A/N: Hey all! The prompt for this one involved firewhiskey. Also, yes, I keep changing Maura's house because I think she's a good fit for 3/4 of them. Which means yes, I stand by her being a good fit for Hufflepuff. Hufflepuffs aren't afraid of toil and they like hard work, that seems like her to me! But I digress.
Jane blinked, waking up to harsh sunlight. Had she fallen asleep outside? It seemed she had, and it also seemed she has no pants on. Somebody next to her stirred, and Jane jumped, heart beating fast. It was Maura Isles sitting up, hair tousled and silk pajama top partially un-buttoned. Jane stared at her in shock, trying to remember how they had gotten here, and also pulling the blanket by her feet up to cover her legs.
Something in her memory clicked when Maura - seemingly unbothered by her state of dress - walked to the edge of the astronomy tower and leaned over it like she was going to vomit. Instead, a short jet of fire shot from her mouth.
"Huh," Jane said, also getting up. "Now I really understand why you're not supposed to sell this to minors."
The previous night...
"Rubbish. Spin the bottle sounds like a rubbish game."
"Hey man, you asked what muggles liked to do at parties, and I haven't been to a muggle party since I was 12!"
Fred rolled his eyes and turned to look at his brother. "How badly do we really want to do this?"
"Hey, you're the one who said you thought your parties were getting stale," Alicia Spinnet pointed out. "I think spicing them up with muggle games is a delightful idea! Why don't we try truth or dare? That one sounded like fun, Jane!"
"All right, but we'll need to recruit some new blood," said George, scanning the room of Gryffindors celebrating their latest Quidditch victory. "I already know most of what there is worth knowing about you lot, and I'd wager we could get some interesting dares if we put our minds to it. Team? Everyone pick someone and reconvene here in 2 minutes."
Fred nudged Jane with his elbow. "Now would be a good time to cozy up to that girl you've had your eye on for the last, eh, five years?"
"I don't know who you're taking about, Gred. I mean, Forge. I mean, Weasley."
"You are literally drooling, mate."
"You are so full of it!"
"If you don't ask Isles to join us, I will. And I'll dare her to snog you."
"You do that and I'll transfigure your blanket into a Severus Snape body pillow while you're asleep."
Jane turned her attention back to the room, and saw Maura making a discreet exit up the stairs to the room she shared with Jane, Angelina, Alicia and Leanne. After a few moments' deliberation, Jane followed her.
Maura Isles was one of those kids a lot of people thought should've been in Ravenclaw - she was an exceptional student who seemed to prefer spending her time with books rather than people. She had friends, but even there, Jane was pretty sure she'd only seen them hanging out at the library. When they'd first met, Jane had found her a little off-putting; Maura wasn't rude, but she kept to herself. Angelina and Alicia loved sports, and Jane had instantly bonded with them over that. Over the years, she and Maura had come to a mutual respect and an easygoing friendship. It was easy to make one of her other suitemates laugh; getting Maura to laugh felt like a real victory and was one of her favorite things to do.
Jane hadn't realized she'd developed a crush on Maura until the Triwizard Tournament, when almost every boy in Hogwarts had made an ass of himself trying to ask Fleur Delacour to the Yule Ball and she had asked Maura. As George's platonic date, she had looked on with pangs of jealousy as she watched someone else make Maura laugh, make her smile that certain smile Jane had started thinking only she'd been able to uncover.
Fleur was long-gone at this point and though things were far from normal at Hogwarts these days, Jane was ready to try her luck. When she got to the room, she was surprised to see Maura had already changed into her silk pajamas.
"Hey...I guess this means you're turning in?"
"It was just getting a little loud down there," Maura said, surprised that she'd been followed.
"Right, right. Yeah. Um...are you sure you wanna leave the party though?"
"Why?"
"Uh...um...a bunch of us were gonna play a game and I wondered if you'd want to join us."
Maura couldn't help feeling suspicious. Jane was perfectly nice, but she'd never gone out of her way like this to invite her to a team party. "What's the game? I'm afraid I'm not very good at anything aside from wizard's chess."
"Oh! Well, uh, it's a muggle game. Kind of a silly, kids' slumber party game that we just thought might be kinda fun." She explained the concept of Truth or Dare, and felt emboldened by Maura's smile. "Whaddya say? Wanna give it a go?"
The smile looked a little sad now. "Why do you want to play it with me?"
"Well, the Weasley twins reckon they already know everything about people on the team - which is probably true," Jane said. "So we were each supposed to bring someone else in who we'd like to play it with, and I... I'd like to get to know you better."
Maura supposed she ought to be flattered by this, and she was, but the concept of the game made her uncomfortable. She was nervous imagining the sorts of outrageous dares the Weasley twins could come up with, and didn't fancy embarrassing herself in front of anyone - especially Jane. "It sounds like an intriguing game, and I think I might enjoy playing it with you... but not everyone else." This seemed like a safe answer; surely Jane would just shrug and leave now with no hard feelings.
"Oh. Um, does that mean you'd stay up here and just play it with me?"
This wasn't the response Maura had been expecting, and it showed. But she wasn't sure how to backtrack now. "Er... yes, I'll give it a go with you."
"Great!" Jane's first impulse was to jump on the end of Maura's bed, but she didn't want to be too presumptuous, so she dragged over a desk chair and sat on it backwards to maintain a level of cool casualness.
"Since this is your game, I think you should have to go first," Maura said. "Truth or dare?"
"Dare."
They both realized that dares probably worked better when there were more people to work off of; Maura scanned the room for ideas. "I dare you to…eat the Bertie Botts bean Angelina has been too scared to try since Halloween!"
With a dramatic sound of disgust, Jane collected the box which had been sitting in a place of honor on the windowsill for almost three months. Jane barely liked taking her chances with regular jelly beans, let alone these - a fact Maura had recalled with a small amount of sadistic glee. She felt a little bad (but still laughed) when Jane popped the bean into her mouth and immediately looked like she was going to throw up.
"Was I right? Is it moldy sponge?" (The girls had an ongoing bet about what it might be, though none of them had ever actually fancied testing it out.)
"No, worse," Jane coughed. "Buttered popcorn."
"What?! How on earth is that worse? Oh, what a letdown."
"You just wait, Maura Isles. I'm gonna write home and ask someone to send me some Jelly Bellies, and you'll try the buttered popcorn one and RUE the day you dared dismiss it as an innocent flavor." After dry-heaving a couple more times, Jane said, "Okay you're up, truth or dare?"
Maura deliberated for a moment, ultimately deciding she was wary of retribution. "Truth."
Jane wished she'd spent some time coming up with good questions; she was overwhelmed with the possibilities. She blurted out the first one that came to mind: "Are you still in touch with Fleur Delacour?"
Again Maura looked taken aback. "Yes."
She was surprised to see Jane look so disappointed. "Huh. You are. Cool, what um, what kinda things do you talk about?"
"I believe you are entitled to one question on your turn, and you've asked it. No additions," Maura said with a coy smile. "Your turn again, truth or dare."
"Truth–no, dare."
"No changing, you wimp! Why are you so curious about me and Fleur? And don't make something up," she added when it looked like Jane wanted to do just that. "I don't see what the purpose of this game is if you're not going to abide by the rules of half of it."
"For someone who's never played this game before, you sure have a lot of ideas about it," Jane chuckled.
"Yes, well, it's not exactly advanced gobstones, is it? Now come on, no more evading."
"Okay, okay. I asked because I was curious."
"That's not a real answer. I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be brave, Jane, c'mon!"
It was just a joke, but something about it really caught Jane off guard. Pussyfooting around what she wanted to ask was cowardly in its own way, and while she considered herself many things, a coward wasn't one of them. It wasn't like she was deeply in love or anything; if Maura turned her down, it could be awkward sure but it wouldn't be the end of the world. She'd been gift-wrapped an opportunity to do the brave thing and be honest, so why not woman up and get it off her chest?
"I asked because I like you. Um, I really like you. Which I know is weird because we've lived together for over five years and it's not like we've spent a ton of time just hanging out one-on-one but um… I don't know, I think you're really interesting and really pretty and obviously super smart."
Maura couldn't mask her surprise, and it looked like she was blushing. Her tone was difficult to read: "Oh. Oh, I see."
"Do you, um…do you still like Fleur?"
Maura was about to answer, but stopped herself and smiled. "If we're still playing the game, you need to ask if I want a truth or dare before I answer that. And I want a dare."
Jane couldn't help being intrigued and kind of pleased by Maura's playful nature. She walked over to her dresser and when she came back with a bottle, she sat next to Maura on the bed. Maura could see it wasn't unopened bottle of Ogden's fire whiskey. "I dare you to chug as much of this as you can."
They exchanged a look which communicated Jane had no idea whether this was truly scandalous for her or not - and if it was too much, that Jane wouldn't push her. With that reassuring look, Maura felt comfortable taking the bottle, using a spell to uncork it. Jane looked on, deeply impressed, when Maura chugged down a good amount. Maura eventually relinquished the bottle, and some smoke blew out of her mouth when she coughed.
Jane took the bottle back and read the label. Fred and George had smuggled it to her as a birthday gift, and she'd never bothered opening it because she'd been waiting for a good occasion. Under the name of the whiskey was a promise: "You don't need Liquid Luck, you just need Liquid Courage!" Jane followed an asterisk to the bottom of the label, which she squinted to read in the dark: "Does not reduce agency but amplifies courage to follow dreams, desires, and daring! Please drink responsibly and do not mix with board games."
Something in Blishen's whiskey worked much faster than muggle whiskey - made apparent when Maura pushed Jane against the wall and straddled her on the bed.
"I dare you to catch up," she murmured, fingering Jane's tie.
Jane's temperature skyrocketed; she felt like fire whiskey was pumping through her veins before she even drank any. Afterwards, she felt the most peculiar sensation: not a buzz, but a calming, like a warm blanket thrown around her shoulders on a cold day. It was the perfect touch of calm and reassurance, which then slipped right into engulfing brazenness. Here was a beautiful girl she liked, sitting on her lap, looking at her like she was a Fortescue sundae.
"Shit, what just happened?" Jane mumbled.
"It was my turn and I was going to answer a truth you asked me," Maura said, her hands kneading Jane's shoulders. "Fleur is dating one of the older Weasley boys and I'm happy for her. We had fun, but we didn't click as much beyond friends. Truth or dare?"
"Truth."
"How badly do you want to kiss me?"
"More than McGonagall wants to kill Umbridge in her sleep-"
The words had barely left Jane before Maura kissed her, hard. It was a tad too intense at first, like Jane almost wondered if that was how it felt to have a dementor suck your soul out, but it improved the moment she started responding. Maura tugged hard at the collar of Jane's shirt and started to roll her hips. Jane moaned, letting her hands roam over Maura's silk-clad body. God, she felt amazing…
Neither knew how much time had passed when Jane had Maura on her back, holding one of the blonde's legs around her waist, still kissing her. They didn't seem to have been enjoying that position long when the door burst open to show Angelina.
"Um. Hi?"
"It's exactly what it looks like," Maura said.
"Uh…"
"She dared me," Jane said. "I mean, we kind of dared each other. With our eyes, you know? Eyes and whiskey."
"Ohhhh," said Angelina, eying the bottle that had long fallen to the floor. She was so stunned that she legitimately forgot what she'd been sent up for, and backed out of the room. "You know what? Imma just leave. You guys uh…as you were."
"We need privacy," Jane said, affecting a British accent for the last word. "Where can we go and how?"
Maura was already tapping Jane's head with her wand, muttering a Disillusionment charm.
Back to the next morning...
"How did we get to the astronomy tower?" Jane asked, wrapping the blanket around her waist like a skirt.
"Your broomstick," Maura said, nodding where it lay propped against the wall. "I'd never ridden one before; I remember being very excited by the vibrating."
Jane chuckled nervously. "Ha… yeah, um, have you ever had fire whiskey before?"
"Yes, but not that brand and not that much. You haven't, have you?"
"Nope."
"Well, in my experience, it is what it claims to be - liquid courage. I've really liked you for a while, Jane. I wasn't sure if you … what you felt. That wasn't the push I was expecting to get me to open up, but if you didn't feel it-"
"Whoa, hey, I said I liked you before I even drank any of that stuff," Jane said. "We are on the same page. Hell," she chuckled. "If I knew that fire whiskey was gonna have that affect on you, I'd have cracked it open way before now!" She leaned in for a kiss, then said, "Wait. How familiar are you with the side effects of this stuff? Is it safe to kiss you, or should I be worried about dragon breath?"
"Does it feel like there's smoke in your sinuses?"
"No…"
"Then we should be fine."
"Okay then I just have one more question. Where are my pants?"
"Hm…if memory serves, you got hot and tossed them over the side of the tower in the middle of the night."
"Oh, Lord," Jane mumbled, pointing her wand over the grounds. "Accio trousers!"
Professor McGonagall tried really hard to ignore the pants with a Gryffindor trim that went sailing past her window.
