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Firewhiskey


That evening was a particularly chilly one, and the common room was a mess of shivering younger students jostling to get closer to the fire. Since the elder students had gone to Hogsmeade for the day, the common room was delightfully accessible for the first-and-second years. James and Sirius managed to squish together onto the chair closest to the fire, and Peter lay on the floor at their feet, biting his tongue as he worked at writing an essay from notes that Remus had lent him from Defense. He had to keep careful watch over the parchment, that a spark from the fire didn’t land upon it and burn it up, as had happened to him once the week before. (Sirius had had to leap up and use the aquamenti charm on Peter’s Transfiguration homework while Peter rolled, squealing in terror, under the little couch.)

Remus was across the room, bundled up in several jumpers and working on Charms homework with Lily Evans at the table. Ali Prewett sat next to Lily, elbowing her now and again for some help out with her homework, too.

“Sorry I keep bothering you,” Ali said after she’d interrupted Lily and Remus several times, “It’s just that, Lily, you remind me of my sister, Molly, a bit,” she explained shyly.

“No worries,” Lily replied with a smile, “I’m happy to help.”

“Me, too,” Remus answered, for he’d been helping answer Ali’s questions, too.

Ali smiled and turned back to her work.

Suddenly the portrait hole burst opened and in tromped some of the older students, laughing uproariously. “That git is going to be in big trouble if McGonagall sees him like that,” giggled one of the fifth year girls. “Can’t imagine how he managed to get a hold of a bottle of Firewhiskey anyway. He’s underage, isn’t he?”

“Think so,” said one of the girl’s friends, her eyes twinkling. “I imagine he wooed it out of the bar mistress with those eyes--” she sighed dreamily.

“Probably!” laughed the second girl, “That sounds like him. But he won’t be able to woo the anger out of McGonagall when she finds out he’s been drinking Firewhiskey! Not that he will - friends with the Head Boy and all…”

James was about to ask who was getting in trouble for drinking Firewhiskey when he got his answer - a very noisy answer at that. Derek Bell, hanging over the arms of Bilius Weasley and Alex Tinnamin, stumbled on through the doorway, barely held on his feet by his friends. He was singing in a booming voice. James looked ‘round at Sirius, who had lowered the textbook he’d been reading to look at the three of them coming in the doorway. Derek was quite obviously intoxicated.

James raised an eyebrow, “Well then.”

“HULLO GRYFFINDORS!” shouted Derek boisterously, “What are you lot up to up here? Being all quiet in our absence! You need’ta learn and have a lit’l fun!”

“Isn’t that the Head Boy with him?” muttered one of the first years in surprise, looking ‘round at the three boys struggling through the portrait hole.

Lily’s eyes darted to the girl who had said it, and then back to Derek, Alex, and Bilius. “What have you lot been up to?” she asked solemnly, “Certainly looks as though it’s been no good, whatever it is.”

“Oh it’s been plenty good,” slurred Derek.

Alex Tinnamin said, “Glad somebody thinks so.” He tugged on Derek’s arm, trying to keep him balanced as Derek tripped over his own two feet. Luckily, Alex was a strong boy or else Derek’s weight would’ve crushed him.

Lily stood up and put her hands on her hips in a sassy manner, “You lot have been drinking, haven’t you?”

“We lot have not,” Bilius replied, “Him, yes. We, no.” He pulled Derek his way to relieve some of the weight he was putting onto Alex.

“A little drink never killed nobody,” Derek slurred.

Lily scowled, “Never helped anybody at being a better person, either, though, has it?”

“Helped them in having a better time of being a person!” Derek said, laughing. “Haven’t you heard the news, Evans?”

“What news?” Lily demanded, a flurry of worry moving through her.

“The news! The news!” Derek crowed, “Been all over the radio, hasn’t it?” He shook his head and broke away from Bilius and Alex, who nearly tripped into each other with Derek’s sudden departure from between them. “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is getting more powerful by the minute. Muggles dying everywhere… he’s killin’ ‘em, and anybody stands in his way, he kills them, too. Oh, Evans, it’s awful. If you ain’t heard, you should stay out of it. Keep yourself innocent and unknowin’ - it’s the only way to deal with it without drink, you know. And worse than all that, he’s threatenin’ goin’ after the Ministry next. Anybody that goes against him, he says, he’s goin’ ter take out.”

“Well bloody hell, what’s Voldemort got to do with you lot drinking Firewhiskey?” Lily demanded, “How does you getting ruddy faced and falling all over the castle help in stopping what’s going on out there? Has You-Know-Who decided to surrender to the sound of drinking songs?”

Bilius slapped Derek on the back, “Maybe if he heard how off-of-key this one is he might.”

“Says the greatest chanteuse I ever heard,” Derek crowed. Alex Tinnamin laughed so hard that a hiccup escaped him and he stumbled a bit, catching Derek ‘round the elbow to steady himself.

“Even drunk he uses a five galleon word like chanteuse,” Bilius shook his head in marvel at his best mate.

Lily’s eyes narrowed, “I expect you feel real damn good about yourself, sloshing about like a bunch of idiots, then?”

“Again,” Bilius said, “We are not sloshing about like a bunch of anything. He got a bit of Firewhiskey at the Hog’s Head and --’

Derek laughed, “Sure we do!” he answered, interrupting Bilius, and he pounded a fist to his chest, “Might not do a whole lot to help anybody else, but the drink sure does a hell’uva job making it hurt less in here!”

Lily’s voice was cold, “Firewhiskey is not the answer to your problems, Derek Bell, and you know it. You could drink all the Firewhiskey on the planet and it wouldn’t bring Alice or your parents back.”

“Oi, aren’t you a smart one, figuring out what’s s’matter with me?” Derek laughed and he rolled his eyes, “Think you know everything about me, just because you were mates with my sister! Well, Lily, you don’t, and I’d appreciate it if you’d shod off and let me drink Firewhiskey if that’s what I say helps my problems!”

Lily scowled, “Fine. Drink it all you want, then. I don’t care. But I’m telling McGonagall.”

“So tell her then,” he snapped, “Go on and tell her like a little rat. I don’t give a damn if you do. Maybe she’ll realize I’m not a child and she can pass the message on to her little friends in the bloody resistance.” Derek rolled his eyes and shoved past Alex Tinnamin and up the stairs to the dorms. “I’ll kill Voldemort myself if they’d let me fight!” he was shouting, his voice echoing back into the common room, “He hasn’t got a soul!” He slammed the dorm room door.

“Oh bloody hell,” muttered Bilius, “See what you’ve done then, Evans? He was perfectly happy ‘til you got into it. What’d you go and do that for?”

Lily folded her arms over her chest. “Well somebody had to, didn’t they? Seeing as the Head Boy is currently too much of a coward to tell on his mate and all. You should be ashamed of yourself. Head Boy and you’re not even doing the right thing.” She shook her head, “I thought you were better than that, Bilius Weasley, but I suppose I was wrong.”

“You certainly were,” Bilius replied. “I’m not going to turn in a mate who’s already going through a bloody hell’uva time without being expelled by McGonagall! Think about it, Lily, he’d be taken off the Gryffindor Quidditch team.”

“Is that all you lot think about is quidditch? So what if the team loses a couple games! It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things!” Lily crowed.

“Quidditch is all Derek Bell has going for him this semester,” Bilius snapped. “I don’t think that any action he partakes in to numb the pain he’s in should be punished by taking away the one good thing he has left, alright? Call me a nutter, but that’s how it is. Do with it as you please, but don’t go calling me a coward for trying to protect my best friend.” With that, he turned and nodded for Alex to follow him on up to the sixth year dorms after Derek.

“Wonder how he did get Firewhiskey?” murmured James, settling back in beside Sirius in the chair beside the fire.

“They said at the Hog’s Head,” answered Sirius.

James’s eyes twinkled with excitement, “I wouldn’t mind trying a bit of Firewhiskey myself.”

Lily’s eyes turned on him even hotter than the firewhiskey might’ve been. Sirius nudged James and James swallowed back his nerves. “I didn’t mean now,” he added, looking at Lily with a bit of fear behind his eyes, “I meant when I’m older, you know, when it’s more appropriate. When you wouldn’t bloody look at me like that for it. Blimey.”

“Yeah, Lily, c’mon,” Sirius said, grinning in a charming manner, “We wouldn’t go off drinking Firewhiskey, we’re underage! When have we ever done anything that’s against the rules?”

“Every bloody day, I expect, whether you’re caught at it or not,” Lily replied and she rolled her eyes and turned away.




“I can’t wait to get out of here,” muttered Derek, still slurring his words a bit and fuming as he paced about the dorm room. “I’m doing more than just sitting here, the moment I can, I’m doing more than listening to a silly radio broadcast. I haven’t got a thing to lose, I’ll go out there and fight alone if I have to. Take him on with my bare, bloody hands! I don’t give a damn!”

Bilius and Alex exchanged glances. Bilius looked to Derek. “I’ll be with you, mate.”

“And I,” Alex agreed. “We’ll fight together.”

Derek turned and faced them, the anger of all the loss he’d been through was hot on his cheeks and in his eyes. His hands were shaking from the pent up emotion coursing through his veins. “The moment I leave these castle walls, I’m finding him. I’m finding that snake of a man and I’m looking him in his hateful eyes, and I’m going to rise up my wand and recall to him the lives that he stole - tell him about my mum and my dad and my sister - and I’ll make that filthy heart of his stop. I’ll use whatever spells I have to, and I will end him. I’ll end him myself.”

Bilius looked up at Derek in surprise and horror. “Bloody hell, mate, don’t you reckon you ought to calm down a wee? Here,” he grabbed a cup and poured some water, “Have a drink. Do you want some tea? Maybe that’ll help you?”

Derek waved off the water, “I’m not thirsty. I don’t need help. I’m fine. I’m just -- I’m pissed, that’s what I am, I’m right pissed.” He turned away again. “I just hope that nobody else gets to him first. I want to see his eyes as he dies, just as I had to see Alice’s.”

Bilius and Alex’s both cast their eyes down at the words.