Singing
"So Bishop, what club are you going to join?"
Blake looked up and saw Carina drop into the seat next to him. He let out a sigh before he could stop himself, earning a small glare from Carina.
Blake glanced back to the letter in his hands. He let out a louder sigh this time. Carina dropped her glare and raised an eyebrow inquisitively at Blake. He folded up the letter and put it into one of his textbooks to be forgotten until later.
"Just a letter from my parents, telling me what they were up to and what my brother is up to." Blake gave a small smile. He really needed to as Lily about those communication mirrors. It would make communication a bit easier and ease his mother's mind a bit more.
"Anything else? You wouldn't sigh because of that."
Blake's smile fell. "Yeah they remind me to join a club." And they worry about him not having enough friends and not being social enough *and* not working hard enough. He was the top student in one class, and pretty solid at most of the others-except potions.
"You need to join a club, you just need to figure out which one." Headmistress McGonagall had almost made it mandatory to join a club, it was pretty frowned upon to not be in a club. She said that clubs promote both intra-school cooperation and friendly competition, and they are a great way to meet and befriend students in other houses. "Besides, they are a great way to network."
Blake resisted the urge to roll his eyes, 'networking', a Slytherin's term for making friends. Blake just shrugged. "None of them really appeal to me, besides you haven't decided on a club either."
Carina narrowed her eyes, Blake just held her gaze. "How about this, we'll both the same club, that way it we'll at least know someone else in the club."
"That's fair." Blake wasn't about to point out that they were both probably equally nervous about trying to make friends with other people, that would likely make her retract her offer. "So any idea what club we should join?"
"How about the Slug Club?"
"Err... I heard that Professor Slughorn is pretty selective about who joins that club, and I'm pretty sure he knows my name to explicitly ban me from his club." Blake didn't bring up that very few muggleborns made it into his club to begin with.
"Yeah, that's off the list. How about the choir? Professor Flitwick loves you."
"Yeah, for my charms work, he would probably re-think that when he hears my singing."
"But you sing sometimes in that classroom that you hide in when you don't want to be found."
Blake spluttered and felt his cheeks flush. "Wha-how-did." Blake took a deep breath. "How did you know where I was, were you stalking me?"
"I was passing by the area and heard some voices so I got curious. You forgot silencing charms on the door."
"I...Okay." Blake slowly got over his embarassment. "But I can't sing, I'm like mildly tone deaf and always off tune."
"Your singing isn't completely bad... it's just," she paused, searching for the words. "Unrefined?" she offered. "A little practice and you'll probably be alright."
"I-" Blake hesitated. "Fine."
He did want to improve his singing, but he was still worried about singing in front of others. He knew his singing was a lot worse than Carina made it out to be.
-v-
Blake and Carina stood around awkwardly among a few other students in the charms classroom. To make the choir a bit more friendly to new singers, the club was actually divided into two parts, a "serious" portion and a "casual" portion. The serious group actually did performances in front of the school and sometimes outside of school. The casual group was for people with stage fright or those who were learning. Of course Blake and Carina had little intention of performing in front of many other people.
They waited for Professor Flitwick to direct them through the initial exercises, little games to introduce each other and to help singing.
Blake watched each of the other students take their turn, singing out their name and some hobby of theirs to introduce themselves.
Blake watched as each student went and dreaded his own turn.
-v-
"This song has a quite a few small parts, so why don't we give everyone a small line to solo? Entwhistle, why don't you do the first part. Malfoy, you can do the second part. Hopkins, Bishop, and Roper can get the next three parts. Everyone set?"
Everyone nodded and they started practicing the song. When it got to Blake's part, Hopkins hadn't stopped and continued through his part.
Blake tried not to be terribly upset about it, but no one seemed to notice that his part was overtaken.
-v-
Blake collapsed onto the desk of the abandonned classroom that he frequently comandered.
"I can't keep going back," complained Blake.
Carina sat down gently into a seat, frowning at Blake's actions and words. "Why not? I thought you said it was 'quite fun'. You seemed to be enjoying it, and Professor Flitwick still thinks you are great."
"That's just Professor Flitwick being nice. I haven't improved at all, and people still sing over me and my parts." Carina grimaced at that she did notice a few practices later that people would sing over Blake's solo parts.
"Yes, but no one really cares. There were people that were no better than you."
"Keyword 'were', they either got better or left."
"You'll get better too! Come on, at least come to one more practice, you've kept it up for two months now. Next meeting we actually get to sing with the frogs!"
"Fine, one more practice."
-v-
"Class dismissed!" Professor Flitwick announced. Blake looked over his charms notes briefly before gathering up his books. Just as he was about to leave Professor Flitwick called out to him.
"Ah! Bishop, might I speak to you for a moment?"
"Of course professor." Blake stayed in the classroom as all the other students filtered out. He gave Hugo a small smile and gave a small shake of his head to indicate that he didn't need to wait for him.
"Blake, I noticed you've stopped showing up to the choir meetings."
Blake gave a sheepish smile. He felt really bad about skipping out on the recent meetings. "Sorry Professor, I just uh..." Blake desperately tried to come up with a valid excuse to tell the professor, but he didnt' want to lie either. "Uhmm."
"Is it because you aren't improving?"
Blake jumped on the excuse, especially because it was partially true. "Yes. Sorry Professor, I just feel bad about not improving."
"It's quite alright, why don't you show up to a few more meetings? If you never show up you'll never improve, and you've already improved from when you started."
"Alright professor, I'll go to the meetings again."
-v-
WC: 1176