A Beautiful Thing

2. Hewlett Potter The Musical

Joey and Bonnie pulled away from a long kiss, looking deeply into one another's eyes as they held each other close. Joey drew a shaky but well-rehearsed breath before continuing.

"Do you dance?" he asked quietly.

"Of course I dance," Bonnie replied, matching her volume with his, keeping her gaze on him.

Slowly, the two melted into a soft rhythmic movement, holding each other close, Joey's arm at her waist and one hand clasping her outstretched one while her other rested on his shoulder. The two swayed softly back and forth as music began to play faintly from the background. Sitting at a desk several feet away, Matt Socha, Bonnie's boyfriend, put his head in his hands as the lights began to fade.

Nobody noticed the young actress playing Maria standing just off stage in the wings with arms crossed, staring into the middle distance with a blank expression on her face.

Joey and Bonnie quickly broke apart once the lights came completely down, being joined by the rest of the cast as the lights came back up to full and the audience launched into uproarious applause. The cast began their bows then extended their arms in gesture of thanks to the lighting, sound, and stage management teams who had helped with the production. Joey couldn't think of a better show to be in than the one that had just wrapped up and was equally excited for the next opportunity he and several of his current cast-mates were bound for the very next day.

"Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the first full cast read-through of Harry Potter: The Musical," Nick Lang said as Darren set down his bag and took his seat as the last cast member to arrive in the rehearsal room the next afternoon. Joey opened his script, highlighter in hand, glancing down the list of names of everyone in the cast and their roles in the show. Of particular note were Darren Criss as Harry Potter, Bonnie Gruesen as Hermione Granger, Lauren Lopez as Draco Malfoy, Joe Moses as Severus Snape, Joe Walker as Lord Voldemort, and Brian Rosenthal as Professor Quirrell.

Joey looked down at the list and found his name: Joey Richter - Ron Weasley. He highlighted his name and corresponding character just as the rest of the cast did for theirs and thumbed to the next page. After some general stage direction involving a chest on its end in the middle of the stage and the titular main character sitting on it as the lights came up, the title of the opening song was written: 'Going Back to Hogwarts'.

"Okay Darren, if you wouldn't mind, could you give us a little demo of 'Going Back to Hogwarts' please?" Nick asked. Darren nodded, pulling his guitar around from behind him and beginning to play the opening bass riff to the first song in the show. As the read-through continued, Joey became quickly aware of the type of character he was playing, that being the ever-loyal best friend. He was also quickly made aware of the stereotypes selected for the other characters like the complete tool that was Darren's Harry Potter and the needlessly snobby and uncharacteristically-british Draco Malfoy voiced excellently by Lauren Lopez, which Joey recalled vividly from the 2008 Lord of the Rings production. Eventually, as the read-through approached the end of Act 1, the scene of the Yule Ball began and Nick introduced the next song to the cast.

"Okay, so this song is gonna take place right after Hermione comes on. It's a duet between Ron and Draco about falling in love with her. We're calling it 'Granger Danger'. Darren?" Nick prompted Darren again who began the uptempo riff which led into Ron's opening verse of the song. Darren sang for the time being as neither of the actors had learned the song yet and Joey and Lauren both nodded their heads along, each of them highlighting their lyrics as they went through and occasionally chuckling at lines, particularly at Draco's "what the hell is this".

"Danger..." Darren finished as the last guitar strum of the song slowly faded away. Both actors smiled to themselves as they turned the pages to carry on with the scene, imagining all of the humorous ways to portray their feelings through the song and in the upcoming scene with Bonnie and Darren. Following 'Granger Danger', the read-through wrapped up without anything notable other than the occasional swear as somebody messed up their line or a laugh from the group due to an unexpected story beat.