The Sound of Music (Start for "The Musician")

Summary: There is power in words. But music has the power to make words fail. A picture is worth a thousand words. And music can paint a million pictures.

In which Harry is the musician. The trigger is the song, "My Love is Always Here" from the films. It's the song playing in the Church when Harry and Hermione visit Godric's Hollow. This is the story I (MumbaiGirl1) intend to take up after I finish Sweet My Child, which will go up to about 12-15 chapters, all told. I do not intend it to be a bashing story, not even in the manner of Sweet My Child. Also, in this story, Sirius brings him up.

"Ah music!" he said wiping his eyes. "A magic (that is) beyond all we do here!" – Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Like all fathers, James Potter was mightily proud of his son. Little Harry Potter, aged thirteen months, was the most handsome, cleverest, best, nicest baby boy there was anywhere in the world. Lily thought so too, and she was always right. But then again, how could Harry be anything but perfect. He was his ad Lily's son!

More than that, though, there was something that James knew he saw. It was something that set him apart from most other magicals with their mundane little beliefs, egos and what-nots. James had seen Harry fly that little broomstick. But he knew, as did Lily, that their baby boy was never attracted to anything as he was to the little music box that Moony had given him, for his birthday.

It had been on that first Christmas when they had all taken Harry, thoroughly bundled up in warm clothes, to the midnight mass on Christmas Eve. While Yule and Christmas were celebrated in the magical world, the idea of religion was very vague, to the point of being non-existent. But it was a family tradition for the Evanses and Lily wanted to carry it forward, in memory of her parents.

Harry had been crying a lot in discomfort due to the cold. Like all babies, in spite of being perfect, he was a snot-nosed, red-faced, wailing little thing that night. That was until they reached the Church. Harry had calmed almost as soon as he had heard the first notes of the choir. Lily had only wiped his face once, before settling down to sit with her baby in her arms, with the marauders taking seats either side of her.

And the four men had been moved, in spite of their natural youthful tendency to portray themselves as being unmoved by anything at all. It was a simple melody, a simple lullaby, that Lily later told him pertained to something called the Nativity.

But in that moment both he and Sirius had cried. Both were remembering the same woman, Dorea Potter. She had been murdered in the spring of 1977, with her heartbroken husband following soon after, and it had set the deep hatred for Death Eaters in the hearts of the two men. She was their mother, and both remembered her laughter and her motherly caress that they missed. None of the others had even thought to tease them about being grown men who cried.

And then James saw his son and wife. It was a defining moment for him. Real moments, or even just flashes of imagination, tend to do that. At seventeen, James had transitioned from a boy to a man. That Christmas Eve, James made another step up. Harry's birth had brought him joy. But that little moment, made him a father, truly.

He always thought that Lily was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. That was until he saw her with their son. If she was beautiful before, she was ethereal now. Carrying the little bundle of blankets and smiling lovingly down at it, she looked...divine. It made her complete. And it made him complete.

For days after that, James seemed lost in thought and had lost his exuberance as the song played over and over in his head. His brother in all ways that mattered didn't seem to be faring any better. All this while, they had been fighting out of anger. Now they would be fighting to ensure that nobody else lost their mum.

Moony had created for them all enchanted music boxes that they just had to open from one end to record, and from the opposite end to play. They had somehow managed to record that song and many more. They always listened to it when memories assailed them keenly.

And the werewolf had given Harry the same box after the baby had started getting all the boxes in the house to play his favourite songs by accidental magic.

It prompted those around him to sing the songs for the baby when they were babysitting him, for that seemed to calm him down the most. And that was when the Potters came to the realisation that their son was very different after all. It was never as pronounced as it was with Minerva, and with Lily.

Ever since Christmas, Lily had found that she wanted to once again play the violin, something her mother had tried to teach her till she was fourteen. She could play it a bit and for her son, she learnt to play his songs. Minerva used to visit them often, and the woman had a very beautiful voice. Yet, when either of the two women made even the slightest of mistakes, Harry would loudly disagree with a "NO!" Equally, when the tune was very beautifully sung or played, he would clap and giggle with glee.

Harry had a very good ear, a prodigiously good ear, at the tender age of one.

Halloween 1981

"Dumbledore, I have something for him before you..." Minerva faltered as she could no more speak. She had grown quite close to the baby, and even the prospect of leaving him there was hurting her.

"Of course, my dear Professor McGonagall," Dumbledore replied sadly.

Minerva took Harry in her arms and sang that Christmas lullaby that he so loved. She then placed a small kiss on his brow, before retrieving her music box away from her companions' eyes, shrinking it and transfiguring it into a small charm on a chain that would play music to Harry whenever he needed to be soothed, and enchanted it so only he would ever see it.

"Sleep, sweet babe," she whispered.

Away in another city, a man driven to destroy the most dangerous threat to his godson, opened the box he held in a pocket, in a dark closed alleyway, and sobbed as he heard the music, a piercing reminder of all that was lost and was forever gone.