I wanted to start slicing into the tree with diffindo to get my guitar today, but as soon as I touched the wood, I knew it was the wrong way to go about it.
So I sat and stared at the tree, an old yew tree, by the bank of the black lake. I got up and walked around it, feeling its bark. There was something about this tree. I shrugged and pressed my ear to it. At first, I didn't hear anything, and I thought I was so dumb, then I heard an echo of the song I played at the base of this tree at the start of summer. The music was trapped in the wood now. I leaned back and, with a thought, pulled my guitar out of my satchel.
'I am about to play a song to a tree,' I thought. 'My life is weird.' I was about to play when.
"Eddie!" I heard someone yell. Turning, I saw Tim running towards me. "We have a problem!"
"Huh?" I looked at Tim in alarm. "What's wrong? Was someone attacked?" 'It's too early; Halloween is the first attack', I thought worriedly.
Tim huffed and puffed, trying to catch his breath. "It's Lockhart," he wheezed.
"What about Professor Lockhart?" I said, confused.
"He's doubled our set", Tim puffed. "We have to play 12 songs, not six." Tim sat down.
"What?!" I yelled. "It's two weeks away!"
"Not only that, it's now a costume ball." Tim looked at me with fright.
"So, six more songs to learn in a week. About an hour-long set, too." I started to pace, "So, Halloween costume party, school disco." I muttered.
"School disco?" Tim looked confused. "It's a ball!" He said I waved him off.
"Tina!" I yelled, realising something, and started to run to the castle.
"What?" Tim yelled and then chased after me. He got about 100 meters, then yelled, "I'll catch up!"
I came sliding into the castle like a bat out of hell; I sprinted to classrooms 1-15, where I found Grant and Tina.
"Tina, get your friends", I said in a puff.
"Why?" She asked, confused.
"Well, if we're going to have to add six more songs, we might as well make the dances," I said.
I started to go over the first one with Grant. Tim arrived shortly after, and I filled him in. Then I took off to the dorm, grabbed my speakers, and my copy of the album: simply the best. I returned to the room just in time for the girls to return." excellent. Ready to boogey?" I wiggled my hips at the girls, who jumped in fright because they had no idea what I was talking about. "Sorry, I'm going to teach you girls a line dance. You too, guys," I said, looking at Grant and Tim, who were trying to play a song they had never heard and didn't have sheet music to. I started to set up the speakers and my walkman.
"What's that?" asked Cho.
"Music player," I said.
"Why does it have runes?" she continued.
"So it works in Hogwarts", I said.
"Isn't that illegal?" said Marrietta in a tone.
"Maybe I don't know. I didn't ask the headmaster", I said; I had never really thought about it. I took off my robe and rolled up my sleeves."Okay, who knows what line dancing is?" I asked, but nobody answered; they just stared at me. "Okay so line dancing is what it sounds like dancing in a line" I said.
"Like a conga line?" Tim asked.
"No, no." I sighed. "It's synchronised dancing in lines. It's big in country towns in America and Australia," I said. They looked a bit confused. "This one is specifically from Australia," I said with a smile.
"Anyway, I'm going to show you one of the easiest; at the end of the set of moves, you turn 90° and do it repeatedly for the song."
I said. "Okay, now follow me right to the side and back." I began to explain the dance steps. Explaining it twice before stopping. "Okay, let's add the music." I smiled. Hitting play on the tape, I smiled as that funky music played. •Nutbush City Limits by Tina Turner•
♫A church house, gin house
School house, outhouse
On highway number nineteen
The people keep the city clean♫
"come on, girls, it's easy." I encouraged
♫They call it Nutbush
Oh, Nutbush
They call it Nutbush city limits
Nutbush city♫
"that's it, you're getting it, on the beat", I continued to encourage
♫Twenty-five was the speed limit
Motorcycle not allowed in it
You go to store on Fridays
You go to church on Sundays♫
"crisscross, turn, clap" I instructed.
♫They call it Nutbush
Oh, Nutbush
Said they call it Nutbush city limits
Nutbush city♫
--
We went through the dance a few times. Grant and Tim begged after the first round to try to play along with the song. By the time the girls had the dance down, Grant and Tim had gotten the song. "I'll write up the lyrics for you, Tina", I said to Tina, "and you four spread the dance; you have two weeks. The music will be here every afternoon till the ball." I said to Tina's friends.
The truth was we were never going to nail 12 songs down before the ball, so I had to talk to Lockhart; I had a bit of a fear when it came to Lockhart. How he was ever a Ravenclaw was beyond me; he was like a poison flower that looked completely harmless, but under the pretty exterior was a scary, ambitious, and cunning man. Luring people into telling of their adventures and then wiping their memories so he could take credit was insidious.
"Professor", I knocked on his office door.
"Oh, come in, Eddie", he waved me in. "I was just practising the song for the ball", he said, looking into a mirror.
"I'm sure you'll be fine, professor, but about the ball", I said
"What about it?" he asked, still looking at himself
"you doubled our set list on short notice", I said, "We could do it, but double the work requires double the pay"; I told him. "But if you don't want to pay that, we could do 8 songs, and I 'll provide music for the rest of the night." I gave him my offer.
"wait, what do you mean?" he looked at me.
"Well, if you want us to play double, we want double, so 32 galleons", I said. "but for your original 16, I'll revise my offer; my band and I will play 8 live songs, and you will have music for the rest of the night, just not played live," I explained.
"Fine, I'll take your offer, but I'm quite disappointed; that first year said you should be able to play 12 songs," Lockhart said.
"first year? Who told you that?" I asked Lockhart
"A Hufflepuff Frist-year, Oswald something." Lockhart waved his hand.
"Interesting, thank you, professor", I said and left. 'the little prick' I thought.
-A/N-
In his previous life Eddie was Australian, again he doesn't have memories, of the life he lived just the knowledge, so he isn't like a 40 year old trapped in a 12 year olds body. Theses dance moves are known by pretty much every Australian, we learn them as kids and the song was played at pretty much at ever school disco. You can look it up on the tube. Nutbush dance.