A/N: In response to the “Drunks” Challenge on WIKTT. Oh, and I’m sure there’s rampant OOC-ness, but it was fun enough to write that I didn’t worry much on it. Complete in one shot.

Summary: Never engage in a high-stakes tiddlywinks game with Albus Dumbledore unless you are prepared to accept the consequences.

Rating: PG-13, as per usual

Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be.

When Bad Things Happen to Good Potions Masters

by: Hayseed (hayseed_42@hotmail.com)

Severus had decided that it was all Albus Dumbledore’s fault. It generally was, of course. And in his current mood, Severus was inclined to make that statement more inclusive than he usually did. Voldemort, the current pixie infestation in South Wales, Harry Potter’s conception, the fall of the Roman Empire.

Both of them.

All Dumbledore’s fault.

Severus’ left eyelid twitched as another loud cry echoed through the Great Hall.

He was going to kill Albus and leave his body where not even that damned snoop Mrs. Norris would find it.

And Severus knew all the best hiding places at Hogwarts. It made it easier to ferret out all of the idiotic, hormone-laden children attempting to copulate in the shadows if one knew exactly where to look.

Usually when Albus tricked Severus into playing a stakes game, it was for a particularly difficult potion.

He should have known, though.

Dropping his head into the cradle of his arms, Severus snorted.

Tiddlywinks.

Severus Snape had lost a high-stakes tiddlywinks match to an absolutely insane old man wearing a Muggle-style flowered shirt and knee-length trousers. And this was his punishment.

Hell was not, he decided as he took another surreptitious pull off the flask of Ogden’s secreted in his robes, hell was not hot. It was not cold.

Hell was Hogwarts’ Great Hall, flooded with carousing seventh year students swilling concoctions of a dubious nature as loud, pounding music rattled his skull. All overseen by a ludicrous old codger who had blithely abandoned Severus to his fate.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt that the Muggle idea of a pitchfork and horns suited one Albus Dumbledore very well.

“One more game,” Severus had begged as Dumbledore flipped his last chip into the cup expertly, knowing that something terrible was about to happen.

“Oh, I think not, Severus,” Albus had replied with that twinkle in his eye that bespoke a particularly ominous fate. “Today’s wager goes to me, I think.”

“Veritaserum?” he offered listlessly. “Wolfsbane? What is it this time, Albus?”

“Nothing so simple,” Albus said, twirling a chip through his fingers expertly. How the old man had gotten so good at a stupid game like tiddlywinks, Severus would never know. Hell, he didn’t even know how Albus had managed to talk him into actually playing. “If you remember, Severus, it was decided several weeks ago that an end-of-the-year celebration was in order, above and beyond the Leaving Feast. After all ...”

He rolled his eyes. “Potter the Wonder Pup. Yes, yes, Albus ... I know. If you remember, I was there that night.”

“Indeed.” Sobering for a moment, Dumbledore tossed his chip into the full cup. “The celebration was postponed until after the NEWTs, due to certain students’ ... erm ... insistence that the exams be treated with due seriousness.”

With a smirk, Severus folded his arms. The memory of one Hermione Granger, flustered and absolutely frizzed with distress, bursting into a faculty meeting -- Merlin only knew how she’d found out thee time and place -- all but sobbing about the necessity of the NEWTs, was one that he would treasure to the end of his days. There was a madness in her eyes that was particularly amusing. “Yes, Albus,” he said, savoring the mental image. “I remember. Do you have a point with all of your rambling or do you just like to hear yourself talk?”

“Unfortunately, Severus,” he began in a voice that suggested he didn’t think it the least bit unfortunate, “the students have scheduled their party for the same night that the staff was planning their yearly night out.”

Horror blossomed on Severus’ face as it dawned on him. “Albus ...” he said, standing up and taking a few steps back. “No!”

“Severus,” Dumbledore said reasonably. “It’s just for --”

“I will not!” he cried. “Give me ten, give me a hundred suppers with that blasted Hooch grabbing my knee. Just don’t ask me to do this.” He felt perilously close to begging.

Also standing, Albus reached out a hand in what Severus assumed he thought was comfort. “My boy ...”

He would have none of it. “No!” he shouted, shrinking into the corner like a wounded animal.

“Severus, you lost the game,” Albus said gently. “I’ve got you bound and you know it. You will chaperone the seventh years’ victory party. I’m sorry that none of the other staff will be there, but I can’t do anything about that. The Head Boy and Girl will be there, of course. As well as six prefects. Between all of you, I think you can keep it under control.”

And that was it. Dumbledore had been true to his word.

Severus pulled his Firewhiskey out again and took a long drink, uncaring if anyone saw. It wasn’t as if the flask had a label. Allowing himself a rare smile, he glanced around the room, taking in the circus.

Albus had forced him to chaperone the party. He hadn’t said anything about being a good chaperone.

The first time Draco Malfoy accidentally fumbled with the bottle of Muggle vodka he’d concealed in his back pocket, flashing the label in front of his Head of House’s eyes, half of the room had frozen in anticipation of Severus’ blow-up. When Severus had just offered Malfoy a lazy smirk and said nothing, a few curious looks had been exchanged, but otherwise, the students resumed their previous activities without much fanfare.

And Malfoy was now well on his way to being good and truly plastered. Severus had caught a glimpse of the vodka bottle several times through the night and its level was getting dangerously low. He wondered if Draco had ever had much to drink before. It didn’t seem to be bothering him much right now -- he was thrusting his hips in an obscene dance with a Ravenclaw girl who seemed to be enjoying the attention, if the look on her face was any indication.

He wasn’t certain, but it seemed likely that the punch had been spiked at some point as well. Most of the students were wandering around with dopey grins and flushed cheeks, holding glasses and shouting over the music -- some nonsense blaring out a set of black boxes that the Muggleborn Gryffindor Dean Thomas had set up earlier that evening, arguing over charms with Terry Boot. Whenever the spiking had occurred, if indeed it had, Severus hadn’t actually noticed, despite his location directly beside the punchbowl. Not his job to look out for such things.

Oh ... wait ...

His lips curled up into another grin as he sipped from his flask again.

It was his job, wasn’t it?

Damn Albus Dumbledore, he thought viciously. The only thing he was planning to do tonight was make sure that no one actually set the Great Hall on fire as he got quietly drunk himself.

Severus was one of those fortunate people who could appear to hold his liquor inhumanly well. As long as he didn’t move. In fact, as long as he kept still, hiding the fact that his legs stopped functioning about two hours into the night, he could match nearly anyone drink for drink and still come out at the end able to work Arithmancy equations more complicated than Professor Vector had ever seen before.

Only after the students all went to bed, then (or passed out where they stood), would Severus make his staggering way down to the dungeons, revealing that he’d had as much to drink as any of them. For now, he would play the glowering chaperon, watching his charges slowly but surely kill what few brain cells hadn’t already atrophied in their heads from lack of use.

A scream echoing through the room alerted him to a potential situation, though, and his head snapped around to watch the scene unfold.

Pansy Parkinson, who in an uncharacteristic display of inter-House goodwill had helped plan the party along with Lavender Brown and Hannah Abbot, was glaring viciously at a rather dumbfounded looking Blaise Zabini. The expression looked oddly out of place on his patrician, usually intelligent features.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Parkinson squawked, blonde curls quivering with fury.

Severus leaned forward -- this might prove to be quite interesting.

Zabini’s forehead wrinkled in a clear effort to find words. “I ... erm ...” he stuttered unbelievably slowly. “I was trying to, erm, kiss you?” he asked, a note of what Severus incredulously suspected was hope in his voice. A punch glass dangled from his fingers, looking rather forlorn, and Severus suddenly knew where Zabini’s dim expression had originated. “Patricia ...”

Reddening, she grabbed his robe collar and pulled him forward. “Pansy,” she spat in his face. “My name is Pansy, you twit!”

Face contorting furiously in his attempts to generate a complete sentence, Zabini did not pull away. If anything he leaned in closer. “But Petunia,” he slurred, a sloppy grin spreading over his features, “pretty Posy, I lo-ove you ... always loved you ...” Unbelievably, he puckered up yet again.

And here it came. Severus leaned even closer, coming perilously close to tipping his hand and falling off his chair.

With another loud shriek (more disgust than surprise, now), Parkinson jerked back and administered a vicious slap across a now-stunned Zabini’s right cheek. “You jerk!” she shouted. “After I waited for all these years, and then Peter and I -- aargh!” Spittle flew out of her mouth, covering Zabini’s chin. “I hate you!”

He wondered if she would wind up taking Zabini up on his offer before the night was through. Judging by the look in her eyes, it would take a fair amount more alcohol than was in the punch to accomplish it. Although, her body language suggested --

“What’s going on here?” a loud voice cried, cutting through some of the confused din.

Sighing, Severus rolled his eyes and took another swig of Firewhiskey, watching Hermione Granger, probably the only person in the room apart from himself not thoroughly enjoying the party, elbow her way through the crowd. “Hey, Hermione,” a ruddy-cheeked Ron Weasley shouted, waving a sloshing glass of punch at her. “Whaddya doin?”

“Good Lord, Ron,” she replied, throwing him a reproachful glare, “you should be setting an example.”

He grinned. “Oh, I am ...”

“Ron,” Hermione said shortly, “we’ve got to be responsible here. And you’re Head Boy, for Merlin’s sake.”

Parkinson sighed, breaking her staring match with Blaise Zabini. “Granger, did a death-watch beetle crawl up your arse and die or something?”

“Yeah,” Zabini chimed in, albeit rather slowly. “This is a party, you know? Par-ty?” he enunciated stupidly.

But Hermione was having none of it and she shoved an accusatory finger in his face. “I heard shouting,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“Nothin’,” Zabini said sullenly. “Me and Posy are just talking, s’all.”

Parkinson stamped her foot. “Ooh ... Blaise,” she fumed. “I hate it when you dr -- erm, that is to say,” she backpedaled as Hermione rounded on her. “My name’s Pansy?” she finished lamely.

“You’re underage,” she hissed.

“Live a little, Hermione,” Weasley said, watching the scene with obvious amusement as he slung his arm around Hufflepuff Ernie MacMillan’s shoulders, jigging a ridiculous two-step that didn’t fit the booming music whatsoever. Both boys giggled drunkenly and Severus saw Hermione’s hands curl into fists.

“Ooh ...” she said, stomping away.

In his direction.

“You showed them,” Severus drawled as she slouched up to the punch table. “Trying to make up for missing Head Girl, are we?”

She scowled at the punchbowl. “Shut up.”

Capping his flask, he tucked it back into his pocket. “Twenty points,” he countered mildly, watching her grit her teeth.

“The headmaster told the prefects that points wouldn’t actually be deducted this evening,” she said, an obnoxious hint of superiority in her voice. Her hand dipped toward a half-empty glass.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Severus told her.

Hermione quirked an eyebrow and picked up the glass anyway. “And why not?”

He noticed that she didn’t drink from it, though, and smiled widely. “You’re underage,” he said mockingly.

Sighing, she sat the cup back down. “You aren’t the least bit concerned that practically every student in the Hall is sloshed, are you?” she asked.

Turning his attention away from her briefly, he watched as Lavender Brown waved a bottle of something vaguely amber colored through the air about twenty paces away. Scotch, most likely, he eventually decided, as the bottle passed hands several times. “Is that your answer?”

She followed his line of sight and huffed indignantly as the bottle reached a stupidly grinning Harry Potter, who took a long pull without even so much as wiping off the lip. “Those ... those morons.”

“While I cannot say that I disagree with your assessment,” he said dryly, “I confess I find your reasoning harsh. One night of alcoholic binging does not an idiot make. Unless, of course,” he continued in a thoughtful sort of voice, “his gag reflex is not well-developed.”

Hermione made a face. “Thank you for that lovely mental image, Professor.”

“It was my pleasure.”

As if on cue, Draco Malfoy bent over double, grabbing the ridiculous bowler hat Neville Longbottom had been wearing as he went down. Longbottom, face an abrupt mask of concern, followed his hat and crouched over a now retching Malfoy. Unfortunately, Severus and Hermione were both sitting close enough to the pair that they could hear everything.

“I don’t feel so good,” Malfoy mumbled weakly, saliva dribbling down his chin. In reply, Longbottom just patted his back.

“Oi!” Harry Potter shouted from a few yards away, lurching drunkenly across the dance floor, scattering couples in his wake. “Malfoy, you all right?” Reaching the unlikely couple, Potter dropped to his knees and joined Longbottom in patting Malfoy’s back.

“Gonna be sick again,” he slurred, pulling the hat up to his face and heaving once more. Hermione’s nose wrinkled with disgust.

Potter looked relatively unaffected by the scene, grinning and attempting to continue patting his back. He kept missing, however, and finally settled for patting Malfoy’s elbow instead. “S’there anything I can do, Malfoy?”

Rolling over onto his back, the boy balanced the bowler hat on his chest. “New stomach,” he wheezed patiently.

“There, there, mate,” Potter said, now patting Malfoy’s left eyeball. “It’ll all be all right. Won’t it, Neville?”

Still looking rather concerned, Longbottom nodded tersely, sliding a hand under Malfoy’s head, ostensibly to help him sit up if the urge to vomit visited him again. “Um ... yeah,” he stuttered. “It’ll be fine, Dr -- Malfoy.”

Severus caught the slip and wondered if either Potter or Hermione had.

“See?” Potter continued, cheer in his tone more real than not. “Gonna be fine, Malfoy. Here ... let me take that ...”

As if in slow motion, Potter’s flailing hands wrapped themselves around the brim of the bowler. Severus had a sickening idea that he knew exactly what was going to happen and braced himself.

Indeed.

Potter actually made it to his feet before tripping. But in an oddly elegant display of utter buffoonery, he managed to get one foot caught beneath Malfoy’s arse and another under Longbottom’s kneecap.

Flailing wildly, Potter went down.

The bowler hat, unfortunately, went up and out, spattering about a dozen people with Draco Malfoy’s alcoholic vomit as it spun through the air.

“You fuckwits!” Lavender Brown screamed as a volley caught her cheek.

The evening was starting to look up, really. Potter gave her a foolish grin from his position on Longbottom’s shin. “Sorry, Lav ...”

Sighing with what was probably resignation, Hermione poked an elbow into Severus’ surprised side. “Would you like to take care of this, Professor, or shall I?”

“Oh, by all means,” he said, waving a hand idly at her. In truth, he wasn’t sure if he could actually cast a spell or not. He had less than a single shot of Ogden’s left in his flask and two hours ago, it had been full.

Hermione cast a Cleansing Charm expertly from where she sat, clearing away the filth as if it had never been there. “Taken care of, Lavender,” she said.

Potter, meanwhile, was helping an ashen-faced Malfoy to his feet, Longbottom hovering anxiously alongside. “Come on, Malfoy,” he was saying, a goofy smile on his face as he slapped Longbottom’s head in an effort to connect manfully with his back, “we’ll get you a glass of punch. Works wonders, punch does.”

With a smirk, Severus turned to make an acerbic remark to Hermione, only to find that she was no longer sitting beside him. “Oh well,” he sighed, finishing off his Firewhiskey and wondering briefly how wretched the spiked punch tasted.

But his attention was diverted from the punchbowl as yet more raised voices filtered through the Great Hall. As the music chose that exact moment to cut off, Hermione’s shout was quite clear as it echoed off the rafters. “ -- tell everyone you snogged Draco Malfoy behind the broom shed sixth year!” she cried shrilly.

Longbottom blanched, Malfoy’s cheeks puffed out dangerously, and Potter actually tripped again and fell to the floor, grunting as his chin hit the stones. “You did what?” he asked, looking curiously up at Malfoy.

“He started it!” Weasley shouted in reply. Severus could not see their faces but was unwilling to attempt to move to get a better view.

Malfoy swallowed and made a face. “That’s not true,” he said, gaze flickering back and forth between Longbottom and Potter.

“And it was just the once!” he continued.

“Okay, that’s true,” Malfoy admitted with a shrug. “And I tell you, Weasley’s technique leaves a lot to be desired.”

Severus snorted and the music came back on, louder than ever.

The arguing pair worked its way back to the punch table, mostly due to the fact that Hermione’s small hand was digging dangerously into Weasley’s shoulder as she dragged him across the dance floor. “Sit,” she spat, shoving the boy into the empty chair beside Severus.

“Just because you’re not having fun doesn’t mean you’ve got to ruin everyone else’s,” he grumbled, glaring down at his grubby trainers.

“Ron,” she began, all patience, “if you want to shag Millicent Bulstrode, that’s fine with me. But you can’t do it in the Great Hall in the middle of a party. No,” she said to his opening mouth, “I don’t care if she’s taking off her robes at the time. Haven’t you ever heard the phrase, get a room?”

His face screwed up nastily. “You’re a funny one to talk, Miss I-Routinely-Screw-Tall-Dark-And-Gruesome-On-His-Desk-After-Class.”

Severus went very still and Hermione went very white.

“What?” she gasped. “What did you just say?”

“Oh,” he began mock-innocently, “did you think that no one knew that you sneak out of your room every other night and that he sneaks into it on the nights in between? Now, granted, Draco Malfoy,” this he shouted at the top of his lungs, “might not know that you’re shagging our Professor Snape here,” with a courteous nod at Severus, “but I’d wager about a third of us Gryffindors do.”

The entire Great Hall was silent. Someone had shut off the music again at his shout, and nearly every eye in the room was fixed on the unlikely trio.

“Ro-on,” she said, more a wail than a snap. He got the distinct impression that Hermione was begging.

“Harry was the one who caught on to the desk thing, though,” Weasley continued, either oblivious or uncaring. “Especially when our Neville pointed out that you have a free period after Potions. So we slipped back into the classroom with the cloak one afternoon, and imagine what we saw? Miss Granger, you’ve been a naughty, naughty little prefect.”

“Ron,” she growled, an edge of desperation coloring her voice.

For his own part, Severus was rather surprised. Weasley and Potter had known, and by all accounts, known for a while. He would have thought that they would have come storming into Dumbledore’s office, brimming with accusations the instant they knew. But they’d kept it to themselves for however long. How astonishingly ... well, not Gryffindor of them.

“So, Miss Granger,” he concluded, waving an admonishing finger under her nose and succeeding in poking her in the cheek, “before you cast aspersions on my behavior, remove the beam from your own, or something like that.”

Severus was shocked -- he wouldn’t have thought Weasley could spell the word ‘aspersion,’ much less use it correctly in a sentence, drunk or sober.

“Hey, Millie,” Weasley cried, jubilant in the face of Hermione’s continued indignant embarrassment, “want to take this party to a more ... private location?” This was accompanied by a disgusting, obvious waggle of the eyebrows that made Severus’ stomach turn.

The Slytherin girl, lucky to have connected with the single male student in the entirety of Hogwarts who she didn’t tower completely over, but unlucky -- at least in Severus’ estimation -- in that it was Ron Weasley, sauntered over, a broad, indulgent smile on her face and her robes half unbuttoned. Taking Weasley’s hand and pulling him out of his chair, she led him out of the Great Hall.

Hermione and Severus both stared after them, exchanging a distinctly uncomfortable glance. “So ...” she drawled, folding her arms over her chest.

“I told you someone would notice every night,” he commented mildly.

Her answering glare was weak. “What happens next, d’you think?” she asked in a quiet voice.

Glancing over his shoulder, he noticed that pretty much the entire seventh form was still watching them with open interest. “I’m not sure,” he admitted.

“I never saw that there was a rule against it,” she said, still speaking quietly.

Severus shrugged. “To my knowledge, it’s not really come up before, as the average age of the staff is usually upwards of eighty.”

Noises of disgust rippled through the crowd as the implications of his statement were digested.

He turned slightly on his chair and felt himself teeter a bit -- perhaps the Firewhiskey had been a bad idea, all things considered. “Don’t you have something better to do?” he asked the crowd spitefully.

A scream echoed through the room. Severus couldn’t have timed it better if he’d tried.

“I’m on fire!” a male voice shrieked in agony. “She bloody set me on fire!”

Acting on instinct, Severus tried to stand. Of course his inebriated body couldn’t support itself and he crumpled immediately to the ground. “Shit,” he muttered into the stones. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Fortunately, Hermione was on her feet and moving. He could hear the students scuffling out of the way as she barreled her way through the crowd. A shouted incantation floated to his ears, as well as an audible sigh of relief.

“Terry,” he heard Hermione say after a brief pause. “Terry, what happened?”

Boot still sounded panicked -- Severus found himself unable to blame the boy -- he’d been set on fire recently, after all. “Hannah said that I was staring at Padma Patil. And I was not ... but she just ... and then she ... and I --”

“It’s all right, Terry,” she said soothingly. “But you should go see Madam Pomfrey, I think. I can’t tell if you’ve been burned very badly, but just in case ...”

“Poppy’s not here,” Severus interrupted in a tired voice, not wanting to roll over and face anyone but doing it anyway. “They’re all off in Hogsmeade or London or some such place. MacMillan,” he snapped at a vaguely sober looking prefect before anyone else had a chance to speak, “take Boot down to the Infirmary. Burn cream is in the unlocked supply closet.”

The startled-looking boy jumped forward and led a still-smoldering Boot out of the hall, only weaving slightly.

Hermione, in the meantime, had made her way back across the room and was now standing over Severus, frowning imperiously. “Are you drunk?” she asked, suspicion dawning in her eyes.

“Of course not,” he retorted as haughtily as he could, sprawled out on the floor. “Merely ... impaired.”

A few brave snickers ran through the quiet room as she wrapped an arm around his shoulders and attempted to heave him to his feet. Severus’ uncooperative limbs, combined with the simple laws of physics and biology preventing her from lifting a man weighing about ten kilos more than she did, made it next-to-impossible for Hermione to accomplish her task, and in the end, she only succeeded in toppling to the floor herself.

Whoever turned the music back on as this scene played itself out deserved at least a hundred House points, Severus decided as Hermione’s form slumped less-than-elegantly over his. As they lay prone on the ground, deliberately unmoving, the students little by little returned to their previous activities, more or less ignoring their professor and his current predicament.

Hermione blew out a sigh of relief, burying her head in the crook of his neck. “I’m sorry about Ron,” she mumbled, lips moving pleasantly against his skin.

He grunted noncommittally.

“And I can’t believe ... what possessed you to get drunk tonight of all nights?” she asked, propping her chin on his chest so she could give him an incredulous look.

Shrugging, he put his hands at her waist, fingers lightly tickling her sides. “Self-defense. What possessed you not to?”

She looked around the room. Potter was attempting to cajole Lavender Brown onto the dance floor, Zabini and Parkinson were making up gloriously in one dark corner, and it appeared as if Malfoy and Longbottom were doing the same in another. Hermione turned back to Severus and he noted dimly that her eyes had darkened. “Severus?”

He hummed.

“Do you think they would absolutely destroy the Great Hall if we left?”

Grinning, he tugged at a lock of her hair. “The more important question, my dear, is would we care if they did?”

With a great effort (and a fair amount of Hermione’s help), Severus pulled himself to his feet, staggering out of the room without so much as a backward glance. “The next time Albus wants to play tiddlywinks, he can damn well find someone else.”

Hermione’s jaw dropped. “What?”

Rolling his eyes, he took her hand and kept walking. “Never mind.”

FINIS