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Rhapsody in Blue

Sirius doesn't know much about music. He knows what he likes - the Beatles, the Rollings', that Dylan whatever-his-name-is, the Clash, those kinds of sounds. And he knows what he doesn't like. That dark sad serenades his mother made him hear at dinner and the silliest catchy songs for thirteen-year-old witches that you can hear on the wizard radio. For the balls of Merlin, the horror. If it was up to him, they could set fire to all the shitty orchestras and all the girls' groups in the world. He has never understood why Remus loves all that music without lyrics that can't sing and shout and it can be said that for Sirius, the attraction that jazz exerts on Muggles is a fucking mystery.

Or it was. Because now his musical vision has a clear dividing line. A great Before and a great After attending Remus Lupin piano concert in the Shrieking Shack.

He must be magically delighted. That's it. That must be, because it's not normal that Remus is getting into his blood like this. The music, the piano, and, above all, the pianist. There must be some spell involved. That's why he cannot stop looking at his fingers. What are they? Three, four songs?

They follow one after another and are getting faster and faster, so that Sirius can't take his eyes off the keys because he's afraid that if he does, he'll make the music stop playing.

Long, skilful, pianist fingers. They hypnotise him. He imagines what Remus can do with them. If he wants to put them in Sirius' mouth. He wants to know how they can play so fast, or if the music appears when his fingers make contact with the keys or the music is already there, somehow, before Remus touches the piano, and all he does is call her to get up from the piano stomach. He wonders how he knows which note comes after the next going so fast, if it feels as hot as it looks if it doesn't hurt being so into the melody, if doing that to a piano isn't twisted with sexual pleasure.

James drums the beat with his feet and Peter taps his fingers.

Sirius can only watch.

A while ago that piano was nothing more than a piece of furniture with eighty eight keys and too much dust. It now seems alive, fills the house with feet that dance and collide, couples rubbing and going crazy from the frenzy of jazz. Now the piano is the boss and it must be magic. It has to be magic.

That ancient, radiant and simple magic that Sirius felt the first time, he saw it now with Remus Lupin casting a musical spell. That must be.

He would like to be the piano to sound like that, because fuck, it must be awesome to let Remus Lupin touch him like this. He seems possessed by the rebellious energy of jazz. He plays relentlessly and every now and then looks up, and their glances meet, jazz shakes Sirius to his feet as if the music was penetrating to the bottom and every corner of his body.

Between song and song, Remus finishes the whiskey and lights a cigarette, and that's the moment when Sirius knows it's over, and that night must be the one. It is not among the capabilities of him to bear Remus Lupin smoking out of a cigarette, sitting with a piano burning under his fingers, and do nothing to make sure that those incendiary glances that he is throwing at him don't get what they deserve.

For once, for one fucking time, fate parties with Sirius. Finally, an extremely drunk Peter solemnly announces that he is going to bed, and after several unsuccessful attempts to get to his feet, James offers himself to accompany him.

- Are you sure you can handle him? - Remus asks. - We can all go.

"Hope that's a way of talking, Lupin. Because you are going nowhere".

- No, stay a little longer. Needless to say. - Holds Peter firmly.

- Come on, Wormtail, one foot in front of the other. - Peter obeys James's instructions the best that he can. - Like this, veeery good.