Prompt fic for: Butterbeer, Hogwarts Online.

Well this spawned into something different, and I seem to have a thing for alliteration in this story …oh well :P

Disclaimer: Harry Potter isn't mine. Tis a shame really, but it all belongs to JK Rowling.

'Could you get drunk on butterbeer?' That was the only question running through Harry Potter's mind as he watched his one of his best friends drink three pints of it in under five minutes. Had he not seen the feat with his own eyes, he would not have thought it to be possible.

"Hermione," Harry started tentatively, "don't you think you'd better slow down? We've only been here for less than half an hour and-"

"Don't tell me what to do," she yelled loudly, cutting him off mid sentence.

Harry sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. This always happened. Whenever he did anything stupid he would get a Floo call from Hermione telling him to meet her in The Three Broomsticks, she never asked him though, she always expected him to be free. Which he was … but that was beside the point.

"Hermione," Harry said, while making an attempt to pry the glass away from her hands without her noticing."I really think you-"

"Harry Potter," she yelled, standing up suddenly, "if you even try and finish that sentence I will hex you," she said smiling. Confusing him slightly, until he saw the glassy look in her eyes.

It was then that Harry noticed something was off, it normally took three hours of drinking plain butterbeer for her to get this way, and by his count she had only been drinking for half an hour at most. She, or someone else had spiked her drink.

"Hermione," he said, praying it would be third time lucky, "do you add anything else to your butterbeer while I wasn't looking."

Maybe if he used his 'I killed Voldemort, so fear me and tell me all' look she might answer him.

"No," Hermione answered innocently, while sitting down. She had begun to sway too much.

Being the Boy Who Lived had it's advantages. This – being able to tell when someone was lying – was one of them.

"Hermione," he said sternly, " did you add anything else to your butterbeer."

"Nope," Hermione mumbled and at his look she added, "I had it before I drank the butterbeer silly," she said smiling stupidly.

Even drunk she was still smarter than him, he mused.

"Hermione," he said exasperatedly, "what exactly did you drink? And how much?"

"Ahh, now that would be telling, Mr Potter."

"Hermione," he groused.

"Nope, not telling."

It was then that Harry noticed a dark shadow looming over their table. This 'shadow' was the reason he was sitting with a drunk Hermione when he could be doing other, more important things … like sitting at home watching plants grow.

"Potter?" the shadow said.

Harry turned to face the man who he had come to – albeit very begrudgingly – like and motioned for him to follow to him to somewhere out of Hermione's hearing range.

"Yes, she's here, and may I add again Lucius! What the hell did you do this time?" he whispered harshly to the man stood in front of him.

"I did do anything Potter, it was she this time."

"She, what do you mean she- Hermione? She'd never hurt a fly," he stated, with absolute confidence in what he was saying.

"Really," the man drawled, "so the hex she hit me with just a few hours earlier was a figment of my over active imagination then was it?"

"She hexed you?" he asked, glancing back to the table he had just left to see the woman in question attempt to make a paper aeroplane fly around the room without magic. Then, banishing the now crumpled piece of paper, started to stare forlornly at the empty glass in front of her.

"Really Potter, did you really not listen to a word I just said?" the man asked scornfully, drawing Harry's attention back to him.

"But-but you're ... well, you're you! You don't get hexed, I've never seen you get hexed and certainly not by – Hermione would have my ear for saying this – not by someone like her."

"You know Potter I think, when she is less inebriated that is, I will tell her you said that, just out of spite. But yes, she did hex me. I wasn't prepared for it, I thought she was only joking." Lucius reluctantly pulled down his collar and Harry saw the red welt which had risen above his skin, "I found out she wasn't joking. She was serious. You underestimate your friend Potter if you think she's only made up of books and cleverness, she has a Slytherin attitude at times. One which – strangely enough – I find endearing." And with that the man swept off leaving Harry stood in the corner, gaping at the spot the man had stood on a few seconds prior, while Lucius sat down in the chair Harry had just vacated.

"Hermione," he said, getting her undivided attention. "If I promise to find you some more, will you cease with this nonsense? And desist in all of your attempts at trying to hex me" he added when he saw her attempt to remove her wand from its holder on her arm.

"Well," she said, grinning evilly, "it did make you move, and I haven't seen you move that fast since the Final Battle."

"Hermione," he groaned, he did not want to be having this conversation with her while she was drunk.

Before he had started his quest to find her – which wasn't really a quest, if there was one place he had to look for her when she ran off, it would always be The Three Broomsticks – he had made a trip to a certain Potion's Master to acquire a Sober-Up potion for her. The only problem was administering it to the witch, if she didn't want to take it, she wouldn't. He knew that from experience.

"Yes," she said, smiling sweetly at him.

"Fine, I give in. Here it is," he said while producing a vial of clear liquid from his pocket. He had charmed the normally green substance to appear clear, as even in her drunken state she would have known something was off. Lucius hadn't been sorted into Slytherin for nothing.

Hermione's eyes greedily took in the sight before her. There it was, the substance she had wished for, but had run out of and not found anywhere else in the manor.

"How-how, it's only-"

"In muggle London, yes I know," he interrupted. "I wasn't originally going to give this to you, I was saving it for a special occasion."

The way her eyes followed the vial was, to him, quite amusing. It was a sight he could watch all day, but there were more pressing matters to deal with.

"Give it to me," she demanded, the tone of her voice holding no room for argument.

"Say please." But she hadn't heard him, his words fell on deaf ears as she made to grab the vial. He chuckled, but made no move to get out of her way as he wanted her to drink the substance housed in the clear glass vial.

Hermione uncorked the vial, and then proceeded to down it's contents in one greedy gulp.

"You … you!" she screamed after swallowing what she now recognised to be the gloopy consistency of the Sober-Up potion. "This isn't-"

"No, of course not you silly witch," he said affectionately. "Any more of that stuff and you would be making a trip to St Mungo's for liver damage or somethinglike that, and I would rather not visit you in a place which has less than 99% Egyptian cotton sheets."

He watched as her eyes cleared and became more focused. He had, thankfully, had enough sense to alleviate her of her wand when she had taken it out just a few minutes ago, before giving her the potion.

"I-you-that-never … Lucius!" she exclaimed, coming to her senses.

He sighed and half expected steam to come from her ears. She made quite an amusing sight, and he would enjoy showing her the memories later on, when she had calmed down somewhat.

"Hermione, think for a second. I went into the drawing room at the manor after you had left and all the bottles were empty … there were four bottles in total! I know you've built up a resistance to that stuff but still Hermione, four bottles."

"Lucius they stopped making them, what am I supposed to do?" she asked, her hand gestures becoming more and more wild as she spoke.

"How about not drinking four bottles of 75% proof Absinthe in one go?" he answered her, staring at her calmly.

Neither of them had noticed Harry slink closer to their table, and neither of them noticed the look of shock that passed over his face when Lucius mentioned the word 'Absinthe'.

'Wasn't Absinthe illegal?' Harry thought to himself. He had heard of the drink before, in one of the muggle movies Aunt Petunia had; 'Moulin Rouge' or something like that.

"Well, what was I supposed to do?"

Lucius sighed at her answer, "Hermione, we need to talk."

Harry saw her face pale considerably when she heard those four little words, four little words which were never a good thing to hear. Harry only hoped Lucius wasn't breaking up with her, because if that was the case then he would be the one to pick up the pieces, and glue them back together.

"Are ... are you breaking up with me?" she asked, completely sober now.

"No, no. Of course not. What would make you think that?"

For someone so clever, he really was so dumb at times, the Boy Who Lived mused.

"Lucius 'we need to talk' is normally man code for I'm breaking up with you."

"Oh." He looked uncomfortably around the room before clearing his throat, "Hermione, I think – that is I know-"

"Oh, just spit it out Lucius-"

"Your an addict." The words came out in a jumbled mess, but she had understood them perfectly.

"I'm a what!" she shrieked.

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