Hermione was absolutely, and painfully, hung over. The soft morning light coming in from the windows were blinding, and Hermione pulled the covers over her head with a loud groan. The sheets were soft against her skin and felt unbelievably warm and unfamiliar. Hermione yawned and tried to pull the covers closer to her body, but it was held back. She frowned, the pounding headache doing nothing for her thought process, and pulled harder till she finally fell off the bed.
Groaning, Hermione squinted her eyes and looked around. She was definitely in a hotel. 'I wasn't in a hotel last night,' she thought drearily to herself. A sudden draft made Hermione shiver, and she found with shock that she was totally naked. Blushing hard, and wondering how the hell that ever happened, she quickly looked around, picking up and putting on her discarded clothing she found around the room. She went into the loo and retied her very messy hair, and freshened up before going out. She scanned the room once and finally, and fearfully, looked at the bed, hoping to Merlin that she hadn't had sex with a random bloke. The bed was empty, and Hermione sighed in relief before quickly leaving.
A groan was suddenly heard at the foot of the bed, deep under the pile of covers.
The next morning at work, Hermione sat at her desk looking at papers with her daily cup of coffee from Nott, still tired from the night before yesterday. Ginny came in, grinning.
"So how was the office party? Harry told me it was a blast."
Hermione laughed. "It was all right. We had the regular booze, the bad music, but afterwards is when it got crazy. We all went out to a pub for a small "after party", and got smashed. But I can't remember after that."
Ginny grinned wickedly. "You didn't go home with anyone, did you?"
"No!" Hermione exclaimed. "At least I don't think so," she added timidly.
Ginny laughed. "I hope not for your sake."
Hermione rolled her eyes and smiled. A knock on the door made both girls look up, and she sighed. "Well, I guess I'd better be getting to work. You should get getting home too."
"Actually I've got to get to the pitch. My team's practicing soon."
Hermione grinned. "Okay. See you later, Gin!"
Ginny left as Draco Malfoy entered her office. Hermione sighed heavily.
"Okay, here are the papers you wanted. I'm not totally done with them, but you can take a look at them."
Draco nodded. "Great. I wanted to ask you, how was the after party?" he asked with a smirk.
Hermione frowned. "You were there, Malfoy. It was all right," she said slowly.
"Just all right? Not amazing?"
"Uh, yeah. Just all right. Everyone got sloshed. That's it."
Malfoy frowned. "Ah. So can I get the papers?"
Hermione picked them up and handed them to him. "There you go."
Malfoy nodded and was about to leave, then hesitated. "Granger, did you wake up in a hotel room the day after the after party?"
Hermione frowned. "Yes…why?"
The smirk was back. "Just wondering. Thank you for the papers."
He was gone, and Hermione frowned, trying hard to remember how she got into a hotel room. With a bit of disdain, she replayed the memory in her mind.
Hermione was at the bar, drinking and watching her coworkers dance ridiculously. Malfoy joined her and sighed, watching the spectacle behind them.
"Those girls really need to learn how to dance."
"I agree," Hermione said, and finished off a shot.
"Hey Hermione," Ron said on her other side, faintly slurring. "Let's play a drinking game."
"Ron, I don't—"
"Sounds like a fine idea, Weasley! And those don't come very often from you. Come on, Granger, let's play."
"Malfoy, don't you get sucked into this silly idea too."
"It'll be fun, Granger! We could play Truth or Dare, twenty questions, the alphabet game…"
"How do you know all these?"
Draco just smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know. Come on, Granger."
"We were actually going to play Empty the Cauldron. We've got a lot of the drinks in a cauldron already."
"Fine. Come on, Granger, don't be a prude."
"Malfoy, I swear, if you call me a prude one more time I'll—"
"Cad. Prude! You're a coward."
"Malfoy! For goodness sakes!"
"Hermione, come on! It'll be fun, I promise!" Ron whined, and Hermione rolled her eyes and finally sighed.
"Fine. I'll play your stupid game."
Ron grinned and put his arm around her shoulders and led her to a large table where Harry, Susan, Dean, Seamus, Lavender, Zach, Justin, Michael, Anthony, Terry, Katie, Theo, Adrian, and Padma were sitting. Dean was currently drinking from one of the numerous glass bottles in the large, but shallow, cauldron.
"So how do you play?" Hermione asked cautiously as she sat between Draco and Ron.
"We pass the cauldron around full of the drinks and you pick one and drink as much as you want before passing the cauldron on. The person who empties the cauldron is the winner, and the person who drinks before the winner is the loser," Ron said with a grin.
"The loser has to buy a drink for everybody to put in the cauldron, and we play all over again," Terry Boot said from across the table. At that moment, Terry was handed the cauldron, and he took a long drink before scrunching his eyes up.
"Firewhiskey."
Hermione put her head in her hands and groaned. "This is such a stupid game!"
"It'll be fun once you get the cauldron and get pissed out of your mind, Granger," Theodore Nott said from Draco's side. Adrian Pucey laughed, and Draco smirked at her.
"You'll be an interesting drunk, Granger," he stated, and Hermione scowled at him.
The cauldron came around to her, and she took a long sip of Mead before handing it to Malfoy. He took a long drink from the last bottle of Firewhiskey, but couldn't finish it off. Theo did it for him, and everyone cheered.
"Go buy our drinks, Malfoy!" someone called, and Draco grumpily acquiesced. Hermione grinned. There could be some fun to be had in this game after all.
Hermione shook her head, disgusted with herself. After that, she couldn't remember much.
"I must have been really pissed."
A/N: I'm back, finally! Please review and tell me how you like it! Thanks! I'll be posting every week, now that it's finally summer (yes!). Please review!