Six of the Gryffindor fifth years sat around in the common room in a group together one day in early October, engaged in a variety of tasks. Louis was bent over his textbook, his face set in intense concentration while his index finger traced a line of text as he read. Beside him, Alex was halfway through a Potions essay that was proving to be rather easier than expected. Nigel and Rahul were playing chess, Harry L. was practising Summoning Charms with the chess pieces that had been removed, and Damien was making his Halloween costume.
"Are you lot going to the Quidditch game this afternoon?" Rahul asked, after Nigel checkmated him with ease. "First one of the year!"
The reactions of the group were mixed: Louis and Damien replied enthusiastically and loudly that they would of course be there; Nigel said probably, and Alex just shrugged and looked over at Harry with raised eyebrows.
Alex found Quidditch rather boring, to be completely honest, and was much more interested in spending the day hiding in a dungeon room practising the musical saw; Alex and fellow Gryffindor sixth-years Louis, Harry L., and Angela had recently formed a band, under the temporary name 'Gryffindor Rules.'
"Rehearsal this afternoon?" Alex asked Harry. "I don't think Angela's going to the game either. It's a perfect opportunity to practise, and then we can perform at the post-game party."
"Yeah," said Harry. "Except all we have are angsty songs, so hopefully Gryffindor loses the match – then our music will fit the mood better."
"Totally."
Harry stretched his arms and stood up. "Well, I'll go find Angela right now and check with her. I'm tired of bloody Summoning Charms."
"Summon her," suggested Alex. "Two owls with one stone, you know?"
"You're actually rehearsing without me?" cried Louis indignantly. "Can't it wait until after the game? How can you even practise with only three-fourths of the band?"
Alex pondered for a moment, then stated, "I'm sure there's a drummer joke in there somewhere, but I'm still looking for it." Louis grabbed one of Rahul's chess pieces and threw it at Alex, who ducked away, laughing.
Louis was a pretty decent drummer, and to be honest, Alex and Harry needed the most practice on their instruments anyway (the saw and the cello, respectively). Alex and Harry had become much closer through the Queer Students Association, sort of drawn to each other as they were both misfits in a world that didn't understand them. Harry was basically a walking paradox: he was asexual, although many girls and at least one boy had eyes for him, not knowing that it was pointless; and he was anti-everything, be it politics, authority, sports, activism, but was always actively making statements through his behaviour.
As for Alex, they were still caught in limbo between what felt comfortable and where society told them that they should be. Towards the end of fourth year, they had come out as genderqueer and asked people to call them by 'they' and 'them' pronouns, and most people were respectful of it, even if, like Louis, they didn't entirely understand. Although Alex was able to live by their own rules and be who they wanted to a certain extent, they were still forced to conform because they slept in a boys' dormitory and wore a boys' uniform and were listed as Male on the Hogwarts roster. It was like Alex's opinion of who they were wasn't important enough to anyone who made the rules.
Fortunately, at least their name was a rather genderless one, so they'd never had to change it. But those first few months had been hard, and for most of the end of fourth year Alex had been in a mild state of paranoia when interacting with any of their peers they didn't normally talk with, as it was still a new thing to people to call Alex by new pronouns and there was somewhat of a spotlight on Alex all in whispers. But by far, the scariest was whenever Alex heard any snippet of a conversation about them – and somehow Alex couldn't resist eavesdropping to hear what kinds of things people were saying, despite that they dreaded hearing insults behind their back by their classmates. And they'd heard just about everything by this point.
"I think Alex Alderton is really brave," one person had said as Alex walked by a bathroom door, wondering if they were allowed to use that room.
"Alex is a total attention seeker," they had heard from a person talking too loudly at Honeydukes in Hogsmeade. "Why make such a big deal out of pronouns and stuff that doesn't matter?"
"He's a bit of a weirdo," said someone in a classroom as Alex walked by, and out of habit Alex stopped in their tracks to listen at the door and hear the response: "You mean they are a weirdo. Merlin, who would even want to play the musical saw? It sounds like ghosts."
Alex was slightly better about not eavesdropping now that summer had passed and it was a new year, and Alex's genderqueer status was not a new idea to the other students and professors. But Alex dreaded other people's judgment, and yet found it irresistible to listen to.
"AAAAAAHHHHH!"
Alex looked up to see Angela Rajagopal sailing across the room. She landed in a heap front of Louis and Harry, her dark hair frizzy all around her face and her eyes wild. It only took an instant before she was back on her feet with her ire turned towards Louis.
"LOUIS WEASLEY, I KNOW THAT WAS YOU, YOU ARSEHOLE."
"It wasn't!" said Louis earnestly, but didn't help his case when he laughed, which irritated Angela even more. She smacked him upside the head, and it only made Louis laugh more as he ducked his head and raised his arms over it. Harry, who had been watching with a deadpan, casually interested expression, finally cracked, releasing a snort of laughter at Louis' expense.
"Harry, you really tried the Summoning Charm on a person?" asked Alex, finally connecting the dots.
"It worked, didn't it?"
"Harry?!" exclaimed Angela. "It was you? It wasn't Louis?"
"It's always the quiet ones," said Louis, massaging his head.
Harry said nothing to defend himself or deny his involvement. Instead he went right ahead with his purpose of summoning her in the first place. "Get your sitar, we're practising during the Quidditch game."
"You get it," Angela demanded. "You're so keen to show off your Summoning Charms, it's all you. Careful with it though, I don't want to see a single scratch or dent or have to retune any of the strings."
"Ughhh," Harry groaned, slouching back in his chair.
Angela perched on the arm of the sofa. "Whose songs are we doing today?" she asked. In practise, generally all four members of Gryffindor Rules took turns being the singer because they hadn't found a good, willing singer yet. Angela was probably the best at singing out of the four of them, but preferred to play her sitar instead. When she did sing, her lyrics had powerful, hopeful messages. Harry sang really convoluted, artistic poetry, and usually encouraged the most musical saw solos from Alex. Alex, for their part, had never sung with the band at an actual gig, only during practise, and their songs were generally depressing ones about loneliness. One good thing could be said for the band, and that was that they were indeed versatile.
"Well, your songs are the happiest, so probably yours if Gryffindor wins," said Harry.
"I only have four songs. The party will be longer than that." Angela paused for a moment, and then suggested, "I suppose we could always go with one of Louis's songs?"
Louis's music was probably the most unpredictable; he sang mostly covers of other songs, and probably his greatest moment of notoriety was when he'd merely started singing the words of A Guide to Intermediate Transfiguration to the old Weird Sisters tune the band was playing, and got away with singing at least the first chapter before anyone in the audience had noticed. Alex had always personally wondered whether people didn't notice because people were generally unobservant, or because they just hadn't been paying attention to the band, which to be fair, wasn't very good.
"If we can get away with that again, yeah," said Alex.
"And if our team loses, Alex and I can do our songs," said Harry.
"Ooh, you'll sing?" Angela asked Alex.
"Er… I don't know," said Alex. "Do you think it'll go all right? People won't hate my songs, will they?" The idea was a bit terrifying – just with their friends, it was easy enough, but singing in front of all of Gryffindor house with all those eyes on Alex, it sounded impossible. It was much easier to just sit there and play wailing noises on the saw.
"Who cares what they think," said Harry.
Louis returned from watching the game soaking wet, his red hair plastered to his head, and looking as dejected as it was possible to look as he walked into classroom ten, the rarely used room which Gryffindor Rules often used to practise in. The sounds of saw, sitar, and Harry's sad singing tapered off.
"I take it we lost?" asked Harry.
Louis slumped into a chair. "Yeah."
Angela, who was seated cross-legged on the floor, put her instrument aside to grab her wand, and performed a drying spell on Louis to stop him from dripping all over the floor. "Thanks," Louis grunted.
"Channel that angsty mood into your music," said Harry. "We wrote a new song today, it's called 'Existential Thoughts on Losing at Quidditch.'"
"We're all Seers," Angela explained. "We had a premonition about the outcome, so we wrote this."
"When you're feeling up to it," said Alex, "we'd sound a lot better with a drummer."
"Yeah?" asked Louis. "So much for your drummer jokes then."
"Well, it's just that we had no one to make fun of without you here." Alex grinned. "No hurry though, if you need some time between the game and rehearsal."
"Okay. Yeah, I'll be back in a bit so we can get in a quick practise before the party. Got to get some food first."
As Louis left, Harry turned to face Alex. "Have you decided whether or not you want to sing at this gig?"
The real thing that worried Alex was giving their classmates yet another reason to talk about them. But people were going to talk anyway, weren't they? And, Alex reasoned, if you were going to be in a band you had to get used to this sort of thing. "Yeah, I can sing."
A piece of cauliflower bounced onto the stage, and Alex, distracted, let go of the end of their saw and looked down at the vegetable, baffled as to where it had come from.
"You're terrible!" an irritated party guest shouted. "Stop playing!"
"Fuck you!" said Louis immediately. "No one asked your opinion!"
Angela set her sitar aside and stood up, put her hand on Louis' shoulder, and moved over to speak to the crowd, a Sonorous charm amplifying her voice. "If you don't like our music, I'm sorry. You're welcome to leave the party, and pay Janice for the Firewhiskey on your way out the door. And also fuck you. Anyone who's not here to insult us, I hope you're having a good time – help yourself to some Cauldron Cakes, on the table over there."
"Gryffindor Rules!" Louis bellowed.
Some cheers and a few scattered boos greeted this pronouncement. Alex and Harry looked at one another and shrugged at each other simultaneously.
Following this disturbance, the group did one more number (Angela's song "Peace and Love") and called it a night, and no more than a minute after they'd vacated the stage, someone started up their wireless to a song by recent boyband sensation Out of Sync.
"I suppose it could have gone better," Harry said as he put his cello away. "But it wasn't that bad, you know?"
"People were actually listening, so that's an improvement," Angela agreed. "And Alex, you sang really well!" She enveloped Alex in a hug.
"Thanks," said Alex.
"Look, Celeste is here," said Louis.
Alex left their saw and bow lying on the chair, and went with Louis over to greet Celeste. "Hey, thanks for coming!" they said.
"Of course, I wasn't going to miss it," said Celeste, hugging Alex and then Louis. "You'll always have at least one fan. I feel so bad about that jerk shouting at you."
"That's Gryffindor for you," said Louis. "We're just loud about everything."
Alex had never considered themselves a loud person, at least not intentionally. But somehow they had ended up in a house of bold people, in a band, and making waves just by existing in the way they wanted to. People would always be talking, and Alex still dreaded other people's opinions. But good, supportive friends meant a lot more than popularity and universal approval, if tonight had taught them anything. So if, even without trying, Alex was already the subject of talk, what would happen if they actually took a vocal stand to make changes that were important to them, namely the segregated bathrooms and the dormitories grouped by gender? Could a school with over a thousand years of tradition change to make its marginalised students feel welcome?
A/N: This story has taken a bit to get into its stride, but I'd say this chapter is where it really starts. Hope you're enjoying it so far – drop me a review if you're so inclined! Thanks for reading. :)
To any drummers who might be reading this: No offence is meant by all the drummer jokes :P I myself am a viola player and the number of viola jokes out there could fill a book. I'm kind of proud.
Chapter title is from the song of the same name by Radiohead.