winter in hogsmeade - hermione granger fanfic

ch. 8 - butterbeer

The intoxicating smell of sweat and alcohol makes my heart pump. I follow Addi and Pansy to the drink table, our party ritual is starting every night with a shot of tequila.

Blaise and Draco on the other hand hated our ritual, probably because they are the ones who would always end up carrying us up to our dorm at 3 am after every party. We just go hard or go home every time, and it's usually go hard.

I'm forced onto the dance floor by Addi after we grab a hard butterbeer each. Pansy starts using me as a lap dance partner, which I had no complaints about as I played along. I knew it was a just show for Draco, so I put on the best performance of my life. If there's one thing I hate more than dancing, it's Draco.

After dancing for a while, I decide to catch my breathe and grab another butterbeer. As I'm reaching into the cooler, I hear a familiar voice behind me say, "Grab me one?" I smile to myself.

"Hermione!" I turned around to hand her a butterbeer and greeted her with a tighter hug than i think i meant to. She didn't seem to notice or mind either way. I notice she was wearing a simple off the shoulder purple mini dress, and I couldn't help staring at the sight of her in a dress.

"You were amazing today you know." She says.

It took me a minute to actually reigister what she said, and I smiled, "Thanks.. but I mean we lost."

When she laughs out of nowhere, I catch myself staring at her. She looks at me in the eyes and grabbed my hand and i swear my heart stopped. Then she said, "Come on, let's play a game!"

She lead me to the other side of the room, where a bunch of Gryffindors were playing a drinking game that I didn't recognize. "What is this game called?" I whispered, I didn't want anyone to think I was stupid for not knowing it.

"It's an american drinking game, I think it's called sink the boat or something." She leaned in when she whispered, the close contact was making me sweat more than I should've.

I picked up on the game pretty quickly. You took turns pouring a small amount of liquor into a shot glass, in the middle of a cup of beer. I was just waiting to see how this became a drinking game. It didn't take long, when someone finally sank the 'boat', which is apparently the shot glass, to the bottom of the cup. then everyone started chanting "chug! chug! chug!"

When they started a new round I sat down immediately and said I wanted to try, and Hermione sat down next to me. We were sat in a group of maybe 7 people around one table with a cup. Someone filled the cup with beer and placed the shot in the middle to begin the game again.

I recognized a couple people at the table including Dean, Seamus, Fred, George, Oliver and a couple other Gryffindors i didn't know.

Fred starts off by pouring the first drop. All I've learned about this game from watching is that the goal is simply not sink the boat.

We go around the group puting little by little until it's barely afloat and Hermione has the next pour. She carefully drops the smallest amount of vodka in the shot and just like that, it's at the bottom of the cup and everyone begins to chant.

I never thought Hermione was much for drinking but she impressed me with her ability to chug.
Merely seconds after making contact with the cup , it was empty. Everyone else seemed just as shocked by this because all their mouths hung wide open. Staring at Hermione in disbelief.

I hadn't realized that I was staring at her while all of this was happening until she looked at me and smiled saying, "What?" I just smiled at her. I was simply admiring her ability to drink. That's all.

I just laughed and said "I've just never seen you drink like that before I guess." She giggled loudly and I could tel the alcohol was now taking effect on her. We continued to play a few more rounds as we watched Dean lose once and Fred lost twice in a row. Then finally, I finally lost after maybe five rounds of playing.