Lost Image | dramione

36 | the after party

Draco was drunk. Hermione was absolutely positive that he was really and truly, one-hundred percent, wrecked. And more to the point, he was the friendliest, loudest drunk she had ever happened to know.

"So then, we figure, it's sitting in the liqueur cabinet, and it's such a lovely red color, so we grab the whole damn bottle..."

Pansy groaned. "I was sick the whole next day. Why are you telling this story? Didn't you promise not to tell this story?"

"Oh, come on. It was hilarious, in retrospect. My mother looked like she was about to throw us both out the third story window."

"It was just grenadine. It proved how stupid we were at twelve, not bad." Pansy was curled up in her lawn chair- Pietro had dragged it down from the deck to the bonfire for her. Everyone else was sitting on towels on the sand. "This story must be much more entertaining when you're plastered," she added, eyeing every one of them with a look of loathing/jealousy. Needless to say, she was the only one that hadn't had a single drink.

Even Hermione had probably had more than her fair share. It just felt like the thing to do if you're going to have a bonfire. That, and roast hot dogs... but of course the villa had no hot dogs. They settled for grilling some fish instead for dinner... which all came frozen. Seriously- they were on the sea. Hermione decided that they were definitely going to try and catch their own damn fish tomorrow. After the island.

"Oh! I have a fun drunk story, too! At my brother's wedding, I drank a wee bit more champagne than I should have, and agreed to dance with Lee Jordan. The boy was the worst dancer I've ever met- kept stepping on my toes. But I suppose this story has a happy ending, since the wedding was interrupted suddenly by a pack of Death Eaters!" Ginny said quickly. Hermione was under the impression that unlike most of them, Ginny was not actually that liquored-up. Her sarcasm was definitely on-point.

"That's not a fun drunk story," Hermione informed her.

"Yeah," Harry said, frowning. "That night was awful. I had to play interference to stop Krum from having a go at you."

"Really?" Hermione asked, laughing a little louder than she meant to. "That's the reason that night was awful?"

Harry grinned. "Well, in retrospect... which seems to be the word of the night, right... it was the last day in months that we got to eat decent food, worry about petty jealousy, and beat the hell out of some jerks."

Hermione shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"Where did you guys go, anyways? I think I've heard something about camping...?" Draco asked curiously, his voice still a little too loud to sound as serious as Hermione was sure he meant to be.

"Oh, if you want the full story you'll have to wait for Harry to write his memoirs..." Ginny said with a squeal as Harry poked her in the ribs. She had the Daily Prophet sitting next to her- it had taken all day for the owl to deliver it. Hermione wasn't even aware owls would deliver the paper this far. She patted it, and Hermione was certain there was at least one Harry-centered article inside. There always was.

"I'm not writing anything! If any press comes near my house, the place is rigged to turn their clothes inside out and push them all the way back to the Ministry."

Hermione laughed at that- it was such a Harry response. He never wanted fame, not really. He had been crazy-famous for seventeen years now, and his opinions on the subject hadn't changed in the slightest.

"Yeah, we camped for most of that year," Hermione finally said, pulling her legs up and hugging her beer. "We also all had a cursed locket we were watching..." Harry really was drunk. He didn't reprimand her for mentioning the Horcrux at all. "...it made us all pretty grumpy. At each other's throats most of the time. I think people like to pretend we did a lot of heroics that winter, but really we were mostly sitting around."