HIGGS, terence. (higgles) wrote in reduxpitch, @ 2016-02-11 22:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | !thread, character: phillipa flint, character: terence higgs, location: hogwarts |
who ? phillipa flint and terence higgs
when ? pippa’s 5th and higgs’ 6th year
where ? hogwarts
what ? teenage slytherin shenanigans
warnings ? under-age drinking, kissing and vomiting. idk which one you need to be warned about the most.
status ? complete
This was a solid plan. It wasn’t even the first time they were doing this, so it had to be a solid plan, because they had never been caught before. They had a route. There was a passage near the Hufflepuff side of the castle, hidden behind a picture of a woman eating a cake. That passage led to the outside world but more importantly, it led back in. Once a contact was established, the supply of booze was only a question of finance, which was not a problem for the Higgses or the Flints. So they had a deal which saw them once a month get a steady supply of... well, whatever their contact could get, because they weren’t advanced enough in their solid plan to have much choice. Still. There was booze, which was a pretty good start.
Pippa and Higgs were in charge of retrieval, mostly because the two of them lied excellently in tandem. It did also sometimes help that Pippa was a Prefect now. Well, it sometimes helped, because so far they had managed to get halfway there and Higgs had pushed Pippa against a wall in a dark corner of the castle as another Prefect walked past, a second one in eight minutes. “Do you have a fucking signal on you or something?” He whispered against her, glancing over to where the Prefects retreating figure was. Maybe they put a tracking spell on people when they became Prefects, Higgs had no idea, it wasn’t like he ever would have been considered for one.
When the Prefect was far enough not to notice them, Higgs pulled back, squinting slightly at Pippa. “If we get caught, I’m blaming you,” he informed her, even though if they were to get caught, the blame would automatically fall on him, because he was a bad student and a troublemaker and Pippa was... well, Pippa.
--
Phillipa quite liked the pattern they'd gotten into. She was such a perfect example of a student most of the time, it helped to have time and space to be something else for a while. Sneaking around with her brother, and Terence, and Gemma, well that was the perfect outlet for exactly that. Plus she and Terence got along smashingly in a way that smoothed over any trouble they might run into along the way, like how she didn't even react when he pushed her against the wall, other than looping one of her arms up around his neck to add to the scene her fellow Prefect wouldn't want to interrupt.
"No," she murmured in response, looking up at him. "They're just doing their job, much better than I am." She smirked softly and slowly let her arm come down, her hand resting on his shoulder as he pulled back. "If we get caught, I'll say I caught you already and was taking care of it. Don't worry so much. Come on."
She grabbed his hand to pull him along the hallway, not letting go once he was following her, headed toward their destination and the booze that was waiting for them there.
-
“I’m not worried,” Higgs replied almost scandalised at the suggestion. It wasn’t like even if they were caught he’d get more than a telling off or maybe a detention. No one ever got expelled, at least no one Higgs had ever heard of and he was a Slytherin so he probably would have heard if this was a thing. Mostly, Higgs didn’t really want to get Pippa in trouble, even though he was sure that the girl could spin it in a way where no one would suspect her as a culprit. Not yet, anyway, because they had managed to avoid getting caught so far. Then again, it wasn’t exactly a secret that the Higgs kids and the Flint kids were friends.
He let her lead him down the hallways, not pulling his hand away since it seemed redundant as their usual excuse was ‘oh sorry, we were just trying to find a spot to make out’, which worked far easier than it should’ve done, really. Very few people ever questioned why two Slytherins felt the need to get so far away from their House in order to find a make-out spot. Higgs was sure that there was a lack in how suspicious people were when it came to Slytherins, even if the suspicion was still high as a default setting.
“You’re such a good Prefect,” Higgs teased her as they went. “Always doing the right thing, following all the rules,” he added with a grin.
--
"I'm keeping you from getting in trouble, aren't I?" Phillipa replied with a grin, glancing back at him and giving his hand an absent squeeze. It was only a matter of getting through a few more corridors, turning corners and keeping an eye out for anyone else who might be wandering around - Prefect or not. The last thing they wanted was someone, or some ghost, blowing their cover. There had been a close call with Peeves the first time they'd snuck off to the passage, which Phillipa did not want a repeat of, or worse.
"Besides, we could be doing worse," she added as they got to the portrait, standing beside it and looking back the way they came to keep a lookout as Terence opened the passage. "It's not like we're setting fire to anything, for example."
-
“You are the trouble,” Higgs replied confidently, despite being rather aware that he was just as much trouble as Pippa was. Or as Marcus was. Or as Gemma was. Except out of all of them, somehow Gemma had managed to play the innocent Hufflepuff card and Higgs was still dubious if she hadn’t tricked her way into that house instead of Slytherin. “But I guess I’d still end up the guilty party,” he added more thoughtfully, because he would. Damn Pippa and her good record.
Higgs did snort when she said that at least they weren’t setting fire to anything. “Yet,” he told her assuredly. He was not excluding starting a fire, to be perfectly honest. Not that this particular situation currently called for fire, but it probably could. “Do you think a fire would be worse?” He asked. Sneaking booze into the school must have been worse than a minor fire, surely. Underage drinking was strictly frowned upon, fire was... well, probably also frowned upon, actually, but easier to extinguish.
--
Phillipa rolled her eyes, because sure, he could say she was trouble all he wanted but no one would ever believe him. The only people who knew the truth were him, his sister, and her brother. To anyone else, she was a perfectly behaving studious girl who never caused any trouble. Yet there they were, sneaking alcohol into the school. No one would ever know, if she had anything to do with it. So far, that had worked just fine.
"Fire would be worse," she confirmed. "Draws attention, destruction of property... this is just is having fun, not hurting anything. Not like fire."
-
Higgs hmm’d in agreement as they approached the portrait before the passage way. The woman who was usually there eating cakes seemed to have left to visit someone else, which bode well for them, since the last time they had gotten into an argument with her over whether royal icing was nicer than normal icing (Higgs still strongly maintained that royal icing was just too sweet). “Well, at least that’s one problem solved,” Higgs commented as he pushed the portrait aside, finding a box behind it with what looked like about six bottle of firewhiskey. They hadn’t had firewhiskey before, this was exciting.
“Good job, whats-his-face,” Higgs muttered picking the box up, before looking at it suspiciously and then turning to Pippa. “How the fuck are we going to move this without getting caught?” He wondered, before frowning even deeper. “Can you transfigure it smaller?” Higgs asked Pippa. He knew there were transfiguration charm for doing so, the problem was that Higgs really wasn’t very good at... well, anything that he might have been taught in the school. There was a reason why he was rather close to failing sixth year.
--
Phillipa was glad they weren't going to have to deal with a conversation to get their bounty, because she also didn't particularly trust the portraits to keep their mouths shut either. She kept watch while Terence got the box out from the passage, glancing over at it when he mentioned the size. It was too big to take through the castle without being noticed, but thankfully she was more studious and skilled at charms than her partner in crime.
"Yeah," she murmured, pulling her wand from her pocket and saying the spell under her breath to make the box smaller - small enough to fit in the pocket of his robe. "Good now, yeah? Let's get back."
-
Putting the now matchbox sized box in his pocket, Higgs nodded at Pippa, before starting to follow her. They hadn’t gotten much further than to no longer be in the distance of the portrait when Higgs paused. “Wait,” he said stopping altogether, looking around at where they were. It was a short walk to the astronomy tower from here, and they had already made it this far. “Don’t you think we should test it out?” He asked her with a smirk, clearly implying that he wasn’t asking and more suggesting.
“I mean, we must make sure the produce is what we pay for,” he added with a raised eyebrow. “Make sure we don’t give Marcus and Gemma,” and probably half of the older Slytherins, too “anything that’s bad quality,” Higgs concluded. Whilst Pippa was definitely trouble, Higgs was, too. “Come on,” he told her grabbing her hand and proceeding up the stairs to the astronomy tower. “We can sit in the shadows and watch whoever comes up to make out,” he suggested.
--
Phillipa raised an eyebrow when he stopped, drawing to a halt beside him and grinning slowly as she processed what he was saying. Of course as soon as they got back to the common room, they'd have to share. No one needed to know how much they'd received in the first place, not even their siblings. "Right, we wouldn't want them to have anything that's bad..."
She let him lead her up the stairs to the tower, glancing behind them ever so often to make sure no one had noticed or was following them. The coast was clear, thankfully, and they found a spot out of the way and in the shadows to occupy. Phillipa motioned for him to give her the box back, transfiguring it back to normal size and pulling out one of the bottles for them to open.
-
Pushing the once again big box to one side, Higgs reached for the bottle Pippa had gotten out, opening it slowly in order not to spill any. Not that they were in a particular shortage of whiskey, but it was still probably most financially strategic not to spill any. He took a tentative swig from the bottle, doing a really good job at not wincing when the bitterness of the whiskey hit him. It wasn’t bad, it just also wasn’t beer or cider, which was what they usually got. Still, it wasn’t exactly like Higgs was going to say that it was awful and not drink it. Even if Pippa was one of the very few people he would feel comfortable saying that to. But the logic of a sixteen year old boy prevailed and Higgs took another sip before passing the bottle back to Pippa.
“Truth, dare and consequences?” Higgs offered as he watched Pippa drink. He couldn’t actually remember where he had first learned of the game, but almost everyone by the age of 14 knew how to play it. It was a stupid game to play drunk but Higgs honestly had never met anyone who had played it sober, that’s what made it fun.
--
Phillipa watched him in the dark as he opened the bottle and took a drink, waiting for him to pass it over to her. She took it and raised it to her lips, taking a drink and closing her eyes as the liquid burned down her throat. Perhaps she should have expected it, what with it being firewhiskey and all, but it still caught her slightly off guard. Not to mention, it was bitter in general. But it was what they'd been given, so it was theirs to enjoy all the same.
"Sure," she replied, looking over and him and scrunching her nose. "Even though I hate consequences." She took another swig before passing the bottle back, more prepared the second time around for the burn of it. "If I'm going first, I choose truth."
-
“You don’t have to pick consequences,” Higgs told her scrunching up his own nose mockingly. “Besides, you don’t even know what the truth is yet, don’t jinx yourself in the foot,” he added with a grin before taking another swig of the whiskey. It was definitely less bitter and burning with the third sip, which must’ve meant that it could only improve and did in no way imply that it was strong and they were going to get drunk quicker than expected.
“Okay,” he said before passing the bottle back. “For truth you have to tell me where your secret chocolate stash is, and I know you have one,” Higgs told her with a grin. “For dare--” he paused, because giving someone a dare in the middle of the night when he was trying to hide, too, was a bit of a hard one. “You have to find the nearest Prefect, flash them and then get out of it,” Higgs finally settled on knowing that Pippa could but probably wouldn’t. “Or for consequences, in a year’s time you have to do badly on an assignment,” that one was rather mean, Higgs knew but it wasn’t like it’d make Pippa fail a class or anything. It’d be motivational for him and others to see her fail at something.
“Now you can pick truth,” he informed her reaching to get the bottle back.
--
It didn't matter what the other options were, Phillipa knew she would choose the truth. She rarely, rarely picked consequences and only occasionally picked dares. Besides, she figured truths were bad enough since she was such a practiced liar - though so well at it that perhaps people didn't know quite how often she did it. She listened to the options and wrinkled her nose at the consequence, because there was no way she would pick that. Taking a drink of the whiskey, she hummed under her breath as though she was actually considering her options, but then passed the bottle back to him.
"Truth," she replied, sighing. "My chocolate stash is in my trunk, under my bras." She stuck her tongue out at him and took a moment to think of options for him. "For truth, you have to tell me about your first date. Dare... you have to go downstairs and walk to the common room and back without dodging behind a curtain if someone is coming. And consequence, in a month you have to go to the restricted section of the library and stay in it for an hour without getting caught." She made a grabbing motion for the bottle, taking a drink once he handed it over. "Your pick."
-
Higgs made a rather dissatisfied noise at the choices she gave him. There was no way he was going to be able to do the dare, because he was not built to be that level of sneaky. Or at least at this point in his life, certainly didn’t have the skill to be. The consequence also wasn’t something Higgs particularly thought he could do, mostly because he wasn’t sure he’d even be able to get in the restricted section since Madam Pince would be suspicious the moment Higgs even entered the library, since she hadn’t seen him there in years. So truth it was.
“My first date was a girl called Esme from Hufflepuff,” Higgs told Pippa with a long suffering sigh. “She’s a year above me and was really cute,” she had been, it was why he had asked her out in the first place. “We went for a walk around the lake and she got such bad hiccups after kissing me that she had to leave,” Higgs said with a small laugh. The thirteen year old him had been petrified at the event, but the sixteen year old him could now see the funny side in it. “We never had a second date,” he added with a grin.
“I’m going to keep the same dare and consequences, since you’re not going to pick them anyway,” he told her before taking another swig of the whiskey. Unless he could come up with a really horrid truth, Higgs doubted Pippa would pick the other two. “What was yours?” He asked instead.
--
Phillipa huffed out a laugh at what he said, the mental image of someone getting hiccups after kissing making her think she might not stop giggling anytime soon. Except then it was her turn again, and she cleared her throat and reached for the whiskey, taking a drink.
"I haven't had one," she replied simply, shrugging a shoulder and taking another sip. "Not a proper one. There was a Ravenclaw boy who asked me to go to Hogsmeade with him but that doesn't count really, since we were going anyway and all we did was wander the shops and not do anything... date-like." She passed the bottle back over to him. "I'll keep your dare and consequence the same as well, then. Your truth... have you ever told my brother something I told you in confidence?"
-
“But your dares and consequences are shit,” Higgs protested but there wasn’t much heart in it. He didn’t particularly care to move in order to do dares and whilst he was far more willing to pick consequences, Pippa made them too challenging, Higgs was sure. Mostly, he presumed, in order for him not to pick them and be stuck in an endless loop of truths. “And I’m pretty sure that’s still a date,” he informed her, taking another sip and passing the bottle back. They were almost definitely drinking it too quickly, especially since Higgs could feel a light buzz starting to cruise through his body, but it wasn’t like it would stop them.
He tilted his head to one side at her question, pausing to think over it. Had he ever told Marcus something that Pippa had told him in confidence? He didn’t think so. Not that he thought there were many things Pippa would tell him that she didn’t tell Marcus. “No,” he finally settled on, because even if it wasn’t the truth, Higgs couldn’t think of how it was a lie. “What have you told me that Marcus doesn’t know?” He asked instead, genuinely curious. Higgs knew that him and Pippa were close, probably almost as close as he was to Gemma, but the secrets him and Gemma shared were more sibling-like than friend-like. Things you didn’t want to discuss, rather than kept secret.
--
Phillipa leaned back against the wall, feeling pleasantly warm and loose. Despite the initial taste, she liked firewhiskey. It worked fast, and was palatable once one got used to the burning sensation it gave. She hummed in acknowledgement when he said she'd been on a date, shrugging a shoulder. It hadn't felt like a date, more like she'd happened to walk around with someone for an afternoon, but if Terence said it was one she would believe him.
"I don't know," she admitted after a moment. "Well I know I told you I thought Barnaby Jones was cute, and I certainly wouldn't tell that to Marcus." She couldn't imagine Marcus' reaction, but she figured it wouldn't be good for poor Barnaby, or anyone else she liked. "And now apparently that I've been on a date."
-
“But Barnaby Jones is cute,” Higgs replied before frowning rather deeply. He had not meant to say that. Not that he didn’t think it was true but he certainly hadn’t planned to tell Pippa that he agreed with her on it. Higgs was yet to tell any of his friends that he did sometimes think that boys were cute the way girls were cute (but not quite in the same way), not that he was never planning to, he just hadn’t intended to say it in a game of drunken Truth (because no dare or consequences were currently happening). “I think I might be drunk,” he said thoughtfully, dragging the bottle back from Pippa before taking another swig. It was starting to taste a bit like water, which was kind of great and warm. Firewhiskey was yummy.
After passing the bottle back, Higgs shrugged. “I wouldn’t tell Marcus stuff you didn’t want me to tell him. Unless it was like... serious or something,” he assured her, because Higgs wouldn’t. As much as Marcus as his best friend, both Pippa and Gemma sort of were, too. He’d go to them for things he might not go to Marcus for and vice versa, and he’d completely understand if Marcus did the same.
--
"I know he is, that's why I told you," Phillipa said haughtily, getting another sip of firewhiskey in before he took the bottle back from her. She knew better than to say anything of the sort to her brother, because she was sure he would lock her away if he could, not that there seemed to be much reason for that. She laughed softly, then gave a 'mmmhm' of agreement at his statement of being drunk, because she was starting to feel like she was too.
"Good, otherwise I'd turn you into a rat," she teased, taking the bottle from him and having a long sip. "Are we done playing? It's your turn to ask..."
-
“You would, too,” Higgs nodded when she said she’d turn him into a rat. He had no doubt that Pippa could if she set her mind to it. She was very clever. Not that Higgs would get as far as to even need the threat of being turned into a rat, he knew that his own ideas of what either Pippa or Gemma should do differed from Marcus, because Marcus wanted to protect his baby sister, whilst Higgs felt that Gemma (and Pippa, even if she wasn’t his baby sister) could make her own choices. He had no doubt that both of the girls were much smarter than he’d ever be.
“Is it?” Higgs asked startled when Pippa told him it was his go. He wasn’t sure it was but he didn’t feel anywhere near sober enough to question it. “Okay,” he agreed instead. “Um,” Higgs paused to think what he could ask her. “What do you want to do when you grow up?” He asked her curiously, because whilst Higgs was sure they had had this discussion before, he was curious of whether Pippa’s answer would differ under a spell to tell the truth.
--
Phillipa frowned slightly at his question, taking another drink and not even noticing the feel of the liquid as it went down her throat. That was the question, wasn't it? She didn't know the answer, or if she even had one. All she knew was she was probably supposed to get married - to someone rich, preferably - and have kids. But neither of those things sounded like something she particularly wanted. And they weren't exactly things to do, more like things someone did.
"I don't know," she said honestly, absently picking at the label on the bottle. "I don't really like any of the stuff they talk about when they're making you think about what to do. I don't want to work at St. Mungo's, or the Ministry, or teach, or do anything with sports... I don't know. I can't see myself in any job I've thought about." She laughed mirthlessly and took another drink. "Isn't that sad?"
-
Higgs wondered if it was sad. He wasn’t too sure, actually. The difference between Higgs and Pippa was that if Pippa wanted to work in St Mungo’s, or the Ministry, or teach, she could. Higgs could perhaps attempt a career in sports but he doubted he would be very successful. He wasn’t a bad seeker but in comparison to the likes of Charlie Weasley, Higgs really wasn’t very good, so that would not bode well for a career in Quidditch. Which left him... well, with not very much at all, so he shrugged at Pippa, reaching for the bottle, essentially dragging it away from her half way through a sip.
“You’ll be fine,” he told her with confidence as he took another drink. They had made it through almost half of the bottle, and Higgs was starting to feel rather light headed, but not light headed enough not to drink more. “You’re smart, so you’ll find something that suits you,” he was sure of it. Pippa wouldn’t struggle once she decided on the things she liked and wanted to do. “Is the sad bit the question because I don’t feel that’s fair,” Higgs said as he gave her the bottle back.
--
With how he took the bottle from her, Phillipa almost got firewhiskey spilled on her, which she would have minded had she not been so delightfully tipsy and bordering on drunk. She didn't feel like she would be fine, because she felt like she should have a plan or know what she wanted to do, but it felt nice to hear it from someone she trusted. She made a grabby hand motion at the bottle and shook her head, getting a little dizzy from it.
"No, that wasn't the question, I know it is," she replied, pausing to take a drink. "The question is... will you dance with me?"
-
Her question surprised Higgs, so he frowned at her. “Now? Or ever?” He asked her before shaking his head. “Yes,” he said instead, because actually it mattered very little to Higgs whether it was now or ever because he liked dancing. Dancing was fun. He probably would have thought that there should be music if they were about to dance but that didn’t seem like the most important part, perhaps due to the alcohol.
With only marginal effort, Higgs stood up, suddenly feeling three times drunker than he had when sat down. Nonetheless, he held his hand out to Pippa. “Come on, then,” he told her only slightly swaying on his feet.
--
Phillipa didn't bother to answer because really, either worked, but she had meant then. It seemed like a good place, they had it all to themselves, and she preened a little when he said yes. She took a final sip from the bottle before slipping her hand into his and pulling herself up, stumbling forward into him and giggling as she stepped back with one foot to steady herself.
"I think," she said, walking her fingers up his chest before carefully bopping him on the nose with the tip of one. "I'm drunk."
Nevertheless, she gave him a tug out of the shadows and into the middle of the room where there was space for them, humming under her breath.
-
When Pippa giggled, Higgs giggled, too, and he honestly wasn’t even too sure what was funny, but something was funny, surely. He did pull her closer, though, when she led him to the middle of the room. It was still a bit odd not to have music, but there was a certain hum to the room itself, which if Higgs had been less drunk he might have not even noticed, but currently he could imagine it having a melody. One of his hands carefully rested on Pippa’s back, as the other found hers, holding it up. Because obviously, when you drank more than half a bottle of firewhiskey and were asked to dance to no music in the middle of an astronomy tower, the dance you picked was waltz.
Higgs wasn’t quite sure what happened then, mostly because he had been trying to remember the steps correctly whilst leading her to take them, too, but then there was kissing and he didn’t feel like he had initiated it but he also wasn’t too sure that he hadn’t. She tasted of firewhiskey and spinning.
--
Phillipa let him take her hand and pull her close, her other hand coming up to rest on his arm as they waltzed around the room. They were spinning, but the room was spinning even more. She felt dizzy, really dizzy, and the only thing really in focus was Terence because he was warm and solid and right there in front of her holding her close. And kissing her - or she was kissing him, she couldn't tell. All she knew was they were kissing and her head was spinning and the rest of her felt like it too.
She wasn't sure how long they kissed before she felt her stomach lurch and she pulled away from him quickly, her hands pushing against his chest to put distance between them as she doubled over, getting sick in the space between their shoes.
-
For years to come, Higgs would have a very distinct memory of what happened right then. Because once Pippa pulled back and literally vomited on him, Higgs felt his own stomach turn, but he will forever proudly claim that at least he had the decency to lean out one of the windows before being sick down the outside wall of the astronomy tower. This was going to be the memory that forever would stop him from drinking firewhiskey.
He had no idea how long or short of a time period passed, before he was physically able to pull himself back from the open window, to look over at Pippa and give the most squeakiest of giggles. “You look such a fucking mess,” he told her confidently, despite the fact that he was the one somewhat covered in sick, and Higgs quite honestly had no idea whose it even was. This had to be one of the least romantic things to ever happen to anyone ever.
--
Phillipa felt unsteady on her feet even more when Terence moved away and over to the window, and the sound of him vomiting made her stomach turn again. She threw up in the same spot, then stumbled a few steps back and groaned. Her gaze was unfocused as she looked over at him, but the sight of him leaning out the window was exceptionally funny in that moment and she giggled despite how unsteady her insides felt.
"I look a mess?" she replied, snickering and pointing over at him. "Look at you." She reached over to the wall to steady herself, to keep the room from spinning more. "You... look what you did to me... you made that poor girl hiccup and now you made me..."
-
Her words made Higgs laugh even more, the idea that apparently his kissing skills were doomed to forever cause people illness was just too funny right now. “Maybe I’m cursed,” he informed her, despite the fact that there had been plenty of non-illness-inducing kisses between the Hufflepuff girl and Pippa. “Forever doomed,” he added dramatically, also leaning against a wall, because everything was still spinning, even if Higgs did feel slightly better for having been sick. Everything also kind of smelled like sick.
At that thought he looked down at himself, only to discovered that the reason everything smelled like sick was because he was covered in it. Well, also, Pippa had done a great job at filling the floorspace with sick. They were so fucked. “Pippin,” Higgs started, eyes wide. “How the fuck are we going to make it back to Slytherin?” He asked her because even if there were cleaning charms and sobering spells and whatever the fuck else, Higgs was in no state to being doing magic. He was barely in a state to stand.
--
"Poor Terence, his kisses are cursed," Phillipa said with a laugh, slowly trailing off when he said her name - or rather the name he called her that she wouldn't ever let anyone else use. Her unsteady gaze moved around the room, then down at herself and back to him, her eyes wide.
"Oh fuck," she mumbled, slumping against the wall and scrunching her nose. "Maybe I can do the cleaning thingy... but I don't know... there are a lot of stairs out there."
-
“Cleaning thingy,” Higgs repeated as he stared at there, before letting out another giggle. Oh. This wasn’t funny. Or, well, it shouldn’t be funny. They were going to get in so much trouble. They still had five full bottles of firewhiskey to get back to the common room, too. And Pippa couldn’t even name a cleaning spell. Maybe they could... improvise. Higgs just needed to figure out what they were going to improvise with. At? In? On? What.
“We should... hide the booze,” he decided. There were plenty of alcoves and spaces and dark corners, floor boards! They could definitely manage to hide the bottles. “And we can manage stairs,” he informed her even though he wasn’t actually all that confident they could. But maybe if they imagined they could that would work, too? “And then we’ll--” Yeah, he wasn’t sure what. The two of them were clearly drunk, which wasn’t a great indication of their abilities to get back to their house without being seen. “We could hide in one of the empty corridors until we’re sober?” He offered, because in the grand scheme of things that didn’t seem like the worst idea. Just a pretty terrible one.
--
"Yes, hide the booze," Phillipa agreed, because that was a good first step. On its way back up, it had burned much worse than it had going down. She honestly didn't even want to look at it but if they left it there they would get in serious trouble. "And then the stairs."
One thing at a time, that's what they would do. She kept a hand on the wall as she moved back over toward where the rest of the firewhiskey was, picking up one of the bottles and giving a look around the room. There were plenty of hiding places in that room it was just that it was still spinning a little. But she found a good spot behind a big dusty book that clearly hadn't been touched or noticed in years. One by one they could find hiding spots, then they could talk about the stairs again.
-
“I can’t hide the stairs!” Higgs exclaimed before realising that she didn’t mean for him to hide the stairs. Or well, he assumed she didn’t mean for him to hide the stairs because she was currently hiding the bottles. He had to be rather careful not to step in anything not that it would have mattered if he had actually looked at the state of his shoes. But he didn’t. Instead Higgs, too, started to pick up the bottles and sort of wobble over the room to hide them. He had no real idea if they had hidden them well or not but they were out of sight and therefore out of mind. If only he could say the same about the one they had already consumed.
Once the booze was gone, Higgs looked at Pippa suspiciously. “Are you actually going to attempt the cleany thingy?” He asked, wondering if they risked to actually now start that fire she had mentioned earlier. Personally, he was not planning to cast any spells, but even sober Higgs had a great ability to start a fire accidentally when casting a spell, so that probably wasn’t an indication of much.
--
Phillipa even shoved the box behind something, she couldn't remember what, before deciding they'd done a good enough job to get away with it. She wobbled in place when he mentioned the cleaning thingy again, looking at the mess on the floor and then the mess on him before shaking her head and signing.
"No I would probably make it worse," she said, wrinkling her nose and waving her hand at the floor. "They'll never know who it was it's fine." She took an unsteady step toward the door of the room, motioning for him to come with her. "Stairs."
-
Well, they didn’t break their necks. That was something to be proud of, because the stairs had proved quite a bit of a challenge and Higgs would have totally helped Pippa with the stairs but he didn’t really want to touch her because she, too, was covered in vomit. They both looked and smelled awful and maybe breaking their necks on the way down the stairs would have been a better idea (probably not, but who knew).
Once they had reached the safe space of flatness, Higgs looked at Pippa. “What next?” He asked her because whilst sleeping in an unused part of the castle wasn’t the most ideal thing to do, and they would still smell of sick in the morning, Higgs also wasn’t sure he was able to even make it down the corridor, much less back to Slytherin common room.
--
"I don't want to smell bad anymore," Pippa groaned as they got to the bottom, because while the initial plan to find a nice place to sleep had been good at the time, the overwhelming smell of sick was making her feel like she might be sick again. And that was the last thing they needed.
"We made it down the stairs we can make it home, right?" she asked, more hopeful than actually asking. She took his hand and held onto it tightly as she leaned through the doorway to see if there was anyone coming down the hall, and once there wasn't, she started toward their dorm.
-
Magic.
That was it. It had to be. Because Higgs had no fucking idea how else to explain the fact that they made it back to the Slytherin common room without as much as spotting a single Prefect. Whatever signal Pippa gave out that alerted the Prefects of her being close by, clearly didn’t work when she was drunk. Which was a blessing, because Higgs really hadn’t wanted to sit in Snape’s office, trying to explain why he was covered in sick and smelling like sick and tarnishing the reputation of Pippa.
So somehow, quite through magic, the two of them managed to make it back safe and unseen. “I’d say it was a pleasure,” Higgs informed Pippa. “But you were sick on me, so fuck you,” he told her before walking off to find the closest showers that he could step into without as much as removing his clothes.
(He had definitely had fun, though, but he knew she had, too. Despite all the sick. And the fact that they were never, ever going to drink firewhiskey again.)