He really didn't realize he'd said anything so deep. He'd only been telling it like it was. Sure, he fancied his own turn of phrase enough to start crafting it into a song in his mind, but he was generally unaware that he'd boiled a million confusing teenage feelings down to the least common denominator in about half a second. That, one might suppose, was the beauty of a son raised on poetry and quick chats before work – brevity and beauty without compromise. You didn't have to say much to say everything. That's why songs were so powerful. Even melodies spoke volumes. Adding words added a whole new dimension. It was usually that one little chorus you walked away singing – the meat of the song, and the meaning, stuck in your head where it could resonate. There was never a need to respond. 

”I would never break your heart.”

“Oh, I know that bird,” he told her in his flippant way, “So it's good yous don't have to, isn't it? We're sound.” He didn't know why she looked so glum all of the sudden. He knew without a doubt that she didn't fancy him. He thought she'd made that clear, even today, as recently as a few moments before. That was why, whenever someone asked if he fancied her himself, or when someone wondered if they were an item, he had to laugh. You just couldn't date someone like that. He could never dress up for somebody who'd seen him at his worst before their first date. He could never be romantic when he'd sat her on a couch in the common room and made her critique love ballads written for other girls. She was his bird, but not his bird. The way they belonged together wasn't superficial. If you broke things off with Julia Darling, you didn't get another one. If she got off the bench and went to sit on the floor, you didn't feel hurt about it – you just played a song, like she said, and you were sound. 

He still had Christmas on his mind, but with the whole keyboard in front of him he reached for something ambitious again, situating himself and starting in on the same ragtime piece he'd been working at earlier. It was how Jamie played. Some boys carried around muggle lighters in their pockets, or teased girls, or messed around with handballs or string games – they all had little ways of challenging themselves when they weren't thinking about anything too important. This is what Jamie did when his hands were idle, though he didn't keep a keyboard in his pocket (which, for all he knew, was actually possible in this twisted magical world that he hung around in part-time). He couldn't really talk while he was busy counting out two totally different tempos in his head. Every so often he screwed up royally and his dueling melodies became synchronized and dissonant in places and he just laughed to himself and started from the top, seeming to get lost in his little game. It wasn't until he'd stopped and started a few times that he realized this was a game that was only fun for him. It was nice to listen to, but he wasn't doing as much listening as he should have been. That was a criticism he'd gotten from his piano teacher often enough – it wasn't enough to just strike the keys at the right time. You had to engage with the music, too. 

“Are you liking this?” he asked her once the air went silent. “I could play something else. I'd play you something nice and pretty but I don't have the music with me,” he told her, not exactly apologetically, more as a statement of fact. “I'll take a request, if you have one.” 


a simple rule that every good man knows by heart: its smarter to be lucky than its lucky to be smart