Tom wanted nothing more than to stab something sharp into Dorea Black's throat, or at least rub his temples to ease his pounding headache, but any sign of unease, or daresay, malicious anger for that matter, was unbecoming. Then again, this might be preferable to herding trembling first years off the train, which was what he otherwise would have been doing, as recently appointed Head Boy.

"No, no, no!" Dorea was obviously not quite so concerned with her composure, as she threw her hands up in the air, sending stacks of scoresheets flying. "The flutes have to come in before the clarinets! And don't overpower the choir!"

She turned to glare at Dean Thomas, a recently graduated Gryffindor, before he could get a word in edgewise. "For the last time, we are not including your classical rendition of Hey Jude! This is Hogwarts' Alumni performance, not some improv class!"

Gritting his teeth, Tom placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Dorea dear, you must be exhausted. You have the most difficult job of anyone here." He flashed her a smile for added effect. "Why don't you take a break? Let me take over for a bit."

That seemed to sufficiently appease her, for she huffed a dramatic sigh and flipping her mane of signature Black family hair. "If you insist, Tom."

"From the top please, everyone." He took a stand at the conductor's podium, and motioned for the different instruments to begin.

With a sharp gesture from his hand, he cut them off. Something sounded abhorrent. "Harper, I believe you are a little bit out of tune. Could you fix that please?"

They started once again. It still wasn't perfect. Throwing together the patchwork of talent that was an entire Hogwarts graduating class is no simple task. They kept tolerable time at best and for heaven's sake someone was always out of tune. Imperceivable to the average ear, but for Tom's perfect pitch, it was enough to give him a headache.

It would still sound absolutely magnificent to all but a select few, and trying to correct some of these imbeciles was a lost cause, so it would have to do. "Wonderful! I think we've got it. It's almost time for the students to arrive, so places please, everyone."

Right on cue, the faint thumping of hundreds of feet could be heard. Tom gestured to Dean to release the curtain, and thick, garnet-red cloth closed up to conceal them. From the outside, it was designed to look like the drapes of a one of the colossal windows that covered the Great Hall's other three walls, though it actually opened up to a stage.

Students piled into the room like sheep being herded into a pen. Instantaneously, energetic chatter began as they sat down at their respective tables. Nothing would happen until the first years had sorted themselves, so Tom took the time to disappear behind the stage and dry-swallow some aspirin. It would be a long night.

"Welcome back everyone. I hope you've had a wonderful summer and -ah! Welcome, first years." An incredibly old—if not regal-looking— man greeted them with a booming voice from his seat at a raised podium. Hermione was guided towards some older students at the Gryffindor table by Augusta, and took a seat.

"I am Headmaster Dippit. Before we begin our feast, I must make a few announcements. The left corridor of the third-floor is strictly for seventh-year performance-class students. As usual, the eastern forest is dangerous, and you must only enter with the accompaniment, or at least permission of a staff member. With the exception of prefects on duty, curfew will be enforced, and rule-breakers-" He gave pointed looks towards the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables. "-will be punished."

"As is tradition, our graduating class from the previous year will be providing us with a concerto this evening. Organized and led by previous Head Girl, Dorea Black, and our current Head Boy, Tom Riddle. Gideon Tonks, our previous Head Boy, is out of commission due to injury, so we send him our prayers."

Just as dozens of servers poured into the Hall, carrying tray after tray of steaming food, the air burst forth with blue-silver and purple, sounds of flutes and violins, quickly joined with clarinets and a burnt-umber cello line. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, all at once.

Hermione tilted her ears, trying to pinpoint the location of the beautiful . It had an incredibly rich, full sound, but there certainly wasn't a live orchestra in the hall. The sound seemed stronger to her bottom left, and she noticed and grate in the lower edge of the wall. Speakers perhaps, or vents? Perhaps the performers were a floor below them, with the acoustics travelling up vents? She wouldn't put it pass a school like Hogwarts.

The dark-haired boy sitting across from her caught her eye and motioned his head towards a curtained window. Behind the curtain? She mouthed. He gave her a nod, an amused expression pulling across his face.

Seconds later, the heavy curtains pulled away, revealing an orchestra containing upwards of a hundred people. The entire hall, even the first-years, were impossibly silent as they served themselves and ate, with not even a scrape of metal on plate to disrupt the music.

The entire orchestra was dressed in all black, except two members who wore green accents. One was the first violinist, a tall, regal girl with long hair as black and impressive as a storm cloud. Her black and green gown was sleeveless on the left, but had a full length, jade green right-sleeve, meant to draw emphasis to her fast-dancing bow.

The other was one of the pianists, a lanky boy, arms stretched across the keys with an easy possessiveness. He wore only a forest green tie, but in contrast with his pale face, dark suit, and the black-white piano, it stood out like the only colour in a film noir.

They must be the Head Boy and the previous Head Girl.

"Alexander Borodin."

"B-flat harmonic major."

"Nuclear decay. Of the beta variety."

"Professor, the recent economic collapse of Greece can be mostly attributed to the debt that…"

"Very good, Miss Granger!"

Somehow, Tom's first week of seventh year had been reduced to suffering through a bushy-haired girl whose sole purpose for existence seemed to be waving her hand enthusiastically, scribbling down notes like mad and answering questions as if she had the textbook memorized word-for-word.

However annoying, Tom wasn't foolish enough to label her a threat. Though the teachers were already favouring her a great deal (they liked her almost as much as they liked him, damn it), he doubted she was a very good musician, no matter her instrument. The wording she used, her reliance on textbook teaching, it spoke volumes about a lack of practical experience.

There were always a few in every year who snaked their way into Hogwarts based solely on outstanding written scores and a knack for memorization. Some were geniuses in their own right, making the critical mistake of wasting their time on music. They were always the ones who worked the hardest, but had the least to show for it, convinced that with a little extra studying and a little more hard work…He would have pitied them, but he never did have much sympathy for the naive.

Still, there was a good chance, by the way things were already going, that she would be made Head Girl after he got rid of the real threat, Augusta Longbottom. If that were the case, it would work out perfectly. He knew her type of person, and it was one that was easily manipulated, unlike Longbottom.

The bell rang, and he waited a moment, tapping his fingertips against the wood of his desk. He never took notes, so he had little to pack up, but it would not do for him to be the first to leave every class. When a sufficient amount of people had left, Tom swung his near empty book bag over his shoulder and exited.

"Abraxas." The blasé, grey-eyed blond fell back beside Tom at the sound of his name. "Tell the others. We're having a meeting tonight, same place, same time."

"So soon?" A muscle feathered in the Malfoy's jaw, a sight that might have been menacing to those who didn't know the boy well. "Has something…change?"

If anyone else had questioned him, there would have been blood. "We need to get our affairs in order. We can't afford to dally our last year."

"Of course." Eyes flashing, he stepped out of sync with Tom, presumably heading to his next class.

"-he was just so wasted, you know? And Justin Swann was absolutely furious because he came to practice and threw up all over the-"

"R-right." Hermione nodded her head vigorously, hoping that Louisa Cleveley would find someone else to gossip at, sooner rather than later.

It hadn't taken her long to figure out that the majority of the seventh-year Gryffindors partied far too much for their own good, held the entirety of the Slytherin dorm with immense disdain, and obsessed over football more than she'd thought possible for any group of music students.

She was rather fond of the dorm itself, cosy in colours of gold, mahogany and scarlet, with golden chandlers casting a warm glow about the place, but the general pandemonium breaking lose every second of every minute did it's fair share of ruining the atmosphere.

"He kept going on about how Potter was going to cost them the game next Saturday and…"

"This is all very exciting," Hermione said, trying to muster even a tenth of the energy sparking in the blonde girl's eyes. "But I think I have to head to class early. I have some, er…I have to talk to someone about an assignment."

Before the girl could even blink in confusion, Hermione was around the corner and out of the dining hall. She made her way to the library, which she found herself doing more often than not, and was relieved to see Helena Fletchley's petite form bent over an impressive spread of books. The two didn't have many classes together, so they hadn't spoken much in the week they'd been here, but Hermione had gotten along quite well with the dark-haired girl that first night.

"Morning Helena. What are you reading?"

"Oh Hermione! Come take a look at this, will you?" The girl shoved a leather tome under Hermione's nose. "I just found a glaring contradiction in Braxley's Harmonic Elements and I'm not sure what to make of it."

Hermione grinned.

Half an hour later, Hermione was sure she hadn't had a conversation half as stimulating all week. She sighed. "I'm starting to think I chose the wrong dorm."

"You know, I was wondering why you chose Gryffindor. They're all such…oh, what's the word…foolhardy, that's it, and well, loud."

She was getting used to Helena's blunt, matter-of-fact manner of speaking. "I don't know, I guess it just, spoke to me, in that moment. But now I don't know. I don't really get along with anyone there. A good lot of them think I'm a know-it-all."

"I think you'd get along with the people in the Ravenclaw dorm. It's only the first week. I've heard that it's rare, but they do allow students to change dorms early on, if they have a good reason. The professors seem to like you a lot, I'm sure you could convince them to let you switch."

Hermione hated feeling petty, but if it meant getting a full night's sleep, uninterrupted by midnight pranks, the occasional drunk wandering into the wrong room and roommates gossiping into the wee hours of the night…

"I'll think about it."

"Ronan Wood."

"What about him?" Tom's voice was sharp with irritation as he threw yet another stack of papers onto the table before him. The quality of research was deplorable. One would think they learn to be satisfactory after six years of this.

Avery's tall frame shrunk in on itself like the leaves of a touch-me-not."H-he's been more and more on the radar lately. His father's been networking for him non-stop over the summer, and he's due to debut within the next three months. There's talk that he might be offered a position at Julliard-"

"Robert Wood's only talent is kissing arse, and his son can't even manage that," he scoffed, picturing the obnoxious Ravenclaw screeching away on his Italian-made viola. "Calling him mediocre is generous."

"Do you have anything of substance at all?"

His followers exchanged glances, their fear stifling the air in the empty classroom. They must have noticed his fast-darkening mood. The door swung open, and Abraxas appeared in the doorway with nothing except a slim folder in hand. He leaned against the stone wall silently, while five pairs of eyes honed in on him, shining with desperation.

"Well, Malfoy?" Tom drawled. It was uncommon for the blond to bring anything in, but when he did, it was rarely a waste of time. "What have got for me?"

He handed Tom the folder. "Take a look. These were creating quite a buzz in the admissions department over the summer."

Not questioning how he'd gotten his hands on the folder—Abraxas had infinite connections, and failing that, an impressively intimidating deadpan glare—Tom opened it, finding a neat stack of hand-drawn compositions.

The symbols were cramped and tiny, with notations written in a small, hurried script. The structure and harmonies of the first page were so unconventional that he almost brushed them off as the work of a pot-dazed Gryffindor trying to pass a transposed alternative song as his composition homework. After a second glance, the complex rhythm became plausible. After a third, Tom was struck by the unique use of texture and dynamics. A fourth…

He went very still.

"Abraxas." He skimmed over the blanched faces of his followers and fixed his gaze on the blond, who was still leaning against the back wall, arms crossed and expression disinterested.

"Hermione Granger. Seventh year."

"That commoner we met on the train?" Prince injected, sneering.

Abraxas ignored him, raising a dark eyebrow. "She's new."

"Obviously," Tom scoffed. "Or I would have seen this already."

Perhaps he had made a misjudgement. Rare, but nonetheless possible. He motioned to the door with a wave of his hand. "Dismissed until further notice. Nott, Lestrange. Stay."

The rest of the boys scrambled over each other in a rush to leave, most-likely relieved there would be no punishment.

"I want you two to keep tabs on her, and do some digging." He straightened from his chair, folder in hand. "I hope, for your sakes, you'll have something for me this time."

Hermione startled awake to a series of muffled crashes. This was becoming more and more the norm in the week she had been here, but honestly? A party at 1 am on Sunday night? Her roommates, Louisa and Adhika, were sound asleep despite the racket. Hermione had always been a light sleeper, and growing up an only-child probably worsened her inability to sleep through commotion. She had her first practical instrument lesson (mandatory, unfortunately) the next morning, and she didn't need to add sleep deprivation to the list along with deathly anxiety and utter incompetence.

Wrapping her night robe around her shoulders, she descended the stairs to the Gryffindor common room, intent on giving a scathing lecture that would do Molly Weasley proud.

"You idiot! Are you trying to wake up your whole dorm?" A voice hissed.

"You're calling me an idiot?!"

"Watch it!" There was another crash.

Hermione took the rest of the winding stairs in threes, and her cheeks burned when she finally saw the source of all the noise.

A dark-haired boy she remembered tipping her off about the hidden stage, and another boy wearing a green tie, were a tangle of limbs on the floor. The Slytherin boy had his hand fisted around the other's sweater, and the Gryffindor boy's hands were tangled in his hair. Surrounding them were the remains of what Hermione assumed had been a vase, and the flipped coffee table that once held it.

"I-I I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interru-" she started.

"We can explain! He's here because…we're out after curfew because-"

"What this bloke is trying to say is-"

"No, I saw nothing, er…I'm sure couples do this all the time-"

"Wait, couples? What do you-"

"It's perfectly fine if-"

"This isn't what it-"

"We're not together!"

"Oh." Hermione tried to force the blood out of her flaming cheeks. "Oh, well. What are you doing then?"

"That's a bit…complicated." The Gryffindor boy replied as he straightened himself and surveyed the wreckage. "Yeah, Mcgonagall's not going to like that one bit."

He ran a hand through his already untidy, dark hair, which only served to make it spike up more it every direction.

The Slytherin boy shot him a dark look, which shifted into a charming smile as he turned towards Hermione. He had an impressive mane of dark hair, and sharp, striking features.

"Alphard Black. I don't believe we've met." He offered a hand to Hermione, and when she took it, expecting a handshake, he grazed the tips of her knuckles against his lips.

It would have been unbearably cringe-worthy, had it not been for how naturally it seemed to come to him, and how aristocratic he looked. "Hermione Granger," she responded, trying to keep away the warmth that had just left her face.

"My pleasure." He grinned. His voice was the rich, dark blue of fountain pen ink.

"Trying to charm unsuspecting ladies at this hour, Black? How debaucherous." The Gryffindor boy snorted, hazel eyes flashing in amusement. "Charlus Potter, if you didn't already know. Call me Charlie."

Hermione took his hand and shook it. His voice was cardinal-red like a hearty laugh, and his grip was just lax enough not to be bone-crushing. She vaguely recognized him from some of his classes. He was rowdy and excitable, enough so that he stood out in a crowd of already rambunctious Gryffindors.

She looked from one grinning boy to the other, noting just how smug and nonchalant they looked, unabashedly breaking rules and disturbing her sleep.

"Since you robbed me of my beauty sleep, I think you owe me an explanation." She crossed her arms, letting some of her old bossiness slip back into her voice.

Charlie let out a bark of laughter. "Don't worry princess. I'm sure you'll still have an answer for every single question ever asked, even without the sleep."

"Maybe if some people were less busy cracking jokes and a paid a bit more attention, I wouldn't have to." She retorted, eyebrow raised.

It was Alphard's turn to laugh. He turned towards Charlie with a canary-eating grin. "I like her."

"Yes Alphard. You've made it abundantly clear that you like anyone who'll take a jab at me." Charlie grumbled, an exaggerated expression of irritation plastered on his face.

"What do you say, Hermione? Take a guess, and if you're right, we'll tell you." The Slytherin looked, in that instant, like a spoilt, mischievous school-boy, taking pleasure in annoying his matron.

It occurred to Hermione that she could climb back up the stairs, forge a pair of make-shift earplugs and avoid the imminent mess altogether. It sounded like the smart thing to do, but at the moment, it didn't sound like the Hermione thing to do. Besides, it wasn't like she'd be able to get any sleep now, was she?

"Pulling a prank?" she indulged. "Wait, no…"

Her gaze swept from the traces of mud their shoes to the near-empty school bags left slumped on the floor from the scuffle, a dried leaf clinging onto the worn leather. They'd been standing in the far corner of the common room, next to the bookshelves and the old portraits. Why?

"You're…You've been exploring. In the forest, where you're not supposed to, I'm assuming," she began. "You're in here to…look for something."

"A bit vague." Charlie eyed her up and down, stroking his chin comically. "But yes, I suppose you're right."

"You know how old Hogwarts is, Hermione?" Alphard asked.

"The school is 276 years old, but the castle and the grounds are over a thousand." She answered immediately.

"Yes! Exactly." Alphard make a grandiose sort of gesture towards the window. "A place as old as this one has got to have some secrets."

"Charlie's family's been going here for…how many generations Charlie? Ten or so? They have this old family heirloom. An old book filled with all sorts of different rumours from secret passageways to ghost stories. The whole family's dense like he is-"

Charlie elbowed Alphard in the gut.

"-so they've only confirmed about a dozen of them. We want to get through them all before we graduate this year."

"And Alphard's a closeted history freak so he's hijacked my family tradition."

"Well, which one were you looking into today?"

Charlie grinned. "Every heard of the Shrieking Shack?"

"Well why did you ask if you didn't want me to tell you?"

"You've been here a week! How could you possibly know more about Hogwarts than I do?" Charlie shook his head, scowling. "Leave it to the know-it-all…"

"Hey, do you want my help or not?" Hermione pulled her jacket tighter even as the wind blew right through it. "Are you guys honestly gonna tell me that after years of searching for the castle's so-called secrets, you haven't read Hogwarts, A History, even once?"

"It seemed too obvious." Alphard shrugged and grinned sheepishly. "I got through one-hundred pages of genealogy and figured there were more productive uses of my time. It's got to be the longest book ever written."

Hermione sighed. "Rowena Ravenclaw was the last speculated user of the shack, so she probably hid whatever you're looking for, not Gryffindor. I'm also willing to bet someone's figured it out before and hid the key themselves. It has been two-hundred years."

"You want to take a look at our notes?" Charlie passed her a leather bound notebook, fat with printouts and cuts of much older parchment. She held it gingerly, for fear that some of the more yellowed clippings that stuck out the sides would disintegrate into the wind.

She paged through the bookmarked section, and was surprised by the quality of the research the boys had pulled up. She ran her finger down two sets of hurried scrawl commentating on the various information sources, one that seemed fixated more on dates and historical events, the other on clues and hypothesizes.

"The entrance will be hidden in a willow tree, huh?"

"Yeah. There's got to be a hundred willow trees in this forest, and none of them are big enough to plausibly hide a hidden door or something like that." Charlie rubbed his hands together and cupped them to his mouth. "Trust me, we've been checking for weeks. We ran out of ideas, so we decided to search the common room. I could have done it myself, but Alphard over here insisted he come along and make everything difficult."

"This dolt wouldn't know a lead if it smacked him in the face." Alphard glared at hazel-eyed boy. "And besides, we would-"

"What are we standing here in the cold for?" Hermione halted mid-step, and Charlie avoided crashing into her only by virtue of athletic reflexes. "Willow! Willow wood. The liuqin! Come on!"

She bolted for the nearest entrance back inside, partly(mostly) to get out of the cold. The boys followed close behind, staring at her in bewilderment. "I remember seeing an antique liuqin hung in the halls somewhere! Where is it?"

When they faces continued to look blank, she raised an eyebrow. "The Chinese mandolin? Made of willow wood?"

Alphard's eye lit. "Oh! that one that's like the pipa, but smaller? I think there's one on the second floor, in left side of the history wing."

They headed for the history wing from the entrance east of Gryffindor tower. Hermione could barely see her own hand with all lights long since turned off and no windows in the interior corridors. It certainly didn't help that Hogwarts halls were particularly twisty, the jagged stone walls quite unforgiving if one happened to run into them. The floor was worn stone and uneven in places, stairs were steep and came out of nowhere, even in broad daylight, the…Oh forget this.

She pulled out her phone and fumbled until the flashlight function turned on. Immediately, this earned her a harsh whack to the shoulder.

"What are you doing? Turn that off!" Alphard hissed in her ear.

"Well, it won't be any good if I miss a stair and crash all the way down, now will it? That would certainly attract more attention that a little light." She didn't know the boys' exact location, but tried to keep her voice to a soft murmur.

"We're in the first floor dormitories, where all the teachers sleep." Charlie's gruff, barely-contained voice was audible behind her. "You have to be extra careful."

She switched her phone off, and promptly stepped into thin air. Muffling a squeak of horror, she felt a tight grip wrap around her wrist, bracing her. There hadn't been stairs there before, had there? "Thanks."

Hermione's own voice was a puff of lilac in the space before her. She rarely saw her own voice, but all colours became more prominent in the darkness.

"I keep forgetting you don't know this school very well yet. And I bet someone like you doesn't have much experience sneaking around in the dark either." She could hear the grin in Charlie's vivid red voice as he slacked his hold her wrist. "Grab my shoulder, just until we're past this bit."

The boys let her turn on her light after they were up on the second floor. With a light source, they located the liuqin with ease.

"This thing sure is old," Alphard scrutinized the instrument with a careful hand. "But is it hundreds of years old? It's been preserved well, though I doubt you could still play it to any accuracy. You'd need new strings and a new bridge at the very least."

"Is it fixed to the wall?"

Alphard pulled gingerly on the instrument, but it didn't budge. "I don't think it was originally, but it's been here so long the metal stand's malformed and rusted over it."

"I don't think-"

Hermione cut herself off at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. She quickly shut her phone off and shoved it into her jacket. A rough hand jerked her wrist, and she allowed herself to be led through the dark into what she assumed was an alcove.

"Who's there?" The beam of a small LED flashlight flittered from side to side, missing them. " Come out. I'm the Head Girl, and you'll face laxer punishment if you turn yourself in."

Panic seized in her throat. She couldn't get in trouble now, not when her position at Hogwarts was so precarious. Expelled from Hogwarts for misconduct after miraculously getting accepted...she blanched at the thought. What was she doing, searching for fanciful legends with people she didn't even know in the wee hours of the morning? And what was Augusta Longbottom doing, patrolling the second floor history wing this late at night anyways?

Being pressed between a body and the wall was not helping her anxiety, and her nose was smushed against someone's shoulder. She wasn't sure who's it was, but she had a feeling it was whichever one that wore a minty, sandalwood-y cologne. Augusta hung around for another few minutes, before huffing a sigh. The stairs creaked as she descended them, and nobody dared move until she was presumably at the bottom.

"We have to go back," She hissed. "It's not worth the risk now that she knows someone's here."

"You can't be serious," Charlie growled. "We've got a good lead. We're right here, and it's just Augusta-"

"Augusta who's had it out for you ever since you pulled that prank on her in fifth year?" Alphard interjected. "Hermione's right."

Whoever was pressing her against the wall stepped away, and Hermione could breath properly again.

"We can come back another day-" She hear Alphard pause to yawn. "Preferably when I don't have a 6am practice the next morning. "

Charlie seemed to acquiesce, for he put a guiding hand on her shoulder, (or was if Alphard this time? She couldn't tell if they didn't speak) and they shuffled their way down the stairs opposite the one Augusta took and made their way back to the first floor.

Hermione snuck a glance at her phone while she was still hidden by the alcove, turning the brightness way down. It was just past 2. If Alphard really did have morning practice, he would get two and a half hours at best. As for her, well…she was going to fail miserably in that practical class anyways.

A huge thank you goes out to SilentAttendance, SiriuslyHermione, stillbreathing2day, Lilymydeer, Elzie, Pat knowitall, deisaku, and Gracelander2 for reviewing!

I honestly wasn't expecting so many views, and as someone relatively new to posting long stories, your words meant a lot to me :) It was so kind of you guys to take time out of your day to help me improve, or simply to encourage me. Once again, I'd love to hear anything you guys think about my story and my writing. I'm stumbling in the dark without you!

Also, I am looking (desperately searching) for a beta reader, as I'm a bit of the fly by the seat of my pants writer who may or may not leave huge gaping plotholes, as some of you have thankfully already pointed out to me in the first chapter. I'm also an all-around mediocre editor. If anyone would be interested in giving me a huge hand by beta reading my work, please let me know! I would love you to bits!

As always, thanks so much for reading, and I adore you.

Until next time,

LetterBlue