A Shared Melody
“Hey Mary, we should check on our portioned tonight.” Lily said. Lily was my distraction, I was planning to give Sirius his birthday gift tonight and if Mary knew, she would come immediately. Lily helped me get his gift, I wanted to get him a muggle thing but I knew very little about muggles. While Lily doesn’t care much for Sirius, she still helped me out.
“Sure let’s go. Hazel, Marlene want to come?” Mary took the bait.
“Nah, James is in charge of our potion this week.” Marlene shrugged.
“And you trust him with it?” Lily asked.
“Yes, we do.” I smiled “James is capable of being responsible sometimes.”
“I suppose.” Lily lead Mary out the door. Marlene went into her trunk and pulled out his gift. Marlene was almost eager to keep Mary away from Sirius.
“Wasn’t his birthday yesterday? When the marauders were singing like banshees?” Marlene asked.
“Yeah but he had a family thing so,” I shrugged.
“Fair.” Marlene agreed and handed me the gift. “I give you about thirty minutes before they get back, good luck.” She smiled and I made my way downstairs. Sirius was alone sitting at the piano.
“Do you play?” I asked.
“I’ve pretty much been learning since I was an infant.” He sighed like the memory pained him.
“Where’s James and Remus?” I asked.
“Trying to come up with a solution…” Sirius wasn’t his normal eager self, he was quiet and controlled. He looked like Regulas. “How much do you know about my family history?” He asked. I was taken aback by the question. I’ve never heard Sirius speak so openly about his family. Usually it was in metaphors or something.
“Uh well.. I know your third great grandfather was the worst Hogwarts headmaster ever. Your family believes that purebloods are the only real wizards and that slytherin in the best house. With those requirements breeding is.. challenging. Like the royal family you intermate which is why you all look alike. I mean aren’t your parents cousins?” I looked at him, I had a feeling that I gave him too much information.
“Yeah. They are.” Sirius sighed, he tapped a few keys on the piano. “I’m next, they want me and Sissy to marry.”
I let the words sink in, that sounded disgusting. Not only were they cousins but Narcissa was about six years older than he was. Was she really the only pureblood left? There wasn’t anyone else? Of course it’s also weird that Sirius was thirteen and being set up to marry. Lily was right, his family was so bizarre.
Then I realized why he was telling me, Narcissa wasn’t the last pureblood left, I was one. He looked so guilty, he never said it out loud but I knew he was thinking about marrying me instead of sissy.
“You’re parents would never find that as a solution.” I didn’t say exactly what I was thinking, but we both knew what I meant.
“You’re a pureblood, they might-“ Sirius started, I had to stop him.
“I am part of the biggest known blood trainer family. You couldn’t even tell your parents you were friends with James. You know this isn’t a solution they would accept.” I reasoned. I felt so bad for him. All of his freedom was being taken away from him and I couldn’t even help. But he had to have known that this would work, I just felt bad I took away his hope.
Sirius looked crushed, but he nodded. He knew it never would have worked.
“I know I just thought… you’re a much better choice than Sissy.” He laughed softly.
“Oh thanks.” I smiled, a chuckle escaped from me.
“What’s the gift?” He asked smiling.
“This is your belated birthday gift!” I handed him his present. He opened the wrapping to find a magazine of popular muggle artists and interesting facts about them and coloured muggle quills called makers or markees. Something like that. They didn’t like quills but Lily assured me that they were just like quills.
Sirius flipped through the magazine in awe. He then looked at the weird quills confused.
“What are these?” He asked.
“I honestly don’t know, Lily helped me with your gift. I think they’re like the muggle quills or something.” I poorly explained.
“Cool!” He played a short happy melody on the piano. I laughed. I looked around to see a guitar sitting next to the piano. It’s like the castle knew the two of us would be here.
“Have you ever made up your own song?” I asked getting the guitar set up.
“Made up my own song? No. I normally just play at weddings or parties.” He seemed sad about that fact.
“We’ll that’s no fun. Come on we can make a song.”
I started strumming the guitar. I played two B chords then strummed the guitar down up down. Then two D chords, down up down, two E chords, down up down and two high E chords and down up down. I repeated this pattern over and over.
“That can be the background, now you make the melody.” I said while continuing my pattern. Sirius looked hesitant at first but started playing a happy melody. It was slow at first but he picked it up and we kept going.
I would change the key or he would play louder and quieter at times. He actually looked happy playing, there were a few times he would go metal and I would laugh. Sirius and James had already acted like brothers and now I understood, he was family. He felt like if I had a brother that played music instead of obsessed with quidditch.