Since The Day I Was Born

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Maddie found peace by playing the piano. It was something that she loved to do, and it always calmed her down when she was feeling tense or upset by something. At the moment she was feeling a little stressed, as she had had an intense conversation with Walker recently, and her other workload was meaning she had quite a bit of study to do. But, even though she had that study to do, she felt it was time to procrastinate for a bit and go to her favourite old music room in the castle and play the grand piano there for a while. She loved the big old room, it had a great atmosphere and great acoustics.

When she got to the room, though, just as she was about to push the door further open, she heard the sound of a cello in there. It was hauntingly beautiful, and she just stood there for a few minutes, listening to it, before pushing the door open a little further and peering inside to see who it was. She had seen the boy around a few times but didn't know his name, but he was really good at the cello. "That sounds really nice," she spoke, her voice carrying across the room when he eventually finished his piece.

@bryce

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Maddie's eyes opened widely at his first comment. "That was a composition? That's so great!" she said, clapping her hands together excitedly. "That's really good, if you wrote that. Even if you think it's rough, you've got a lot to build on in it. Like in the middle section, when you went a bit rubato? You could totally transition into the relative minor and really add a contrast to the tone," she said, before realising she was babbling a bit with music-speak. She got carried away sometimes. "Uh, sorry. It's your composition, I should leave it to your ideas, at least before you know who I am," she said, laughing a bit self-consciously. "It's nice to meet you, Lyn. I'm Madeleine Clair Rousseau," she replied, using her full name as he had used his. "But you can call me Maddie."

@bryce

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Maddie was glad to hear that he was open to ideas, and hadn't been offended by her suggestions. Of course, she had still assured him that she had loved it, so her suggestions were only possibilities to make it even better than it already was, which was already great. "Indeed it is," she agreed as she took his hand and shook it delicately, but with a warm smile. "Sorry, I hope I didn't interrupt you or anything. It's just that I often come to this room to practice myself - it isn't often occupied. It's nice to see someone who shares an obvious love of music, though," she said genuinely.

@bryce

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Maddie smiled softly when he said that she hadn't interrupted him. That was good, she would have felt bad to interrupt him in the middle of something important. "No, you really shouldn't apologise for that! It's fine! You know, we could even maybe play together if you like? I play piano and I could accompany you," she suggested, wondering if he would like the idea of that. She didn't know how often he came here, but if it was a regular thing for him, it was quite strange that they hadn't met before. "It's such a nice big grand piano here," she said, walking over to the piano and running her hand over its smooth surface affectionately. "And this room has such amazing sound." She looked up at him and smiled. "It's great that you're part of the Orchestra club. I've sometimes wondered about joining, but I don't have much experience playing in big ensembles. I usually play by myself or with one or two others."

@bryce

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When he asked if she could come up with a piano part to go with the cello, she nodded. "I think so, yeah. It will take a little bit of time to come up with a good accompaniment but I think I can do it," she told him, watching as he positioned her hand. She looked up at him, surprised that he had touched her hand and then acted like it wasn't weird at all. She liked his calm assurance, and was intrigued by him. "Sure, that sounds good. You start playing and I'll try and work something out to go with it," she agreed. She would generally find it easier to write an accompaniment just by reading the cello part on the music, but she could try to do it on the fly, it would be a new challenge. She liked challenges. "I'm ready when you are," she told him with a warm smile, as she sat down at the beautiful old piano.

@bryce

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Maddie waited a little while before coming in, and once she had worked out the progression of the music, she joined in and filled out the cello part with some higher and lower register piano. Her role was to point to the cello melody, not to override it, and she played in a way that did that. It sounded beautiful, she loved the composition he had written, and she was glad that he was allowing her to have a part in it. The hard part would be remembering what she had played if she was going to write out the music for it later on. When they finished and Lyn clapped, Maddie looked over at him, smiling widely. "That was really cool. I've never accompanied on the fly before but that sounded really nice. You're a great composer," she told him happily.

@bryce

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Maddie liked the boy so far, he seemed quite thoughtful and well spoken, and musical talent was always something which caught her attention. She smiled when he started to guess things about her. "Close, yeah, I'm a sixth year. And in Gryffindor. Not that I would mind that much if you cared about blood status, I'm a pureblood myself," she told him with a smile. She took some small level of pride in that but didn't pay a lot of attention to it overall. But it was somewhat ingrained into her that it was a little better than not being a pureblood. "That's interesting, that you feel like you are putting in less effort in your final year. I think most people would lean towards the opposite," she observed curiously. "Do you already know what you want to do when you finish school?" she asked him curiously. Maybe that was the reason that he didn't care as much about his results.

@bryce

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Maddie listened to him curiously. That was a good point, actually. "That kind of makes sense... like, about enjoying ourselves. This place is pretty cool and I suppose we aren't very likely to return after graduating, are we? I mean, apart from joining the staff, there aren't that many options," she said, knowing she wouldn't want to be a professor or anything like that. "I guess easing off on the workload in final year might actually be nice. If it still let you get into the job you wanted to afterwards." Which for her wasn't so much of an issue, as she just had to keep playing and performing until she got noticed more and hopefully offered a record deal or something.

She tilted her head curiously as he said he might become a diplomat. "Oh, that's interesting. What kind of work would that involve?" she asked, not having known at all that Professor Hatfield used to be one. "That would be a good kind of job to meet a lot of people I suppose. I love meeting new people, they always have such interesting stories to tell."

@bryce

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Maddie nodded thoughtfully at his words. "You're right. It's sad when relationships fall away over time and people don't value them anymore. But I suppose you form new relationships at different stages of your life, and you can't always hold on to the older ones," she replied thoughtfully.

She was very interested to hear about what diplomat work would look like. "That sounds really interesting. Do you know any different languages at the moment?" she asked curiously. She could speak french due to her background, but learning another language on top of that would be a big investment. "Oh, well I really want to pursue music. I love performing and I want to be able to do that for a living," she told Lyn warmly. "I perform every Friday night down at the Three Broomsticks at the moment, actually. You should come down sometime if you're free."

@bryce

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Maddie's eyes lit up when he revealed he spoke french as well. "Oh, Français? C'est grande!" she replied happily. "I've always wanted to learn Latin, too, but I haven't had the chance. But that's really cool that you know lots of languages," she said enthusiastically. She admired people who were driven enough to learn a lot of different things, and lanaugages were one of the most valuable. Bryce seemed like he was very clever and quite thoughtful about what he said, and Maddie quite liked that about him. But she did feel like she might have to show him how to have fun a bit more, unless he had a secret fun side which she hadn't seen yet.

Maddie was sad to hear that he couldn't pursue music, though. He should have had the option in case he wanted to. "Your surname shouldn't control you. If that is what you want to do, you should be able to do it," she told him. "My parents don't want me to be following a career in music. They disapprove quite strongly of it, but I'm doing it anyway," she admitted to him quietly. It was tough, but she loved it too much to give it up. When he said he would check if he was free tomorrow, Maddie smiled warmly. "That's great - I hope you can come!" She also really hoped he would like her songs.

@bryce

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Maddie smiled at his response in French. It would be nice to have someone to practice the language with, to keep her knowledge of it up. Not that she was likely to lose it, having grown up knowing both languages, but it was still good to get a chance to practice it. "Oh, no, I never did finishing school. My parents sent us all to Hogwarts, obviously, and before the age of eleven finishing school wouldn't really apply," she reasoned. "Sometimes over the summer we have classes in manners and etiquette, though, of course. But Latin isn't something we cover in those." Since they only happened over the summer, there wasn't that much opportunity or time to learn a new language as well.

It was hard to hear that he felt like he didn't want to go against his parents. Pureblooded families were always difficult, and Maddie could attest to that. "That's hard, when your dad is restricting of you like that. But as long as you can find something that you still enjoy, I suppose it's okay. And it seems like diplomat work will be something you enjoy, from how you sounded while you talked about it," she commented with a smile. She did notice him cut himself off when he started to talk about connections, and figured that was just something he wasn't ready to share yet. She was curious to hear about his family situation, but didn't press him on it. She knew the Rosier family had a dark history, but didn't know many details of that - but it didn't seem like Lyn had those kind of leanings, from what she could work out from talking to him.

@bryce

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Maddie was interested to hear that both of his sisters had gone to finishing school. It was interesting to hear his perspective on his family, and how he had grown up. "So why did only one of you learn Russian? I don't get the drawing sticks thing," she replied curiously. Different families did things different ways, so there was a lot about different families that she didn't fully understand.

She nodded when he asked if she understood. "I do. All the pressure is on you to keep the family going. That must be difficult," she said, sympathising. When she heard he was thinking of separating from them, her eyes widened. "Can you do that? Would they come after you or something?" she asked, a little worriedly. Separating from an intense pureblood family was a good goal to have, but a dangerous thing to pursue.

@bryce