Virtuoso PV Ami Procoppio Finished

The word meant something akin to intertwined or joined in Latin, and Cel plucked it out of the chaotic whirlpool of thoughts swirling around in her mind. As the main melody left her fingers, she heard Ami begin to play again-- this time, something she hadn't heard before. Subconsciously she arched a brow, tilting her head slightly in consideration of the new tune. Canon was still there, but the entire thing seemed... strangely familiar, but most definitely different...

Then it hit her, the blending melodies, slowly coming together to form a mashed tune-- Christmas spirit. That was Carol of the Bells! The girl mentally smacked herself for being unable to tell apart the minor song transposed to a major key, but then again, she'd only ever heard it one way-- in its distinctively minor melody, however repetitive. It had to be some kind of work, to transpose the song into a major-- as she was playing it, no less.

Thoughts, however, were what kept her from foresight. As the melody was passed back to her, Cel found herself, once again, scrabbling for the slightest idea of what she should do. The girl cursed inwardly as she stiffened her hands on the keys, then relaxed, frantically searching for a grasp-- a handhold-- anything to play. What pattern could she use? What turn could she make? What kind of improv could match what Ami could probably do, what she obviously had near no experience in?



But her fingers fell on the black-and-white keys, carrying on the melody that Ami had set as she searched her mind, panicked, for anything that might help. Her hand tripped into a wrong note-- she winced-- and then another wrong note. Her jaw tightened at the sound, but then almost without thinking, her hands kept going... one seemingly wrong note after another until they weren't wrong at all... no, not wrong, but another tune entirely. First she shifted Carol of the Bells into a minor key, then she dropped the melody of Canon completely... all that was left was the simple melody high in the piano in her right hand.

Now she'd made one change; what was next? There was a reason why nobody played this song-- most versions of it were boring... uninteresting. Nobody wanted to hear it over and over and over again; it could be immensely annoying. She needed to find some way to make the song... interesting. Absentmindedly her left hand joined the quiet melody in its familiar downward progression, and four measures later, just because she really wanted to use a glissando later on, she began to shift the right hand down with the left chromatically-- down, down, down, down, down, until her fingers rested on an a minor key.

Doubling the repetitive notes on the left hand, then the right hand after four more measures, the girl gradually faded the melody out until it was but a whisper-- and then, on a whim of decision, slammed her hands down on the deep end of the piano in an arpeggio. What was a lilting, easy melody blurred into a grandiose, powerful tune as the arpeggio, doubled in octaves, ran up the piano once, then came to a stop as she pounded the full, sonorous left hand in octaves, four for each measure. Her right hand’s key melody was played in a fifth interval, then a single note, and another two fifths.

Gradually the notes faded out, and her left foot found its way onto the soft pedal, allowing the octave notes to cool down-- heck, her fingers hurt-- and she moved onto the next, likely overdue portion of the song. On a whim, her left hand spun out an arpeggio as her right shaped chords according to the main melody, but it didn’t sound quite good enough-- no, she jumped the left hand up an octave, then began chord picking-- the first note of the chord, then the two top notes of a five-three inversion, then the fifth of the chord an octave lower, thrice, followed by a note right above, and above again-- forming a passage into the next chord, and so on.

The pattern continued, but she found herself at the doorstep of another issue soon enough: by the time the short scale upwards arose, she no longer had space at the end of the piano to continue without jumping. Panicked, she slipped again, but invigorated, she skipped the part entirely, choosing instead to hammer out the first, fifth and octave notes of an a minor scale upwards in her right and a normal scale downwards in her left hand. Her right food darted toward the damper pedal, and finding another upon it, heeled it aside by the ankle and pressed down.

With that, she slammed the last note of the scale and curved her fingers in an upward glissando to return to what she regarded as the main melody. Names and labels escaped her; she pounded out the four-note section three times, then continued onto three notes of a fourth section, but halted both hands for a heartbeat-- then shortly slid a glissando from an octave under to repeat the action again, and again, and again, gradually quieting the forceful tune and removing the glissando, simplifying the doubled octave of the right hand into single notes, and bringing the force of the left hand up into a higher region.

She faded off, passing the melody to Ami once again, cheeks turning just a bit red from both exertion and slight timidity from attempting such ambition in front of such a virtuoso-- someone whom she knew would top what she’d just tried.

And to think- to think! -that Celynne had complained of "not being good enough", or "not liking improvisation", or some strange nonsense along those lines. She was marvelous as she was, taking a concept Ami had hesitantly dipped her toe into the waters of and dove right in, as hesitant as an Olympic swimmer was. She had half a mind to halt their improvisation masterpiece right there to slap the Ravenclaw silly and to lecture her on the importance of self-esteem and self-confidence, but there was the piece to think of. Their masterpiece, created by two first-years that seemed too legit to quit.

Celynne chose to fully embrace the true spirit of Christmas, which once again, made Ami want to double over with laughter. It was only mid-May, after all, and the chances of hearing Christmas music at this time of year were slim, very slim. She swore she saw another kid poke their head in through the doors at some point during Celynne's aggressively elegant pounding of the black and white keys, but it could've also just been her imagination. Whatever the case, she knew the sounds of the fortepiano playing holly-jolly Carol of the Bells was rather odd.

The mistakes Celynne had made at the beginning were nothing compared to the rest of what the slight girl played, and nothing compared to the hundreds, thousands of mistakes Ami had made over the course of her life. Was it embarrassing? A little bit. Was it natural? Of course! They way she transitioned from Canon into Carol of the Bells was genius, anyway, so that totally made up for any mistakes she might've made. She really seemed to enjoy her scales and arpeggios, something Ami decided to keep in mind for when her turn inevitably came about once more. She was shaken from her stupor and her boring, adjusted-minor backing chords as her foot was roughly shoved off the pedal by Celynne's foot. Nearly gaping at the girl's audacity and sudden boldness, she had to restrain herself from kicking her back. It was a childish move that she would've pulled out to employ under normal circumstances, but it was entirely rude during a wonderful piece to do so.

As Celynne finally relented, her well of creativity apparently having run dry for the time being, Ami slammed her hands down on a jolly, major chord, a ridiculously sharp contrast from the somber minors of the melody prior. Only through muscle memory of Christmases past was Ami able to play what she did at such a speed- Sleigh Ride (Just hear those sleigh bells jingle-ing, ring-ting tingle-ing too) at double-speed, the transition rough and almost nonexistent save for the rolled chord at the beginning. It wasn't her best work, sure, but it was a fun song that she felt just needed to be mentioned at this point in time.

Shoving Celynne's foot rather aggressively off the pedal as payback, Ami played the top three notes a few times before easing herself into a ritardando, before letting her right hand wander intuitively up and down chromatically, drawing from her fairly limited knowledge of the blues, trying for a soulful, woeful tone. Slamming her left hand down onto a chord, she let the seemingly wrong chord hand in the air for just a moment, before playing what was undeniably the intro to Piano Man, perhaps the best song of the 80's era in the entire universe. Celynne was Californian, right? Didn't Californians like to be cool, and listen to the golden oldies? Surely, she would recognize the song.

Her left hand playing a simply tonic-third-third chord pattern in a three-four time signature, her right hand played what would've been the accordion's part, feeling out the sound by ear. There were many mistakes, as it was a song she had never attempted to play before, but it ended up sounding fairly decent. After their brief tryst with Christmas music, they were long overdue with something new. Something.. spicier. Something olden and golden, so Ami was emboldened to opt for some sweet, simple 80's.

Hopefully, Celynne would catch on, because the intro was winding down and it was her turn to play the main melody.

She She probably deserved the revenge that was exacted on her foot. The first song that her new piano partner had transitioned to was a common one—Sleigh Ride, a song she held memories of, humming with the radio in Parker’s car or singing along with Spotify on her laptop just a few years ago. The magical music-playing device, whatever it was called, in her dormitory hadn’t played the playful melody during the Christmas season the last Christmas five months ago, but who was she to say no to a nice song? The sudden major chord had been quite… stunning, for lack of better words, to her. Cel preferred minor songs, really, but in the face of Ami’s piano, she really didn’t care all that much.

Not long after, the tall Hufflepuff made another transition—something decidedly less Christmas-y, with a three-four time. At first she mistook it for a waltz; then, the harmonica’s melody came through. Ah, this song. A hazy memory of Parker playing it for her arose in her memory, likely years ago, she wasn’t certain. She’d played it before, too, but that one was not the only memory she had of Parker’s harmonica—it might as well have been his favorite song, one that they’d enjoyed every year. For once, memory did not wreck her brain, even as nostalgia curled itself into her heart.



Her turn, her turn, her turn! Cel scrambled for the keys for the fourth-or-something-like-that time, extending the intro for a few measures to buy herself some time. She’d showed her hand in the Carol of the Bells; what else could she do to make it different? Scales had been done, arpeggios had been done, both of them her favorites. She didn’t quite trust herself to do anything else, honestly. If she’d had more time… well, honestly, if she had more time, she probably would have wasted it all on thinking about other things. Irritated with her own self, Cel sucked in a breath, only to allow song lyrics to surface in her mind. When she finally exhaled, her breath carried an idea.



The words came to her as she sang, first tentatively, then a little more confidently. Her voice carried with it a sort of merry lightheartedness, as was the spirit of the song, as if it could reach over and clap a hand on Ami’s shoulder as it progressed. The chorus was a familiar caress: “Sing us a song, you're the piano man, sing us a song tonight; well, we're all in the mood for a melody, and you've got us feeling alright…” Another verse…



Cel was in the middle of the previous line when the flow of words ran dry, when she knew that when the time came for the next verse, she would not know what to sing. But instead of relenting, another song came to mind—one that might match the three-four time that she was playing in, the pattern that Ami had set and that she had followed. Was this a good idea? Probably not, but it was the only idea she had, and she had seconds before it would be enacted.

"...As the smile ran away from his face, ”Well, I'm sure that I could be a movie star, if I…” The last note trailed off with a long flourish, giving her hands time to shift keys again, in the same way she’d done with the Carol of the Bells from Canon, simply faster. “…know you, I walked with you once upon a dream…”

Disney was not the most dignified choice of song artist to most people, that was true, but a few songs in particular were relatively nice. The Lana Del Rey version of Once Upon A Dream was rather kind to the ear. Back her foot went on the damper pedal—she would have preferred the middle pedal, whatever it was called, but this piano, like most ones, didn’t seem to have a working one. Her left hand’s pattern stayed constant, but as the tempo slowed, she jumped down by several octaves for the tonic, then skipped back up the keys for the thirds. “…and I know it’s true that visions are seldom all they seem, but if I know you, I know what you’ll do; you’ll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream.”

Here came the lalalas, usually strings accompanied by voice in the orchestral version, but she only sang them, allowing her hands to work out a two-to-three polyrhythm chromatic scale. Most people hated them, and even though it came naturally for her, more naturally than her piano teacher said she’d seen anyone else, the rhythm wasn’t perfect. Nevertheless, she progressed an octave before she arrived at a higher D on her left hand.

Her right hand left the scale, allowing her left to go on another octave from that D in its now two-four time. As soon as it landed on D, it began a backwards arpeggio by an octave down—her right hand now met the keys again, softly drawing out the lilting melody of Canon again. Both of them had been at it for a while; reverting to their original song was a good way to end the piece they’d both made.

Simple and clean—it was the original version of Canon, the last few measures, no flourishes added, in quite the contrast to the fanciful detours they’d made before. At this point Cel was aware that her part had extended for more time than either of theirs had lasted, but she was relatively spent, and the last part could be an exception, couldn’t it be? As she neared the end, her right hand left the keyboard, resting comfortably in her lap, the other hand gently tapping out the last bit of chord. The sigh of the damper pedal seemed loud in the empty room.

The last chord rang out in the room in unison with the soft pedal, near silent and extremely controlled. She allowed it to fade out, then took her hands off the piano, daring to turn towards Ami slightly.

The Ravenclaw chose not to show her hand on the piano this time around; instead, she opened her mouth and sang. Alright, shawty, I see you, Ami thought wryly to herself as she let a smile slip onto her face. The song was nostalgic for her, something that her mother would sing along to as she swayed with the vacuum in her hands in the living room. She would join in, shoving the vacuum aside and taking the place of her father as the two Procoppio women waltzed around the living room of their London flat, 80's American music floating through their open window.

Celynne's voice drifted over her like smooth honey, rich like molasses and mellifluous like maple syrup. Ami couldn't help but be envious of her voice, completely in awe of her tone and perfect pitch. It was nothing like Billy Joel, understandably, but it wasn't like she wasn't doing him justice. To be fair, it was also a pretty simple melody that was kind of hard to mess up, even for the musically inept, but she would look past that little detail in order keep on mentally praising Celynne.

Ami paused as Celynne hesitated, unsure of what she was going to do next. Her hands left the keys as she stared at the other girl's hands, which had started playing a new progression of chords. The Ravenclaw's voice started to sing a new song, too, and Ami searched her brain for the reason why it sounded so familiar. Celynne knew whomever she was singing about, but Ami also knew the song... In her mind, while her hands provided some backing chords and arpeggios, she fast-forwarded through the song, until the melody finally came back to her- Sleeping Beauty, of course! But not the original, no... the Lana Del Rey version.

And then Disney left them, and Celynne went back to Canon. It was something a poet would do, not a musician, although she supposed that there were enough songs out there that would revert back to the theme, in the end... unless there was a coda of some sorts... but that was a whole other matter, a matter not suited for today. Today was about improv, thinking fast on your hands as you drew on your knowledge to build a masterpiece. Celynne had proven herself to be a worthy... rival? Maybe not a rival. They wouldn't ever have to compete against each other in such a setting, but the Ravenclaw had certainly shown her prowess in the musical realm.

Wait, what was she thinking about, again?

Oh, Canon. Right.

Celynne finished off the song like a professional- calm, collected, like she was just only starting out the piece, not ending it after meandering through so many genres that weren't meant to fit together. Ami ended with Celynne, although her higher notes were far quieter than the robustly loud middle section of the keyboard. She could feel the shorter girl turn to her, as if she wanted reassurance that she did alright. If praise was what she wanted, then praise was what she would get.

"What the hell?" Ami laughed quietly, turning to Celynne on the piano bench beside her. Her eyes shone with genuine admiration, and her normally pursed and stern lips curled into a smile. "That was... wow. That was beautiful."

Ars longa, vita brevis.

Music still rang in her ears, a haunting ghost of the masterpiece that the two girls in the now-empty atmosphere of the Rehearsal Room had spun. Cel grinned in appreciation as the other girl broke the newborn silence. Honestly, she had no idea how else to respond to compliments. Was she supposed to deny? Say thank you? How was she supposed to acknowledge it? ????????? "And the same to you," she decided to observe. "That was great. And fun, too." There were probably better and less awkward ways to reply, but Cel was unschooled in etiquette of peer conversation, a fact that tended to punch her in the face most of the time and that she had learned she could sidestep by hiding in her dormitory. A nice book, some music, a puzzle, cold light shafting in through the windows, the smell of old parchment—those were examples of things calming enough to pass her time with.

This, however, was a different kind of contentment, one that came with creation. She'd come to terms with the fact that she wasn't antisocial or absolutely solitary, simply introverted - friends took up her energy, and she usually didn't have very much of it to spare. Friendmaking was hard, and she would rather stick with a small circle of close friends than extend her social self further. Besides, she was picky—if there was one thing wrong with a person, Cel wasn't likely to stick around for long before tiptoeing out of sight and falling straight into an open book nearby. She was fine with not having much company.

Dare she say that she'd just made a new friend?

The art was obscure, in her opinion, but Ami wasn't annoying, so there was that. The tall girl was definitely talented enough for Cel to respect, and respect was not readily found in her particular assessments of others. There was just something about music, about art, about all her interests, honestly, that seemed to draw her closer to other people, or perhaps even others closer to her. Actually, she hadn't seen a lot of musicians, pianist or otherwise, since coming to Hogwarts, but she'd familiarized herself with enough braggadocio to value true skill, a rarity in the normalized world these days.

Perhaps she could do this more often, create something with someone else for a change. It was refreshing; exhilarating, even, to do what she usually did in solitude with a companion, of which she had few whom she would be willing to work with, but she did just find one—surely others were out there... somewhere... if she ever stopped procrastinating for long enough to search. The music they'd just made had been a mess, albeit a beautiful mess, something abstract and intertwined and variegated macédoine of notes and memories and light, but it had been a beautiful mess, and perhaps there could be more beautiful messes in the future.

For now, though, ow, her fingers hurt.

And... hmm. Cel shifted in her seat on the piano bench, not quite ready to leave yet, but also at a loss of what to say—the symptoms of awkwardness, common but a buzzard as much as any. "Maybe sometime we could do an actual piece that's not improvised," she mused aloud instead, hair waterfalling to one side as she tilted her head slowly. "I haven't seen many musicians around here yet." Well, she sucked at small talk, but even if not everyone did, not everyone liked it, either. It was a valid comment, now that she considered it—returning back to her earlier thoughts, bordering on a compliment but not quite there, just passing.

In fact, she wasn't sure if she'd seen any musicians—besides herself, of course, and Ami—since the beginning of the Hogwarts school year. Not any real ones, anyway. Anyone could press a few keys on an instrument, and most could get decent at doing it with repetition, but the pesante of sorrow, the staccato of laughter, the grazioso of elegance—those were things less easily achieved and shown. Or maybe she just needed to get out more. ...No, Cel was quite certain that that talent was sparse among the hoi polloi, even if she didn't go searching for it. She didn't need to, anyway. There were ways to learn about things without going to them, even if the full experience wouldn't happen, or whatever it was that Parker liked to say.

In all honesty, Ami would love to have Celynne be her voicemail. That Californian accent mixed with that British vocabulary, it was both down-to-earth and posh at the same time. She couldn’t understand how other people seemed to adapt to other places so well and seamlessly. She had never been someone who was able to adapt to new and foreign places or concepts, which probably explained why she was still so… American, even after living in London for over three years. She definitely felt stupid next to this- this classy, sophisticatedly advanced goddess of a human.

Who was she compared to Celynne? Nothing. Good at singing and good at piano… what else was she good at? Language, obviously, she was so good with words. Jiggling her leg up and down, Ami bit her bottom lip as she glanced down at the ground in between the girls’ legs. She couldn’t help but feel a little bit sad at the fact that soon, both of them would have to leave for classes, and there was a high chance that they would never be able to reclaim this pure and sincere moment of pure artistry, this bonding moment between two people who truly loved music with every bone, blood cell, and neuron in their body.

“An actual piece,” Ami repeated with a laugh, shaking her head slightly. Her long, red hair shook with her, almost as if it had a life of its own- the quirks of having a lion’s mane for a crown. “That would be somethin’, wouldn’t it?” The two girls, side by side, looked incredibly ridiculous. One tall with a head of flames, fidgeting and restless; the other, shorter, with dark hair and a calm and collected manner. They must have made quite the pair, perhaps a bit like Penn and Teller?

“We musicians are a rare breed, with few and far between,” the Hufflepuff said quietly, with a laugh. “At least, the true musicians dedicated to their craft.” With that, she quickly ran her fingers across the keyboard, the first few notes of Für Elise ringing out before fading into the Entertainer, clearly showing off Ami’s knowledge of the classics of music. Her hands dropping back into her lap, she glanced back at the floor again, clearly not sure how to proceed. Yes, she was extroverted, but how did you hold up in front of someone so much smarter than herself? “But yes, a proper piece would be nice, I guess.”

Sliding off of the bench and standing up, Ami fidgeted with her hands as she tried to figure out where to look. At her face? Staring at Celynne’s left eyebrow seemed like a safe bet. “I guess I’ll see you… later. Sometime. Maybe. I dunno.” Slowly twinkling her fingers goodbye, Ami backed out of the room awkwardly, half shuffling, half walking. As she stepped out of the room, she stuck her head back in really quickly to add, “I think Marche Militaire by Schubert would be a good choice? I really like that duet. Yeah? Maybe? Okay, um, bye.”

Ami yeets outta there.