Prompt 12
Title: Drinking Game
Author:
princesstopaz
Format & Word Count: Ficlet, 1122
Rating: PG
Prompt: 12- choose your own lyric!
Warning: Bad song, mild swearing,
Summary: Tonks presents an unusual drinking game.
Author's Note: I don't think this was what the prompt meant, but it was the idea that came to me. Then it got away from me, which explains the ending. Hope you all like my interpretation.
“Okay, so here’s the game: You know how the Hogwarts song really has no tune but you’re just supposed to start singing with one of your own? Well this is a variation of that. Here you have the tune, but you’re just supposed to make up your own lyrics as you go along. Everyone has three tunes in their turn, if you mess up once you take a shot, twice, two shots, three times, three shots. In the second round you start up with two, then the third with three, and so on until you’re either too shit-faced to stand or the bottle’s empty.”
“What?” the other two asked, already very bleary-eyed.
“That’s the game. You get the tune, but you make up your own lyric and take a shot when you get it wrong,” repeated Tonks.
“Okay,” said Sirius. “How do we get the tunes?”
Tonks smiled. “From the wireless.... Now... where’s yours?”
At this Remus interrupted, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to come up with another idea. Padfoot here had an accident after he overheard the Minister for Magic discussing his criminal history and familial link to Bellatrix Lestrange.”
Tonks turned to Sirius and arched a brow. He stood, shakily, took an exaggerated bow, even more unsteadily, and then dropped back into his chair heavily. She snorted. “Now what? Oh, wait, I know. You two can’t tell me you can’t sing a song from memory.”
The two men gave her wide-eyed stares again. She glared. “You don’t have to sing well, you just have to know the tune.”
“I believe that given our current state of inebriation, the possibility of singing well has long been rendered unlikely. But now you want us to try to remember a tune?” asked Remus.
She rolled her eyes. “Let me go first then. Er... let’s see... oh yeah, Celestina Warbeck, ‘Brew Me Up a Cauldron’ or whatever the hell the name of that song was....”
And thus she began to half-drunkenly warble:
Oh come and make up my bath
And if you do it right,
I’ll drown myself and spare you lot
Hearing me for the rest of your life.
Sirius began to applaud almost before she had finished. “Hear, hear! I like this game. But I think you’ve used one of the original lyrics in there.”
Tonks grinned. “You can, but no more than one or two lines. Now, next song... next song... ah, here it is, the Hogwarts School song.”
Warty, Greasy, Sevvy
Do us a favour please,
Go take a bath and wash your hair
Find a girl, or a troll we don’t care,
You look like a bat
About to take to air,
So new clothes would do you well.
You are a git and proud of it ,
But if you don’t behave
We’ll feed you to Buckbeak!
Sirius guffawed loudly at this, but Remus shook a slender finger at her. “That’s cheating m’dear; the Hogwarts School song does not have a tune.”
Tonks arched a brow at him. He folded his arms and stared back. After a moment she scowled, and reaching for her glass and the bottle said, “Fine, I’ll take my shot. Your turn.”
The serious and composed expression he’d put on faltered and fell away at once. “W-what? I believe Sirius is next, as our host.”
Sirius shook his head, smirking. “Oh no you don’t, Moony. You’re next. What are you afraid of? My cousin here couldn’t carry a tune on a broomstick, much less herself-”
“-Hey! I can-”
“-upright most days, and yet she bravely took the first round. As a gentleman--hypothetically speaking, of course--you should take the second. And as the host, I insist.”
Remus glared at his friend as angrily as he could muster. But his bleary eyes ruined the effect and with a sigh, he said, “Fine. Er... forgive me if you don’t know this song, I haven’t really listened to the wireless or kept up with the... latest music for years.”
Tonks glared at him now. “Why must you insist of projecting this image of yourself as an old man?”
He looked up at her surprised, and then was even more so to see the distinct lack of jest in her eyes and expression. She was really, genuinely upset.
“W-well,” he began, stammering slightly. “I am.”
Now Sirius was glaring at him too. “Thanks a lot, Moony. It was bad enough that I was robbed of twelve years of my life and all that I could have gotten up to with it, but you just had to point out that I’ve aged. I’ll have you know that you and I were born in the same year.”
Stunned silent by their responses, Remus looked between Sirius and Tonks unsure of what to say. Tonks, for some reason, was always upset whenever he dared to make obvious the fourteen year gap between. It seemingly irritated her more than his insistence on calling her ‘Nymphadora’. And for the last two weeks he’d been kept awake late at night with a troubling thought on the reason why....
Sirius though, was genuinely offended. He was right that they were the same age, they had attended school at the same time, in the same year, in the same house and even shared the same dormitory. Side by side, and even taking into consideration the premature aging bestowed upon Remus by his being a werewolf, one would be hard-pressed to state otherwise. Azkaban had been almost as cruel to Sirius.
No, it had been more so. Though Remus’ being a werewolf had made his life difficult, at least he hadn’t spent twelve years locked away in a place that was the waiting room to Hell.
He began to apologise. “Listen, I’m sorry but I-”
And was cut off by an explosion of loud laughter, that made him look back up at the faces to discover that Sirius and Tonks must have spent the time it took for him to apologise desperately trying to contain their amusement. Tears were flowing freely from their eyes, and Tonks was holding her sides, gasping for air, at once unable to laugh or breathe.
He scowled at them both. “That was just... wonderful. I hope you two enjoyed yourselves....”
They could not respond for some time, but Sirius eventually composed himself enough to say, “Of course we did, immensely! Thanks a lot, Moony!”
“Anytime, Padfoot,” replied Remus, dryly.
He turned to Tonks now, waiting for her addition, and instead was treated to the sight of her, still giggling into her hands, but staring at him with such nervous anxiety that in that moment, he knew, he knew that what he’d feared was true.
Oh no.