Music for this chapter: The girl who fell from the sky by Joe Hisaishi (from Castle in the Sky)

Hermione blinked at the sheet taped to the closed stage doors. She had gotten to the Hogsmeade Center for the Arts well before rehearsal to explore the practice rooms, but there was already a group of older people who looked like they were Hogwarts Symphony Orchestra members on the stage.

As we announced at the end of the last rehearsal, we will be having sectionals this week due to scheduling conflicts with the HSO. Please find the list of rehearsal spaces below.

Groaning, she heard her phone ring with a text. It was a message from Harry reminding her that they had sectionals today, so they would meet up with her afterwards. Her best friend had impeccable timing.

She looked at the sheet of paper and realized the String section was supposed to be practicing in a building that was a few blocks away. It wouldn't have been a problem, but it was raining outside and she had barely managed to stay dry under her umbrella on the short walk from the bus stop to the concert hall. With the wind and storm picking up, she was bound to be drenched by the time she made it to rehearsal.

"Granger?" Nott was walking towards her with a puzzled expression and a couple folders in hand. "What are you doing here?"

Hermione grimaced. "I forgot we had sectionals today. Why are you here?"

The dark-haired boy pulled out his phone and walked over to the wall of lockers. "Professor Snape, our orchestra director, asked me to drop off a few forms for one of his friends. Daphne also gave me a couple things to drop off for her father. He has a flight tonight and left something at home, but she has ten minutes left to submit a paper. I decided to be a good boyfriend and volunteer," he explained as he unlocked two lockers and placed a folder in each of them. He typed something into his phone before pocketing it.

His dark green eyes looked up at her and noticed her rain-splattered jeans and dripping umbrella. "Do you want a ride to Sectionals? I brought my car with me, and I'm heading over there now."

She hesitated for a second, but ten minutes in a decently nice Slytherin's car sounded better than a twenty minute trek in the rain that was bound to be pouring horizontally at this point. "I would actually really appreciate that, Nott."

He rolled his eyes as he held the door open for her. "Please, call me Theo."

She smiled at the gesture and nodded. "Okay, Theo. But you have to call me Hermione."

Theo laughed as he continued to hold doors open for her as they made their way down various hallways. "Sounds good, Hermione."

They chatted about their days on the way to the parking deck, and Hermione found out that Theo was more into STEM and had skipped a couple grades of math, so he was already taking multivariable calculus as a Junior.

"How can you even do that?" she asked, pitching her voice a little louder than normal in order to be heard over the raging storm outside the safety of the parking deck.

He smirked. "Slytherin Preparatory has a lot of advanced classes. It sounds like you like your History and Literature classes more. That's more of Draco's thing. Daphne's the only one who will put up with my math obsession because she's a little bit of a science nerd."

Hermione laughed. "I can't see Malfoy liking school."

"Oh, you'd be surprised. He's interested in things that most people wouldn't expect he would enjoy," replied Theo as he pulled out his keys next to a Mercedes SUV. He opened the door with a soft smile. "Did you submit your paper, Daph?"

Hermione peered over his shoulder and saw the pretty blonde oboist on her laptop in the passenger seat. "I just submitted it! If that ridiculous Professor Lockhart doesn't give me an A on this thing, I'm actually going to file a complaint. The man got in purely because of his family connections! I mean he only has a Bachelor's degree and has never taught before. If my grades suffer because of him, I'm not going to stand for it," she huffed as she looked up and saw Hermione. Her cheeks pinked a bit and she gave a small smile. "Hello, Hermione. Please ignore my rant, I tend to unspool a little bit when it comes to incompetent professors."

The confused Gryffindor waved back as Theo unlocked the back door for her. "I offered her a ride to Sectionals practice. The weather is too miserable to walk through."

Hermione thanked him and quickly scooted inside the nice car. It was so clean and the seats still smelled like new leather.

Daphne smiled at her boyfriend. "That was very nice of you, Theo. And thank you again for dropping off Father's papers." She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek as he got into the car. She looked back at Hermione with a wink. "You're very lucky club practice got cancelled today, otherwise Theo's disgusting soccer bag would be back there with you."

Theo groaned as he started the car. "The bag is clean, Daphne. Well, it's much cleaner than everyone else's bags."

He quickly got them out of the parking deck and joined the traffic on the streets. Daphne closed her laptop and pulled on a gray fleece with the Slytherin crest on the front. She held up a bag of pretzels. "Do you want any, Hermione?"

Hermione shook her head with a smile. "No, thank you."

Daphne nodded before opening the bag and handing a pretzel to Theo. He popped it into his mouth and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel while waiting for the light to turn green. "Mind if I turn on some music, Hermione?"

"Oh, you're the one driving. I don't mind either way."

"I hope you like classical music, Hermione," laughed Daphne. "We both have weird music tastes for teenagers." She leaned forward to switch onto the classical radio station.

Hermione cracked a smile. "I prefer classical music as well. I don't understand how people can fall asleep or study for exams to orchestral music. It's like I try to figure out the notes or get too lost in the music to do anything else. I guess I'm fine with doing math homework to classical music, though."

Theo turned around at that and grinned. "Thank goodness someone else gets it. It drives me mad when people study to music. How on earth are you supposed to focus? I do agree that classical music does help when you do math problems. But reading with music? Bad form."

Daphne poked her boyfriend's arm as the light turned green. "Focus on the road, Theo. We're almost there anyways."

They pulled into another parking deck and quickly got out. Hermione noticed Ron's car in the corner and felt relieved to know that she would have a ride later. A dark gray Audi pulled up a spot over from them as Theo pulled his cello from his trunk. Daphne grinned as the front door opened. "You didn't forget about Sectionals this time, Draco?"

Malfoy gave an easy grin back to the girl as he got out of the car with his violin case in tow. "That was one time, Daph. And for the record, I was jet-lagged." His friendly smile slid off his face as he caught sight of Hermione when Theo closed the trunk of his car. He raised an eyebrow, "Are you taking in strays now, Theo? Or is just having Daphne too tame for you?"

Theo just rolled his eyes but Daphne sent him a disapproving look. "Theo was just being nice and offered a ride from Hogsmeade, Draco. And I think Hermione's much better than Pansy Parkinson." She sent a smile at Hermione before grabbing her hand and dragging her to the door. "Ignore, Draco. He can be a bit of a prat when he doesn't get his way."

Hermione found herself laughing as she let Daphne lead her into an elevator and pressed the buttons for the second and fourth floor. "You mean he's not always a prat?"

"Oh, he's just being a prat around you. I think you're the first person to ever beat him when it comes to violin, and he's wanted to be the HYSO Concertmaster for years," replied Daphne as she got off on the second floor. "Have fun at sectionals!"

Professor McGonagall was flipping through the score when Hermione walked into the room for the first violins. She looked up and nodded approvingly. "Ah, Hermione. We'll be starting soon, so please set up your stand."

"Hello, Professor McGonagall. I didn't know you would be teaching our sectionals," she smiled at her teacher as she quickly unpacked.

"Yes, Albus asked me to take over for the rehearsal," the older woman looked up to see the door open again and smiled. "Mr. Malfoy, I was wondering if I would see you today. How are your parents?"

Hermione turned to see a smiling Draco Malfoy, and she was reminded of the first time he had stopped next to her before he found out she was Concertmaster. "Hello, Minerva. My parents are quite well. I believe they're hoping you'll come to their next party."

McGonagall laughed and motioned for him to close the door. "Yes, it's been a while since I've seen the old crowd. I'll see if I can make the time over the holidays."

Blinking, Hermione couldn't help but feel a small twinge of betrayal at the easy conversation between her violin teacher and her horrendous stand partner. She quickly got ready as McGonagall pointed out a few troublesome passages and had the group go over them. Hermione bit her lip as she looked at a passage and raised her hand.

"Yes, Hermione?"

"I would like to propose a bowing change here and for the same section on the next page?" she picked up her violin to demonstrate. The other students nodded and began to pencil in the correction.

Malfoy rolled his eyes and picked up his violin. "I feel like this is better, actually." He demonstrated a different bowing, and a few students nodded and started to mark over what they had just written.

Hermione glared at the smirking blond. "I'm Concertmaster, and we should use my bowing. Yours isn't good."

"Your bowing is atrocious. If you're going to insist that you're Concertmaster, you should at least do your job correctly," he sniped back.

"I'm doing my job perfectly well. You're the one who needs to just try and control everything when it's not your job to do so," she retorted.

Professor McGonagall banged a music stand and was looking at the pair with a disapproving look. "Well, this isn't what I expected from my best student and the son of old friends. We'll use Hermione's bowing here and Draco's bowing for the next section." The other violinists quickly began to make adjustments and the older woman just held up a hand when the first stand started to protest. "Hermione, Draco's bowing is good for the latter section because it is more intuitive and it will flow better with the rest of the orchestra. Draco, Hermione's bowing is necessary here because it sets the bowing up for the next few measures, and I doubt you want to do your bowing here when the tempo speeds up. Now, let's move on."

Clenching her teeth, Hermione made the adjustments and listened as Professor McGonagall continued to move through the music. She snuck a look at her stand partner and noticed that his mouth was pinched at one corner. At least she wasn't the only one unhappy with the proceedings.


Hermione sighed as she leaned against the corner of the blue Ford Angelina. She had taken the stairs to avoid being in the same elevator as Malfoy. If she was forced to be in close proximity to him beyond their time playing, she might actually strangle him. And that was probably frowned upon at HYSO.

She looked up from her phone as the front door opened and groaned internally when she saw it was the monster with a girl whose dark hair was cut in a sleek bob. Where were the others?

The rain had quieted, so she could hear the girl carrying a small flute case ask in a shrill voice, "Draco, could we stop by that salad place for dinner on the way home?"

The Assistant Concertmaster nodded as he held the passenger door open for her. "Of course, Pansy. It's on the way to your house anyways."

Pansy. Oh, this was the principal flautist. Was this Malfoy's girlfriend? Figures that she would eat a salad for dinner. She watched as Malfoy adeptly reversed out of his spot and sped away. The taillights had just disappeared when the door opened to Harry, Ron, and Ginny laughing as they exited the building.

Hermione grinned at her friends and opened the back door when Ron unlocked it. "How were sectionals?"

"Useless," snorted Ginny. "I really think Ron and I are the only ones who practice. You would think HYSO violists were different, but they're just adding to the bad reputation violas get."

Harry groaned as he got in the car. "I had this guy called Horace Slughorn? He spent the entire time talking about our parents and famous musicians he knew." He turned to look at Hermione. "Did you know that Theo's mom was a famous cellist too? I couldn't tell who Slughorn was more excited about working with, me or Theo."

"More inherited talent then. He seems nice. He gave me a ride to practice today while it was pouring," mused Hermione as she buckled her seatbelt.

Ron turned around at that. "You got into a car with a Slytherin?"

She rolled her eyes and motioned for him to start driving. "It was pouring and his girlfriend was there the entire time. He just seems like a decent human being, unlike his friend. And he agrees with me that it's impossible to sleep or study to classical music!"

"Oh, how was your practice?" Ginny was undoing her ponytail with one hand and pulling out her phone with the other.

"It was a nightmare. Professor McGonagall was there, but I think she's family friends with Malfoy. He just went and tried to mess up all of my bowings. I really don't think I can handle being around him more than once a week."

Harry chuckled. "You might see him at Regionals though. Was he not there last year?"

"Definitely not," said Hermione. She wouldn't have forgotten that hair or face despite spending most of her spare time last year frantically working on her essay. "I wonder why."

Ron stopped the car as a stream of bassists came out of the building and waved at one. He rolled down the window. "Hey, Neville. How was practice?"

Their tall friend leaned down and grinned. "It was alright. How are you guys?"

Hermione rolled down her window and made a face. "Random question, but why was Draco Malfoy not at Regionals last year?"

The bassist frowned but then his expression cleared. "Oh, a lot of the Slytherins go abroad during their sophomore year. Draco was abroad in France with his friends, which is why none of them were at Regionals last year. I think he has family there."

Groaning, Hermione slumped in her seat. "Great. Sight reading counts more at Regionals, so he'll probably beat me and be insufferable about it."

Neville chuckled. "You never know what will happen with auditions. Although, if you really want to check out the competition, we have a small concert next Monday night if you want to come. It's just a small thing for our elementary school students and the parents, but Draco has a solo. Theo also has a solo if you want to judge his playing, Harry. I can let you in the back, and no one should notice that you're there. I can text you the details once I check the schedule."

Harry shrugged, but Hermione was digging through her bag for her phone. "That would actually be great. Let me just get your number."

They heard a honk behind them, and there were several cars waiting to get out of the parking deck. Neville backed away and waved at the car behind them. "All of our contact info was in our music folder in the intro packet. I'll just make a group chat with you guys in it. I should get going. I'll let you know tonight!"


Hermione was working on her math homework while listening to the Tchaikovsky when her phone glowed with a text. She scooped it up.

Hey guys! If you meet me in the Junior Parking Lot (follow the signs) at 6 on Monday, I can let you in. Dress nicely if possible so you don't look suspicious. -NL

We have to dress up?-RW

Hey, it'll be like a spy mission. We can go all James Bond on this -HP

Ok, no tuxes or guns. But like slacks and a nice shirt? -NL

Ugh, fine-RW

Wait, how long will this take? It is a school night -HG

Oh, maybe thirty minutes if you just want to hear Draco and Theo and have enough time to sneak in? The beginning is a super short orchestra piece, and then the two have the first short solos. You can leave whenever you want. I don't even have a solo haha- NL

I'm in!- HP

Fine. Ginny can't make it though-RW

Sounds good, we'll see you then! -HG


Hermione spent the week practicing for Regionals and other pieces. McGonagall was still not happy with one of her other pieces she was practicing at her lesson for the week. Her parents called her to let her know that they weren't going to be home in time for dinner again just as she was leaving the Weasley house after her lesson with Harry.

Her best friend gave her a grin. "Do you want to come over for dinner? Sirius's cook, Mr. Kreacher, is really good at whipping stuff up."

That's how she found herself standing in the living room of what was possibly the nicest house she had ever been in. The home felt a little dreary, but the living room looked to be something of a music room and had warm colors and beautifully dark wooden walls. Harry was chatting with Sirius about his day while Hermione was looking at the family pictures on the walls.

Most of the pictures were of a beautiful, but strict-looking, couple with two young boys. She recognized Sirius in the taller boy with a small smirk. Harry's godfather was quite handsome and was much better than the Dursleys. He did seem a little extravagant and didn't seem to have a filter, but Harry adored him.

Hermione found another photo of a teenage Sirius standing with his cello next to a pretty blonde girl standing next to a grand piano. She leaned closer. Something seemed familiar about this woman.

"Oh, that's my cousin, Narcissa," called Sirius as he and Harry made their way towards her. "I haven't seen her in a while, but she did call me after I was released from prison and invited me over for lunch."

Hermione smiled and motioned to the picture. "Was she good?"

The man laughed and reached for a photo that was on the fireplace. "Narcissa Black was one of the best concert pianists before she retired. Our whole family was involved in music." He pointed to a photo with five teenagers standing on a stage. "Her older sister, Bellatrix, was Concertmaster of Tom Riddle's orchestra. Narcissa's husband was also one of the top violinists for Tom Riddle. Andromeda was also very talented at the harp before she decided she had enough of music and her parents disowned her."

Harry leaned closer to the photo. "Did Narcissa marry a Malfoy?"

Sirius frowned as he nodded. "How do you know about Lucius Malfoy?"

His godson laughed and Hermione just groaned. "Their son is my HYSO stand partner and he's been a menace."

"Oh?" Sirius sat down in a chair with an amused look as Hermione spent the next few minutes ranting about the violinist and talked about her small revenge. He laughed and shook his head. "I'm glad you put him in his place, Hermione. Narcissa is perfectly lovely, but Lucius is not the most pleasant man to be around. He comes from old money, but it's not as old as the Blacks. He was quite the talented violinist before the accident." He shook his head and walked over to a cello case and pulled out the instrument. It was dark and beautiful, and was recently updated after Sirius's long and unnecessary prison sentence. "Now, why don't you two show me your fancy HYSO music. I want to see what Dumbledore has you playing nowadays. The man may be off his rocker, but he's a pretty great conductor."

Thank you for reading and the reviews! I try to update every week or so, but sometimes real life gets in the way! Hope you enjoyed this chapter!