A/N: Thanks so, so much for all the wonderful reviews! (Eloquentlyspeechless, esemeli, cottoncandy9128) I loved them! Really, you guys spoil me. You're so nice! Ok, on to the next chapter! Oh, and staff people are the equivalents of ghosts in Harry Potter.


Just a quick reminder:

Beginners-First Years
Newbies-Second Years
Novices-Third Years
Rookies-Fourth Years
Veterans-Fifth Years
Juniors-Sixth Years
Seniors-Seventh Years


Disclaimer: Dare you question that I own Harry Potter or not? (Also, 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' belongs to whoever wrote the movie Mary Poppins.)

Mary Porter and the Musician's Metronome

Chapter 8


Mary typed up the last of her Percussion essay. It was Monday morning, and the essay would be due today.

"Mary, hurry up!" whined Rob. He yanked her laptop from underneath her hands and copied down a bit of her last paragraph.

"Do you mind, Robert?" yelled Mary. She slapped him lightly on the cheek and stole back her laptop, saving the essay to a disk. "Come on, we've got Marching Class next! I've been looking forward to it all week!"

"You said that about every class, Mary," commented Rob dryly. But he too shut his laptop and put on his marching shoes, for he'd been looking forward to that specific class since the beginning of the school year.

Rob flipped open a small notebook and let out a sigh as he examined his class schedule for the day.

"Double Marching class," he said, "With the Decadantdude Beginners."

"Don't worry about them," instructed Mary. "We finally get to learn how to march!"


"Be sure to roll your feet, and keep your legs straight, and keep your eyes up!" yelled Madam Marchin. Mary held up her clarinet to the right horn angle so that it faced the front sideline, and waited as Madam Marchin counted off before the Marching Class did the Figure Eight once more.

Mary moved forward, trying very desperately to dress and cover and keep her eyes up. She placed one foot on a forty-five degree angle and marched to the right with her body still facing the front sideline. It was tough work, and it required a lot of upper body strength that she didn't have much of. But Madam Marchin had told the class that everybody always was a Beginner at one point, and that he or she would always have trouble marching the first time.

"Ms. Porter, keep in time!" alerted Madam Marchin. Mary blinked; she'd been thinking too much about other things. She told herself to focus on perfecting her backwards marching technique as the basics block of marchers placed a foot and began to back up on tip-toe, which was supposed to be the good technique for backing up.

The block shifted to the left, all the while with upper bodies still positioned to the front. Mary's eyes glanced behind her and she gritted her teeth as she noticed the perfect upper body angle on a certain blonde-haired snare drummer behind the main block.

It was unusual that the Battery, or marching percussionists, did Basics with woodwinds and brass players. Today had been an exception, for Drumstick Dan, the staff person for Decadantdude house and the percussion, had fallen ill.

There was one staff person per house: Nick the Nitpick for Fearlessfool, Drumstick Dan for Decadantdude, Tayla the Theoretician for Smartstuff, and Guard Instructor Gina for Normalninny. They were alumni of Hogwarts, and each had just come on Friday to help with classes and such. There were several other Staff people as well, but Nick, Dan, Tayla and Gina were the main four.

Mary drew her focus back to the Basics block, and placed one foot down and moved forward. Her eyes snapped diagonally forward and to the right as she watched a baritone saxophonist trip. The alto saxophone player behind him fell on top of him, and the two saxophones landed on the ground, dented and bent beyond reason.

"Halt!" Madam Marchin shouted abruptly. She rushed over to the two fallen saxophonists.

"Mr. Longfellow, Ms. Brown? Are you all right? And your instruments?" questioned the Madam as she aided the two Fearlessfools back onto their feet.

"I'm fine and so is my saxophone, but I think Billy's saxophone is broken quite badly," commented the alto saxophonist, Lily Brown, a girl that Mary knew from her dormitory.

Lily was quite right in saying that Billy's saxophone was broken. It had bent all the way in half; the mouthpiece lay chipped and muddied on the ground, and the bell of the saxophone no longer even resembled something of that shape.

"We'll get you to Madam Presto and your saxophone to Hagrid in just a second," Madam Marchin told Billy, who nodded, and rubbed his nose, which was bleeding. "The rest of you, stay where you are, and don't even think of marching or playing or you're be expelled before you can say 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.'"

She and Billy walked away from the field and towards the Palace. Mary turned her head in a hurry as she noticed Darcy setting her snare drum down to pick up something that was on the ground- Billy's mouthpiece!

"Ew, a reed!" hissed the entire flute section. Darcy held up the mouthpiece by the reed, and laughed.

"I'm sure Billy Longfellow will be missing this," pondered Darcy. She grinned evilly, and prepared to throw it into the Spooky Forest not 90 feet away.

"Stop!" hollered Mary. "Billy needs that!"

Darcy twisted around, her face beet-red. "I don't care, Porter! He'll just have to suffer! It's his fault that he tripped in the first place! Besides, what could you possibly want with this thing?"

"The mouthpiece is still good! I'll, um, I'll have a march-off with you for it!" bellowed Mary.

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" Darcy shouted back. Though she might've been dim, when it came to marching and playing music,Darcy had a certain passion for it that ran through her veins and couldn't be ignored. Darcy clicked off the tempo on her snare drum, and marched the figure eight, all the while playing a complex sixteenth- and eighth-note rhythm.

"Beat that, Porter!"

Mary shifted nervously. What had she been getting into? She didn't know how to play much at all on her clarinet! Quickly thinking back to a previous Band class with Professor McGraveh, she chose on a simple piece that she remembered: The Saints Go Marching In. Mary decided to try marching the oblique exercise she'd seen Veterans doing earlier that day. It was similar to the Figure Eight, except she had to march diagonals.

She clicked off a faster tempo in her head, and moved forward diagonally to the right as she played the first measure of the song. Mary sung what she knew of the song in her head.

'Oh when the saints… Go marching in…. Oh when the saints go marching in! I wanna be… In that number… Oh when the saints go marching in!'

She sustained the last note and halted. The Fearlessfools clapped, the Decadantdudes moped, and Darcy muttered and threw the mouthpiece straight at Mary's head. She caught it, and smiled. She was pretty good!

"Ms. Porter! Come with me," whispered Madam Marchin into Mary's ear.

The smile wiped right off of Mary's face. 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,' Mary thought.


"I'm on the… What's it called?" asked Mary once again, dumbfounded.

"The Corps Team, Mary! Corps Team is like a marching band competition, but for smaller groups with seven to twenty-eight members. The Boneslides norm is nine per house," explained Ollie Forester, a Rookie Year Fearlessfool and Fearlessfool Corps Team Captain.

"Yes, and you're the one woodwind marcher we've been looking for," explained McGraveh. Madam Marchin had taken Mary to McGraveh's office, and lo and behold, Mary had been selected for the elite Fearlessfool Corps Team.

"Meet me after school for training, Mary," instructed Ollie.

Mary nodded, still confused, and headed out of the door to get to Percussion class so she wouldn't be late.

"Oh, and one more thing, Ms. Porter," called Professor McGraveh's voice, "Help us win this thing."

Mary smirked. "Yes, Professor." There was going to be a new Corps Team Champion House this year.


What'd ya think? Good or bad? And do you like the concept of Corps Team, or is it too unoriginal? Maybe I can change it to Drill Team if worst comes to worst. Thanks for reading, and leave a review!