A/N: This chapter is unbeta'd, but will be replaced with the beta'd one in about a week. My beta (omgosh I have one) is a good friend, and she's in exams at the moment (actually, so am I, but I'm also mentally challenged and think that writing fanfic during my trials is perfectly fine). And I just really, really wanted to post this. I'm about 40 percent of the way through writing chapter three, so it should be up in about a fortnight. Please review!!
Pairing: Alright, I'm sorry for those who wanted a Ginny/Harry, but I've gone for Draco/Harry slash. Firstly, because I've been reading more HD fanfic than HG fanfic, secondly, because I think there was already a lot of tension between Harry and Draco and thirdly, because I can.


Chapter Two

Wrought iron gates and two modernized sandstone watch-towers loomed over Harry. He flicked his sweaty fringe out of his eyes while his breathe evened, observing Malfoy's house with a sense of resignation. His lips quirked at the large golden plaque which proclaimed: Malfoy Manor.

For a few moments, while he caught his breathe from the long walk, Harry's dislike of Malfoy lessened. It wasn't really Draco's fault that he'd grown up a completely spoilt brat. Nurture over nature, after all. If their roles had been reversed, Harry probably would have been the same. With a sigh, Harry pressed the doorbell.

A small black and white screen built into the sandstone flickered almost immediately into life. Draco's face (his mouth just opening to speak) was pushed out of the way to be replaced by Blaise's forehead and excited giggling. "Harry! Harry! Draco said that if you were even a minute late he wouldn't let you in and you'd have to die outside crying because you had pneumoniAHH!"

Blaise disappeared with a look of agony on his face, and Draco reappeared, face sour.

"Gate's opening." He said simply, and the screen crackled back into blackness.

Harry grinned and adjusted the guitar hanging off his shoulder. He guessed that they had been waiting for him next to the intercom. He most probably would be the last one to arrive, as he usually was. He could see that Charlie's car was parked hazardously on the lawn, and the mental image of Draco's enraged face caused a blissful smirk to grace his own. The front door was open when he arrived.

"Harry, late as usual." Charlie greeted him.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, as usual. The Dursley's were hosting a dinner party for Vernon's boss; I had to clean the house." It had taken Harry all day, while he had been ignoring Dudley's taunts and sweating blood. He had dusted, wiped and polished every surface in the house. Charlie winced in sympathy, and led him to the kitchen.

Malfoy's house was enormous and filled with expensive ornaments and chic pieces of art. His mother, Narcissa, was obsessive about displaying their wealth and her husband, Lucius, indulged her. The entrance hall was paved with pale ceramic tiles, and a fountain blew water into the air from the throat of a Fawn.

Seeing Harry's roll of the eyes, Charlie grinned at him. "It's crazy. They probably never even use this room." Harry nodded in agreement. If anyone would understand the pointlessness of the Malfoy's attempts at impressing their visitors, it would be a Weasley.

A warm smell drifted towards him as they reached the kitchen.

"Harry! You made it." Ginny Weasley smiled at him from the stove, where two pots were on the boil. Around the expansive room, Draco was leaning casually against the white marble bench-top and Blaise was sitting with his nose an inch from the screen of a metre high plasma TV. Charlie walked back over to the kitchen table, where notes were spread out in the shape of an umbrella over his chair.

Harry smiled and walked over to the TV, dumping his guitar and rucksack. "Hey y'all."

Draco lifted a lazy hand in welcome, and Blaise ignored him, focused on the screen. Ginny ran round to engulf him in a cookie-smelling hug.

"You took so long I decided these boys would die of starvation if they didn't eat something." Ginny said in explanation, walking back to the stove. "Cookie's in the oven. Charlie's just going over our repertoire. Blaise is watching The Incredibles. Draco is…" she trailed off, cocking an eyebrow towards the blonde. "Well, he's doing something." She finished.

Harry smirked and peeked into one of the pots. "Ohh, looks good, Gin." He said, smiling at his best friend. She was a petit girl, with elfin-like features and a wicked sense of humour. As the seventh child in the family she was also one of the toughest people he knew, not to mention the ultimate font of knowledge for all things modern and musical. Most especially when they had 'hot' lead singers.

"That'll be you, one day." She'd laughed at him. Harry had just smiled.

"If Draco can ever pull himself together enough to get up and go on stage, that is…" At the time, it had seemed an impossibility. Not so much now, apparently.

"So, is someone going to tell me what's going on?" Harry asked as he reminded himself of the mysterious 'gig' that Draco had landed them. He turned from Ginny's laughing face, to catch Draco's eye. The blonde winced as he realised that Harry wanted him to explain himself, and looked around to the others for help.

Blaise was giggling uncontrollably in front of the TV, oblivious to their conversation, and Charlie was smirking while he shook his head.

Draco bit the bullet.

"One of my friends is having a party." He started to explain. He stood up from his leaning position against the bench, and tried to ruffle his pin-straight hair. Harry would almost say it was a little self-conscious, which only made him suspicious – Draco was never self-conscious, unless he was on stage. Today, Draco was wearing black acid-washed skinny jeans, a black Ramones shirt and chequered vans. He looked, Harry reluctantly admitted, pretty damn cool. Especially when he was placed next to Harry's baggy and torn jeans, his off-white 'Fuck Authority' shirt and his holey trainers. Harry shifted unhappily, the usual feeling of not-belonging surging up.

"I was speaking to her in chemistry and she invited me to her eighteenth, which is in a couple of weeks. She was telling me how she'd already got a band to play, so I figured it would be okay if I told her I was in a band." Draco winced again, and Blaise finally extracted himself from the TV, coming over to smirk at his best friend. "And she basically told me I had to play, and I couldn't say no."

Charlie sat at the table, watching as Draco paced agitatedly. Only an angry look from Ginny forced him to stop. Charlie turned to Harry. "Wait until you hear the rest of it." The redhead chuckled, tapping a pen against his lips.

Harry cocked a curious eyebrow towards Draco.

"He means that she'd already organised two other bands to play. So we're not going to be the only band playing." Draco reluctantly admitted. Harry groaned, and flopped onto a chair next to Charlie. At his reaction, Draco turned a number of shades pinker.

"Look, Potter." He said viciously, pointing a finger at Harry, "if you'd been in my position you would have done the exact same thing. She worked me good." Draco grumbled, scowling.

"Pansy Parkinson works all the guys in our year 'good'." Blaise said with a giggle.

Draco glared at his friend.

Harry tried, once more, to work out exactly what was happening.

"So wait, we're playing a gig with two other bands?" he asked. Draco nodded. "Okay, it's not the end of the world, guys. Wost case scenario: they're better than us, we leave. Best case scenario: they suck, we look great next to them, they leave." Seeing both Blaise and Charlie's amused faced, and Draco's pale one, Harry paused. "Right?"

"Wrong." Charlie laughed. "Go on, Draco. Finish the story."

"Well, her favourite bands are, like, Blink 182, Sugarcult, All-American Rejects, My Chemical Romance. Those type of emo-punk-rock life-sucks-lets-all-die bands." Draco rolled his eyes. Harry did too. "So we'll have to choose that kind of stuff, none of that gooey, swoony music, Potter. And, um." It was clear Draco was trying to delay the bad news. "Well… itsugarcultandblinkwhoareplayingwithus."

There was silence while Harry interpreted the last sentence, chewing gently on his lip. After several seconds, his hand flew to his mouth to smother a sharp gasp. He swung wide green eyes between Draco, Charlie and Blaise.

"Draco…" he said quietly, his tone pleading. "You're joking right? You're not being serious, are you? I mean, Blink one-eighty-two…? Sugarcult…? And us?" Harry tried to capture the blonde's eyes in a stare, but Draco looked away quickly. He shook his head.

Harry let his own head drop down with a thud onto the wooden table.

"Harry, don't be a dickhead." Ginny's voice floated above him, "The cookies are just a minute off, so don't spazz out and come consume some chocolate."

"I want to die." Harry informed her in a matter-of-fact voice. He then ignored her and lifted his head to stare into space. After a few seconds of this silent contemplation, he turned to Draco. "Kill me. I know you want to." His voice lowered and became coaxing. "You've wanted to kill me for a long time, Malfoy."

Draco moved away hurriedly, apparently unsure if Harry was joking or not.

Charlie laughed.

The bell for the cookies went off.

"Come on Harry, it'll be okay. The main thing to do is practice." Charlie stopped his chuckling in an attempt to comfort Harry. "If you had any faith in the band, this might be a damn good break. I mean, what idiot plays in a band and never expects to go on stage?" Charlie shot Draco a dark look. "If we wanna be good – and we do wanna be good, don't we? – then this is our chance!"

Harry's eyes narrowed.

"Oh hang on. Hang on just a second! I get why Ginny's making cookies, and Blaise was engaged in the most harmless activity you could find for him. Even why Malfoy was being so nice and all." He gave them all a look loaded with suspicion. "You were plotting against me!"

Draco rolled his eyes and turned away. Ginny huffed as she placed steaming hot chocolate cookies onto racks.

"Quit being so bloody melodramatic, Harry." Ginny sighed.

"Even if you are right." Charlie grinned. Both Ginny and Draco shot him annoyed looks but he shrugged unconcernedly. "We may have been plotting, but you know we're right, Harry. This could be our chance." Charlie stood up from the table and stretched, exposing a flash of pale skin. "You're acting like Draco." Charlie teased him.

Harry's face soured and he exchanged glares with the blonde.

Now the shock had settled, Harry reluctantly admitted that there was a swelling of excitement in him. Imagine having that to their name: played with such acts as Sugarcult[the crowd applaud deafeningly and Blink 182[the crowd go wild! we present you…! And Charlie was right: as long as they practiced a bit more, (which would be code for every hour of every day) this could be a break for them.

Blaise slung an arm around his shoulder.

"And the best thing of all, Harry, guess what it is!" he laughed, and Harry figured by his bouncing from foot to foot, that he'd found Malfoy's stash of spearmint sweets.

"We have two weeks to practice?" Harry guessed, mentally running over songs they could play and how he could clear his schedule to fit in more practices. Considering that he'd just handed in his last assessment for the term, a paper on Global Warming, it was actually a pretty good time for this particular shock.

"No way, Harry." Charlie smirked. "The best thing is all the high-school girls that Draco's friend is inviting to the party. High-school girls, Harry." Charlie sounded gleeful, but Harry looked dubious. He knew a few of the Hogarth girls, through being set up on double dates with Blaise, and he wasn't really sure they were his type.

Ginny threw a napkin at her brother. "The best thing, is going to be the exposure. From what Draco's said, this party is going to have several hundred people there. At least some of them have got to like us. What do you say, Draco?"

"The best thing?" Draco queried faintly, thinking. His usual smirk returned. "Well we get to stick around afterwards, of course. You have not been to a party until you have been to a party thrown by Pansy Parkinson. And I guess we'll get to meet the guys from Blink and Sugarcult. That should be pretty 'best'."

He and Ginny exchanged leers, before the redhead burst out into giggles and the first genuine smile of the evening reached Draco's lips. As the only two in the room who were attracted to men, Draco and Ginny had become quite close. Not to mention the redhead girl liked having a 'gay friend'. Of course though, they were nowhere near as close as Harry and Ginny.

Blaise was pouting and waving for them to all shut up and listen to him.

"No. No! What's going to be the best thing of all," he turned and gave Harry a very evil smirk. "Is playing those new songs you promised would be finished writing two weeks ago!" Draco was startled into laugher.

Looking at Blaise's innocently beaming face, Harry groaned.