FIC: "A Two-Bottle Night," Remus/Harry, PG
Title: A Two-Bottle Night
Pairing: Remus/Harry
Rating: PG for action, R for language (but nobody gives a fuck about language, right?)
Words: 1600ish
Warnings: Uh...drunkenness?
Notes: Written for slashfest Round II and posted late like a really late thing. reddwarfer requested "Harry and Remus and a bottle of firewhisky after the war." Many thanks to betas enkelien and goodkingnerdnor. Happy Christmas everybody :)
- - -
Remus is used to quiet Friday nights at home.
He doesn’t really prefer sitting alone with a nice cup of tea and a Defence journal to going out, but since the majority of his friends are either very busy or very dead, most of his weeks seem to end that way. Tonks was always good at finding things for the two of them to do, but - well, best not to think about that.
Tea and experimental shield theory: an excellent way to spend an evening, Friday or otherwise.
Settling into a chair in the Islington flat’s miniscule sitting room, Remus promptly becomes just immersed enough in his reading for the sudden flare of the Floo to scare the hell out of him. He jumps and draws his wand.
“Remus? You home?” Harry asks, peering around the room as well as he can from the tiny hearth.
Remus exhales quickly and sheepishly relaxes from his defensive crouch, marking his place in his book with his drawn wand and setting it down on the end table. “Yes, Harry, I’m home.” He curses Alastor Moody briefly under his breath.
“Busy?”
“Not particularly. Why?”
“Fancy a drink?”
“I wasn’t planning on going out.”
Harry’s disembodied head grins. “Oh, that’s fine. I’ll just pop on over, shall I?”
Remus rolls his eyes and goes to the door, opening it just in time for Harry to waltz through it triumphantly waving a bottle of Old Ogden’s in front of him. “I come bearing gifts!”
“Looks like just the one to me,” Remus says as he shuts the door.
Harry disappears into the kitchen, bangs the cupboard doors around a bit, and eventually comes up with two tumblers. “It’s not a two-bottle sort of night,” he declares, dragging a chair away from the kitchen table and turning it around before sitting down and busying himself with opening the bottle. “Sit down, yeah?”
Raising an eyebrow, Remus likewise seats himself at the kitchen table, accepts a glass half-full of firewhisky, and takes a sip. “I’d have thought you’d be at Ron and Hermione’s, helping with the baby,” he says, turning his glass around in his fingers and looking at the other man across the table. Then he winces as Harry tosses back at least two fingers in one go.
“There is no way in seven hells that I am going anywhere near that house,” Harry mutters, pouring himself more alcohol.
“Whyever not?”
Harry mumbles something into his drink.
“What was that?”
Harry pulls off his glasses and rubs his temples. “Ginny. It’s Ginny. She just won’t go away and it’s fucking awkward and just…bugger.”
Remus hides a smile behind his glass. “Am I given to believe that the brave and powerful Harry Potter, Slayer of Voldemort and Saviour of the Wizarding World, is unwilling to face down his ex-girlfriend in order to see his best friends and his goddaughter? Honestly, Harry. Molly is much scarier, even on her best days.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not all that keen on seeing Molly, either.” He sighs.
“What’s the trouble, exactly?”
“I just…It was tough enough when Hermione and Ron got together, y’know? It was always the three of us, always, and then suddenly they’ve got this thing and I’m not part of it, can’t be part of it. Fuck, I don’t even want to be part of it - you’ve seen them fight, yeah?”
Remus knits his brows and reaches for the bottle, topping off both of their drinks, but he doesn’t say anything.
“But Ginny is closer to it than I am. Ron and Hermione and me, we’re family, but Ginny’s blood. Something more, maybe something better. Merlin knows that she gets on far better with Hermione than Ron or I ever could. And she’s his sister, and how can I compete with that?”
“You don’t have to compete with her, Harry.”
“Don’t I?” Harry looks at him plaintively. “I was so close to being on the inside of everything, Remus. So bloody close. Then things go to hell with Gin and I break her heart into tiny bits and I’ve no shot anymore at all at being real family. Hermione and Ron, they’re alright, not the way it was, but alright. But seeing Ginny with them, with the baby, only reminds me of what I don’t have. Outside looking in,” Harry says, morose, and then knocks back the rest of his drink. “I don’t really expect you understand any of this.”
Remus starts to shake his head, then suddenly remembers looking on with mournful eyes as Sirius and James and Lily hovered around Harry, remembers Sirius forcing smiles and Lily apologizing over and over and over, remembers being outside looking in with a stab of hurt as clear and sharp as broken crystal.
Without a word, he gets up and goes to the pantry, pulling down a second bottle of firewhisky and setting it on the table.
They’re well and truly pissed within the hour.
- - -
As it happens, they don’t even need to touch the second bottle; Harry’s apparently charmed his to hold at least four times what a regular bottle would hold without altering the alcohol content in any way. This pleases Remus, because good firewhisky is rather expensive stuff.
Harry is mostly just drunk.
“Hey, Remus,” he eventually says, waving his glass around in a decidedly haphazard fashion, “why’d you’n Tonks call it quits, anyhow? Seemed…weird. To everyone, I mean. Yeah?”
“S’a long story.” Remus cocks his head to the side and considers for a second. “No, maybe not so long. Nymphado-er, Tonks, see, she wants babies. Lots of ‘em.”
Harry looks puzzled. “You don’t?”
“Oh, I do. I do. But,” - he gesticulates vaguely towards either his groin or the tabletop - “can’t. Risky, y’see.”
Harry looks even more puzzled.
Remus sighs. “S’transmissible from father to child, Harry. Genetic-like. And the mother can get it from the cub. Not worth it, y’see?”
“Wow.” Harry blinks owlishly. “Never knew that.”
“Yeah, amazing the things we don’t talk about. That one, well, it’d scare people. Even more, I mean.”
They sit in silence for a minute or two.
“Gin wants kids, too. Didn’t understand why I don’t,” Harry says slowly. “Prolly still doesn’t. She wasn’t famous for long enough to get tired of it, I don’t think.”
Remus nods and tips the bottle again.
“Remus?”
“Mm?”
“Why’re you home alone on a Friday?”
“Don’t be daft, Potter. You’re here, yeah?”
Harry makes a rude noise in the back of his throat. “Not what I meant, y’know.”
“Yeah, I know.” Remus looks down at the tabletop. “S’just…everything’s been quiet since Nymphadora left. Don’t mind much. About the quiet, anyway, not the leaving.”
Neither knows what to say after that, really, so Remus drains and refills his glass again and internally congratulates himself for bollixing up what was a rather nice drunken chat, as these things go. The weight of Harry’s eyes on him makes him a little uncomfortable; he tries to think up a way to change the subject that in no way involves “Look! It’s a new topic of conversation!”
He gets as far as “Don’t suppose the Cannons’re faring any better this season?” before Harry leans across the table and kisses him.
They’ve been drinking for hours, so the flavor of the liquor is all he tastes. Harry’s lips move dry and warm and lazy against his with the barest hint of tongue, and when Remus pulls back with a tiny gasp, he thinks the whisky isn’t as intoxicating by half.
“Harry.”
“Mm?”
“You’re quite drunk.” He doesn’t quite know where he’s going with this.
Harry blinks. “And?”
To the haze of alcohol passing for Remus’ brain, this answer seems eminently sensible.
Then Harry kisses him again, and sense is suddenly the last thing on his mind.
- - -
The next morning (afternoon, actually, but hangovers are hardly conducive to simple tasks like clock-reading) Remus wakes up and immediately notices three things.
Firstly, his head feels like a miniature niffler’s been set loose inside it, alongside a Muggle marching band and at least five of the Wimbourne Wasps. Secondly, his bed positively reeks of firewhisky.
Thirdly, and probably the most startling, fourteen stone of twentysomething Boy Hero are draped across him in a way that is probably extremely pleasing aesthetically but hardly proper.
He thinks that the flying leap he takes out of bed and to the other side of the room, swiping his wand off the bedside table, would probably do Alastor proud. The fall resultant when his beleaguered, horribly aching head demands a recoup of its equilibrium, however, would most certainly not.
Nor would his vaguely girly shriek.
Said shriek wakes Harry, who gropes for his glasses and stares at Remus’ undignified sprawl for at least thirty seconds upon finding them before venturing a quiet, “’Lo, Remus. I don’t suppose you’ve any hangover potion?” and wincing at the volume of his own voice, despite being almost inaudible.
“Potion. Right.” Remus casts about for a moment before awkwardly standing and going to rummage in a drawer full of clinking vials. “Harry.”
“Yeah?” He winces again and rubs at his temples.
“What the bloody hell happened last night?”
“I don’t think we shagged, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Remus drops the bottle of hangover potion he’s managed to extract from the drawer, swears, and pulls out another. “I think I’m going to pretend that you didn’t say that, if it’s all the same,” he says, taking a large dose of the potion before handing it over.
Harry shrugs and brushes the fringe back from his face, taking the proffered vial. “Was a two-bottle night. Best not to ask questions.”
- - -
Feedback is hugged and loved and squeezed all over.
Pairing: Remus/Harry
Rating: PG for action, R for language (but nobody gives a fuck about language, right?)
Words: 1600ish
Warnings: Uh...drunkenness?
Notes: Written for slashfest Round II and posted late like a really late thing. reddwarfer requested "Harry and Remus and a bottle of firewhisky after the war." Many thanks to betas enkelien and goodkingnerdnor. Happy Christmas everybody :)
- - -
Remus is used to quiet Friday nights at home.
He doesn’t really prefer sitting alone with a nice cup of tea and a Defence journal to going out, but since the majority of his friends are either very busy or very dead, most of his weeks seem to end that way. Tonks was always good at finding things for the two of them to do, but - well, best not to think about that.
Tea and experimental shield theory: an excellent way to spend an evening, Friday or otherwise.
Settling into a chair in the Islington flat’s miniscule sitting room, Remus promptly becomes just immersed enough in his reading for the sudden flare of the Floo to scare the hell out of him. He jumps and draws his wand.
“Remus? You home?” Harry asks, peering around the room as well as he can from the tiny hearth.
Remus exhales quickly and sheepishly relaxes from his defensive crouch, marking his place in his book with his drawn wand and setting it down on the end table. “Yes, Harry, I’m home.” He curses Alastor Moody briefly under his breath.
“Busy?”
“Not particularly. Why?”
“Fancy a drink?”
“I wasn’t planning on going out.”
Harry’s disembodied head grins. “Oh, that’s fine. I’ll just pop on over, shall I?”
Remus rolls his eyes and goes to the door, opening it just in time for Harry to waltz through it triumphantly waving a bottle of Old Ogden’s in front of him. “I come bearing gifts!”
“Looks like just the one to me,” Remus says as he shuts the door.
Harry disappears into the kitchen, bangs the cupboard doors around a bit, and eventually comes up with two tumblers. “It’s not a two-bottle sort of night,” he declares, dragging a chair away from the kitchen table and turning it around before sitting down and busying himself with opening the bottle. “Sit down, yeah?”
Raising an eyebrow, Remus likewise seats himself at the kitchen table, accepts a glass half-full of firewhisky, and takes a sip. “I’d have thought you’d be at Ron and Hermione’s, helping with the baby,” he says, turning his glass around in his fingers and looking at the other man across the table. Then he winces as Harry tosses back at least two fingers in one go.
“There is no way in seven hells that I am going anywhere near that house,” Harry mutters, pouring himself more alcohol.
“Whyever not?”
Harry mumbles something into his drink.
“What was that?”
Harry pulls off his glasses and rubs his temples. “Ginny. It’s Ginny. She just won’t go away and it’s fucking awkward and just…bugger.”
Remus hides a smile behind his glass. “Am I given to believe that the brave and powerful Harry Potter, Slayer of Voldemort and Saviour of the Wizarding World, is unwilling to face down his ex-girlfriend in order to see his best friends and his goddaughter? Honestly, Harry. Molly is much scarier, even on her best days.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not all that keen on seeing Molly, either.” He sighs.
“What’s the trouble, exactly?”
“I just…It was tough enough when Hermione and Ron got together, y’know? It was always the three of us, always, and then suddenly they’ve got this thing and I’m not part of it, can’t be part of it. Fuck, I don’t even want to be part of it - you’ve seen them fight, yeah?”
Remus knits his brows and reaches for the bottle, topping off both of their drinks, but he doesn’t say anything.
“But Ginny is closer to it than I am. Ron and Hermione and me, we’re family, but Ginny’s blood. Something more, maybe something better. Merlin knows that she gets on far better with Hermione than Ron or I ever could. And she’s his sister, and how can I compete with that?”
“You don’t have to compete with her, Harry.”
“Don’t I?” Harry looks at him plaintively. “I was so close to being on the inside of everything, Remus. So bloody close. Then things go to hell with Gin and I break her heart into tiny bits and I’ve no shot anymore at all at being real family. Hermione and Ron, they’re alright, not the way it was, but alright. But seeing Ginny with them, with the baby, only reminds me of what I don’t have. Outside looking in,” Harry says, morose, and then knocks back the rest of his drink. “I don’t really expect you understand any of this.”
Remus starts to shake his head, then suddenly remembers looking on with mournful eyes as Sirius and James and Lily hovered around Harry, remembers Sirius forcing smiles and Lily apologizing over and over and over, remembers being outside looking in with a stab of hurt as clear and sharp as broken crystal.
Without a word, he gets up and goes to the pantry, pulling down a second bottle of firewhisky and setting it on the table.
They’re well and truly pissed within the hour.
- - -
As it happens, they don’t even need to touch the second bottle; Harry’s apparently charmed his to hold at least four times what a regular bottle would hold without altering the alcohol content in any way. This pleases Remus, because good firewhisky is rather expensive stuff.
Harry is mostly just drunk.
“Hey, Remus,” he eventually says, waving his glass around in a decidedly haphazard fashion, “why’d you’n Tonks call it quits, anyhow? Seemed…weird. To everyone, I mean. Yeah?”
“S’a long story.” Remus cocks his head to the side and considers for a second. “No, maybe not so long. Nymphado-er, Tonks, see, she wants babies. Lots of ‘em.”
Harry looks puzzled. “You don’t?”
“Oh, I do. I do. But,” - he gesticulates vaguely towards either his groin or the tabletop - “can’t. Risky, y’see.”
Harry looks even more puzzled.
Remus sighs. “S’transmissible from father to child, Harry. Genetic-like. And the mother can get it from the cub. Not worth it, y’see?”
“Wow.” Harry blinks owlishly. “Never knew that.”
“Yeah, amazing the things we don’t talk about. That one, well, it’d scare people. Even more, I mean.”
They sit in silence for a minute or two.
“Gin wants kids, too. Didn’t understand why I don’t,” Harry says slowly. “Prolly still doesn’t. She wasn’t famous for long enough to get tired of it, I don’t think.”
Remus nods and tips the bottle again.
“Remus?”
“Mm?”
“Why’re you home alone on a Friday?”
“Don’t be daft, Potter. You’re here, yeah?”
Harry makes a rude noise in the back of his throat. “Not what I meant, y’know.”
“Yeah, I know.” Remus looks down at the tabletop. “S’just…everything’s been quiet since Nymphadora left. Don’t mind much. About the quiet, anyway, not the leaving.”
Neither knows what to say after that, really, so Remus drains and refills his glass again and internally congratulates himself for bollixing up what was a rather nice drunken chat, as these things go. The weight of Harry’s eyes on him makes him a little uncomfortable; he tries to think up a way to change the subject that in no way involves “Look! It’s a new topic of conversation!”
He gets as far as “Don’t suppose the Cannons’re faring any better this season?” before Harry leans across the table and kisses him.
They’ve been drinking for hours, so the flavor of the liquor is all he tastes. Harry’s lips move dry and warm and lazy against his with the barest hint of tongue, and when Remus pulls back with a tiny gasp, he thinks the whisky isn’t as intoxicating by half.
“Harry.”
“Mm?”
“You’re quite drunk.” He doesn’t quite know where he’s going with this.
Harry blinks. “And?”
To the haze of alcohol passing for Remus’ brain, this answer seems eminently sensible.
Then Harry kisses him again, and sense is suddenly the last thing on his mind.
- - -
The next morning (afternoon, actually, but hangovers are hardly conducive to simple tasks like clock-reading) Remus wakes up and immediately notices three things.
Firstly, his head feels like a miniature niffler’s been set loose inside it, alongside a Muggle marching band and at least five of the Wimbourne Wasps. Secondly, his bed positively reeks of firewhisky.
Thirdly, and probably the most startling, fourteen stone of twentysomething Boy Hero are draped across him in a way that is probably extremely pleasing aesthetically but hardly proper.
He thinks that the flying leap he takes out of bed and to the other side of the room, swiping his wand off the bedside table, would probably do Alastor proud. The fall resultant when his beleaguered, horribly aching head demands a recoup of its equilibrium, however, would most certainly not.
Nor would his vaguely girly shriek.
Said shriek wakes Harry, who gropes for his glasses and stares at Remus’ undignified sprawl for at least thirty seconds upon finding them before venturing a quiet, “’Lo, Remus. I don’t suppose you’ve any hangover potion?” and wincing at the volume of his own voice, despite being almost inaudible.
“Potion. Right.” Remus casts about for a moment before awkwardly standing and going to rummage in a drawer full of clinking vials. “Harry.”
“Yeah?” He winces again and rubs at his temples.
“What the bloody hell happened last night?”
“I don’t think we shagged, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Remus drops the bottle of hangover potion he’s managed to extract from the drawer, swears, and pulls out another. “I think I’m going to pretend that you didn’t say that, if it’s all the same,” he says, taking a large dose of the potion before handing it over.
Harry shrugs and brushes the fringe back from his face, taking the proffered vial. “Was a two-bottle night. Best not to ask questions.”
- - -
Feedback is hugged and loved and squeezed all over.