Chapter 2
“But it’s tradition!”
“Aubrey, I don’t care, we are not holding bullfrogs the entire time we sing. I am putting my half-captain foot down. We can do it during the Lacrimosa, but I say we take initiative! Make our mark before we leave.”
“I don’t want to be known as a heritage breaker, Chloe!”
The girls stood on opposite ends of a red quilted chair, glaring heatedly at each other. Everyone else in the common space could've poofed from thin air and it wouldn't make a difference to Chloe or Aubrey.
A Gryffindor 3rd year entered through the portrait entrance, looking nervously between the two girls raising their voices and staring at each other wearily in a face-off.
"Um- excuse me-"
"What?" Aubrey snapped her head in the direction of the interruption, causing a small squeak from the boy.
He recognized the two from similar experiences in the past and knew the redheaded one was Head Girl. For this reason alone, he scurried around them desperately seeking out his own buddies. Safety in numbers after all.
Aubrey scoffed and continued her strides to the portrait, knowing Chloe would follow.
They traveled in silence for a while, each in their own thoughts coming down from their tiff.
“Anyway,” Chloe chirped, assumedly deciding they’d pick up their argument another time, “I woke up with a divine feeling today."
Aubrey grunted, still lingering on her negative feelings. Chloe's emotions changed so easily as if her worries just whisked away with an errant breeze.
"Do you want to know why, Aubrey? It's okay, I'll tell you because I love you."
Aubrey rolled her eyes at the absurd chipperness.
"The most magical thing happened to me yesterday while in the loo.”
Aubrey gave her an incredulous look as they strode side by side down the corridor. “You know, I think we’ve gotten too close.”
Chloe snorts and leans heavily into Aubrey’s side despite the struggle to do so at Aubrey’s hastened pace. She brought her face so close to her best friend’s, she was practically kissing her cheek.
“Aww, Aubs, with you it’s never close enough.”
Audrey chanced a glance from the corner of her eye at Chloe like she always did whenever she’d innocuously flirt. If someone were to really study her then, they'd see nervousness edging at her eyes, so subtle it was almost like it wasn’t there.
Aubrey shoved Chloe off with a frown- her robes fluttering with the movement and Chloe's curtain bangs shifting in front of her eyes- when they almost ran into some other students. She quickly kept her close again, this time by slipping her arm through Chloe’s.
The casual physical intimacy was something she’d learned from the redhead having grown up in a stuffy pureblood family where touch might as well had been prohibited.
“You’re too much,” Aubrey frowned. Chloe hummed contentedly next to her, “What happened that was so magical? And please spare the details.”
“It was musical magic! I sang with this girl who was in the Charms bathroom. There was a synergy."
Aubrey rolled her eyes. There was 'synergy' between Chloe and a lot of people.
"How did you end up singing with a stranger in the loo?"
"I might've instigated it- but only because she had been humming! Oh, and Aubrey, it was so pretty. Her voice was so clear- she harmonized perfectly with my voice. It was borderline orgasmic."
Chloe gazed off into the distance and squeezed Aubrey's arm. Aubrey tried not to blush. She wouldn't give Chloe the satisfaction.
"Poor girl was probably in a good mood before you harassed her."
"I resent that."
At this point, they were on their last floating stair to the choir room. When they stepped off, a dark-haired boy in Hufflepuff robes sauntered past them with a curled lip. Chloe stiffened beside her.
Aubrey looked behind them curiously, "Was that-?"
"Tom, yeah."
"Is he, I mean, are you guys still..."
"I don't really want to discuss that trainwreck. Or anything to do with relationships and love," Chloe snipped.
"Oh, but you were perfectly fine with talking about your homoerotic bathroom experience," Aubrey snipped right back.
Chloe closed her mouth and looked at her in a way that made her feel the creepings of guilt in her gut before she could whisk it away.
"What if I started being all judgemental and nosey about what's going on with you, huh? Like what if I asked about Emery Kelley."
"That's dead gossip. There's nothing going on," Aubrey murmured, jaw tight. "And I wasn't trying to be judgemental, I'm sorry. It isn't supposed to come out that way."
Chloe's eyes softened, and Aubrey felt her fists unfurl in response; she hadn't realized how tense she'd gotten or how they'd stopped in the hallway.
"Come on then," was spoken in a tender tone, and Chloe pulled her along.
"And this Wednesday, our very own Frog's Choir is hosting auditions in the music classroom on the fifth floor. Those who are interesting in joining them in melodious song and journeying to other schools to share the gift of music, do attend!" Professor Dumbledore announced in his own melodious way, his eyes twinkling under the floating lights of the Great Hall. "For more knowledge, you may always speak with Professor Flitwick or this year's commendable leaders, Miss Posen and Miss Beale."
He nodded his head and eyed the two of them each as he said their names, and Aubrey smiled demurely, but then his impish expression lingered, angling his head upwards in a motion to rise. Chloe sputtered softly and looked at Aubrey for guidance, then followed when her best friend slowly stood up. More eyes turned their way , mostly curious or indifferent. Some of their friends from Gryffindor grinned at them.
Chloe's face lit up in a grin that could thaw any cold heart, and she waved. Aubrey waved as well, visibly more uncomfortable and stiff under the attention of the entire population of Hogwarts.
Aubrey went to sit back down, but not before seeing Chloe shoot a wink somewhere near the Slytherins.
As Dumbledore proceeded on with the evening announcements, Aubrey made a 'what was that?' face.
"Synergy," she mouthed and then gave her a self-satisfied look.
Aubrey scrunched her eyebrows up incredulously and slid her eyes around the tables to see- see who? She wasn't sure, but on her way to the Slytherin table, her eyes got caught on a pair of eyes looking back at her from the sea of blue robes.
Aubrey felt a jolt in her body like her bench chair had fallen straight through the concrete floor but determinedly avoided it. Too shocked now, she blinked back to her table as Dumbledore's voice eased into the forefront of her attention.
"So with that, everyone enjoy themselves!"
Rows of food appeared on everyone's table, rippling golden waves of celestial scents. Soon, everyone was preoccupied with food and delighted chatter and Chloe's head was ducked close to hers eyeing her questioningly.
"Did you see? Dark brown hair, super cute and looks unimpressed all the time."
Without thinking Aubrey murmured, "Green eyes."
Chloe frowned thinking, "No, I think they might be blue. Definitely blue, I checked. Well- I might have stared pretty hard."
Aubrey snorted and shook her head.
When she did look up again, it was not to see if Stacie was still looking at her. No, she just wanted to know if there was an issue.
If they had a problem that needed confrontation.
She wasn't.
"So! We're going to take you one by one to individually audition in the room. You'll take your sheet music with you-"
"And perform only to where it starts and ends-" Aubrey added sternly, already predicting that some faces in the crowd wouldn't heed her words.
Chloe glances at her, "That's right, we'll judge if you're what we're looking for here in the Frog Choir from only this section of the song, so make it count, folks!"
A boy in yellow robes with puffy brown hair shoots his hand up.
"Yes...er..?"
"Benji Applebaum." The boy looked like he was about to perspire through his clothes out of anticipation. The wild look in his eyes set Aubrey immediately on edge, but Chloe didn't have such reservations.
"Yes, Applebaum."
"Hypothetically-"
"No."
Everyone looked at Aubrey and her curt interruption. Benji's mouth bobbled like a blowfish.
"You don't even know what I was going to say!"
"Any other questions?" Audrey asked in her military voice borrowed from her father. She did not pay any mind to the sputtering boy or the hesitant looks coming from everyone about to audition.
"Aubrey," Chloe whispered soft enough where only she and a few others could hear and placed a gentle hand on her arm.
The only acknowledgment from the tall blonde that outsiders could see was her attention flickering back to Benji and an ease in her shoulders.
"What were you going to say, Applebaum," it was barely a question with how uninterested Aubrey sounded in hearing the answer.
"I-I just wanted to know if we happen to have another song prepared if we could sing that as well. Or maybe instead? I just don't know how well this song will show off my abilities."
Someone in the back mumbled something about "pureblood" and "hates muggleborns". The little crowd shuffled restlessly.
Chloe's eyes shot nervously to her right, jumping ahead to answer before Aubrey could think to say anything. Her face was doing that thing where it looked like she was tasting something extremely sour. "We're not changing the format for any exceptions or alternatives, I'm sorry. We've carefully thought out the best way for this all to run smoothly with a set time schedule so," she nodded with a grin set on her face and swiftly moved on.
"We'll go alphabetical! Hopefully, people who are late will come in around their timeslot." Chloe propped her clipboard against her ribcage, "You can give me your name, house, and year. Do we have any other last names with A's , raise your hands. "
Only Benji Applebaum's hand appears. He looked around and beamed.
"I guess I'll be going first as well! How swell."
"Absolutely brilliant," Aubrey grumbled darkly, earning an elbow jab from her partner.
Another hand pops up farther in the back of the crowd.
"Oh! Who else is that? What's your name?" Chloe grinned again and Benji frowned, turning. The crowd parted to reveal a shorter girl with magenta hair and green robes.
"Yeah, Cynthia-Rose," she drawled without a hint of enthusiasm.
Aubrey frowned.
"Cynthia..Rose?"
The girl rolled her eyes. "Adams."
"Fantastic!"
Aubrey was satisfied to see Chloe's grin a bit more strained now.
Benji didn't land up going first or second since a boy named Bumper Allen (Aubrey withheld her guffaw) appeared right before Chloe and Aubrey were done with their introduction.
If Aubrey wasn't already prepared to hex someone, Bumper's attitude elevated the feeling tenfold. He was rude and cocky and had the snark of a middle-aged pureblood matriarch.
What kept Aubrey from wanting to throw him out of the room was Chloe's passivity and the quality of his voice. It was truthfully quite lovely, begrudgingly.
In fact, so far all of the voices they've heard have been exceptional despite the personalities attached to them being anything but.
They scribbled their notes down with their quill.
Excellent vobrato. No hope for sophistication. Can they sing Agnus Dei without uninspiring the crowd with their pigheaded expression??
Next called in was a 6th year named Donald, a few 4th years, a 5th year, and then-
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
Chloe looked up in response, first at a horrified Aubrey and then the tall Ravenclaw in the middle of the music classroom, grinning at them like the cat that got the cream.
She smoothed her slender fingers over her pristine robes and loosened her already suspiciously out-of-code tie.
"Hi, my name's Stacie Conrad. C-O-N-R-A-D." Aubrey was suddenly pin straight in her seat with waves of anxiety wafting off of her, leaving Chloe alone to hastily scribble down Stacie's information. "I'm a 5th year. Ravenclaw, obviously. My hobbies include cuticle care and exploring the halls of Hogwarts after hours with a buddy."
She said the last part with a salacious grin directed unquestionably at Aubrey and Aubrey alone.
"Off the record." A simple flick of her wrist and snap wink had Aubrey making a strangled sound from Chloe's left.
"What do you think you're doing?" Chloe cringed at the tone of voice and she wasn't sure how Stacie could be at the receiving end of its savagery without cringing herself. "This is a serious audition, not some practical joke. Leave."
A fat pout formed on Stacie's pouty lips, "Sweetie, I know what this is. I've been looking forward to auditioning. Don't make me leave just because you've got a stick up your arse." She purposefully used an exaggerated British accent on the word and stuck her hip out. Her face transformed from an invitingly flirtatiously pouty to flat in two seconds, giving Chloe whiplash.
Aubrey steamed at her side, so much so that Chloe thought she could see the tendrils of smoke coming from her ears. Her body was tight like a lithe panther about to pounce.
Aubrey's words came out minced and angry like a crushed Coke can, "What did you just say you bloody-"
"Okay!" Chloe laughed high-pitched and nervous. "Okay! Guys, can we please, " more anxious laughs, "set aside our," Aubrey leaned forward as if she would lunge across the table at any second, "animosities! For now. For the sake of the audition."
Aubrey could not see or hear; everything outside of Stacie's stupid smirk and her cutting tongue was muted and unimportant. Aubrey couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so viscerally shaken up like her whole stomach was some kind of hellish snowglobe.
"Conrad, shut up and sing. Aubrey, no name-calling the prospective members. Everyone in this room is seriously stressing me out right now."
With that, she whisked her wand in a broad swoosh, broader than necessary to start the organ.
By the first note for Stacie to sing, she hadn't broken the staredown with Aubrey and nearly missed her mark, but without a hitch, she started to sing...