Pairing: Hermione/Harry
Genre(s): Humor/Romance
Rated: T
Behind the Scenes of "Horcrux: The Musical"
The raven-haired young man sat next to the dejected-looking young woman on the worn cot. He put a comforting arm around her, and she laid her head on his shoulder.
"What are we going to do, Harry?" she cried softly. "It's just the two of us now. How are we going to hunt down all the Horcruxes by ourselves?"
Harry turned his head and grazed his lips against the top of her hair. "You're the brightest witch in the world, Hermione. If anyone can help me find and destroy all the Horcruxes, it's you. We don't need anyone else."
Hermione raised her head and smiled at him shyly. "Do you really believe that?"
He ran his fingers through her brown curls and cupped the back of her head. "I only ever needed you, Hermione."
He slowly angled his head toward her, and she deliberately leaned in toward him.
"Cut!" yelled a shrill voice in the dark, beyond the glare of the bright lights. "Cut, cut, cut!"
Harsh whispering echoed through the wide auditorium, and then someone yelled out, "House lights up, please!"
The chandelier lights turned on, illuminating the entire theater. Ten rows deep, a bushy-haired woman was standing up and bracing herself against the red seat in front of her, glaring at a reedy man in a black turtleneck shirt standing in the aisle.
Two young men sat on either side of her, one whose face was twisted in a disgusted grimace, and the other whose jaw looked to be unhinged.
"What," the woman said, her voice still stuck in her upper register, "in the bloody hell was that?!"
The man in the turtleneck shrugged one shoulder nonchalantly. "I've directed the actors to follow the natural tension of the scene."
She rifled through the thick manuscript clutched in her hands. "Who wrote this bloody rubbish?" she muttered.
On the third page of the script, she saw the name of the culprit. "'Stage play based on Harry Potter: A Completely and Fully Authorized Biography, I Promise, by Rita Skeeter,'" she snarled. "You do realize that this fraud doesn't know the definition of the word 'authorized?' Nor the word, 'promise?'"
She tossed the offending item over her shoulder. It landed on top of her red-haired friend's head, knocking the grimace off his face.
"This is why we asked you to be here," the director responded, looking like he would have tossed the end of his scarf over his shoulder, had he thought to wear one that day. "We have a beautifully-written script, but we brought you in to consult. To give authenticity to our play."
"Thank bloody Merlin we're here, then!" she shrieked, waving her arms toward the stage, where the two actors sat in silence. "This is absolutely – it's so – how –"
"Disgusting," helped her red-haired friend. The dark-haired man two seats from him cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. "I mean, Hermione and Harry are basically siblings. They would never – yech –"
His whole body shuddered at the disturbing thought.
"Right," agreed Hermione, though in a much quieter tone. Her already-pink face turned a shade darker. "It's, uh, disgusting."
"So gross," Harry mumbled softly.
Their eyes briefly met. Hermione quickly looked away to glare at the stage while Harry found something extremely interesting on the ceiling of the theater.
