A/N: Hello people who are as obsessed with The Phantom of the Opera(aka: POTO) as I am. :waves happily: I've come to join the wonderful phenomenon known as POTO fanfiction.

This is my first fanfic(under this genre) so I hope you guys will give me a shot. I'd appreciate some feedback on this. First of all, this is my first POTO fic. Second of all, no matter what fic you're writing it's always nice to get feedback. : )

Oh, and if any of you happen to know/like the anime Inuyasha, please feel free to check out my already existing fics under that genre. : )

In short, I hope you all will be so kind as to read this fic and review. Thank you: )

Disclaimer: I do not own The Phantom of the Opera. I do, however, own the soundtrack and the official sheet music booklet. : )

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Love of Music

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1.The Start of Senior Year

The school bell rang loudly, ushering the mass of sleep-deprived students to their first class of the day with its shrill tone. There were the stragglers that ended up still walking across campus after the late bell rang, not caring if they were late on the first day of school. However, there was one exception.

A certain girl ran across campus, heading to her first class, not wanting to be late. Her soft brown curls bounced against her back as she ran; her clear blue eyes focused on her goal: her AP Calculus classroom. Unfortunately for her, she was late no matter how fast she ran. At least she wouldn't be too late if she ran.

She burst into the classroom, panting and out of breath, holding up a small slip of blue paper: her new schedule; the reason she was late. She looked up and found everyone staring at her.

The teacher, Mr. Marrant, smiled and said, "Welcome. Take a seat, Miss….." He took the slip and looked at her name, "….Daaé."

Someone snickered and said, "Way to go, Christine!"

Christine wasn't sure who said that but didn't really care. Instead, she did as Mr. Marrant wanted and took a seat. Unfortunately, the only seat left was the one directly in front of the overhead.

As she took out her needed materials, Christine thought bitterly, 'I wonder why this seat was free…..Oh well. It shouldn't be too bad.'

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((Switch to Christine's P.O.V))

For the rest of the period, I sat at my desk, miserably working on tonight's homework. Stupid teacher giving homework on the first day. Just because I am seemingly intelligent in math doesn't mean I enjoy doing it.

I sighed and worked the rest of the period on it, jealous at the fact that my best friend Meg Giry had opted for an easier class.

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It was now lunch-time. My face lit up with a smile as I chatted with Meg, holding my tray of food. We sat down on the grass, beneath the shade of a nearby tree, eating and laughing as we chatted about our new teachers. Thank God for second lunch. That means only two more periods to go.

Pretty soon the bell rang and we stood up, muttering about how we now had to go to our AP French class. Luckily, we are both strong in French. (Otherwise, we wouldn't be taking AP.)

We sat down near the front, setting our bags on the floor beside our desks. The teacher was at her desk, shuffling papers. As Meg and I sat talking, other students shuffled into the room.

Once everyone was seated, the teacher stepped out from behind the desk to the front of the room, walking smoothly across the short distance. As she did so, the class fell silent.

She had short blonde hair and startling blue eyes. She looked very European, in her face and in her style of dress. She wore khaki capris, beige flip-flops, and a three-quarter sleeve white shirt, a colorful scarf draped around her neck.

"Bonjour, classe. Je m'appelle Madame Dupuis. Vous pouvez m'appeller "Madame". Je vais parler en français la majorité du temps. Je m'attends à ce que vous parliez en français dans ma classe. Seulement en français! Vous me comprenez?"

The class gave a half-hearted, "Oui," in response, to which Madame rebuked, "Oui, madame!" The class repeated it and she nodded before saying, "Bon! Alors, commençons!"

So the basic gist of all that she just said was "Hello, class. My name is Madame Dupuis. You may call me "Madame". I am going to speak in French the majority of the time. I expect you to speak in French in my class. Only in French! Do you understand me?" Then she had, "Good! So, let's start!" At least I was able to understand her perfectly. I realized right then that she was the type of woman I could really like and could see myself talking with her a lot.

We spent the rest of period going over "vocabulaire". Simple review of the previous years. Very easy stuff.

The bell soon rang. Meg and I stood up, grinning excitedly at each other. Next period was choir: our favorite period. We quickly headed out of the room, heading to the choir room.

Meg entered before me and rushed over to a friend she hadn't seen in awhile, engaging in excited conversation with the girl, leaving me to enter by myself and survey the room.

It looked the same as always: tile floor with a set of wide risers that were more like wide, carpeted steps, rows of black chairs lined along each step.

In the front of the room, there was the piano and the whiteboard connected to the wall, little messages written across it. Things like, "Welcome back!" "We missed you!" "Hey Ashley! You are so talented! Glad to have you back :little heart drawn here: Jenny"

Many of the messages were the anonymous ones plainly saying, "Welcome back!" "We missed you!" "This year will be great!"

I turned my attention to viewing the other girls in the choir. Many were huddled in groups, hugging each other and chatting about their summers and asking the others what they did.

Meg, ever the social butterfly, went fluttering from group to group, immediately accepted into the conversations. Everyone was so busy talking in their groups that I was paid no attention. Sure, if I had walked over, they would begin talking to me, I knew that. However, I realized that I didn't want to be part of any conversations full of superficial things like boyfriends, who slept with whom and was now called "slut", newest hairdos and make-up styles. I had no interest in all of that.

I glanced around, the din of their chattering voices suddenly seeming to turn to silence as my mind focused inward. I didn't want to, it just happened. Back to the pain, the overwhelming grief. The feeling that I wanted to hide and cry and never face the world again.

Over the summer, I had gone on vacation to Florida with my father. We had had a fun time at the beach, and I even got many offers of dates (which I declined being I had never had a boyfriend. Which I guess is really sad being I'm eighteen now). We had been having a swimming competition in the water and he went out too far. I tried to reach him but couldn't. He had drowned, and I wasn't even able to get his body recovered. I had gone to a church and prayed for his soul, weeping out my sorrow. No one even knew. I hadn't told anyone yet.

In his will, my father had left every possession of his to me. I now owned the house (which had long since been paid off so I could now live there comfortably without worrying about paying anything for it) as well as all of the possessions within it. I would give it all up if I could just have him back.

The door opened, surprising me because the girls were already all here. Madame Giry (Meg's mother, as well as our choir instructor) was in her office. I turned, surprised at what I saw.

Walking in through the door was a rather tall man wearing black pants and a white button-up shirt. On his feet he wore shiny black shoes. He obviously cared about impression and took things seriously. He had short, brown hair and amazing blue eyes that seemed to bore into me. What surprised me the most was the skin-colored mask he wore on the right side of his face.

Our eyes were locked on each other, unable to break away. It still seemed as if the chatter all around us was pure silence, that nothing else was important than this feeling of electricity I felt between myself and this man. I can't even describe what the feeling was. Just this odd sense of knowing that my life had just taken a strange twist. I felt like there was something inside of me telling me that he would change my life forever.

I watched as the man seemed to take a hold of himself and ask, "Is this Madame Giry's choir room?"

I nodded, not trusting my voice, pushing my strange thoughts out of my mind.

He stood there for a moment, staring at me, at my eyes, before walking over and sitting down on the piano bench. I noticed now that he had a black bag which he set on the floor before straightening up and glancing around the room, taking it all in.

I noticed that his eyes settled on me again and I smiled slightly in greeting. Suddenly, Meg called, "Christine!" causing me to turn my head and look at her.

I grinned at her as she came running down to me from the third(highest up and last row) row, grabbing my hand excitedly and dragging me up to the third row, bragging to her group of friends that I was the best singer among all of them.

I blushed darkly and said, "Meg! I am not!"

Meg leaned forward and said, goading her group of friends, "I bet she sings better than all of you!"

I looked around and found everyone staring at us. I blushed, mortified.

A bunch of girls yelled, "Yeah right!"

Suddenly, girls started yelling, "Prove it!"

"Yeah! Prove it!"

"If you're so good, prove it!"

I turned on Meg and yelled, "Meg! Look at what you did!"

She grinned and said, "I haven't heard you sing since last year! Sing!"

I glared at her and said, "No. I don't have anything to sing."

Suddenly, a familiar voice called, "Ok, ladies! In your seats!"

I breathed a sigh of relief and hurried down to the front row, seating myself in the center, Meg sitting on my left.

We were both second sopranos. When we split into two parts instead of three, she was an alto while I was a first soprano.

I find that I love singing high notes. They make me feel like I can fly. I love how they are so pure and ring beautifully. When I'm singing, in general, I always feel like I'm flying.

Finding that all the girls were now sitting and still chatting, Madame Giry said sternly, "Girls! Taisez-vous!"

Confused, the girls all looked up, saying, "Huh?"

Meg and I grinned at each other, knowing that she had said, "Be quiet!" in French to get them confused. The girls who were taking French knew what she had said.

Madame Giry was French yet had raised Meg in America. Meg was truly a California girl, down to the blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes.

Now that everyone was effectively quieted, Madame smiled slightly and said, "I'd like to welcome you to Aria, the advanced women's ensemble. I expect much more of you than when you were in women's ensemble. I expect you to work hard so we can be the best!"

Aria was, as she had said, advanced women's ensemble. You had to audition to get in, meaning you had to be good at singing and want to sing. No more annoying bitches with attitudes who were only there to get credit. Ok, scratch that. There was one annoying girl in this choir but at least she sang. Actually, maybe that was a bad thing. Carlotta was known to have a screeching voice.

Madame Giry, continued, gesturing with her hand toward the piano, "This is Monsieur Lavonne. He is our new accompanist for the year. I expect you to show the same respect that you show me. With that said, let's start singing!"

She grabbed a large of stack of sheet music off of the piano, counting out the number of people in each row before handing a section of it to each person at the end of each row, letting it get passed down along the rows.

We each looked down at our copy, taking in the title(which was "Reuben, Reuben") and found that the whole song was in English. We also looked at the key signature to tell what key it was in, as well as the time signature.

Madame Giry commented, "I figured we could start off with an easy, fun piece. I'll give you some other simple songs to learn tomorrow."

She turned her head and nodded at Monsieur Lavonne, who began playing the opening. I found it to be bouncy and fun.

We then proceeded to sight read it, making many mistakes but still trying to sing out. (After all, "If you're going to make a mistake, don't be afraid to make it loud.")

It was a very fun tune and we enjoyed it. We spent the rest of the period working on learning it.

Before we knew it, the bell rang. The girls around us grabbed their bags and hurried out the room, glad to be out of the first day of school.

Meg and I remained seated, chatting. Suddenly, Madame Giry looked at me and asked, "Christine…may I speak with you?"

I nodded and stood, walking up to her. She looked at me kindly and said, "Christine, you truly have such a beautiful voice. I think it would be very helpful if you were to get a music tutor and strengthen your voice. I hope you'll at least consider it."

I smiled and replied, "I will, Madame."

She turned to Meg and said, "Come along, Meg! We need to get going! We can't be late for your dental appointment!"

She turned to Monsieur Lavonne and asked, "Erik, will you make sure to lock up after we leave?"

He nodded in response and Madame Giry left in a hurry with Meg, Meg waving a sad good-bye to me as she was rushed out the door. I laughed softly. Poor Meg hated going to the dentist; no matter how much older she got.

I looked over at Monsieur Lavonne, and an idea hit me.

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((Switch to Erik's P.O.V.))

From the moment I saw her through the door, she had entranced me. I had watched her the rest of the period; from the point of arguing with the choir girls, to when she was sight reading the music, to even now. I wondered if she really did have a beautiful voice as Meg and Marie claimed she did.

When I heard her laugh at poor Meg's misfortune, I couldn't help but think her laugh was very melodic and beautiful. Surely if her laugh and speaking voice were this beautiful, she must have a beautiful singing voice. I began to long to hear her singing voice, hoping that I'd be able to hear her sing by herself just so I could satisfy my curiosity.

What would it sound like? As pure as an angel's or more earthly?

It was then that she walked up to me, a bright smile on her face. Her smile was very enchanting.

Still smiling her charming smile, she reached out her right hand and said, "Monsieur Lavonne, my name is Christine Daaé. I wanted to introduce myself to you and have a chance to talk with you."

I couldn't help the smile that formed on my lips as I took her hand, shaking it as I said, "It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Daaé. How may I help you?"

I couldn't help but notice how soft and smooth her hand was. I released her hand, allowing my hand to fall to my lap.

She grinned at me and said, "Well, I was wondering if you give music lessons. I want to be able to strengthen my voice. Do you give lessons? I'm willing to pay."

The truth of the matter was I had never given anyone a lesson. However, for her, I'd gladly make an exception.

I again smiled with my lips, saying, "Not normally but I'd be glad to help you. I think it'd be an interesting experience for me."

Her face lit up with an amazing smile, her eyebrows going up in excitement, her eyes sparkling, as she exclaimed, "Great! How much do you charge?"

I thought for a moment, trying to think of a reasonable price, trying to find one that wouldn't cost her too much money. After a moment, I replied, "Fifteen dollars a lesson."

She grinned and asked, "Really? Wow! That's great! Do you have plans right now?"

I replied, "No, I'm free. Would you like to start lessons right now?"

She nodded enthusiastically, still smiling excitedly.

I turned so I was facing the keys again and said, "We'll start with some scales and exercises."

I looked at her and said, "Don't be tense when you sing. Just stand up straight, take a deep breath and relax. If it helps, find something to focus on. A spot on the wall, or perhaps a calming image in your head."

She paused, obviously thinking of something to focus on before she said, "Ok. Got it," standing up straighter, then closing her eyes.

I began playing simple scales, starting low then going high to test her range, telling her to use the 'ah' vowel.

Her voice was truly beautiful, even on something as simple as scales. She also had an incredible range, going from a low E below middle C to an extremely high F.

I paused, and turned to her, saying, "You have a good range. You'll need to support more with your diaphragm on the high notes. Make sure to take a good, deep, low breath."

She had opened her eyes when I paused and nodded at my comments, saying, "Ok. I'll remember that."

I turned back to the keys and said, "Now, let's do some simple exercises."

I looked over at her as I began to play an easy exercise. Her eyes were closed and her face looked peaceful as she sang clearly.

After a few more exercises, I decided to end the lesson. It had already been an hour long.

I stood up carefully and said to her, "You have a great voice. I look forward to our next lesson."

She smiled and said, "So do I. Here." She held out her hand, offering me a ten-dollar bill and a five-dollar bill.

I took them with a smile and said, "Thank you. It's been a pleasure. When do you want your next lesson to be?"

She looked down thoughtfully, then looked up with a grin, asking, "Is tomorrow after school ok?"

I nodded and said, "Perfect."

She grabbed her bag off of the floor and slung it over her shoulder, putting her left arm through the other strap. Once it was settled on her back, she grinned and waved as she walked toward the door, calling out cheerfully, "See you tomorrow then!"

I nodded in reply, watching as she walked out the door, a spring in her step and that wonderful, bright smile on her face.

I picked up my bag and made sure all the lights were out before leaving the room, locking the door behind me.

As I headed out to the parking lot where my car was, I couldn't help smiling, feeling excitement for tomorrow.

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A/N: I hope you all will be kind and review. Thank you!