Klavier (Piano)

Klavier

Dort am Klavier
lauschte ich ihr
und wenn ihr Spiel begann
hielt ich den Atem an
Dort am Klavier
stand ich bei ihr
es hatte den Schein
sie spielte für mich allein

I

He tried to remember. It was difficult, because of the holes in his mind and the way the people at the Home distracted him so, with their false smiles and endless chatter. He didn't like to talk, liked listening worse. Chatter chatter chatter and his mind was never free, he wanted it free, but they wouldn't let him, would snatch things away from him if they thought he'd use them to get away, would barge in and chatter if he spent time alone. He was considered dangerous. He could read that in their eyes when they saw him looking at his cutlery at dinner, in their posture when they found him curled up on a windowsill, staring at the birds in the sky.

Birds could fly. He had flown, too, once. Not known for it, not a star like... like... the names slipped from his mind like sand through his fingers, but he knew he had known them once, known people who could fly as if they'd been born on a broom.

They wouldn't let him near a broom now, of course, for his own safety. Or a wand, for that matter; his peculiar affliction might have caused a terrible curse to shoot from his wand when he had intended a healing charm. He remembered wands; a hand-me-down that had been broken and chipped, that had made him belch slugs once because... because... once more the memories slipped from him and he was left with nothing.

He no longer spoke at all. Having learned early on that nothing he said made sense to anyone but himself, he'd given up on trying and just kept his mouth firmly shut. It didn't discourage the others, though, didn't stop them from yapping at him as if he understood; and he did, in a way, though the words meant nothing to him. He could read faces and tones of voice better than ever, and they told him that the people at the Home had the best of intentions, that the people who came to see him every week (and he remembered them, too, or very nearly did) loved him, cared for him, were sad to see him in such a state.

They told him, too, that the other inmates were afraid of him for reasons they barely understood. Did the mad see things the sane could not? Perhaps, but the form of his own madness obscured truth rather than revealing it, obscured words until they were gibberish, whether written or spoken, obscured his memories until they slipped away from him more times than not, leaving him gripped by emotions whose source he could not pinpoint.

Music troubled him, especially music overheard in snatches, never finished, never whole. He wouldn't go to the music room if he could help it, since the first time he had been there he had woken up in a cold sweat several hours later, curled up in an out-of-the-way corner with no memory of what had happened. His therapist had shown him a photograph of a piano -- from the music room? he couldn't tell -- with its lid broken into flinders, strings pulled out and tangled, bloodstains on the keys. He had let his eyes roll up into his head and fallen into a faint so that she would leave him alone.

Blood troubled him. Spiders never did, although he knew they had once. He remembered -- this he remembered very clearly -- a spider the size of a house grabbing his legs and carrying him upside down, another the same size speaking to him in the words of humans, though what words the creature spoke he could not say, for his mind (in the memory) was blank with terror. Nowadays if he saw a spider he felt a brief shiver, but nothing more. Blood, now... blood made him feel faint and nauseous, even if it was just a tiny drop from a paper cut.

He remembered feelings better than facts. Facts had always been wrapped up in language, and language had deserted him, had slipped away from him in the night like a faithless lover, never to return. Without words to give them shape, even in his own mind, facts were slippery things that would change their forms as he contemplated them, until it was no longer possible to distinguish them from fantasies. And so he clung to feelings: home (smells of cut grass and chicken dung, doors opening and closing, feet on stairs, a hand reaching out to help him when he tripped), triumph (pieces moving on a board at his direction, capturing the enemy, inevitable victory in six moves), love (arms around his waist, his nose buried in a cloud of brown curls, smelling faintly of apples).

Terror. A gaunt-faced man with staring eyes, pain in his leg so bad he could hardly stand it, but his friends were in danger, he wouldn't let them be hurt. Sorrow. The first morning in the Home, after something terrible --

That one shut his brain down as surely as the sound of piano music.

II

One said "Will he ever speak again?"

(This one was young, but his red hair was streaked with grey, as if a painful life had aged him prematurely. In his face were echoes of the silent man's features.)

One said "Has he shown any signs of understanding people?"

(This one had green eyes almost obscured by a fringe of black hair. No grey there, but around his eyes and on his forehead were creases and lines too deep for one his age. His hand as he pushed back his hair or adjusted his glasses shook with a tremor almost too small to be noticed.)

One said "Has he mentioned her?"

(This one was older than the others, dressed differently, and held herself stiffly, holding back pain. At her side was a man whose eyes darted around the corners of the Home as if expecting an attack at any moment. They had visited only once before, and this would be their last time. They had not found what they were looking for.)

One said "He's not getting better, is he?"

(This one was small, and looked somehow diminished, as if she had once been larger. She did not look at the doctor as she asked her question, but at the silent man, who looked back at her with the pleasantly blank expression of a mild acquaintance.)

To all of them, in different tones and with different explanations, the doctor could only say "No".

III

She wasn't supposed to be here, but she was sick of paying attention to rules. The pictures in her handbag were stolen, the key to the Home was stolen; she had lied about where she'd be tonight so that nobody would suspect her of being here.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. Others would say that the times weren't desperate, not any more, but she had looked in her brother's eyes and seen him dying a little more every time she visited. If somebody didn't do something, something bold and rash and, yes, desperate...

It wasn't a magical ailment, so St Mungo's had been out of the question, and that made visiting awkward. The fall had caused brain damage, the doctor had said, and he'd never be quite as fully-functional as before, but the amnesia was purely hysterical, which meant he didn't want to remember.

Not that she could blame him.

She paused in the corridor, momentarily confused by the numbers on the signs, which didn't seem to follow any logical order, then closed her eyes and squeezed the stone in her pocket. It had a weak but effective locator charm on it, something Percy had given her just before she'd started Hogwarts, so that if she ever got lost she could find one of her brothers easily. It warmed slightly at her touch and she could feel it twisting slightly. She set out down the corridor the stone had indicated at a brisk pace.

IV

Sounds. What? 'S night. Not time for this kind of sound. Sleepy, don't want to wake up. Please...

Ah! No, please, no light, want to sleep, what...?

You? I think I know you. I think I knew you, once. Before. Before it all. Before everything.

Hey, don't shout, please! All right, all right, I'm awake, just stop shouting! I know you're upset, I can see that, I can see you're angry too, but don't take it out on me, it's not me you're angry at.

What's that? Pictures? You want to show me pictures? ... All right, I suppose, but did you have to wake me up in the middle of the night for this? Go on, show me if it'll make you happy.

...

Piano. Oh God. I don't like that picture. I've seen it before, I --

No, go on. I'm all right.

I know that face. Yes! I loved her, we all loved her, she was brilliant and clever and brave and alive, oh yes, wonderfulwonderful, and she loved me, I'm almost sure she did. Yes. Brown eyes and brown hair, soft and curly and thick as a sheep's fleece. Yes.

Another? Yes, all right, go on.

That room. Hey, that's me! What am I doing there?

I don't look happy.... Is that blood on my hands?

Oh. Oh God. Oh, God, no.

V

Mr and Mrs Granger were such nice people, so calm and reasonable. It was almost more than Harry could stand.

"I still don't understand why you've refused compensation," he said. "The Ministry has offered a very generous settlement..."

"It won't bring her back," said Mrs Granger simply. "It won't undo what was done."

"Of course," he said.

He sat back and sipped his tea. There was no sound in the Grangers' kitchen apart from the humming of the fridge and the tick tock tick tock of the clock.

"If we even knew..." Mr Granger said, after a long pause. "If we could be sure of what had happened to her. If there was some sort of... some way of finding out..."

Harry sighed. They'd had this conversation before. He was going to have to stop visiting them; they never had anything new to say to one another, and it was painful for all three of them. "We don't know. We just... The only one who knows anything about what happened in that room is Ron, and what with the aphasia there really isn't any way we can get the story from him."

"Of course."

Silence again, and the ticking of the clock.

Harry got up, smiled a small, polite smile at both of them. "I should get going. Thanks for the tea."

VI

He remembered now. All those things he'd not been letting himself remember... the pictures had opened a door in his mind, and he knew, now, what had happened.

A room, locked and barred and barricaded from the outside. A piano, and a piano stool. A window, five floors above the ground.

They had tried to get out at first. It had taken hours before they admitted defeat; the place was too heavily warded for them.

What will we do? Oh God, Ron, what can we do?

I don't -- We'll just wait. Sooner or later someone will come for us. I'm sure of it.

How soon, though? We might starve to death.

I've got some food in my bag -- we'll last a few days on that, at least.

And when they come... We need to be prepared.

Yes.

They'd talked their plan over and over, but he had not told her about the letter that had burnt itself to ash as he read it:

Torment is in store for her. She will not be spared.

He had never told her... it was nothing she didn't know already. If she were caught, if she were captured, all her cleverness, all her talent, all her fiery courage and her generous spirit would not suffice to save her from those who cared only about her blood.

Dirty blood. Common blood.

She was the rarest, most precious creature in the world to him, and she was doomed.

They talked their plan over and over until she was happy with it. There was a long silence, then, as if they were both expecting the enemy to break the door down as soon as they'd figured out what to do.

She had wandered over to the piano, lifted the lid, played a few notes. A dreamy look came over her face. Remembering, oh yes. Pretty music, sweet songs to dance to or sing to or... There was that time when he'd cast a spell to play music in their dormitory so that nobody would hear them and...

She played on. She was sitting down now, and her eyes were closed. Rapt. So beautiful when she was like this, caught up in what she was doing. He wanted to remember her like this, for ever and always. Beautiful.

No pain. No pain for her.

No more pain.

[end]