Pretty Music

"I've heard that," Quelyn said quietly. He asked her why and she shrugged. "No, it would honor her more than offend her. But others would not like it. Plus I no longer have a piano, and my father would find my attempts offensive." She tilted her head to the side and her hair swayed back and fourth before settling down again. "It's nice to meet you too." she watched as he got up and walked around the piano. After being asked to sit she did taking extra care not to accidently push one of the keys. Looking down at the keys she smiled slightly and looked at the grouping remembering something her mother had taught her. "C is the wight key just to the left of the group of two." she murmured to herself.

Darius looked up only once and that was when she took a seat and expressed her knowledge. He smiled and nodded. Though he never actually learned those things, he still knew what was here located. It came to him as simply as maths to some people. He was born with this talent.
Since he was not able to find any easy notes for the girl, Darius took out his pen and an empty paper. “I will compose you something and I will teach you how to play it,“ he informed Quelyn. The girl should be thankful, though. He was a patient person and it was likely that even if she'd do many mistakes, he would not get upset or angry at her. Darius was calm in his nature.

He drew lines on the sheet and chewed on the top of the pen, narrowing his eyes. He had never composed anything Easy. Usually, when he did think of „masterpieces“, he wrote them down at the level of at least five years of studying. Or more.
When he finally got it (in his opinion the easiest song he could ever think of), he gave it to Quelyn:“I assume you already know the basics and you know how to this or another seine?“

"Seine?" Quelyn asked her head cocked to the side one more time as she gave him and inquisitive look. "Mummy did teach me some very little when I was little. We focused more on dancing. "All i really know is where C is and that the black keys have flats or sharps on them. She once told me that with out knowing where the notes were on the paper compared to the keys you couldn't play pieces that were already written, but you could always make up your own." Quelyn looked distant as if she were still remembering those days. "She and my brother took the happiness and music with them when they left." She whispered quietly.

“A note,“ Darius explained before he gestured towards the piano's keyboard. “Explaining it would be pretty hard for me since I've never actually taught anyone, but that's not a problem. Wait,“ he said before he went to explore the bookcase. It was music classroom after all, they should have study books. “Practice for a while. Try to play something or just push the key's so that you'll get the feeling. Playing piano is always harder than playing those funny instruments that muggles create. Synthesizer they call it. Cheaper than piano, smaller, you can carry it with you where ever you go and it has much more options than the original instument, but the quality is not as good. You live with your father I assume? They are not expensive either, so maybe if you talk with him, he will get it to you for your birthday or just a gift after school.“ When he was younger, he received a lot of presents after finishing another school year.

He finished his search when he found an old green book and after taking a quick look at the table of content, he waved with it, happy that he found something that could come in handy. “See, this here explains you about the notes and all the basics better than I ever will. I'm a self taught prodigy and I don't know the rules, but I suspect that it would be easier for you to start with simple things such as the basics,“ Darius said as he handed the book over to Quilyn.

Dolohov looked down. He really felt sorry for the girl, but he did not know what to say. “I'm sorry,“ was just inappropriate in his opinion. That did not bring back her mother and younger brother. Darius reached his hand and carefully patted her shoulder. “Hey, be a trooper. Stand strong and you will get over it. It takes time, I know, but...“ He looked around, searching for inspiration. What should he say about such occasions? Finally, he continued:“You should know that your mother is still watching you no matter what and I think that she'd be proud if you'd learn something that you like or interests you.“ Oh man, he was bad at such things. He was bad at comforting people.

Quelyn laughed out loud at his suggestion of asking her father for another piano, but quickly her hand clapped over her mouth. "Sorry I didn't mean to laugh at you," she said quietly looking up at him. After a minute Jacquelyn place her hands on the keys like her mother would as she watched quietly. and she played a little tune she had memorized by the finger movements her mother had made. slowly the tune moved in a eighth note eighth note quarter eighth eighth quarter quarter quarter quarter quarter. while pressing the keys who's names were c, d, a, e, g, f, d, b, g, e. she smiled slightly watching her hands as she played it again.

Darius hummed quietly in a questioning way. Was there something he said wrong or funny at some point? He repeated his words in his head, trying to figure out what went wrong, but then Quelyn said that it had nothing to do with him.
“Alright, let's start with the first lesson then,“ he said, clapping his hands together. To be honest, he had no imagination as to how it all would end. If Quelyn would become a good player, he'd be proud of himself, however he would not be able to see her develop those musical skills. It was his last school year and people with a special mission could enter this place after graduating. Darius was sure that he'd miss Hogwarts. Everyone missed their school years, classes and their professors, though he could not say the same about his housemates and almost the rest of the school. He was the typical Slytherin guy in your neighborhood, who'd go hating on Gryffindors simply because of their blood and social status.

Dolohov leaned against the piano and watched his first student to start playing. He did not know the melody, but it sounded nice. She was a good kid. Musical talent was probably in her blood, like in his, though Darius was not sure from whoom he had inherited his ability to crate something as fascinating as new masterpieces.

“When you think you are ready, you can try and play the song that I gave you,“ he encouraged her. He knew that when he was a young boy, he was afraid of failure. Hopefully Quelyn did not suffer from that and she could make first steps without any further encouraging comments.

She look up at the paper he had placed in front of her unsure what the lines and dots on the paper meant besides the fact that it was music and was some how played on the piano in front of her. "Could you play it first?" she asked looking up at him. "I learned that little bit from my mum. she was trying to write her own piece but that's all i remembered. I had watched her play it so many times. i memorized the way her fingers moved and which keys they hit. All of her work was lost along with the piano in one of the rampages that had gone on after her death." she sighed not wanting to fully admit that she had no clue what the things on the paper meant.

When she looked at the sheets, Darius took some time to examine her once again. He was, once again, correct. Quelyn was afraid or too shy to try it on her own. He had to figure it out on his own when he started to learn. He just knew what keys to push and that there were six of them, but he somehow managed. Pride and stubborness did not allow him to leave this topic without at least mastering one song. And he was still proud of his success. Darius sometimes thought that learning the piano was the greatest thing he has ever done in his short life.

He nodded and took a step closer to the piano. He did not need to ask her to move aside, Darius just knelt in front of the instrument and looked at the notes that he had written to her. It was a child's play, but he said nothing, only introduced her the melody, playing it slowly and, to make things easier for her, he did repeated it the second time.

“Okay, now try to play something. If you don't know what key to push, you can either look in this book for help or ask me,“ Darius encouraged her as he stood up and towered above the girl for a moment. Then he turned around and dragged a chair from behind one of the tables. He suspected that this might take some time. All that he could do right now was to make himself feel a bit more comfortable. “Don't worry. If you fail, you can start it over and over again. You're playing a piano, not building a house of needles.“

Quelyn had watched darius's hand as he pressed the keys very closely and now she placed her habd in the same spot his had just vacanted. carefully she pressed the keyes in the same order as she had seen them played. after a few minutes she played it again a bit fasted and giggled. she never giggled and the strange sound that had erupted from her mouth startled her as if she were stil a small baby once again. shakeing her head she ignored it and looked back down at the keys . this time sje played a few notes at random and giggled again.

He put his hands on the back of the chair and leaned against it while watching how Quelyn amused herself with the piano. It looked like she repeated what he had played not by looking at the notes he had written to her, but by copying his movements. Darius plugged his lips, amazed by her skill. That was impressive. And with only few minutes she was playing it faster and faster, adding some new notes, clearly improvising and laughing like a child. Well, she was a child, eleven years was no grown up. It wasn't even a teen.
Darius smiled. It was nice seeing children smiling and happy. And it was also nice knowing that he was the reason behind all that. Although her music was not even close to what he'd expect her to play (assuming that she was still haunted by the melody her mother played), he had to admit that he felt somewhat proud. He had succeeded in teaching her how to, at least, copy his own movements. If that was the case, then they needed either another piano or they should share this one so that she would learn faster.

Darius stood up and took the paper and added some additional seine's before putting it back. “I just want to know – can you play the thing that I wrote? I mean, are you able to read the notes or are you more comfortable when I play first and you copy my movements? Or how did you do that? Did you listen and then play the song?“ Everyone had their own ways of studying.