A long- awaited introduction; Open rp

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

Laurie had settled in quite happily to Gryffindor, though, alas, without much of Jo's company. Since Laurie had never been comfortable around strangers, he was incredibly bored.

As such, Laurie wandered around the castle, thinking longingly of his grand piano back home. He entirely failed to notice where he was until he glanced to the side and realized he'd passed the same statue two or three times. Inwardly cursing (no one in books or in Jo's stories ever got so wrapped up in wishing for pianos they got lost), Laurie wandered around the all again... and ended up exactly where he started.

Damn it- er, bother it all? Mrs. March and his grandfather would give him horrible lectures if they even suspected he'd thought a curse word.

In an effort to stave off guilty thoughts, Laurie turned his attention to the wall. There was, rather suddenly, a door there. Thinking that he'd just missed the door the first few times around, Laurie pulled it open and, much to his astonishment, saw a grand piano in the center of the room. He walked in quickly, without bothering to shut the door after him, and propped open the lid. 

After a few scales, Laurie plunged into Liszt's arrangement of Saint- Saens's Danse Macabre, the music pouring out from the open door into the hall.   

Comments

[busty-robin.livejournal.com]

Steph was wandering around the castle, because hey! who wouldn't want to wander around a magic castle? The moving staircases were icing on the cake. She heard some impressive-as-hell piano music, and set out to find the source.

She leaned against the doorway, and threw up a hand in greeting. "Hey, you're pretty good!"

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

Laurie jerked around, hands sliding off the keys, stood up and bowed. "Er, hello, thanks."

After realizing how incredibly awkward he both sounded and looked, he cleared his throat and managed a small smile. "Uh, hello. I'm Laurie- er, Theodore Laurence, but everyone calls me Laurie. Who are you?"

[busty-robin.livejournal.com]

Whoa. This guy could have been Bruce's twin. "Um, Hello 'Laurie er Theodore Laurence'. You don't happen to have an identical cousin, do you?"

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

((ooc; XD Christian Bale love!))

A what? Laurie was relatively sure that he didn't have any family other than his grandfather. His father had run off to Italy and married his mother, his father's sister had died really young- no, no cousins.

"Um, no," Laurie replied, looking puzzled. "You can call me Laurie, if you want. Or Teddy. Not, um, 'Laurie er Theodore Laurence'. Um, I don't have any family other than my grandfather, so... no, no identical cousin. Do I remind you of someone?"

[busty-robin.livejournal.com]

((Couldn't resist! Christian Bale is all about playing good-looking orphans!))

"Just a bit, yeah." Huh. Yet another thing Steph was going to chalk up to the whole 'magic castle!' angle.

"Sorry, er, Teddy. I'm Stephanie Brown. Everyone calls me Steph."

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

Laurie held out his hand to shake Steph's before realizing that it was improper, blushing slightly, and bowing. "A pleasure to meet you, Steph."

And then the awkwardness set in again, though, Laurie thought rather glumly, it wasn't like it had ever left.

He cleared his throat and glanced back at the piano. "Um, do you play? Piano, that is?"

[busty-robin.livejournal.com]

Steph reached out for Laurie's hand, before putting it right back at her side, and curtsying awkwardly. Very awkwardly. There was some stumbling and near-falling involved in that curtsy. She tried to laugh it off.

"I do! I mean, not nearly as well as you were, but I used to take lessons. I can play things other than chopsticks!"

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

Laurie laughed, feeling significantly less awkward. "I'm sorry- I'm not good with meeting people for the first time. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to bow or shake hands or what. Um, do you want to play?"

He carefully moved out from behind the bench and gestured to the keyboard. "Um, and thanks. I've been studying piano since I could reach the keys- my mother and father were both musicians. Then when they died, I went to live with my grandfather, who hates music. As a result, I practiced. A lot." Mostly becuase it irritated his grandfather, but still due to Laurie's long- standing love of music.

[busty-robin.livejournal.com]

"Don't worry about it." It was kind of cute, though Steph had the good sense not to tell the poor boy. He might have a nosebleed or something. Gah. Play in front of people who were not Tim? "Um. Yeah, okay."

She eyed the keyboard. "I started when I was eight. My parents were definitely not musicians. It was a nice escape." She dusted off some Brahms. One of the Six Pieces, but Steph couldn't remember which. It wasn't as terrible as she expected!

"I used to be a lot better. Had to give it up."

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

Laurie smiled. "That was really good, particularly since you had to give it up. Any reason why you had to?"

[busty-robin.livejournal.com]

Poor Laurie had no idea how loaded that question was. Steph shrugged and tried not to picture 'Uncle' Murray's face. Sick dead bastard. Time to employ patented bat!vasion skills.

"Oh, long, boring story. So what brings you to Hogwarts? Not exactly local, is it?"

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

"No- I'm from Massachusettes. My friend Jo came here, first. She wrote back and told me of all the fun she was having, and I convinced my grandfather to let me come here for a semester before going back to college. It's studying abroad early, I suppose."

[busty-robin.livejournal.com]

Steph, being a romantic at heart (deep, deep at heart) honed in on one thing.

"So you came all the way to Scotland to be with your ‘friend’?" Adorable!

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

"Of course," Laurie said simply. "Jo asked me, so I did. It's what friends do for each other. Jo was getting rather lonely up here on her own, after all."

It wasn't like he was half in-love with Jo or anything, nor had he been since they first met. Nope, not at all... and... grandfather would wallop him for lying, even to himself.

"I like to travel, too," Laurie added on, in a effort to keep his crush on Jo from being horrifically obvious. "I've been to England before, but not Scotland. Now was as good a time as any to go."

[busty-robin.livejournal.com]

"All on her own?" Steph feigned miscomprehension. "But this school's crawling with people. Hmm." Hee!

"Traveling’s good! This is my first time living in another country. Up until now, my bragging rights amounted to a class trip to Williamsburg." If you didn't count that other dimension thing with Young Justice. Even then, she had technically still been in Gotham. "I used a loom, but it broke. Wound up with an oven mitt that said 'Ste'."

Good ol’ Ste!

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

Laurie blushed furiously. "I mean, without any people she knew. She's realy close to her family, and none of them are here with her."

And if Laurie secretly wished Jo rather wanted to see him for reasons other than the lack of her family, Laurie didn't show it. "I didn't know you could knit oven mitts on looms, though. I suppose it was fun?"

[busty-robin.livejournal.com]

Steph nodded sagely, holding back a smile. "Oh, I see. Makes perfect sense."

"Apparently, you can't! That's why it broke in the first place. I still maintain that it was company's fault for letting an eight year old near one of those behemoths. I couldn't sew, let alone loom." Was loom even a verb? "I hate to admit it, but breaking that thing was probably the highlight of the trip."

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

((ooc; Argh! So sorry for the delay!))

Laurie grinned. "I'm sory your trip was such a bad one then, if your fondest memory is breaking a loom. How do you loom, anyways?"

If 'loom' was not a verb, then Laurie had no idea.

[busty-robin.livejournal.com]

((No worries!))

"I don't think I'm the person to ask! I did learn to sew, eventually. Costumes, and such."

Caaaaareful Steph!

"For school plays!" she said quickly. "Costumes for theater club."

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

"That must be great!" Laurie exclaimed enthusiastically. "I used to act in plays with my neighbors all the time- er, hey. Um, the Sorting Hat, um... as a bribe, um... wanted me to put on a dress and send it a picture. Do you think that you could, um... help me with that?"

[busty-robin.livejournal.com]

"Are you kidding? Absolutely!" Dress up a Bruce doppelganger in frilly woman's apparel? This was a once in a lifetime opportunity. "With or without a corset?"

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

"Um... without?" Laurie replied, somewaht baffled. "Jo's always complaining about hers, so, um... I don't think I want one."

[soggynotecards.livejournal.com]

*Demyx is walking along the hallway when his musician senses start tingling. He follows the sound back to the room, and leans against the wall, listening.*

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

Laurie finished the song and looked thoughtfully at the piano. At least he still knew that one, even though he hadn't practiced in months. He turned to get up and see if there was any sheet music anywhere, and stopped Demyx.

"Um, hello," Laurie said, a little awkwardly. He was not particularly adept with social situations. "I'm, um, Laurie Laurence. That is, Theodore Laurence, but everyone calls me Laurie." After a moment Laurie added, "Except for Jo, who calls me Teddy."

[soggynotecards.livejournal.com]

*Demyx applauds.* Very good. Very good.

Pleased to meet you, Laurie. I'm Demyx. It's always nice to meet a fellow musician.

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

"Um, thanks," Laurie said, still a little awkwardly. He trailed his fingers lightly over the keyboard without pressing down or making any sound. "Very kind of you to say so. Do you play the piano too, Demyx?"

[soggynotecards.livejournal.com]

Never got the hang of it, I'm afraid. I mostly play stringed instruments, especially the sitar. *Demyx, carefully timing his actions, casts a Summoning Spell and produces his sitar. Just summoning the sitar naturally is liable to startle the man.*

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

Laurie was startled regardless, and tried to hide the sudden cacophony of sound he made by turning and playing a bit of Debussy's isle of joy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HQu2ta7SUU&mode=related&search=) even though it technically postdated him, but shh, the mun likes the music and couldn't think of another piano piece with dissonant beginning.

After a few measures, he turned back to Demyx with a small smile. "What types of songs do you play on that? I don't think I've seen another musical instrument like it."

[soggynotecards.livejournal.com]

Mostly it's the sort of thing you'd play on a guitar - there's a slightly different quality to the sound, for a bunch of reasons, like the double bridge, but it mostly works the same way. *Demyx plucks out the opening of "Far Side of the World" to demonstrate - DA da da, dadadada da da... dada DA da da, dadada da dada...*

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

Laurie listened attentively, trying to see if he could distinguish the difference between the sound of the sitar and the more familiar guitar. When he rather failed to do that (his expertese was with piano, and voice, not stringed insturments) Laurie asked, "What song was that? Is that modern?"

[soggynotecards.livejournal.com]

Yeah, pretty modern - about ten years ago now, I think. 'S called "Far Side of the World," by Jimmy Buffett. I'm a big fan of his, actually.

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

"I don't think that I've heard it," Laurie said. "Oh right- it's the twenty- first century. No, I wouldn't have heard it, since I just came from the end of the nineteenth." He paused. "I'm not quite sure how, either."

[soggynotecards.livejournal.com]

*Demyx shrugs.* No big deal. People come from different time periods and worlds all the time around here. Most of us are pretty used to it by now. *The Nobody fails to mention that he's used to travelling to worlds with different levels of development already.*

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

"I haven't been here a month yet. I suppose I'm still adjusting." Laurie absently played a few diminished chords on the piano. "Have you been here long, then?"

[soggynotecards.livejournal.com]

Well, I've only been here a couple months, really, but I tend to adapt fast. It's a gift.

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

Laurie grinned. "Sounds like it. Did you come here on purpose or accident?"

[soggynotecards.livejournal.com]

On purpose - magic's always a useful thing to have on hand, and anyway there were a few people at home I needed a break from.

[canes-can-kill.livejournal.com]

House had been on his way to indulge his new favorite hobby of attempting to make ridiculously difficult potions in empty class rooms (with the possible side effects of blowing the room up, or making potions with accidentally hallucinogenic properties (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1210120.html)), but he couldn't resist trailing the sound of a well played Danse Macabre.

Finding the source in a surprisingly young man at a beautiful grand piano, he leaned against the door-frame and folded his arms over his chest. Cane hooked over his forearm, he just stood and listened for the time being.

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

Laurie played the final chords and flexed his hands.

"Ha, grandfather," he muttered to himself. "I could have gotten into conservatory after all. There was no reason to try and ship me off to Harvard business school."

He ran a hand through his hair before deciding to go in search of sheet music, to make sure that his sight reading hadn't grown horrifically bad. When Laurie stood, he spotted House and froze.

"Um," Laurie said. "Hello." After a pause that was long enough to grow awkward, Laurie bowed. "I'm, um.... Laurie. Was I bothering you?"

[canes-can-kill.livejournal.com]

House rolled his eyes in immediate exasperation, though he didn't move from his spot. He'd been enjoying just standing and listening to a good piano composition; rare moments of peace seemed hard to come by, recently. "No, if it was bothering me, I'd look like this," House pulled a dramatically disgusted face.

He dropped the exaggerated expression, and nodded at the piano. "Dans Macabre, right? Whose arrangement?" Because between Horowitz and Listz making arrangements of the original, it was getting a little hard to tell.

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

Laurie stared at House in undisguised astonishment. And his tutor thought that he, Laurie, acted too immaturely? Mr. Brooke obviously hadn't had anyone like this newcomer as a student.

"Yes, it's Liszt's arrangement Danse Macabre. I've always liked Saint- Saens, ever since I went to boarding school in France." Laurie had absolutely no idea who Horowitz was, since Laurie had just come from the last half of the nineteenth century and Horowitz rather postdated him. However, since Laurie hated being corrected or condescended to, he avoided the question altogether. "Are you a musician too, then, or do you just have an appreciation for piano? Or orchestra, I suppose, since it was originally an orchestra piece. The piano version's a bit better known, though. I think."

And now was the time to shut up before he got himself in trouble with another adult for being too impertinent or too talkative. It didn't seem like this particular one would really mind, but still.

[canes-can-kill.livejournal.com]

House wondered if he should start charging for the time it took out of his day to stand around and wait while people stared at him in shock or astonishment. He'd probably be rich by now, considering the fact that even the tamer of his remarks tended to cause that.

"I can bang out a few tunes if I try," he dismissed with a shrug, looking far more interested in other matters. House didn't go around divulging the whole being able to play by ear thing. "You're pretty young to be able to play like that," he acknowledged, expression curious. "So what was it? Head trauma when you were young? Some of kind of mental disease, Aspergers, maybe?"

[laurie-laurence.livejournal.com]

"Nothing quite so interesting," Laurie admitted, running a hand through his hair. Laurie had often lamented the fact that he wasn't a crazed musical genius and wished he'd had some sort of traumatic childhood experience to make his talent for music blossom amazingly. "My parents were both musicians and they set me in front of a piano as soon as I could reach the keys. Then they died and I had to go live with my grandfather. Since my grandfather hates piano, I practice. Constantly."

Except when he was off having adventures with Jo, or when his tutor pried him off the keyboard and forced him to study. Laurie had gotten very good at hiding from Mr. Brooke, much to everyone but Laurie's irritation.