It was very late.

It was very, very dark.

So it should follow that it was very, very, very quite. The statement would have earned a person a hundred negative points. Matilda made enough of a ruckus for three hungry trolls and a Billy Goat, after all. She stomped along the stony ground, said ‘hmph’ multiple times, and muttered vulgar swear words that would have impressed Peeves the Poltergeist.

But alas, what noise? Matilda stopped dead in her tracks, halting all melodramatic text with one long stroke and a dot that pieced through the skies: “!!”

There was a strange off tone note. All was silent… There was another strange off tone note. Silence… And then there was a series of strange off tone notes. Altogether, it was no longer strange. It was simply wretched. At least, wretched enough for someone like Matilda to tell it so.

The ‘simply wretched’ noise came from the potions office, though Matilda at the time had no idea it was the potions office. She sauntered in the open door, staring first at the girl who was the closest, then slowly at the other two, somehow not registering the piano between them. “What is this frightful sound?” And then, still stuck in the muggle world, she said without thinking, “turn it off, please.”