had been dead for three hours before he arrived. They determined that it was impossible for Hugo himself to have killed her; he had an alibi with his Potions tutor. Mum, and Dad had arrived not a minute after the Aurors arrived to collect the body to tell him that everything was okay and that it was her time. "She was old for a very, very long time, Hugo," Mum had said. "This day's been coming for a while." Hugo had hardly spoken to the Aurors themselves; honestly, he didn't care if they thought he had killed her. He just wanted her back.

He had gotten back from the funeral hours ago. He had gone to his room, collected the trunk of sheet music under his bed and begun the long walk to Mrs. Aria's house. Dad had tried to stop him, but he hadn't even halted to meet his father's eyes or respond to his orders. Now he was sitting in front of the piano beside the spot where she had collapsed of heart failure (it was quick, they said, and she wouldn't have felt a thing), flipping through page after page of Bach and Beethoven and Debussy and Rachmaninoff and Mozart and his own music until he found something that felt right...

But nothing did.

Hundreds of pieces of paper with tiny black words and notes littered the ground by the time he was done. He had gone through every bit of music in his trunk, and he had not found a single piece of music that felt right. He was crying now; he didn't know why. He pressed his trembling fingers to the keys. He wished her pale hands were there to guide his, telling him, "Not too hard, Hugo, not too hard. The piano doesn't make the music. You make the music, yes?"

He tried suppressing the next sob, but it threw him forward so that his hands slammed into the keys, causing an intensely loud dissonance that rang throughout the room. He was pressing his hands against his ears, crying, and then it came to him. It was a few small notes at first, ringing inside of his head like silver bells. Then it turned into a solo, then a ballad, then a symphony, and then his hands were flying against the keys and he was still crying and the piano was not making the music, he was making the music, and it was changing him...

And then he was done and he could barely breathe and he could feel Mrs. Aria there, in the room, her presence lingering in the touch of the keys and the delicacy of each note.

Oh, Merlin, how he wanted her back.

A/N: Thanks for reading, guys!

Challenges used:

Fanfiction Writing Month: December [1826]

Character Diversity - #45 (pass), Hugo Weasley

Are You Crazy - #21 (Between Two Worlds)

If You Dare - #257 (Solo)