A/N: Wowzies, I haven't updated in a really long time… sorry, guys. Oh, I guess I should tell you basically who's in NFG so you know. Jordan Pundik is the vocalist, Cyrus Bolooki plays drums, Ian Grushka plays bass, and Steve Klein and Chad Gilbert play guitar. Ok, we're all good now.
Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter, don't own NFG (that would be their label, MCA, and also Drive-Thru records)
Chapter 16
"Professor Dumbledore!" five boys (er… men, they're in their twenties!) chorused in unison.
"Hello, Jordan, Cyrus, Ian, Chad, Steven," Professor Dumbledore said, shaking each of their hands warmly as he said their names. "How are you five doing?"
Chad, wearing jeans and a shirt that said 'I'm not good with names, so I'll just call you Asshole' said, "Well, we just finished a U.S. tour and went home to Florida-" (A/N: I know I said earlier that they started their band in Cali. I was wrong. Dammit.) "-Then we got your owl and decided we'd come up to play and visit our old school."
Ian spoke up then, adjusting his Hawaiian-print shirt that he was wearing over plaid pants. (Wow, he doesn't match. That must be where Dobby gets his fashion sense.) "We're glad you invited us to play here, Professor!"
"It was no problem, Ian. In fact, it wasn't my idea; it was the idea of our Gryffindor Head Boy, Devin Lynch. Oh! That reminds me. There are no classes for the students today, would you like to visit your old houses or have a bite of breakfast first?" asked Dumbledore. "I'm sure you might be hungry…" he said, blue eyes twinkling. Dumbledore looked at Devin and Hermione who were standing by the wall looking like they were quite out of place.
"Oh! Boys, this is Miss Hermione Granger and this is Mr. Devin Lynch. Two very fine students, though I daresay they've had their own fair share of rule-breaking… moving on! They're going to help you get settled in today so you can play this evening at the Halloween Ball. You will be staying the night, I expect…?"
"That's right, Professor," said Cyrus. "Hey, Hermione, I like your shirt!" he said, laughingly, because it was one of his bands' concert shirts.
"Er… thanks?" Hermione replied nervously. "I like yours too!" Cyrus looked down at his black 'Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups' tee, then at his black jeans and red skate shoes.
"Eh, needs more color!" he laughed. "But thank you!"
Devin didn't seem nervous at all, and immediately broke in with, "Professor, should we show them where they'll be staying for tonight?"
"Sure, Devin. Boys, are you going to leave your equipment here or move it into the Great Hall?" asked Dumbledore. "I have several duties I need to attend to, but I'm sure you can handle everything with Devin and Hermione here…" he gave everyone a wave, took out his wand, and transported himself out of the Entrance Hall.
"I don't wanna move it now…" whined Steve, pretending to be a little kid. He then shrugged his shoulders in his red DC skateboarding company t-shirt, took a few steps, tripped on his pants, and stopped whining. "What you think, Jordan?"
Jordan took his wand out of the pocket of his baggy jeans and said, "Why don't we do it the easy way? Um… Hermione, is there already a stage set up in the Great Hall?"
"I'm not sure… Maybe you guys should just take your things up to where you'll be staying, and then come down after breakfast and see, that way you won't be swarmed by teenaged girls and guys while you're in there," she replied, her nervousness gradually disappearing as she spoke.
"Sounds like a plan to me," said Ian. Each band member grabbed a duffel bag out of the pile of equipment. "Where're we going now?"
"Well, what House were you five in?" asked Devin.
**At Gryffindor Tower**
Devin spoke the password and the Fat Lady's portrait swung open. But not before she squealed, "Is that New Found Glory?"
As they entered the common room, Chad dropped his duffel on the floor and said, "Well, everything looks pretty much the same. Even the Fat Lady's still here."
"Yeah…" Cyrus' mouth was open as he looked around.
"Okay, well, Professor Dumbledore figured that you would want to stay in a dorm, and there's an unused one up the stairs to your right, third door. There's five beds up there and that's where you'll sleep," said Hermione. "
"Devin, go show them."
There were thumping noises as the band grabbed all their crap and followed Devin up the stairs. There were even more noises when they came back down and addressed Hermione who was standing there, tapping her foot.
"Can we go eat breakfast now?" asked Jordan.
"I'd take a pen, I bet people will want autographs," said Hermione. All five boys held up pens. "Well, I think you guys know the way, you can probably go now."
**Back in the Great Hall**
Back in the Great Hall, practically everyone was still sitting down, waiting for New Found Glory to come in. When they finally did, there was a lot of screaming, even from the Slytherins. Hermione and Devin slipped around everybody and sat back down at the Gryffindor table. After about ten minutes of autograph-signing and picture-taking, Jordan, Chad, Cyrus, Steve and Ian sat down at the Gryffindor table as well and started talking to themselves and people by them as they grabbed stuff to eat.
"So that's New Found Glory," said Neville, holding the demo CD Jordan had given him when he said he had never been able to hear their music before. "They seem cool, they were nice to me… the one with the thumbtacks in his ears gave me a… um… round thing," he finished helplessly.
"CD. You put it in Muggle compact disc players, and it plays the music," Dean told him.
"This is AWESOME!" hissed Harry to Seamus, like a little teenybopper. "Did you see Malfoy's face when they sat down here?" he giggled evilly. "Okay, since when do I GIGGLE?"
Right about then, the all-powerful author stepped in and said, "Well, it IS my story. Anyway, can I have an autograph?" she whispered to the band. All five guys signed the scrap of paper that she had, then with a poof, she was gone.
"Okay, that was weird," said Ron to Hermione. Harry widened his eyes at Ron as Ron turned back toward him.
"ASK HER!" he mouthed.
"Er… hey, Hermione," Ron asked. She had been asking Cyrus a question about the type of cymbals he used, but when Ron said her name, she whipped around.
"Yes?"
"Er… youwangoballwime?" Ron inwardly smacked himself. He sounded extremely retarded.
Hermione's face flushed. "Really? You're asking me and not just as a last resort?"
"You understood what I said? Wow, no wonder you've the highest grades in the class."
Hermione looked confused, but she smiled. "Yes, I 'd like to go to the ball with you!" She blushed again, but was now smiling happily when she turned around to finish her conversation with NFG's drummer.
Harry and Dean looked at each other and then at Ron, then Dean said, "Way to score, Red!"
***
"Balls and dances. I hated those things," Ian groaned. "I could never get a date…"
"Well, we're just playing the music this time," said Jordan as he took a sip of pumpkin juice. "Speaking of music, what do you think we should play?"
"The Ball is four hours long," said Steve. "We can't possibly play straight through for that long without our fingers falling off, Cyrus' arms falling off or Jordan losing his voice."
"You dweeb," joked Chad. "We probably won't play straight through for that long- I bet there's going to be food first, then the kids are gonna dance. And we have a boom box with us; if we get too tired we can put a CD in and play some canned stuff. Plus we could tell jokes and stuff in between songs like we usually do, and there could be an intermission between sets."
Cyrus had finished telling Hermione what kind of drums he liked (one of her friends at home knew how to play) and had joined his buddies in their conversation by then. "Hey, what time is it, dude?"
"Only eight-thirty," said Jordan, getting up from his chair. "Dudes, what are we going to do all day? There's nothing to do!"
"We could practice what we're gonna play tonight," said Steve.
"We could play chess," said Cyrus.
"We could play cards," said Chad.
"We could look at naked pictures of Britney Spears," Ian smiled evilly.
"IAN!"
"Sorr-eee!"
"Okay, okay, so I guess there's a lot of things we could do before the Ball starts." Jordan admitted.
As he spoke, he was almost interrupted by none other than the Weasley twins. Fred jumped right in by saying, "Well, we've heard you guys were pretty good pranksters when you went here… there's a certain person who we'd really like to get today… By the way, I'm Gred, and this is Forge."
"What's your best prank?" asked George.
"We did basic Muggle pranks, nothing out of the ordinary, caused Filch a heap of trouble though," laughed Jordan.
"Heavy Dungbomb usage!" cackled Cyrus. "We also smuggled in a tape player and bewitched it so it would work… then we played music really loud."
"Have you heard of Crazy Candy Powder?" asked Fred, trying to be quiet.
"'Course they haven't, we just helped Hermione create it a few days ago, you twit," said George. "And you don't need to be quiet anymore, there's not very many people left in here."
"Anyway, if the Golden Twin over there would sod off, we wanted to know if you would know any other way to use it," asked Fred.
"What's it do?" asked Chad.
"Well, if you put it in someone's drink, or if they eat it or breathe it in, they'll become really crazy for a while," said George. "And the person we wanted to get today is Draco Malfoy," he said, pointing to the Slytherin table, and not being discreet at all.
"Oh yeah, he shoved someone out of his way today when he tried to get an autograph- he seemed like a poser to me, too," said Ian.
"Well, you could use it in really high concentration and spike his drink. Oh, and if you really wanted to humiliate him, don't even use that, just use a charm that'll make him look like a girl for a few hours. It's… shit… what was the charm?" said Steve.
"Fidelus feminina," said Jordan.
Fred started laughing. "Alright! Thanks! We're going to go back up to Gryffindor Tower now, I think we'll use this well, won't we?" Fred asked his twin.
"Hell yes…" he winked and the twins turned to leave.
"Well, I guess we should set up our equipment before we do anything else," said Cyrus. "Shouldn't take too long, no one cares if we use magic here."
The five boys then took their wands out of their pockets and left the Great Hall.
***
Harry was still excited, even though he was getting the crap kicked out of him in chess by Ron. He, Ron, and Hermione were back in Gryffindor Tower and Hermione was trying to get them to finish up their homework so they could REALLY have a free day, but they were adamant against it. She had given up and resigned to reading a book.
"Did you two pick out costumes yet?" she then asked.
"We have some normal clothes that we can wear," they said together.
Fred and George then burst out of the portrait hole, and George shouted happily, "Did you three need to get back at Malfoy for something?"
A/N: I should have had more interactions with more people in this chapter besides the bare necessities, but I think this is pretty long already… well, maybe I can fix it… R&R!
