Sylvan had been wandering his way around the school, peeking in classrooms and nooks as he went. He figured a little exploring now would save him hours of getting lost once classes began. As he rounded a corridor in the dungeon, he stopped in front of a large wooden door. Grasping the handle, he managed to open the door. To his surprise, a nearly barren room met his eyes. A large white sheet covered a pile of furniture, but in the centre of the room was one of the most beautiful things Sylvan had ever seen.

It was big, and shiny, and black, and all Sylvan knew was that he wanted to touch it. He had never seen a piano before, but he was in love. As he settled his bum on the shiny piano seat, he ran his slender fingers gently over the gleaming ivory and ebony keys. His feet dangled, mere inches away from the pedals on the floor. As he depressed one of the keys, a deep echoing note filled the room, bouncing off the walls and creating a vibration that Sylvan could feel from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. Joyously, he depressed note after note, until the room positively swelled with the noise of it all. To anyone else, the disjointed music Sylvan played would have been a horrible din, but to him, it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever experienced.

Hugo was neither good at, nor had a particular interest in Potions. However, if he was to pass his end of year exams, something had to be done about it. A large potions book tucked under his arm, he approached the new Headmaster's office, slightly uneasily. A small Gryffindor boy was already there, and he nodded to him pleasantly. "Hullo," he greeted, smiling. "Are you here to see Headmaster Bontecou, too?" Duh. Why else would he be here? Ohhh. His eyes widened as he noticed what that boy was sitting at. A piano. His fingers twitched, and forced his feet to step towards it.

No! "Should you...should you be playing that without the Headmaster's permission?" Hugo asked.

Mariel took her time walking through the dungeons towards the Potions classroom. Not that she was particularly dreading visiting there, but the start of the term had so far been unexpectedly unpleasant so she was being extra cautious today.

Upon walking down the corridor, she stopped, trying to locate the source of a familiar sound. Someone playing a piano, almost like they were attempting to practice scales, yet more reminiscent of her five year old step-brother 'practicing'.

Deciding to investigate further, the young Ravenclaw proceeded down the corridor until she stopped in front of the Potions office. At least that's what she thought it was, trying to recall from the previous term. That's certainly where the sound was coming from, seeing as there was a beautiful baby grand sitting in the middle of the room, but everything else was either gone or covered with a sheet. Curious.

Professor Bontecou was still teaching the class, wasn't he? Or was one of the new faces she had seen at the Welcoming Feast the new Potions professor? Or did the state of this office mean there was no longer a Potions class to be taught here? That thought was the most disturbing of all.

"Do you play?" she asked from her place at the doorway, addressing the young boy sitting on the bench. Of course what he was doing at the present moment couldn't exactly be called 'music', not without putting the notes in the proper order.

Or perhaps the older boy played the piano. Mariel watched him curiously as he implored the younger boy to stop, but that would probably mean he was reluctant to play himself.

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.”

"Well, what have we here?" he asked, stepping into the room and peeking under one of the white sheets. Ah, that's where it had got to. He grabbed a file folder and held it in his hand, his arm loose at his side as he smiled and surveyed the small group of students around his piano. It had been too long since he'd played and he figured this was as good a place as any to put one since he did have two offices now.

By the time he reached to open the door to the office, Helios was forgetting what he arrived there for. Music? No. He came for something else. Why was there music coming from the potions office? The boys mind ran wild. Did the potion master brew and bottle music?

Stepping out of his mind and into the office, he was only a little disappointed. Now why was he here?

A large silvergrey owl lands on Pepe's desk. It isn't a special one, merely a school owl. The owl places a package on the potion master's (and Headmaster's) desk and flies off to find it's way out of the dungeon and back to the owlry.

After he stepped through another student came in, followed by an owl. "It's like a convention or something," he laughed and took the package and note the owl had. Then, he REALLY laughed and sort of blushed a little. "Well, I have to get going. Please don't disturb anything. You can play the piano as long as you don't break it or knock it out of tune." And with that, he ran out of the office. It was going to take him at least an hour to find the ancient runes office. He probably should have owled for an escort.

Camira was about to knock on the door, when she noticed a student inside. Actually, there appeared to be a couple. She peeked inside. No professor. Strange. "Um,'cuse me, but where is the professor?" Did he even know they were in here? She didn't ask. It wasn't her business. But she didn't go inside. She was not getting in trouble if they weren't supposed to be in here.

Sylvan was lost in his music and did not notice the boy who had approached him from behind. As such, he did not respond to the boy's question.

Sylvan continued to "play".

Sylvan finished playing. He gave a sigh and reluctantly took his hands off the keys. He didn't know what this instrument was, but he did know that he was in love.

He swung his short legs around the other side of the bench, turning his body to face the doorway of the room. He gave an extremely odd sounding screech as he became aware of just how many people were in the room with him. In a panic, he thrust himself up off the piano bench, proceeding to knock it over with a loud bang. Flushed with embarrassment, he tried to right the bench, which was too heavy for him to manage on his own.

Mariel continued to vaguely watch the young Gryffindor experiment with the piano keys as a few more students wandered in soon followed by the Headmaster, who left almost as soon as he came. Turning sharply as she heard a voice at her side, the young Raveclaw noticed that girl who was friends with Nancy... what was her name? Camira? "He just left," she answered. "You might have better luck finding him in the Headmaster's office."

She diverted her attention back to the young boy who had now stopped playing. Giving him a tentative smile as he turned to face her, Mariel took one startled step back as the boy let out an odd, surprised noise and promptly knocked over the piano bench. Pausing to collect her bearings, she walked over towards him as he unsuccessfully tried to right the fallen bench. The young Ravenclaw gave the boy a reassurring smile as she put her hands on one side of the bench to offer her assistance. "It's alright," she told him. "I've knocked over our piano bench at home at least a few times."

Sylvan nodded his thanks. With the older girl's help, the bench was soon returned to an upright position. Clearing his throat, he thanked the girl, both signing and saying the words. His voice was strangely accented and he had a peculiar manner of pronouncing his words, but it was clear enough for someone to understand.

"Thank you. My name is Sylvan. Do you like this instrument? I wish to know what it is called. Do you know?"

He looked over at the girl expectantly, watching her mouth for a response.

After helping the Gryffindor boy set the bench back in place, Mariel looked up and tilted her head as she intently listened to the boy. He had a curious manner of speaking and it took her a moment after watching his hands that she realized he must be deaf. She had never met anyone who was deaf but she had read about such people using hand motions to communicate. The young Ravenclaw had no idea what the movements meant - though she gathered it was the same as what he was saying, but she could understand his speech well enough.

She was slightly confused because the very little she knew about deaf people included thinking that they simply could not hear, however this child was asking her questions. Maybe he could hear a little? She didn't know but decided not to think too much about.

Smiling brightly, she said, "Hi Sylvan. I'm Mariel." Gesturing to the baby grand, she nodded and added, "This is a piano. It's beautiful, isn't it?" Mariel decided to seat herself at the righted bench and stretched her fingers out over the keys. Taking a few deep breaths, she began to play several bars of a simple song called Für Elise. She paused somewhere in the middle of the song and turned to Sylvan apologetically. "That's all I remember." At least without the sheet music. She hadn't taken lessons in a couple years and her practicing had been sporadic ever since.

Lina skidded to a stop in front of the potion master's office, then noticed Cam dance right by. "Bugger..." She turned back to the door and knocked on it roughly for a girl her size. "Professor Bontecou!"

Cam did a somersault to end the dancing, right in front of the door that lead to the office. He still moved in a way when you drink too much sugar or coffee, it almost looked like his whole body was twitching. And the girl, KNOCKED?! This was an urgent situation, you couldn't just knock and wait while some random boy you just met at the Great Hall was singing next to you! It was all so wrong. Oh yeah, the house points. It was MUCH of a bigger deal than this. But he still took a peek in, the door was unlocked and all he could see was a piano. There were sounds of student's voices in so he didn't really know what to do.

"Maaaaaybe. Maaaaaaybe. Maaaaaybe he's not theeeere!" he said in a cheerful singing voice, which he didn't want to be cheerful at all.

She nodded to him after he peeked and peered in for herself. There was maybe a handful of students, but no sign of the teacher. "You're right, he isn't here," she said quietly to him. Aloud, she looked at the other students. "Do you know where the professor is? This is very important." She really didn't want to bring him to the hospital wing. She might get it from the professor, but from the nurse who had no idea what she'd been doing she was sure she would get her head bitten off.

Cam peeked in again to see if any of the students actually wanted to response to her or maybe they were just extremely lazy to talk. This was a crisis which he couldn't accept and continued singing some songs he's heard before and songs he hadn't even heard even. But he was more worried of his voice, what if all of the singing caused him to permanently have a croaky voice? He wasn't going to take that so he grabbed the girl's shoulder and suggested that they go to the Headmaster's office.

"Let's gooo to the offiiiice," he sang, "ooooor theee nuuurse!"

Great, and the kid was still singing. At least he wasn't dancing weirdly anymore. "Okay okay... Up to the headmaster's office!" With that she took off, sprinting silently once more.

Jaimine walked to the potion office hoping the headmaster would be in, she had to talk to him about her potions. She wasn't bad but she wasnt al that good either, no matter how much she studied she needed practice and lots of it.

Less went to Pepe's office and sat on the bench outside not thinking of walking in. "Hi..." she said to Jai "The headmaster's going to play for me."

"Okay, I'... Oh, can you excuse us for just a bit?" he asked the student before taking Less by the arm and pulling her into the office. He sat down at the piano and immediately began playing some of the ditties from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He loved old muggle television classics.

"Ooo Yay... Make me sing again!!!" She said jumping up and down... "Wait wait... Teach me to play... uhmmm do you have a lolly?" She said and then opened his drawers and started to giggle uncontrollably.

"Ummm.... what?" he asked, taking off his glasses and squinting at her. She had to be under some sort of spell and sometimes he could see a shimmer of something when he had his glasses off. Of course, half the time the shimmer was just because he couldn't see and most of the time he didn't see it even there was something there. Hit or miss. That's what it was.

"A lollypop? A sweety? Liquorish wand? Candy?" She said to him, pulling something out from the drawer to see if the candy was deeper in the drawer... "Nice stuff you got here..." she said as she put the some of the contents on the desk.