A hard and fast techno beat mixed with the piano and strings of classical Mozart and Beethoven roared out across the dimly lit dance floor to the appreciative crowd as they in the various states of drunkenness grooved to the beat the current DJ was laying down for them. More people crowded around the bar, buying drinks and chatting with friends or trying to chat up someone that they found hot with the help of liquid courage while the occasional waitress tried to navigate through the crowd and serve those seated at the handful of small tables scattered around the club and cleaned up any empty and abandoned glasses and bottles lying around. 

“Remind me again why we decided to listen to the quak.” a mostly sober Harry groused. 

“Because even a stopped clock is right twice a day?” Ron replied as he stared at a particularly eye catchingly (but not really in a good way) dressed woman.

“But what if the clock’s one of those new twenty four hour digital ones?” a slightly tipsy Neville asked.

“Then it’d still be right but only one time a day.” Ron concluded, “My point still stands.”

“You had a point?” Draco snarked.

“Look,” Ron said with a sigh, “He might be...”

“A fuckin idiot? A complete and utter hack? Madder than a factory full of hatters if he thinks his outdated black and white ideals have any merit in this modern society of ours? In possession of an ego bigger than my father’s and Lockheart’s; combined?” Draco supplied.

“I was going to say going about things in completely the wrong way.” Ron said sourly, not entirely happy with the way Draco had interrupted him but actually agreeing with Draco’s sentiment (they all did actually), “We kind of do need to get out a bit more.”

“It’s not like we never go out or see other people or anything.” Harry protested, “Percy has that long standing D&D game with a bunch of his coworkers, and Draco’s out somewhere or another pretty much any time he doesn’t have to worry about work.”

“And you?” Ron asked despite pretty much already knowing the answer.

“So sue me. I’m fairly knacked after working a long shift saving people’s lives.” Harry bit back. 

“Can we not fight.” Neville pleaded before Harry and Ron could really get into it, “We’re here already, so why not enjoy what we can. I’m actually impressed by the music. Who knew you could do something like this with classical music?”

Harry quieted down and stared low key brooding over his half full bottle of beer. It wasn’t like he couldn’t see Ron’s point. He did have a tendency to keep to himself and stay close to home in his (precious) off time, and the club was actually pretty nice as far as clubs went; not too loud overall and everyone seemed to be having a good time without fights breaking out (although that might be more because of how relatively early it was; things might change the closer to closing it got and the drunker people got as a result). But Harry didn’t like giving the ‘therapist’ that they had been (unofficially) forced to see any credit and he’d been to many clubs over the course of his job as a paramedic (fights, alcohol poisoning, over doses, the occasional fall or heart attack or stroke - and even on two memorable occasions, a full on anaphylactic allergic reaction). After the fiftieth time you had to pull some bloke’s head out of the toilet before they drowned in their own vomit while the overly loud bass made the walls shake, clubbing kind of lost any luster it might’ve otherwise had. 

“Everyone give it up for DJ Midas!” an overly excited voice crowed. The crowd cheered as the music that had had them hopping came to an end and the DJ that had been slinging the sick tunes threw up his arms and began to make his way down from the DJ booth and into the club proper to their cheers as another DJ took his place and playing some more conventional music for the liquored up dancers. Draco watched him (?) dance-walk his way towards the bar, eyes narrowing slightly as... something... began to worm its way across his slightly alcohol fogged mind. It could’ve just been the DJ was dressed; his clothes were nice and tight in all the right places while still managing not to give away their gender and shimmering as if it was made out of liquid gold or something similar.

“Excuse me.” Draco said politely as he got up and began to make his way to the bar in order to get a better look at this mysterious DJ Midas. He just couldn’t shake the niggling thought that maybe he knew this DJ Midas despite presumably never having met the person before (he was a bit - or even more than a bit - drunk, and with the way that people dressed up to go to the club it was easy for them to look totally different than they normally did. Ron and Neville just waved him off and went back to seeing if they could pry the disgruntled Harry out of his funk.

Draco had made it to the bar near and ordered another drink while slyly glancing at DJ Midas where he was lounging with something that could’ve been either a sex on the beach or a tequila sunrise going by the colors. While he was waiting for his drink to be served, his eyes caught DJ Midas’.

“Well I’ll be... Draco Malfoy is that you?” DJ Midas asked with surprise. Draco nodded as he was finally handed the drink he’d ordered as a pretense to get closer to DJ MIdas, “Shite. Didn’t expect to see you here. How you’ve been?”

“I’ve been good. Bit busy with work; you know what it’s like.” Draco said, trying to rack his brain over what DJ Midas’ real name was. He’d been right about knowing the guy (and at this point, Draco was close enough to be fairly certain that DJ Midas was a guy), but between the androgynus look and the artfully applied shiny makeup (and the couple of drinks he’d already had which had left him comfortably buzzed and muddy minded) he just couldn’t place a name to the face.

“True that.” DJ Midas agreed with a nod, “You here alone?”

“Nah. Me and my mates are having a proper boys night out tonight.” Draco said, “Want to meet them?”

“Don’t see why not. I’ve got some time before my next set.” DJ Midas replied with a shrug. It was pretty much all good to him so he didn’t mind.

“Zabini? What’re you doing here” Harry asked with what he refused to admit was a bit of a snarl as Draco got back to the table with DJ Midas. Draco began kicking himself for not recognizing Blaise earlier. After all, he’d only shared a room and classes with the guy for (almost) five years at school and known him for nearly ten outside of school thanks to their parents moving in mostly the same social circles. 

“Good to see you too Potter.” Blaise replied, deciding to ignore the snarky question. He hadn’t exactly gotten along with Harry Before, but on the same note, he hadn’t exactly not gotten along with him either. The difference in upbringing, House affiliation, and (superficially as no one had actually bothered to ask him his views on the subject; they just assumed that they knew since it had been ‘obvious’ to them) ideology had been a bit of a roadblock when it came for them forming any kind of friendship (and the fact that Blaise had been on such good terms with Draco, who Harry and his friends had often clashed with didn’t help matters any). He nodded in greeting to Ron and Neville in turn, “Weasley. Longbottom.”

“Don’t mind him. He’s just a killjoy.” Ron apologized for Harry. This earned him a half-hearted glare.

“So long have you been here?” Neville asked, giving a pointed look at both Ron and Harry in hopes of killing off any impending argument they might get into. In a way he understood where Harry was coming from; clubbing was not exactly what came to his mind when it came to having a good time (he found the to be too loud and too crowded for his tastes). But just because Harry didn’t want to be there it didn’t mean that Harry could ruin it for everyone else the way he seemed intent on doing (not like Harry had to stick around if he wasn’t having a good time. He was free to call a cab and head home if that’s what he wanted; none of them would think less of him for doing so).

“Not very long I’d say,” Blaise replied slightly sarcastically “Pretty much my whole life really.”

“I’d say that it was odd that we haven’t run into you before, but it’s not like Birmingham’s that small a city.” Neville said pleasantly, “Have you run into anyone else who Remembers? Aside from us and Ron’s brother Percy who didn’t come with us tonight, the only other person we’ve met who does is Professor Snape. Well, Harry and Draco ran into him down near Oxford. By the time the rest of us got back to them, he’d buggered off somewhere and then we were too busy getting home to go looking (not that Harry said anything about running into him until after we’d gotten back home, but then again he had been a bit too busy at the time to really say anything).”

Blaise gave an amused snort at that. It seemed that the usually shy Neville was a chatty drunk (or, again, at least this Neville was one. Blaise had never had the opportunity to see the Neville from Before drunk. And given the fact that they’d all been underage at the time, it was likely that Before Neville had never actually gotten drunk in the first place, so there was no telling what kind of drunk he would’ve been), “Sadly, you’re the first people I’ve run into. Do you think there are any others of us out there?”

“It’s hard to say.” Ron said with a shrug, dragging his attention away from the silent conversation he was having with Harry solely through looks and eye gestures (which mostly amounted to him telling Harry to get over himself and maybe try seeing if he could have some fun - and if not, if he could at the very least stop trying to keep the rest of them from having fun thank you?), “Since none of us Remember anything that happened before we ended up here, we don’t rightly know how many people ended up getting caught up in... whatever it was. It could be just the seven of us, it could be practically the rest of the whole bloody school and we just haven’t run into anyone else yet. It’s not Ginny or the twins though. They’ve never even hinted that they might Remember. Although... maybe they do, but they haven’t said or done anything to show that they do because they think that me and Percy don’t...”

“I guess I’ll just have to keep an eye out for that then.” Blaise admitted before brightening up a bit as a thought hit him, “We should totally do something together sometime.”

“Like what?” Neville asked, slightly intrigued. Having not really known Blaise Before (and privately agreeing that Ron was right about Horowitz being right about expanding what passed as their social life being a good thing), he was not opposed to the idea of getting to know him in the here and now.

“I don’t know.” Blaise admitted with another shrug, “Maybe go see a movie or go clubbing sometime when I’m not busy with a DJing gig or something?”

“I could totally go for something like that.” Draco agreed, “It’d be nice to have someone to hit the club scene with; I swear sometimes it takes a bloody crowbar to pry these guys out of the house.”

“You mentioned Percy earlier.” Blaise said as something occurred to him, “But I don’t see him here. He in the loo or something?”

Ron shook his head, “He had a work thing he had to go to; or at least that’s what he said. So who really knows.”

A shrill scream from the direction of the loos had Harry jumping up and instinctively running towards them. Draco just nodded with a sigh to Blaise’s unasked question of if Harry was always like that.