Hermione was interrupted from her thoughts by a knock on her bedroom door. When she opened it, Cho stood in front of her looking extremely worried about something.
"Hermione, do you know what appropriate dress is for the party?" she asked.
"Er, well, it's a muggle party in the middle of the summer, so I would assume just casual with your bathing suit underneath," Hermione suggested.
"Oh, thank you!" Cho said, and with a great hug, she was off toward her own room.
Hermione took her own advice while dressing, sticking to a tank top and shorts. She smiled and slid on some flip-flops to complete the look, though they felt awfully strange to her feet.
She went downstairs and into the sitting room to find it full. Everyone seemed to have been waiting for her; when she reached the foot of the stairs, someone mumbled "About bloody time," and then they were all out and crossing the street to Tom's house.
When they rang the doorbell, there stood none other than Tom himself, beaming and waving them into a house full of scantly clad muggles, wriggling their bodies to the repulsive muggle music that was pounding into the room from some lofty place.
The group split off once they got inside: Harry, Draco, and Blaise wet off to watch the muggle sport that was playing on an enormous film-screen in one of the rooms while Hermione, Ron and Cho went swimming and Ginny and Luna decided to wander the house and observe the strange muggle party.
In one room, there was another huge film-screen and there was a herd of boys screaming at two others in front of them while they stared without blinking at the screen and their thumbs pounded the buttons on some strange object that was connected to the screen by thin black tentacles.
In the next room were Draco, Harry, and Blaise, standing in front of the screen and shouting at it with at least fifteen other muggles. Luna and Ginny exchanged a look before continuing down the hallway, where they found themselves at the foot of a staircase.
Upstairs, they could hear more of the insane muggle music, but it sounded even louder than it was in the sitting room by the front door. Ginny and Luna curiously walked up the stairs and found themselves in a dark room. All of the lights were off and the only feeble glare came from several candles that were strategically place high along the walls. The muggles were so packed into this room that Ginny couldn't see the other end of it, though she doubted she would be able to in the darkness of the room.
"Hi!" Tom yelled over the music, leaping unexpectedly in front of the girls and wearing that big, distracting smile of his, "You ladies looking for a dance?"
Ginny was about to politely decline and flee back down the stairs where she could hear herself think, but Luna decided to take advantage of the situation herself.
"Sure!" she yelled back, and before Ginny could say anything, one of Tom's arms was around each of the girls and she felt herself being sucked into the crowd of wriggling muggles.
She lost sight of Luna almost immediately in the crowd. Tom was still with her and as they reached the center of the mass of humans, he began to dance in a sexually demeaning way that Ginny thought looked quite silly.
"Uh, Tom, I'm not so sure I'm quite up to dancing," Ginny yelled in his ear.
"You thirsty?" he asked, or rather, screamed.
"Uh, sure," Ginny said, grabbing at the possibility of her being thirsty getting her out of the crowd. Ginny didn't like all the heat and sweat and horridly loud music.
Tom led her through the bodies toward the opposite wall as the one containing the staircase. Ginny had rather hoped that she would have ended up at the other side and been able to escape.
He poured some strange concoction into a plastic red cup and handed it to Ginny. She looked at it, and then smelled it. It smelled horrible, but she decided she should at least try it. She spit it out all over the carpet when it touched her tongue.
"What the bloody hell is this?" she screamed to Tom.
"Alcohol, what'd you think it'd be?" he screamed back.
"Alcohol?" Ginny said, looking into her cup.
She tried to take another sip and found that it wasn't as bad as the first time she had tasted it. She thought maybe it was one of those drinks you had to have a few times before you got used to it enough to actually drink it without having to take only small sips. She took another. It still didn't taste good, but she found her throat quite parched and was glad at least for the liquid with which to sooth it.
"Have you never had alcohol before?" Tom shouted.
"Er –" Ginny couldn't think of how she should respond, "Of course I have."
Tom smiled and continued to sip at his own alcohol. Ginny soon realized that she had finished her entire cup and set it down on the small table they were leaning against.
"Are you finished?" Tom yelled with raised eyebrows.
"Uh, yeah," Ginny said, unsure of why he asked in such a way.
He smiled and said, "Follow me, I've got something to show you."
Ginny obligingly followed and Tom led her to a room with only about four boys in it, which was strange because all the other rooms had been absolutely packed.
"Hey boys, I've got a challenger!" he said to them, gesturing at Ginny.
"Challenger?" she sputtered.
"Yes," Tom said, "We have competitions to see who can drain their glasses the fastest."
The boys eyed her with interest. She flushed under their gaze and sat down at the table they all surrounded, Tom included. One of the boys slid a tiny glass to everyone at the table and then went around, filling them up.
"So here's how it goes," Tom began, "Everyone starts chugging at the same time and when you finish you bang your glass onto the table as loudly as you can and the first one to have their glass back on the table wins."
Ginny eyed the tiny glass in front of her. This should be easy, she thought. She wondered which of the boys was the most tolerant of its flavor, for surely that must be the contest: who can hold their breath and drink the repulsive mixture.
"Ready…" Tom said, and Ginny followed when the other boys moved their hands to their glasses, "Go."
Ginny downed the whole thing in a swallow and it tasted even worse than what she had earlier, like they had added vinegar to it to make it more challenging to drink.
She slammed her glass down and looked around at the other boys, who still had their glasses up to their mouths. They all came down at the same time, like firework cracks.
Tom was staring at her in open amazement.
"What?" she said, truly curious.
All of the other boys were staring too.
"What?" she demanded, her voice rising.
"That was fricken amazing," Tom breathed.
"Never seen anything like it," said one of the other boys.
"If you can do that again, I'll give you twenty bucks," said one.
All eyes turned to him.
"Yeah, I'll give you ten," said another.
They all started pooling muggle money in the center of the table.
"Whoever wins this one gets all that," Tom said to the occupants of the table, "Ready… Go!"
Ginny drained her cup again and slammed it down long before anyone else.
As the other glasses came down onto the table, everyone stared at her again. Ginny looked to Tom for instructions.
"Go ahead," he said, nodding his head toward the money in the center of the table.
For a second, Ginny panicked because she didn't know how to handle muggle money, then she remembered seeing Harry pull it out of his back pocket with all the papers lined up, take one out as he paid for something, then fold it in half and in half again and stuff it back into his back pocket.
She hesitantly reached for the pile and slid it toward her, conscious of everyone's eyes on her. She folded it in half and in half again after lining all the bill up and slid it into her back pocket like she had seen Harry do. No one said anything, so she hoped she had done it right.
"Up for another go?" Tom said brightly to the table.
"Sure, but I ain't putting my money in this time," someone said.
"Let's battle for second-best," someone suggested.
They seemed to agree with this and, when the glasses were filled and then, soon after, emptied, the boys all fought over whose glass hit the table first.
Ginny suddenly got bored and felt like dancing. It surprised even her, but she wanted to dance and didn't want to waste any more time with the stupid boys.
"Up for a little dancing?" she said to Tom.
He blinked stupidly at her before sputtering, "Sure," and standing up, pulling Ginny to her feet.
They left the silly boys to arguing over who won and went out into the dark room. The music was just as loud but seemed to have changed while Ginny was absent and it didn't sound that bad.
Tom began to dance in that repulsive way again and Ginny looked around to get a hint on how she should be dancing. Most of the females were pressed tightly against their respective males, swerving their midriffs left and right. Ginny wasn't too sure about squashing herself up against Tom, so she compromised by dancing in the same manner as the other girls and standing very near to him. The dancing was fun; it made her giggle with delight. Tom inched closer and soon they were smashed together just like everyone else, but it didn't seem unpleasant to Ginny, who was discovering a love for swinging her hips around with the music.
Tom began to let his hands meander around her body, but she didn't mind much; she was having too much fun to mind. The suddenly a wave of fatigue washed over her like and avalanche.
"I'm tired," she said, standing still and no longer dancing.
Tom didn't seem to notice and kept dancing with her even though she wasn't moving.
"Tom!" she shouted at him.
He abruptly stopped dancing and stepped back.
"What is it?" he asked, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Ginny said, "But I'm suddenly really tired. Is there somewhere I could lay down?"
"Sure, baby, come on," Tom said, throwing an arm around her shoulder and guiding her through the dance-floor.
She didn't bother to get onto him for calling her 'baby' and took comfort in the arm over her shoulder, as she felt so tired that she might pass out at any moment.
Tom leaned her against the wall in a hallway. Ginny was grateful for something solid for it seemed that the ground was tilting in a different direction for every step that she took. He peered into a room.
"This one's empty," he said, "And this is the bathroom."
He pointed to a door directly across the hallway from the room he said was empty.
"Thank you, Tom," Ginny said, giving him a kiss on the cheek (it suddenly felt like the appropriate thing to do) and stumbled into the restroom.
The fluorescent light was very bright and was magnified by the white walls and the mirror. She glanced at her reflection but the mirror must have been foggy because she couldn't see it very well.
She then forgot why it was that she entered the bathroom and exited back into the hallway.
"Hey, baby," said a male voice from behind her, and the hands attached to it wrapped around her waist, pulling her backward against him.
"Draco," she sighed, leaning into him.
"Whatever you want, baby," he said.
She giggled and stumbled out of his arms and into the nice dark room across the hall. He followed and closed the door behind him, but not before she caught a flash of blonde hair. He wrapped his arms around her again and kissed her. She didn't pause before opening her mouth to him; she was feeling very brave at the moment. He was walking her backwards, toward the bed, and she fell on it with him on top of her. She giggled with glee as he kissed her along her jaw line.
"Oh, Draco!" she squeaked in delight.
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