Chapter Text
Harry stared for a long, long moment at the piles and piles of gold he had in his vault. Gold coins glinted in the light as they filled the massive vault. This was more money than he had ever seen!
Harry slowly made his way towards the coins, still a tad hesitant. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a small cream-coloured envelope with his name on it next to a small pile of coins. He made his way over and traced the green ink with this finger. After a second or two he snapped himself back to reality, tucked the paper in a pocket, and set about picking up coins so he could buy his supplies.
There was a busker in the station on his way home. Harry always loved music. Music lessons in school were one of the few places he shone as Dudley didn’t participate. Harry had no fear of doing better than Dudley and being punished for it, so strove to do his best. It transpired that he was quite a prodigy on the piano, playing works from Mozart to Mahler, Haydn to Handel, Bach to Beethoven, and Schubert to Shostakovich. He couldn’t explain it, but he felt a connection in some way to the Soviet composer’s music. It had double meanings, an outward meaning which was obvious but also a more personal inner meaning.
Perhaps that’s why the boy who had to hide his talent loved Shostakovich’s music so much.
He didn’t actually think much of the letter until he was at Hogwarts. He had considered opening it but had been held back by some unknown hesitancy, as though the envelope contained forbidden secrets he was not allowed to know. Yet, he brought it with him to Hogwarts. Harry wasn’t quite sure why, but he did. Eventually, after a few nights of settling in, he finally braved himself to open the envelope. The candlelight gently cast shadows on his face as he hunched over a table in the common room. On the other side, a girl - wasn’t her name Granger? - was hunched over a book and occasionally flicked through pages. Otherwise, there was silence. Strengthened by the near-privacy, Harry cracked open the seal and carefully brought out the envelope. He started to read:
Dear Harry,
If you’re reading this, then I am dead. I can only hope that you are alive and well. I can assume that mine and my husband’s death was probably at the hands of Voldemort. Hopefully my sacrifice allowed you to survive and thrive. As your mother, I’m obliged to care about you and be concerned about you even from beyond the grave. There are some things that you ought to know. If I were alive, I would tell you face-to-face, but alas I am not so a letter must do.
It all began in my second year. In 1972, Hogwarts entertained a guest from a foreign country. The composer Dmitri Shostakovich came to Hogwarts. Apparently, he was celebrating the 10th anniversary of a previous visit, made around the time of a symphony of his being performed. He’s a wizard, you see, though like many things he had to keep it a secret. Anyway, when he came to Hogwarts there was a lot of excitement over such a famous wizarding composer coming to the school. I didn’t know what to expect, but what I saw wasn’t anything like I imagined.
He was an old man by then, in his later sixties, and it showed. While he still had wit, humour, and sarcasm in great spades (he and Dumbledore got along famously via a translation charm, in fact, and spent several hours discussing satirical works of music and art), he was undoubtedly an old man by that point and definitely carried the weight of life upon his shoulders. I don’t know how much you know about him - he lived under the Soviet regime and to put it bluntly they were not very pleasant. For many years, he feared for his life, and many of his friends and acquaintances were arrested or otherwise killed by the government. Despite that, he still had a certain light in his eye, a twinkle and a laugh that, although rare, was quite infectious.
Then, on the fifth day of his week’s residency, it was the turn of my class to visit him. He was doing a double-lesson lecture about his life, about music, and about the nature of the human condition. All rather philosophical but pleasant nonetheless. I noticed him catching my eye a couple of times and he asked me to stay behind afterwards. I was nervous - of course I was! I loved to play the piano and here was one of the greatest composers and pianists of the twentieth century standing in front of me. Wouldn’t you?
He asked me for a hair, and disappeared with it into a sideroom for a very, very long time. I remember hearing a muffled spell coming from behind the boards and then a long silence that stretched for an almost eternity. He slowly shuffled out, face conflicted, before quietly muttering. I didn’t hear him at first, so asked him to repeat himself. Eventually he got the words out. Apparently, he said, I was his daughter. He refused to provide any information but I watched him re-perform a paternity charm and saw it come up positive. I refuse to speculate upon how I came to be - he was a very private man indeed and I don’t want to pry. He never shared such information with me and I never asked. Others in the world have seeked a tarnishing or manipulation of his name - I refuse to do so.
The final day of his visit, there was to be a performance of his most famous symphony, his fifth. The school nurse had given him a treatment of a highly experimental potion which it was hoped might at least temporarily allow him to play the piano part once more. Sadly, it wasn’t to be; whatever illness he had that stopped him from playing properly had gone too far. I found him pacing the corridors that morning in a panic. Having not seen him since the revelation two days prior, I quietly asked him what was wrong. He looked at me, gave me an unreadable expression, then said “I cannot play and the performance cannot happen” in almost a whisper. There was a long moment of silence before I quietly mentioned that I was able to play.
Oh how his eyes lit up! He was filled for that afternoon and that afternoon only with the energy of a man thirty years younger. The performance consisted of some solo piano works, a concerto, and then his fifth symphony. I played in front of the whole school and at the end, he came up and personally congratulated me. The beaming on his face was a sight to behold - he looked like nothing was wrong in his world.
I asked my father, at that point my adopted father, what he knew, and he responded by telling me that he knew nothing much. They’d adopted me at a very young age and decided to keep that status from me. Although I was angry about it, I feel that in hindsight this was the right decision. For whatever reason, I couldn’t stay with the composer and it was kept a secret - so it made sense that a five year old who loved babbling to whomever would listen would not be told. I know Shostakovich told Dumbledore, but I doubt he told many others. We kept in a vague correspondence for the last few years of his life, but nothing serious. My love for music continued strong, though, and I wound up playing many of his works and others while at Hogwarts.
Know this, Harry. You are the grandson of a composer. Perhaps you have some musical ability. If so, use it and do not neglect it. Nurture it. Music is one of the most powerful magics we have to enter and manipulate emotion. If you do not, then do not feel disappointed. Your father, grandfather, and I would all be proud of you no matter what.
Please, stay safe.
Love, your mother
Harry had spent the rest of the evening as well as most of the following morning in a half-daze, meandering around the school aimlessly without any real concern or destination in mind. He realised about half three that he had come to stand outside an awards room, and so went in. In it, there were many different trophies and shields. Out of a curiosity only a child could possess, he scanned the names thoroughly. His efforts were rewarded when he saw on the Quidditch shield the name ‘James Potter’. His father! Buoyed by this, he continued looking and eventually his eyes came to rest on a picture frame. In it, there were two people standing in front of a piano. The first was a woman with eyes like his; his mother. The second was someone who bore a resemblance to him in some ways. Shostakovich. The composer and pianist, and now his grandfather.
He lost track of how long he was staring at the photo.
“Hello Harry, what brings you here?”
Harry jumped and turned round at the sound of a voice. A hatstand went flying.
“Headmaster, I was just looking at the photographs.” Harry’s voice was slightly wavering. Here was the old, famous headmaster talking to him. A wizard everyone talked about in hushed tones was paying him attention.
“Ah, you’ve discovered the photo of your mother and grandfather I see.” He said in a knowledgeable tone, seemingly not caring that this could’ve been news to Harry had he not found out about it just the night before.
“Was he… was he really my grandfather?” Harry nervously replied. He was slowly finding his voice.
“Indeed. I’m not aware of how he came to be so however. That, like many things about him, is a secret he took to his grave. He had many stories he would never tell. Why, just last year I believe they discovered a funny lost work of his. Or was it the year before…” Dumbledore trailed off. There was a pause, before Harry steeled his courage.
“Sir, is there a piano anywhere?”
Dumbledore just smiled.