Nocturne

Nocturne

These are the nights she loves best, when nobody is home, the house is silent, the windows are thrown open, beckoning the world to enter, and when she can close her eyes and still feel that transcendental grace of the moon on her skin, the trees rustling in her ears, and the sweeping grasses stretching out in every direction from the Manor. The growing child within her is equally affected, and his - she smiles, for the doctors have told her it will be a him - kicking and fussing has abated. The wind sails into the room; the silken canopy of the bed flutters. Crossing her arms, she sits down, the plush leather gently accommodating her weight. Her robe trails down the back of the bench and touches the floor.

It is a beautiful night.

The piano in front of her is flawless, and she never regrets having asked for it to be put here, beneath the arched window and parted drapes, where she can watch the light filter through and glimmer on the ebony finish of the piano's raised lid. She places her fingers, arched, on the keyboard, leaning forward in anticipation of hearing the notes rise from her hands. But they have not moved. The baby jerks. Does she remember keys? Do the keys remember her?

Slow and leaping eighth notes, low then high, high then low, comprise the harmony, moving and peaceful.

Downstairs, a door closes. Barely audible, yet she hears it.

The right hand enters, soft, hardly pressing the keys, and it grows, becoming louder, before receding and transitioning into the mournful minor key.

There are now footsteps on the stairs. The wood creaks.

A tinkling of notes down an arpeggio, a trill, and the melody hits its climax before falling.

"Narcissa?"

"Yes, dear?"

He approaches her, face shrouded in the dark. "What are you doing?"

"Playing the piano."

The notes are lost, wandering about in thirds and sixths, undulating and fluctuating until settling back into another attempt, bolder and more audacious, at crafting the melody.

"Playing what?"

"Chopin. One of his nocturnes."

"That Muggle music?"

"But it's very beautiful, don't you think? My mother thought so, which is why she had me learn. Listen to it, Lucius. I think you'll enjoy it."

The fingers fly across octaves and into mismatched rhythms, chords, and chromatics, a flurry of black and white keys, faster and faster, yet it all fits.

He sits down beside her - the bench is wide enough for that - and places a hand on each of her shoulders, kneading them, pressing through her gossamer robe and into her pale skin. Squirming slightly, she nevertheless closes her eyes and thinks of nothing but the keys and her hands and the music that she makes.

Then it hits, the note that lasts forever against a dissonant harmony, confusing as it is agitating.

He lowers his face so that they are eye level, but she is staring ahead into the stars and patchy clouds. "Narcissa," he whispers.

She does not answer.

He lays his head on his wife's shoulder and observes as she shifts underneath his weight. Quietly, soundlessly, he kisses her on the neck, moving his lips and tongue across the surface of her taut skin. And, yes, she feels him there, pushing into her. The piano, however, has already taken her and found its way into the niches of her being.

"You," he tells her between kisses, "are beautiful."

From the upper registers of the keys emerge a maelstrom of thirty-second notes, utterly nonsensical, and they pour out until suddenly stopping, slowing, flowing back into their regular pattern.

And, oh God, she wants to flee when his lips travel up, up towards her slightly parted, slightly dry and dainty little mouth. She wants to flee from the warmth growing inside of her, the warmth that pulls her away from the piano to him.

It descends, descending at tempo rubato until the melody crashes in its wrenching, expansive end, and everything is forced to the surface, raw and beating.

Her head pivots sideways, demanded by her husband's unyielding hands, and she locks gazes with him. Such a mystery, why he should ask for this at such a time, but she has learned not to defy the steel eyes before her, though her fingers refuse to acknowledge his presence.

"You are beautiful," he repeats.

The coda meanders, indecisive, but it finds, like all others, its resolution.

"Narcissa." His voice is now harsh on her ears. "Stop playing."

Her hands fall to her sides. "The song's done."

And she finally submits, allowing him full access to her mouth before the watchful patronage of night.