Counting Glasses
Scorpius was a professional at counting glasses. It was actually his favorite part of any gathering that required his presence and involved hard liquor. He would count and count and count until he passed out and in the morning, through a pounding headache and churning stomach, he would compare that number to all his others. Usually, he made a new record. Sometimes, he fell short a glass or two, but he always blamed that on the liquor and not his trusty tolerance level. Tonight, however, he could blame it on Rose Weasley. After all, she was the one plying him with alcohol and it wasn't even midnight yet.
"I have a rule, you know," he said, his words already beginning to slur. His mind was screaming, No, no, no! but his hand was accepting the ice-cold flask Rose had pressed into it, bringing it to his mouth and tossing in a swig.
"Do you, now?" Rose asked, humor in her voice. "And what would that be?"
He threw back another swig. Cool, fruity, refreshing, and with just a hint of burn obscured mostly by what could've been peppermint—whatever it was he was drinking, it was good.
"What is this?" he asked, frowning down at the flask. It was unmarked.
"It's a Rose Weasley cocktail," she explained.
"It's good," he murmured.
"I know. What was that you were saying about the rule?"
"My rule," he said, suddenly remembering. He glanced at his watch, narrowing his eyes to get the focus right. It was eleven-thirty. Dear Merlin. "I don't drink before midnight at parties."
"And why not?"
He shrugged, blinking at the patterns the flashing lights were creating on his shoes. It was actually quite mesmerizing. "Because I don't wanna be drunk for the whole party. I have social obligations to fulfill, people to mingle with, girls to dance with. After midnight, when everything starts to unravel, so can I."
"Well, you're only half an hour off," Rose said. "And look around—the party's unraveling, alright."
Scorpius chanced a look around. The empty classroom they had taken over to celebrate the end of the fall term—tomorrow, they would be homebound for Christmas—was already half empty; the underclassmen were being forced out, the music was being turned up, silencing charms were being thrown at the door, and Rose's face was a pale, ethereal shape before him, illuminated by the flashing, changing lights. It was a moment before he realized he was staring and he quickly averted his gaze to the flask in his hands but she didn't seem to mind.
"How many glasses would you say are in this flask?" he asked.
"About three," she answered.
Three glasses. But of what? Scorpius was always careful to know exactly what he was drinking whilst counting his glasses. The liquor itself—how strong it was, how much of it there was—was a factor in this game he played and he knew this was a cocktail he was drinking and it could be a mix of any number of things.
He sighed in frustration. "Great job, Weasel. You ruined my counting."
"Your counting?" she repeated. Her painted red lips split into a small smile. "What are you counting?"
He opened his mouth to explain, then turned to the impromptu dance floor and took another swig of her cocktail. The desks had been shoved to the side of the room to clear a space in the middle where a crowd had gathered, dancing to a tune with a bass he could feel deep in his bones. Sitting on the desk on the sidelines were people like him and Rose, lounging and drinking. He glared at the flask in his hand and downed another gulp, slightly bigger than was necessary, and coughed as the liquid burned itself down the wrong tube.
Rose thumped him on the back until the fit subsided. "What is it you count?"
"Glasses," he said, clearing his throat.
"Glasses," she repeated. "Is this something you do regularly?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
He narrowed his eyes at her. His mind was foggy, he found that he couldn't really remember how he had come to be sitting with Rose and answering her questions in the first place. But he was positive it there had to have been some coercion would willingly drink with Rose Hero-Spawn Weasley, the most arrogant and insufferable girl in the entirety of England. And if he could have a guarantee that he wouldn't collapse into a heap on the floor from all the drinking he'd been doing, he'd get up and walk away from her right at that moment.
"Why do you care?" he asked her. "What are you even doing here? Go sit with your friends."
"They bore me," she explained.
"You bore me," he countered.
"Really?" she said, amused. "I don't think you're bored."
"And how the blazes would you know that?" he snapped. "Read my mind, have you? We'll tack that up to your long list of accomplishments, then. Mindreading. Hmph."
"You can add cocktail mixing to that list, too," she put in.
"Right, I'm out of here." He leapt from the desk and his feet hit the floor hard. His equilibrium shot, he felt his knees cave and steadied himself by gripping the edge of the desk.
Rose grabbed his shirt and pulled him up into a sitting position on the desk.
"Actually, I'll stay here since I was here first," he said, glaring at her. "You go. I'm sure there's a line of boys somewhere here waiting to bow down to you, Your Weaselness."
"I think I'll stay," she said, and she pulled another flask from absolutely nowhere and handed it to him. "Here, drink this."
"Another cocktail?" he asked, glancing at it warily.
"It's not poisoned," she told him.
"That's what you'd say even if it was," he muttered and took a sip anyway. It was spicy, tangy. He tasted rum but couldn't make out any other factors.
"Like it?" she asked.
He took another sip in response. He'd never been a big fan of rum—it got him hammered way too quickly, but he might as well indulge today, since his game was thrown and Rose looked like she wasn't going anywhere fast.
"Now, what were you saying about counting glasses?"
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. Her head was tilted to the side, red tresses falling over one shoulder. There was no malice on her face, no ill-feeling. Just polite interest.
Whatever. At any rate, he was getting tired of thinking. He tossed back another swig and said, "I see how much I can down before passing out."
"Raising your tolerance level?" she asked, looking confused.
"Trying to beat my record," he muttered. His tongue was getting heavy.
Rose laughed. "How predictable."
It was a moment before her words penetrated the haze alcohol had covered his mind in. "Predictable in what way?"
"In the way that I'm not surprised that you use even drinking to make yourself something better that you are."
He looked at her. She wasn't smiling. Merlin's beard, she was serious.
"Excuse me?" he said, sure that he had heard wrong. "Are you judging me, Weasley?"
"I'm not—"
"Are you really judging me, Miss Perfect?" he continued, not even pausing to give her a chance. The 'floating on cloud nine' feeling drinking usually gave him was popped like a bubble, leaving behind a pounding head and a too hot sensation in his chest. "Because of course, you're totally right to be judging, since you're Gryffindor's princess, Hermione Granger's daughter, everyone's favorite girl—"
"I'm not perfect, Malfoy," she said in a voice of deadly calm. "You just use me as a benchmark to best yourself, to meet your own standards of perfection. Just like you use this drinking game to prove to yourself that you can do better every time."
He tossed back what had to be half the flask, the alcohol burning his throat, desperate to bring the buzz back. Her words were sharp and biting. He didn't want to hear them anymore.
"Don't presume to know me, Weasley," he said, trying to match her calm, but his words were too slurred. The colors flashing across her face were giving him a headache. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the window that his desk was pushed up to. The cold glass was refreshing on his flushed skin, reaching his back through his shirt. "You don't know me."
"I know enough, Malfoy," she said. "I know that I'm here because you're more interesting and loads more tolerable when you're drunk."
"That's because I'm a great drunk. You don't see me getting into fights or…" he trailed. His tongue was so heavy. Maybe he should stop talking now.
"You don't need to count glasses, Scorpius," she said quietly. He barely heard her over the music but a small spark of surprise lit up inside him at the sound of his first name coming out of her mouth. He rather liked it. "You don't have to prove yourself to yourself."
He said nothing. Was that really why he counted glasses? To best himself every time? To live up to his own standards?
"No one's perfect," she said, even quieter. Scorpius had to strain to hear the next part: "But you come pretty close."
Pretty close. He took another swig from the flask. Perfection was an elusive little bugger he'd been after since before he could remember. He'd been practically conditioned to its pursuit since birth. But—
Wait. A jumbled, half-formed thought broke through his drunken haze, startling him sober in an instant. Pretty close—she thinks I'm perfect.
His eyes shot open and he put the flask down, looking around, but Rose had gone.
He drank himself silly that night and woke up with the mother of all hangovers. But his headache got better a lot faster than usual, since he didn't have to think back to see when his counting had stopped.
He told himself that it was for this reason that he decided not to count his glasses again.
-FIN-
A/N: This fic was written in response to the Sinful, Scandalous Challenge over at the HPFC forum to the prompts of Scorpius Malfoy and underage drinking.