A/N: Here I am, still suffering from writer's block- it's getting better! I promise! Read and review!
Chapter 18
Up in the empty Gryffindor boys' dorm room, the five members of New Found Glory were hastily unpacking luggage that had been magicked up to the dormitory. They'd finished setting up all of their equipment on the stage Dumbledore had put up for them in the Great Hall, so they'd come up to Gryffindor Tower. Ian was grabbing a clean pair of socks from his overnight bag when he said,
"So, dudes, what's the set list going to be?"
"Got it!" said Steve, pulling an extremely wrinkled piece of paper from his bag. He squinted at it, then said with a completely straight face, "No, sorry, this is Jordan's receipt for all those sex toys he bought a few days ago."
"Let me see that!" shouted Jordan indignantly. He snatched the paper from Steve's hand. Glancing over it quickly, he said, "It IS not! I mean," he coughed, "I never bought any sex toys! Cyrussss!"
"What do you want, Jordan?" Cyrus asked sleepily from underneath the covers on his four-poster. Chad poked him and he quickly sat up. "Whattttt?" he whined.
"Jordan is accusing you of buying sex toys," said Steve with a laugh.
"I didn't! You're just making things up. Now give me the set list," Cyrus replied. Jordan wrinkled his nose, wadded up the paper and threw it at his fellow bandmate.
"So this is what we're playing?" Ian asked, looking over Cyrus' shoulder and he unwadded the paper. He scanned the list, saying some song names to himself at random times. "Hit or Miss, My Friends Over You, Sucker, Head On Collision, Broken Sound…"
"We're playing more than that," Jordan broke in.
"I know that, you idiot, I was just reading some of them out loud that I thought were some of our best ones!" said Ian.
"Oh."
"This the order, too?" asked Chad, snatching the paper from Cyrus, who promptly put his head back down on the pillow. "Looks good to me. But…" he put the paper down on a desk and picked up the quill that was on the desk, dipping it in ink. He crossed out "The Blue Stare", replacing it with "Want You to Want Me". "Remember this Cheap Trick cover we did a while ago?" he said. "That was the one we didn't want to put on the From the Screen to your Stereo album? Well, we should play that tonight along with those other tracks that we picked from that album."
"Sounds okay to me," Cyrus said, randomly waking up and scaring the four other males in the room half to death. "And I brought some CDs that we can play if we get tired, like between sets… we are doing two sets, right?" and he took the paper back from Chad, who was waving it around to dry the ink. "Yeah. Okay. Well, let's see. There should be at least… well, hang on. How long are out sets going to be?" He looked at the paper again. "Both are an hour and a half… so that leaves an hour for us to not play. We could have two breaks of a half hour each, or four of fifteen minutes, or-"
Jordan cut him off. "Well, the kids are going to be eating supper first anyway, so that should last at least a half hour. I think we should be playing some while they're eating so they'll randomly come on the dance floor. Then we can have four fifteen minute breaks- one in the middle of the first set, one at the end, and one in the middle of the second set."
"You're fifteen minutes short, bro," said Chad.
"Oh. Well, then we can fill that fifteen minutes up during the whole dance with jokes and stuff," Jordan finished. "Oh, Cyrus, which CDs did you bring? Will our boom box even work in Hogwarts?"
"Weren't you even WATCHING when I took it over to Professor Dumbledore and asked him to bewitch it so it would work?" Cyrus said. "In answer to your first question, I have Punk-o-Rama 6 and 7. There's about an hour and forty-five minutes of music on both of those, so we'll have to pick which ones we want to play while we're not playing." He proceeded to shove Ian off the side of his four-poster and went over to the desk with his two CDs, saying, "Well HELLO… aren't you four going to help me pick some tracks?" He ran back to his bed and got his bag out, and took out his laptop. "We should make a mix so it's easier to play these."
His four bandmates, laughing, all pulled chairs up to the desk.
"We better hurry, dudes," said Ian, looking at his watch. "It's 12:15- lunch is starting!"
"We can come in late! We used to do that all the time on free days when we were here," said Steve.
"Fine…"
***
"So I say to her, 'You can't have me wear that!'" Ron was saying through a mouthful of potato salad at the Gryffindor House Table. "And you know what she said to me? Ask me what she said to me!"
"What did she say to you, Ron?" asked Harry, humoring his best friend.
"She said, 'You'll be the cutest bloke at the ball!'" Ron said excitedly, blushing furiously and ending up looking like a freckled tomato. He looked over at Hermione, who was sitting next to him in her Muggle clothes, talking to Devin Lynch. Pieces of their conversation were drifting over to Harry and Ron, and Ginny on Harry's left side.
Hermione was in the midst of a long ramble about Muggle things, waving her hands about excitedly. Poor Devin was starting to look a little lost, his blue eyes following her hands confusedly.
"So Devin! My dear old boy…" Fred said, wandering into the Great Hall and unknowingly rescuing Devin from Hermione. Hermione, slightly confused, turned back around to Ron and Harry.
"Harry, can I switch seats with you? If you've finished lunch," Hermione asked. Harry nodded, but grabbed his plate and then switched seats with her.
"Hullo Ginny!" Hermione said brightly once Harry had gotten out of the way and started talking to Ron and a few of the other boys in their year.
"Hi, Hermione," Ginny replied. "So are you excited about going to the Ball this year with my prat of a brother?"
Hermione started to blush, then swatted Ginny's shoulder jokingly, saying, "Of course I am! I've been waiting for that boy to ask me somewhere for about three years!"
Ginny chuckled, and Hermione continued, "Are you excited to be going with Harry?"
This time, Ginny blushed bright red. "I sure am! I've had a crush on HIM practically from the very first time I saw him!" She started to laugh, then asked Hermione, "So what are your and Ron's costumes for the ball going to look like?"
"Well, I sketched both of ours early this morning. Mine is a black and purple Victorian-style dress, and Ron is wearing extremely punk Muggle clothes. He's going to look great!"
Ron, who was still talking with Harry, overheard this statement, grinned broadly and looked at Hermione, then went back to talking.
"Well, Harry and I are going dressed as hippies," Ginny began. Hermione, who already knew about hippies, smiled.
"Aw! You two will look so cute!" she said.
"Yeah… but I was thinking of instead of having him wear the shirt I originally was going to make him wear, I think I'm going to have him wear one of the Who's concert shirts and a leather vest over that. What do you think?"
Hermione smiled and replied, "That sounds good! I'll help you get it after lunch." She picked up Harry's unused spoon and twirled it in her fingers. "So anyway…"
Next to Hermione, Ron, Harry, Dean and Seamus were having quite an animated conversation about Muggle music. Neville was sitting there as well, but he wasn't really saying much because he hadn't any idea what they were talking about.
"Me dad used to listen to the Clash all the time," said Dean. "We have a load of old records in our house that he still listens to!"
"What's a record?" asked Ron, baffled.
"Come on, Ron, your dad loves Muggle things, you've probably got a record player and a few records lying around your house," Seamus said.
"Oh, are they those big round black things? Me mum liked a band called the Who. I think we do have a few records lying about in the house."
"There you go!" Harry patted Ron on his shoulder, then checked his watch. "Well, it's about 12:45 now, in case you wanted to know," he said to his friends.
Dean picked up his goblet of pumpkin juice and took a big swig. "What are we going to do for the rest of the day until the ball? We don't get dinner until it starts, and that's at eight." As he spoke, Jordan, Chad, Steve, Ian and Cyrus walked into the Great Hall and took five chairs from where people had already left, and started to eat lunch, looking half-asleep. Indeed, Cyrus' face was practically on his plate.
Harry, poking Ron, grinned cheekily. "We should cast that one charm on Malfoy!"
"What charm?" Seamus jumped right in, interested.
"Oh, it'll turn him into a girl for- well, I don't know how long. But it should be really funny!" said Harry.
A few chairs down from the five boys, Jordan heard Harry and said loudly, "Trying the fidelus feminina charm, huh?"
"Yeah, but we don't know how well it'll work," said Ron.
"When I used it, it lasted about an hour, but if you have a stronger magic-user casting it, I think it could last a little longer than that- two hours at the very least," Jordan said.
"Oy, Hermione," Ron poked her in the shoulder. "You're going to have to cast that charm on Malfoy right before the ball!"
"Oh, you're the pretty girlie I was talking to earlier!" Cyrus woke up again. "Are you a strong witch?" asked Steve.
"Is she? She's the smartest person in our entire year!" Ron piped up.
"You should be able to make this Malfoy bloke act completely gay for at least two hours," Jordan told Hermione. She smiled evilly, and Jordan returned the grin and went back to eating his salad.
"I still want to know what we're going to do for the next seven hours!" cried Dean.
"Five, two hours to get ready!" said Ginny.
"For you GIRLS, yes, and Malfoy, but we only need an hour!" said Seamus. "Of course, our dearest girls will probably take three hours," Dean said, winking at Parvati, who giggled.
Everyone laughed, and Ron said, "We could play chess…"
He was answered with a resounding "NO!" from everyone in the vicinity.
"I need to do some of my schoolwork," said Hermione, "And I think the rest of you should too."
"No, Hermione! No homework today!" said Ginny. "Merlin help us, no homework today!"
"Well, what else is there to do?" Harry asked.
Parvati and Lavender had joined in the conversation by this time. "Well, we could play a few Muggle games, like Spin the Bottle or Truth or Dare in the common room!" Parvati said.
Everyone groaned. "NO!!!!"
Hermione got out of her chair and said, "Well, I'm going back up to the Gryffindor Tower, I have an owl I need to send-"
"Owl! Now what does this remind me of? Hogsmeade! Isn't today a Hogsmeade day? Didn't Professor Dumbledore tell us that it was this morning? That must be why the Great Hall is so empty already," said Ron, getting up as well.
"Oy, you're right, little brother," said George, who had wandered over to their end of the table. "And the carriages leave pretty soon, too!"
"Let's go to Hogsmeade, then," Hermione said. "I just need my cloak- Ginny, Lavender, Parvati, come on. We'll meet the rest of you out by the carriages in five minutes."
All the boys who were still at the table checked their pockets and made sure that they had money, then got up and followed the girls.
"We'll wait for you in the common room so we can walk you to the carriages," said Ron.
***
In a short time, everyone had gotten everything they needed to go out, grabbing wands, cloaks, extra money, and other items of that sort. Within five minutes, the entire group was waiting for the carriages to take them to Hogsmeade.
Fred grinned wickedly. "I think I need some more Dungbombs…"
A/N: That's right, read and review, kiddies… I love you all…
