The years go by, and Hugo becomes more and more invested in the piano.
He finds a piano in his grandfather's garage of stuff, and he slathers Silencing Slime all around whenever he plays. He took some of the books from Luna's attic, and Penny brings him more over the years. Whenever he plays, he sneaks off, puts the slime around, and relaxes.
The first few times he was worried they would come look for him, but they don't.
Not ever.
Because with James and Roxanne and Fred pranking everyone, and Rose being absolutely brilliantly smart and Dominique outside flying amazing, who'd think to look for quiet little Hugo.
Sometimes he goes over to Penny's and they go to Luna's and play her piano. Well, he plays the piano while she relaxes. Or they stay at her house and play one of the spare pianos there, because her mother teaches piano and there are two downstairs and one upstairs, but it is harder to do this because she has lessons and her mother can hear a piano playing a mile away.
Hermione records his first 'accidental' magic as him making a bowl of stew fall on Fred's head, but in reality, it wasn't.
By that time, he had been doing it so long that it was second nature, and nowhere near accidental. He hadn't set out to dump a bowl of steaming stew on Fred's head, but Fred had played a nasty trick involving a biting book and chains, and when Hugo saw the opportunity arise he couldn't help himself. He purposely cut the levitating pot off from it's charm. Then, he proceeded to smirk at Fred.
He was nine.
His magic has never been accidental, on the contrary, he has done it on purpose ever since he was seven.
He sets up a security spell that tells him when anyone is coming inside the shed. Then, when it alerts him, by ringing a gong, of someone's eminent arrival, he transitions from playing the piano to tinkering around with random muggle stuff on the floor nearby.
His family thinks he has a muggle obsession, just like Grandad, and he bears the brute of the teasing for it. It's rough.
He connects with his muggle Grandmama about music, which is blown off as part of the muggle-obsession, and she starts taking him to see muggle concerts and musicals. He is enthralled by it, especially the time she took him to a recital a concert pianist was giving. He wished he could be up on that stage.
He starts to get really good. He can play almost any piece, and he wants to talk to someone about it. And he also wants his family's attention.
His father is good at giving him attention— it comes from being an overlooked child himself, Penny has told him. He is only eight, too young to realize that she shouldn't know that.
He longs to feel the focus of his family on him, on Hugo. Instead of paying attention to Dominique and Victorie and Albus and James and Teddy and all the rest of them, all brilliant. Not forever, just for a bit. To look past their perceptions of plain, average Hugo and see Hugo the piano prodigy.
He finally gets up his courage to tell his parents that he adores and is talented at playing the piano when he is nine. He feels giddy for the hours beforehand; his hopes are about to culminate. He dreams of taking lessons, of being the center of attention, of his family being proud of him.
He comes down that summer eve to dinner ready to tell his immediate family about his innate innate ability to play the piano.
All through dinner he is treated to Rose prattling on about Hogwarts. He understands; whenever Rose gets nervous she blabs incessantly. It is actually a spectacle to watch, because she has no filter whatsoever while she talks, and it'd been funny if it wasn't on today of all days.
Finally, Rose the chatter-pot heads up stairs, and his parents and him are alone at the table. After five minutes of meaningless small talk, he finally rallies.
"Mum? Dad? I have something to tell you guys—" But He is cut off.
"MUM!" Rose runs shrieking into the kitchen. "My Hogwarts letter arrived! It's here, with the booklist and everything!"
"That's wonderful, darling!" His mother exclaims.
"We'll have to go to Diagon Ally," his father adds. "New robes and a new owl, I would say, for our future straight-O student?"
"Oh, yes, please, thank you, Daddy!" Rose says happily. The focus is on her now, like it always is. The brief amount of time he has had his parents' attention is gone; an occurrence which is very rare. He goes to bed that night a little defeated, but still full of hope.
Over the next couple of weeks, that hope disappears.
Everytime Hugo attempts to engage his parents in a discussion, they are either busy with work (a little bit of the time) or talking and preparing with Rose (most of the time). Everytime he opens his mouth to tell them, chaos appear. It's crazy, as Hugo reflects on it, because when Hugo tracked down his parents one serene Saturday afternoon where they had absolutely nothing planned, at the exact moment he opened his mouth to tell them — his parents' focus on him — Rose burst outside to the garden, where he had cornered them, shouting that her owl had just retched up a pellet and a ministry official had his head in the Floo and Uncle George was wanting to get a hold of Dad and he was attempting to use the fellytone, only he had made it a party call, and she hadn't even known those had existed, and that Albus was coming over in fifteen minutes, bringing a friend.
That had been the last time he had attempted to explain to his parents about his passion, talent, and dream.
His parents had leapt up and ignored him as they had run off to fix the messes that had sprung up, while Hugo wilted and withered inside.
Fortunately, the friend Albus had brought along had been Penny. When he came in and found them there, she had swayed a bit and almost had crashed to the floor.
"Penny!" Albus had cried.
"Al!" She gasped. "I'm fine. I just need to talk to Hugo," she had said, "Right now!" She looked beaten down and overwelmed. "I'll be right back." His mum and dad and sister are eying his Practically-Sibling, who, he rashly reflected, was more of a sibling to him than Rose.
"Hugo," She said, dragging him through the door to his room, still looking taxed. "What is wrong?"
He shakes his head, gutted.
She gives a sharp inhalation of breath. "Oh, Hugo," she breathes, looking heartbroken. "I am so sorry. They'll pay you attention someday, I swear."
For the first time in his life, he wonders how Porpentina Estel Boot knows all that she does.
But him being young, and the first time, he doesn't question it.
"But why do they give everyone else attention?" He asks her woodenly. Why do they give Rose attention, he wonders bleakly.
"They don't like Rose better than you, promise," Penny said, leaving him to marvel at her. "She is just a little more pushy with her gifts. They'll see you one day."
"I hope so," he replies, still sad.
"In the meantime," she says, a little more briskly, her health starting to look better, "Let's PSP to pay attention to each other."
They both hold out their left hands, and they shake, saying one simple word: "Always."
"And, Hugo?" Penny adds, looking at him sadly, "Don't give up on Rose. She is your sister, and you will reconcile one day. Don't give up on her."
He nods, and she gives him a small smile and goes back to her friends. Penny has helped, but he is still a bit crushed.
He stayed sad even until Rose was off at school. His parent's blamed his heartaches on Rose leaving; inside, this made him wilt a bit. Did they think that he had nothing in his life that was not related to them? Did they, and everyone else, think that he would always be Hugo, there and with his family? His courage to tell ebbs away, and his secret stays one.
When he is ten, he overhears his grandfather talking about how he might get rid of the piano. Hugo is panicked. He begs Penny to bring him a book about Permanent Sticking Charms, and she grudgingly agrees. She even lets him borrow her wand to cast the spell so it will be stronger.
Later that week, Arther Weasley attempts to levitate the piano out of his shed. The spell does not work.
He calls his children, in-laws, and grandchildren to come have a go. Penny comes along with Hugo and Albus, who she has become close friends with.
Hugo and Penny have an amusing time watching not one, not two, not three, but _ people striving with various ways to get the piano out of their.
Ron and Charlie tried to levitate it. George tested out some joke store supplies to no avail ("Merlin, Dad, at least you knew how to work the flying car!"). Bill tries some curse-breaking stuff on it ("Bloody Hell, dad, what did you do to it?!") while Ginny put her head together with Fleur, Hermione, and Angelina to come up with a sensible way to do it ("Dad... were you drunk when you installed this?"). Victorie and Teddy teamed up to try some stuff together. They all failed. At one point, in frustration, Harry sent a blast toward it, attempting to turn it to dust (Fortunately for Hugo and his piano, Penny had possessed the presence of mind to put an Impertuable Charm on it). In an even more amusing turn of events, Hermione suggested moving it the muggle way. All the under-age Weasley grandkids and their friends laughed their heads off at Bill, Harry, Ron, Charlie, and George endeavoring to move the un-budgable piano, and Dominique and Louis even got pictures. It's a good memory.
Through the next week, Hugo and Penny and Artemis and the other grandchildren, who had all chosen the entertaining option of staying at Grandma's, watched with mirth as family friends dropped by, all attempting to solve the problem of the pesky piano.
Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister for Magic, had come, and the former Auror had tried a multitude of spells before admitting defeat.
Lee Jorden and his wife, Alicia, and Oliver and Katie Wood had a crack at it, with no success.
Neville Longbottom came by, along with the rest of the Hogwarts staff. Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flitwick, Madame Pomfry, and Madame Pince, along with the practically-in-retirement Madame Hooch and Ponmea Sprout all undertook the job. Even with their combined efforts, the piano does not move an inch.
Madame Rosmerta also gave it her best shot, which did nothing.
Luna and Rolf Scamander came around to venture to unstick the infamously stuck piano, with no results.
As the immense Weasley clan spread the news of the challenge, more people came around to give it a whirl. Healers, Aurors, Ministry of Magic workers, Professors, and family friends all parade through the house, venturing to unstick the piano, and not one succeeds.
Teddy even dragged his grandmother, Andromeda Tonks, to try her hand at it. She brings her friend, Augusta Longbottom, Neville's grandmother, along with her, and while both the formidable witches try their hardest, they have no luck.
Meanwhile, the underage children have attempted the mission on their own.
As Victoire and Teddy are the only grandchildren overage, this is quite the stealth operation. It involves everyone who has been to Hogwarts: Dominque, who at age sixteen, the only one to have done her OWLs, has the most chance out of anyone; Molly, fifteen, with the next best chance; Lucy, a accomplished Ravenclaw, though she has not sat her OWLs yet; Louis, also an Eagle, but young; James, Roxanne, and Fred, all skilled at magic in their own haphazard, rule-breaking way; Albus, a woefully under-prepared soldier just out of second year, though admittedly he's got Penny to help him, though she is not going to actually be of any assistance; and Rose, brilliant Rose, who passed with 134% in Transfiguration and still came home disappointed. Rose, who knew more jinxes and hexes in halls of Hogwarts than some of the fourth and fifth years. Rose, who can talk just as intelligently as Lucy and Lysander and Louis, and they are all Ravenclaws, and older than her to boot.
Rose, who everyone thinks is a genius and amazing and exceptional. Who steals Hugo's thunder every time he tries to share his gift.
Every participant in the mission fails, and he and his cousin Lily, who he is close to, but not that close, watch with amusement as they go back inside, having been caught by Grandma, and shamed with de-gnoming the garden.
Eventually, Arther decides that he must have accidentally done something with it, and accepts defeat. The visitors stop pouring in, and life goes back to normal.
Within a few days, nobody even notices the piano's corner of the shed anymore and Hugo can go back to practicing in peace — He had to go off with Penny to Luna's to practice, and this had been a tedious process.
First, Penny had to invite him over — which considering how close they were was reasonable hard. Also, it took an incredible amount of cunning not to have Albus invited over with them, because he and Penny were close. After pulling out about a million ideas, they finally planted the idea in Rose's head to have Al play Quidditch with her, and that one works. Another time they sneakily set up Albus in the library, reading The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, and while Albus is busy being shocked at his namesake, they run off to Penny's while they are distracted. Albus eventually gets cleared up on the facts, by his dad, and looks for them, but by then they are gone.
Next, they have to go to Luna's. When Luna is at home alone, this is an easy feat, for she wouldn't bat an eyelash if they showed up toting a Kneazle and a book and told her they wanted to teach it to read and play piano and violin all at once. However, it is summer, and the house is crawling with people: Rolf, Lorcan, Lysander, their friends, Artemis, grandparents and great-grandparents, and more. People who will be inquisitive over why Penny Boot and Hugo Weasley are trying to sneak into the Lovegood attic.
Fortunatly, Penny invented the Artifacts Project. Basically, they go into people's attics, mainly Luna's, looking for artifacts of "Importance, Nostalgia, and Hidden Memories," as Penny puts it. They have, with Albus tagging along, been in the Scamander attic (where they found a odd, old case that would have swallowed Hugo if he hadn't been pulled out by Al and Penny, a first edition copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, with something about Salamanders and their eyes highlighted, a pamphlet to Circus Arcanus, whatever that is, and a newspaper story about a muggle bakery in New York called Kowalski's. At least, Hugo and Al think it is a muggle bakery. The newspaper's muggle, but the treats are of Eurturpts and Nifflers and the like. It's odd, though Penny has a knowing look in her eye.) which was highly enlightening, and the Boot attic, which has a fascinating old scrapbook involving the early days of Ilvermory, and the Goldstein attic, which had a picture of two girls, one dark haired, one light haired. It's labeled as Queenie's ninth birthday, and Hugo thought it was Queenie and Penny until Penny pointed out the date — 1904 — and the fact that the browned haired girl is labeled as Tina, and she proceeds to explain that it is her great-grandmother and great-aunt. Albus had been with them for these discoveries.
Under the pretense of A.P., as Albus has abbreviated it, they go to the Lovegood attic five days in a row. After all the excuses and stories they have fed people, Hugo feels as though they could be Honorary Slytherins. Penny is especially good at lying.
He is starting get anxious over her; she is quiet and detached at times, and goes through a spell where she is having awful nightmares that keep her up in the pitch black silence. She seems to know too much — preferences he is sure he has never mentioned, memories and stories she has never been told. She also looks strained, like she is bearing a horrible burden.
In the mean time, he sits down and plays the piano for hours at a time until he relaxed.
He still worries, though. He is going to Hogwarts next year. He doesn't know how he will practice. He is uncertain of the future, too, and torn between living up to the expectation that he will be a Gryffindor — though Albus, Louis, and Lucy have all broken the mold, the assumption is still that he will be a Gryffindor — or going a different way so he is not following in Rose's footsteps. He doesn't know what to do.
He is pondering this at his Grandmommy Granger's, sitting with her in the living room. They are listening to CDs, and she is playing music, all different types. He is deep into his thoughts when a melody startles him out of thought.
"I did it my way..." the record player warbles. He looks at his grandmother
"Frank Sinatra," she tells him. "An American great."
"Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew, when I bit off more than I could chew. But through it all, when there was doubt, I ate it up and spit it out. I faced it all and I stood tall; and did it my way..." Hugo listens to the music with amazement.
"The record shows I took the blows - and did it my way!"
It appears he has found a new favorite song.