99 bottles of beer on the wall
Chapter Five - 99 bottles of beer on the wall
September 4th, 1978
Otto Bagman had a black eye. Well, it was more purple. Josie saw it when she walked into the Great Hall Tuesday morning to post that Gryffindor Quidditch tryouts would be held, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 3-4. She was immediately flocked by Gryffindor students going to see the times for the tryouts when Otto and Ludo Bagman walked into the Hall. They walked over to the Hufflepuff table with little interest in the bloodbath that was the third and fourth year Gryffindor quidditch players.
She didn’t want to accuse Regulus immediately. However, Josie had no other suspects. Nothing that Bagman had said last night really prompted the use of force, and fist fighting didn’t seem like something Regulus would do. He seemed far more likely to curse him then punch him in the face.
So, when Regulus sat down next to her in Charms and asked, “Did you punch Bagman?” It was quite surprising.
“No. What? I thought you did?” Josie whispered. Flitwick had already started the lesson and there were students sitting all around them.
“Why would I punch him? He didn’t call me a whore,” said Regulus.
“He didn’t call me a whore, Black,” said Josie, looking to her left and seeing how everyone in the class was taking out their textbooks. She did the same.
“He implied that you were sleeping with me,” said Regulus.
“That wouldn’t make me a whore,” Josie bit back. Talking with Regulus made her skin crawl. Every time words came out of his mouth she wanted to stuff them right back inside. Now she knew why Sirius kept her away from him. He was god awful.
“Well-”
“Merlin, shut up,” gritted Josie. Flitwick was talking about the charm Ascendio. Josie thought it was a good one to know. She had always believed that knowing a lot of powerful charms was better than just a few curses or spells in dueling. If you could take your attacker out without hurting them, why wouldn’t you?
“Now! Since you all have partners this year, you will be able to practice charms on them,” said Flitwick with his signature smile. “Only the safe ones, of course!” he added quickly.
Josie and Regulus got up in unison. Regulus led them to the back of the classroom away from Flitwicks critique.
“You can go first,” said Regulus. He held his wand at his side. It was hot in the classroom, despite being the Charms room, one would think the temperature would be regulated. Regardless of this Regulus still had all of his robes on, not even pulled up at the sleeves. Everyone else in the class had taken off their robes and had their sleeves pulled to the elbow. Including Josie.
“Ascendio!” she said with slight demand. Regulus remained on the ground. His hair blew slightly around his face and the long green and black robe billowed. She sighed, she was tired and hot and wanted to go lay in the library till tryouts.
“Ascendio!” Regulus said. Josie remained on the ground. Though, her feet slightly slid back and her body rolled forward causing her to stumble. Only slightly.
They went back and forth until it got boring. And it did very quickly. Then they sat on the floor. Flitwick was busy dealing with students who had missed their partner and were sending desks into the air. Josie was working on what drills she wanted to run for tryouts. She didn’t know what Regulus was doing. By the time class was over Josie had a whole set of things to try.
It was impressive how long Regulus could just sit doing nothing, which is what he did during the entirety of their DADA class. Josie spent the class taking vivid notes, like she always did during lectures. Otherwise she would fall asleep. The notes were almost always messy and incoherent the next day but they worked to help her remember things.
“Stop it,” said Josie suddenly. Regulus’s constant tapping of his fingers on the desk was slowly driving her insane. Her hair was covering her view of Regulus, she couldn’t see his reaction.
It was negative. He stopped tapping his fingers, and started kicking the leg of her chair. Each kick pushed Josie closer to the desk in front of her. It also smudged her hand across the ink on her paper. The black ink turned into a purplish color when smeared. She was close to violence.
Raising her hand, Josie turned to look at Regulus. His eyes went wide.
“Yes, Ms. Sharpe?” asked Professor Merrythought.
“May I please go to the bathroom?” Josie said, before looking back and smiling at Regulus who’s look of horror was replaced with annoyance. He really thought that she would snitch on him? It made Josie laugh lightly as she left the class.
Tryouts were going terribly. Everyone was fine. But it was raining. No, it was pouring. Normally, Josie loved the rain. It brought a calming sense over everything and a beautiful smell. Today there was no beautiful smell. It was just mud. On everything. The entirety of the pitch grass was soaked. A puddle almost an inch deep, at the least.
She had been right about who she thought was going to make the team. It was only the first day of the tryouts so she couldn’t just send everyone packing. But Josie had her lineup: her Seeker would be Finley Wilson, her Beaters Fabian and Gideon Prewett, Chasers Saoirse Hawkins and Dirk Cresswell and obviously herself, and lastly she was forced to make her Keeper Preston Fawley.
A small part of Josie wanted to just end tryouts and post the results but she knew that James would be disappointed if she didn’t take her role as captain seriously. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be the captain, she did, it was more that she didn’t like having people depend on her. And Josie really didn’t like house rivalries. She found them pointless. The fact that she was going to have to go head to head against other team captains at every game was also disaluding.
The last thing on her mind was her patrol hours. So, when Gideon came up behind her while she was having her grilled cheese and tomato soup, she nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Joey!” said Gideon, grabbing both of her shoulders before sitting down next to her. “You excited for tonight? This gives us the perfect opportunity to prank Merrythought!”
“I’m not helping you prank anyone,” Josie replied, “I don’t need to lose my Prefect privileges on the first night.”
Gideon pouted, “you won’t snitch on me, will you?”
Josie shrugged, “depends how much you piss me off.”
He laughed loudly, causing the surrounding Gryffindor students to look their way. Josie’s cheeks flushed, never being one for attention. Gideon reminded her of James, they both had such carefree personas. She wondered how they did it.
“Alright, let’s go, Jos!” said Gideon, pulling Josie up from the table with him.
“Wha- no-” Josie mumbled, her sandwich dropping back onto the plate as she struggled to keep up with him. “Rounds don’t start till after curfew,” she looked up at the large clock hanging in the corridor, “it’s only 9?”
“Yeah, but you have to help us set up the party!”
“Party? What party?”
“The back to school party,” said Gideon like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “We have one every year.”
“Right. On a Tuesday?”
Gideon grinned, “Parent meetings! No school!”
It wasn’t that Josie didn’t get invited to parties. She did. It just wasn’t really her crowd. She wasn’t a loser or anything. More just hated drunk teenagers, more specifically drunk James and Sirius. Josie didn’t drink, her dad would kill her, so normally she was tasked with babysitting. This year it could be different.
“Here ya go,” said Dirk Cresswell, handing Josie another bottle of firewhisky. Cresswell had always been the one supplying alcohol since the 5th year. Saoirse and Finley had told her it was because he was shagging Madame Rosmerta. There was no shot that was true but it was still quite funny.
“I don’t understand why you need all of this, I mean four whole bottles of whisky? There’s no way Gryffindor can drink all of this,” said Josie, her arms were tired. Not only was she lugging drinks from the common room to the Room of Requirements, she was also carrying decorations. They had really outdone themselves this year, the room was decked in maroon.
“We’ve brightened our horizons this year, Jo,” said Preston Fawley. He was no help.
“Meaning?” asked Josie.
“They invited the whole school,” said Finley Wilson with a grin.
Josie’s eyes widened, “Aren’t you worried about getting caught? I mean what if someone snitches?”
“Planning on snitching, Joey?” asked Fabian with a smirk.
“What? No,” said Josie, shaking her head, “and when did everyone start calling me Joey?”
“It’s your name?” said Saoirse, laughing. Finley and her had already had a drink, or two.
“Josephine to Josie. Josie to Jo. Jo to Joey!” said Dirk.
“It makes perfect sense to me,” said Gideon.
Josie shook her head with a laugh, “and how do you suppose we will be going to the party? We have rounds?”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it all figured out,” said Gideon, leading the way to the Room of Requirements. “We will walk around in shifts, going out of our way to walk past Filch and Mrs. Norris.”
“So he assumes that we are all at our posts?”
“Bingo! It’s a flawless plan.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Josie, chuckling, “what about Black and Rookwood?”
“Suppose they’ll tell?” asked Gideon.
“Maybe,” said Josie, “I mean Rookwood is bound to tell Carrow and well the Carrow Twins might not be a huge fan of a rager.”
Gideon waved his hand, “Amycus won’t want to snitch. He likes to party.”
“And his sister?”
“Eh- Alecto’s invited. Not sure if she’ll come.”
“So you really invited everyone then?” asked Josie. Even James wasn’t bold enough to do that.
“Yep! 5th years and up!”
“Merlin, and you’re sure that this is okay?” Josie was incredibly skeptical. It was one thing for a few Slytherin to spontaneously show up to a Gryffindor party another if they were all invited ahead of time.
“You’ll get worry wrinkles if you keep frowning like that, Josie,” said Gideon. They had put the alcohol on one of the large wooden tables. His hand reached out gently touching the crease in her forehead.
She smiled and smacked his hand away, “shut up, Prewett.”
“Not the last name, Josie! I’m wounded,” he said in mock hurt, pretending to stumble and fall.
Josie flushed, shaking her head with a small laugh.
Meeting up with Regulus and Augustus was harder than it might seem. Gideon and Josie had walked down to the Great Hall right at 11, curfew. Neither of them were there. They waited about five minutes before deciding it wasn’t worth it.
Deciding to split up, Josie began her walk towards the Astronomy Tower. It was a long walk from the Great Hall so she would have a pretty good chance of running into Filch. Her Prefect badge was clipped to the most obvious spot of her uniform so she wouldn’t have to even talk to Filch if she saw him.
Josie also decided it would be in her best interest to avoid where the Room of Requirements was, there was no doubt that people would be over there “breaking curfew”. She didn’t want to deal with that. As she walked she hummed lost in thought.
Footsteps. Josie turned. Regulus. He had been walking behind her about 20 paces away.
“You and Rookwood didn’t show?” questioned Josie, she had stopped walking. He slowly caught up to her.
Regulus’s eyebrows furrowed, “where?”
“The Great Hall? We are supposed to meet there to discuss routes.”
He chuckled dryly, “you really take it that seriously?”
“No- I just- I mean it’s the first night so I assumed,” Josie stammered, she didn’t know why she was so embarrassed about doing what she was supposed to do, “where’s Rookwood?” she asked, changing the subject.
Regulus shrugged, “probably at that party Prewett threw.”
“Right. You’re not going?” Josie asked. Regulus had now caught up to her and was walking next to her.
“What’s it to you?”
Josie scoffed and turned away from him, focusing her eyes on the portraits, “nothing. I was just wondering.” He was still walking next to her for some odd reason. There had been multiple forks in the hallway where he could have ditched her, yet he continued to follow her.
It felt weird to mention it. Hey, Regulus, why are you following me? No. Definitely not.
“Have you had tryouts for Slytherin yet?” asked Josie after the silence had become overbearing.
“Tryouts? What for I already know who’ll be on my team,” said Regulus. His hands were buried into his pockets as he walked. Josie was a pretty quick walker but not right now. She slowed down when she had nowhere to go. Regulus matched her pace.
“Yeah,” Josie agreed. “But, y’know to just do it as a formality?”
Regulus shook his head slightly, “It’s a waste of time.”
“All of the houses have to host tryouts,” she rebutted.
“What? You gonna tell on me, Sharpe?” Regulus asked. He stopped walking.
Josie felt obligated to stop with him, “no, of course not,” she stuttered out. She didn’t understand why she was suddenly so flustered everytime she was around him. Josie had dealt with his brother’s flirting for years and now when Regulus so much as looked at her, she was embarrassed.
“Are you going to the party?” asked Regulus, smirking.
“What’s it to you?” said Josie, her lips turned up to match his smirk.
“I’m just wondering if you’re going to your boyfriend's party,” said Regulus, his eyes lit in amusement.
“What?” Josie asked suddenly. “Gideon isn’t my boyfriend!”
Regulus raised his eyebrows, “does he know that?”
“Obviously, you idiot,” said Josie, squeezing her eyes shut. “He’s just my friend, along with his brother.”
“Right.”
“That’s like me thinking Pandora is your girlfriend,” said Josie.
“She is my girlfriend,” Regulus deadpanned.
Josie’s eyes widened in horror, “Oh-”
“Kidding,” said Regulus, “you’re gullible.”
Josie went to respond before realizing they were at the base of the Astronomy Tower stairs. She turned and started to climb them quickly. Regulus moved directly behind her as they ascended. The stairs were spiraling and the faster Josie moved up them the more dizzy she became. To the point where she lost her footing.
“Careful,” a warm breath fanned her neck and Josie felt one hand gripping her hip. The other thrown around her waist to hold her up.
Josie found the step beneath her. They were close to the top.
“You can let go now, Black.”