The Pitches of Felicity

The Pitches of Felicity


I wanted to believe
As I watched your world
Crumble in your hands
I wanted to believe
As you raised your glass
To your last stand
And I wanted to believe
You would win
The war in your head
That I did not understand
~’Suicide Note’ by Johnette Napolitano~

The rain the drummed on the windows had always calmed her. She didn’t know why, but it may have been that it managed to drown out the sounds to her brothers and she felt alone in the house. Alone and able to think without being interrupted to rampant yells and explosions.

Either way, it was raining now and she was alone. Alone in her dormitory with no other sounds accompanying the symphony of the rain, making it dull and flat. Ginny frowned, looking towards the window pane in the third year girls dormitory.

It was strange now, as she listened to the strained drumming of the fervent rain, that she felt not a complete sense of calmness, but more of a numb expansion of calm. Lately Ron hadn’t paid much attention to her, and now that Fred and George are gone she hadn’t much to do.

Before her brothers had always been there for her, but now they seemed to have found better things to do. Or they thought she’d grown up and no longer was in need of them.

But as she listened to the rain beating softly on the window and turrets and the stone of the castle, she realized that what she wanted most was noise. Ruckus and irrelevant screaming and laughter and the pounding of running feet on rickety stairs. She missed the comforting smell of her old, hole-filled quilt that sat on the end of her bed. The warm feeling of being inside while it rained and the commotion of the outer world within it’s walls.

But in the castle, there was no warm feeling, the cold stone radiated the coolness of the water outside. The drafts that were sent into the circular room weren’t comforting, and the deafening soundlessness of an empty dorm was beginning to weigh on her mind.

Slowly the wind started to seep through tiny cracks in the base, a haunting whistle whirled through the room and Ginny wrapped herself tighter in her blanket. She’d have to remind her mother to send her that quilt.

No longer was the rain dull and flat, the wind gave it lift. But it needed more, it needed a better sharpness to it that would give it that homey feel. That comfortable loud and raucous but quiet and calm feel of home.

Ginny stood, and for a moment she only looked at the window, her hand clutching the red blanket that covered each of the girls in her dormitories bed. The wind whistled sharply through the window.

Ginny moved towards it and reached a hand out, touching the glass and sliding her hand over the cool smooth surface. She watched the little rivulets of water as it ran down the glass, a small smile lit her face.

Outside it was dark, but that comfortable grayish darkness of a storm. She liked storms. She liked to cool feel of the air as it washed over your body when you stood outside, just in the beginning when the rain was light. But she’d been eating dinner during her favorite part, and now she was lone in her dormitory while everyone else was downstairs in the Commons.

She fingered the gold latch on the window, it was rusting from old age. It was just as cool as the glass and she smiled before she flicked it over, allowing the window to open.

But it opened quickly, smashing the glass into the side of the castle. Startled though she was, the sound was breaking glass and the tinkle it made felt as though a piece of the puzzle had just been found. It fit snugly with everything else.

Ginny smiled and leaned out the window, the wind whipped her red hair around her face. For a moment it hurt, the rain that pounded her exposed skin, but after a moment the numbing comfort of it all surrounded her and she opened her arms to the sky.

The rolling clouds above rumbled and Ginny gave a tiny gasp of excitement. The symphony was starting. The intro was finally over and it was starting.

Slowly Ginny realized something was wrong. The symphony was wrong, there were pieces missing. Crucial pieces.

The wind whistled in her ears, the trees rustled their leaves and creaked in the elements, the rain pounded on the surfaces and the clouds rumbled. What was missing.

Ginny frowned, searching her scattered brain for the tiny bit of information. The noise.

It was the noise that was missing. The voices of her family.

“I can make voices,”

And Ginny slid on leg up the the edge of the window, pushing herself into a sitting position, the runners of the window cutting into her legs.

She could make the voices.

She slipped off the window, allowing her fear and adrenaline to rush from her in one long burst of sound. And the calmness of the rushing wind and water, the low rumble of the clouds under her own noise. And a sudden sense of calm flooded her.

Her voice was cut abruptly off by the protective net surrounding Hogwarts. For a moment Ginny felt like crying, but then she decided that the symphony was not made for the pitches of a depressed, insistent wail.