By soundcheck, the size of my open tab and the weight of the money in my bag felt entirely disproportionate. I sipped my drink and watched the band's roadie on stage, talking into floating amplifying spells and waving his wand to make the proper adjustments. The bartender eyed me every so often, a new guy much younger than the previous one, mid-40's I guessed, just coming onto his shift. I slipped off the barstool toward the loo, pushing through the little crowd that had gathered in the bar in the last half hour. My head felt like it floated along with me and my eyelids felt heavy, but upon closer inspection in the restroom mirror they looked plenty wide open. I smiled at my reflection, at the tinge of redness in my cheeks. I touched a fingertip to my lips. They tingled. I pulled out lip balm and smeared some on, smacking them together twice for good measure.
When I emerged from the women's toilets, the roadie had left the stage. The lights dimmed and many people mingled in front of the stage with their drinks. I found my seat at the bar and lifted my glass toward the bartender. Instead of another magical refill, he walked over.
"Another?" he asked.
"That would be smashing," I said. The response triggered skepticism, evident in the deepening crease in his brow.
"Think you've had enough?"
"One more never hurt anyone." Not true in the slightest, but I didn't let that detract from my charming smile.
"How about a glass of water first?" Water. The death sentence to my open tab and my good time. Crossed arms, a flash of gold on his left ring finger and an air of sternness thinly veiled by practiced hospitality, I abandoned all thoughts of flirting my way to another drink. "Or perhaps you'd like to square up now and go from there?" My fingers found the leather flap of the bag at my hip but released it just as quickly; a deliberate gesture to suggest the money to be there, that I'd felt perfectly capable of squaring up but suddenly thought better of it. Water bought time, at least. With the show about to start and me poised to agree to water in a last-ditch effort to avoid being ejected from the bar with only the memory of Fairest's roadie setting up to reflect on, a hand pressed against the small of my back; the cotton of my shirt acted a barrier, but the heat from the stranger's fingers permeated the cloth and warmed my skin.
"I got this round," came a man's voice. To my relief, the glass in front of me filled up once more, the bartender setting out a second glass in front of the spot next to me. I swiveled in my chair to thank the mystery gentlemen, but the words died on my tongue. Draco Malfoy slid onto the barstool beside mine. "Funny. I don't recall the decree on outings being lifted, Hill." He took a swig of his drink, hand still on my back a beat longer before he removed it to fish something out of his pocket.
"And yet you grace me with your presence, Malfoy." I pulled the drink up to my lips, both of which were completely numb at this point.
"I'm head of the Inquisitorial Squad," he said, dropping a few galleons onto the counter in front of him. "I get a pass, obviously." Ignoring the flash of gold and the pompous flaunt of his superior social status, I twirled my chair around toward the stage, drink in hand. I picked up the cherry garnish and closed my mouth around it, plucking the fruit from its stem and crushing it with my teeth. "There's that Imogene attitude," he said. "Too good for everyone, are you?"
"Not everyone," I said. A rustle through the crowd, then cheers as shadows moved around off stage right, but only a false alarm amid all the anticipation. Draco bristled at my insinuation.
"Maybe you'd get along better in the house if you weren't so full of yourself."
"Full of myself?" I swiveled toward him so abruptly, my knees knocked into his and alcohol spilled from my glass. "Oh, right. I'm the one too good for everyone. Remind me, Malfoy. Who is your father again? Because I seem to have forgotten." I held my index finger to my bottom lip in mock thoughtfulness. His incredulous stare, his mouth agape in disbelief, sent a wave of unexpected giggles over me. I covered my mouth with my hand to muffle them.
In a shocking twist, his face contorted into a self-deprecating smile. Even more shocking, he laughed. I dropped my hands to my knees, and only then did I register how comfortably they rested against his. I noticed how the denim of his jeans felt nice against my skin. How long had I been noticing? Did he notice me noticing? I felt myself lean forward and gripped the side of the bar, pulling myself up straighter. Draco's hands clasped my shoulders to stop me from falling into him. I giggled again, and noticed how much more than usual I giggled here than in everyday life, how foreign the sound was coming from me. "I'm drunk," I whispered.
"Yes, you are," he said.
"What are you doing here, anyway?" I asked. He rolled his eyes, as though the question were too stupid to dignify with a response.
"Believe it or not, Hill, I enjoy doing fun things in my free time," he said. "Like seeing one of my favorite bands, for example."
One of his favorite bands. Which happened to be one of my favorite bands. Draco and I had something in common. The thought rocked me to my core. Before I managed to say anything more, cheers filled the small pub as the members of Fairest filed on stage. Not bothering with cordial greetings, they each picked up their instruments. I hopped down from the barstool, half my drink sloshing to the ground. The wood vibrated beneath my feet and the lead singer led into their first song with a shrill cry that energized the crowd, everyone jumping up and down, the group in the middle jumping in any direction that found themselves knocking into one another. I held my drink up high in the air, lost in the chaos of it all.
I enjoyed the music most with my eyes closed, though it seemed silly with a live show going on right in front of me. The feeling of the energy around me, swaying along with the beat, so free and alive. When I did open my eyes, Draco was there beside me, his head bobbing somewhat. I set my empty glass down on the nearest ledge and moved closer to him. I tugged his shirt sleeve, gesturing toward his hands buried deep in his front pockets. He shook his head, a smirk appearing on his face though his eyes never left the stage.
"Dance with her!" A petite blonde beside me stepped forward, shouting across from me to Draco. I held up a hand to wave her off, but she persisted. "You bring your woman out and don't dance with her?" she shouted. Draco gave me a peculiar glance, unable to hear a word this girl said.
"No. No, I'm not his woman!" I said, waving a hand toward him in indifference. "I was just trying to loosen him up a bit!" She mouthed an 'oh' of understanding, but caught me by my arm as I turned away.
"But you'd like to be, eh?" she asked.
"Actually, no I—"
Her fingers lingered on my forearm. Suddenly, she stepped in front of me, taking the back of my head with her other hand and speaking into my ear for only me to hear. "You want to roll with me?" She leaned back, and I felt her hand mussing up my hair, tangling it, attempting to feel every strand. Her eyes sparkled in the blue lights, her pupils seeming to eat her iris', growing with each passing second. In that moment, I envied her. To feel the energy of this place times a thousand; to radiate joy and freedom and love. She took my silence as my answer and reached into the front pocket of her shorts. "He'll love this," she said. She slipped the pill into her own mouth and I didn't fight her when she pulled me in the second time.
Sticky sweet lip gloss, she smelled of the beach. Pineapple with some coconut in there somewhere. Our tongues ran over each other, lingering after the pill had passed between us. She pressed herself against me, only to feel something, anything at all against her body, I knew. I entertained her, my hands brushing her neck and her hair, and when she pulled away I nipped her lip a little, to her distinct pleasure. By then the pill had gone down and there was no turning back.
"The fuck?" Draco's wide-eyed wonder greeted me, but I simply raised my arms into the air and carried on as if nothing happened. Blondie had already flitted off into the crowd again. "What the hell was that, Hill?" he asked, pulling me toward him to keep my attention. The smile on his face, his hands no longer buried in his pockets but holding me, I grabbed them in my own hands and swayed in time with the music.
The pill kicked in by the fourth song of the night. Everything got brighter. Sharper. Almost overwhelmingly so, and I vowed to keep my eyes open from then on so as not to miss a thing. The guitarist thrashed back and forth on stage, and I felt it deep within myself that I needed to match his passion and fervor. Twirling, gyrating, anything that moved me because damn it I needed to move. And well into the set when Draco pulled me by the waist asking, "Are you alright?" and I felt that tingle in my nerves, I smiled. The first genuine smile in a long while, one that seemed to spread wider than my whole face if something like that were even possible. "What?" he asked. Except all questions left him when I touched his face. He felt amazing. Skin soft and rough at the same time, his 5 o'clock shadow well grown in now, that I imagined rubbing my own face against his and it took all my will power not to. And when that slow song I often listened to alone in bed came on, and Draco's hands found my waist and my nerves sang in pleasure beneath his fingers at the same time the singer sang my favorite words, my arms around his neck and my head against his chest and my entire body on fire; in that moment, I understood why they called it ecstasy.