It's Gravitation

Track 18

A/N: I don’t really know why, but there are loads of Gackt references in here. Ten points to anyone who can find them all.

By the way, sorry about the long hiatus. I think my writer’s block has cleared up for now, though, and I should be able to update this more often. And I might even get some more work done on HPMC! How exciting.

THIS IS AU. THERE ARE NO HBP SPOILERS. I PROMISE. I WILL WRITE FICS LIKE THAT LATER, WHEN I ACTUALLY FINISH THE BOOK MYSELF. BUT THIS STORY WILL ALWAYS BE AU.

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Harry returned to the Great Hall only to discover that Snape had not. Apparently, he'd made the excuse that Draco was still traumatized from the episode with Sirius and needed "guidance", and thus convinced Dumbledore to let him out of the rehearsal for the day. Harry wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed by this.

Rehearsal went on without their Yuki, however, although Harry had an even more difficult time than usual trying to work up the energy to match Shuichi's level of hyperactivity. Thankfully, McGonagall didn't press the issue, and the rehearsal ended much earlier than usual.

"Harry!" Hermione called to him once McGonagall declared wrap-up for the day. Harry joined her and Ron off to the side, looking at them both mournfully.

"Well, I suppose there's no point in asking how things went with Sn..." Ron was cut off by Hermione's elbow jutting into his solar plexus. Hermione looked at Harry sympathetically.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.

"Not particularly," Harry replied. "I'd really rather just..."

"Ah, Harry! So glad I caught you before you left," Lupin said, hurrying up to the three seventh years, Sirius in tow. "I have somethting I'd like you to take a look at before our next music rehearsal, if it wouldn't be too much trouble." He produced a CD ROM from within his robes. Harry stared at it, nonplussed. "I'm sure Hermione would be more than happy to let you borrow her laptop..."

"Pap lopped? What's a pap lopped?" Ron immediately asked.

"Something that papa lapped," Sirius replied, then started giggling to himself while the others stared at him. He stopped once he realized he was suddenly the center of attention. "What?"

Harry blinked, shook his head, then turned back to Lupin. "More importantly, what the hell is Hermione doing with a laptop? This is starting to make less and less sense, and..." He was cut off by the sudden sound of glass cracking and Hermione's hand slapping over his mouth.

"Shut up!" she hissed. "Are you trying to break the fourth wall?" She then inexplicably smiled brightly at nothing. Ron and Harry both stared at her as though she'd lost her mind.

"At any rate, deus ex machina aside..." the tinkling sound of glass shattering could be heard, and Hermione slapped the hand covering Harry's mouth to her forehead, "...I'd really like it if you took a look at the clips on this disc, just to get a feel of what we want to do for the music video," Remus said. "Also, there are a few episodes from the series on here that you'll probably want to take a look at, and..."

"Wait, wait, hold on!" Harry interrupted. "What music video? What are you talking about?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Ron piped up.

Lupin smiled. "Ah, you haven't gotten that far ahead in the scripts, but later on in the series, your character's band makes a music video, and while we could just recreate that one, the headmaster thought it could be nice to get creative with it and see what we could come up with on our own..."

"...like burlap," Sirius mumbled, then giggled to himself. Everyone ignored him.

"No, no, that's not what I meant!" Harry exclaimed. "I meant... Look, even assuming that Hermione had a perfectly functional, albeit contraband, laptop here at Hogwarts that was completely unaffected by the high-energy magic field surrounding the school and even assuming that apparently everyone but Ron and me would just take that in stride, and even assuming I knew what a fourth wall was..." Harry took a deep breath, then looked deeply confused. "I forgot where I was going with that."

Remus looked at him sympathetically. "It's all right, Harry. I know it's been a rough couple of weeks and you're under a lot of stress. But I still believe in you, Harry. I know you can do this." He pushed the CD ROM into Harry's hand. "Just trust me on this, all right? Everything will be fine." He smiled reassuringly, patted Harry on the back, then walked off to find the headmaster.

"You know, Harry," Sirius said, wrapping an arm around his godson's shoulders, "If I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about ol' Snivelly." Harry blinked and looked at Sirius sharply. Sirius grinned at him. "Hey, really. He'll come around eventually, you know? After all, you're such a catch!" He chuckled and ruffled Harry's hair. "But in the meantime, I suggest looking at the file on that disc called 'vanilla underscore live underscore hotashell'. I bet that should cheer you up real quick." And with that, he headed off after Remus, leaving a very confused godson behind.

Harry looked down at the disc. It was purple, a fact that immediately gave Harry a horrible sense of foreboding. Before he could get rid of it, however, Hermione grabbed it out of his hands.

"Come on, you two. We might as well have a look at this now," she said, and motioned for Harry and Ron to follow her out of the Great Hall. Harry turned to Ron.

"That's it. I'm convinced. Dumbledore's drugged them all."

"See? I told you he was putting something in the water!" Ron replied as they obediently trailed after Hermione. "And maybe now that you realize it, you'll stop acting funny, too!" Harry cuffed him upside the head as they left the Hall.