the moon is no door ↠ Tom Riddle

13

The very first thing Saffron did on her mission was to play the piano.

She was overwhelmed. Dumbledore had told her so many things at once, she was exhausted and terrified all at the same time. This was real. This was important. Lives were at risk if she didn't accomplish what Professor Dumbledore was asking of her.

Music and rehearsals were after classes in the afternoon. Her conversation with Dumbledore took long enough that they were mostly over by the time she walked into the music hall. As soon as the music teacher saw her, she ran over to talk to her.

The Frog Choir and Hogwarts Orchestra conductor was also the Divination teacher, Professor Andrea Vablatsky. She was fanatical by nature and quite passionate both about Divination and about music. She had been rather angry at Saffron when she decided to quit music after her first year. Vablatsky had spent a good quarter of an hour trying to convince her not to quit, saying she was the only decent musician the orchestra had. But Saffron insisted—she didn't like the class.

She couldn't imagine what Professor Vablatsky would do if she knew Saffron was a Seer. Probably chain her to the desk in her classroom.

"Miss Strauss!" Vablatsky said, running over. Saffron really, really, really didn't want to talk to her, but couldn't run away. Vablatsky was a tall woman with dark red hair. She always wore Muggle bowties around her wrists and no one was ever brave enough to ask why.

Saffron tried to say hello, but her voice got caught in her throat. 

"Miss Strauss, I was wondering if you would like to play piano for the Halloween dinner,"

"Um...," Saffron mumbled, trying to think of the best way she could say no.

Unfortunately, her silence was taken as an agreement by Vablatsky because she said, "Good! Come here next choir rehearsal, we'll discuss it further. So wonderful I ran into you!" And right after she finished the sentence, the door to the music hall was closed, leaving Saffron standing shocked. A few members of the orchestra looked at her strangely as they walked out.

Too preoccupied with the conversation with Dumbledore, she quickly forgot what had happened after she walked into the piano room. No matter how many deep breaths she took, she couldn't get her heart to stop beating too fast.

Since she was feeling jumpy, she decided she might as well play an exciting song. The best she could from memory, she played the finale of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. By the time she'd gotten into the very end of the piece, playing the strange cords with everything she had, she forgot her surroundings. She'd cleared her mind.

Once she'd finished, she figured she shouldn't play for much longer or she would lose track of time and miss dinner again.

When she walked outside, she saw Tom, sitting in the string section of the orchestra and frowning at some sheet music. Saffron inhaled sharply and he turned to look at her.

"Seriously, Tom? Can you stop that? You're eavesdropping," Saffron said, frowning.

"I had something to tell you, and I'd rather say it to you alone," said Tom.

"How long have you been sitting there? How did you know I was up here this time?" Saffron was feeling weird about this. None of her friends would have known where she was.

"Your friends didn't know where you were, so I was looking around. I ran into Professor Vablatsky who seemed in an extremely good mood, I asked her why and she said it was because you agreed to perform for the school on Halloween. So, I figured that you were up here," Tom said, walking over to Saffron.