Sober

“That was brilliant, mate!” Ron clapped Harry on the back as they exited the stage through the back together. “God, absolutely wicked!”

“Yeah,” Harry shrugged and threw the cheering crowd one more lazy smirk over his shoulder as he threw his hand over his head in a half-assed wave that the crowd went wild for. “You did good, Ron. Fuckin nailed that chorus, didn’t you?”

Ron beamed, the tips of his ears red with pride and pleasure from Harry’s praise. “Thanks,” he said humbly before jumping into the long, detailed, overtly technically detailed explanation of how he learned the notes and the bits that he added ‘in a stroke of genius’ that Harry hoped he would give.

Harry let Ron’s chatter wash over him and clear the buzzing from the stage from his mind. He nodded at Ron’s older brother Fred backstage as he began directing the clean up and packing of their equipment.

“Alright there, Harry?” George called as he jumped off the stage and tackled his younger brother.

“We have an audience demanding a third encore in a sold out show, what more could a guy want?” Harry smirked.

George laughed, “That’s the spirit, Harrikins.”

Harry could only tell George apart from their manager and publicist, George’s identical twin brother Fred, because George blew his left ear off with a firework while showing off for a chick on the Fourth of July at a party at Harry’s a couple years ago.

The best part of the entire story, in Harry’s opinion, was that Ron’s family was British. Harry met them while he was doing a stint in London, trying to expand his fan base, a dumbass idea by his thieving ex-manager Pansy, and he met the group of Weasley brothers in a pub after one of his shows. Harry fell in love with Ron’s instrumental skills on the bass and George’s charisma when he played the drums in the back and somehow still made himself seem center stage. Fred’s business management degree had been the final straw before Harry impulsively decided to make his solo act a band performance.

The cherry on the sundae of joining up with the Weasley brother’s had been how much Draco hated them.

“I will quit, Potter,” Draco pouted the night Harry signed the contract with the Weasley’s. “You might as well see if Tweedledee can play guitar, because if so then he can have my spot.”

“Which one is Tweedledee?” Harry asked him with a lazy smile as he lit a cigarette.

“The one that isn’t Tweedledum,” Draco sneered.

Harry had laughed and crawled over to Draco with the cigarette still in his lips. “Don’t be like that, love,” he said, his eyes shining as he looked up at Draco’s perfect porcelain skin and effortlessly sexy pout. He reached up and stroked his cheek with his knuckles. “I couldn’t do this without you.”

“And yet you’ve hired the most rowdy group of men with the sole intention to drive me away,” Draco whined. He closed his eyes and leaned in to Harry’s touch. “I don’t like it, Harry.”

Harry took a deep drag off his smoke before leaning up and kissing Draco’s neck right above his slow pulse point. “I would never want to drive you away,” Harry murmured in his soft skin. “I hired them to make us all filthy rich and insanely famous, love. Just watch- the Weasley’s will take us to the next level.”

It had been five years and two international best-selling albums ago that Harry teamed up with Ron and his brothers. Harry had already achieved moderate fame on his own as a solo artist, but with Ron and George in the band and Fred’s brilliant publicity releases, they became a household name nearly overnight.

Draco had been there the first time their album went multiplatinum, and he’d been gone before their second one hit the charts.

“What’s the plan tonight?” Ron asked as they slid in the back of the car that waited for them.

Harry used to stay to help pack up and load equipment, but now it was all he could stand to do to not bolt from the venue the moment he stepped off the stage.

On stage, with the lights on him, the microphone in his hand, and the music playing, Harry could play his part. They wanted a rockstar and Harry gave them one.

They wanted to hear Harry’s emotions in every syllable he sang, and Harry gave it to them.

Music had always been his escape.

But as soon as they stepped off the stage and everything came back into focus, Harry was just Harry again.

And being Harry was perhaps the worst part of Harry’s life.

“Luna at your place?” Harry asked Ron.

Ron’s face softened into a ridiculously sappy smile at the mention of his pretty young wife that gave up her university education to move to America and support Ron’s dreams of musical fame. “Yeah,” he said, “but I told her that I’d probably faff around a bit with you after the show.”

Harry eyed the mini-fridge that had been installed in the back and cautiously opened it. He let out a quiet breath of relief as he grabbed a couple cold bottles of water and tossed one to Ron before downing half of his.

“Take Ron back to his place,” Harry told the driver. He leaned back in his seat and rolled down the window so he could light a cigarette without killing Ron with the smoke. “Go home,” Harry told Ron. “Luna might be painting your porch again if you don’t get back.”

Ron grinned at the reminder of the time that he crashed at Harry’s place one night and returned home to a pink porch. He quit grinning quickly as he eyed Harry and tried to gauge his mood. “What are you going to do?” he asked, aiming for a casual tone and failing quite spectacularly. “You could come stay with us tonight.”

Harry checked the time on his phone and shook his head. Two thirty on a Saturday morning gave Harry plenty of options in New York. He pulled open the Internet browser and did a few searches before finding the address he wanted and showing it to the driver.

“I’ll be fine,” Harry said as he blew a steady stream of smoke out the window, pointedly ignoring Ron’s uneasy look. He held his phone out and flashed the screen at Ron, offering him a reassurance even though he knew that Ron would never push the issue. “As I said,” Harry took a deep inhale off the cigarette before flicking it out the window and chasing it with smoke, “I’ll be fine.”

When the car pulled up to Ron and Luna’s little two bedroom place with the bright pink porch lit up with proof that Ron had someone who loved him and waited up for him, Ron gave Harry a gentle smile and patted him on the shoulder. “Call me if you need anything,” he said, as he always did. “You know I’ll answer.”

Harry offered him a forced smile in appreciation of all the times that Harry had done just that. “I know,” he said quietly. “Give Luna my love.”

“I will, don’t party too hard,” Ron winked at Harry before sliding out of the car.

It was an old joke- there wasn’t much humor in it anymore, but Harry figured Ron just wanted to try and force some normalcy for Harry’s sake.

As soon as the car silently pulled away from Ron’s place, Harry slumped in his seat and closed his eyes.

Alone with his thoughts was his least favorite place to be.

“Can you turn the radio on?” he called up to the driver.

“Sure thing, Mister Potter,” the man said in a deep baritone before kicking the radio on and turning the volume up.

Harry’s lips twitched at the country station the driver must have had as default.

Country music was terrible.

Draco used to call it ‘cowboy crap’.

“Turn it up, please.”

Harry let the slow guitar and lazy drawl soothe his nerves as they moved through the streets back to the heart of the city that Harry had always called home.

“Mister Potter, we’re here,” the driver called just as Harry felt himself drifting off to the soundtrack of Merle Haggard singing about his life.

Harry lifted his head and scrubbed his face with his hands as he looked out the window.

Another brick church.

Another small group gathered outside.

“Thanks,” Harry said. He drank the rest of his bottle of water and snagged his sunglasses from the pocket of his leather jacket before pulling both on.

In any other city, in any other place, sunglasses in the middle of the night would be the strangest sight.

Thank God for New York City.

The driver rolled down his window and gave Harry a steady look. “Should I wait here, sir?”

“Nope.” Harry lit another cigarette and relished in the physical burn in his lungs that would get him through the next hour or so of emotional pain in every other part of his body. “I can find my way home.”

The driver nodded and pulled away as Harry joined the others.

Here, in this group, Harry wasn’t a rockstar. He wasn’t famous. He wasn’t important.

Here, in this group, Harry was just another addict chasing sobriety.

It was perhaps the one place that Harry felt as if he truly fit in.