A New Waltz in A Minor (Savannah)

[Cameron Wilder]

Cameron was quiet, watching her intently while she played. She felt the piece when she played it. He could tell... it was one of those sixth sense things that he just knew. He spent a lot of time watching his mother play music. She claimed it was recreational when she dropped out of school, which he wished he could make up to her every day, but he saw the passion she played with.

He bet if he asked her to play something else, she wouldn't have the same emotion in it.

When the piece was finished, he waited a beat and then softly asked, "What do you think of when you play that?"

[Savannah Lyons]

It took a moment for Savannah to be able to speak. She swallowed and took a breath before opening her eyes and turning to look at him. Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears, and she looked heartbreakingly vulnerable. "My mother," she whispered. "It was her favorite piece."

There was more to it than that, though. For all the pressure that had been put on Savannah to be a perfect lady, there had been times, when it was just her and her mother, where the rules and the manners and the training fell away. Savannah had seen a side of her mother in those times that her brothers had never seen. She saw the sadness, the longing, the wish that things could be different. Her mother had been a prisoner, too, and she had wanted to be free of the strict rules their father insisted on.

"She used to talk of leaving my father, leaving England, and running off to live in Paris with me and my brothers. When I play that song, I think of her, still trying to get up the nerve to go."

[Cameron Wilder]

"You strike me as a girl who might have flourished in Paris," Cameron said, his voice a little far away, sorry that she was never given the opportunity. At the same time, he sort of respected the woman for staying. He knew what his mother went through, being abandoned, even though she never spoke about it, he knew it was hard. It was a tough subject for him, one of those things he felt strongly about, but could see both sides of. All he knew, was when he settled down, he would fight against everything to keep his marriage together, if it came to it.

"My mother's favorite is Fur Elise. Sounds like our mothers are somewhat alike. Did she play? Is that where you learned?"

[Savannah Lyons]

"I've always wanted to go," Savannah confessed. "Just to see it."

Actually, there were a lot of places Savannah wanted to go. She had been caged up for so long, that she had built up a serious wanderlust. When she daydreamed in class, that was usually what she dreamed of--travelling to distant lands. She wanted to go to Paris and to Nice and the Riviera, to Rome and Venice, to the Greek Islands. She wanted to explore the mountains of Switzerland and Germany, to see the tiny white flowers of Austria. In fact, the only place she really didn't want to be was here, in England, with its dreary gray weather and proper British manners.

But she wasn't going to tell him that.

"My mother used to play all the time when I was very young. She only played when she was happy, so she played less and less over the years. But she did teach me to play. I learned that one on my own, though. Just to surprise her."

It felt so odd to be so open with him, or with anyone for that matter. But, for the time being at least, he'd opened a floodgate. They'd found a common ground, and she sort of liked it.

"Play Fur Elise," she said. "Please."

[Cameron Wilder]

"Then you should go." Things like that just seemed simple for Cameron, but he didn't have all the emotional roadblocks that she had engrained in her head. Maybe he would take her one day. That was, if he could ever convince her to. She didn't strike him as the type to just up and leave for a spur of the moment vacation.

"Do you play when you're happy?" He asked her, though, if he had to guess... "Or do you play to make other people happy?"

He was quiet for a moment when she asked him to play his mother's favorite piece, and then he nodded. "Of course."

He moved back over the bench so that he was more centered over the keys. It put them very close to each other. Cameron's hands paused over the keys for a moment, like a painter deciding just how to make his first brush stroke, and then he began to play. He probably knew this piece better than any other, and the notes flowed easily, browns and dark reds and golds streaming through his mind like ribbons.

[Savannah Lyons]

"Maybe I will," Savannah said softly. "Someday."

Her hope was that, if she got married, her husband would agree to take her to Paris for a honeymoon. She couldn't quite imagine any other way she'd get to go. The idea of just picking up and going on her own seemed incomprehensible to her. It was a romantic notion, but not at all practical.

She didn't answer when he asked her why she played. He'd hit the nail on the head, though. She played to make other people happy. As for herself... well, she couldn't really recall many times she'd actually been happy. Probably just in the private moments she'd had with her mother, when they had played music and read books and dreamed about running away. But those times had been so few and far between.

As he began to play, she shifted over slightly, but they were still close enough that his hands brushed hers occasionally as his fingers danced along the keys. She felt her skin erupt in goosebumps at his touch, but it was nothing compared to the chills that ran down her spine as she listened to him play. He was... extraordinary. If she closed her eyes, she swore she could almost see a rainbow before her eyes.

As the song ended, she smiled at him. "You have a real talent," she said. "You shouldn't hide it."

[Cameron Wilder]

Like she had been, Cameron was quiet for a moment when the piece ended. It was a piece so beautiful that he felt like he had to digest it every time he heard it. It was language all his own, and he often wondered what these composures had been thinking of when they wrote these songs. Did they see the colors in their mind, like he did, or were they thinking of someone in particular?

"Thank you," he said, smiling as he opened his eyes and returned his attention to her. "I don't really hide it, actually. It's just... no one asks."

His dorm mates knew he played a couple of instruments. The piano just felt too intimate to advertise. But he didn't hide it. He liked it better that the Slytherins didn't know, but if they asked, he wouldn't lie. "My mother was a muscian. Is. I shouldn't say was."

[Savannah Lyons]

It felt oddly intimate, being in here with him like this, even though they were in a large room with the door wide open. If she had been thinking clearly, she would have allowed her sense of propriety to take over and at least moved over to the chair, instead of sitting so close to him on the piano bench. But the music had muddled her mind a little bit and weakened her defenses. It was comfortable, familiar, and soothing.

"She passed her gift on to you," Savannah said. "My mother... she wasn't really a musician, but she did like to play. Actually, her real talent was singing. That was what she wanted to do if she ran away to Paris. She wanted to sing in a nightclub, and we would imagine that I was playing piano for her. Her favorite song to sing was Someone to Watch Over Me."

[Cameron Wilder]

Cameron frowned, thinking this over, and he shook his head. "I don't know that one," he admitted. "I'd play it, if I did."

If he could get her to sing it or hum it, he would be able to play along, but he rather doubted she felt that comfortable yet. She already said she could only play Moonlight Sonata well, but maybe she could play this one too?

He gestured to the keys. "Can you play it?" If she could, he would learn it, and he would play it for her. Her memories of her mother seemed fond, and most the time, Cameron just felt desperate to grab on to anything that would keep her from giving him a disapproving look.

[Savannah Lyons]

She nodded. "Yes, I can play that one. I can sing it, too, but... well, I haven't done it in a long time, I'm not sure I remember it very well."

It was one thing to play the piano in front of him, but quite another to sing. She actually had a very pretty singing voice, but she was uneasy about it. She wasn't as good as her mother had been, and she lacked the confidence to do it in front of him.

[Cameron Wilder]

Cameron knew better than to ask her to sing it for him. It would be easy for him to play along if she sang it, but that was crossing boundaries, and honestly, it was a miracle he even got her to stay as long as she had.

He gestured to the keys. "Will you play it? I could learn it, that way."

And then he would play it for her. If it would make her smile... Cameron didn't stop to think about why he wanted to see her smile so much. He probably shouldn't care as much as he did, but everytime she looked at him, he felt like her only saw sadness in her eyes. No one should go through feeling like that.

[Savannah Lyons]

She hesitated for a moment. She really should be going. Surely it wasn't appropriate to spend all this time alone with him. Of course, they weren't doing anything wrong. There was no harm in playing piano and talking, right? Still, she couldn't help but feel uneasy about the idea of someone seeing them together like this. What would they think of her? And what if they heard her playing? She did not make a habit of performing for others, and she genuinely believed that she wasn't very good.

But something about the way he asked, the gentleness in his voice, sort of compelled her to do it. She couldn't exactly explain why, but she placed her fingers on the keys and began to play. Once she started, the song felt so familiar to her, and it came more easily. And as she went along, she thought the words in her head. At the second verse, she began to mouth them, and soon, without even realizing it, she was singing. Her clear, sweet voice was soft at first, then began to gain confidence.

"There's a somebody I'm longing to see
I hope that he, turns out to be
Someone who'll watch over me

I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood
I know I could, always be good
To one who'll watch over me

Although he may not be the man some
Girls think of as handsome
To my heart he carries the key

Won't you tell him please to put on some speed
Follow my lead, oh, how I need
Someone to watch over me..."

She finished the song, barely having realized that she'd sung more than half of it. The song, and the memories it inspired, had her in its spell, and she sat, her fingers poised above the keys and her eyes closed.

[Cameron Wilder]

Somewhere half way through her song, Cameron's eyes had closed as well, and his fingers hovered over the keys at the far end of the piano. While she played, he mimed playing what would have been an octave lower. He was confident that he could play the song if she asked. He would practice when she left, though.

If she had opened her eyes in time, she would have seen a side of Cameron that no one except his mother had ever seen, but his eyes opened quickly, and he suddenly had a playful smile on his lips.

"I like the way you play," he told her, not wanting to bring it to her attention that she had been singing. He had a feeling she wasn't quite aware of it herself. "I've never heard anyone play quite the way you do. You should have more confidence in yourself."

[Savannah Lyons]

Savannah had been trained in humility in one of the cruelest ways imaginable. According to her father, nothing she ever did was good enough. He criticized endlessly, and sometimes her mother would join in when her father was around. It had drilled into her head a lack of confidence in herself and her abilities.

"Oh... no, I'm not very good. Not as good as you are, anyway. But thank you, it's kind of you to say."

He was right that she hadn't really been aware of her singing, and if he had brought it to her attention, she would have been mortified. She thought her singing voice was even worse than her piano skills, although she was quite wrong in both cases.

[Cameron Wilder]

Cameron shrugged. "It's not really about being good. It's about how you play. Everyone's good."

He was getting philosophical and he cast a glance at her as he turned back to the piano. She was perhaps the only person in the school that wouldn't laugh at him for this behavior, even if she wanted to. In his eyes, that made her safe.

"You play tentatively. Softly. Almost too perfectly. If Elliot played, I imagine he would bang the keys a little too hard, but he'd play slowly to make up for it. When I play... I don't pay too much attention to the rules, and I tend to let the notes wander. Already, if we were all playing Fur Elise, we have three completely different pieces. Does that make sense?"

This whole while, his hands had been hovering above the piano. He felt strange sharing so much with her, but this was probably the only way he would ever connect with her. So he didn't mind being out of his comfort zone, as long as she stayed.

[Savannah Lyons]

The way he said it... It almost sound like a comment on her personality. And the more she thought about it, the more she realized that was exactly what it was. Maybe it should have bothered her, but for some reason, it didn't. He didn't say it was a bad thing. And when she compared it to how Elliot would play it, and how he would play it... Well, it explained a lot. Although she would never admit it aloud, she did know that she held a lot inside, that she was uncertain and trying very hard to do everything right. And that if she would let herself go, her playing would be more open, more soulful. She just didn't know how.

"Elliot can't play a note," she said with a slight smile. "Our father wouldn't allow him to learn. He said it wasn't manly or something. But he didn't know you."

[Cameron Wilder]

Cameron laughed. "No, your father was right. It's not very manly at all. I'd much rather watch a pretty girl playing than do it myself. I'm sure I make it look clumsy and... what was the word you implied over dinner? Barbaric?" There was a twinkle in his eye and he smiled to show her that he was only teasing her.

"And Elliot would never let me hear the end of it if he knew I played." He gave her a crooked, half grin. "I'll let you in on a little secret if you promise not to tell."

He wondered how she would react to that. If she would agree, or if she would back out because he was getting too comfortable with her now.

[Savannah Lyons]

Savannah blushed as he reminded her of the comment she had made to him at dinner. "Actually, I believe I called you a ruffian," she said. "Which was positively rude and inappropriate of me, and I apologize again. And you don't look like one when you play. You touch the keys like..." She found herself blushing even more as she fumbled for words. In an unguarded moment, she might have blurted out that he touched the keys like he was touching a lover. There was a gentle precision about it, loving and yet firm. But obviously, she could not say that to him. So she left the sentence trailing indefinitely.

Her stomach gave a strange sort of flip as he mentioned a secret. Something about the idea of them having a little secret between them was far more appealing than it probably ought to have been.

She bit down on her bottom lip and gave him a sideway glance. "What sort of secret?"

[Cameron Wilder]

"Ah, a ruffian, that's right. Even your insults are said with a precise vocabulary." He smiled and shook his head a little. He rather imagined she could insult him and he would never even know it. Ruffian was probably lowering herself to a level he would understand.

He watched her reaction carefully to the idea of him sharing a secret with her, and he looked at her honestly, openly. "A secret that I think will make you leave, though I will be sorry to see you go."

[Savannah Lyons]

Something about his words and the way he was looking at her made Savannah's breath catch in her throat. She had a strange, conflicting urge to move closer to him and move farther away. In the end, she settled for staying right where she was, her fingers gripping the edge of the piano bench. She lowered her eyes and stared fixedly at the keys.

"Maybe I won't leave," she said. She didn't want to. But she could imagine quite a few things that he could say that would compel her to do so.