Unfinished Symphony

Minerva Khulik

Well-Known Member
Messages
451
OOC First Name
Linda
Sexual Orientation
from reality
Wand
Knotted 10 1/2 Inch Unyielding Cedar Wand with Phoenix Tail Feather Core
Age
10/2031
Tagging: Alexander Sheffield
Wearing: OUTFIT

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Minerva had first overheard about the Arts room when she had been studying in the library but she had supposed that an arts room had meant simply anything to do with drawing and painting. As much as she liked these pursuits, she didn't fancy at any time going to a room simply to doodle but when she had been told that it was a Conglomerated Arts Room which meant anything pertaining to the Arts, she knew she had to go and see the room for herself. It was hard to believe that it was already May, the school year had flown by so fast. At the beginning of the year she had desperately wanted the school year to finish but now she was increasingly finding that she didn't want it to end. Minerva had made friends and had studied hard, she had gotten good grades in her first term and hoped that she would do just as well this term too. She had attended a few quidditch games, learned to fly, saw muggle items that still continued to baffle her, received roses for valentines that she had now pressed between the pages of her favourite Sherlock Holmes books.

As she stood outside the door to the C.A.R she simply stared at the door, afraid to open it in case there were others inside, in case a certain someone was inside! Try as she might she had not been able to shake his voice from her head, nor the tune of his song from her heart. It was imprinted there and she despised herself whenever she caught herself humming it over and over as if she were on a time loop. She had made a friend she believed in Alistair, the strange blonde Slytherin who seemed to draw all sorts of strange company to him from mermaids to poltergeists and even herself but even his company she did not shun. She smiled at him now when she passed him in the Great Hall. She said hi to him as she entered or left classes that they shared and though she was not as close to him as she was to Norton or Elly, she did count him as a friend.

Alexander Sheffield was another matter entirely though, she wasn't sure why she had never given him another chance. She had sent him a rose for Valentines just as she had sent Elly and Norton one but they had received beautiful yellow ones and Alexander had been gifted a pink one. She hadn't necessarily meant she was crushing on him but she most definitely was crushing on his music and she knew there was something different about him that she couldn't explain and had tried to with a silly verse. How more pathetic could she have gotten? So since that day to this, she had veered away from any attempts at seeing him alone. If she caught his eye across the Great Hall at meal times, she would hastily look the other way, her heart slamming in her chest and his song replaying in her head.

Her fingers gripped the door knob and she turned it before stepping inside and closing it again behind her. It was empty! She had been certain that it would be full of students playing instruments or painting or dancing ... anything but this strange eerie silence that rented the air. A curtain billowed upwards from a gust of wind and Minerva hastily moved from the door to close the window. She pulled on the rope that levered the window down into place and then turned around to survey the room properly but she didn't get to look further than across the room before her. It was a piano, the darkest ebony she had ever seen with brass coaster wheels beneath. Slowly she made her way across entranced, her fingers fidgeting at her side already itching to play - it had been too long.

When she reached the grand piano she ran her hands over the smooth exterior, glancing inwards at the strings before walking to where the ebony and ivory keys seem to beckon her. Her fingers touched them gracefully but didn't dare to press even one. She had told herself she would never play again, not after hearing Alexander play but the piano was like a siren to her, she could not resist the comfort, the sense of peace that being near it gave her. Minerva sat on the stool and for a moment looked at the keys as if they were old friends and she was reacquainting herself with each and everyone and she knew before long she would like an old friend want to shake hands, embrace and so her fingers tentatively reached upwards and before she knew it, they were dancing lightly across the keys before her. At first a simple child's tune she had learned many years ago but what she had always used as her warm up piece, to stretch her fingers and relax into the music.

It was a fun piece, the Goblin dance by Alan Bullard but before she knew what she was doing, her fingers took on a life of their own as Alexander's music replayed in her head. She had always been proficient at playing by ear and now her fingers found the right keys, the right notes as she closed her eyes trying to recall the words he had song, she couldn't recall many of them but the beat was right, the beat was perfect but to her ears it was not the way he would have played it and it certainly was not as fueled with passion as his playing it had been and yet she could not stop her fingers from recounting each piece until her voice caught up with it and she sang the words she remembered.

"And there's a couple of things,
I'd really want to see,
Like a picture of you and me,
Waiting to see what tomorrow brings..."
 
Wearing: OUTFIT

-----------------------

The C.A.R. has become a second home for Alex. His playing was fairly interesting to the other students in the Gryffindor common room... For the first semester. Since then, he decided to avoid annoyed looks at him by playing in a room made entirely for these sorts of arts. Lots of students came and passed through this room, and he rarely paid any attention to any of them, greeting those he knew, and minding his own business.

It's been a while since his encounter with Minevra. Every time he'd see her, he'd feel as if someone grabbed him by the heart and squeezed the blood out. He offended the girl, weirded her out somehow, made her feel uncomfortable, offended her somehow.. That's all that came to his mind when he saw her, and he didn't want to disturb her again after last time, so he avoided her as well. He thought it was the best for the both of them, and it was okay so far.

Another day, another hour of free time spent in the C.A.R. Today he wanted to spend some time working on his finger picking. Despite what any other talented artist would do with picking the six strings, using the four fingers for the bottom four strings, and the thumb for the first two, Alex used two to three fingers at max. He could play anything like everyone else, but it just wasn't correct, and he had to correct it. So he decided to practise in the far side of the C.A.R.

It started out alright.. A couple of notes, almost half a tab and then - SNAP!
Of course it did.. Today of all days. The D string snapped in half under the weight of the pressure on the fret. It slapped him on the shoulder, leaving a stinging sensation, nothing he wasn't used to. Luckily, he always has a spare set (Even though a new set isn't that cheap) of strings in his guitar case. He started to put on the string, and it's a long process. Focusing all his attention on the guitar, he paid no attention to the sound of a simple child's tune. Someone entered the room and decided to play the same old any other student would. The string sat firmly into place on the guitar. He placed his fingers on the strings, ready to begin once again, when something caught his attention.

'H minor, E minor, G major, A major'


He repeated the chords in his head as he heard the same tune played on a piano. That's his song. And it's played very well at that. At first he had some doubts, but no, this was his song. Leaving the guitar on the bench, he started making his way towards the source of the music, nodding his head in the rhythm of the song that was created in his head. A girls voice emerged among the sounds of the piano strings, a familiar voice, a voice he heard, but not in this format. He heard his words, and was just about to walk into her view, but decided to stay behind the corner, to spy on who it was.

It was Minerva. He was confused, as an eyebrow raised on his forehead. Didn't she not like his songs? Didn't he push her away? Why would she be singing and playing his songs if that was the case. He pushed those thoughts aside, and listened the Minervas rendition of his work. And he was impressed, honestly.

"But I'm afraid of what it brings,
And it may just be the thing that stings.
So I try to forget a couple of things."


He had to, he just had the need to finish it. Not selfishly, but with her. With the first few words, he stepped into her view, with crossed arms and a smile on his face.

"Yes! That's amazing, that's why I wanted to hear you play. I'm really impressed, thank you for working with my song!"
A purely genuine smile came up to his face, and stayed there for a few seconds, before turning into a concerned gaze.

What if this is where she denies him again and thinks of an excuse to leave? Wouldn't be the first time.
 
When the music played, when it flowed from her like this she thought for one fleeting moment that she might just be good enough but it was only fleeting. Reality always sank in straight after that, no matter that she hadn't been able to play except for when she had gone home for the holidays. Trying now to play Alexander's song felt as if she were plagerising, stealing what wasn't hers to play but she had to shake this idea as wasn't that the case with all the great musicians whose music she used. She stood upon the shoulders of great artists and tried to mimick them, tried to play as amazingly as they but Alexander had proven to her that her place was no where near that lofty, it was far lower.

The voice when it sang gave her a start and her first instincts were of course to stop singing herself but she didn't, which surprised her even more. Glancing upwards she saw Alexander walking towards her, arms crossed and smiling as he sang. Her fingers continued playing until his voice stopped and then she abruptly stopped too. She could feel the heat of mortification burn its way down her neck from her cheeks. This was beyond embarrassing to be caught playing and singing his own song!

She couldn't even bring herself to smile, she felt like some naughty school girl caught playing truant from school or doing something worthy of explusion. Her fingers moved slowly to close the lid on the piano down over the keys once again. She looked away from Alexander to the lid as her fingers moved to the seat she was upon and gripped the edge of it.

"I shouldn't have played it without asking you first ... I ... couldn't get it out of my head. Sorry" she didn't know what else to say to him but couldn't for the life of her acknowledge the compliment he had given her playing. He was in her opinion just being nice to her, though he seriously didn't have to be nice, she hadn't deserved that at all from her. Not with her appalling behaviour at any rate.
 
Alex lowered his hands from being crossed, to hanging on his sides, the smile popping back onto his face. Minerva was back to her apologetic voice, the one he didn't like. He liked her a lot more the first time they met, when they briefly joked around and talked about music all together. The tone she had right now was screaming that she didn't want to talk to him. In his head, it's all his fault.

"You don't have to ask permission to use my songs, in fact, I feel extremely honored that you'd actually want to play my song, and as you say it, the fact that was in your head.."

He scratched his head, blushing slightly, as he approached the piano to look at it.
"It sounds great played on a piano. You think you could improvise some variations so it'd work together with the guitar?"

A lot of things flew though his mind, a slight hope they might perform together, but he expected her to turn him down.

"I'm serious that sounded great."
 
When she glanced up at him she noted his own expression as he spoke to her. He hadn't minded her playing his song at all, felt honoured by it which Minerva found a little hard to swallow. She hadn't played it very well, by his standards at least but perhaps he had heard it differently to her, she was after all her own worse critic and nothing she did was ever just right in her view - that was the whole reason she studied so hard, practiced everything twice what anyone else might, no matter how accurate it already was!

"It's always good to ask for permission first ..." she paused as he walked towards the piano and couldn't help but give a small smile when he announced that he thought it had sounded great but that he honestly thought they could work together astounded her no end!

"You want to ... play ... together?" it sounded incredulous even to her own ears, "even after hearing me play?" Maybe he had something wrong with his own hearing or was just being super polite to her but again he reassured her that what she had played sounded great. It was her turn to scratch her head slightly and look back at the piano before her. She had two options ... lift the piano lid once again and open the invitation to play together and try to bury the hatchet of her own making ... or she could leave the lid closed and depress herself with how she would never measure up.

Norton Gillespie popped into her head at that moment, her best friend in the entire universe and she could see his smiling face encouraging her to take a chance, perhaps she might make another friend and one who was interested in music this time! She bit her lower lip as the milliseconds ticked by and slowly, with what felt like all her bravado she lifted the lid of the piano and then glanced up at Alexander again.
"Did you want ... to work together ... now?"
 

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