Chapter 21
Even after the teachers had gone about their business, Dumbledore was still standing in the corridor opposite the slowly thawing troll corpse. And in some ways, Malfoy's thoughts had been correct. Dumbledore really had been watching what was going on and had originally intended to save the boy himself. However, when he saw Harry and his new protégés come to the Slytherin's rescue, he was pleasantly surprised, but nonetheless decided to remain hidden, ready to intervene if necessary to prevent casualties.
The Black twins had been his main cause for concern these last two months. It was obvious that each possessed talents no less remarkable than his own or Voldemort's. But unfortunately, if their background were to become widely known, it would be clear that part of their success had come as a result of the darkest experiments—apparently conducted even while they were in their mother's womb, whose survival after such processes seemed highly unlikely.
"I hope I haven't made a mistake," the old man muttered softly, running his hand over the ice-cold surface. He sensed that the twins had the potential to become dark wizards—perhaps even more terrible than Voldemort himself. The troll's corpse before him was proof enough of that. Still, this time, Dumbledore had resolved to do things differently. He would teach them personally and try to guide them toward the light. Perhaps then he'd finally find a worthy successor. And the way they'd handled this improvised test—saving someone they considered an enemy—gave him just a little more confidence in his choice.
***
Meanwhile, thanks to the house-elves' efforts (and a few upper-year students), the Gryffindor common room party continued; only this time, the drinks included butterbeer and firewhisky. And that evening, we made a small discovery: butterbeer turned out to be not just a delicious caramel-cream-flavored drink, as we'd thought before, but was also mildly alcoholic. There was probably no more alcohol in it than in homemade kvass—but the fact remained that you could actually get a little tipsy, though it would take about a liter to do so. So when you drink it, you feel a pleasant warmth inside.
"Are you sure you should be drinking that much?" Hermione questioned doubtfully, watching as we handed the Weasley twins two Galleons in exchange for a crate with nine bottles of butterbeer. There were already several empty bottles stacked where we sat.
"It's a holiday," we answered her simply, through Regulus.
"But…" Hermione began uncertainly, but Andromeda—her cheeks a little flushed—cut her off by abruptly stuffing a piece of roast meat into her mouth, at which Hermione threw her an indignant look but then began to chew.
"It's not every day you get to really have a good time, so just relax," said Andromeda. We fully understood that we were drunk, and that this much alcohol was probably too much for our age, but perhaps due to our prior life—which we didn't remember well—a strong association remained: that on holidays, it was fine to indulge and rest.
"I think I'm just going to go to bed," Hermione said with a shake of her head, heading up to the girls' dormitory. We just shrugged and kept drinking the tasty beverage, occasionally snacking on meat.
Even so, after just one more bottle each, we decided that was enough—our young bodies were still a bit too sensitive to even such a small amount of alcohol, and in our opinion, getting so drunk that you black out is shameful. True drinking is knowing when to stop, not just how much you can down. So, after hiding the remaining seven bottles of butterbeer under the bed, we snuggled up together on Regulus' bed without even changing clothes. After so many nights apart, it was so comfortable that we fell asleep almost instantly, only pulling the canopy around us so no one would bother us.
"Come on, you little drunks, time to get up and make us rich!" came the annoyingly cheerful voices of the Weasley twins, who drew back our bed curtains. They were so loud that our heads began to pound—judging by the groans around the room, we weren't the only ones who'd gotten into the mild drinks last night.
"Ten Sickles for a hangover potion!" George announced, while Fred silently handed us two vials, which we drank at once. We had made a deal about this in advance, and it was worth it: the potion worked instantly, banishing dry mouth and the mild headache.
"Ten Sickles? That's robbery!" came Ron's outraged voice. "I'm your brother; couldn't you at least give me a discount?"
"Precisely because you're our brother, for only ten Sickles we'll not only give you hangover potion, but we won't tell Mum that you swiped a bottle of firewhisky from the sixth-years and got your classmates drunk," replied the twins, beaming.
"You wouldn't dare," Ron protested; we could picture his face paling just at the sound of his voice.
"When did you get to have firewhisky?" Andromeda asked Harry, thinking she'd come in with the twins, as she was fully dressed, and rummaged through his trunk for coins to pay for the potion, wincing from a headache. No one at Hogwarts was foolish enough to go to the hospital wing for something like this—so the Weasley twins, who'd first made money reselling drinks, were now raking in silver on hangover cures.
"After you left, Ron managed to trade a bottle from an upper-year."
"Trade? What could he possibly offer?" Regulus asked with interest.
"My autograph for his kid sister," Harry admitted sheepishly, then, finally finding his money, hurried to the twins, buying potion for the whole group.
Harry hadn't even finished his potion when the door burst open again. This time it was Boot, already dressed in Quidditch uniform, and behind him, peeking into the room, was Hermione, who quickly spotted us.
"Get ready! From today, we're training daily. We've got to beat Slytherin!" Boot's voice was so loud that Harry groaned again before downing his potion in one gulp.
"Good luck," we said, seeing the twins grimace at Boot's words. It was clear that life for Gryffindor's Quidditch team members wasn't going to be easy anytime soon.