Sober

“Hey, Luna, what’s your birthday?”

“June fifth,” Ron answered for her.

Harry strummed his fingers across the keys of the piano that he rarely used in the studio. Harry hummed out the tune he imagined and Ron jumped up from the sofa to grab his bass and start playing.

Ron was a genius.

It was one thing to find someone as talented as he was, it was an entirely different thing to find someone who could hear you hum a tune and actually turn it into a song.

Harry figured it was damn near impossible to find another soul alive who would let you detox on their sofa for a month.

Finding someone with all three attributes?

Harry was a lucky son of a bitch when it came to his best friend.

“I like this,” George laughed as he carefully began playing a part on the drums. He grimaced and then changed the beat a little, leading Ron to follow him now while Harry followed on the piano. “What are the lyrics, Harrikins?”

Harry closed his eyes when he heard Hermione began playing the beat. She wasn’t like Ron, who could hear a tune and just start playing. She wasn’t like George, who could add a beat that Harry couldn’t have even imagined to the song. But once the song got going, Hermione was able to jump in and play with them without any sheet music to guide her.

It would be so much easier to hate her if she wasn’t so skilled.

Harry opened his eyes a few moments later, when he led the others to the chorus, and smiled straight at Luna when he began singing.

“She’s my cure, Gemini season.

I remember when I sat down at the keys and sang you roses drunk.

You can knock me there, but you keep me breathing.

I know this mellow bitch,

I call her my Gemini Queen.

She’ll collect your heart,

Steal your soul,

And cut you deep.

Gemini, Gemini, Gemini.”

Luna, always their number one fan, clapped while Ron beamed at Harry after he quit singing.

“Did you just write my wife a love song?” Ron laughed. “Damn, Harry, give the rest of us mere mortals a chance here, eh?”

Harry forced a laugh and threw a nearby guitar pick at Ron’s head. “Says the rock god himself,” he grinned. “I wasn’t the one that Rolling Stones wanted on their cover.”

Harry had played the part of the melodramatic rockstar when their band arrived to shoot that day and Harry saw how Ron’s eyes had lit up while he looked at the framed covers of other bands.

‘One day, I want to be as big as Sting is,’ he’d sighed while looking at a cover in a huge golden frame.

So Harry threw a bit of a fit, refused to pose in photos with Hermione, acted like the set was too cold for him, and then stood back and chain smoked while Ron got to shine.

Rolling Stones had been cool about it too. Harry offered an ‘exclusive’ interview to accompany the stunning shots of the others and the whole piece wound up making them all shine.

Ron blushed a little, but his shoulders also relaxed and there was a pleased glimmer in his eyes, either at Harry’s playful tone or the reminder of ‘the best day of his life’.

“Well I love it,” Luna said enthusiastically, steering the conversation back to the song. “Every Capricorn who hears it will wish she was a Gemini.”

Harry laughed and stretched his fingers out. “It needs work,” he said, “but it could be something.”

“I think it’s brilliant,” Hermione said softly, undoubtedly worried about driving Harry to anger just by speaking. “How’d you come up with the hook?”

Harry hummed and debated on ignoring her.

He looked at the keys of the piano and tapped one over and over in a repetitive gesture.

“I came up with it last night,” he finally said, refusing to turn and look at her. “I just…”

He just used the music to ignore the phantom pains in his body that tried to convince him that he needed to be high or he’d die.

Luna had came out of her bedroom and just got a wet washcloth to come wipe the sweat off Harry’s forehead and held him while his body was wracked with shaking sobs.

“I’m dying,” he had told her pathetically. “Everything hurts, Lue.”

“You’re not dying, sweet Harry, you’re living,” she assured him.

Harry started humming to ignore his own pain and the words came to him as he shook and cried through the night.

Luna had tried to talk Harry into skipping today, staying home and relaxing, but Harry needed the music or he needed to get high.

So Ron tried to feed him pancakes then drove the three of them to their downtown studio without any further arguments against it.

“I just thought of it,” Harry told Hermione vaguely. He checked the time and sighed.

Fred would be there soon. He’d ask them how their session went and then he’d smile at Harry all cheerfully and tell him the car was ready for him.

Ron and George would know where Harry was headed and Hermione would guess.

It wasn’t a secret that Harry’s fucked up schedule now included daily meetings.

It was always the cost of staying with Ron and Luna. They let Harry feel like he was a part of a family for the first time in his life and they made him go to meetings.

‘Because they cared’.

Sure enough, Harry and Luna had just started playing with a tune on the keyboard (which was not the same as a piano despite everyone’s insistence that it was) when Fred joined them.

“Look at this!” Fred threw an arm around both Harry and Luna as he squeezed between them. “My favorite siblings!”

“Fuck you,” George laughed. He threw a drum stick at his brother’s head and winced when Fred ducked and it bounced off the soundproof window. “Sorry!” he waved.

“There’s nobody in there, moron,” Fred scoffed. “It’s six, they’ve all said fuck you and went home.” He gave Harry a bright smile and Harry could guess at his next words—

‘The car’s ready if you are, Harry.’

“You ready to go?”

Aah.

He’d been close.

“I’ll take him,” Luna offered abruptly. She gave Harry a sweet smile from beneath Fred’s arm. “If that’s okay with you?”

Harry glanced at Ron, guilt twisting his insides.

He’d monopolized so much of Luna’s time in the last month.

They didn’t say anything, but Harry knew that Luna hadn’t accepted any new commissions since Harry came to stay with them. They weren’t hurting for money, Luna mostly painted for a hobby more than for work, but it didn’t stop Harry’s endless guilt over it.

Ron grinned at Harry and winked. “I guess you two can go, I mean, if you stop singing her bloody romantic love songs,” he said to Harry playfully. “I barely got her the first time, I can’t win her heart again if I’m going against you.”

“Of course you can,” Harry assured him, his chest throbbing that Ron thought Harry was better than him in any way. “You’ve always been the better man.”

Luna broke the silence that was tense from Harry’s genuine and softly spoken confession.

“I think you’re both wonderful and you’re both good men,” she declared. She ducked from beneath Fred’s arm and went over to kiss Ron lovingly on the cheek. “I love you,” she told him, the truth of her words shining in her eyes.

“I love you too,” Ron said. He strummed a low chord on the bass and grinned. “Go have fun, don’t party too hard.”

Luna danced over to Harry and linked their arms together. “Are you ready?” she asked him.

Harry tapped his nail on the keyboard and kept his eyes on it while he thought about it. “Will you go in with me again?” he asked her.

It was the epitome of pathetic to ask his best friend’s wife to go in his meetings with him, but sometimes the fluorescent lights, the bad coffee, and the religious talk made Harry want to drink more than anything.

It was easier to quiet those thoughts when Luna was sitting beside him.

Luna kissed Harry on the cheek. “Of course,” she whispered to him, her voice low and hidden from the others. “You’re not alone, Harry.”

Harry was quiet after the meeting. He spun the 30 day chip in his hand and stared out the car window.

“I’m really proud of you,” Luna told him earnestly as she drove him away from the church.

Harry laughed and looked down at the stupid fucking chip. “This is my sixth thirty day chip,” he told her. “Maybe you can have it when I fucking relapse again.”

Luna kept her eyes on the road and didn’t react to the venom in Harry’s voice. “Maybe you won’t relapse again,” she said. “Maybe this will be the last thirty day chip you ever get.”

Harry shook his head and watched the clouds in the sky that promised storms. “Maybe,” he said doubtfully. “And maybe Draco will come back. Maybe I’ll get a second chance. Maybe god damned Doctor Who will show up in his phone booth and I’ll go on a grand adventure.”

“TARDIS.”

“What?”

Luna glanced over at him and there was a small smile on her lips. “It’s called a TARDIS, not a phone booth. It’s stands for ‘Time And Relative Dimensions In Space’.”

Harry looked at her to see if she was serious before he huffed, a sound that was suspiciously close to a laugh. “I’ve never seen it before,” he admitted. “Foster dad five used to watch it though.”

Luna hummed and squinted her eyes slightly. She reached over and turned the music down until AC/DC was a quiet background noise. “Which one was that?” she asked. “The one who taught you piano?”

“Yeah.” Harry smiled a little as he remembered the only foster parent that he hadn’t scared away. “Sirius.”

He taught Harry how to play piano. He paid for voice lessons when he said Harry had a natural gift.

He never hit him.

He never raised his voice at him.

He’d talked about adopting Harry when he was fourteen and angry at the world.

He died the summer before Harry turned sixteen.

‘Heart attack’, they said.

Harry went to a group home after that.

Nobody wanted to adopt a sixteen year old with a chip on his shoulder the size of Brooklyn Tower.

“Well he had excellent taste in telly programs,” Luna said with an airy sort of confidence to her words. “My dad used to watch Doctor Who all the time.”

Harry nodded and listened while Luna talked about her dad back home in England. Actually, he wasn’t really listening. He was mostly counting all the reasons he had to get high and trying to find counter-reasons to stay sober.

He didn’t think Luna really expected him to listen though, he figured she was just talking to fill the silence between them.

So Harry twirled his chip between his fingers and watched as the city got sparser and the trees became more prominent. It wasn’t until they passed a familiar road that Harry spoke up.

“Hey, Luna, can you turn around?”

Luna looked in the rearview mirror and chewed her lower lip anxiously for a moment while she slowed the car down. “I don’t know…” she said slowly. “It might be a bad idea.”

“Please?” Harry asked her. “Please, Luna?”

Luna slowed to a stop and turned to give Harry her full attention. She stared in his eyes and Harry tried to not look desperate.

“You’ll stay with us tonight?” she asked Harry.

Harry had been planning on using his new sobriety milestone to go back home, but he wanted to go back more than he wanted to be alone tonight. “Yes,” he said, not even lying. “I’ll stay tonight.”

Luna studied him for a long moment before nodding. She didn’t say anything else as she turned the car around and went back to the place that Harry usually avoided.

The two of them walked through the silent graveyard together. The only noise was the wind whipping through the trees and the leaves crunching under their feet.

Harry knew his parents’ gravestones were there, but that wasn’t who he wanted to see.

When his feet led him directly to the grave he’d only seen once, Harry felt all the breath leave his lungs and his knees give out completely.

Harry lit a cigarette as he knelt there and stared down at the tombstone that he spared no expense on.

Draco’s parents didn’t come to the funeral.

Harry had been pissed at Draco the day he died.

But their next album, with Draco’s soulful guitar solos and perfect accompaniment to the other instruments during the rest of the songs, had record breaking sales.

So he’d died a star.

Harry hoped that it gave him some peace, wherever he was.

He’d be so smug.

‘All I had to do was die to get people to listen to you sing,’ he’d laugh. ‘I told you that you needed me.’

Luna grabbed Harry’s empty hand after he lit a cigarette. “You didn’t need him,” she said softly. “You never did.”

Harry nodded, in acknowledgment, never agreement, and stared at the white marble that seemed to glow in the dark cemetery until he’d smoked his cigarette down to the filter.

“Let’s get you home,” Luna said with a grounding squeeze to his hand.

If Luna hadn’t been with him, Harry thought he might have went home to Draco.

Harry dropped his cigarette butt down on the green grass that covered the earth where Draco rested.

He couldn’t go home with Luna and he couldn’t go home to Draco.

Not when he felt like this.

“Can we find another meeting?” Harry asked her. He didn’t have to look over to know that Luna would be smiling, pleased as always when Harry took initiative.

“Of course,” Luna agreed as he knew she would. “Come on, let’s go find you what you need.”

Harry didn’t know what he needed, but he had an urge to find it.

Luna’s optimism must have been contagious.