Warnings: This story is Slash, meaning MalexMale relationships. Keep in mind, I warned you, even though it doesn't get really good ((like yaoi good)) until sometime around Act 3. Oh well. I'll try to hurry along the chapters, if you all keep reviewing.
Enjoy Act 1, Scene 1
~Act 1~Scene One
Harry sat at his favorite table in his favorite café in the outskirts of London, pouring over several books of Shakespearean monologues, sonnets and poems. A cup of tea and a croissant lay beside him, just inside his field of reach, but not close enough that he could accidentally knock them over and spill the contents of his cup over his precious books. He resituated his glasses on his face and read over several verses.
" 'To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off the mortal coil,
Must give us pause.'
Naw, too…overly contemplative. The play may be a tragic tale of star-crossed lovers, but I'm not trying to be that melancholy. Hm…"
Harry sighed and flipped through to another page in the largest of the books before him.
"Here's one, perhaps.
'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.'
No, I don't feel like being pelted with fake ears from the bastards who carry them around to these auditions for just that purpose. What about…Macbeth?"
He opened to the section and chose one at random.
" 'What are these,
So wither'd, and so wild in their attire,
That look not like th' inhabitants o' th' earth,
And yet are on't? Live you, or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand me,
By each at once her choppy fingers laying
Upon her skinny lips. You should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.'
Yeah. That's a good way to piss off all the women, and the entire magical community in the room. Macbeth, were thou not so offensive, perhaps the life thou dist lose, would preserv'd have been. Hm…what about something happy…from, say, Love's Labour's Lost?"
He flipped to that part in his large book.
" 'When icicles hand by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail-' There is no way in hell I could get through that without bursting into hysterical laughter!" he said chuckling. "Try again! Hm…
'But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain,
But with the motion of all elements
Courses as swift as thought in every power,
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye:
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind.
A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd.
Love's feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails;
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.
For valour, is not Love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as a Sphinx; as sweet and musical
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair.
And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.
Never durst poet touch a pen to write
Until his ink were temp'red with Love's sighs.'"
Harry's head shot up with the sound of applause coming from around him. During his reading of the soliloquy, he had become the center of attention in the small café. He smiled, but was too well trained by his stage performances to blush at his embarrassment. With a slight inclination of his head, he turned back to his readings.
"I guess the populous demands this as my monologue. I suppose it works too. The play is about undying love, and I daresay that this soliloquy captures the essence of what Shakespeare intends as a theme of Romeo and Juliet."
"I very much agree," came a familiar voice behind Harry. Harry jumped before looking up and recognizing Hermione Granger as the speaker. She was standing beside her fiancé, Ron Weasley, Harry's best friend since his first day at Hogwarts so many years ago.
"I swear, ol' chap, you only get better and better as time goes on!" Ron said excitedly. This time, Harry couldn't control himself. He blushed a bright red, almost matching Ron's vibrant hair.
"I was just choosing my monologue for an audition I have tomorrow for-"
"Harry James Potter!" Hermione began. "You have an audition tomorrow and you are choosing a monologue now!? You haven't changed a bit since you've left Hogwarts," she said dramatically, sitting down across from him. Ron pulled up another chair from a nearby table and sat down too, arms draped across the back of the chair, as he straddled the backwards chair. Ron gave him a thumbs-up.
"Don't worry, Harry. I'm sure you can manage. Haven't you done Macbeth before?"
"Yes, but the soliloquy I was reading came from King Lear."
"Oh."
"It's OK, Ron," Harry said, patting him on the back. "Not too many people would recognize it out of the blue anyways, unless you're a Shakespeare scholar, or something."
"I recognized it," Hermione replied indignantly.
"You don't count," Harry countered.
"Yeah, you take 'scholar' to a whole new level!" Ron insisted. "You know everything about everything."
"And if you don't, we all know that you'll quickly rectify the situation," Harry added with a grin. Hermione sniffed.
"If any of you cared to learn something, you could be in the same position."
"But we spent all of our time at Hogwarts goofing off with the invisibility cloak-" Harry began.
"And Wizard's Chess-" Ron added
"And Quidditch-"
"And the Marauder's Map-"
"And proving Snuffles was innocent-"
"And bugging that git, Malfoy-"
"And fighting Volde-"
"That's quite enough from both of you!" Hermione interjected, then her voice dropped to a whisper. "Those scars are still too new for the others around us. Don't draw attention to yourself by brining up You-Know-Who, Harry." Harry nodded as he looked around the popular wizard café, and there was an awkward pause.
"Yeah, uh, so what are you two doing here? I thought you were out of town for the weekend?" Harry said, changing the subject less than gracefully.
"Well, we planned on being out of town, but at the last second, the twins had to cancel on us. Something about exploding toilets at Hogwarts and Aurors." There was a short moment of silence before all three of them burst into hysterical laughter.
"Leave it to the two of them to be able to terrorize the teachers, even if they aren't attending the school!" Harry said through his merrily watering eyes.
"Yeah, and now it's trouble times three! They've found another employee who's just as insane as they are, if not worse!" Ron said gleefully.
"Really?" Harry asked. The thought of a third Weasley twin was frightening to a certain degree.
"Yep. She works there on weekends and after school. She's a Hogwarts 6th year Gryffindor, and is, from Ginny's report quite…energetic."
"She?" Harry asked
"Yeah, oddly enough. Her name is Kat. Kat Martin, and Ginny says she hasn't seen anyone so smitten with Oliver Wood in all of her life." Ron smiled, and Harry nodded. Ginny Weasley was in her second year out of Hogwarts, and was acting as Professor McGonagall's assistant. Oliver Wood had decided in Harry's 7th year to return to Hogwarts as the new Flying Teacher and Quidditch referee, and had been the subject of many a young student's interest. The Weasley twins of course, constantly ridiculed him for this, but he put up with it good-humoredly.
"Well, do you have any messages for them?" Harry asked. "Cause my auditions are over in Hogsmead in The Globe Theatre, version 2.0 as we call it."
"There's a theatre in Hogsmead?" Hermione asked.
"There is now. It's a new addition. Don't you remember? Construction was just beginning when we graduated."
"Oh! I remember now. But it's not really in Hogsmead, is it?"
"No, it' just outside the city boundaries, but it's close enough that I'll be staying in Hogsmead. I'll probably spend two or three days there, catching up with Dumbledore and the others, after the audition."
"Are you still trying to convince him to put in an arts department?" Ron asked. It had been a favorite topic of Harry's to petition for a new arts department at least once a month in his final two years, but Dumbledore had still not given in.
"Yes, but that's not the reason I'm staying."
"So you've heard the rumors too?" Hermione asked, referring to evil rumors spreading around dark alleys that Voldemort was once more returning to power.
"Yes, I have. Sirius said something frightening the last time I talked to Remus and him. He said, 'Harry, be careful. You are easy to track down, and death has already proven to not be final.' To tell you the truth, he scared the crap out of me." Harry shuddered as he remembered his last encounter with Voldemort during his seventh year. They had all thought he was dead, but apparently Voldemort never dies.
"Um, yeah. Well, how are Remus and Sirius?" Ron asked. Harry smiled at the very obvious subject change. Undoubtedly, Ron was also remembering the last encounter they had with Voldemort. Ron had come within centimeters of death, and it was not something forgotten easily.
"They are doing well. They send their love, and they want to tell you, they are definitely going to make it to the wedding, even if they have to fight off a Dementor and a pack of Snapes to make it. Or maybe it was the other way around, since I believe they find a single Snape more frightening than a pack of Dementors…" They all grinned. Remus Lupin, an old friend of Harry's father and godfather, and Sirius Black, Harry's godfather himself, were very good friends of Ron, Hermione and Harry. Sirius, having had his name cleared with the capture of Peter, the real murder, in Harry's seventh year, was now an Auror with the Ministry of Magic. Remus lived with Sirius as his lover and spouse, and was working with the Ministry's mediwitches and mediwizards to try and find a vaccination or a cure for werewolf victims. They were actually approaching success, or so Remus said.
"That's great. And you'll be there too, right?" Ron asked.
"Do you really think I would miss the wedding of my two best friends? Hardly. I don't care if they stone me out of theatre for life." Harry laughed. "After all, I can always go work for Percy in the Ministry." Ron's older brother, Percy, was now the Minister of Magic, and was slightly less irritating than he had been when Harry had first made his acquaintance.
"Dangerous thing, working for Percy!" Ron said. "He might up and die of embarrassment for having to order around the Harry Potter."
"Shaddap, Ron," Harry said. "The last thing I need is someone else kissing my arse. So what brings you two to this backwater café? Lunch away from all the hustle and bustle of city life?" Ron and Hermione both lived in the middle of London, the former had taken over for his father in the department of misuse of muggle artifacts in the Ministry, and the latter was a well-known mediwitch. Harry, on the other hand, lived in a small apartment only a few blocks away, not for lack of funds due to his profession, but more because he enjoyed a small apartment to a large house of any kind.
"No, actually, we were looking for you," Hermione said.
"Yeah, Helen told us we would find you here," Ron added. Hermione gave Harry a death glare at the mention of his house elf. She was still a proud member of S.P.E.W. and the idea of owning house elves.
"Herm, please don't give me that. You know I didn't ask for her. She just appeared, and won't go away. What else am I supposed to do?"
"You could try letting her go."
"So she could either go out looking for a new master, who happens to be more cruel than I am, or so she could continue to work for me for the same amount of money I force on her each month? What purpose would that serve? Herm, just think for a moment. She's happy to be working, I'm very thankful to have her to clean up when I don't have the chance, and I treat her very well. Everyone but you is happy, so just leave well enough alone, and let's talk about something else, ok?" Hermione looked slightly embarrassed, but didn't respond. "So, why were you looking for me?"
"Well, we were wondering if you would do us a favor," Ron answered when Hermione didn't respond.
"Of course. What would you like me to do?"
"Could you watch Angel, Fuzzmuffin, and Bob for us this week? We were planning on going out to make the final preparations for the wedding and we didn't want to have to bring them if we didn't need to…" Ron said. Harry nodded.
"No problem. I love the little rascals. Your kittens are the cutest things this I have ever seen," he said with a grin. "And I bet the reason you came over yourselves rather than owled is because you have them with you now?" Ron and Hermione blushed, and Harry knew he had hit the nail on the head.
"Yeah, well, we were planning on leaving this afternoon, and we…"
"Don't worry. There's no reason to defend yourselves to me. I'll happily return the favor sometime and hand over Snowball and Hedwig before I leave on a trip, ok?" he said, referring to his own black fuzz ball of a cat, and his snowy owl with a wink. "Besides, Snowball's always bored to tears in unfamiliar hotel rooms. He'll love the company when we get to Hogsmead. So when do you want them back?"
"Actually, could you leave them with Fred and George before you come up for the wedding. They volunteered to watch them for our honeymoon…" Ron blushed and Harry laughed again.
"You want them back of course? Why don't I just keep them with me until you're back? Otherwise, you may get them back multicolored or transfigured into strange objects, if you get them back at all." Harry smiled as Ron and Hermione looked thankful. They spent the better part of the rest of the afternoon catching up with each other, until Hermione and Ron finally looked at the time, and decided they had better be going. They left a smiling Harry at his house with two calico kittens, both Hermione's, and a cream cat, which was Ron's, as well as his books, and drove off to the site of the upcoming wedding.
Thanks a ton to people who have reviewed! I would especially like to thank the first two people, and the only ones who have reviewed this far, Wingardium et Leviosa ((Merci beaucoup! Je vous aime!)) and ladystarlight ((This is going places right now! Hope you enjoy how quickly I threw the next chapter up!)).
PLEASE READ AND REVIEW MORE! ::decides to revert to bribery:: I'll give everyone who reviews this chapter cookies in the next one!!! PLEASE REVIEW!