A Thousand Beautiful Things
Summary: "Maybe you've seen nice things all around the world, but I can show you a thousand beautiful things right here…" I found this quote randomly somewhere and it gave me the idea for this story. I was inspired about the idea of unrequited love suddenly becoming real. And then it's all over too soon. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these people except Cassandra and those associated with her. Although, I really wish I owned Tom Felton…like really… sigh Okay psycho moment over. I also don't own Leavesdon Studios, nor do I own some of the songs that are mentioned in the story.
Warnings: May be a few spoilers for Half Blood Prince. Rated pretty high for future chapters, so no kids, please!
Chapter One:
Over the past few years, he, Daniel Radcliffe, had mastered the art of lying to the press. It wasn't so much lying as gracefully avoiding the question so that it never ended up being answered. He prided himself on this. He was invincible; he'd never end up ridiculed on the cover of those ridiculous tabloids because he was just so funny and charming, and everyone loved him
It had been a good seven years since he'd been in the first Harry Potter film and promptly found himself on Regis and Kelly being asked if he'd ever had a girlfriend. Only 11 years old, he'd managed to sputter out a 'no way!' before breaking into a nervous sweat. He hated those typical questions he was always asked, 'do you have a girlfriend?', 'well, you should have loads of female admirers now, right?', 'fancy anyone on the set?', or his personal favorite, ' so what's going on between you and Emma?'.
All of them were well versed in how to answer that question; 'oh, we're really just good friends, kind of like brother and sister,'. It wasn't too far from the truth; he'd known Emma Watson since she was 10 years old- she'd grown up quite nicely during the progression of the films and each boy on the set had been attracted to her at one point, himself included, but the fact remained that Emma loved her normal teenage life and only went for the wild, shaggy and rebellious blokes she knew back home. This disappointed many- another cast member Tom Felton, for example, who'd chased her for two years- but Daniel was simply indifferent. He'd known Emma too long and too well, and even with her being an insufferable flirt (the long months filming left her restless) Daniel knew that Emma didn't fancy him.
People always got the wrong idea about his love life anyway. Everyone assumed that having heaps of worshipping fans screaming his name meant that all he had to do was snap his fingers and he'd have an instant girlfriend. The sad truth was, the girls he truly wanted didn't give him the time of day. More than once he'd almost wished he was arrogant enough to pull the 'I'm famous' card on them, but he wasn't, and the sadder truth was that it wouldn't even work on the girls he wanted anyway.
So, he continued to sidestep questions regarding his love life with clever little one liners, continued to hold Emma's hand every now and then at premieres to give the paparazzi something to talk about, and continued to wonder when Daniel Radcliffe, not Harry Potter, would have his turn with romance because, embarrassingly, Harry had definitely gotten more action than him as of the latest film, Order of the Phoenix in which he got to kiss his pretty cast-mate Katie.
This feeling of dejection did not take away his good natured personality however, and when he returned to the studios at the beginning of September after a relaxing vacation at home, he was genuinely happy to see his friends and get back in his element. He always loved the first week back; everyone got reacquainted, were introduced to new crew and cast members, and there still wasn't the pressure to have the entire script memorized and perform the strenuous stunts that had become practically essential to the films.
Daniel pushed his way through the group of people in the large multipurpose room in which they went over lines, ate, and rested, was full of people and noisy with excited chatter. Seeing Rupert alone in the far corner of the room, flinging chocolate covered raisins in the air and catching them in his mouth, he smirked and made his way over.
"Hey, don't look too excited to be back," he joked, catching one of the raisins in midair and popping it in his own mouth. Rupert grinned and clapped him on the shoulder.
"How was the break?"
"Eh, same old," Daniel shrugged, looking around at everyone. A cluster of new extras were standing together and looking starstruck.
"Yeah. How was the 18th, then? Heard it was wicked,' said Rupert.
"Got totally pissed," Daniel snorted, just as Emma walked up to them. She was pulling up her brown curls and holding some shiny black barrettes in her mouth.
"Hey, Em," said Daniel and Rupert together. Their friendship was very different than the friendship they were portraying in the films, but they had gotten pretty close over the years all the same. During the cold winter weeks when they'd been away from their families for months, stressed and exhausted beyond relief, Daniel couldn't imagine getting through it without Rupert and Emma going through it Ttoo right by his side.
"Nggh eggen ithed?" Emma mumbled through the mouthful of barrettes. Daniel laughed, while Rupert cocked an eyebrow at her.
"What??"
Emma rolled her eyes and spat the barrettes out on Rupert's lap, who gave a yelp of disgust, and let her hair fall back down impatiently. "I said, who's getting pissed?" Unlike her character Hermione, Emma did not have any regard for the fact that she was still a year away from the legal drinking age, and loved to drink both Rupert and Dan down under the table. Dan had a not so pleasant flashback of the New York Premiere afterparty; Emma had gotten into a few or more minibottles from her hotel room, and Dan had watched her dance drunkenly with everyone in the vicinity of the club and then he spent the rest of the night in her hotel room holding up her hair as she was sick alternately in the trash can and the toilet. Those incidents were nowhere near being frequent, but they always made Daniel fear Emma a little bit; she was sweet and polite most of the time, but she was definitely a firecracker and he was always waiting on edge for those times she spun out of control.
"No one's getting pissed, you lush, Dan was talking about his 18th," Rupert teased, tossing her barrettes back at her. Emma flung the barrettes in the air carelessly, narrowly missing the group of extras standing by the bowl of chips
"Wish we were," Emma said gloomily, "because summer's over and now it's all filming and schoolwork." Daniel smiled in mirth, and roughly patted her shoulder.
"I'm sure you'll find some very inopportune moment to get completely drunk as a total protest to all this work," Daniel reassured her.
"Har, har." Emma rolled her eyes at him, but laughed all the same.
They were just sharing funny stories from summer break when David Yates, their director and good friend, came walking over.
"Hey there guys," he greeted them cheerily.
"David! Hello." Emma smiled at him moving to sit on Dan's other side to make room for him, when David held a hand up.
"No, no need to move. I was just checking in to see if you had your scripts and all that, and were all ready to come in tomorrow to begin!"
"Yep, all set." Daniel said, while Emma groaned and Rupert nodded.
"Great! See you lot tomorrow, bright and early!" David waved and walked back to where his wife and daughter were chatting with some of the crew members.
"I guess it's officially the beginning of our sixth film." Emma said in disbelief.
"So it is." Rupert said, sounding tired. The trio remained on the couch for the remainder of the night reminiscing and sharing their hopes for this new film. Rupert wanted more action, Emma wanted more drama, but Daniel just wanted something new; something to look forward to each morning. He felt that only Rupert and Emma's hopes would be fulfilled.
Please review! Also, if anyone is offended that a Dan Radcliffe story is on if you could let me know of a website that has real person fiction? I haven't found any- just real person slash sites. Thanks! Those who aren't offended...thanks for reading!