The melancholy notes of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata filled the room with a profound air of despondency. The notes reverberated off the walls with a sense of urgency and despair. The pianist sat perfectly straight with a regal posture that monarchs throughout history would envy.

As the musician continued to play a knock sounded at the door. The fingers on the keys did not waver one iota in response, and the music continued to fill the room undaunted. The doorknob jiggled. The sound of Tchaikovsky's None but the Lonely Heart flawlessly replaced the preceding number. A muffled argument ensued between the two men who stood on the other end of the door. "Sirius? I'm coming in." Without pausing for a response, the knocker burst through the door, the other man followed more sedately.

…The music stopped.

Sirius Black was a man of many talents. There were some he shared with the world, and some that he kept to himself. He reserved his musical abilities to the latter category. Like many other pureblood children his parents enrolled him in music lessons. He received classical training in piano, violin, and cello. He had also taught himself the guitar in a fit of rebellion against his parents. His abilities were considerably above average, but few people knew that. Once he figured out that success in his music lessons pleased his parents, he began to deliberately botch performances. It got to the point that his piano instructor, a no-nonsense woman after Minerva McGonagall's own heart, seemed ready to tear her own hair out.

Few people were aware of the extent of his talent. Marlene McKinnon had counted herself among those select few. She lacked any sort of musical gift whatsoever, after four consecutive teachers declared her to be a hopeless cause and tone deaf to boot, and her parents had given up on further lessons. As a result she could never fully appreciate the level of Sirius' talents, and maybe that was part of the reason he did not mind playing in front of her. Of course he reserved music for the moments when he was most upset. Music allowed him an escape from the world like few things did.

Sirius turned around swiftly on the piano bench, crossed his arms over his chest, and raised a single eyebrow at his visitors with an unceasingly enigmatic expression designed to frustrate.

James Potter huffed while Remus Lupin starred back unfazed.

"You can't stay in here forever," The bespectacled man pointed out finally. "Seriously-" He paused in hopes of Sirius' usual response (i.e. I'm always Sirius),however no such pun was forthcoming. "I know you loved her, I loved her too, maybe not in the same way, but you can't destroy yourself like this. Marlene wouldn't have wanted that."

"James is right, Sirius. Do you think this what Marlene would have wanted for you?" Remus put in.

Sirius starred back at his two closest friends with steely gray eyes. "I'll never know what she would have wanted, because she's dead. For that matter, I'll never know if we were going to have a son or a daughter," He responded bitterly.

The other two wizards recoiled. "Marlene was pregnant?" James asked after a horror filled pause.

"She told me about it the night before-before it happened." Sirius stumbled over the words.

"Oh, Sirius." Remus said quietly in that sympathetic tone that everyone seemed to use around him nowadays; the one that literally set his teeth on edge.

"Please just leave." Sirius said quietly and turned back around to face the ivory keys.

James and Remus quietly backed out of the room, and only when door shut with an audible click did Sirius resume his performance of Tchaikovsky.

As he played he tried to pretend that he couldn't see the ginger haired woman perched on top of the piano. She's not real, he silently reminded himself, she's not real.

Even still, his fingers longed to bridge the gap between their bodies and reach for her hand. He remembered the days when she would sit next to him on the bench and slam her fingers down on the keys interrupting the perfect strains of a sonata. Sometimes he would place his hands over hers and guide her through a basic number. And, sometimes she would just sit there quietly listening to the music waiting for the time he was ready to talk.

Marlene understood him in a way that no one else did…a way that no one else ever would.

Wondering could you stay, my love?
Will you wake up by my side?

A/N Review, please!