It's No Great Mystery (Drarry)

Chapter Two

25th December, 1998, #2

Harry woke, hungover and angry, to the sound of the same bloody Weird Sisters track blaring. His eyes snapped open, and he stared at the canopy with the dull fury of shame, grinding his teeth together and trying to work out what, precisely, he was going to say to his dorm mates.

Can you dance like a Hippogriff?

Just like yesterday, Seamus warbled along at the top of his lungs. Annoying as it was, Harry was at least relieved that no one seemed to give a shit about his outburst. They probably all had a great time at the Ball without him.

He paused. That wasn't a nice thought, actually.

Ma ma ma, ma ma ma, ma ma ma.

Groaning, he decided to Gryffindor-up and get it over with. He had to face them sooner or later.

The hangings tangled around his arms, heightening the groggy discomfort and reminding him forcefully that he didn't have enough energy for this. He wondered, briefly, whether it wasn't better to just make a new life here, among the drapes. He could hear Ron grunting in his sleep, slowly approaching consciousness, and his heart rate picked up. What the hell was he going to say to Ron?

After a few minutes of suffocation, he burst free of the hangings and landed on the floor.

Seamus burst into laughter. "Now that's the kind of entrance we like to see! Harry Potter on the drums, everyone!" He held out an imaginary microphone to Harry's head.

On any other day, he would have given a half-hearted air drum solo. Or an enthusiastic one, depending on how much he'd had to drink. For some reason though, he wasn't quite feeling it today.

"Urgh," he said helpfully.

"Merlin, Harry, are you hungover?" Seamus asked, eyes wide. Then he cackled again. "Where were you last night?"

"Urgh," Harry said again, finding that it wasn't quite by choice, and was actually all the sound he was technically capable of producing right now.

Ron's sleepy voice carried across the room, wounded even through the fog of waking. "You went out drinking? Why didn't you invite me?"

The first flickerings of unease started up in Harry's stomach. He looked up at Ron, hovering over the edge of his bed and looking confused but hurt, and waited for the interrogation to begin.

It didn't begin.

"Er," he said, hoisting himself off the floor so he at least didn't have to look up at everyone.

The Weird Sisters track changed into that godawful song about Harry bringing back music and laughter. The flicker of unease became a flame, burning brightly. Was Seamus actually listening to the wireless, or had Dean taught him how to tape songs onto a cassette? No—the device would have to be magic in some way to survive Hogwarts.

No one was singing this time; they all just looked at him strangely. Even Seamus seemed unhappy now he realised Ron hadn't been invited.

"I'm really sorry I was such a prat last night," Harry said in a rush, the words tumbling over each other.

"Well, yeah, drinking without your best mate is pretty prattish," Seamus said with an incredulous laugh, while Ron spoke over him: "So you really did, then?"

Then Ron frowned. He paused, appeared to be chewing over something incredibly weighty, and then said, "When did you go? You were with us until eleven."

This time, it was Harry's turn to stare. "I never came back to the Ball, Ron," he said carefully, ignoring the warning siren that was currently blaring a deafening tune in his mind. "I've been in here, in my bed, with a bottle of Firewhisky since I left the Yule Ball." To prove it, he reached back into the covers.