CHAPTER 10

Everything was going well. Hermione and Draco had finally caught up with the rest of their classmates, they had Vince and Ari to teach them about the status quo and things like that, though they rarely paid attention to that, and their lessons with Shane were really helping.

Even chorus was turning out to be fun. Their voices were developing and so were their social skills. Once the others got past their curiosity, Hermione and Draco found that everyone was rather intrigued by their accents and they made friends quickly. They were rather popular.

When Britt came back to school two days after his and Draco's 'encounter' with a broken nose, skirting Draco in the halls and actually not bullying anyone, it caused quite a stir. Draco refused to comment on it and Britt was hardly speaking at all. All that put Draco in a very good mood.

'Hermione, Draco!' Ari yelled, running toward them at lunch. 'Tina said to tell you to come to YAT today. She has your parts!' She collapsed across from them, panting but smiling.

'Really?' Hermione asked, nervous and excited at the same time. 'Why couldn't you just tell us?'

'We don't know your parts,' Vince said, sitting down beside Ari. 'But we think they must be good because she said that she needed to kick some other people down a few notches.' Draco punched the air with his fist.

'Woo!' he said triumphantly. 'We got good parts in the first play we've ever been in. Wow, that's impressive. Who do you think we are?'

'I think you're a T-bird and a Pink Lady,' Ari piped up. 'She otherwise she wouldn't have had to change someone else's part. If you had been a teen or an extra or a featured performer or something she just would've added you. You must have a predefined character that there can't be more than one of,' she reasoned.

'Wicked,' Hermione said. She gave Draco a quick kiss and a high five. 'This is too much. I've never had to memorize lines or anything. I was never even in any school plays,' she added worriedly, wringing her hands in her lap.

'Hermione, we'll be fine. Remember, I have a few methods to help with memorization,' he said, adding a discreet wink. She nodded, mollified but still nervous. He put his arm around her and she sighed happily. Ari let out a loud 'aw' and Hermione looked at her.

'It's just…you two are so cute!' she squeaked. Hermione was reminded forcibly of Lavender jumping up and down on the spot and clapping her hands in delight when she had first seen Harry and Ginny kiss, and she laughed. 'What's so funny?' Ari asked, as though Hermione had been making fun of her.

'Nothing, it's just that you reminded me of a girl from my old school,' she answered still chuckling.

'Who?' Draco asked.

'Lavender,' she said, looking up at him. He nodded and smiled, chuckling slightly.

'Yeah, I can see that,' he said. Ari glanced from one to the other suspiciously, unsure if this comparison was insulting or complimentary. She seemed to let it go, though, as she rolled her eyes and turned back to her lunch.

'So we just go straight to YAT after school?' Hermione asked tentatively, as though the entire deal had expired during their distraction.

'Yeah, we'll take you to her office,' Vince said. 'I hope you guys can memorize fast enough,' he added worriedly. 'Me and Ari already have the majority of our lines memorized. You think you can do it?'

'Of course we can,' Hermione said, more to reassure herself then everyone else. 'It can' be that hard. It's not like we're going to get the leads, or anything.'

As soon as the bell rang that afternoon, Hermione, Draco, Ari and Vince were sprinting toward YAT, excitement, anticipation, and anxiety fueling their energy. They reached the large pink building in record time, all four of them puffing and wheezing.

'Okay…her office is through…that door…right there,' Vince panted, pointing at one of the two white doors off the lobby. 'Catch your breath first. Don't want you to seem too overly eager,' he added with a smile, seeing their flushed faces.

Draco and Hermione took a moment to smarten themselves up, straightening their hair and clothes, regulating their breathing, suppressing their frantic suspense. They took a deep breath, looked at Ari and Vince, who smiled encouragingly, and stepped over the threshold.

Tina was sitting behind a cluttered desk reading over what looked like a script. She looked up when they entered and, smiling, gestured that they sit in the two chairs situated across from her. They did so, smiling back at her nervously.

'You two got my message?' she asked.

They nodded.

'Good. This was a very difficult decision and I've put a lot of thought into it. You two are very talented, though inexperienced, and we had a few actors who, though also talented, had attitudes left something to be desired. You guys have great attitudes, eagerness, raw talent, all the things needed for great stars. So I have cast you as…' She paused for dramatic tension. Hermione edged forward in her seat and Draco gripped her hand tightly.

'Danny and Sandy!' Tina yelled, beaming at the pair of them.

They stared at her in a state of shocked disbelief. They looked at each other, their worries and fears reflected clearly in their eyes, then back at Tina, who didn't notice the anxiety at all.

'Th-the leads?' Hermione choked out, exerting a grip so tight on Draco's hand that he winced in pain. 'The leads?'

'Don't you think that's a little, er, hasty, Ms. Williams?' Draco said reasonably. 'After all, we have no experience whatsoever, we've never been in any other shows-'

'Oh, I have complete faith in you,' Tina said confidently. 'Ari and Vince, both talented and experienced, can help you get acclimated and trained up a bit, and you've already got the talent. What's the problem? You'll be amazing! Here are the scripts and a copy of the rehearsal schedules,' Tina said, thrusting the stacks of papers into their hands and shuffling them out the door. 'Bye!'

Hermione stood frozen, staring blankly at the closed door of the office they had just vacated. 'Draco? What just happened?' she asked quietly, almost fearing the answer, hoping it would change. Her stage fright was swooping lower and lower, threatening to overtake her at any moment.

'I'm not sure,' he said slowly, also still staring at the door. He turned around, gazing in disbelief at the script in his hands, and came face to face with Ari, who was almost beside herself with excitement.

'So?' she asked loudly, causing Hermione, who had momentarily forgotten she was there, to jump and spin around. 'What parts did you get? Come on, tell us! We're dying over here!' she squealed, her face inches from Draco's, Vince looking amused behind her.

'Calm down, Ari,' he said, pulling her back by the shoulder. 'I'm sure they won't leave us hanging for long…So?' he added, looking at them expectantly.

Unable to speak, Hermione silently held out her script to Ari. Draco, following her lead, handed his over to Vince. Both teens only had to glance at the words across the top of the scripts before they understood. Ari clapped her hand to her mouth and let out a muffled scream and Vince looked flabbergasted and impressed.

'Sandy?!' Ari gasped, astonished, staring from the script, to Hermione, and back again. Hermione gave her a guilty smile and shrugged helplessly.

'Danny?!'' Vince said in the same incredulous tone. But he was smiling when he looked up at Draco. He thumped him on the back in congratulations, beaming at him. 'Good going, Draco! Great job. You'll be great, I just know it!'

'Sandy? Wow, Hermione, that's great!' Ari said, finally accepting this spectacular turn of events. 'I just know you'll be fabulous. And Sandy's supposed to have a bit of an accent already so yours won't matter very much,' she added brightly, pulling Hermione into a tight hug.

Hermione seemed to be the slowest in accepting this. Her brain felt fuzzy, clogged, stopped. How could this be happening to her? How was she supposed to be the lead role in an amazing play with no experience and almost no warning? Was having talented friends helping you enough? Would she and Draco be able to memorize all their lines in time?

'Well, there is one thing that's pretty cool about this,' she said, beaming at Draco.

'What?' Draco asked her curiously, putting his arms around her

'Our situation is sort of similar to theirs, don't you think?' she said happily.

'Really?' he said, looking thoughtful.

'Yeah. I'm a bookworm and you acted different around your friends than you did around me,' she said. As he considered this she turned to Ari and Vince to explain. 'When I first met him he was the biggest git you could ever meet, I would have gone so far as to say evil at the time. I hated him with a passion for the first six years I knew him.

'Then we found some common ground, I actually spoke to him, and we really hit it off. He was all aloof and mean whenever his friends were around, but as soon as we had to be alone together he was completely different. I managed to get him to act normally around everyone else and now he doesn't have to pretend anymore,' she said, beaming at him adoringly. He gave her shoulders a little squeeze and kissed the top of her head.

'That does sound like Danny and Sandy! How fitting,' Vince said, clapping Draco on the shoulder and leading him to the door. Hermione and Ari followed. 'You guys need to get some dance attire. Jazz pants, dance tops, jazz shoes for Draco, character shoes for Hermione, that sort of thing. You can get most of that at Dance Now or online.'

'We'll loan you some of our clothes until you get some. I think we're about the same size, Hermione,' Ari said, looking at her scrupulously. 'But you may just have to wait until they shoes come because I think your feet are smaller than mine.'

'Right. So the first rehearsal is tomorrow at four o'clock. See you then,' Vince said, waving at them and setting off down the road, Ari skipping alongside him, leaving the new leads alone again.

Neither of them said anything for a moment or two, just gaped in astonishment at the scripts they still held in their hands. Hermione opened her mouth to say something but the words died in her throat so she closed it again. Her mind was in overdrive, thinking over all the possible problems, all the things that could go wrong, and she was losing confidence every second.

'How did…why did she…what just happened?' she asked again, her voice sounding small and timid even to her. Draco looked her in the eyes, seeing once again the fear and trepidation shining in the honey orbs, sure the look was reflected in his own, and smiled in what he hoped was a happy and reassuring way.

'Apparently we're…good,' he said simply. 'I don't know how or when it happened, but we are good. She likes us. We got the leads. Honestly, I have no idea how this happened but let's just be glad it did, okay? We'll be fine. We can use memory spells to help us memorize our lines, we can practice our dances together. We have a big advantage with magic. We'll do great,' he said, as much to reassure himself as his panicking girlfriend.

Hermione took a few deep breaths and smiled back. She threw her arms around his neck and murmured, 'Thanks, I needed that.' He stroked her back and turned on the spot, disappeared, and reappeared in his bedroom.

'Let's just take a nap, a little break to clear our heads,' he said, flopping down on the bed and pulling Hermione down with him. 'We have a lesson with Shane in an hour so we should take full advantage of our little free time.'

'Oh, I wish I had my timeturner back,' Hermione moaned, cuddling closer to his chest. 'Then we could have as much time for everything as we need instead of having to rush around and panic.'

'Don't I wish,' Draco chuckled.

'You know, we can sleep tonight. I think we should use this time to start memorizing our lines. With the use of a few well placed spells I think we could have them all memorized by tomorrow. I need to get rid of my accent and you need to soften yours but I bet there are spells for that, too,' Hermione said, hopping up and plunging her hand into her pocket for her wand.

'Right,' Draco sighed, sitting up reluctantly and looking at the words on his script for the first time. 'So I'm the bad boy? And you're the bookworm goody-two-shoes? How appropriate. Makes getting into character much easier. What are those accent spells? I can't be a very good Danny with a British accent, now, can I?' he chuckled.

Hermione sat down across from him, pointing her wand into his face, and said, 'Retire Acento.' He felt a pleasant tingling in his throat and mouth and he smiled.

'Well, did it work?' He gasped. His accent was gone! He sounded like he had been born and raised in America. 'Whoa! That is so cool! Okay, what's the one for you? Do you want your accent to be gone or just softened?'

'I don't know. She is supposed to have an accent but it's more of an Australian accent than a British one. What do you think?' she asked thoughtfully.

'I think you should just take it off entirely,' he said. 'Then you can add another one if you want it. We can get our accents back, can't we?' he added apprehensively.

'Yes, we can. These charms need weekly reinforcement or you will revert to your old accents. They also have countercharms so you can just take it off. Okay, you can do mine. Just point your wand at my mouth and say "Retire Acento."' she said.

Draco rummaged around for a moment and removed his wand from his pocket, pointed it at Hermione and said the incantation. She smiled as she, too, felt the tickling sensations spreading through her throat, mouth and jaw.

'Well? How do I sound?' she asked enthusiastically. Then she laughed. Her accent had disappeared, too. 'That is cool!' she laughed. Draco laughed with her and gave her a hug.

'Wow! This is going to take some definite getting used to. Okay, what are the memory spells?' he asked, relishing the odd feeling of hearing what seemed to be someone else's voice issuing from his own mouth.

Hermione placed the tip of her wand to her temple and said, 'Realce Memória.' The tip of her wand glowed white for a moment and then faded. She repeated her actions with Draco. A warm glow spread from the tip of her wand on his temple and the room seemed to come into sharper focus. His mind was sharper than it usually was, absorbing every detail of everything around him. It was an interesting feeling.

'Great. Let's read through our one-on-one scenes,' he said, pulling his script closer to him and finding their first individual conversation.

They read through the scenes they shared, read the cue lines for each other, helped with inflections and attitudes, and basically memorized their lines and the blocking that was written in. The spells allowed them to take in twice as much as they normally could, allowing them to memorize the entire script by the time Shane showed up.

'I hear you're starting marching band next week,' he said as he pulled up the same kitchen stool he always sat on. 'You'll need to memorize all of your music. You won't have any music stands on the field but you'll start out with music clips on your instruments.'

Draco and Hermione stood up and hefted their instruments, having been told to practice standing up. Much grumbling and complaining had ensued after their band instructor had ordered this but they all obeyed anyway.

'Do you have the music with you?' Hermione asked. They planned to take full advantage of their memory charms. They could shoot two birds with one stone. 'We could start memorizing it now.'

'Sure. Here you go,' Shane said, handing them each three sheets of complicated music. He watched them scan the music a few times, fingering along separately, then they looked up and smiled. 'You ready to try it? I have a recording for you to play along with so you'll have all the parts.' He pushed play on the recording.

The song started out slow and mournful, gradually building up tension using rests and dissonance. Then it suddenly switched to an upbeat fiesta-style section with many trills and near-octave jumps. Then it dropped low again, before building tension once again to an abrupt, dissonance ending chord, leaving a sense of excitement and tension in the air. They played it perfectly from memory. Shane was nothing less but astounded.

'How did you do that?' he asked, thunderstruck, staring from one to the other. Hermione and Draco exchanged worried glances.

'We, uh, memorize really fast?' Draco said uneasily. It was true, in a way, but it just wasn't quite natural.

'That was amazing! I've never seen anyone memorize music that fast, or play it perfectly the first time through!' Shane said excitedly. 'And how your accents disappeared overnight! You guys are so cool! You're just full of surprises, aren't you?'

'Yeah, full of surprises,' Hermione muttered, avoiding his eyes. They went back to practicing, playing it near perfect every time, just making sure it was all cemented in their minds. Shane was still dwelling on their amazing 'memories.'

Hermione collapsed on the couch after returning their instruments to their respective cases and putting them back in their rooms. 'I can't believe it! He is so suspicious,' she moaned. 'We need to be more careful about the evidence of our enchantments.'

'Yeah, we do,' Draco agreed, flopping down next to her. 'But I bet I can get your mind off it,' he said, his voice low and suggestive. Hermione smiled up at him and giggled.

'I'll bet you can,' she whispered.

Hermione leaned up and kissed Draco gently. He placed a hand on her cheek and pulled her into his lap. She smiled against his lips and draped her arms around his neck. He deepened the kiss, wrapping an arm around her waist and slipping his tongue into her mouth to do gentle battle with hers.

It was a sweet, gentle kiss, filled with meaning and tenderness. They didn't get to spend much alone time together lately due to their increasingly difficult and immense load of homework, their challenging instrumental lessons, and now YAT. They were spending more time working than they were anything else and it was starting to wear them down.

They broke apart, panting and flushed, but they sustained eye contact. They tried to convey all of their feelings, both said and unsaid, through their eyes, all the things they couldn't put into words. They shared one more light kiss and were content to just hold each other.

Hermione, reluctant though she was to break the loving silence, her sense overpowering her comfortableness, spoke. 'We should probably run through our lines again, then go to bed. We have a big day tomorrow.'

Draco moaned, remembering all the things they needed to do the next day, and stood up, stretching. 'If we must,' he muttered, dragging himself into his bedroom, Hermione following in his wake.

They had been sharing Draco's room almost every night since they had arrived in America. They didn't do anything, just slept cuddled together comfortably. They saw nothing wrong with this, and Hermione used her room for storage of her clothes and private things. It was a comfy and cozy arrangement that they both enjoyed.

The couple ran through the entire play again, without their scripts, perfectly, and got dressed for bed. Draco wore silk pajama pants but no shirt, and Hermione wore a flannel tank top and shorts. They slept back to front, Hermione curled contentedly against his chest, his arms around her slender waist.