Son Of Riddle

Chapter Thirty - The Butterbeer incident

    The quartet groggily made their way back to the castle, sneaking in the chamber of secrets through the tunnel that lead outside.
"Well, that went better than expected." Lucy commented, yawning.
Adam looked at her like she was crazy. "We barely made it out with our lives! We didn't even get a chance to find out what he was up to."
"Well, yeah, but we did get out, and with time to spare, freeing Firenze in the meantime. And we also have an eyewitness that James isn't the one trying to become the new dark lord, so the ministry can stop him and we don't have to."
"Can we really trust the ministry through?" Adam asked. "They've been corrupted in the past, what if Rodolphus has someone on the inside?"
"We can be pretty sure he does." James told them. "But, whoever he is probably isn't in a seat of significant power, so we don't have that much to worry about."
"Hang on..." Adam stopped short. "He still has our wands."
Lucy paled and James thought for a moment, looking for a solution.
Benjamin froze, but when he froze, he stuffed his hands in his pockets. A smile krept up to his face and he laughed when he felt the rough wood against his fingers. He pulled out three wands from his pocket, each one belonging to the quartet.
"How did you get those?" Lucy laughed, taking hers gratefully.
"I don't know." Benjamin shrugged. "...But I've been told I steal stuff." He said, his voice going up a pitch.
"Ohh you accidentally took them from Blaise when they were trying to stop us." James laughed. Lucy patted him on the head, causing him to squeak and freeze up.
When the quartet entered the corridor, the house elves all breathed a collective sigh of relief.
"We weren't sure how much longer the potion would last, and McGonnagle was peeking in the room every 15 minutes, it was blooming awful!" Greed told Riddle.
As Greed was giving Riddle a rundown of all that happened and vice versa, Benjamin was creeping up behind Sloth, trying to poke him, and Lucy was peering curiously at her counterpart, who was eyeing her suspiciously. Adam was having a conversation with Pride, seeing just how many memories of his he could remember.
After a while of this, the house elves suddenly began to change back. It was not quite as horrific a sight as when they were first changing, but it still made the hairs on the back of the quartet's necks stand up.
Almost as soon as this happened, the other house elves all appeared out of nowhere with a *pop*.
Gluttony was holding a package of bottles which all clinged together as he appeared. He held out the butterbeers to the others with an impatiant grin.
"Why did you bring butterbeer?" Riddle asked him with a sigh.
"Gotta celebrate, Master Riddle." Gluttany explained happily. "You came home alive and well, and nothing bad happened."
"Barely." Riddle mumbled, but he let him carry on.
"Take some, take some, there's plenty for all." Gluttany coaxed them.
The house elves all crouded around the parcel, each taking one bottle of amber colored liquid.
"What is this stuff?" Benjamin asked, holding a bottle up to the others.
"It's called butterbeer." Adam told him.
"Oh like, liquor?" Benjmain asked with a mischevious gleam in his eyes.
"Sort of, but not exactly." Adam began. "There's only small traces of alcohol in it, little enough amount for minors like us to drink it."
"Sweet." Benjamin retreated away from the crowd of house elves.
Riddle cautiously took one bottle of butterbeer and studied it, as though deciding whether or not he actually wanted to drink it.
"Have you never had butterbeer before?" Lucy asked him in between trying to open her own bottle with her teeth.
Riddle shook his head. "I never had the chance."
"Try it, I think you'll like it." Lucy nodded at his bottle.
"It tastes like candy!" Benjamin exclaimed from his corner.
Riddle hesitantly opened the bottle with an incantation, and brought it up to his lips, letting the sweet flavor fill his mouth. It was surprisingly tasty. 

The night trickled on, and as the crate filled with bottles of butterbeer grew emptier and emptier, the house elves got tipsier and tipsier.
After about his second bottle, the quartet began to notice Riddle acting strange. As he was laughing and carrying on with the house elves, his usually calm demeanor was slowly growing less calm, and more...excited? Chaotic? They couldn't quite place it, but after his third bottle, it finally dawned on them what was happening.
Riddle was drunk.
His footsteps were all over the place, he was laughing out loud at the smallest thing, and his speech started slurring.
"You ok, mate?" Adam asked him.
" 'm good." Riddle answered, his eyes glazed and cloudy.
"Did you get drunk off of butterbeer?" He asked, laughing.
"I'm not...that...drunk." Riddle slurred, swaying. He spotted Lucy in a far corner talking to a house elf, and stumbled his way over to her.
"This guy says...I get drunk...offa butterbeer...can you tell him he's being...ridicu-lush?"
Lucy had to cover her mouth trying to keep from laughing, but she nodded.
Riddle swirled around to Adam, and gave him a triumphant grin. "See, sheknows."
Adam walked away, laughing. 
Riddle and Lucy began having a slurred conversation, (Well, a half conversation, the topics kept changing) in the corner they were in, where Lucy had to keep herself from laughing at Riddle's drunk demeanor.
At one point Riddle whispered something in her ear that made her go bright red, but the others didn't really think much of it.
It was when he pinned her up against the wall that they decided the night should end.

  Adam, Lucy and Benjamin all helped Riddle walk up the steps to the Ravenclaw dormitory. They decided Riddle should stay with Adam for the night, lest he do something dumb by himself, or with the other drunk house elves.
"Who knew he'd get drunk off that little amount of alcohol?" Lucy asked Adam.
He shrugged. "It could be that all the magic in him that happened while he was still in the womb affected his alcohol tolerance."
"Could be..."
"I'mmnot that drunk." 
"What are you four doing out here at this time?" A voice from behind them sent chills up their spines. They looked back and saw McGonnagle in her nightdress, using her wand for light. She looked very confused, and very angry.
"Uh,-"
"McGnnagle!" The whole quartet froze, thinking of an excuse.
She squinted when she saw Riddle, stumbling around in the hallway, his eyes glazed over. She sighed and rubbed her eyes. Clearly she had dealt with drunk students in the school before.
"Really you four? I had better expectations from you."
"It was just butterbeer!" Adam exclaimed, putting his hands up.
"That's what they all say." She walked forwards and grabbed Riddle's wrist and pulled him forward.
"I canwalk." Riddle slurred, pulling his arm away from McGonnagle.
"I'm taking him to the hospital wing, he's going to have quite the hangover in the morning and Madame Pomfrey knows hw to make it better. Go to your dormitories, he'll be fine in the morning."
Benjamin unfroze when McGonnagle walked away.
"Why do you do that?" Lucya asked him.
"Do what?" Benjamin's eyes looked scared.
"You like, freeze up when something unepected happens."
"Oh..." His eyes lowered and he looked like he was thinking really hard about something. "It's just a thing I guess, I don't know." He laughed nervously.
The rest of the quartet said their goodbyes and walked to their respective dormitories as McGonnagle led Riddle to the hospital wing. Well, except for Benjamin, who tiptoed up to the owlry.

--------------*------------------*------------------*-----------------
Author's note: Sorry this chapter is so short, I have a tad bit of writer's block and I kinda just wanted to do a little slice of life bit before anything else important in the plot happens  :3
--------------*------------------*------------------*------------------