A Very Potter Fanfic Sequel
"Hey, Joey!" Darren greeted his friend one day between classes. "Guess what I've just agreed to do?"
"Sell your soul to Satan?" was his first guess.
"No, no. Something much worse…"
"You agreed to do all of Lauren's homework for the rest of the semester?"
"You're not thinking bad enough!" Darren shook his head. "Fine, fine. I'll tell you… I just agreed to write the music for… A Very Potter Sequel. You in?"
"Of course!"
Which was how, less than six months later, the pair found themselves in rehearsals for a franchise they thought they'd long since abandoned.
"Ron, what's going on? Everyone's treating me like I'm famous or something."
"But Harry… You are."
"You're Harry Freaking Potter!
You don't understand, you're a legend, man, to us all.
Every son and daughter, (SAFE)
From You-Know-Who
All because of you, you were small
But I wonder if you can recall."
As Joey continued in his solo, backed up by what few cast members they had that day, Darren watched and listened for any flat notes or mistakes. But, as usual, Joey performed flawlessly. They stopped where Jamie's part would have started due to her absence from practice that day.
"Alright, guys, that was great. Take a fifteen-minute break then let's get ready to do the first scene with Darren and Joey." Matt smiled at the present cast. "This is going much smoother than the first one, eh, Criss?"
"Much smoother." Darren nodded, clapping a hand on Joey's shoulder. "Having such amazing talent definitely helps."
"Hey, I'm just here for the free food. Or in this show, the free Red Vines." Joey grinned, adjusting the red wig. Despite the fact that dress rehearsals were still a few months off, he chose to wear it to every practice to 'help him get in character'. Truthfully, he just liked the feeling of home it brought to rehearsals and made it seem like it was just more rehearsals for the first Very Potter musical they'd done together.
"It's so weird… I didn't even realize how much I missed these rehearsals… We spent so much time together back then, remember?" Darren mused.
"Are you kidding me? How could I forget? We were together all the freaking time. Sometimes we'd end up just crashing in your dorm room cause we were so exhausted from rehearsing all day."
"Are you kidding me? Most of the time, we'd end up crashing in my dorm room when we were pretending-er-actually doing homework." He laughed. "Man, I miss those days… I'm glad we could do this again." Darren smiled, tightening his grip on the other's shoulder.
"…yeah. Me too."
"I still can't believe you used what I said in that damn song!" Joey laughed after they'd done a music-only rehearsal.
"I wasn't kidding, it made an awesome song." Darren shrugged. "I'm an artist, so I use whatever inspiration I get."
"Well then, I'm glad I could be your inspiration, or whatever." He teased.
"Of course you're my inspiration… You're like, my best friend. What would I do without you?"
"Hell if I know." Joey shrugged. "I know I'd be insane without you."
"…you're insane and you have me."
"Oh… yeah, I guess you have a point there. So I guess I'd be insane and lonely without you."
"We've got these days of summer to remind us of each other…" Joey sang, wrapping an arm around Darren's shoulder as Bonnie came closer to his other side. As she sang her line, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders as well, noticing Darren's hand reaching up to wrap around his waist.
"I'm hoping that the good old days are something I will dream about at night." Using Lauren's next line as a cover, Darren squeezed Joey's side, then moved away as they began the chorus, not missing Joey's flustered look as he missed the intro. He was able to jump in right as the dancing began though and finished strong as Darren began his monologue.
"Alright, guys! That was excellent! Much better than the last musical's final dress rehearsal. I gotta say, I'm really proud of you all—"
"Oh, Matt. Shut up. They're all tired and ready to get to bed. Tomorrow's opening night, after all." Nick shoved the director playfully.
"You're right, my bad. Alright everyone, don't forget to make sure all parts of your costumes are put away properly before you leave here today. After that, you're free to go. See you all tomorrow night, two hours before curtain." Matt waved them off and returned to studying his notes, muttering anxiously to himself. "I still say we could have done that final number a bit better…"
"Leave it, man. They're ready." Nick smiled. "Come on, you need to get some rest too."
"Alright…"
"Dude! We totally KILLED tonight! Can you imagine how awesome opening night is going to be?" Joey asked excitedly, stripping off the red wig before starting on his costume. Darren followed suit, lost in thought.
"Yeah, we were okay. We need to work on the finale more… it feels like something's missing, ya know?"
"What could possibly be missing? We've got a killer number for the finale, some rockin' dancing, ending with a moving speech from StarKid's very own Harry Potter. I think it's awesome the way it is."
"I know… But it just feels like it's not really saying the thing is over properly. It's like it just… ends. We need to do something else… Something more… StarKid."
"Tell you what… let's break from tradition. Crash in my room tonight and think it over some more, then sleep on it. If the answer comes to you by morning, then tell Matt. If not, don't let it kill you. The fans are going to love it."
"That sounds awesome. "Darren smiled.
Less than an hour later, the two were sprawled across Joey's bed, watching the first Harry Potter movie.
"You'd think we'd be sick of this whole franchise by now." Joey laughed as the opening credits rolled.
"Are you kidding me? That'll never happen!" Darren replied with mock incredulity.
"You're Harry Freaking—" Joey began with a smirk, but Darren cut him off.
"I'm definitely getting sick of that song, though."
"You're getting sick of it? You only have to sing like one verse! I have to sing the whole freaking song!"
"Well, I have to sing like four other songs, so…"
"Okay, okay. You win. You're pain is worse than mine." Joey rolled his eyes. "Now shut up and watch the movie."
He chuckled, but still fell silent as he began watching the screen. As the move progressed, the two slowly began leaning on each other, with Darren's head on Joey's shoulder, who was resting his head on top of Darren's messy dark curls. All was peaceful until the opening of the third movie, at which point Darren jumped to his feet on top of the bed.
"I've got it!"
"Got what?"
"What's missing!"
"Umm… From what?"
"The sequel, duh!" Darren began pacing back and forth on the bed. "Okay, so in the monologue, I'm like blah blah blah, Hogwarts will never die, blah blah blah, future generations, blah blah blah—"
"Whoa, man. Slow down. What are you talking about?"
"Okay, I've got this idea…"
"Are you out of your mind?" Matt exclaimed. "We've got two hours till curtain, and you're asking me to put in a whole extra song?"
"Calm down, Matt. The band still remembers it… Hell, the whole freaking world still remembers it!" Nick grinned. "It's a brilliant idea, Darren."
"…" Matt looked back and forth between the two before sighing in defeat. "Okay, Criss. You win. I'll go tell the band. Nick, you tell the rest of the cast so Darren can get dressed. Make sure to assign houses to the new guys, okay?"
"You got it, boss." Nick laughed, patting Darren on the shoulder. "See you on stage."
"There will always be a way to get back…" Darren trailed off as the band started.
"Back to witches and wizards and magical beasts, to goblins and ghosts and to magical feasts. It's all that I love, and it's all that I need at Hogwarts, Hogwarts..." As the cast sang, the crowd burst into applause and began to sing along, shouting out their houses as the lyrics demanded. "Back to spells and enchantments, potions and friends. To Gryffindor! Hufflepuff! Ravenclaw! Slytherin! Back to the place where our story begins at Hogwarts, Hogwarts"
"I'm sorry, what's its name?" Dylan grinned.
"Hogwarts, Hogwarts"
"I didn't hear you kids!"
"HOGWARTS, HOGWARTS!"
"Man, I'm glad I went back." Darren finished as the audience roared and cheered its approval.
"Day one was a total success." Joey sighed happily as he fell onto Darren's bed.
"You're telling me. We had twice the crowd as we did in the original one." The brunette agreed, collapsing next to his friend. "That being said, this one was way more exhausting…"
"Well, yeah. It was so much better though…. And it's all because of you, man."
"Stop that. We all worked really hard. That's what made this one so awesome." Darren rolled his eyes. "I swear, you give me too much credit."
"And I swear, you're too modest. You write all the music, you're the face of StarKid. That's how it is."
"Oh yeah? That's not what the fangirls were saying before the show today… I seem to remember you having a good deal of females begging you to have their children." Darren laughed.
"Yeesh! Don't remind me…" Joey shuddered. "Some of those chicks were just plain scary…"
"Well some were hot."
"Yeah, well… I dunno. None of them appealed to me." He moved to stand next to the window, shifting uncomfortably.
"Hey, man, what's wrong? What did I say?"
"It's nothing. I'll tell you after the last show, okay?"
"Okay… But I won't forget."
"I'm counting on it." Joey grinned. "Anyway, did you submit your video to the people at Glee yet?"
"Yeah, I sent that in a few days ago… The video was horrible." He sighed.
"Oh, come on! It couldn't have been that bad…"
"It was pretty bad…" Darren grimaced. "But, I've got all those people on Facebook and stuff that want me to do it… They've got a whole page dedicated to it!"
"I know… I 'liked' it."
"Traitor!"
"No, no. None of that. I'm just a friend who believes in you. It's like I told you last year, you're gonna be famous forever, while the rest of us are going to slowly slip into anonymity. And that's okay, that's all we expected and wanted from this whole enterprise. But you… You're gonna do great things. You just have to wait and see."
The morning of the final show dawned with heaviness in the hearts of both Joey and Darren. They met at the cafeteria for dinner with the rest of the cast, putting on smiles and pretending that everything was fine, but both boys could see the pain in the other's eyes. However, they pushed it to the back of their minds as the curtain opened and did their best to give the greatest performances of their careers.
"Great show, everybody. Everybody have a ride to the dinner tomorrow night?" When there were no objections, Matt grinned. "Awesome. See you then!"
After getting out of their costumes and exchanging goodbyes, the members of StarKid dispersed, going their separate ways.
"Kinda bittersweet, huh?" Joey asked as he and Darren sat on the stage, looking out on the now empty auditorium.
"Yeah… Definitely bittersweet. On one hand, I'm glad to be done cause of how awful it was on my vocal cords, but on the other… I'm going to miss it. A lot. And I know there's nothing we can do to bring in part 3. Not without Dylan, or Brian, or anybody else we killed off between the two plays."
"It was a lot of fun while it lasted though, huh?"
"It was a blast." Darren laughed. "These are definitely the days I'm going to look back on when I'm like 95 and telling my kids about how cool my friends and I used to be."
"Good times…" Joey sighed. "Are you okay? I mean, you looked kinda rough at dinner tonight…"
"Yeah, I just have a lot on my mind." He shrugged. "But that's not important right now. I believe you were going to tell me something tonight?"
"Oh… yeah. That." He chuckled nervously. "I know I can't ask you to promise this, but I'd really like it if this wouldn't change anything…"
"Why would it change anything? I mean—"
"I'm in love with you."
"…what did you say?"
"I know this seems sudden but I have been for years…"
"No, Joey. What did you say?"
"… I'm in love with you." He repeated quietly.
"…That's what I thought." Darren replied, moving closer to his friend.
"Wh-what are you doing?"
"Well, as I said about a year ago, Harry Potter is about to take his own advice." And with that, Darren pressed his lips to Joey's, not waiting for a reply. Joey was hardly complaining though as one hand moved to Darren's waist while the other moved to bury itself in his friend(?)'s curly hair. They eventually broke apart, both breathing heavily from the sheer emotion of it all.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Darren asked.
"I didn't know how you'd respond, and I really didn't wanna ruin our friendship and…"
"And..?"
"You know what? It really doesn't matter." Joey grinned before pulling Darren in for another passionate kiss.
Later that night, after an impromptu Wal-Mart and Taco Bell run, the two crashed in Darren's room and cuddled up on his bed to watch the next three Harry Potter movies.
"Dude… Can you believe Deathly Hallows is coming out this November?" Darren asked as the previews began to play.
"I know… It's hard to believe it's almost over… We totally have to go to the midnight premier together!" Joey grinned. Strangely though, Darren fell silent.
"…Darren? What is it?"
"Well… I didn't really know when to tell you this… I was planning on telling everybody at the dinner tomorrow, but I kind of wanted to tell you first…" he trailed off, pulling an envelope out of his back pocket before handing it to Joey. Giving Darren a confused look, he opened the letter and began to read aloud.
"Dear Mister Criss- oh that's nice- We are pleased to inform you that we received your audition video. After much consideration we have decided to cast you in a role in the upcoming episodes of our series, Glee. Our casting agent will be in touch with you to discuss further plans. Congratulations! Sincerely, Ryan Murphy and Co." Joey grinned excitedly at his friend. "Darren… That's amazing! Like a million people auditioned for that!"
"… I know."
"Dar… Why aren't you excited?" Joey asked worriedly.
"I talked to the agent right before dinner tonight. They want me to start taping at the beginning of the summer, and I won't be back till late September, so I can't enroll here next semester."
"…oh."
"Yeah."
"Hey, you're living your dream, right? Don't worry about it so much." Joey forced a smile, trying to ignore the feeling of his heart breaking.
"Don't do that. Please."
"Do what?"
"Hide what you're really thinking. You're my best friend, I want you to be honest."
"Well… I'm sad. I'm not going to get to see you for almost a year… But at the same time, I'm happy for you." This time, the smile was genuine. "After all, wasn't I the one who told you that you'd be famous forever? Well, this is your big break!"
"I'm coming back… No matter what, I will come back."
"Why? You're going to be living the life of the rich and famous. You should do what you can to make it last!"
"Yeah? Well Hollywood has been around for decades. It'll be there forever. But… this thing I have with you—"
"It'll be there forever, too." Joey interrupted with a playful nudge. "Like I said, I've been in love with you for years. You think that's gonna change because you go off for a year or so?"
Darren paused before a grin slowly formed on his face. "No, I guess not. And I know my feelings won't change."
"See? There ya go. Problem solved." Joey replied, pulling a package out of his nightstand. "Wanna share a Red Vine?"
"I'd love to."
They both started at separate ends of the same Red Vine, eventually coming together to kiss. After they broke apart, Joey laughed.
"What?" Darren frowned in confusion.
"Red Vines… What the hell can't they do?"