cloudy with a Chance of freedom

chapter 31

Viktor Krum was many things, but easily surprised or amused was not one of them. Until now.

"Mind letting us in? It's bordering bloody freezing out here and I really don't want this to go to waste," said Harry Black, grinning like the devil himself.

Curious, despite the looks his headmaster was giving the teen, Viktor let Black in with his companions, a pair of red haired twins, a teen with green hair, a Chinese teen and of course Black's best best friend...both carrying one side of a very large and curious chest.

The nature of which was quickly revealed when Black opened it up...and nearly every male in the ship had eyes on him.

"Consider this a proper welcome from Hogwarts, courtesy of the students. I've already sent my sister to give the French a proper welcome with some good wine, but I thought you'd appreciate this more."

In the chest was Vodka. Properly made, authentic Russian Vodka. And not the cheap stuff either...these bottles would get one well and truly drunk and cursing the sun by the end of a single bottle.

"If you're trying to poison our champion so that yours has a leg up..." growled Karkaroff.

"The only poisoning you'd have to worry about is alcohol poisoning," deadpanned Black. "Here, just to give you all a show of good faith I'll even pour the first shot. If I don't keel over you'll know it's safe. Besides, I brought enough for everyone, even Mr. Sourpuss."

Viktor snorted at the description of Karkaroff.

As promised, Black poured a healthy shot before throwing it back like a pro. For five full minutes nothing happened.

"So, who's interested in trying to drink me under the table with some real booze, not that crap the sell at the pub in Hogsmeade?" he grinned cockily.

The Durmstrang students all looked at each other, before a shared grin came across their faces. It didn't take long for a drinking party to kick off, or for Black to surprise them all by singing some rather raunchy drinking songs from their homeland in Russian.

"Let's hear it for Mother Russia!" cheered Harry in Russian, which got a rowdy cheer back from the older teens.

In the French carriages...

"The boys are certainly getting very rowdy," commented Maxime, who had been given the best two bottles of wine all to herself. Like Skull, Camellia had been quick to prove they weren't poisoned before sharing the rest.

Camellia rolled her eyes."My brother brought in actual Russian vodka and made it clear he intends to share with the Durmstrang boys. He plans to get a large amount of blackmail for later just in case, all in the spirit of good fun," replied Camellia in French.

She had been sent with Luna, Hermione, Susan Bones, Hannah Abbot and the three Gryffindor Chasers for one purpose. To make the French girls feel more at home and enjoy themselves with some rather expensive bottles of proper wine. Well, expensive for most... Renato had insisted that if they wanted the quality stuff they had to pay for it, and Camellia had reluctantly agreed on the grounds that he knew more on the subject than she did.</p><p>Her idiot brother might be able to avoid liver damage and the resulting hangover thanks to his secondary Sun flames (and wasn't that one of the most annoying cheats ever...though it was right up there with Fon's extremely high alcohol tolerance from being an active Storm) but she never really had the chance to properly drink yet because of her age.

Not that it had ever stopped Skull. He was able to drink any of the adults under the table and then laugh his ass off an hour later after putting said fools into compromising positions for the hell of it and taking multiple blackmail photos no one would be able to get rid of.