Book 2: Astoria Greengrass and the Haunt of Azkaban
Song rec: "Another Brick in the Wall (Parts 1, 2, & 3)" by Pink Floyd
The girls were lucky that they were comfortable playing the songs from their album, for nothing truer could have been said about the concert than that they were entirely unprepared for it. With only nine days before the gig, the band abandoned their homework for the sake of not embarrassing themselves to death in Hogsmeade. Not a single assignment from the four that week earned anything higher than a "C;" Astoria even hurried through her new star chart in Astronomy and had Draco do the rest. Her priority was learning how to sing whatever Pink Floyd was, which proved more difficult than one would have thought. Rhiannon had given up trying to learn Hestia and Astoria's new song, "Saccharine," and opted to play rhythm guitar whilst Hestia would play main guitar. This meant there would be no bass line like Hestia and Astoria had planned. They grew frustrated as Rhiannon took time to write the part for the rhythm guitar rather than learn the original song. It also meant that they would have to "rent" a guitar from Professor Flitwick, and although he was eager to help, it was clear that the guitar had seen better days. Hestia nearly broke her wand in anger after trying to tune the ill-treated instrument.
There was simply no time to learn another song as Mr Mongaby wanted. However, the time slot for the concert was one hour, and the girls only had about forty-five minutes of material. Astoria brainstormed and wrote to him saying that they could play one of their songs that had not made it on the album. It would bring the time closer to fifty minutes, and interactions with the audience could account for the remaining time. After Mr Mongaby accepted the compromise, Rhiannon chose their song "Sylhet," which, she admitted for the first time, was about the first person she ever fancied. It reminded Astoria of how strange it was going to be to sing a love song about Philippe now that the two were over. She then wondered what performing "Useless" was going to be like for Rhiannon.
Mr Mongaby sent the band a letter telling them many things they already knew — the concert would begin at eight o'clock in the venue in the WWN building and end at nine, and the girls needed to at least try to coordinate their dress and "move confidently" on stage. However, he told them for the first time that the stage was going to have a special shielding charm over it, which greatly upset Rhiannon, who wanted a more intimate concert. Astoria gave Mr Mongaby the benefit of the doubt; ten Death Eaters were still at large.
"At least this way we won't get hit by a turnip like Stubby Boardman did," Hestia added.
Astoria's would have rather let the other girls have a go at the concert and sit in the audience herself. The largest audience in front of which she had performed was the previous year's Music class. Furthermore, the concert was open to the public — the actual public — and not only the school. Flora was estimating the age demographic to be between thirteen and twenty-five. That seemed like a highly judgmental age group to Astoria. The other girls were persevering, but every time Astoria walked by the flashing poster hung on the bulletin board in the common room, she felt a little worse. So much was expected of her.
By the Wednesday before the show, Astoria had heard several small conversations amongst other students about the concert, mostly about what they were going to wear to it. The sedateness of their discussions only added to Astoria's self-consciousness. To add to it, Draco had struck up an inopportune conversation that day and asked her where the concert was.
"That's on the sign," Astoria replied.
"Oh. Then what time is it, and how long will it be?"
"That's also on the sign."
"Did it ever occur to you that I don't want to be caught looking at the sign?"
"You always know what to say, don't you?" Astoria growled.
Many students were still milling about the village on their Hogsmeade trip when the band arrived at the WWN building at seven o'clock; hopefully, they would come to the concert even if it was merely "something to do" in their minds. Astoria's piano was placed in the centre. Rhiannon would be on her right, Hestia would be on her left, and Flora was elevated on a platform behind the piano. When Astoria had no piano part, she was supposed to "explore stage down," as Mr Mongaby said, and she knew he probably didn't mean that she should pace around like she had been doing for the past fifteen minutes.
It occurred to her after receiving a heartening letter from her parents that morning that she had never written to them about the concert. It was not intentional, but she almost wished that they had not seen the announcement in the newspaper. It would be so embarrassing if fifteen extra Greengrasses showed up overdressed for the occasion and took the best spots in the front. Astoria looked at her bandmates and felt a little too dressed up herself. She was wearing one of the new dresses her mother had bought her for Christmas — a dark blue, flowing dress with a single strap. Rhiannon, in contrast, had not invested her new small fortune in clothes by any means and was wearing nothing out of the ordinary. In an attempt to "coordinate" with both Astoria and Rhiannon, Flora and Hestia were wearing dark jeans and dressy shirts. It was the best they could do considering that they were not The Weird Sisters, whose garments often seemed to all be created from a single piece of tattered black cloth.
Pariah was on in fifteen minutes. A magical curtain would dissolve once they started playing. Flora, as usual, kept a stiff upper lip and a still seat. She seemed to be assessing the quality of the shield placed for their protection. Flora must have been nervous, but she channelled those nerves into the grip she had on her drumsticks. Astoria had nothing to hold. She wasn't even on piano during the opening song. She would be directly facing the audience. She had to look at people who expected to be entertained — people who had begun to enter the venue. Behind the immaterial, glittering dark curtain, Astoria could not see them, but by the sound of it, there were a lot of people there. Pariah was on in ten.
"I hear Tracey," Rhiannon mouthed and pointed downward and diagonally to indicate where their friend was. Pariah was on in five.
"Oh gosh, oh gosh," Hestia mouthed as she bounced on her toes. Her nervousness still did not take away from how brazen she looked with her new hair.
Astoria heard the doors to the auditorium shut. The lights above her transitioned from soft white to green. There were a few cheers of anticipation as the lights above the audience went out.
"Hello, hello, it's a great night here at the Hogsmeade WWN…"
The voice was quick, clear, and full of dynamism, and the girls, knowing that it belonged to Ms Glenda Chittock, looked at one another with smiles on their faces.
"…and with us tonight are the four witches — we know as — Pariah!"
It was a very bad time for Astoria's jaw to glue itself at the teeth.
She wasn't thinking correctly. She was seeing bouncing people in the audience when the girls started playing. She saw some people from her school and many more she did not recognise. The rest she could not see. It was very dark where the audience was, but there were lights all over her face. She heard Hestia start singing, "You meet me, you keep me." Wasn't that Astoria's verse? Why were the people in the front looking at her uncertainly?
"You seek me when I feel the pain…"
Hestia's voice was faltering. There was no way she was going to reach that high note… Why did she try to sing Astoria's part in the first place? Astoria smiled; Hestia was really going for it, but she wasn't going to make it.
"You seek me, you meet me, you keep me—" Hestia cheeped.
"Sane," Astoria sang, helping the other girl out.
The audience was surprised and delighted to hear Astoria's voice all of a sudden, and it was this reaction that brought her brain back to normal. She had missed her cue — that's what the problem was! The crowd apparently was unaware of the temporary chaos that Astoria caused onstage, and for that, she was infinitely grateful. The girls immediately followed up with "The Pariah" and smiled enough to hurt their faces when they received their applause. The crowd was larger than Astoria expected, estimating that there were about seven-hundred people there at first, although after quickly applying her knowledge of Arithmancy to the venue, she came closer to the estimate of eight-hundred. Still, she thought that Rhiannon would be disappointed by the size. The other girls would not be. Hestia was trying to look calm, Astoria could tell, as she moved forward to sing the next song, which was in her vocal range. Astoria took a seat at her piano and heard Rhiannon ask the crowd, "How d'you like Hestia's new haircut?"
There was a lot of cheering, and Hestia looked at her feet, smiling.
"You can tell Flora and me apart now, right?" Hestia asked.
With their only decent method of communication being cheering, the crowd cheered once more, but Astoria could see that they actually were amused by the discussion. She was beginning to have fun.
"This one's 'Ivy,'" Hestia stated.
A surprisingly large portion of the Hogwarts crowd managed to make wolf-whistles upon the announcement of the provocative song of which Hestia was so proud. Astoria used her excuse of sitting down at the piano to not get expressively involved with Hestia's prickly little tune. However, their next song, "Blood Panel" was actually one during which Astoria would have preferred to "explore the stage." It was funny how her own song gave her so much adrenaline. She wrote it as a protest song against pure-blood supremacists and wanted everyone to know it. Over time, it had become her favourite song. Her confidence showed through her performance, and Pariah received their largest applause yet.
"Thank you so much," she gasped.
She took a long drink of water. She had no vocals on the next song and was grateful. She placed her fingers on the keys but Rhiannon had begun strumming something different entirely. Astoria glanced at Hestia, who by her expression had never heard the tune in her life, either. What were they to do? Rhiannon kept playing the unknown song as she started addressing the audience.
"I wrote this next song to raise awareness of child abuse," Rhiannon said plainly to a hushed crowd. "What I just played was part of 'Rag Doll' by The Hobgoblins. Sort of the same idea."
Rhiannon's guitar at once blasted familiar noise throughout the auditorium, and the girls played their most emphatic performance of "Father" yet. After the applause died out, they performed "Sylhet" for the first time. All of them were bathed in uncertainty about it, but the audience seemed to like the new tune nonetheless. Astoria smugly thought of Mr Mongaby being shocked that their demo produced this kind of reaction. She stood proudly, ready for the next song.
"This is a cover by a Muggle band," Astoria said and saw many people look at one another quizzically.
"I'm sure the Muggle-borns'll know it," Rhiannon laughed. "All right. It's called 'Another Brick in th—"
Excited cheers rang out from people in various parts of the audience.
"Pink Floyd!" a pair of Muggle-born fans knew.
"So even if you've no idea what a Pink Floyd is, as I still don't," Astoria laughed, "These two will help you figure out when to sing for me — yes, that's right."
"We're playing the full version, by the way," Rhiannon informed.
"As full of a full version as we feel like," Hestia clarified.
Rhiannon and Hestia started to play, and Astoria got butterflies in her stomach. This time, though, they weren't enough to stop her from singing. This was her slam to Umbridge. Rhiannon opened.
"Daddy's flown 'cross the ocean
Leaving just a memory..."
"Daddy, what'd ya leave behind for me?" Astoria later joined. The crowd watched them carefully. As rehearsed, Rhiannon skipped much of the guitar solo and went straight into the part of the song which was ironically titled "The Happiest Days of Our Lives." Astoria knew the next part would get anybody who went to Hogwarts involved with the song.
"When we grew up and went to school,
There were certain teachers
Who would hurt the children any way they could."
It was so funny. A group of young men in the back actually shouted, "Doooolooooreeeees," holding out all the vowels. Astoria, unable to resist the temptation, made a "hem hem" sound in her throat as Umbridge was wont to, and the crowd suddenly cheered wildly. Unfortunately, the act had temporarily disturbed her throat, and she missed several notes on the following parts. Thankfully, she recovered in time to sing the iconic chorus.
"Hey — teacher! Leave them kids alone!"
For Astoria, there was something liberating about the bad grammar. She danced freely round the stage whilst she sang. Her comfort made the gig more personal. It was a great feeling. She was succeeding, and unafraid to laugh at herself.
"I don't need no arms around me," Rhiannon sang at the beginning of Part Three. She sang the verse, no doubt with the disappointment of Asenath fresh in her memory.
"All in all, you were all just bricks in the wall!"
Astoria and Rhiannon finished the lyrics with an explosion of energy and were met with a crowd who wondered where Pink Floyd had been all their lives. Astoria spun round and fetched her water and Rhiannon's.
"Hem-hem. Well, that was fun," Flora said. People laughed and called out their go-to phrase: "wooo."
Astoria was happy to sit back at her piano since her legs hurt so much. "The Things Unsaid" turned out to be an inadequate follow-up to the energetic Pink Floyd song, but Pariah moved right into "Underbelly" and won their audience back. The problem was that Astoria was getting tired. She had to cut some of her enthusiasm for "Sweet Nothings," but she reasoned that she would probably inadvertently do that anyway since it was about Philippe. The audience swayed with their wands lighted like candles, and Astoria saw it as a sort of ironic funeral for a relationship. Rhiannon, however, did not hide any of the emotion during "Useless," which forced Astoria to hide some of her discomfort. Finally, one of Hestia's forward songs relieved them, though when Hestia sang, "I know my feelings can't be destroyed, so I scream in my head and make no noise," Astoria knew it must have been a song about Rhiannon. It seemed there was no escape from heartache in Pariah's songs.
Astoria was quite impressed with Hestia's singing, and had to keep herself from joining the audience in clapping for her bandmate. Astoria was quite worn out, but she forced herself from her bench to début Pariah's new song, the last song of the night. It had to go as well as the rest of the concert had. She was determined to use the energy she had left to make it count. Hestia was switching to her borrowed guitar.
"This is our newest creation," Astoria said. "It's called 'Saccharine.'"
"Woooo," said the crowd.
"This is for anybody who's been someone's second choice."
"Oooooh!" said the crowd.
Hestia started to play, and Astoria immediately thought that the guitar was too loud. Why it was, she did not know, as Hestia apparently could not help it, but Astoria did not mind singing louder to compete with the shabby old thing. The song was about Philippe, after all, and she was certainly content to be loud about that painful story.
"When I met you, I was fooled
I saw honesty in your eyes
You'd look at me and let me know
That you'd never tell me lies
How could I know your affections
Flew in all possible directions?
I guess it wasn't clear
Whenever you weren't near
You were getting ready for the next one
So I've washed out the pink in my cheeks
And I've come out of my daydreams
And I've run out of reasons to think
That you're anything at all to me
I won't sing to you like a bird in a cage
You only let me out when the others fly away
'Out of sight, out of mind' is your favourite phrase after all
I won't be the one you cheat
I'm not someone for you to meet
And put away, put away
For when you're feeling bored and dull
I wouldn't mind if it was one
Just one I wouldn't mind
For one's a reason to forget me
To give your 'one' your time
But when it's two or three or four
I know my name's still in your drawer
Amongst the many others
You call your backup lovers
But I've run out of letters to write
And I won't stay up crying all night
'Cause now I know better than to think
That you're anything at all to me!"
Astoria realised she seemed a lot angrier than she thought she did during the second chorus, but she figured it was a good thing to give passionate performances. It was also drawing attention away from the random noises that Hestia's rented guitar decided to spit out at varied intervals. Astoria continued singing with all of her might. She was ending this concert on a good note.
"I refuse to be a number
Hope it keeps you from your slumber
When all your pretty things will know
You never let the last girl go
Oh, pity when your spares run out
Pity when your hair falls out
When there's no one new who'll want you
And no one left who you can use!"
The noise was so deafening that, at first, Astoria did not know if it was good or bad. It was good. Thank goodness, it was good. She sputtered out thank-you's as her band mates shouted them to the roaring audience.
"You're all lovely," she said to the still-cheering audience and had to prevent herself from crying in her joy. "Thank you so, so much."
Astoria threw her arms in the air in victory. Pariah had won the night.