Lucius Malfoy found himself standing in front of the entire school not knowing what to say. Now that he was in the spotlight, he was more nervous than ever. Lucius pulled a silver flask from his robes before he spoke to his audience.
"Thank you for welcoming me here," he began, not knowing exactly what he wanted to say. A loud hiccup escaped before he continued speaking. He wrung his hands together in front of him and glanced nervously from Dumbledore to McGonagall to Snape, looking for help from anyone who would offer it.
After realizing that Malfoy was not capable of continuing any kind of speech, Dumbledore rose to stand next to the drunken wizard and stated, "It seems that Mr. Malfoy would like the party to start. So start it will." With a wave of the wand, the statue centerpieces at each table began rotating, causing a clear liquid to flow into a ring of tankards surrounding the statue. The tables filled with delicious food of all sorts, and the newest hits from the Weird Sisters and other popular wizard bands began playing in the background. As Dumbledore began eating, Lucius decided that the party finally had officially started, and reached forward to refill his flask from the rotating fountain conveniently placed right in front of him.
Sirius and Lupin had done the same at the Gryffindor table, removing two of the tankards from their places. The fountain seemed to realize there were glasses missing from the circle, and stopped the flow of liquid as the mouth passed over the empty places.
"Bloody hell, look at that!" Ron exclaimed, "Dumbledore really pulled out all the stops for this party." Ron reached across the table for a tankard of his own and drank, washing down the roasted pig he was eating. As he put down his mug, Hermione smiled and laughed at him.
"Ron, I hate to say this, but your whole upper lip is icy pink."
"It would only make sense that it is pink, because I just drank the best strawberry daquiri in the world!"
Sirius glanced at the trio from underneath the table – he had just thrown a spoonful of mashed potatoes toward the Slytherin table – and put his two cents into the conversation. "Strawberry daquiri? My tankard was an Alabama slammer."
Hermione nearly leaped out of her seat in excitement, "The drinks are like that scene in "Mary Poppins", where they all take medicine from the same bottle, but it tastes different to each one of them."
"Mary who?"
"You really need Muggle Studies, Ron. "Mary Poppins is an American muggle movie, made by a man named Disney."
Ron just gave a sheepish grin and turned back to join conversation with Harry, Seamus, and Neville. Everyone at the table laughed as both Sirius and Lupin had to duck out of the way of some rogue peas thrown by Peeves, who had also discovered the effects of the magical fountains. Clearly, the whole Gryffindor house was on their way to becoming plastered.
Bushy-haired Hermione, after much persuasion from a tipsy Harry and Ron, had finally taken a tankard from the center of the table. Even though she was in her seventh year and was friends with the two sneakiest boys in the school, Hermione still had never imbibed any alcohol. Since she didn't know much about mixed drinks, she told the fountain to pour a piña colada. The trio, plus Sirius and Lupin, toasted Hermione losing her alcoholic virginity, and they all chugged their tankards. Hermione received a small standing ovation for downing her first drink, and everyone was quite surprised when she immediately refilled her mug with another piña colada.
Up at the staff table, Lucius was finally drunk enough to not care about how anyone treated him. The party was given for him, and he was going to have a good time, no matter what happened. Dumbledore and McGonagall were beginning to get rosy-cheeked with their tonic and gin and Long Island iced tea, respectively.
Severus Snape knew from past experience that eventually, once he was drunk enough, Lucius would turn the evening into a contest to see who could get the drunkest, especially since Dumbledore had foolishly opened the alcoholic beverage consumption to the whole school. Due to both the inevitable drinking contest and his strong desire not to be at this party, Snape did not waste any time getting started on his stash of firewhiskey. Amazingly, he had downed three shots, poured individually, in fifteen seconds. No doubt there had been sufficient practice time in his past. After the shots, Severus had taken a breather just in time to see Lucius stand up shakily from the table and jump down to mingle among the students. The rest of the staff had noticed the sudden movement, but laughed it off, believing that Lucius simply wanted to speak to his son. Unfortunately, talking was not on top of the to-do list that Lucius was carrying around.
Sirius had decided to wander around the Great Hall for a while, to talk to the other professors and to see what kinds of mischief he could rustle up. Lupin, who was quite proficient at holding his liquor, followed along, to keep Sirius from getting into too much trouble.
As he stood at the table to leave, he gave the trio a heads up, "I'd be careful if I were you. It looks like the party is about to get started."
Harry lifted himself up to see who Lupin was talking about, and collapsed to his seat in surprise, "What the hell is Malfoy doing talking to Sirius? Shouldn't he be at the Slytherin table?"
Ron had to put his two knuts in, "Nobody knows what he will do, but look, I'm afraid I've lost a shoe." He held his foot up on the table while looking confused as to where his shoe could have ended up.
"Oh, Ronny, look here darling, here's your shoe!" Hermione pulled the shoe out of a large serving dish of creamed corn, "I wonder how it got there…"
"Thanks, Hermione, very much. Oh look! They're playing double dutch!" Everyone had now focused their attention to the center of the room where Sirius, Lucius, and Dumbledore were taking turns jumping rope to the beat of the music that was still playing rather loudly in the background.
Severus had followed Lucius into the crowd of people, and now stood at the edge of the small circle that had gathered around the double-dutchers. None of the students were standing too close to the potions master because anyone who got within five feet of the professor got a look that rivaled those usually reserved for the Gryffindor class during Double Potions with the Slytherins. He wouldn't have minded a crowd at the party, but he had a very definite image to uphold.
Hermione had seen the crowd gathering around the jump ropers, and had decided to go see what it was all about. She almost fell over twice as she found a vantage spot, due to the large amount of alcohol wreaking havoc on her. She couldn't see from her first vantage point, so she wound her way to the other side of the crowd. She was so drawn by the action that she didn't realize who she had ended up standing next to.
"Miss Granger," there was a slight pause as she focused on who was talking to her, "Miss Granger, I see you have found the enchantment of the liquor bottle."
She looked up at him wide-eyed as she spoke, "Oh yes, Professor. I wonder why I had never discovered it before. You look lovely tonight, dear Professor. Your clothes match wonderfully."
"Merlin, is she flirting with me? There are so many more appropriate boys here for her to be with," he thought. Although secretly he knew he liked her attention.
Hermione was just about to slip her hand into his, when suddenly the jumping stopped and Lucius fell forward, having tripped over the rope. The students around the circle moved out of the way for the falling man, and laughed as he hit the floor with a loud thud. Snape quickly moved in to remove the blond man from the floor.
"Oh, Severus! Nice of you to join the party!" Lucius said as Snape picked him up. "Where were you hiding? You missed the jumping contest."
Snape remained silent and ignored that last comment, as he was in no mood to start arguing with anybody. He definitely needed more to drink, so he made his way slowly back to the staff table to refill his flask. Unfortunately, Professor Snape couldn't manage to shake the feeling that the Gryffindor Know-It-All was staring at him. Drunk or sober, every student should know better than to stare at the surly Potions Master.
What on earth was Father thinking? I can't imagine why he would do anything like that. Draco nearly choked on his dinner when he looked up to see Lucius skipping rope with the Headmaster. The action needed to cease immediately, but Draco was too embarrassed to do anything about it. As he scanned the room, he saw his Head of House glaring oddly in the direction of the Mudblood. Too many things were going on in his head at the moment, so he didn't give it any thought when Hermione winked at Professor Snape. Totally overwhelmed, Draco slumped into his chair and tried to pretend that this whole scene hadn't happened.