Magical Hogwarts

Will was four whiskies down and he started to feel it. On top of that, he'd had nothing to eat since some toast that morning and the irn bru he'd just chugged was threatening to make a reappearance. Plus the whisky, he'd lost count of what else he'd been drinking and by the looks of it, so did the lads he was with. It was meant to be a catch up but things had gotten out of hand pretty quickly. Though not raucous in volume, the laughter certainly carried across the pub.

It was a chilly May evening and the log fire against the back wall was starting to make him drowsy. It was bonkers to him that the fire was lit at all in the summer but the sky foretold of rain outside.  He didn't usually do this. He was usually far too uptight to day-drink but he was a fully grown adult, gosh darn it, and if he wanted booze then he'd have it.

Something smelled delicious coming from the kitchen and it made his stomach rumble. He squinted at his watch, unable to make out the time but he wondered if he had time to put an order in. "Do you think they do cheesy chips?" Will asked Andy, the other man's rugby-player-esque frame dwarfing Will's tall frame. The Welshman didn't know but they both decided it was a good idea. "No, no, I'll go," the publisher insisted, waving his large hands in the air and almost sending his glass of the lurid orange coloured fizzy drink flying into space.

"C'mere. Let me just –" with that and once on his feet, Will wobbled and the gaggle of men around the table cheered. Will blushed and attempted to give the group the finger in response but he simply ended up making a pincer grasp with his fingers, the synapses in his brain struggling to keep up. "I hate you all," he grumbled as he made his way to the bar, his heart set on fried food and another pint of Tennent's.

Once away from the table, Will attempted to make himself look more presentable. His thick dark hair was mussed, his glasses sat wonklily on his nose and the top button of his shirt was undone. By usual Dasher standards, he looked as though he'd been dragged through a hedge backwards.

As he approached the bar, a flash of red hair caught his eye and he paused, frowning. What was she doing here? It took him a minute to realise that she actually lived across the road and it would be more jarring to see him here instead. Regardless, Will was thrilled to see Honey and he merrily scooted over, narrowly avoiding the edge of a wingback chair that would undoubtedly leave a nasty bruise on his hip. He could only see the back of her head but he was sure she looked as pretty as ever.

"There she is," Will greeted her, settling in next to her at the bar with a dippy smile on his face, as though seeing her tonight was all part of some grand plan. How unfortunately creepy. His elbow was on the wood, imagining that he could look cool and mysterious when in actual fact, he needed the bar to keep him upright. With another smile, he turned his attention to the person behind the bar. "Hello," Will greeted them. "Do you, by chance, do cheesy chips?" He asked, hopeful, only for them to look offended and say that no, they did not and Will looked decidedly crestfallen.

@Honey Bea Flume

She had seen him when she had come in—it was a small pub in a small village and he was part of the loudest (and fittest) crowd—but Honey had had a long day and she was hungry (and maybe she conscious of some reason to not throw herself in with a group of lads who looked like they could easily throw her over their shoulders). Will hadn’t seemed to notice her anyway. She sat and ordered (the usual) at the bar, smoothing out a couple leafs of parchment, all business-y correspondence and all fairly uninteresting; she welcomed the glass of whisky when it was set in front of her.

It didn’t take him long, once he had noticed her (she assumed). She turned toward the sound of her ex’s voice, smirking softly. “There he is,” she said with a little laugh. She dropped her gaze to his undone button, lingering for a second before meeting his eye again. “Hi.” But he was done talking to her, already asking Shareen behind the bar if the Three Broomsticks did cheesy chips. Sorry, Honey mouthed to Shareen— of course they didn’t do cheesy chips, because if they did Honey would have no reason to ever leave Hogsmeade. Maybe there were other reasons to leave, but cheesy chips were certainly in her Top Three.

She sipped her whisky as she watched him and Shareen figure it out, get plain chips ordered, suppressing a grin because she liked this Will. Fun Will.

Honey pushed her parchment to the side as she angled herself toward Will, her knee bumping his. She rested her elbow on the bar, mirroring him— though she seemed to be a bit more stable where she sat. “Having fun?” She asked, one eyebrow raised. She glanced toward the group he had left behind, then back at him.

Will's eyes were slightly glazed and the warmth from the whisky and the open fire was making him drowsy. He didn't even like whisky, at least not really. It was expensive and it burned in the wrong way. Honey looked lovely, though. He reached out a hand to gently tug on a lock of her hair but even in his current state, he realised it was inappropriate and dropped his hand limply to his side.

"Hello, sausage," he greeted her again with another smile, immediately getting over the crushing defeat of not being able to get cheesy chips. Was there a chippy in Hogsmeade? His mind wandered, suddenly hankering for a dubious kebab but the barmaid and himself seemed to be able to come to an agreement - chips and hopefully a cheeky bit of gravy on the side.

"I think I've upset her," Will admitted to Honey in a stage whisper, his dark eyes wide as he grimaced. The bump Honey's knee had given him was noticed and he grinned, the same time that the group of lads he'd left became restless. Some called his name, beckoning him to hurry up and there was a rogue (and loud) wolf whistle upon seeing her at the bar.

Instantly, Will turned to face his friends. "Oi," he complained, pressing a finger to his lips in an effort to shush his mates up. "That wasn't polite, was it?" He asked, his hands on his hips as the men grumbled, looking every inch like a school teacher about to hand out detention.  "Apologise to the lady," he insisted, jerking his head towards Honey and he waited until there was a chorus of sorry, lady. "Honestly," he tutted as he focused his attention back on his ex-girlfriend. "You can't take them anywhere," he rolled his eyes.

"I am," he replied brightly as he picked up the pint of lager and sipped it, enjoying the bubbles that fizzed at his nose. "Are you?" Will smiled at her. His eyes fell on those papers and he let out a groan. "Oh you're not working, are you?" He lamented, his broad shoulders sagged in defeat as he heaved a sigh. He leant across Honey and shoved the parchment an inch further away from her across the bar. "Come and share my chips with me instead."

Will greeted her again, and Honey returned the favor. “Hi, pickle,” she said with a laugh. He was ridiculous, but not in a bad way. A bit merry, obviously. “I think she’ll be fine.” Shareen had put up with worse than Wil– but they quickly forgot about Shareen. Honey returned his grin, happy to see him.

With both eyebrows raised, Honey turned to look again at the group he had abandoned as they called for Will. One of them gave her a whistle, and she smirked, failing to stifle a laugh as Will reprimanded his mates across the pub. (Again, they had dealt with far worse here; overall, this was hardly a disturbance). Will demanded an apology and they obliged, and Honey gave them a wiggly-finger wave. “Thanks, lads,” she called, smirking as she turned back to Will.

She sipped her whisky, glad he was having fun. Was she? “Aye,” she said without really thinking about it. She was having fun now, anyway, even with him asking if she was working. She raised her eyebrows and looked down at her parchment. “Course no’,” she lied, because it had to be obvious that she was working. (As if Will wasn’t also overly invested in his business or had any business telling her she worked too much.)

He leaned across her, and Honey didn’t move out of his way. She let him push her parchment away, somewhat relieved she had an excuse to put off the boring stuff until later. “Stay here and share your chips with me,” she countered, smirking softly to encourage him. “If I’m not allowed to work.”

At being called Pickle, a broad grin lit up his face. Wide and genuine and his eyes crinkled at the edges, as though Honey had just told him he was the most handsomest man in the entire world. He liked that, a nickname, a silly one. He laughed and reclined on his bar stool, only for it to wobble precariously and cause him to reach out and grip the edge of the bar before he fell arse over tit. PIckle. He liked that. He also did not like pickles themselves. The vinegar made him gag.

At least Honey had accepted the collective apology and his friends were duly chastised. Will tutted darkly, seemingly appalled as he held the tray of drinks he'd just bought for one of the lads to grab and wobble back to their shared tables. No doubt they would be discussing Honey in detail but Will turned to her again. "I am so rude," his eyes widened and he looked genuinely distressed. "Can I get you a drink?" He offered her, his manners kicking in too late.

Honey wasn't working, though, and he was pleased and it showed. If he was going to be honest, he didn't see her as often as he'd like to, despite their bi-monthly lunches. She was so busy. Busy with her shop and her new boyfriend, whom he still wanted to meet, by the way. Will knew that he'd inherently dislike him for no good reason whatsoever.

With a sip from his pint glass, he turned to look at her before he gave a drunken grin. "Deal," he announced, attempting a pinky-promise but instead, extending an index finger out to Honey for her to shake, cack-handed. Confused as to why his hands weren't working the way he wanted them to, he frowned before he smiled again. "Nope," he nodded. "Not allowed. It's after hours anyway," he commented breezily, despite not actually knowing the time at all.

"You look very pretty tonight," Will announced, matter-of-factly as he observed her. Then a beat of silence passed. "Why were you drinking alone?" Will pressed her. "You're not now," he gestured to himself clumsily, almost spilling his pint in the process. "But you were," he frowned at her, adjusting his glasses but they still sat wonkily on his nose. He wasn't given much time to press her as a bowl of chips was placed in front of them both and eagerly, Will picked one up and took a bite, only to yelp in pain because they were fresh out of the fryer.

Will offered to buy her a drink, and Honey waved her hand toward the whisky she had been nursing while trying to get some work done– but she wasn’t bothering with that now, so she pulled her glass to sit directly in front of her. “I’ve got one,” she said, not unkindly. She’d finish it, let him buy her the next one.

He looked happy when she said she wasn’t working, and it was difficult not to return his smile; when he agreed to her deal–to eat his chips here–Honey kept smiling as she nodded. “Deal,” she parroted while staring at his outstretched finger, slow to understand what he was doing with it and even when she thought she got it, she was way off. It looked more like a halfhearted finger gun; she offered him one back with a wink as she picked up her glass and took a fairly large sip, as if that would get her caught up to the level of drunkenness he was operating at.

After Honey denied she was working (which was clearly a lie) and Will had chastised her a little bit, he told her she looked very pretty (the emphasis was Honey’s). “Thank you,” she said with a smirk. She had let her hair down and swapped her chocolate-stained jumper for a fresh one after closing the shop, so she was clearly putting in a lot of effort.

She tucked her hair behind her ear, about to tell him that he, too, looked pretty–and if she was being honest with herself, she couldn’t remember any occasion when she hadn’t found him attractive–but he asked her why she was drinking alone. She opened her mouth to answer him–or to not answer him by telling him she wasn’t alone now--but he beat her to it, even stealing her joke. “Am not,” she agreed with a look somewhere between a smirk and a smile, enjoying this more than the work she had brought with her. But again he told her she was drinking alone. Honey shrugged. “Surprisingly enough, my diary’s not completely booked up.” It wasn’t a real explanation, but Will was distracted by the chips, anyway.

Of course she loved going out, but she just as equally loved staying in, and she loved her quiet little village, and her best friend was traveling for work and she and her boyfriend didn’t need to spend every moment together. She had another drink, looking at him over the rim of her glass as if to reiterate she wasn’t drinking alone anymore.

Honey nudged his pint toward Will with a laugh, ever helpful as he proceeded to burn himself with a hot chip. “Watch it,” she said, wondering if she had ever dealt with an absolutely steaming Will without also being absolutely steaming herself, but she couldn’t think of anything and didn’t bother dwelling on it. She picked up a chip and tore it in half, blowing across the exposed potato before popping it in her mouth.

“They haven’t started a quiz night here, have they?” She asked, tilting her head toward the lads he had left, in a roundabout way of asking what he was doing in Hogsmeade.

"Oh," came the response. Honey had a drink. He squinted at her glass before his lips turned downwards to form a gentle frown. "Righto," Will responded, unoffended, despite quickly ordering another drink for each of them regardless. If she didn't want it, he'd have it. Or one of the lads would. The pub was warm and Will was sozzled and he gave a yawn, his elbow on the bar and his chin resting in his upturned palm to gaze at her with a drunken smile.

He didn't think he was flirting but the booze and the merriment and he always loved Honey in jumpers and —

Of course, she was allowed to drink by herself - he often had a quick pint on his bill after work - but he was concerned. She didn't look sad but then again, Will's vision was decidedly lopsided at the moment, he thought the painting behind Honey's head was of a three headed bear in the firelight. "That's good," came the quick reply. "I don't see you enough as it is," he told her, sipping his pint. He didn't mean anything by it because he knew they were much better suited as friends than boyfriend and girlfriend but that didn't mean he didn't miss her. He was a misty-eyed drunk after all.

But the chip hurt his finger and the familiar tingle-burn of a telltale blister began. Honey placed his pint in front of him and he took a gulp before placing it down on the bar and immediately stuck his finger into the drink. The cool pint felt like an ocean breeze on his skin and he gave a sigh of relief for the sensation, despite the woman behind the bar looking at him like he'd just grown a second head.

"Have they?" Will asked quickly, his eyes wide at the mention of a pub quiz before he extracted his finger and wiped it on the hem of his shirt. His brain was slow to catch up. There was no pub quiz. His shoulders sagged in defeat.

"Oh!" He suddenly snapped back into it with a laugh. "Just a bit bored of London," Will explained. This was becoming more of an occurrence of late, he realised. It came in phases but when they did, the English capital was soul-crushing, oppressive, smothering. A change of scenery was nice but he always went home.  "I am sorry if we've disturbed the peace," he offered softly but his smile was cheeky. He'd quite forgotten that the last time he'd been here, they'd had an awful falling out.


"We haven't seen each other in ages and Andy and Reece were up here for work anyway and I needed a few things for my mum's birthday so –" Will spread his arms wide "--here I am. And I was sort of hoping to bump into you," he admitted. "Have another chip," he pushed the bowl towards her with his un-burned finger.

Will ordered her another whisky anyway, and Honey smirked as she rolled her eyes. She didn’t mind, and she also didn’t want anything to go to waste, so she supposed she better catch up. She took a prolonged sip, smiling as she lowered her glass back to the bar.

Honey thought they might have been better off not seeing each other ‘enough’, much better off as lunch pals (with the occasional dog walk thrown in) than anything else, but she wasn’t about to remind him that he sort of lost it the last time she had tried to see him more frequently. Instead: “You’re always working.” As if she wasn’t always working, too. That was probably why they had ended up dating as long as they did, before. .

She shook her head, grinning as Will confused her question about quiz night for a statement of fact, but he figured it out before she could say anything. “Bored of London?” She asked, eyebrows raised. Hogsmeade was supposedly the boring one– she looked to Will’s group of lads as he apologized for disturbing the peace, smirking as she shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me,” she assured him, though that was mostly because they were fit. Present company included.

There was more to it, apparently. Will went on explaining the group’s existence, and Honey nodded along, raising her eyebrows as he told her he needed something for his mum’s birthday–and had the nerve to not get anything from Honeydukes– maybe she was getting ahead of herself; he had been hoping to bump into her. “Well, here I am,” she said with another smirk, running one hand in the air from her head to her lap, giving it a little flourish before reaching for another chip.

Shareen set their new drinks in front of them, and Honey gave her an appreciative smile before tilting her head back to finish her first drink and hand off the glass. Pulling the new one toward her, she looked at Will again. “Need any help for your mum’s birthday?” She asked. “I could pull together some bonfire fudge,” she offered, knowing his mum liked it, figuring she had everything on hand for it even though it was out of season for the shop. She didn’t stop to consider that he hadn’t been to the shop since they had started remaining friendly again, nor had she been to his; better off that way, or something.

Will scoffed. "No, I'm not," he lied. He was always working.  Whether at home or in the shop or even on his holidays, whenever he got a chance to take one and it wasn't often. He'd tried to have one of those healthy work-life balances that everyone was rabbiting on about but it had lasted a fortnight and then it took another one to rectify the damage done.

He sipped his pint and again and then alternated with a sip of Honey's whiskey and coughed with a wince. He was in a nice woozy state - warm and floppy and drowsy and perhaps too honest - the fire was helping him relax. But Honey had taken him up on his blabbering and he thought he owed it to her to explain his current existential crisis, whether she wanted him to or not.

"Bored of everything," he expressed with a heavily laden sigh as he shifted on his bar stool with a shrug. "Do you ever wake up and think to yourself what I am doing with my life?" His dark eyes looked over at Honey. "Of course you don't," he answered his own question with another smile . "You're cool," he went on before he raked some hair back from his forehead. "I feel —" trailing off, he let out a grunt of frustration.

"I don't know what I feel," he concluded with another sip of her drink. "Creatively stunted? Emotionally stifled? Literally stifled, Dave takes up half the bed," Will added with a wan smile. "I think I want to do something crazy," he told Honey as he swung his knees around to face her better, his eyes unfocused but bright in the dim light. "Do you want to go skydiving?" He asked, getting a second wind of chaotic energy and he visibly bristled with excitement.

Will's drunken brain was galloping at a hundred miles an hour and the mention of his mum made him slam on the breaks. He didn't think his mum would like it if he jumped off something very tall.

"Oh, would you?" He asked Honey on a breath, relief flooding his features as his shoulders sagged. Will reached out to touch the back of her hand but fought against it, simply letting it rest near her glass instead. "That would be such a great help, thank you," and he meant it. His mum loved that particular fudge, he wasn't sure if Honey even still sold it and if she did, it must be off- season. "I can help?" He offered. Will could cook - Honey had found that out in that cooking class they'd shared when they'd first met - but he could always just lift heavy stuff for her if she needed him to.