CHAPTER FIVE: LA MUSIQUE
HERMIONE GRANGER
I woke up the next morning with an idea; I didn't know where it came from or even what had led to it, I just knew I thought it was brilliant. I went to breakfast in a rush, thoroughly excited.
"Guys!" I said, nearly throwing my bag onto the table in my excitement.
"What?" Sirius asked, startled.
"Guys, come with me. Come here! I need some information from you, and then I've got an idea---just come with me!"
Exchanging bewildered looks and shrugs, Remus, Sirius, and James got up and followed me. I ran over to the Ravenclaw table and tapped Kevin Minxe, my music co-team leader, on the shoulder. He turned.
"Hermione," he said, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Hi."
"Hi," I replied distractedly. "Listen, could you do me a favor and come to the meeting fifteen minutes early tonight?"
"Sure," he replied. "What's up?"
"I can't tell you now," I told him, sounding rushed (probably because I was). "I've got to go do something. But I'll talk to you then, okay?"
"All right," he agreed, watching me curiously.
"Okay," I said, turning on my heel and going as fast as I could out of the Great Hall. "Thanks, Kevin," I called over my shoulder, and he waved, looking bewildered but amused.
I led the now thoroughly confused Marauders all over the castle, finally reaching my destination.
"Hermione, why are we in the Magical and Muggle Music Studies classroom?" Remus asked bravely after a moment.
"Because," I replied, beaming, "We're starting a band."
They stared.
"Well," James said. "That was unexpected. Are you planning on telling us where that came from?"
I laughed joyously. "Sit, sit," I told them, ushering them towards the desks. "Okay, first thing," I began. "Do any of you play anything?"
There was a long silence. "Drums," Sirius said. "And electric guitar."
"Electric guitar," James agreed, thinking. "And I can sing," he added.
"Good," I said. "Remus?"
He smiled. "Clarinet and alto sax, but I can't sing at all."
"This is awesome!" I said happily. "We can start a band just with these instruments. If we all played all the instruments we're capable of, we'll have a clarinet, an alto sax, drums, three guitars, a piano, and two singers."
"You play piano and guitar, I take it," Sirius guessed. "And you're a singer."
"Yeah," I replied. "Have you guys ever played acoustic guitar?"
They shook their heads.
"Huh," I said. "Well, it's the same thing. I can play both, and it really isn't any different; except with an acoustic, you don't need an amp and you have to tune it every once in awhile. You could learn."
They looked at each other, grinning.
"Hermione, why are we starting a band in the first place?" James asked.
"Because Kevin and I have been working on the music for Muggle Formal Night," I said, noticing a scowl from Sirius but ignoring it, "and we've tried---and failed---to book several muggle bands. But it's prom season, and all the decent muggle bands are taken. So we're starting one, and we'll play at Muggle Formal Night. Don't worry, I'm still going to hire a DJ; we'll still be able to dance and party and have a good time. But I thought it would be cool to have a live band."
"Cool," James said.
"Do we have music?" Remus asked.
"No," I replied, grinning. "That's the fun part. We're writing our own."
SIRIUS BLACK
That night, there was a planning committee in the Great Hall. We'd started putting up decorations, and the whole hall was set up with ladders, chairs, and stepstools so that we could hang things. I was working with a huge group who was in charge of the decorations, laughing with a guy named Mike I'd become friends with, when I looked across the hall.
There was Hermione, up on a ladder and reaching for something she really wasn't tall enough to get to. I was about to drop what I was doing and go help her when Kevin reached up and touched her hip. She looked down, smiling at him, and said something. He smiled back, said something that made her laugh. She climbed down off the ladder and he climbed up; he put the banner up for her, then climbed back down. I made an excuse to walk by them, just in time to watch as Hermione laughed and put her hands on her hips in a mocking way.
"Now what would I do without you?" she asked, clearly teasing.
He smiled at her---a smile I wasn't sure I liked. "Find another tall guy to put things up for you?" he replied, teasing back.
Flirting. That's what they were doing. Flirting.
I decided right then and there that I didn't like Kevin Minxe.
So I mostly ignored him, though I was civil when he spoke to me. He'd come up and ask my opinion of something occasionally---but mostly it was choosing his idea or Hermione's. I always chose Hermione's---partly because I didn't like him, and partly because hers were better than his. I was nice enough to the guy, I suppose; though several times I'd shoot him a dark look and get a glare from Hermione in return.
We started working on our band the next day. Hermione wrote tons of music, which involved all of us using every instrument to our advantage.
The songs were complicated, but incredibly fun to play. One entire song was pairs; the first part was Hermione on piano and James on guitar; the next part was Remus on sax and me on drums; following that was me on guitar while James sang; and finally Hermione on guitar and me on drums. She called it our "pair piece," though she wrote several others for fun, and it finished with a huge finale---me on drums, Hemione on piano and singing, James on guitar and singing, and Remus playing sax.
One of the songs Hermione wrote was one I called "Insanity" because Hermione had written in a lot of cymbal crashes and guitar riffs. In it, we often ended up switching instruments in between other people's solos and things---in fact, in one of the songs, Hermione started off playing piano and singing. Then, in the space of four beats' rest, she had to get up, run to her guitar, get the strap over her neck and start playing. It was amazing to watch. In all of our free time, you'd find all of us either in the common room writing music, in the Head's Quarters working on Muggle Formal Night ideas, or in the Music classroom playing.
It was the most fun I'd had in a long time. It was great; Hermione, James, Remus and I all became inseperable; people started referring to us as "the Brat Pack" instead of "the Marauders," because Hermione had replaced Peter in our group of friends---though he still came with us on Remus' transformation nights and froze the tree.
"Sirius?"
I snapped out of my trance. "What?"
"I said let's take it again from the top, and you're sitting there staring at me with this enormous grin on your face," Hermione replied, hands on hips as she smiled at me.
"Oh," I said, grinning. "Sorry."
We started on the pair piece again, but Hermione cut us off soon after we started.
"I don't know, guys," she said. "It sounds off."
"I think---and this isn't a critizism, Hermione, just a thought," Remus said, "But I think your voice is too low."
"I'm an alto-soprano," she replied indignantly. "Too high I'd believe, but too low? It doesn't get much higher than alto-soprano."
"I agree with Moony," James agreed. "Don't get me wrong," he added, "Hermione, I love your voice, it's gorgeous. I just think we need something slightly higher-pitched. Just for this part."
She thought for a moment, then suddenly snapped her fingers. "I know a girl who's a soprano-vibrato," she said. "I'll ask her to guest-star."
"Who is it?" I asked.
She smiled at all of us. "Someone. Hang on, I'll be right back." She dashed out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Remus, grinning, unhooking his saxophone from it's neck strap and sitting down. "Whew," he said. "I needed a break."
"She's a hard worker," James replied seriously, wiping his forehead on his sleeve.
"That she is," Remus agreed. "But who do we know who's a soprano-vibrato? That's the highest it gets; that's a step above soprano."
"No idea," James replied as I sat down next to him. They both looked at me.
"What, like I'm totally in the habit of finding out the pitch of my girlfriend's voice?" I asked incredulously.
"No," James agreed. "But you definitely know more girls than Remus and I."
"That's true," I replied, "But it doesn't help much."
Hermione entered the room then, out of breath but beaming. "May I introduce the guest singer of our yet-unnamed band---more specifically, for our yet-unnamed song?" She swung the door open fully, revealing---
"Lily Evans," Remus said in surprise, then stood up to shake her hand. "Welcome to our---what'd you call it, Hermione?---our yet-unnamed band."
"Thank you," she replied, taking the hand he offered.
"Evans," James said, his mouth open. Hermione, who was standing near him, silently reached over and closed his mouth. It was a mark of how distracted he was that he didn't even glare at her. He just said blankly, "Hey, Padfoot, tell me something."
I raised an eyebrow. "Sure."
"Can you see her, or am I hallucinating? Is Lily Evans standing in front of me?"
I grinned at the blush that was beginning to creep up Evans' face, then replied, "Yeah, she's there, mate. She also heard the question, and she's now giving you one of those 'explain-or-die' looks that girls are so good at."
Hermione laughed. "Okay, guys. Sorry, Lily," she added to Evans. "They're good at talking about people like they're not in the room."
Evans grinned. "Don't worry about it," she replied. "I've dealt with enough guys on this planning committee thing to know how they act."
"Evans," James said suddenly, as if a thought had just occurred to him.
"There's another thing," Lily added to Hermione. "I've been friends with him for three weeks now and he persists in calling me 'Evans'. I have a first name, too, James," she added to James.
"Will you go to Muggle Formal Night with me?" he said quietly.
The room went silent. Having known James for six years, I knew what it must have taken for him to ask out a girl---especially this girl---while Remus, Hermione and I were in the room. He would die before getting turned down by a girl in public---except this one. He'd continually asked Evans out through our first five years at Hogwarts, both with and without an audience. He didn't seem to care about anything but getting her to date him. But this year he'd stopped completely and made friends with her; and now, in a total leap of faith, he was trying again.
Lily stood perfectly still for a full minute, and didn't say a word. She slowly raised her gaze to meet James', saw the look in his eyes. She smiled slowly.
"Yes."
James couldn't have looked more surprised if she'd proposed to him in the spot. "What?" he asked quietly, staring at her. I think both of them had completely forgotten that there were other people in the room.
Her smile widened. "Yes, James, I'd love to go to Muggle Formal Night with you."
"You know," James said slowly, "I think there's something in a girl's voice that makes it completely impossible for guys to hear the words they want to hear. Can someone translate?"
I laughed. "She said yes, mate."
James stared at her for a long, long time. "Wow," he said finally. "Well, all right then. Could you all excuse me for just one second?" he added, and vanished into the hall, closing the door behind him. But the closed door did nothing to muffle the sounds of James screaming "YES!", running around, and whooping. After a full minute of this, he came back in, grinning wildly. I struggled not to laugh as he said. "Now, let's get to work!"
Hermione laughed, then replied, "Yeah. Okay, Lily, you're on. I'll sing the first time, just so you can get the rhythm down, and then it's all you. All right?"
"Okay," Lily replied, and we ran through the so-called "singing song," listening to Hermione's voice as it flowed over the music, intertwining with it. When it was over, she went to the folder we kept our music in and pulled out the lyrics---which were written down simply because we were constantly changing them, and we wanted to keep track of them. She handed them to Lily, and we spent the rest of the afternoon working on it. Lily's voice was sweetly high-pitched, like a small child's. It was perfect for the song, as Remus had predicted, but I preferred Hermione's slightly lower, more melodious voice. Hermione's voice was haunting and dark in a way I couldn't explain or hope to describe.
"Thanks, Lily," Hermione said at the end of the rehearsal. "The planning committee meeting starts in twenty minutes or so. You want to hang around and help us choose song names until it's time to go?"
"Sure," she replied, and sat down. James quickly took the seat next to each other, and even as we all sat down I saw their eyes meet, and they didn't break eye contact until Hermione spoke.
"All right, first of all, we need a band name. We've got a band, and we've got music, but we haven't named anything. Any ideas?" Hermione asked.
Lily smiled. "You could call yourselves The Brat Pack," she suggested, and we all laughed.
"We could," James agreed.
"Okay. Anyone have a problem with The Brat Pack?" Hermione asked, and we all shook our heads. "Perfect," she said. "Now, about song names..."
Later that night, after we'd successfully named our songs and determined the order we'd play them in, we all walked across the castle to the Great Hall, where tonight's planning committee meeting was being held.
Because Hermione had taken care of the music aspect of it, she'd allowed Kevin Minxe to head meetings when she wasn't around. When we got there, we discovered they'd started decorating---but now it was the big stuff; the tables and the dance floor and stage and things.
"Decorations already?" I asked, walking in and looking around.
"Not 'already,' Padfoot," Remus corrected. "The ball's in two days, after all."
"Is it really?" Hermione asked, startled.
"Yeah," I answered.
"Oh, no," she groaned. "I haven't gotten a dress."
"Wear an old one," Remus suggested.
Hermione smiled shyly. "I don't own any," she admitted.
Lily came over from where she'd been hanging a banner up. "What's the matter, Hermione?" she asked, noticing Hermione's face.
Hermione laughed. "I've been stupid," she replied. "I forgot the ball is on Friday, and I have one night to buy a dress. I've got to go to Hogsmeade tonight."
"Oh," Lily replied. "Why don't you go with me and a couple of my friends? We're doing some last-minute shopping tonight, too."
Hermione smiled. "Thanks, Lily."
"No problem," she replied.
"Hermione!" We all heard a shout, and turned to see Kevin Minxe.
"Hi, Kevin," Hermione replied.
"Wow, I'm so glad you're here," he told her. "We needed your input on something. If you could just come over here...?"
"Of course," Hermione replied, and they walked off, talking. I eyed Kevin's retreating back with distaste, then went off to help hang up decorations.