If I May Be So Bold (A Harry Potter Universe Fanfiction)

51.

April 2035

ELLA

As the spring bore on, the fifth years became increasingly concerned with the approaching exams. It was nearly all anyone talked about. Never had Ella encountered so many of her classmates in the library.

It became almost impossible to find a table, so she started using her dad's classroom to study, often bringing along Logan and their friends. Sometimes he would be there, grading papers or planning and he'd sit at his desk at the front of the room or in his office with the door open and Ella would actually focus on studying because she knew he was paying attention.

But sometimes, he'd have gone home and then it became nearly impossible to keep her mind on cheering charms and switching spells.

She'd be tucked up in her chair, trying to force her way through a reread of a particularly dense chapter of her ancient runes textbook that she'd found confusing several months back and Logan would be next to her, not looking at his book at all, but staring out the window or sometimes at her. When Ella would look up to tell him off for getting sidetracked, he'd say "Hum the melody for me. Your verse. I have something in my head and I want to see if it fits."

And then she'd hum it and he'd hum something to harmonize and next thing she knew, she'd be sucked in to helping him decipher the notation for what was in his head. The edges of nearly every page in her notebook were decorated with musical staffs where she had jotted down what she thought matched what he'd come up with.

And Ella couldn't even be mad about it, because she craved these distractions, thought about them constantly. Each time he tapped her to run an idea past her, her heart would skip a little and she'd willingly shove aside whatever she'd be attempting to cram into her brain.

The best, though, was the times they would study alone, often sneaking away just the two of them for an hour or two after dinner.

Logan would set a timer for how long they actually had to focus for and they would quiz each other on constellations for astronomy or practice banishing charms, sending things back and forth to each other like an odd game of catch. Then when the timer went off, they would shove their things in their bags and head off to a room with a piano, which was where Ella found herself tonight, seated on the small bench in front of a piano they'd come across in a small chamber on the fourth floor.

Logan was pacing around the room humming bits of things to himself, his hands in his pockets. He was messing with a phrase of about four bars that he couldn't seem to agree with himself on, because every time he hummed it, it was nearly the same with one or two small adjustments.

Ella didn't mind. She was enjoying this uninterrupted excuse to watch him. The serious look on his face, his faintly freckled cheeks tight, chin down and eyes on the floor — it was all so endearing to her. She loved how seriously he took this.

After a few minutes, he stopped walking, lifted his gaze a few inches and stared at a spot on the wall opposite him. He hummed the same thing several times over, then paused.

Ella took a stab at playing it by ear on the piano.

Logan looked at her.

"You think?" he asked.

"You want to hear it with the other part?" she asked.

"Yeah."

So Ella played the two parts together, her left hand playing what he'd just hummed, her right the melody line.

Logan didn't say anything right away.

"It's nice," she said. "I like it."

"Can you sing it?" he asked.