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“Spitfire,” Harry slurs. “Tom should be called Spitfire.” He brings the glass to his mouth and tilts it, only to look confused when nothing comes out. “Someone drink my drank. Wait, that’s not right. Someone drank my drunk. Am I drunk?”
Tom sighs and reaches up to take it away from Harry. “You’re pissed. And I already have a codename.” He’s the Evil Overlord, thank you very much. You can’t have minions if you’re not an Evil Overlord.
Harry looks confused. A pint later, he’s already ridiculously drunk and his IQ has been slashed by 60 points. “Hermione, you’re Dragon. What am I?”
“I should be Dragon,” Draco grumbles as he tosses back another shot. This is the argument they’ve been having for the last week, and it’s exhausting.
“You can’t be Dragon if your name is Draco. We have codenames to protect our identities.” Hermione has drunk as much as the rest of them, but she looks remarkably put together, hair in a pony tail, shirt and dress pants clean and unwrinkled. “Harry, what about Spirit?”
“I’m not a horse.” Harry reaches out to grab one of the premade shot, and Tom knocks his hand away. He pouts and deep, deep down, Tom can admit to himself it’s a little adorable. Harry tangles his fingers with Tom’s and leans against Tom, using a shoulder as a pillow. “I can be Tree. Or Cloud.”
Draco snorts. Merlin, his parents would be horrified if they saw him now. But Draco hasn’t spoken to his parents since he decided to join MI13. “Those are boring.”
“Those things blend in. Like I blend in.” Harry sighs, morose all of a sudden. “I used to believe that I would fade away one day in my cupboard and no one would notice until my body rotted in my cupboard. And then I would become a ghost and haunt Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia and Dudley forever.”
Hermione looks at Harry, anger clear in her eyes. Harry doesn’t know that Hermione has given Tom everything she knows about the Dursleys and Tom has slowly been strangling their finances. Calling a child a burden and a waste of money? He has no regrets.
“Oh I can be Ghost!” Harry beams. “Like that movie with the little girl and the TV.”
“That’s Poltergeist,” Tom says dryly.
“I like Ghost.”
Tom picks his fights wisely and a drunk Harry is a stubborn Harry. “Harry is Ghost. Hermione is Dragon. Draco, pick, so we can go home.”
Hermione eyes Draco. “You’re taking calculus right?”
“I don’t want to be Calculus. I want to be Dragon.” And now Draco is actually sulking. MI13 had employed a bunch of children.
“What about Limits? Slopes. Tangent. Chain Rule. L’Hôpital. Derivative. Integral. Integrated Derivative.”
Draco chokes on his next shot and splutters, getting spit and alcohol everywhere. Tom sighs.
Hermione beams. “Integrated Derivative it is.”
“No! Do you even know what an integrated derivative is?”
Tom stands up and takes out his wand to clear all the alcohol from the table. “Ghost, Dragon, Integrated Derivative. I’ll update the system tomorrow. Go home, drink water, don’t die from your hangovers.” He’s definitely not fleeing from the argument that’s coming up as he apparates Harry to his flat and then goes back to his own house.