TITLE: Old Friends
AUTHOR: Catriona Rhiannon
RATING: PG. Ratings may change in any subsequent chapters hereafter.
CATEGORIES: Angst and Romance
SPOILERS: SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OotP
DISCLAIMER: Standard disclaimers apply. The characters of the Potter-verse belong to JK Rowling.
Deirdree Hopkins, Gregory Littlefield, Ted Devison and the entire plot of this story is based on… well. I won't say
first until anyone has a guess!
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Well, I'm finally back again in the Potter-verse. I do hope you like this
little gem that I've written, which is shamelessly based off the plot of a favorite show of mine. Major props to
those who can guess what it is based on. Try the title and chapter titles, and any subsequent chapters hereafter, are
pertinent clues to the answer.
Read and review please! I'd love to hear comments, violent reactions and criticisms, though hopefully constructive ones. I also need a beta, since I don't have one at the moment. Any takers? Email me at: cat_maniego@yahoo.com
Hope you enjoy the fanfic, as much as I enjoyed writing it. :) Cheerio!
OLD FRIENDS
I. Rich and Happy
Rich. And happy.
That was Harry. Rich and happy.
Or was he?
He sighed, staring at his new flat. His new, awesomely expensive flat. The lush London suite that he had recently purchased because Deirdree, his bride, felt this was more appropriate for their lifestyle.
Deirdree had insisted that Harry leave his little house on the outskirts of Hogsmeade because, she had chirped, it wasn't the right place for their children to grow up in, surrounded by all those nosy witches and wizards, who seemed to intrude on their little space.
He sighed and stared up at the wedding portrait of the two of them that she had hung immediately above the mantle, where anyone who entered the main hall of their place could see it instantly. The portrait was framed in white-marble, with a golden line gilded in
Deirdree Hopkins was a Muggle, and a very attractive one at that. A famous actress in Britain, she and Harry had met at a little soiree her then husband and producer Gregory Littlefield had thrown for her. Harry had been invited because Greg was his former Quidditch manager when he had played for the Wimbourne Wasps. He and Greg were good friends, and he fully supported Greg's decision to leave the Quidditch circuit to pursue his dream of producing Muggle films. Little did Greg know then that when he introduced his star Quidditch player to the starlet he had just married, he had brought about the end of his own marriage.
Several years older than Harry's twenty had been, she was enchanted with his brilliant green eyes and innocent disposition. He had been flattered with her unending charm and subtle flair, not to mention that she didn't know a thing about him. Before he knew it, Deirdree had successfully coerced him into producing a movie that she believed would bring about the boost she needed in her career.
The movie was a success, and five years later, here he was.
Deirdree had known that Greg was a wizard, and she soon found out that Harry was as well. She hadn't really accepted it, merely brushed it aside and simply chided Harry not to do magic in public or when guests were present.
Gradually though, she began expressing her dislike for the magical world that Harry had lived in all his life. She complained that she didn't like the moving photographs taken of her and Harry whenever they had to go out. She hated the odd little gadgets that Harry had always kept in his house, and she detested that, during the time she was having an affair with him, they'd always go off whenever she and Harry were making love on his bed. Most of all, she didn't like the way Harry's best friends were constantly in his life.
He tried to explain to her that Hermione and Ron were his best friends, that they were as much a part of him as she was. She would sometimes relent, albeit hesitantly, but it came to a point where she became horridly jealous of them.
Ron and Hermione, as it was, felt the same way towards Deirdree as she had towards them. Harry could always tell that there was a chill in the air whenever he had to turn down their invitations to head down to the Burrow for lunch, or to head into Diagon Alley just for fun, because Deirdree was dragging him off to a social event here, there and everywhere. Hermione especially detested Deirdree, owing to the fact that when they had met, she had looked down on her the way Malfoy used to whenever he called her a Mudblood. Ron was less hostile, but his eyes had always darkened at the mention of her name.
Finally, Deirdree had had enough, and she coldly declared that if Harry couldn't choose between her and his friends, then she would leave him that very moment. She had claimed that she loved him, left her husband for him, and she believed that if he couldn't show her the same commitment. Harry had known even then that it was wrong, but he couldn't resist her beautiful doe eyes, or her sexy little pout, or her damn curvaceous body.
He still cursed his eager, horny self whenever he remembered the day he agreed to sever ties with Hermione and Ron three years ago just to be able to run his hands over that body. However, he had made that decision, and he had to live with the consequences. Every movie that he had produced with his hard-earned Galleons were now fuelling Deirdree's film career. The profits he was receiving had far outpassed his salary as a member of the Wimbourne Wasps, which he also had to leave behind at Deirdree's request.
So there he was. Rich and happy.
Rich, he was. But happy?
Harry took out his wallet, and reached behind his engagement photo with Deirdree, which, taken with a Muggle camera, didn't move. He pulled out a photo of Hermione, he and Ron, taken at the Graduation Feast of Hogwarts their Seventh Year. He was in the middle, with his arms wrapped around their shoulders, and they weren't looking at the camera, but instead had their faces turned towards each other, laughing animatedly. He looked at it sadly, then tucked it back into its sleeve.
No, he wasn't.
"Harry, honey!" Deirdree burst into the room from the balcony, the French doors wide open as she paused in the doorway, her body, with the help of exercise and a severe diet, cleverly hiding the fact that she was already beyond her thirties, still contorted in a dramatic, almost vaudevillian pose. "Where have you been? The guests are waiting for you!"
She strode in purposely, taking his arm in hers, her slinky white gown enhancing the ditzy blonde image that she enjoyed depicting. However, nothing was farther from the truth, as that ditzy blonde image hid a cunning and manipulative mind. Her white-blond hair spilled over her naked shoulders, and she winked at Harry playfully, promising him a night of endless pleasure if he behaved tonight.
"After all, they're here to celebrate the success of our latest movie. Everyone's waiting to meet the man of the hour," she teased, her voice light and jovial. She ran her fingers up his muscular arm and snuggled up against his shoulder.
The party was at full-blast. The band Deirdree had hired was playing a lively tune that got his friends in show business laughing and dancing with one another. Everyone each had a champagne flute in one hand, and was gesticulating wildly with the other. Nearly everyone there was a Muggle, and they all knew Harry as The Producer. Not as the Boy-Who-Lived. He didn't know whether to think of that as comfort or blight.
Deirdree let go of his arm and went to mingle with the other guests, including a well-known television anchor named Ted Davison. She was using her expert flirting skills, and, Harry acknowledged with narrowed eyes, he could see that she was very near to acquiring the guest spot on his show that she had been planning on getting for the past week. He shook his head and allowed his eyes to wander around the room, a smile pasted onto his face as the guests who streamed by him raised his glass to him in congratulations. He acknowledged each of them, his mouth frozen in a perpetually fake grin.
"Well, well, well, Harry. Do I have to raise my glass to congratulate you when I haven't yet seen the picture? Not that I ever will, mind you."
He froze. That voice. She came.
He turned around and saw a young woman with a cynical little smile pasted on her lips, and who had her flute raised to him in a mock salute.
"Hermione."