Sober

“And this musical fucking genius is my best friend in this entire shitty universe— Ron Weasley!” Harry grabbed Ron’s hand and held it high while the crowd cheered.

“RON! RON! RON!”

Harry laughed and ruffled Ron’s hair while Ron took an exaggerated bow.

“You’re all lovely and I love every single one of you,” Ron called out to the audience, causing them to cheer all the harder for him.

“And this one-eared idiot is our very own GEORGEEEEE WEASLEY,” Harry yelled with a dramatic jump and a wave in George’s direction.

George, fucking theatrical idiot he was, stood up and ripped his shirt right down the middle before throwing it out to the crowd.

Harry smirked when he saw a girl catch it and hold it to her nose.

“I’ll be here all week,” George yelled with an obvious wink that Harry knew the camera would be playing across the screens and in their fans’ fantasies for days to come.

“I’m Harry, you’ve been a kick ass audience, we’re Liquid Luck, and we love you Boston! Goodnight!”

Harry took one last bow with Ron before darting off the stage as quickly as he could without looking like he was moving quickly.

“Harry…” Ron immediately sighed when Harry sank down to sit on the stairs for the back entrance and buried his head in his knees. “You can’t keep doing that.”

“I know,” Harry groaned. “I tried to say her name and I just knew I’d be sick.” Harry looked up and Ron saw the desperate sort of pain shining in his eyes. “I’m sorry, will you tell her?”

“You tell her.” Ron sank down next to Harry and nodded in the chick’s direction. “It’ll sound better from you.”

Harry buried his face back in his knees and inhaled very slowly before exhaling. “Will you please do it?” Harry asked him, hating how small his voice was, knowing that Ron was the only one he trusted to hear him right now. “Please, Ron? I can’t stand to look at her.”

“Harry, hey.” Fred clapped Harry’s shoulder and stared hard in his eyes. “We’ve missed you. How are you?”

“Sober,” Harry said shortly, knowing that was all he cared about. It was all anyone cared about. Harry and his problems. Harry and his addictions. Harry and his most recent stint in rehab. “I lasted 90 days, I’m out, I’m back. Can we get started?”

Fred wrapped an arm around Harry’s shoulders and guided him away from the sound booth and towards his office. “I want you to meet someone,” he said, a nervous tone entwined in his cheery voice. “She’s brilliant, Harry, you’ll love her if you just give her a chance, okay?”

Fred opened his office door and Harry immediately knew he wouldn’t love whoever the fuck this chick was because she was holding a guitar.

“No,” Harry said. He turned on his heel and went straight to find Ron. “RON!” he yelled, banging his fist on the glass of the sound booth to catch his attention. “RON!”

Ron slung his bass off and lunged for the door. “What’s going on?” He grabbed Harry by the shoulders and looked him over slowly. “You alright, mate? We need to go for a walk?”

“Your brother hired a new guitarist,” Harry said, his chest tight and his heart racing.

“Oh.” Ron sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Her name’s Hermione, she’s… she’s good, Harry. And we needed someone.”

Hermione had been in their band for six months, one week, two days, and fourteen hours now.

And Harry still couldn’t stand to look at her on stage.

Everything about her was wrong. She wore her long brown hair in two thick braids. She wore mini skirts and sequined tank tops. She played with technical skill instead of from the heart.

Harry tried very hard to never look at her.

Because every time he did, his chest hurt and he wanted to either put a gun to his head or get high.

And he didn’t want to waste his nine months, one week, two days, and fourteen hours on Hermione Granger. It was easier to just pretend she didn’t exist- but it also made Harry look like a dick on stage when he introduced all the members of their band and ignored her.

“Yeah, mate.” Ron rubbed a sympathetic hand in circles on Harry’s back. “I’ll go talk to her.”

Harry kept his head ducked down and tried to block out Ron and Hermione’s very nearby conversation, but he still caught bits and pieces.

“…hates me.”

“….complicated…”

“….unfair…”

“…trying.”

Ron was lying.

Harry wasn’t trying at all.

He fucking hated Hermione and would have rather had no guitar player than have her.

Most of the songs they played were from the albums that Draco helped record and Harry wanted to just use the recordings of Draco playing in live shows.

Fred very patiently and kindly explained how that wasn’t a good idea.

Harry broke Fred’s car windshield.

And Hermione was at every rehearsal, every session in the studio, and concert since then.

“Harry.”

And now she was in front of him.

Harry sucked in a breath and lifted his head, forcing his ‘devil may care’ mask on with his smirk that might as well be trademarked. “Hey,” he said. He got to his feet, not wanting her looming over him, and immediately pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. “What’s up?”

Hermione curled her nose at the cigarette—

Harry smoked. George smoked. Draco smoked.

Hermione should get the fuck over it.

—and her eyes were wary as she looked at Harry. “Have I done something wrong?” she asked softly, the Australian accent that reporters loved adding an interesting (and wrong) lilt to her tone. “If you’d just tell me what I’m doing wrong, I’ll fix it, I swear.”

“Excellent.” Harry intentionally blew a lungful of smoke at her, getting the reaction he wanted when she backed up a couple steps from him. “Everything you do is wrong. The fact that you’re in the god damned band is wrong. Can you fucking fix that?”

Harry stormed off while she was still standing there with her mouth opened in a surprised little ‘o’.

Ron could make his apologies if he wanted to- God knew that Ron apologized for worse shit on Harry’s behalf before.

Harry still couldn’t breathe when he found the ‘artist lounge’, which was just a fucking fancy way of saying the place where they could sit and relax before and after the show until it was time to leave.

As soon as he stepped in the room, he knew it was a mistake.

His heart raced and his blood sang to him as he looked at the opening act, some crap punk rock group that Harry didn’t bother to learn the name of. The four of them were spread out on a couple of the couches and they had a relaxed, sleepy, look to their faces and a slow drawl to their voices as they calmly chatted amongst themselves.

“Hey, Harry,” one of them, a dark skinned younger guy, said, lifting his hand and grinning. “Fucking rad show, you guys killed it.”

Harry nodded and kept a hand on the doorknob while his eyes flicked around the room quickly. He didn’t smell weed and he didn’t see any booze besides a few cans, but they were obviously fucked up on something.

“Fred told you guys it’s a sober tour, didn’t he?” Harry asked, his throat dry and his palms sweating. He looked at two of them, saw how they were wrapped around each other on their couch, and fought against a surge of jealousy so strong that it nearly knocked him to his knees.

Was he jealous that they were together or was he jealous that they were high?

Nine months, one week—

“Hey, man, I’m sorry.” The dark skinned guy sitting on his own said as he slowly got to his feet and moved to the beer cans. “We just wanted to relax a bit after we played, we’ve never played for a crowd so big.” He flashed Harry a bright white smile that did nothing to distract Harry from the glaze covering his mocha colored eyes. “I don’t know how you do the shit sober, you’re a God, Harry.”

“Yeah,” the other guy in their little pissy band drawled from the couch. “A fuckin God.”

“They think you’re a God,” Draco whispered to Harry late at night when it was just the two of them in their bed. “All those people you sing to, they love you. They think you’re a God.”

“They don’t love me,” Harry sighed. He took a long drink of whatever bourbon Draco had and slammed the bottle on his nightstand. “They don’t know me. They love the idea of me.”

Draco ran a tender hand through Harry’s hair, gently untangling the unruly curls. “I know you,” he said, so terribly fucking sweetly. He kissed Harry’s cheek and laid his head on his shoulder. “And I love you more than anything.”

“You don’t know me,” Harry told the guy on the couch angrily. “You don’t know a fuckin thing about me.”

“Hey, we weren’t trying to be rude,” the other one said as he quickly tossed the empty beer cans in the garbage. He gestured toward the couch he’d been sitting on and winked at Harry. “I’m Dean, by the way. You could sit for a bit, relax and we could all get to know each other?”

“It’s easier to get to know people if I don’t have to be straight to do it,” Draco whined. “I hate these meet and greet bullshit parties.”

“Love.” Harry looked him over slowly and sent a pointed look at his scarf and earrings. “Nobody thinks you’re straight.”

Draco laughed and kissed Harry for making him laugh. “I meant in my head,” he whispered. “Do a couple lines with me before we go down?”

Harry hesitated. “Fred’ll be pissed if we go downstairs fucked up.”

Draco nuzzled Harry’s neck and put an open mouth kiss right beneath his ear. “All the more reason, Potter.”

Harry moaned and nodded, “Two lines each.”

“Two lines each.”

They did three.

They were never able to keep each other accountable.

Harry looked Dean over slowly.

He was tall, muscular. He had long black braids that hung around his shoulders. He had on a cheap white tshirt and a pair of jeans that hung low on his hips.

His eyes were a dark amber instead of a smoky grey.

And he was high.

Harry just knew it.

“Yeah, alright,” Harry said.

Harry woke up the next morning, a sweaty arm tossed over his torso, and immediately lurched out of the bed he was in to throw up on the floor.

He checked his phone and squeezed his eyes shut to keep from crying.

Five hours and seven minutes.