Chapter 22.5: Changing the Requirements (Patreon)

Chapter 22.5: Changing the Requirements

Leavesden Studio, UK. May 2006.

[Ron snagged his wand, gathered his feet under himself, and dusted his shoulder. “One more.” He hefted his wand and took a dueling stance.

I, and the camera traced the length of his wand and panned over to reveal a smug Hermione. 

The embers in the fireplace behind her danced; the lighting silhouetting Hermione’s cocked hips and casually crossed arms. “Honestly, Ronald! Try not tripping over your own feet this time.” She turned sideways and leveled her own wand.

The camera pulled back to show the rest of us in the DA waiting with bated breath on the sidelines.

“Ready, Ron?” Hermione taunted, a small smirk playing on her lips.

“Expelliarmus!” was his response.

Hermione widened her stance, slashed down her wand, and shouted. “Protego!” She flicked her wand again as it ended its initial motion and mumbled a spell to herself.

Ron tried taking a step forward and jabbed his wand again, “Expeli-!” His face morphed into momentary shock. He stumbled, and immediately his head and the camera panned down to his feet. Green socks and slippers. The CGI would later be added to show his laces come alive and try to entangle his feet and send him sprawling. 

Hurriedly, he scrambled to toe them off. “Impedimenta!” Hermione mercilessly shot another jinx. 

With a bit of quick thinking, Ron kicked off the footwear directly at the path of the spell. The green slides may have cartwheeled away, but the editing would instead show Ron’s shoes hanging mid-air directly in Hermione’s line of sight.

With her caught off guard, Ron saw a narrow opening in the window and fired. “Expelliarmus!” 

The spell connected, and it was strong enough to not only send Hermione’s wand sailing right into Ron’s hand, but also sent Hermione tumbling off to the side.

“Ah!” Hermione yelled. The wire harness rigged and yanked her to the side and deposited her securely on to the crash mat.

The crowd sat in stunned silence, then erupted into cheers. 

Even Ron blinked owlishly at the second wand in his hand. A shout of ‘Weasley is our King!’ from the twins snapped him out of his daze and he hoofed it over to a recovering Hermione.

I caught his bewildered stare and gave him an encouraging nod and smile. He pointed down at Hermione while still looking at me, “Did you see me disarm Hermione, Harry?” Someone needed confirmation that, yes, they had in fact accomplished an impossible task.

“Only once,” said Hermione, stung. “I got you loads more than you got me -” 

“Doesn’t matter.” Ron cut in, bent, held Hermione’s hand, and dragged her up to her feet. “I got you!” 

They continued bickering after that, interestingly enough with their hands still in the other’s.

I ignored them and addressed the other members of the DA. “Take a good look, everyone. A simple disarming charm can perform miracles. Pair up and get to it!”

Chaos erupted in the room as disarming charms were hurled back and forth. Wooden bookcases lined the walls, packed with small CO2 charges that exploded, sending books and pages raining in the air. The camera focused on me and dollied in reverse as I marched down the center lane of students whipping their wands about.

I ducked, dipped, and dodged around flung spells, careening wands, and crashing magical instruments like sneakoscopes, and secrecy sensors. Reused props from Moody’s office in the previous movie. 

“Expelliarmus.” Luna’s soft Irish lilt tickled my ears. The concentrated frown on her face was in direct contrast with her sing-songy voice. The spell Luna cast was aimed at Ginny across her, but instead of Ginny’s wand flying, her entire hand jerked at the elbow and she accidentally clocked Neville standing precariously close to the redhead right in the nose. “Sorry! Rather, a tricky spell, isn’t it?” Which was ironic considering she’d be the first to get the Patronus to work later. 

“You’re missing the stab at the end.” She jumped when I spoke from beside her. “Here.” I held her hand and pointed the wand at Cho. “Expelliarmus.” I reflexively caught the wand tossed at me from off-screen. 

Rather than paying attention to the successful spell, Luna’s eyes fell squarely on my grip around her slender wrist. “Your hands are calloused, but they’re quite warm.”

I’d been shocked plugging something into a faulty electrical socket before, so I knew just the right way to snatch my hand away. “Er… thanks?”

“You’re welcome, Harry Potter. I enjoy your instruction. Ever since the DA started, the nargles have left me alone.” I searched her face, and she stared piercingly right at me. 

“That’s good then, I guess.” My voice was unsure.

“It is.” Hers was not.

“Right, well…. Um, I’m going to give this back to Cho.” 

“You should.” She said as I shuffled away. “She seems quite eager for you to hand her a wand.”

Ginny walked over to Luna. “You looked pretty cosy with Harry there, Luna.”

“No more than you’ve been with Michael Corner, Ginevra.” Then she pointed to where I was with Harry’s crush as Cho leaned into me while I guided her wand. “Though not near as cosy as they are.”

Ginny narrowed her eyes, clenched her teeth, and her wand, “Expelliarmus,” which rocketed out of her hands. As Neville’s spell caught her unawares. “I did it!” said Neville gleefully. “I’ve never done it before — I did it!”

Fire in her eyes, and iron in her step, Ginny marched over to a celebrating Neville, snatched her wand away, and pointed it at him. “Stupefy!” Statue Longbottom crashed into the room supplied cushions. 

Luna serenely skipped over as a fuming Ginny stomped away. “You really must learn better timing, Neville. Never forget, the wrackspurts are always after you.” She prodded his catatonic cheek with her wand.]

“Cut! Well done, children. That’s the one!” Yates called over the ringing of the bell. 

I felt my bones sink in relief. Given the month-long delay, we’d been pushed to finish this scene as fast as possible. 

I locked my fingers and stretched my arms up as high as they’d go. Call my spine Rice Krispies because snap, crackle, and pop!

The scene was finito, but a flash of purple suddenly traipsing across the destroyed set meant we were still filming. “Field agent Tena is on the scene of this devastating event.” Natalia Tena, the boisterous actress who played Tonks, had arrived with her attached camcorder.

For all the films we’d shot here on Leavesden, there was the b-team that did a lot of the BTS stuff.

God only knew the amount of blackmail they had on me at this point. They hadn’t allowed me, or any of the cast, to see any of it yet.

Unsatisfied with her minor involvement, Natalia had forcefully taken the reins of that responsibility. Her reasoning? “They might miss me on the big screen, but they won’t be able to ignore me in the DVD extras!”

Game is game. Now let me go spit some of my own.

She was only six years older than me, so perfectly in my strike zone. Which also made her the ideal age to play Tonks if her bubbly personality wasn’t enough - which it most certainly was.

Natalia zeroed in on Rupert and Emma beside him as she got her harness undone. “That duel was certainly one for the highlight reel. How about a word from our star athletes for the folks at home?”

“Bloody brilliant!” Rupert grinned widely and his teeth glinted. He Grinted. “Normally it’s either Bas, Dan, or I that are strung up on wires, chased by spiders, or vomiting slugs while darling Emma gets to wear pretty dresses and punch blokes. Won’t lie - seeing her tossed about brought a smile to my face.”

“And I’ll be very glad to never have to do it again, thanks very much!” Emma’s sixth sense for trouble must have pinged because she, and subsequently the cam pointed straight to me. “This is all his fault, anyway.”

“Why?” asked the intrepid reporter.

“The diva here’s off to LA again for his other movie’s premiere. I swear, Bas, I’m going to give you two bruises for each one I get because of this.”

“Don’t you think your own scheduling conflict also plays a contributing factor in our expedited schedule?” I’d rather block this line of argument than block her punches.

“Two for one!”

The camera bounced wildly between the three of us. “Racing brooms and racing cars now, too. So tell us, Bas, who’s the lucky lady on your arm this time?”

“No one who needs to get a permission slip signed. I’ll tell you that much.” That excluded any of my co-stars.

“Make that three.” Crikey girl, cut me some slack, would you? 

“Seems a shame to be going stag like that. Don’t you have your eye on anyone?” I’d actually called Keiko first, but I’d been turned down on account of her agency anticipating a sharp rise in her popularity on the release of Tokyo Drift. The Japanese were the pioneers of monetizing parasocial relationships, after all. Gemma, too, would have commitments with a project here in the UK and wouldn’t be able to step away, either.

Shameful problems require shameless solutions.

I threw my arm around Nat’s shoulders and twisted the camera to get the both of us in the frame. “Are you offering? We don’t look bad together.”

Her spread palm met my squishy face. “Ha! I wouldn’t be caught dead with you in public.” 

“That’s good. I’d prefer if you were alive if that’s alright.” I mumbled out from between her fingers as she pushed me away.

“Nuh-uh. Not happening. There must be someone else desperate enough to go with you.”

–

Universal CityWalk, LA. June 2006. 

Extended life on set meant I had an insignificant life on the street. Ipso facto, I had a very limited dating pool - especially in the States.

Fortuitously, however, there was someone I knew who was here shooting an ad campaign for American Apparel, and had graciously agreed to escort me for the night. Though, it had been made eminently clear - as seemed to be the case with me recently - that nothing was going to happen between us.

So I chained my nomadic hand to my date’s upper back.

Once more I bore the seizure inducing flash of the red carpet paps. 

Just barely managing not to squint, I gave myself a brief break and viewed the venue. I spotted Tyrese Gibson chatting with Justin Lin. I knew Vin was also likely to arrive and Universal had sent invites to the cast from the previous two movies, so maybe I’d see Paul Walker and the rest, too.

Lithe lonely Keiko posed, while undersized Bow-Wow in his oversized shirt flexed for the cameras. At least Brian Tee waved back at me. Who’d have guessed DK would have been the sweet one?

“Why do you not touch me?” My date’s hot breath lapped my ears.

“Was I spontaneously dismembered?” A quick whisper and a light press of my hand into her soft back made my point. Her dress wasn’t backless or anything, but with how light the fabric was, I swear I could feel her skin on my fingertips. 

“I leave for a year, and you suddenly become zis shy? Your ‘andsomeness is wasted on you, Bas.” Lea Seydoux, the actress for Fleur, teased me with that breathy accent of hers. “Zat is not the touch of a man with a beautiful woman. You cower away like a scared puppy.”

I leaned in and growled as softly as I could, “I’ll be totally honest here and tell you that if my hand strays any lower, these nice people here taking our picture will end up filming a porno.”

“And you wonder why I won’t date you.” She rallied back.

“I don’t think you realise how hard I’m controlling myself right now.” 

“I see myself in the mirror before I come out tonight. I know how good I look.” No shortage of confidence with this one.