HD 2011 BigBang 'The Play's the Thing!' PrePrologue
PrePrologue. Circa 2002-2003. The Odeon Theatre, Edinburgh, Opening Night for the Nameless Troupe's production of Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'.
The curtains are closed currently and ushers are still seating the latecomers. We see familiar faces and figures: Kingsley Shacklebolt and his wife, the professors of Hogwarts, including Flitwick, Pomfrey, Hooch, Hagrid and of course McGonagall. Childhood and school friends are there, with their extended families; a smattering of red-cloaked Aurors rush in late as a straggly group, twittering excitedly. The Press is well represented, as well, by Rita Skeeter and Mr Lovegood and a wide-eyed staff reporter from Witch Weekly, amongst the many wizarding publications. A few Muggles are scattered about: Hermione's parents, Dudders Dursley (stuffed into a suit), and armed with his girlfriend Hannah Abbott, and various Squibs, including Harry's dear old nosy neighbour, Mrs Figg, who flourishes a playbill with great style.
The murmuring audience is greeted with an opulent theatre setting, circa the Gay Nineties. Gilt and scarlet abound. There are chandeliers and swags; there are cherubs in cornices. There are box seats and there are velvet ropes to keep them private. The seats are immensely comfortable and the crowd settles in with a collective sigh, clutching tumblers of various drinks and snacky, sticky finger foods—and of course, their playbills. Tiny figures dart about in the wizarding photos contained within—most notably one Harry Potter, who dashes off to Draco Malfoy's frame every other moment, chattering silently but excitedly. And some of the audience carry opera glasses atop carven folding sticks; a few of the exceptionally elderly present are laden with huge ear trumpets.
When the house lights blink thrice and then blip out, lowering abruptly, there's a barely contained 'whoosh!' of anticipation exhaled from everyone's lungs. It's to be a lengthy showing but no one seems to mind, particularly, not even the younger set, such as Teddy Lupin, accompanied by his redoubtable grandmother, Andromeda Tonks. There are few other children, though, and a wise Andromeda has come prepared with a censoring charm, for this play is really for adults only.
The curtains are closed tight, neatly swathed in ordered furls of fabric. They remain so, even when a single gel spot comes alive with blinding brilliance, focused upon a single figure, lounging by an ornate cast iron lamppost—the sort that requires gas or, rather, a lasting charm, to run.
It's the casual spin of the actor's wand that catches the eye at first: spin clockwise twenty, spin reverse ten, spin clockwise twenty—never-ending, the nervous motion draws the eye like lightning striking the heart of a plain.
Standing quietly at ease upon the stage is a young man, in his mid-to-early twenties, with very dark hair—black, actually—and not too long, with something of a style to it, but a bit ruffled, nonetheless. He is clad in a Muggle-style green t-shirt (sloganed in giant silver lettering 'Slytherins Do Suck! Best House Ever!') and much-washed denims; he wears simple crepe-soled shoes and he's one hand sort of tucked into a front pocket on his jeans, as if it might slip out at any moment. His hips are cocked forward as he lounges back, shoulders balanced against the gaslight; he's very much at ease on this stage, apparently—as if he were born to tread its antique floorboards. And he's not a bad looking chap; no, not at all. Not tall, really, but not completely shrimpy, either, the young man gives off the air of being just a tad—a wee hint, this—of yet being slightly larger than life. He's a bit cute, and a bit fit, and he seems increasingly familiar to the waiting audience…who, as a group, grow increasingly perplexed by the youth's continued silence.
Why is it he says nothing? Aren't plays supposed to be all about the talking?
Oh, and there's a scar on his forehead but it's difficult to make out, being obscured by makeup and a few errant locks of his fringe.
The audience continues to await action; tension builds until it could be sliced and eaten with Marmite. They've been accustomed to expect declamation when presented with such staged moments. In this case, though, there's not a sign of that. With little else to do, they look more closely at the actor.
The most striking single characteristic of this possibly familiar young man is actually a lack. His eyes are not green. Not emerald, not malachite, not viridian, nor olive, nor any shade that arises from the mixture of blue and yellow upon the colour wheel. This doesn't detract in any way from the loveliness of their gaze, their formation, and the set of them in his skull—his eyes are one of the young actor's best features, along with his air of spry energy and that seething, boundless interest he projects—nor does it in any way reduce the intensity of his expression. For all that he waits so casually, he's still quite visibly poised upon the brink of taking some momentous action. If this actor were to be an animal—or an Animagus—he'd be a bird or a feline, absolutely. It wouldn't surprise a single soul if he were to suddenly leap into the air or perhaps skitter sideways up the venerable curtains.
"Potter!"
Clearly, the other young man—he who is rushing in from the wings in a pale-haired swooping flurry of limbs and traditional wizarding robes—seems to have drawn the same conclusion. "Potter, what in Merlin's name are you up to?" he demands furiously. No—not angrily; merely impatiently, as though his fellow actor is patently known for this sort of thing—this 'being up to something'—and that's a given. A given, too, that he, this latecomer, of all the people in the world, must be kept first advised.
He's the taller of the two by perhaps two or three inches; enough so that that the first young man is forced to lift his chin to meet the newcomer's demanding gaze. The second gentleman is very familiar indeed. Everyone knows him, or of him, and they greet his entry with a collective intake of breath.
This one's as handsome as the devil and remarkably well dressed, in a rather unique manner. He wears a flapping robe over Muggle pleated trousers and shirt of elegant, expensive cut, and his grey eyes practically snap with brilliant impatience. He's blond, and it's a shade that is peculiar to only a few wizarding families. Unusual, if one will, in a world that is built solidly on the foundation of Odd.
"Potter!" he repeats, when the first young man only blinks at him, lips parted but issuing no sound. "Harry, I know you're on about something, something likely very bloody irregular, too, so don't bother to rack your feeble excuse for a brain to come up with a fib for my sake," he warns. "I shan't believe a word you tell me anyway. So? And?" He taps a foot, impatiently. "Where are you off to this fine day and what are you about, Potter? Come on—spill! I'm not having this secondhand!"
Potter—the first young man is most evidently Potter, the Harry Potter; (and who is kidding whom and of course it is, dearie!...or so some of the elderly members of the audience twitter giddily); and one of the famed personages the vast majority of the audience have queued up for ages and paid good Galleons to see in action—Potter grins up at his newly arrived companion. Clears his throat gently in a diminutive cough and shrugs a single cotton-outlined shoulder, all the while spinning that equally familiar wand of his—forwards, backwards, in little loops. Incessantly, and in an annoying fashion, considering the sizzling glare the blond man spares it.
"Stop that, Potter. It's annoying," Draco orders. "Now, tell me. What's up? What are you planning? Because you are—don't hide it."
"Er…nothing, really. Why?"
The blond man turns his glare from the irritating wand to a blandly innocent Potter-face. He hustles straight up to his shorter co-actor's toes and grabs at his t-shirt fiercely, crumpling it and pinning him up against the metal column of the lamppost quite firmly. But not quite hard enough to bruise, mind.
"You're up to no good, aren't you?" he demands in a rush, in a cultured voice that reeks of heavy suspicion. The lowering of blond-hued eyebrows only adds to it. He's a study in pale arrogance as he narrows his glassy, glittering eyes and quirks his fine manly lips in a practiced sneer. The audience murmurs; they've come to see this, just as much as they've come to see Harry. "I can tell; not an idiot, you know? Straight away; you're a bloody open book. Picture book, rather. Out with it. Tell me, then, and get it done and over with. You know I'll ferret it out of someone even if you don't. Mayhap your Weasel—he's worse than you at concealing shit."
It's a clear and obvious threat and Potter widens his not-green eyes in response, shifting back, as if to twist away from his attacker's insistence. But he doesn't manage that; the action's aborted, and he settles into Draco's hands just as casually as he leant up against the lamp previously. Some anonymous person in the audience giggles at the pronounced roll of his not-Potter eyeballs, quite loudly. And is promptly—loudly—shushed.
"Er?" Potter steadfastly maintains his air of injured innocence, even as he's all shifty-eyed and a little strange with it. There's a growing murmur of query as to why he's not quite as he should be; is it a device? A visual pun? These actors—they are always playing about! Or so the self-acclaimed critics amongst the seated mass ponder. "Ah. Why would you ever think that, Draco?"
He bats his black lashes theatrically; he tilts his cleft chin charmingly…and now the audience can see clearly how the tall blond wizard leans urgently into Potter, shoving ever closer to his shorter person, as if drawn there by a huge magnetic force, and entirely unable to resist. Without a single word, Potter ceases any sign of any struggle, not that he's been. They continue to collide, the two bodies, and it's clear at least one of them is rather turned on.
There's a reason why one of the actor's godchild is suddenly blinking in confusion behind a magical censoring charm—this play is decidedly not for young children! To be certain he's distracted, his grandmum hands Teddy a small stash of playthings: an Auror action-figure, a miniature broom.
No…both. The staged sizzle is mutual. Potter's jeans are rather tight 'round his arse, for all their obvious age. They cling to his hips and thighs—it's clear Harry's no slouch when it comes to exercise. There's a giveaway bulge at the wrinkles of the crotch area, and the sharp-eyed have been waiting ages to spot it. When they do, a whisper (nearly breathless, like a rising heat wave off hot tarmac) spreads though the seated group like wildfire. A counter gasp of scandalous shock quickly follows.
There's a moment of pregnant silence, extended. One beat—one count of a thousand—two. Three.
Hips thrust, minutely, at first, irregularly, then sliding into an easy glide. They've met and matched many a time, or so the Prophet tells its readers in nearly every Sunday's 'Heard About the Alley' column. Often there's pictures to accompany and that's a treat. More than one barely-of-age witch and wizard are in attendance solely because they consider the two actors to be incredibly, edibly appealing, physically. What they know of history could be slotted neatly into the circumference of the head of a pin, but no worries. Wizarding folk like their plays bawdy and this one promises to be so.
The wand in Potter's hand ceases its lazy spin gradually as two pairs of eyes—one a known grey, the other a rather unexpected light-blue shade, tinged with hazel—meet, cling and then converse volumes; not one single sound is audible from the stage—or elsewhere in the huge, echoing hall of the restored Odeon, other than the susurration of people breathing, as they carry on a silent dialogue the waiting audience can only imagine.
Before it drags on that last exquisite second too long, ruining the moment, the blond actor up on stage stomps a well-heeled foot nearly into the floorboards smartly, snorting.
"Bugger!" he exclaims. "And bother! Fine, then—don't tell me, but then don't come crawling to me when the bloody Obliviators show up at our door, asking after you, Harry!"
"'Kay," Potter agrees equably, and only barely bites back a peeping, expanding grin. He's pleased and doesn't everyone know it now? They grin, too, most of them...and so does Draco, reluctantly. "I won't, then. So there."
He pokes the veriest tip of his pink tongue out, but only to moisten dry lips.
"Grrr!"
That provokes an instant growl and the blond man, positively identified as 'Draco', not that he wasn't well spotted from the very get-go, crowds Harry Potter straight up to the lamppost, practically squashing him betwixt and between.
"Dr—" the one called Potter begins, but he's not given the chance to continue. "Wait!"
Draco snogs Harry, his perfect teeth grinding and his jaw line flexing with frustration as he goes into it, and the muscles of his arms bunch creases in his shirt and over-robe as he yanks his companion that one last millimetre nearer yet. It's a matter of degree and how to ratchet it up, really. He seduces him easily enough; Harry's eager to respond in kind.
"—ulp!" Harry gurgles. His not-green eyes are rolling back in their sockets; Draco's grey ones are intense and lit up to a dazzling brilliance from within. "Ngh-umm!"
This initial physical moment is not so much defined as a decent snogging as it is a distinctly randy prelude to outright vertical shagging—in public—but neither participant seems to be particularly bothered by that. They're actors, first and foremost, and they're public figures—celebrities; and this isn't really so unusual that it should cause a scene.
The audience feels mostly smug; they're in on it all, having kept up with the dailies. This is candy, and dandy, and something they were hoping to see, albeit intense.
"Idiot!" Draco rejoins, pausing between devouring bites. "Be still, you!'
He makes it so, immobilizing Harry as best as he's able, but Harry's wiry, and Auror-trained. He's also very athletic—clearly, they both like that trait, as Draco is as well. It explains how they've nearly climbed into each other's pants, though.
"Mmm…" Potter groans, after another long wet moment. He squirms in Draco's arms, one denim-clad leg nudging upwards inexorably and clamped against a wool-trousered hip, rumpling the expensive robe. His t-shirt's rucked under his armpits from where Draco's dragged at it with fingertips; there's pinkening marks where Draco's manicured nails have dug in Harry's ribcage. Draco's jaw is damp and glistens in the spotlight; he swipes at it absently and dives straight back under.
The audience squirms as they drink all this in, as one, and some members begin to fan themselves furiously with their parchment programs. This is not classical Shakespeare they're watching here—this is most definitely a scene lifted lock, stock and barrel out of some other play. Or perhaps a porno—and that's alright, really. Wizarding folk have a rather healthy respect for sex, the currency of Mother Earth.
"Oh….yes…yes!"
Harry moans, and he's not alone in that. Draco hisses and whimpers—or rather, emits small sounds of pleasure made faintly audible. It's the audience that's moaning louder than either of the actors, just a bit, and fidgeting a great deal more than they'd been when this herculean snog began. Knickers are likely growing damp with every passing second; certainly the temperature inside the magically cooled hall has risen sharply.
"Damn your eyes, Harry!"
Draco grinds out a nasty imprecation when he finally pulls back, though only just enough to allow his very willing captive to pant loudly, sucking in air through flaring nostrils and sighing it away with open mouth. Both concentrate on catching their breath for a moment, and then Draco swallows hard, long throat working, and pulls a face at his fellow actor, his mobile features visited with a long-suffering but not entirely displeased expression. He seems resigned, much as if Harry's spent the last few moments convincing him of the pros of some unspoken argument instead of kissing the daylights out of Draco in return.
"Oh?" He blinks, diverted. "And what did you do to them, anyway?" he asks, clearly as an aside. "They're all…funny."
He's greeted with a blank stare, slightly dazed, and proceeds to provide his fellow actor with a restorative jiggle.
"Your eyes? Not green? Those Muggly contacts, Harry, or just a spell?"
"Oh!" Potter's surprised, and then a bit shifty, glancing here and there with the eyes in question, not quite meeting the direct and searching stare of his companion. "Well. Yes. About that—y'see, I—well, I had an interview just now and—it was Muggle, and, ah—"
"Oh, don't bother," Draco sighs wearily. He presses a meditative, considering kiss to Harry's parted lips and draws back to regard him. Several members of the audience squeal, but it's not disruptive…or, not so much. "Tell me after, when you're through with whatever mischief it is you've managed. Promise, now."
Harry's eyebrows rise in silent question. He opens his swollen lips as if to protest, but Draco shakes his head wearily.
"No, no! it's not that I'm not curious, either. It's only 'cause I don't think I can stand to hear anything else upsetting at this very moment. All Hades has broken loose at home. You know how Father is."
Harry hesitates—and then nods, finally, with the tiniest of sympathetic smirks.
It's clear that a confession—later, after whatever it is Harry's up to is fully over with and past history—will come easily enough, just by the way Potter's face creases into a giant, overwhelmingly friendly grin. He's alight once more, a torch of mischievous spirit, burning sulphur-brilliant in the cage of his lover's arms, and he's apparently more than willing to cooperate with Draco…just, not right at this particular moment. But Draco seems to realize this, too, and there's no tension. His bout of quick impatience is blown over, and both are left only to indulge in a bit of heavy petting.
The audience fans itself meanwhile furiously with the playbills and there's quite a bit of quaffing of chilled beverages. It's a heated few moments, up there on stage.
Which they're clearly enjoying, too—the actors, that is.
The audience sighs blissfully. It's rather nice when two people rub along. 'Course, rubbing creates sparks, but then it's all about drama, isn't it—a play? A few chuckle appreciatively, as well. Likely they've been there, done that, and know the nuances of a spot of dirty dancing (politely known as 'compromise') very well.
"Promise, then," Harry replies eventually, and there's a hint of steel to it, and the clear implication he'll be following through, come what may. "You'll listen quietly the whole way through without flipping your lid, Draco."
"Bloody hell," Draco sighs, with one last long contemplative look at the gamine face upturned to his. "And bugger all, while we're at it, but you're a handful, too, mate." He sighs again, making a production of it. "Bugger this. What have I ever done to deserve it?" he casts his eyes up to some invisible deus ex machina, but then instantly gives it up as a bad show. "Well? Kiss me, then," he orders, frowning. "Want another before you go rushing off. And yes, of course—I'll listen. What d'you take me for?"
"Mmm."
Harry goes up on tiptoe, hands firmly curled about Draco's shoulders, and does as commanded, ever so gently, like a benefice or a blessing, squarely on the firm damp of Draco's lips. Then the corners, and then the length of throat below.
"I'll take you," Harry purrs, "and gladly."
Draco's eyes close ever so slowly, the pale lids heavy, and he's enspelled. Visibly.
"Love you," Harry whispers. Closes his eyes as well as he slides his open mouth deliberately down the length of Draco's front, trailing lips across every part of his chest and abdomen, thighs and one very faintly dark stubbled cheek in contact. His knees bend and bow as he crouches; spring taut as he rises back up. "Love you," he says again, and Draco's face is both twisted and slack, falling into an expression of pleased wonder…which then segues just as quickly into outright pleasure—with a distinct flavour of Malfoy assurance. "Love you…"
The audience—the ones that aren't still gasping over the implications of Harry's tongue's languorous visit to various exposed bits of Draco Malfoy—is grinning right along with him. It's a quiet little party, this; a festive event, even if it's all removed a pace away from them by the shield of the stage.
Because they are acting, are they not?
"…Likewise."
Mayhap it's not just 'acting' but that Muggly Method Acting the audience is seeing; a newfangled way of going about it, yes—but, oh, so effective!
The audience is deathly silent as the final echo of that deep croak fades away, muffled by swags of velvet and dense theatre carpeting. As is Draco, as he returns Potter's kiss with the precision of a professional ballet dancer, but then clearly he requires no carefully rehearsed dialogue to express what's bubbling up, as if from an overflowing cauldron, from his quite probably just as elegant interior. It's all inherent in his face, in the curve of his spine, in his revealed nape as he bends closer to strew touch and desire and love-in-action baby kisses over the willing planes of cheekbone and brow. Scarred brow. That, at least, like the hair, remains very recognizable.
It's time for action—no more words are needed. Nor wanted, either.
It's contained within Draco's hands, where they clutch, as it is in the pads of Harry's curiously delicate, lingering fingertips, curling and grasping, feather-light and determinedly clasping as a kitten's claws. It's evident in shared stance and symbiotic body language and stagey business and not even the faint swell of the unseen orchestra's opening music detracts nor adds to the ambient cloud of emotion, caught up between two actors—two people—poised upon one bare square of stage space, trompling toetips in their treacle-slow haste to climb into one another. Farther, deeper, in.
The kiss the magically bright gel spot highlights—and then dissolves ever so slowly away from, till the curtain is cloaked in darkness and the audience is left blinking, struggling to adjust their many eyes—is long and tender and infinitely slow. And time on stage is an exaggerated element in any case: each moment could be a span of hours, theatrically. The memory of it, just post, is reminiscent of butterflies dancing through the air as they mate—fragile like that, and as ethereally airy. It is so refulgent with sincerity, the emotion is nearly palpable, as if it could drip from the two actors, were it corporeal, and flood over the footlights. And lastly, it is passionate. Restrained, perhaps, but passionate as life itself is, telescoped into one small series of everyday actions.
It's a kiss, a snog: nothing more, nothing less. Was a kiss. It could mean anything, imply many things, and it is wide open to interpretation…therein lies the beauty of it.
When the house lights come up again, very briefly but bright as noon's brilliance, the two actors and the lamppost have vanished as if they never were. Without a pause, there begins a second series of timed blips to indicate the start of the real action—the play they've all come for, this nameless sea of viewers…and it's as though everyone awakes from a particularly pleasant daydream. They blink blown-wide pupils and they shift, juggling tumblers and cartons of popped corn, waxed paper-wrapped sweets, chocolate-covered nuts and dried fruits, frogs, malted balls and fiddly serviettes, playbills—their own belongings, too. Shifting to find a comfy state for the long haul, shuffling feet, settling in for a second time, this.
And too, the couples present adjust how they sit, leaning that scant smidge nearer one another, pressing the smooth slopes of shoulders. Strangers exchange knowing glances, and not a few fair number of the audience is a bit flushed about the edges and slipping fingers 'neath suddenly tight robes' collars.
For they've played witness to—nay, they've been drawn into—a private moment, and it was quite incredibly real. No faux theatrics, no false noses—no makeup nor costuming, and barely a single prop. Not much of a meaningful dialogue, either.
But no matter. Let it pass. It's not important, now. The real play's yet to come, after all. It was just…rather spiffing to have it so prefaced, that's all. A reminder of what's truly important…
…For who has not kissed, not touched, in such a way as to give love? To receive love, in reply? And who, amongst the audience, who is there who has not wished nor dreamt of such things, such moments, fleeting, fondly, sweetly, and allowed the light inherent to open up all sorts of dark inner spaces? The closets of the mind, aired out and filled with cleansing light—the joyously simple spell of 'Lumos!', nearly always the first ever learnt by a wizard.
The play's the thing, really. Gifts intangible are contained within: light and sound and action, brought together in one place, intersecting—shared.
The play's the thing.
