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September lingered, and classes were not yet hitting their stride which led to more recreational weekend endeavors by the seventh year Gryffindors. The Marauders loafed around in the common room. James sat sideways in the armchair reading the Quidditch news, Remus and Sirius were occupied playing chess while Peter levitated a slip of parchment in the air, folding it into a paper hippogriff, unfolding it, and repeating. Silence permeated the common room until a trio of girls entered.
“Ughhhh” Donna tiredly exclaimed, dropping her bookbag on the floor and flopping face first on the sofa.
“Honestly Shack, it was a quiz and you got an ‘E’” Mary stated, following her friend through the portrait hole.
“I can’t stand our new Ancient Runes professor, it used to be my thing, I’m the only Gryffindor taking N.E.W.T. level Runes, I need to be top of the class.”
“You’ll be fine Donna.” Lily, the last to come through the portrait hole, said, disinterested in her roommate’s exaggerated reaction. She set her book bag beside Donna’s and took a seat on the floor beside her.
“But can Donna stand our new Defense professor?” Mary spoke up, biting her lip and raising her eyebrows, clearly fishing for a response.
“Sod off.” droned Donna, muffled by the pillow her face was pressed down into. “I need a drink.”
“Someone say drinking?” The head boy peered comically over his copy of the Prophet revealing a single raised eyebrow to the crowd. Sirius joined in.
“Oi, you know what I could go for right now Prongs? Some of that expensive tequila at your mum’s house. With loads of ice and no mixer.”
“You have impeccable taste in liquor, Padfoot. Do you want some? I wouldn’t mind getting opulently sloshed tonight.”
“What are you going to do? Owl your mum to send it to you right now?” Lily inquired incredulously.
Always one for showmanship, James folded his copy of the Prophet and set it on the table. Rising from his chair he motioned to Lily as if beginning to speak and then
crrkzzk!
“Jesus!” shrieked Mary, who had not been paying attention to the exchange, reacting to the sharp burst of noise. The remaining women present in the room spent a few moments in silence, gaping at the sight of a student apparating within the castle walls.
cczrkkztk!
James appeared, clutching a bottle of light gold liquid in an ornate bottle, and also wearing a hat?
“Are you telling me, James Potter, that you can apparate within Hogwarts?” the Head Girl asked curtly.
“Sure can.” he winked.
“How do I know you didn’t cast a quick disillusionment charm and got your mates to hand you a bottle of liquor and the worst hat in Scotland?”
crkkztk!
Mary vanished.
czzrktt!
Mary reappeared.
“It works!” she practically yelled, “I just scared the living hell out of my mum though.”
Everyone, the girls, that is, gave looks of utter shock. The boys were trying their best to be nonchalant about the whole ordeal.
“How’d you do it, Potter?” The redhead asked.
“Well,” he started “Let’s just say that according to the anti-apparting charm around the castle, the Gryffindor common room isn’t in the castle.” he glanced at Sirius chuckling to himself, “it’s in Wales.”
“We’re in Wales right now?” Lily remarked.
“Kinda?” he scratched the back of his head, as if he honestly did not know. “Anyways. Oi! Shack! Tequila?”
Sitting mostly upright now, “I don’t drink tequila Potter.”
“Shack you’ve drank more tequila than anyone I’d ever heard of.” Remus chimed in, “and you drank it out of a sock.” he finished with a disgusted look.
“That’s why I don’t drink it anymore.” she shuddered. “What else do your parents got?” she redirected back to James, “all I have in my trunk is some firewhiskey that I’m getting bored of.”
crrzktt!
James vanished.
krzzkt!
James reappeared, holding five or six new bottles, and wearing a different hat.
“Of the stuff I’m banking on my parents not notice being gone,” he noted, unloading the bottles onto the low table in front of the sofa, “some rum from Jamaica, overpriced vodka, I don’t know what this bottle is.. or this one, it might be perfume, another tequila, sorry Shack, and some fairy floss flavored firewhiskey, Merlin, I don’t know which would be worse, if this is my mum’s or my dad’s.”
Mary could barely contain her excitement, “This- this is amazing! I’m going to get so drunk tonight!”
Comparably excited, although far more contained, Donna and Lily approached the table in question. The Marauders were pouring all sorts of liquids into all sorts of glasses, Mary joining in too. Sirius started with a tall glass of ice filled to the brim with tequila, James opted for the vodka, Remus and Peter mixed fairy floss flavored firewhiskey with pumpkin juice claiming it would catch on. Donna sprung for the vodka while Lily poured herself a modest finger of rum, mostly out of curiosity.
“It should go without saying.” the Quidditch captain spoke, “that only the cool Gryffindors can know about this. If word gets out I’m afraid Dumbledore will remove Flitwick’s charm and do it himself. And I know what you’re thinking.” the Marauder continued. “I could break through that charm just as easily, but I don’t want to hurt our beloved Dumbledore’s ego.”
A relaxing aura filled the common room. The mingling between all of those present left a friendly and calming, although rambunctious, atmosphere. While Remus, Sirius, and Peter chatted up Donna and Mary, James situated himself on the floor next to Lily, placing his glass of.. something, on the coffee table. He smiled cheesily at her and pointed upward toward his hat, inviting a comment from the red head.
“I liked the first one better, honestly.” she frowned.
“Should have stuck with my gut.” the wizard replied, removing the lesser hat.
“It’s pretty impressive moving the boundary of Flitwick’s charm.” the Head Girl complemented, genuinely.
“Eh, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. You could have done it, if you weren’t such a rule follower.”
Mary was thoroughly smashed at this point in the night. Not that everyone else wasn’t drunk, but the brunette was many drinks ahead of the witch or wizard in second.
“D-Donna baby.” Mary slung an arm around her friend, “You should totallyyyy get w- with Lathe. It’s like forbidden love, which is the hottest love.”
Lily locked eyes with Donna, looking genuinely concerned, not for Mary, but for Donna who had to support her weight and be the subject of her, albeit one-sided, conversation.
“Mary, gross,” the witch replied, “we may have had some kind of something over the summer. We barely talked, never snogged, not once. It was mutual attraction with zero actions taken, and if nothing happened over the summer, why in Merlin’s name would it happen now, when he’s our professor?”
“It’s w-way hotter now.” Mary hiccupped.
“I don’t think anyone has shagged a professor, and I don’t want to be the first slag to do it.”
“Are we talking about shagging professors?” Carlotta inquired, entering through the portrait hole along with Shelley. “And what’s going on here? What’re we celebrating?” eyeing the bottles on the table.
“Donna wants to shag L-Lathe.” Mary prodded.
“Race you to it.” Carlotta said, winking at Donna.
Donna rolled her eyes and reunited with her vodka.
“Have you ever slept with a professor, Car?” Mary asked loudly and almost incoherently.
“No, but I’d like to before we graduate.” she replied, airily, pouring herself a glass of firewhiskey, “Professor Black last year th-”
A loud zap exploded into Carlotta catapulting her body a few feet away from where she was standing, resulting in her limp ragdoll body laying in a heap on the floor.
“...”
Sirius Black, who had been drinking from a laying down position on his back for the past half hour, was holding his wand in her general direction, his eyes appearing to still be closed.
“I… don’t contest this.” Lily remarked, pointing to Carlotta’s pile of body.
There was a murmur of agreement throughout the common room.
Remus levitated Carlotta about an inch off the ground while everyone watched as she glided across the floor and underneath a sofa.
The revelry continued throughout the common room, with no sign of things slowing down. The remaining Gryffindor seventh years, Marlene and Adam, made their way through the portrait hole, surprised at what seemed like a full blown post-victory Quidditch party. The pair scanned around the room, not being noticed by anyone in particular just yet.
“Oi! Rum!” Adam noticed a familiar bottle sitting on the coffee table. “James is this yours?”
The Head Boy glanced over in that general direction. “No,” he replied with a crooked smile, “it’s yours.”
“My man.” Adam pointed excitedly back at him. “Hey Marlene you should try this, it’s class.”
Marlene had stepped further into the room and was attempting to have a conversation with a now-fairly-drunk Head Girl.
“He figured it out, we’re in Wales, it’s a whole thing. But look, alcohol.”
“You’ll have to catch me up on the details tomorrow, Lily.” Marlene responded, a little confused.
Adam approached the pair of girls holding two glasses of dark liquid, staring over his shoulder behind him.
“Someone should take Mary’s wand, she looks like she’s going to do something she’ll regret.”
“We took care of it.” Lily interjected. “It’s under Marlene’s pillow.”
“Smart.” the blonde replied, taking a glass handed to her by Adam, “what’s this?” she asked.
“It’s-”
“It’s rum!” interrupted Lily, “It’s as good as a bug in a rug.”
Realizing any conversation with Lily would be fruitless until she caught up, Marlene neglected to respond and instead turned back to her wizard friend.
“Happy friday.” she cheersed his glass smiling.
“Happy friday.” he smiled back. “I don’t plan on remembering anything after an hour from now.” the wizard added.
“Oh thank Merlin, glad we’re on the same page.”
***
James was perfectly horizontal on.. the floor? Yes, the floor. Remaining perfectly still, his eyes slowly scanned the room, eventually landing on Donna, who had collapsed that night on the sofa above Carlotta, who was, apparently awake, and looking back at him,
“Hey.”
Donna merely glared at him.
“Were we successful in getting you to forget your ‘E’ in Runes?”
Donna closed her eyes, withholding a myriad of responses she just didn’t have the physical energy to do justice in her delivery of. She eventually breathed.
“Up until now.”
“Well I guess the only other method is Quidditch. Come on, we have practice in an hour. And it looks like you’ll need to find a way to squeeze a day’s worth of recovery into sixty minutes.”
James peeled himself off the floor, rising up in a towering position over Donna on the sofa.
“Don’t be late.” he sang gingerly and exited toward the stairs up to the boys’ dormitory.
Some unknown amount of time passed, and James descended the stairs in his Quidditch gear.
“Adam isn’t in the boys’ dormitory so if he’s shagging one of your roommates, let him know he still has to come to practice, but he’ll be slightly cooler.”
James exited the portrait hole, Donna continued to lay there.
***
Adam was mostly horizontal. A stray leg hung off the side of the bed he was in. It wasn’t his bed, he knew that much, the pillow was horribly uncomfortable, more like a towel, really. Without moving, he attempted to surmise whose bed he was in, although he had a suspicion. Unable to completely verify while remaining still, he slowly rotated his head to the left to see, what he only hoped, was Marlene Price. It was. Thank Merlin.
“...”
“Oh shit.” he thought to himself, erasing any sense of comfort he had constructed about the situation moments ago.
With perfect, or horrific, timing, Marlene sleepily opened her eyes, asymmetrically, to see her friend staring back at her, with a face that looked like he had seen a thestral.
“...”
“We…?”
“No…”
“Certainly not, right?”
“We did agree we weren’t going to remember anything that happened after a certain point.”
Marlene sat up, unamused with her friend’s comment, rubbing her temples with her eyes closed, she commented.
“Not sure why we always say that to each other before a party.”
“You’re wearing clothes.” Adam noted how strange of a comment that was, but in this context it seemed appropriate. “That’s a good sign.”
Adam paused, lifted up the covers and looked downwards, and looked back at Marlene.
“What?” she asked, anxiously.
“I’m not wearing my pants.”
“What?!”
“No I mean I'm not wearing my pants.” the wizard stated, almost annoyed. He threw off the bed sheets revealing his, fully clothed, body. “I’m wearing Remus’s pants.”
***
Lily was mostly upright. She had fallen asleep on the armchair in her private dormitory, with a book open on her lap, like an old person waiting to die.