Contentedness

Alice sat alone in the seventh floor corridor, sitting cross legged and playing her guitar. She was dressed simply, not trying to impress anyone, just trying to focus on her music. She played slowly at first, and then plucked the strings more and more, deftly causing music to worm its way through the air. She was not playing a song, she was just piecing chords together and creating music.

Alice was independent. She was used to it, honestly. She could not count how many times she would wake up to an empty house, to have her parents rush in an hour later, Rise and Frank following, telling her they were so sorry they left her behind, they were headed here or there, and she needed to come with them. Her family sort of forgot about her often. She was used to being on her own.

When she was playing music, she was alone, regardless of how many people were actually around her. She withdrew into herself and put on a show without trying. When she danced... she was never alone. She was surrounded by music, by those who had danced to the piece before her, by the characters in the story in the song... But her days of dancing were behind her. Today, she played.

Ryo wandered around the seventh floor of Hogwarts alone. He had been in the Hufflepuff common room only a few minutes before. The only reason he left was because his sister and her stupid little friends had walked in. Like usual they didn't pay any attention to him, only to her. Everywhere he went it was always the same. Everyone only cared about her, about Sayuri, the brat that called herself his sister. Ever since their parents died, it was like Ryo wasn't there. Like he had died along with his parents. His aunt and uncle only had eyes for her, and he didn't get why. It wasn't like she was a little girl who needed to be taken care of. She was 16 just like him, but still she got all the attention.

It didn't take long for him to get fed up with everything they were saying. It was all about him, how stupid he was. How lazy he was. They knew he was there, but they still didn't shut up about anything. He tried to ignore them, and for a little while it worked. But then they brought up his old girlfriend, and he just blew his top. He had called his sister a prat, and other things that he had never said to her before. She had only laughed, knowing that she had hit a sore spot in his heart that still hadn't healed. So he just stormed out of the common room, without saying another word to her. He didn't know where he was supposed to go after he stormed out, so he just walked up to the seventh floor. At the very least he had his drum sticks with him. Thank you secret compartment in his trunk. If that hadn't been there, he would have had to give up his drums sticks and that would have devistated him, drumming was the only way he had to let his emotions out in a constructive way.

He began to hear someone strumming chords on a guitar and he walked toward the sounds. As he walked closer he listened to the songs. It wasn't a song, just chords. Plain and simple, he liked that. Finally he came across a girl, she was the one making the sounds. He got closer to her, but still kept his distance. "Hey." he said simply, sitting down next to her, his drum sticks in his hands.

Alice felt the chords start to resound into her and she knew a little improved song would come of this playing session. She began to clear thoughts from her mind so that she would rememebr the song as clearly as possible and be able to put the notes and sounds and dynamics to paper later that night to the staff paper she had stowed in her trunk.

She heard a voice and her eyes opened, spotting a boy standing above her. She looked up at him, her mouth slightly open, her head shaking from side to side with the beat of her music, though she did not answer his greeting. She watched him as he sat down and that was when she noticed the drumsticks in his hand. She blinked and said, "Join in."

And she went off. The chords began to get more complicated, and a song began to form. She shook and bobbed her head with the music, occassionally thumping her guitat rythmically, her eyes closed as she memorized every detail.

Ryo stared at the girl when she told him to join in. He looked down at his drumsticks in his hands and spun them around in his hands impressively as he listened to her strum the chords. Before he knew it he was slowly tapping the sticks on the floor to the beat of the chords the girl was playing. He immediately began to feel happy and at peace, just from tapping out the sounds that flowed around the empty corridor.

He began to go faster, tapping the drumsticks on the floor and on his legs. His head began to bob to the beats and his foot started to tap the floor, as if it was playing the drum pedal. He forgot about the conflict with his sister and her friends and he was consumed by the music.

It seemed like his mind went blank of everything except music. No surprise there, he always forgot everything, but today it was like he knew nothing else. It felt weird, but as he continued to play he forgot about Victorie, who up to this point was always present in his mind. Haunting him, about why she left. He knew it wasn't her fault but he wished he would have still been given the chance to say goodbye to her. But that was gone now, she was gone, and for the first time in a long time he wasn't feeling hurt or sad about it.

Alice could feel the boy's slight surprise at being so blankly asked to join her little jam session, but Alice got in one of these whimsical moods, she could not stop herself from being like this. She loved the artistic sides of her that came out when she was free to express herself through her guitar, through music, through this spontaneous art... The best sort.

Soon, the casual meeting turned into a jam session. Alice still had not taken a good look at the boy so she did not even know if she knew him. She could see, out of the corner of her eye, him hitting the stone floor of the castle, the drumsticks tapping out complex rythms. Wow. He was actually quite good. She nodded appreciatively and continued on.

Things began to intensify in the music, building, building, building, building- and she felt it. "Drop out," she instructed him. "We're going into a bridge." (slight godmode, sorry.) He stopped and she played simple chords, closing her eyes and feeling words pour out of her mouth. "And you can't even remember, the thing's I've done to you." There was a pause and she said, "Now." Immediately, they burst into an intense acoustic part.

They had something there.

Ryo closed his eyes as he played. It helped him concentrate on only the sounds on his drumsticks hitting the floor rythmically. He smiled and continued to play, gradually letting himself hear the sounds of the girl's guitar as he played. When his mind had opened up completely to the chords and they mixed in with his beats, he thought it began to sound something like a song.

When Alice told him to stop, he nodded and did so, letting himself rest. Just listening to the sounds of her guitar. His eyes opened and he looked at Alice as she played. His head tilted subconsciously as he heard her say, what he supposed to be lyrics, and she paused for a moment. Ryo said nothing, not wanting to disrupt her thoughts, and again he spun his sitcks around in his hands, waiting for her to tell him when to start again.

Finally she said it, and he began to tap on the floor again. But this time his beats were softer and slower than before. They gradually increased in speed and volume, but dropped when he thought it was necessary.

It was sounding brilliant. Alice used to love jamming with her brother, back when music and Alice was all he needed to be satisfied. But then he started talking about all of this 'higher calling' business and abandoned his musical talent and abandoned her. Alice had went from adoring her brother to resenting his very existence. He wanted to help everyone, but to do so he had to hurt his only sister. She still did not understand how he had reasoned that one out.

So ever since he had begun on all thse new career routes, Alice had hardly seen him- what's more, she had not had a musical partner. She had not been able to jam with anyone in a long time. Playing improvised on your own was okay too, but it beat the thrill of having to connect with someone on a deeper level to produce a unique work of art.

But this boy had helped her. They rode the song out and she whispered, "Fade." And soon, they faded into nothingness. She closed her eyes for a few moments, and before he could say anything, she stuck her finger out at him and said, "Shh!" She reached behind her to her bag and plunged her hand into her bag, searching.

She pulled out a piece of staffpaper, a quill, and her monocle. She dropped them in front of her and fixed her monocle over her eye before bending over to scrawl the notes in. After a minute or so in silence, she said, still writing, "That was brilliant."

When they stopped playing Ryo looked at the girl and opened his mouth to say something. However before he could get a single word out she stopped him, and began to write something on paper. He put his head on his lap and stared at her as she wrote. After a few moments he looked down at his hands, which still held his drumsticks, and he sighed. His grip on the sticks lessened and he let them fall on the floor, listening to the echo they created. Now the sound of the drumsticks sounded empty with no emotion. What a change from the sounds he knew from when he was a little boy, even the music he had created today was different from the music he knew before.

It was more mature and less joyful, or that was how it sounded to him. Everything sounded that way to him now, nothing more with joy really flowed through him. Even in those moments of 'joy' he felt while playing with this girl, Ryo felt empty and sad. It was how he always felt, especially after his parents died, and he became invisible to everyone in his family. His eyes were closed and he let out a heavy sigh, before the voice of the girl broke through the silence in the corridor. He opened his eyes again, and looked at the girl. Without saying a word he smiled at her, and lowered his head onto his lap again.

Alice felt her hand to begin to tense and cramp as she desperately tried to get as much of the song down on paper before it left her brain. She wanted to get this down, she really did, and she knew if she left it for later, she might get every note, but that did not flat out guarantee she would get the feel of the piece, the tone, the emotion, the heart and soul.

She was nearing the end though and she glanced up at him, smiling pleasantly at the boy that she had yet to introduce herself to, and he returned the smile before lowering his head. She paused and realized, the music could wait. She let her mind soak in the notes and rhythms and turned her attention back to the boy. "You are very talented," she stated with a smile. "But also very sad. I'm Alice. What's your name?" Alice would not deny it, she was a little strange.