Staccato in Silver, Copper and Gold

In the dark of the night, when there only the moon and stars decorated the sky, she wished for someone to come and rescue her.

She wasn't a princess in some ivory tower; she scoffed at the idea of being some hapless damsel in distress. But life is weary, and the days long. Comforts are few and far between, when the days are darker than the night. At least in the deep black blue of the evening, comfort could be waiting in the shadows. During the day, the sun burns everything far too clearly, and hope is no where to be found.

When she first arrived at Hogwarts, she left everything remotely Muggle behind. There was not a pen or pencil to be found amoung her things; she left her past behind, hoping to make a better future. But her hands were empty, and itching. And she realised that no one was going to rescue her; she had to do it herself, somehow.

So her sixth year, she brought back something, stowed safely in her truck. An old violin, a gift from her grandmother before she passed away. Hermione had played the hours away as a child, letting her bitterness and pain flow through her fingers and onto the delicate strings. Life, death, sorrow and joy tumbled from those well-loved strings. A hundred stories were inlaid into the gentle, polished wood. The bow was her center, and her focus. So she brought her beloved violin with her to school, seeking comfort with Mozart and Beethoven as she played to keep the horrors of mundane living at bay.

She hid her secret for a month. Hogwarts is filled with unused corridors, where few remember and less tread. She was graced with only one visitor : The Bloody Baron. He floated about the room, while Hermione played feverishly, waltzing across the room as she relearned the songs that had carried her heavy heart for years untold. The Bloody Baron never said a word, as usual. He kept Peeves away, and wiled away the hours, watching her as she danced frenetically and the music bubbled from her small, worn hands. Her fingers bled, her feet gave out, but still Hermione played.

Ron found her out first. It was by accident; he had merely taken a wrong turn and heard her playing "The Nutcracker Suite" one late Friday evening. Another day had burned through her, another day had tried to tear her down, and Hermione coped by letting life slide into her fingertips. Ron watched her as she played, sitting next to the Bloody Baron. Hermione looked up, realised that someone was watching her, and blushed. Ron only smiled faintly. Gathering her courage, she walked up to Ron and the Bloody Baron, and began to play a stuttered version of Pachbel's Canon on D that she had taught herself. She looked peaceful, and yet so passionate, as note after note raced from the violin.

Not too long after Ron (not more than an hour, in fact), Harry found them. He had been looking for Ron and Hermione, and had faintly heard the songs skipping from Hermione's fingers as he wandered aimlessly about. He slipped in and sat on the other side of the Bloody Baron. Hermione was totally focused now, sweat lightly glistening on her brow and neck as a gale of fury was released from the violin.

The next day, screams could be heard from the Gryffindor Common Room in the early morning hours. The Bloody Baron had wandered in, looking for the trio. Harry, Ron, and Hermione made their way downstairs, walking up to the Bloody Baron. He bade them to follow, and they calmly marched out of the Common Room, leaving a number of confused students in their wake.

The Bloody Baron took them to the top of the North Tower and showed them a room. In it were a multitude of instruments. The students only nodded, and the Bloody Baron floated a few metres back as they took up the task of cleaning the room, as it was dusty and filled with cobwebs. Ron didn't flinch once.

And here they set up a new world, a world with two boys, a girl, and a lone, gruff ghost. The days are grey, and bleak, barren as the deepest pits of the Artic at high noon. But the nights are polished onyx and bruised purple, with streaks of burnished gold and polished amber. They gave themselves to the comfort of the night and darkness, and it wrapped them protectively in its cloak of shadows. There is safety, and beauty, in the depths of the night.

Harry found his way to the piano. He wanted the golden notes that poured from Hermione's fingers to come from him as well. Patiently, patiently, she taught him the language of music - the notes, the progressions, and the joy. He began to pick out the most simple tunes, and was amazed - for the first time, something other than death and destruction, as he saw it, was coming from him. Beauty and power trickled from his wrists and came out in simple, clean notes. He reveled in his newfound ability, something so innocent and perfect.

Ron was attracted to a flute, lying in the corner. Brushing the grime away from it, he brought it up to his lips and blew slightly. A small, whistling noise issued from it, and he grinned. Hermione taught him as she taught Harry, and he would soon not part with it. Gentle, silvery notes began to bubble out, joining Harry's golden piano and Hermione's copper notes. They intertwined their music together, feeling the songs and progressions meld into one another.

They began to converse through music. Hermione told of the horrors of a chance meeting with Snape as she ground out "Toccato & Fugue In D Minor." Ron told of the dreary trudge of the day as he gently blew out "Allegro Con Brio." And Harry laughed as he played a song any Muggleborn child would know; Hermione chuckled and pulled Ron into a fun, frantic dance as Harry pounded out the theme song to the classic cartoon Peanuts, simply titled "Linus and Lucy." The air shimmered with their precious colours and jeweled laughter.

The Bloody Baron, for reasons unknown to them, always joined them. They simply accepted that he wanted to be there, and never thought of it. He found a strange comfort in the music that they played; many of them he could remember when they were first being played, when the songs were new, and fresh, and exciting. And perhaps the true joy came because to these three children, the music was still new and vibrant. They lent a life and light to it that he hadn't seen in centuries. So he watched as they capered across the room, singing and playing their music and warming their toes by the fire.

The darkness, a blackness apart from the night, began to creep back into their world. And they fought, and bled, but what kept the sickness of fear and doubt at arm's length was "Caribbean Blue" and "Habanera", glowing and forcing itself into the very foundations of Hogwarts. Veins of silver, copper and gold raced through the very heart of their world as they played and played into the late night.

They gave up everything for their music. Prefect badges and Quidditch robes were turned in without comment or explanation. The world was caving in, the world was eating itself, and all that could save it was them, and all that could save them was the sound of a note shimmering in the air, a chord played to perfection, a melody practised until fingers were raw and blisters popped up. Their Common Room lay quiet without the echoes of their voices, and the steady scratch of Hermione's quill. Chess pieces watched in silence as their owner serenaded a girl and a boy, fingers that once awkwardly pushed them across a board now expertly folding and stretching over a long silver
pipe.

When the world turned cold and dark, they struck a match to find their way. And in doing so, they made a path for others.

Finally, the day arrived that they had been waiting for. The Dark Lord had returned. He glided silently through the halls of Hogwarts, in the dead of the night, hoping to catch Potter alone, and at unawares. But when you've poured the breath of life into something, you always get something in return. Hogwarts warned its young musicians and their silent, gaunt guardian.

And they did nothing, but continued to play. It was a song they had written, pure as the first raindrop that ever fell from the heavens and as clear as a cloudless night, when the stars blaze above. A river of violin bound itself around the soft but strong stream of flutes that danced and dipped into the ocean of piano. Magic crackled and burst around them, thicker than the fog that rolls off the sea. Even Voldemort could only stand and watch as they played, sitting by side on an old, rickety piano stool. The night holds beauty, and strength, within its velvet arms, and it insinuated itself into the Trio. The children of the night have strengths of their own.

What happened next, no one really knows. They fought, they won, and Voldemort was vanquished. But Hermione was inconsolable over the destruction of her violin, cradling the shards in her arms. Harry repaired it with a strong Reparo charm, but it wasn't quite the same, and they all knew it. But they persevered, and they had survived, for which all three - all four“ of them were very grateful.

When it came time for the Ministry to honour them, they were no where to be found. After hours of searching, they turned up in the very room Voldemort had met his end in. They were crying silently as they played, the notes as despondent and grey as their tears. Words failed them, and so they made their eulogy to Cedric, and Sirius, and James and Lily and hundreds of others with their fingers, their fingers and their breath and tears. The Baron watched over them as the notes gently pealed, screaming to the heavens, demanding to know what perverted sense of justice was this? And as the notes began to chime more discordantly, building up in jerky fits, their song pleaded and argued, asking for their childhood back and to give back lost loved ones; hadn't they done enough to do that? Their notes turned purple and a sickly yellow, bruised from heartache, when they realised that saving the world doesn't entitle you to a few favours. It was a staccato, and a last note to some old friends. And they knew that somewhere, beyond the Great Divide, their friends were watching them, and smiling.

They left, the Trio, soon afterwards. Less than a week after Voldemort had been wiped from the face of the earth, they simply disappeared as the sun set. The sun burned through the grounds of Hogwarts, but they had left it behind, running hidden in the night. The Bloody Baron gave no answers as to where they went, only silently floating through the halls, faintly humming Habanera under his breath. And soon he too left, finding his way to two men and a woman, living somewhere to the west.

But late at night, if one were to go walking the corridors of Hogwarts, they might hear the faint sound of a violin singing in the depths of the night, with a flute gliding over it, and a piano supporting the lilting airs. Gold, and silver, and copper, still stream through the crevices of Hogwarts, waiting in the night.