Just for Tonight
AlwaysPadfoot
It was day four hundred twenty one at Hogwarts. One year, one month and twenty-six days since we climbed aboard the Hogwarts express for fifth year and ten months and seven days since we'd been told we wouldn't be able to go home for Christmas.
Hogwarts had been prepared as it could have been under the circumstances, even the castle accommodated slightly. Summer had been interesting, there had been no classes, but after the first couple of weeks nobody really knew what to do. It wasn't rare to see people openly upset about being stuck here for so long.
When September first had come around again, there were no new first years to sort so the welcoming feast was a sort of a bust. The seventh years, who had taken NEWTs under, had been marked by the Professors here rather than externally. They'd been marked somewhat generously under the circumstances and were now being offered jobs within the castle to boost their work experience since they were not allowed to leave Hogwarts and get actual jobs.
The Afooacio Pandemic had almost crippled the Wizarding World and what was going on outside Hogwarts was hard to judge. Receiving owls was no longer permitted and contact with our parents and families was difficult now, not impossible but difficult.
Louis, Lily and I had commandeered a space in the Library to do some work. Louis' parents had left the country as soon as the Pandemic had started, he hadn't heard from then since and his oldest sister, Victoire, had caught the Afooacio Virus earlier on. Dominique had contacted him a couple of times, including recently so we were under the impression that she was still uninfected. Uncle Harry and James were okay as far as we were aware, Aunt Ginny was comatose in St Mungos in stage four of Afooacio along with Dad. Nobody yet had moved onto stage five, I don't even think the ministry knew if there was a stage five. Wizards were dropping like flies across the globe, suffering through Flu like symptoms and magical deprivation before falling into an unexplainable coma.
"Hugo, what did you get for question six?"
I rolled my eyes and slid my parchment across to Louis, who was running his right hand through his blonde hair in frustration. He grinned, "Thanks."
Louis sucked the end of his quill and then began scratching out an answer, pausing every now and then to peer down at my answer. Lily shot a sideways glance at the paper too, "Wait. I didn't get that, I got something completely different."
"Why, what did you get?" She showed me the answer she got and it was about as wrong as it could possibly be. I raised an eyebrow in derision, "Yes, you're right, that is completely different to the correct answer."
"Is there any possibility that I'm right and you're wrong Hugo?" she said with a scowl.
I appeared to think about it, "No. No chance at all."
As Lily stuck her jaw out in annoyance, but let me explain why she had the wrong answer and I had the right one. Louis just preferred to reword my original answers. How he got an Exceeds Expectations in Transfiguration, god only knows.
We sat for a little while longer until we were disturbed by my older sister, Rose, who was working under Professor Slughorn, and my older cousin Albus, who was working tirelessly in the Hospital Wing and as a Student Councillor. He basically helped out students that were feeling stressed or homesick or something otherwise not physical.
"Something's wrong," Louis muttered.
"Albus, have you been crying?" Lily asked urgently.
"Yeah, we've just had news," Albus said, his voice cracking slightly, "Dad and Aunt Hermione are infected."
Rose, who was stood behind Albus, had tears rolling down her cheeks so I immediately got to my feet taking her hands in mine and pulling her to the side. She threw her arms around me, tears staining my shirt and I gently reciprocated.
"Don't cry," I muttered, "Mum and Dad are both going to fine for now. Literally no one has died yet, St Mungo's must be close to fixing this now. It's been almost a year."
"Oh so the magical depletion and the coma isn't to worry about?" Rose sobbed sarcastically.
"That's not what I said," I countered.
Rose clung to me for much longer than I expected, even longer than Lily and Albus, but I suspected Albus was more upset and was attempting to hide it, whilst Lily could hide her feelings better than any Slytherin I knew. Louis stood offhandedly at the side, like he wasn't sure what to do. I wasn't necessarily bothered about my sister sobbing into my shoulder, this time last year I might have been embarrassed, but now, in was a common sight to see siblings clinging to each other like their life was coming to the end.
Eventually Albus peeled Rose away, steering her back in the direction of the library door. They were both leaning on one another for moral support, and were luckily met at the door by the - hopefully - more emotionally stable Scorpius Malfoy. I assumed the three of them were making their way back to the Gryffindor Common Room.
I stood in silence, staring after them until Louis touched my shoulder, drawing my attention back to the reality of the library. Similarly Lily looked equally as spaced out as I felt. In that moment Louis had to pretty much step up and suggest we too headed back to our Common Room.
Sometimes I forgot what was going on outside Hogwarts, that we couldn't leave and outside our families were slowly succumbing to a virus sweeping across the wizarding world. Even though we'd been here over a year, it felt normal most of the time with classes still going on and Quidditch. The Professors did a very good job, but when you get news like that, it feels like you've taken a bludger to the stomach.
None of us spoke en route to the dungeons. It was like we'd already begun to observe a mourning period for the family who were either comatose or soon to be comatose, even though they weren't dead. All the hope that everyone had when the Afooacio virus began had depleted as the months crawled on. Everyone just wanted to survive, no one had a clue what was going to happen if everyone on the outside of Hogwarts succumbed, because the cure effort would simply perish completely and leave us isolated here.
Upon reaching the Slytherin Common Room, the three of us shared a look of which the meaning could only be deciphered by us. This particular look was one of three that lead to Louis, Lily and I with a bottle of Firewhisky in an abandoned store room deep in the dungeons.
Half an hour later, Louis was pouring our second round of the night in that very storeroom. "Why is it whenever something happens that is considered more major than just making it through the week, we end up in here?"
"What you weren't aware of the official Potter-Weasley celebration slash coping method?" Lily muttered.
He blatantly turned to her, staring in mock disbelief, "Wait, what? We've done this before?"
"Well maybe, if you weren't such a lightweight you'd remember,' I interrupted with a smug grin.
"Shut it, Hugo," he retorted, thumping my arm playfully.
"Do you think they are going to find a cure? Or are we really going to be stuck here forever?" Lily said.
"Don't be daft, of course they'll find a cure," Louis replied. Lily rolled her eyes and looked to me for a proper answer. Sometimes I wished I wasn't considered the sensible one of the three of us, but in the end I shrugged, not having a clue how to answer. I didn't know what was going on out there, I'd be surprised if the Professors had a clue to be honest.
Lily sighed, "I hope James is okay."
Louis looked from her to me and rolled his eyes, "Right we need to play a game."
He pulled an old pack of exploding snap cards and raked us into intense first game. It was only two hours later when we had an empty bottle and a tower of exploding snap cards when I realised that I couldn't actually care less what game we played. Lily was precariously balanced on my shoulders, trying to put more cards on the top.
"Get closer, Hugo," she whined.
"If I get any closer every hair on our bodies is going to be singed off by Louis' dodgy cards," I retorted, even so edging forwards. Lily leant forward and I gripped onto her as she seemed to lean much too far forward.
"Hugo, move forward," Lily demanded from above me.
"Lily, I'm going to fall," I replied suddenly, "Lily stop, stop. STOP."
It was of course too late. Lily and I barrelled into the tower and I was amused for a second as she grabbed Louis on the way down and pulled him into it too. In the end I was left with tiny little burn marks everywhere, which I would discover the following morning, because right now the three of us were were in peels of laughter on the floor, a tangle of limbs and scattering of cards. Eventually we detangled ourselves and I haphazardly waved my wand to clear the cards park into a pile beside Lily, who was sat on the floor, still giggling.
"That wuz your fault," she accused.
I recoiled in horror, "No it was not.''
Unlike normal, it was Louis that managed to get Lily and I back to the Common Room without being caught. Usually it was me. We dropped Lily back in her dorm and then I put my arm around Louis' neck, before we stumbled back to our own dorm in the adjacent corridor.
"'ts good night," I mumbled, not realised quite how much I had drunk. Apparently Lily and I had substantially more that Louis had.
"Just get into bed, Hugo," he half laughed, half whispered, looking over his shoulder at our dorm mates. He actually had to help me into bed before he could do so himself. As I pulled my covers up to my chin with a satisfied grin spread across my face, I was content with the temporary effects of the Potter-Weasley coping method because for Lily and I it had taken our minds - if just for a moment - off what was going on outside the boundaries of Hogwarts.