Disclaimer: See first chapter.
A/N: In this chapter more new characters appear. Sirius Black will be playing Toulouse, Severus Snape will be playing the cross-dressing Audrey, Frank Longbottom will be the soft-spoken composer, and Remus Lupin the lycanthropic wolf-man will be playing the unconcious narcoleptic Argentinian. Hope you enjoy! (And sorry for the wait.)
…But there was one problem.
I had never been in love.
Luckily, right at the moment I came to this realization, an unconscious wolf-man fell through the roof. I jumped up from my seat in front of my typewriter, startled. There was now a hole in my ceiling and a wolf-man hanging down into, not to mention the fact that his makeup was poorly done. He was quickly joined by a dwarf dressed as a nun. So now I was being invaded by these strange people, all apparently in costume. I found that the dwarf was very friendly, though he had a slight lisp, when he introduced himself.
"How do you do? My name is Sirius-Raymond de Toulouse-Monfa Black," he told me, with a twirl of his cane and a shake of his head.
All I could do was stutter out a small, "what?" and even that went unnoticed as he continued on with his explanation. He dawdled over to his friend pulling on him a bit and trying to find a way to take him down.
"I'm terribly sorry about all this. We were just upstairs rehearsing a play."
Again all I managed to ask was "what?" In my mind I remember being excited by the prospect of this play. It was something very modern call Spectacular, Spectacular.
"And its set in Switzerland," he said, gesturing with his hands and seeming to forget about his dark haired friend who was still dangling upside-down be side him. Unfortunately, the unconscious wolf-man suffered from a sickness called lycanthropy.
I gathered a little courage and moved closer to the wolf-man to see if I could anything. Sirius, or Toulouse, as we came to know him, sat down at my typewriter, a wide smile on his face despite what was happening.
"He's human one moment and a wolf," he paused to add a short growl for effect, "the next." He seemed to think this was perfectly normal.
Just when I thought things could not be anymore weird, three people were peeking into my room via the ceiling. "How is he," asked one woman…man…thing. It was wearing a very badly made wing and very flamboyant makeup. He-she was accompanied by two mean, one bald with glasses and the other with a full beard and top hat. All I could do was stare up at them with my mouth slightly open. The he-she, whom I found was named Severus, or Sevvie, for short, kept talking at an alarming speed. "Oh, wonderful, now the lycanthropic wolf-man is unconscious, and therefore the scenario will not be finished in time to present to the financier tomorrow."
The balding man, called Frank (Longbottom) seemed to be just as worried as Sevvie. "Right, Toulouse. I still have to finish the music."
Sirius seemed to be the only one that could keep a cool head and think clearly. "We'll just get someone to read the part," he said casually, though something in his voice told me that he knew this would not be the end of the discussion.
"Now, where, in heaven's name, are we going to find someone to read the role of the young, sensitive, Swiss poet goat herder?"
Suddenly all of them in unison turned to look at me.
Little did I know, that this day would be the start of everything good and the beginning of the end…
Before I knew it, I was upstairs standing in for the unconscious Argentinean. This rehearsal was complete chaos. I was standing on a makeshift hillside, jumbled together so poorly that I wouldn't have known what I was supposed to be standing on if Sirius had not been singing Sevvie's overly-ornate lyrics, not that I would dare critic, as I had never been in a production such as this.
"The hills animate with the euphonious symphonies of descant," Sirius was singing, to a back ground of ridiculous tinklings and small explosions from the lighting. I shifted my wieght uncomfortably in my costume. It involved some unnecessary short-shorts and suspenders in a very strange green color. So far I hadn't had any lines because…
Sevvie rushed forward. "Oh stop, stop! Stop, stop, stop." It waved its hands excessively and arrogantly, as it directed its attention to Frank, who was sitting at the piano. "That insufferable droning is drowning out my words! Could we please just stick to a little decorative piano?" it asked, clearly talking down to him.
There seemed to be artistic differences over Sevvie's lyrics to Frank's style, as they had been having incidents like this throughout the reading. In fact, now I remember hearing some disagreements through the thin ceiling a few times before we had met.
But before Frank could provide an answer, the older, bearded Marauder, simply known as The Healer, piper up with his own opinion. "I don't think a nun would say that about a hill." This was the root of all the problem of the play. There were too many conflicting opinions, nothing was agreed upon.
"What if he sings, 'the hills are vital in toning the descant?'" With that, everyone was handing out their opinions in a mish mash of ideas, in which no one heard anything another had said.
"No, no. The hills quake and shake!" came from Sirius.
The healer tried to come up with something else. "No, no…The hills…tone." It was true that the original line hadn't really fit, but nothing else so far had either.
In the back of the room the lycanthrope suddenly became human for a moment. "The hills are incarnate with symphonic melodies," he shouted, before turning once more into his wolf form.
"The hills are chanting the eternal mantra."
"Tones emanate from the hills in harmony!" Suddenly I had an idea of my own and it seemed to fit very well in my head. I opened my mouth to share, but was cut off.
"The hills sing with chords from heaven." While everyone was busy talking to themselves and scratching their heads, I had discovered a line that would fit perfectly. Unfortunately, their ears were lost to me.
"Th-" I was interrupted once more. But what could I do to end the noise around me? How could I catch their attention? Finally, I figured out the only way I would be noticed. With a deep breathe, I began to sing. "The hills are alive, with the sound of music." I had just put their lines in simpler terms. They had been trying to make it sound better by adding a better vocabulary, forgetting the true meaning of the line.
It seemed that I had, if I may, struck a chord. The room was silent for the first time since I had been there and I could only stand on my perch smiling at them.
The quiet was finally broken by the lycanthrope, also know as Remus, turning back into a human. He stood up and took a few stiff steps towards me. "The hills are alive, with the sound of music," he said, his jaw clenched. I was afraid that he did not approve of my idea, until he rushed over and clapped me on the back. "I love it!"
A little more inspiration and I added another line. "With songs they have sung, for a thousand years!" I smiled across the room brightly.
The rest of the room repeated the line together, trying it out for themselves. Soon everyone was smiling. At least until Sirius made that fateful suggestion. "Incandiferous. Sevvie, you two should write the show together."
"I beg your pardon," was the very startled reply, with a hand to the ear as if it had not heard correctly. This suggestion was not what Sevvie wanted to hear. "Goodbye!" All at once it was slamming the door indignantly. I hadn't meant to cause this trouble, I had only been trying to help, but now it seemed I had caused a large problem for their production.
I looked at the remaining Marauders, unsure of what was to happen next. Surprisingly, the three of them didn't seem to be disturbed by the latest development. "Here's to your first job in Paris," Sirius said, raising a glass of lime green liquid in my direction.
But then Frank started to look a bit worried, as did I. "But Pettigrew will never agree," he half-whispered, obviously not wanting me to hear this part of the conversation. I wasn't sure that I had agreed either. It would be a dream come true, but I didn't know if I was good enough to take on such a project, one that I knew so little about. I had been hoping to start a little smaller than a production like this. "No offense," Frank said, turning to me now, "but have you ever written anything like this before?"
"No," I replied, shaking my head. This question did nothing to ease my anxiety about this.
I started to climb down the ladder that leaned against the 'hill' as Remus was stepping forward. "Nonsense, the boy has talent." With his last word he spread his hands apart, but the gesture was miscalculated and he ended up with his palm on my crotch. I was so startled that all I could do was gasp at the mistake. "I like him," continued Remus before he realized where his hand had landed and pulled away. "Nothing funny, I just like talent," he added for good measure.
The three of them gathered in a little huddle, having a sort of meeting that I heard bits and pieces of.
"The hills are alive with the sound of music. See, Satie, with Christian we can write the truly bohemian revolutionary show that we've always dreamt of," Sirius said, sounding overjoyed at this new opportunity. But unlike him, I was still unsure that I was right for this.
"But how will we convince Pettigrew," Frank asked, pressing the issue once more. I was busy having a discussion with myself. Could I handle this? What if I got writers block? What if everything I did ended up horribly?
But Sirius had a plan. All I heard was something about "Lily." At the time, I did not know it was the very same Lily that I had known before. I did not know what was yet to come. Their nervous glances at me did nothing to help me decided that I really wanted to be involved with this show.
They had decided that they would dress me up in Remus' best robes and pass me off as a famous English writer. Once Lily heard my modern poetry she would insist to Pettigrew that I write Spectacular, Spectacular. None of us realized the risk we were running with this particular lie, as she might recognize me at any time and know that I was not, indeed, a famous writer of any sort.
And then my fathers voice came into my head. "You'll end up wasting your life at the Moulin Rouge with a can-can dancer." It repeated over and over until I rushed away from them and down the ladder that had been placed down into my garret in the process of freeing the lycanthrope.
"I can't write the show for the Moulin Rouge," I shouted at them in a panic. The three of them rushed forward and surrounded me. They seemed so adamant about it that I paused to hear what they had to say.
Sirius was the first to speak. "Why not?"
"I don't know if I am a true bohemian revolutionary."
They all seemed startled to hear me say this, it seemed they were more convinced of my character than even I was. In unison they uttered my favorite question of the hour. "What?" The disbelief in their voice was reassuring, but of course, that was not all that would be said on the subject.
"Do you believe in beauty?" Sirius asked me, leaning very close.
"Yes," I replied, nodding my head.
"Freedom?" It was the lycanthrope's turn. This was shaping up into a real interrogation.
"Yes, of course."
The musician, Frank, stepped forward. "Truth?" He looked as if he already knew my answer. They were definatly proving their point, as I was starting to feel a bit more confident about this.
"Love?" The last question, put to me by the healer, catch my attention moreso than the others had. I looked at him, I know, with wide, excited brown eyes and an irrepressible smile spread over my face. Love was something I knew, as I had spent much of my life obsessing over it, chasing it, and studying it.
This required more than a one word answer. "Love," I said, repeating his question, lost in thought. "Love…above all things I believe in love. Love is an energy, love is a mystery. Love is meant to be true. Make it all, all for one and all for love." My voice grew louder as I spoke and I climbed a few steps up the ladder again.
The three of them stared at me awestruck, until Sirius broke the silence. "Oh! See you can't fool us. You're the voice of the children of the revolution," he implored. The rest of them chimed in, repeating his words, all smiling like I was a gift from heaven. I found myself being pulled back up to the makeshift stage that occupied that flat above mine. Sirius wasted no time finding glasses and a strange electric green drink. "Let's drink to the new writer of the world's first bohemian revolutionary show!"
I was swept up into the good spirits. It was the perfect plan, at least, I remember thinking it so at the time. Who could have known how very wrong things would go in the end? But still I would not change the course of events. I had my first taste of absinthe that day and was carried off completely into the world of free spirit. I could feel the Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Love flittering about me like a faerie.
Before I knew it, we were off to the Moulin Rouge and I was to perform my poetry for Lily.