The Show Must Go On

(Enter SEAMUS, COLIN, and NEVILLE. COLIN is ungagged, though from offstage he is receiving the full-force glare of Interim Tyrannical Director and Mad Costumer HERMIONE. This appears to have frightened him into docility. After a moment, HARRY and DRACO, still in full fairy regalia, shove PANSY onstage, bound, gagged, and tied to a chair)

SEAMUS: Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come home yet?

PANSY: NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!

COLIN: If he come not, then the play is marred: it goes not forward, doth it?

(Brief silence from offstage)

DEAN: Colin just got a line right.

RON: Is the sky falling?

HERMIONE: Shut up, you two.

RON: Make me.

(HERMIONE kisses him)

RON: You made me.

DRACO: Whipped already, Weasley?

RON: Shut up!

SEAMUS: It is not possible: you have not a man in all Athens able to discharge Pyramus but he.

COLIN: No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in Athens.

DRACO: That doesn't say much for the rest of you, does it?

SEAMUS: Yea and the best person too; and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice.

HARRY: (shakes his head) That definitely qualifies as more than we needed to know, Seamus.

HERMIONE: Harry! Don't make me warn you again!

COLIN: You must say 'paragon:' a paramour is, God bless us, a thing of naught.

SEAMUS: This from the guy who dreams about puppies.

HERMIONE: Seamus! You're onstage! Show a little respect for the work!

SEAMUS: (stares at her dreamily) You gonna break out the whips and black leather soon, 'Mione?

HERMIONE: Don't make me hurt you, Seamus.

SEAMUS: Awwww... why not?

(Enter CRABBE. He is carrying a whole box of crayons and has forgotten to remove his teeny purple fairy wings)

CRABBE: Trees need more bunnies...

COLIN: O sweet bully Bottom!

DEAN: Colin and Goyle... (makes a face) Oh, I just got a picture of that!

GINNY: (cloying) I'll help you forget about it....

DEAN: Um... no thanks.

COLIN: Thus hath he lost sixpence a day during his life; he could not have ‘scaped sixpence a day: an the duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged; he would have deserved it: sixpence a day in Pyramus, or nothing.

HARRY and DRACO: (agreement) Nothing.

HERMIONE: (angry) Don't make me go over there!

(Enter GOYLE, who looks odd without the Trelawney head on)

GOYLE: Where are these lads? where are these... hearts?

SEAMUS: Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!

DRACO: Wild exaltations, the chief idiot has arrived!

GOYLE: Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I will tell you every thing, right as it fell out.

HARRY: Sure, like you can remember.

SEAMUS: Let us hear, sweet Bottom.

DEAN: Seamus and Goyle? What is he, the Casanova of gorillas?

(HARRY and DRACO exchange looks)

HARRY: Jealous, Dean?

DEAN: ...No.

DRACO: You're a rotten liar, Thomas.

GOYLE: Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the duke hath dined. Get your apparel together, good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps;

HARRY: Pink ones! You can use the tacky scarf!

HERMIONE: Harry! I'm the costumer, thank you very much!

GOYLE: ...meet presently at the palace; every man look o'er his part; for the short and the long is, our play is preferred. In any case, let Thisbe have clean linen; and let not him that plays the lion pair his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion's claws.

DRACO: (sarcastic) And not cutting your nails for one night is really going to look like claws. Sure.

GOYLE: And, most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet comedy. No more words: away! go, away!

HARRY: Didn't they say earlier that it's a tragedy?

DRACO: With them? It's definitely a comedy.

HERMIONE: (shrill) You two! Shut up and get out of your fairy costumes! I'm going to need you for next scene to be Theseus and Hippolyta! All the bit players are going to be onstage!

(HARRY and DRACO exchange looks)

HARRY: Um... Hermione... we have a bit in the next scene. We need our costumes.

DRACO: rolls his eyes) He's right, Granger.

(HERMIONE leafs ahead in her script, then scowls)

HERMIONE: All right. Fine. You two are still Theseus and Hippolyta, but you are, apparently, a freakishly deformed Theseus and Hippolyta.

(They ignore her and read through the last scene)

DRACO: I'm Theseus.

HARRY: Sure. You're the one obsessed with the sound of his own voice.

DRACO: I am not.

HARRY: You are.

DRACO: Am not.

HARRY: Are too.

DRACO: Am not.

HARRY: Are-

(DRACO kisses him)

HARRY: (breathless) You win.

DRACO: As usual.

RON: You guys are sick. Harry, do you realize you've given me enough nightmares to last a lifetime? Hermione, why don't you separate them, or hose them down with cold water or something?

HERMIONE: Shut up. I'm busy.