Mathilde Hawkins waited nervously in the wings of the beautiful orchestra hall, and began to hope that the extensive amounts of sweat on her hands wouldn't cause her bow to fly out of her grasp and take out the eye of some unsuspecting audience member. The orchestra had nearly finished performing the prelude, and before much longer, Mathilde would be sitting right out in the middle of that stage, performing Dvorak's concerto for cello and orchestra.
Whether I like it or not. God, what am I doing? Mathilde thought, and it was true. There was no backing out now. Performing concertos in college had been nothing like this. There, she had been in her element, completely comfortable with the fact that everyone she played for was impressed by her. For many years now, people had been labeling her using words like "prodigy" and "musical genius", but she had not grown up in the limelight, she worked her way into it as her talents had rapidly developed. As a result, she now loved the attention, and couldn't get enough of it. It was easy to be a child prodigy, but those days were over now. She was no longer a child; she was 23 years old. She was a young, inexperienced musician, surrounded by intimidating senior members of the London Philharmonic. She would be expected to deliver great performances, performances that were just as impressive now that she was a woman as they had been when she was a young girl, and everyone listening had been taking that fact into account. This was her first performance as a major orchestral soloist, very much anticipated by the public. If she choked, if she disappointed them ...
She made herself stop thinking about it. She closed her eyes, and let the opening bars of Dvorak play beautifully in her mind's ear, forcing herself to focus on the music and only the music...
God, why did it have to be so damned hot in here anyway? She didn't want to think about what it would feel like under those accursed spotlights!
The prelude had now ended, and the audience's applause had nearly died. Mathilde unconsciously smoothed her hair and wiped her sweaty hands on her fine black velvet dress as the. The conductor was there now, smiling at her in an encouraging way, patting her on the back to say "good luck."
And then, they walked onstage together. She threw up her hand confidently to acknowledge the thunderous applause that greeted her, knowing full well that she was the picture of a fully self-assured performer, and that the audience could see no sign of the nervousness that was gripping her.
The seconds that passed were a blur to her, but the next thing she clearly remembered was the sudden shock that succeeded the conductor's cue to the orchestra as the music began. She was amazed to discover that all of her anxiety was behind her now, and her universe consisted of nothing but the ensemble behind her, her cello, and Dvorak.
At about the same time, Sirius Black was sitting in the front row of that very same concert hall, fidgeting madly. He was no great lover of music, and was beginning to regret allowing his best friend to drag him here. The Muggle clothes he was dressed in were extremely uncomfortable, and he had become quite thoroughly bored with the entire concert-going experience in the middle of the first piece.
The man seated on his right seemed to be aware of his discomfort. During the applause that followed the first piece on the program, he turned to Sirius.
"A little bored, are we?" he asked.
"Oh no, it's not that at all, James," Sirius replied in a friendly, though sarcastic tone. "It's just that I thought it might actually be loads of fun to start counting all the tiles in the ceiling."
James laughed. "You poor devil. You're just not used to these things, yet. Lily's dragged me to so many of these concerts that they're actually starting to grow on me. In fact, I'm really starting to think that Muggle music is actually the better way to go."
Sirius nodded. "I'll give you that, James. This certainly sounds better than I remember my grandmother's set of self-playing bagpipes ever sounding. It's not that I don't enjoy the music, not at all. It's just that..."
"It's just that you've never quite mastered the fine art of sitting still for an hour or so," said the man sitting on Sirius's left.
"Oh, and you're one to be lecturing me on my attention span, Remus," Sirius replied with a smile, whispering now because the house lights were dimming again in preparation for the next piece.
Sirius found that his eye was drawn instantly to the young cello soloist who was now preparing to perform. Perhaps Muggle clothes are good for some things after all, he thought, taking in the young lady's form-fitting black velvet dress and low cut neckline. She had a pretty good figure for a dress like that, too, he decided. Her honey-blonde hair hung in unruly but attractive curls, framing a fair-skinned face whose lips were curled in a smile that was brighter than all of the spotlights shining on it. But soon, the smile faded and Sirius's favorite aspect of the fine figure in the velvet dress was obscured by the beautifully crafted instrument that was cradled between her knees.
She began to play.
Her first notes had a very strange effect on Sirius. He felt gooseflesh begin to form upon his skin almost instantly as her bow first struck the strings beneath it. He couldn't take his eyes off her, and found that he was entranced by the way she moved with the music, as though she were playing the cello with her head, her shoulders, her entire body. Her tone was full of richness and unearthly beauty, and seemed to sound within him, filling him with a profound sense of warmth and peace. It felt just like a phoenix's song; he had never known any other music to affect him like this.
Unaware of the passage of time, he was surprised when the concerto ended. He had been bracing himself for 45 minutes of excruciating boredom, only to discover that he had enjoyed every moment of this woman's performance.
The people around him were already standing by the time Sirius emerged from his reverie. Shaking his head in an attempt to clear it, he pulled himself to his feet beside his companions.
Remus Lupin turned to him, and, smiling his usual lopsided smile said, "Quite a performance, eh?"
Sirius nodded dumbly. He was still watching the woman onstage, though it seemed to him that he was doing so more of his own volition now.
James noticed. "Better stick your eyes back in your head, mate," he said, chuckling, "We haven't much time before Dumbledore'll be expecting us."
At these words, Lupin's face fell slightly.
"Ah, yes. Back to the bad news. Oh, well. We should be grateful, I suppose, for a pleasant diversion like that. It was nice to have a break from all the worries."
Lily Potter was repositioning the sleeping bundle in her arms. She gently returned to infant son to the holster on her back, then turned towards Remus and rested her hand on his shoulder.
"This won't last forever, all this plotting and hiding and living in fear. It's going to be over soon, Remus. I can feel it."
The sad smile returned to his face, "I hope you're right, Lily."
"She usually is," James Potter said.
Mathilde's hands were still shaking by the time she made it off the stage and into the green room, partly from lingering nervousness and partly from excitement.
"Thank you very much!" she said to her cello, kissing it before returning it to its case.
She felt marvelous. She couldn't have asked for a better performance. She wanted to do it again. But first, she wanted to run squealing through the orchestra hall hugging everyone she met.
They loved me, they loved me! she thought, It was perfect and they loved me, and...what on earth am I going to do with all of these flowers?
The green room was full of bouquets, most of which had been delivered before the performance. She had received a few arrangements from strangers, much to her while she was still onstage, much to her amazement, but most of the ones here had been sent to her by the expected assortment of friends and family, everyone from cousins to her very first cello teacher. This didn't lessen her pleasure in receiving them at all, and while it certainly would have been quite flattering to receive all of these gifts from, oh, say, some tall, dark strangers, she was grateful to have such supportive and proud loved ones standing behind her.
She did, however, have one large bunch of blue forget-me-nots that had indeed been tossed to her by a tall, dark stranger. He'd been seated the front row, and had been applauding her so enthusiastically that Mathilde couldn't help but notice him. They'd made eye contact for a moment, and in that moment, he'd suddenly tossed her these. Quite suddenly, in fact; she could almost have sworn that he'd produced them out of thin air.
She was pulled out of her post-concert ecstasy and into thoughts of this compelling, dark, stranger. They'd made eye-contact, he'd thrown her flowers. Well, it was the perfect start to a cheesy dime-store romance, at any rate.
She found herself hoping that he would appear amidst the crowd of well-wishers who appeared in the green room a few minutes later to offer praise and congratulations, but there was no sign of him.
Foolish of me to expect my life to be that interesting she thought afterwards.
"Professor Dumbledore!" Lily Potter cried, running after the silver-haired old man, "Professor, wait!"
Albus Dumbledore stopped, and turned to face the short, red haired woman who was hustling towards him, hoisting the straps of the harness on her back further up on her shoulders.
"Lily. Good to see you!" Dumbledore said with a bright smile, "and hello, Harry," he added to the curious youngster as he tried to climb on top of Lily's shoulder to gain a better view of the goings-on.
"I suppose James and company are trailing along behind? Ah, here they are!"
James Potter, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black had just turned the corner into the alley. They were jogging, and slowed to a halt beside Lilly, all of them breathing heavily.
"Hello, Professor," James said, "I don't know what happened. We were looking for you in front of the concert hall, then Lily started shouting to you, and just took off like a flash after you. Left us all in the dust."
"I don't care how big Harry here is getting," said Sirius, "he can't slow down ol' Lil."
Lily smiled at him, and tugged on the shoulder strap of Harry's harness again.
"Lily," said Sirius, in a hopeful tone of voice, "Is your back getting sore? If you're getting tired at all, I can take Harry for a while."
Lily understood him
"My back is just fine, Sirius," she said softly, "but you may take Harry."
There was no mistaking the look of bright elation of Sirius's face as he lifted Harry out of the holster. Harry let out a gleeful chortle of recognition and buried his tiny fists in Sirius's hair.
"Oh!" Lily cried, giggling slightly, "No, Harry! Sirius, you don't have to let him do that."
Sirius was still smiling, his head inclined to one side as Harry pulled.
"Whatever makes him happy, Lily. I'm more than pleased to oblige. Ah!" he added involuntarily as Harry give an extra-enthusiastic tug, "he's getting strong, this one!"
"No, Harry. Ouch. Let go, sweetie," Lily said to her son, gently taking hold of his small hands and rescuing his godfather from their grip. The child seemed to understand his mother's commands and relented without protest.
"We should get down to business soon," Remus suggested, "Were you planning that we discuss these matters here?" he inquired of Dumbledore.
The question was in earnest. The wide alley behind the orchestra hall with its bright street lamps and pristine sidewalks seemed, as far as Lupin was concerned, a strange place to discuss their private business, but it that was what Dumbledore had planned, none of them were about to question him.
But Dumbledore said, "Dear me, no. Not here. We'll go somewhere more private in a moment. I'm just here to congratulate the woman of the evening on a spectacular performance. Miss Mathilde Hawkins has come quite a long way since her first conservatory performance."
"I'm glad Lily dragged us along after all," said James, "It sure was something, eh, Sirius?"
But Sirius didn't answer. He was urgently searching every inner pocket of his sport coat, looking for his concert program.
"What did you say her name was?" he asked, his voice incredulous.
"Mathilde Hawkins," Lily replied.
Sirius had found his program, and was now leafing through it, searching for Mathilde's biography.
"Why, Sirius?" James asked.
Sirius looked up at his friends.
"Don't you remember?"
Mathilde emerged from the concert hall a good forty-five minutes after the concert had ended. She'd spent what she felt was a reasonable amount of time chatting with people in the green room and at the reception, but now she was feeling tired and wanted nothing more than to go home with this wonderful evening still buzzing in her mind, and to go to sleep thinking of it.
The evening had other plans in store for her, though. Waiting for her just outside the stage door was a very curious looking old man. He was tall and thin with long, silver hair and a matching beard. The blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles twinkled with a cheeriness that matched the bright smile on his careworn face. The instant she had stepped out, he bounded up to her and clasped her right hand in both of his, pumping it furiously up and down.
"Fabulous!" he cried, "Absolutely incredible. I don't believe I've ever heard Dvorak played quite so...ah, magically before." The man's pale blue eyes seemed to be telling her, in no uncertain terms, that he knew something that she didn't.
"Why...why, thank you," Mathilde replied. She was pleased as always to be so appreciated and admired, but her face still displayed a reasonable amount of bewilderment and surprise at being so accosted by a stranger.
"Ah, my manners! Forgive me," he said, reading her expression, "my name is Albus Dumbledore, Miss Hawkins. I'm a great admirer of music, and have been following your career for some time now. I'm greatly impressed with the progress you've made. Tell me, are you happy with your choice?"
"My choice?"
"To be a musician. To devote your life to your art?"
Mathilde couldn't help but think that there was something behind this question. It was a perfectly normal conversational question, and she'd answered it many times before, but Albus Dumbledore almost seemed to have a genuine and personal interest in her answer, not just a conversational one.
Taken aback though she was, Mathilde was far from uncomfortable; she was merely curious.
"Yes. Yes, I am. I'm very happy with it. I can't imagine spending my life doing anything else."
Dumbledore's smile grew brighter.
There was a thick silence for a moment before Mathilde felt her right hand being gripped in a handshake by a third person. Her eyes were torn away from the curious old man and her attention drawn to the fact that this man appeared to have brought a few friends with him.
There were three, no, four people in the alley besides Albus Dumbledore. A pretty young woman with long, red hair, carrying a sleeping infant in her arms, a tall man with glasses and untidy black hair beside her, another young man with a kind, though tired-looking face, and the man shaking her hand...she recognized him as the stranger in the front row who had thrown her the flowers!
"You play beautifully," he said to her, "I'm very glad I came...I, um, didn't really want to," he admitted with a laugh. "I'm not really a music lover. But I loved that."
Mathilde was stunned. "Thank you."
This man's voice was also thick with deeper meaning, as though there was more importance in what he was communicating than the mere words themselves, as though he had something he wished to tell her which normal social protocol forbade.
Perhaps he merely fancied her? It seemed that it was something more than a base attraction, though. In fact, she had the oddest strangest feeling that she already knew this stranger; he seemed so familiar to her, and she felt at ease with him. Come to think of it, they all seemed familiar to her in some unconscious way. She didn't want them to walk away from this alley and still be strangers to her. She didn't want him to walk away.
Dumbledore had left her alone with the handsome, dark-haired man now. He was speaking to his other three companions, and gave the appearance of having taken a sudden interest in the architecture of the buildings around them. This was her chance.
"Thank you," she said again. "Oh, and thank you very much for those flowers. I saw you throw them to me. They're one of my favorite kinds," she lied. She did like the forget-me-nots well enough, but, truth be told, she really didn't know a mum from a gladiola and didn't care one way or the other, either.
"I'm glad you liked them," he said.
"I'm glad you liked my playing that much," she said, " I was really nervous tonight. It was my first time as a full-fledged professional. Trouble is, I've already got a reputation. People were expecting a lot of me, I think."
"Really?" he asked, as though he was interested in what she had to say, but could offer no more of an intelligent commentary than that.
"Oh yes," she said, "I was a bit of a star at my school, won a lot of competitions and things. It's nice, I guess, to be given recognition and wonderful to have chances to perform...but it's a little stressful when people start believing you're perfect or something, and you know you're not and you're afraid you might prove them wrong at any moment."
"I can imagine," he said.
"And I started going to the Paris Conservatory when I was thirteen, and that in itself is enough to make some heads turn," she shook her head, "Sometimes it's all a bit much, to tell the truth," then she laughed nervously, "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm unburdening myself on you, a complete stranger!"
"Oh, no! It's perfectly all right," he said quickly, "It's interesting, actually. So...you say you went to the Conservatory when you were thirteen. Where'd you go to school before that?" His tone was casual once again.
"Well, my parents home schooled me until I was eleven, and then I went to a public school for two years," (she could have sworn she saw him react to this) "but the funny thing is I don't remember it."
"You...you don't? Why not?"
"During the summer when I was thirteen, I got in a car accident," she said, and pointed to a small scar on her forehead, "I got this. Nasty knock on the head. I don't remember the car accident either, because the first thing I remember after that is sitting on the couch of our sitting room with my parents and not knowing where I was. I had forgotten everything that had happened to me since the summer when I was eleven! It's the strangest thing. One moment, I was eleven years old, sitting in my bedroom watching this brown owl land outside the window, and the next moment, I was in the sitting-room, wondering where we'd gotten this new couch from and being told that I was now thirteen years old."
The man looked stunned. "Really?"
"Yes," she said, then laughed, "The really funny thing is, the thing that worried me the most was what had happened to that poor owl? That was the last thing I remembered, you see. The owl had something stuck to its leg, I think, and I was really worried about it. Now I'll never know he fared, I guess."
He still looked stunned.
"Pretty incredible, huh?" she said, "But you haven't told me anything about yourself. Where did you go to school?"
"Oh! Um...a little place in the middle of nowhere. Not very well-known at all. Very old. By the way," he said, and seemed to be trying to change the subject, "I still have the advantage of you. I haven't introduced myself. My name is Sirius."
She smiled, but suddenly her expression was distant.
"I think," she said, "I think...I knew a boy named Sirius when I was at school."
"Really?" he said softly, "What was he like?"
The distant look left her face, and she seemed to return to the present. She shrugged.
"No idea," she said, "Listen, I was just about to go and get a cup of coffee or something, there's a nice little cafe just down the road. Would you and your friends like to join me?"
"I'd like that," he said, "but I'm afraid we have some private matters to discuss. That's why we're meeting."
"Oh," she said, sounding disappointed.
"But..." he said, and ran a hand nervously through his hair, "maybe...would you like to meet me for lunch tomorrow? If it's convenient, I mean, if it's not too far to come. Do you live in London?"
"Er, no." Damn. "No, I live in Godric's Hollow, but..." she thought fast, "I was... planning on returning tomorrow to do some shopping, and... I'd love to have lunch."