The Novelle Diaries & The Wampus Cub

Chapter 9: Music In The Night

When Wren was finally allowed to leave the hospital wing, it was rather late in the evening on Monday. She quickly made her way through the common room and up the spiral stairs to her dorm where her roommates were all getting themselves ready for bed.

'Welcome back Wren. We missed you!' Verity cried as Wren entered the room. Within a minute all the girls had swaddled her in a group hug.

'Let her breath, let her breath. She's only just been discharged. You don't want to send her back already.' Rosewaine exclaimed scoldingly as she batted all the girls away from Wren protectively. The warm welcome had been lovely but Rosewaine had been right to intervene. Though Wren was feeling alot better she was still a little unsteady on her feet.

She plopped down on her bed and greeted her very affectionate owl who flew down onto her shoulder and began to nuzzle her head against Wren's cheek.

'I missed you too, ol' girl.' Wren giggled.

As her gaze fell to her night stand she realised that her praising pansy had not only bloomed but were also a delightful shade of deep sapphire blue.

' I praised your pansies for you whilst you were gone.' Rosewaine explained as she sat down on her own bed. 'Our pansies are looking the best in the dorm right now. Freda yelled at her's yesterday because it wasn't changing colour fast enough and now it's as black as night.' She giggled a little.

'Thankyou,' Wren said then added, 'I will be sure not to yell at mine and undo all your hard work.' She then picked up her flower pot and began to talk to the flowers herself. 'Nice to meet you little flowers. You have already done such an excellent job at growing. I have every faith in you that you will become big and strong and most importantly, sky blue.'

Even as she spoke the flowers seemed to lighten in colour. Wren set them back down on her nightstand and readied herself for bed. She didn't really feel like getting into bed after multiple days of being cooped up in one so she sat in bed and read for a long time after the other girls had all fallen asleep until she felt ready to blow out her own candle and settle down. She lay there in the dark for a long time listening to the sniffs and snores around her. A sound she had grown to find quite comforting over the past few weeks. Suddenly she became aware of another, very faint sound joining the quiet slumbering rhythm of the night. Music, so faint that Wren had to strain to hear it but as she sat up and walked to the door, she became sure that it wasn't a figment of her imagination. The soft tones of a lullaby being played on a piano drifted up the stairwell.

Wren edged down the spiral staircase, unable to simply go back to her bed. As she grew closer to the sound, the tune became clearer. The most lonely and gentle melody that broke her heart a little as she listened. When Wren reached the common room, she edged as silently as she could over to the mezzanine bannister to see who could be creating this beautiful, haunting sound at this hour of the night. As her eyes became accustomed to the moonlit room she saw a small boy sitting at the piano keys, his fingers dancing over the ivories with his eyes closed. Erris McGrath seemed to be in his own world as his tune surrounded him like a love song to the night. Each note seemed to relay his desperate loneliness to Wren as she could feel the tune reverberate through her torso. As she listened, the melody became harsher and she could feel his anger and misery and she wanted to cry for this mystery of a boy who seemed to live in a world that only contained himself and his bird.

(If you wish to listen to Erris' melody, please listen to this video and imagen that you are standing in the moonlit Ravenclaw commonroom with Wren.)

She listened for a long time before she made her presence known. She was afraid to break the magic of it all, as if the boy would see her and then disappear like a fantom taking his music with him. When she finally stepped out of the shadows Erris froze, his melody ceasing mid bar. He simply stared at her for a long moment before Wren whispered softly. 'Please don't stop. I love it.'