Closed Change Your Tune

[Weston Stirling]

There were a number of abandoned classrooms scattered throughout the castle that Weston had already identified as good music practice rooms. Some has good acoustics, others more comfortable seating. But today, he was headed for a completely different destination. Weston had walked by the broken lavatory on the fifth floor many times, without giving it much thought. But his shower that morning made him wonder if his guitar playing would sound as good as his singing in the bathroom. Weston knew better than to test his theory in the Ravenclaw bathroom — his roommates got annoyed enough when he practiced in the dorms — so he'd headed for the fifth floor lavatory.

Guitar in hand, Weston pushed open the lavatory door, smiling when he didn't immediately spot anyone. That smile disappeared when he realized there was no way he'd be able to fit in one of the stalls, not when he had his guitar. Weston glanced around before awkwardly perching on a windowsill. The ledge was a bit too narrow to be completely comfortable, but it was either this or the floor. Resting his guitar on his lap, he called out, "Helloooooo!" It didn't echo quite as much as he'd been hoping, but some of the effect was still there.

 

[Salem Lee]

Salem had decided to take the long way round to her dorm today, which was basically just taking as many flights as stairs as possible to get up to Gryffindor tower. It was tiring but sometimes Salem felt like it was the only way to get her energy out when she was stuck in one place for so long.

She thought she must have imagined someone calling out hello at first when she heard it, pausing in the hallway and looking back and forth. She raised a speculative eyebrow at a few of the portraits on the wall as well, but one just shrugged and pointed towards the old bathroom no one used. "Helloooo?" Salem tried, poking her head in, surprised to see Weston sitting across the way by the window. "Oh, hello, Weston! Are you doing a concert for the sinks?" She asked, slipping into the bathroom properly and taking note of how there was apparently no one else in here.

 

[Weston Stirling]

Weston had of course expected to hear his own voice bounce back, but he couldn't have anticipated hearing someone else's voice. Was it a ghost? A weird trick of the room's acoustics? He was about to call out again when he caught sight of Salem at the door. Though he was a bit disappointed it wasn't a ghost, he smiled at his classmate, glad to have some company. "Hi Salem!" He tilted his head slightly at her question. "No, I'm just practicing. I thought it'd be cool to play somewhere with a lot of echo. Thought it might make my guitar sound better." He peered at the sinks with newfound interest. "Should I have a concert for the sinks? Are they magical? Can they sense music?" He'd always assumed they were just boring, ordinary sinks. But maybe they were special, like the ones in the other Hogwarts. He'd heard the legend of the Chamber of Secrets, how a bathroom there had concealed an entrance to a hidden cavern. Maybe the sinks in this castle also led to a secret chamber.

 

[Salem Lee]

Salem glanced back between Weston and the sinks ponderously. She'd been joking, but now she was kind of intrigued, though she found the idea of getting to hear Weston play a bit more interesting than magic sinks. "I think they're just normal sinks," she said, moving over to turn one of the taps, grunting with effort when the tap wouldn't budge and frowning. "Maybe they're not impressed yet," she said, wiping her palm on her pants leg. "What are you practicing? Is the guitar hard? Does the echo make it sound better?" She asked, turning her attention back to Weston and his guitar, impressed he'd managed to perch himself with it just so on the window sill without dropping it or anything. Salem had never picked up a musical instrument, they were hard to travel with sometimes, but she always thought people who could play were super cool.

 

[Weston Stirling]

Weston was disappointed to see that the taps wouldn't move. "That could be it," he said, nodding at Salem's theory. "The instruments in the arts room are like that. They won't play with you unless they like your music." It made sense that a magical sink wouldn't reveal its secrets unless it liked what it heard. He grinned at Salem's string of questions, always happy to brag talk about his guitar skills. "I was just going to go over some chord progressions." he said with a shrug. He had originally planned to go through his entire practice routine, but the ledge was proving to be uncomfortably awkward. Shifting positions slightly, he shook his head. "It's not hard at all! It's super easy," he assured her. "And I don't know, you tell me." He strummed his way through a fairly basic chord progression, glad he'd had the foresight to tune his guitar before coming down here. The chords rang out nicely, and he grinned, looking up at Salem expectantly. "What do you think?"