Harry Potter and the Ten Year Reunion
!Also Coming Soon: Harry Potter and the Off-Broadway Sensation (Look for the paperback to hit stores June 19th!)
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing not even the keyboard I am using to type this But rest assured, if I did own the Harry Potter franchise I would not be typing this lameass story but rather, sipping Cristal, pool-side this very moment, but I digress...
Dedicated to Melissa Eileen Eckstein, whom I have know since before I was born and who will be celebrating her SIXTY-FOURTH birthday on May 24th. Congratulations!
Chapter One: The Famous Three Go Pillaging
"Oh, I'll have my day in court alright, they'll see, that parking ticket was totally uncalled for!"
"You're actually going to challenge a twenty-five dollar parking ticket?"
"Damn straight."
"You're fucking pathetic," and with a swoosh of her seventy-five percent rayon robe the Hufflepuff alum (whom he had probably teased mercilessly at one time or another during his Hogwarts career, but whose name he could no longer recall) walked swiftly away and left poor Draco standing all alone by the cocktail table.
Suddenly someone cleared her throat and as he turned around he was met with a most unpleasant sight.
"Draco," Hermione stated. "You're looking well," she spoke in an obnoxious monotone as she stared blankly at his pale disheveled face. For an awkward moment they beheld each other with mutual distaste.
"Indeed," he responded after an inappropriately long pause. He lifted his martini to his lips and sipped as he gazed shiftily around. 'Oh,' he thought as he finally spotted Ron standing beside her.
There was another awkward silence, which lasted until the song "Everybody's Working for the Weekend" came wafting loudly from the speakers. A number of people turned to look at the DJ in annoyance as virtually no one was drunk enough (yet) to dance.
"Well...okay," Ron lamely tried to break off the encounter, luckily Draco was of the same mind set. Ron and Hermione walked off in one direction and Draco another as they searched for their assigned tables.
When they met again just a few seconds later, they all narrowed their eyes making no effort to conceal their disappointment. They had been seated together and would have to endure each other's company for the duration of the dinner they were about to be served.
Conversation was painful and strained as they struggled to be civil to one another. They hadn't seen each other for an entire decade and they were all caught-up within the first five minutes of having sat down. Ron and Hermoine would be married six years on October 14th, Hermoine was a modestly successful defense attorney and Ron had a temporary job at the Clinique(c) booth in Macy's, to which he was required to wear a lab coat. His former job as a sales rep for Direct TV(c) was inevitably outsourced to India and there were, inevitably, redundancies. He was laid off and his salary was now one-fourth of what it used to be. Draco was in accounting.
"I don't see those friends of yours around...what were their names? Crabbe and Goyle? How are they, are you still in touch?" Ron tried to keep things moving as the conversation began to die out, but his lack of interest was apparent.
"Well...They're ya'know...dead."
"Oh my God," Hermione tried to sound concerned, but she was a bad actress. "How did it happen?"
"AIDS."
"Oh, I'm so sorry."
"Yeah...," Draco really didn't seem too concerned himself as he continued sipping his drink coolly.
More bad Eighties pop songs continued to play. An empty seat remained at the table and it suddenly dawned on Draco who had been missing. Potter.
"Where's the famous Harry Potter, for whom this book series is named," Draco almost sneered.(OhEmGee! The Fourth Wall! THE FOURTH WALL!)
"Oh I don't know, we haven't seen him since graduation."
A few minutes later, as if having missed his cue earlier, the famous Harry Potter stumbled into the room and over to their table sans trademark glasses. He was clearly already inebriated.
Harry was hardly the reluctant hero they used to know and love, or in Draco's case, despise with every fiber of his being. His hair had begun to resemble a mullet, except it appeared to be a party all the way around, and it looked tangled and unkempt. He had a five o'clock shadow and his enchanting green eyes were extremely bloodshot (he'd always been told he had his mother's eyes).
They exchanged pleasantries, all of Ron and Hermione's sentences seemed to end in exclamation points and their smiles were equally ridiculous. The "new Harry" had a way, like the one armed homeless man pan-handling on the subway, of making everyone feel uncomfortable.
Eventually they were all seated and served generous portions of Coq au Vin. Delicious. As time wore on Harry's loud obnoxious behavior only intensified and climaxed, after having been informed of Hermione's profession, when he told a quite unsavory joke (considering the company he was in).
"So can anybody tell me, what's the difference between a lawyer and a catfish?" he looked around the table to see if anyone would answer, but they all seemed put off by his slurred, drunken shouting. Ron shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "One's a scum sucking bottom-feeder and the other's a fish!"
Harry laughed riotously at his own joke despite the fact that no one was laughing with him. Ron adjusted his tie and cleared his throat uncomfortably as everyone at the table averted their gazes from the train wreck that was Harry Potter. Harry's unbelievably loud laughter continued for what seemed like hours, then there was a lull and the incessant noise finally stopped.
"Well, you know who I hear is doing extremely well?" Hermoine wanted desperately to get off the topic of lawyers.
"Why no I haven't heard! Who?" Ron jumped excitedly on the chance to steer the conversation in another direction.
"Neville Longbottom! Can you believe that? He's a multibillionaire now, probably the most successful person from our graduating class," Ron seemed pleasantly surprised and politely interested whereas Harry appeared to be straining to even remember that he had gone to school with someone named Neville. Draco gave a disgruntled snort as he continued drinking his Long Island iced tea through a straw, empty glasses had begun to accumulate around his place setting.
"What could that idiot possibly have done to earn himself that much money?" Draco seemed skeptical.
"Well apparently, he went back in time and co-founded Microsoft(c)," Hermione gave a little chuckle after she said this.
"Oh why didn't I think of that!" Ron gave off the impression that he was joking, but with his salary being what it was, he probably was more than fifty percent serious. Ron and Hermione could only laugh their patented cocktail-party laugh for a few seconds before Harry loudly interjected.
"Neville, Neville, Neville! It's always about Neville with you, isn't it? Always has been!" Harry had thrown his napkin down indignantly and stood up, pushing his chair back. Ron and Hermione looked frightened and Draco appeared to be genuinely shocked as he nearly spit out the bit of cosmopolitan he had in his mouth.
"So, Harry, what have you been up to lately? What do you do for a living?" Ron nervously tried to pretend that that little outburst hadn't just happened.
"What do you mean, what do I do? I'm Harry fucking Potter, international playboy!" despite the fact that he was shouting, he seemed to be calming down. Now that the conversation was in his (arguably, only) field of expertise, he once again took his seat.
"What happened to your glasses?" Draco picked the celery out of his bloody mary, tossed it aside and gulped it down quickly, his nose was turning pink and his eyes appeared glassy and glazed over.
"Lasik eye surgery."
"Oh."
Harry then indiscreetly put a finger to his nose and made a loud snorting sound, Ron and Hermione exchanged concerned looks.
"Excuse me but I need to go powder my nose," Harry stood up from the table awkwardly and walked off to the bathroom, nearly taking the tablecloth with him.
"My God! We've got to do something, he's spiraling out of control," Hermoine had picked up on the subtle hints, indicating Harry's issues with controlled substances.
"Then why don't you just stage a god damn intervention? You know you want to," Draco was slumped over on the table, staring moodily at his chocolate mousse.
"What a good idea!" and with that Hermione went to go talk to the DJ.
Finally Harry came back to the table and sat down, knocking all of his silverware to the floor.
"Harry. This is an intervention, Hermione's prepared a song and dance number. So get your ass on the dance floor, it's the first step towards recovery," not that Draco really cared about Harry's well being, he was just in it for the dance number.
What followed was nothing short of a Broadway-caliber musical, all of Harry's old friends and teachers, plus the Ghost of Christmas Past, joined in the elaborately choreographed dance spectacular.
Everyone sang along to Bette Midler's "Wind Beneath My Wings" and those spectators who had remained seated and continued to eat, were reduced to tears, either from disgust or the presence of sliced onions.
Needless to say, by the end of the night Harry had realized the error of his ways and had taken a vow of sobriety.
"So, same time, same place," Ron and the, now clean shaven, Harry were preparing to part once again.
"See you in another ten years then," Harry gave Ron a little wink and everyone left to drive home in their depressingly ordinary four-door sedans and back to their lives of obscene banality.
You were warned, ANGST