Mine

[36]

I led Draco into a dark room off to the left side of my home. With a flick of a switch, a chandelier lit over our heads, revealing a baby grand piano.

"Do you know how to play?" I asked him, moving towards the piano. I pulled the cover back from it, lifting the lid that covered the keys.

"Mother knows how to play." Draco said quietly. "She taught me when I was younger, but we stopped when I was maybe nine. I don't think I've touched a piano since."

I nodded slightly, taking a seat on the piano bench, my fingers hovering over the keys. When no more words filled the room, I placed my fingers down, closing my eyes as my fingers moved over the keys. My mother had begun giving both me and Grant lessons starting at a young age, though Grant was much more restless than I was, and my mother gave up quickly on him.

Though I didn't show it often, I knew how to play very well. I had taken to playing the piano, and for me, playing was an escape. It allowed me to show my emotions in a way that I struggled to do through words. Whereas Draco often showed his feelings though actions, whether they be good or bad, I struggled more with that than he did. I had a harder time opening up and finding a way to express what went on in my mind.

I could sense him standing close behind me, as my body leaned forward over the piano. The music coursed through me, the intense notes of Experience by Ludovico Einaudi filling the silent room. I often heard these notes playing in the back of my head. Especially lately. Everything had been so intense at Hogwarts that when I sat in silence, this song often played in the back of my mind. Finally getting to hear it out loud, not just in my head, was freeing. It spoke to all of the intense feelings I had inside of me, the fears that kept me awake at night, the feelings I wished I knew how to express through my words.

But I didn't know how, so I just let my body fall victim to the music that poured from my fingertips and out of the piano. As the notes quickened, the pace of them coursing through me with such intensity, I just swayed in whatever way my body spoke to me. I had learned how to play this song when I was only twelve years old, but it wasn't until I was fifteen that it truly spoke to me. Although there were no words, my soul held a connection to the song, and it spoke the words that were tangled deep within me.

As the tune came to an end and my fingers moved slower over the keys of the piano, I opened my eyes. Draco was standing next to the piano in front of me, his eyes intently on me. I raised my fingers from the keys once I had finished the song, letting out a shaky breath.

"That was..." Draco trailed off, at a loss for words as he stared at me. "You're really good." He eventually said, taking a few steps towards me. He lowered himself down beside me on the piano bench, still eyeing me carefully. "What song was that?"

"Experience by Ludovico Einaudi." I whispered, staring back at him. "My mother taught it to me the summer before our second year."

"It was beautiful." Draco whispered. "Watching you play was beautiful."

"I've been hearing that song in my head a lot lately. My dreams too." I whispered, staring down at the piano keys. "I have a hard time expressing myself to you sometimes, well, in general, I guess. But in some way, that song encapsulates everything I've been feeling."

"But it's so...intense." Draco said slowly, his eyes scanning my face.

I nodded in response before quietly saying, "I've been having dreams where I'm running through a forest, this song playing in the background. I think it's the Forbidden Forest."

"What are you running from?" Draco asked, his brows furrowing together.

"I don't know." I sighed. "When I look back, I just see darkness."