He plays piano.
He never played very well, or practiced very hard...hell, he used to hate that thing.
He used to run past its large laughing mouth and its terrifying grin. He used to sprint across the marble landing and hope that it wouldn't eat him before he got to the staircase.
Now he knows better.
And he plays.
At first it is soft, a few notes, some keys, a nice little tune that is from an old song he can't remember.
And at first it is hard, because he hasn't played in so long. At first he keeps stopping, hesitant after each wrong key. But the space between mistakes get smaller and smaller, warmth is flowing from his elevated wrists to the tips of his milk white hands.
And his face relaxes and his brow unknits and his fingers strum stronger and deliberate notes and they blend and overlap and flow and it's beautiful.
His thoughts begin to stray as the music plays on its own.
He remembers his first piano lesson, with Regulus watching from the other side of the bench as he experimentally struck the first key in front of him. The resounding bong had earned him a foul name and order to try again. Then another and another until his head ached from the harsh strikes and his back ached from sitting up straight and he hated this damn thing.
The music is faster now and scarier and darker.
It isn't at all beautiful.
He watches images of their entrance hall, everything that happened in this entrance hall, as he continues the song unconsciously.
He doesn't realize the music is getting faster.
He hears Andy's cries as she tells him to please, please never listen to what they say and to just get out, please get out as soon as he can.
He hears his own voice echoing cruelly along with Bella's laugh and slamming door as he gave his last salute to his favorite cousin.
In some dull sense he can still hear the music that is playing now, the dark notes that sound like his father's yells and the shrill notes that are his mother's yowls-he pulls his hands back like they've been scorched. He can smell the seared skin across his traitorous hands, the scent nauseating his weak stomach as he hunches over the blistering keys.
His head snaps back up at the screech of the bench's legs being pulled back to allow another body. She sits beside him quietly, a grim smile on her face because she understands perfectly.
She's a Black too.
"That was beautiful," she says with a sardonic grin, her pixy features mischievous and trying.
"No," he says as he picks at his fingernails uncomfortably, "it wasn't."
Her smirk widens as she rests her thin fingers across the keys.
"May I?"
And without further invitation, she twiddles across the lighter notes. Happier notes. The weave in and out as they climb higher and higher into the foyer, filling the whole room with a light and radiance no flame could ever achieve.
He closes his eyes.
And he is back in the Forbidden forest with a werewolf, a stag and a rat and they are running and barking and grunting and squeaking and free.
He smells the common room fire and Prongs is kissing Lily and Remus is smiling and Peter is clapping and he is laughing and they are happy.
His hands are hovering over the piano. Before he makes the conscious decision to join Tonks's song, they are playing in perfect harmony, the tune simple for him to pick up. His fingers cross each other in their eagerness to continue the song, but it dies quickly as each repeated note plays its last before its echoing voice is lost.
And he stops because he realizes that he is crying.
And he stares at the piano for such a long time, it might've been years before he looked away.
He is fascinated by what he and the piano created together. He is terrified of what it did to him but he doesn't wonder if he needed to feel that again.
Eventually he stands from the surface of the sleek seat, his hands limp at his side, still lame from injury.
Silence hung in the air, deafening compared to their duet ringing through the space not a moment before.
"Thank you. That was-"
"Beautiful," she supplied simply, arrogance at the crook of her lips.
A/N: Because music is the most beautiful thing we as humans can create.