FICLETTE THREE: ANGST

(Includes a little jig)

The figure raised his violin and carefully held it in place. He slowly slid the bow across the instrument, producing an eerie sloping melody. He gradually worked his way through the slow, high pitched notes of the adagio of Vivaldi's Four Seasons' Summer second movement, the sad melody echoing through the tower and eventually subsiding into silence.

After a well-timed pause he launched into the presto that was the Summer storm and the quick, accurate notes expertly went through crescendos and decrescendos and he played on.

* * *

The storm from the night before had passed, and the skies were clear. The weak sunlight did little to warm the wet, chilled earth however and the Ravenclaw common room had a background hum of voices as the Ravenclaws enjoyed a quiet Sunday morning indoors.

'So how do you do this question, then?' he said in a resigned voice, pointing to a question in his Arithmancy book while pushing it over.

Aliorumnas looked at it for a few seconds before replying, 'they try to trick you by writing it like that, and really it's asking for the same thing as the previous question.'

'It's seriously that simple?' Felix pulled the book back over and groaned. 'My brain just isn't working today.'

'Tell me about it,' Lyra yawned, sitting down next to Aliorumnas on the midnight blue star-speckled common room carpet. She proceeded to drop her books and lay on them, as if to sleep.

'So did you get a lot done last night, Lucky?' Emily inquired dutifully, sitting on Lyra's other side.

'If that means fighting against gale-force winds for an hour before calling it quits then yeah, I guess we did,' Felix replied, yawning.

'Only an hour? So surely you slept it off.'

'We didn't get to bed 'til later...' he trailed off. Emily shot him a meaningful glance and he quickly interjected, 'not what you think! It took forever to change, and it was Lyra and I's turn to put away the equipment, so the others went back before us. On the way back we were going past the Astronomy tower when we heard some weird music.'

'Music in Hogwarts? You sure you weren't going delusional from exhaustion?'

'Yes,' he sighed, 'it was music. Violin to be precise.'

'Did you see who was playing?'

'No.'

'Then—'

'We saw a silhouette, but couldn't tell who,' he cut in. 'Anyway, the person was really good, whoever it was,' he yawned. 'I'd guess a teacher, since if any student here could play like that they'd go to some conservatorium.'

Emily grew thoughtful as Felix drifted off. 'Let's go tonight,' she said loudly.

'Mmkay,' he shook himself awake just to go fall asleep on a couch.

* * *

The sun set early that afternoon, and the day hadn't gotten much warmer before cooling down again.

Felix rubbed his eyes, 'What time is it?' he asked groggily.

'Five thirty two, now get up! We have to go hide at the foot of the astronomy tower and catch the mysterious violinist going up!'

He yawned, 'but dinner!' he protested.

'Not my fault you slept through it ... now let's go.'

He complied and they went to the foot of the astronomy tower.

'So where's Lyra?' Felix asked Emily, doing a little jig to keep warm in the drafty tower. 'And is Alio helping us?'

'Lyra's loud, she'd probably just get us caught by sneezing or something.' She rubbed her arms furiously. 'And you'll see the reason for Alio in just a second.' She turned to Aliorumnas, 'When you're ready.'

Without a second's thought Alio muttered the appropriate spell and tapped them each on the head, one at a time. An extremely cold feeling ran down their bodies from where they were tapped, but it soon subsided and they were invisible.

'It's only temporary, but it should last a good few hours,' Alio instructed. 'Should it fade you'll still be partially hidden by the shadows, just don't fidget or make noise.'

'Who else could do a seventh-year spell? Thanks again, Alio, you're a life saver,' Emily and Felix ducked down in the shadows by the stairs up the tower.

'Not really, no.' Alio stated matter-of-factly. She abruptly turned around and wandered off to the Great Hall. Felix and Emily sat crouched in the darkness of the stairwell feeling oddly lonely, since they couldn't see each other.

'So who do you think it could be?' Emily whispered. 'Lovett? He hums in class and has that flourishing kind of walk.'

'But could you see him actually playing a violin?'

'True.' Emily suppressed a yawn and they fell into silence again as the last of the red light faded and the world fell into darkness.

After what felt like an eternity they heard footsteps in the distance, coming not from the direction of the house towers but the rest of the castle.

Not a Gryffindor or a Ravenclaw then, Emily mused.

The silhouette came into view, a slightly taller-than-them short-haired figure holding a violin-shaped case.

Emily strained her eyes but though faint moonlight lit up his face with every window he passed, it was too dark and far away to see any distinguishing features. He stepped into the light of the window nearest them.

The light revealed the face of their Slytherin classmate from Defence Against the Dark Arts, Blake.

Blake Merazson.

'Merazson!? You're the resident Astronomy tower-haunting violinist?' Felix jumped up from where he was hidden. Blake almost dropped his violin case in surprise.

'What the—'

Emily rolled her eyes, Jeez, so much for being quieter than Lyra, she thought, joining him. Blake's eyes opened further at the sight of Emily.

'You're with him, Shaw? I never dreamed I'd see the day a pureblood was found crouching behind a dirty stairwell to spy on people!'

'You're one to talk, sneaking around the school at night. I never realised you had a hidden talent.' She smirked.

He faltered and grew silent.

'Well I can tell something's wrong,' she said, cutting to the chase. 'I'm your childhood friend, you know I won't blab. Unless I don't know what there is that makes it such an important thing to keep secret, of course.'

He sighed and gave in. 'Well, since you so badly want to know, I'll tell you. You've probably heard the rumours surrounding the ... legitimacy of my birth.' He turned his reflective gaze to the moon outside.

'My parents married and had me soon after ... some people said too soon. Well, it turns out my birth father was really my mother's previous lover, a musician who died and left her his instrument. Father was, however, desperately in love with her and already too old to reasonably expect a legitimate heir, so he wasn't about to abandon me. He respected her wishes of having me learn violin and of my true birth, but as you can understand he couldn't do so officially.

'Unfortunately for him, I've really taken to violin. He let me attend a Muggle music school overseas on a scholarship when I was younger, but now I have to put all that behind me and pretend like violin never happened.' He looked back at his two listeners. 'Well now you know. I suppose you understand, Shaw, why I don't want this getting out...'

'That you're not a pureblood?'

'Yes, I'm really a half blood. Otherwise my father would have acknowledged my true origins. The less people know the better, I can't have them drawing unnecessary connections and digging up the past.'

'...Well I definitely don't envy your position.' She stated finally, 'well, we'd best be off before a teacher finds us.' She ushered Felix along ahead of her as they made their way back to their tower, but not before a whispered 'good luck' in Blake's direction.

* * *

'So what happened with that violin ghost?' Lyra asked between gulps of scrambled eggs early next morning.

'Ghosts can't hold things, stupid,' Emily stated.

'Fine, don't tell me,' she pouted taking a massive bite out of a slice of toast.

Emily merely rolled her eyes, and halfway down the table Felix let out a huge yawn.