"Oogh," Oleandra moaned. "My head is killing me…"
She felt as though someone had cast a Cruciatus Curse on her, except that the pain was localised entirely between her two ears.
"Why don't we start off with The Three Broomsticks?" Tracey suggested, pointing to the pub across the street. "A nice hot Butterbeer to warm up your insides will do you some good, I think."
"Anything but that!" Oleandra whimpered. "Nothing alcoholic, please!"
She had already woken up three times during the night to vomit; her body shifting between present, past, and finally present again, as if it were trying to purge the contents of her stomach across time itself…
"What happened to you?" asked Tracey suspiciously. "If I didn't know any better, I could've sworn you were hungover…"
It was a cold but beautiful October day for the first Hogsmeade outing of the year, but unfortunately, Oleandra was feeling far too sick to enjoy it.
As it turned out, the villagers she and Wanderer had saved from the Giant attack were so grateful that, instead of hanging or burning them like she had expected them to, they had invited them to join their festivities for the winter solstice.
Even though Christmas hadn't yet been invented at the time, the spirit of the season remained the same— to bring joy to the dreariest season of the year, to celebrate the rebirth of the sun and the end to the shortening of daylight hours. (Wanderer had told her that in his home country, the villager's celebration was known as Yule).
To celebrate, the villagers had baked all their favourite treats, such as mince pie (which Oleandra had found utterly repugnant, as it was full of gristle and bones), pease pudding, roast goose and roast pig— and there was even a rocket salad, whose hardy leaves had survived the winter cold. For dessert, there had been pear pudding, apples, walnuts, hazelnuts and roasted chestnuts, along with some blackcurrant jelly.
And naturally, there'd been spiced ale, mead, and beer—of which Oleandra had imbibed copious amounts, largely due to the seemingly endless toasts in her honour. She'd found it hard to refuse the drinks pressed into her hands by the merry villagers, so by the end of the night, she'd lost count of how many she'd had—and eventually blacked out, after deciding to lie down on a pile of hay that had become increasingly inviting as the night wore on.
{As a sixteen-year-old British citizen, it was hardly illegal for Oleandra to have a drink (or two, or three, or four…) with her meal— especially since at the time, she had been under the watchful supervision of the very same adults who had served her the drinks in the first place. Besides, given that the party had happened thousands of years in the past, it's not as if modern laws concerning legal drinking ages could apply...}
In any case, Oleandra now wished someone had stopped her instead of encouraging her. Her only comfort was that fourteen-year-old Wanderer was bound to be suffering twice as much as she was, considering he'd drunk twice as much as she had...
"You HAVE been drinking! No fair— why didn't you share with me?" Tracey said accusingly. "And how did you even manage to smuggle alcohol into the castle without alerting Filch's Secrecy Sensors?"
"Not so loud," Oleandra groaned, massaging her temples. "My poor head…"
"Serves you right for not inviting me," said Tracey smugly, teasing her girlfriend one last time before offering her the help she neeeded. "At any rate, let's stop at The Three Broomsticks anyway— the cure for a hangover is honey mixed in tea along with a slice of lemon, or so my aunt Margaret tells me. She's a Muggle, so she's rather used to drinking her sorrows away, you see."
The two girls walked across the mostly empty street and entered the pub, which proved to be just a bit less barren than the street outside. The news of Voldemort's return had decimated the once-animated town— there was no point for Dumbledore-aligned Wizards to congregate together in a small village, as it would only attract bigger predators. Safety lay in numbers, but no one was willing to be the first sacrifice...
"Oleandra, Tracey!" exclaimed Stacey, beaming at them. "It's been a while, hasn't it! What'll it be?"
Stacey was currently the only Muggle living in Hogsmeade— after getting struck by a nasty Curse, she had ended up working for Madam Rosmerta as a barmaid at The Three Broomsticks, with the Ministry of Magic having completely forgotten about her existence. By the time she was cured of her affliction, she had already spent too much time in the Wizarding world, and the Ministry had already spent a lot of effort convincing the Muggle world of her death, so it would have been difficult for them to erase so many of her memories and reinsert her into her previous life.
"Black tea for Oleandra, and one warm Butterbeer for me," said Tracey, counting out her coins in advance and placing them on the counter. "There, that should cover it."
"And here's your Butterbeer," said Stacey cheerfully, pouring Tracey a tall glass of molten caramel goodness. "I'll be back in a few with your tea, so why don't you find yourselves a seat while you wait?"
Having heard Oleandra's name called out earlier, Harry pricked up his ears, and he looked up from his tankard of Butterbeer.
"Oi, over here!" Harry called out, waving at them. "Come join us!"
Harry was sitting with his best friends Ron and Hermione in the back of the pub, so Oleandra and Tracey went to join them.
"Any changes?" asked Harry conspiratorially. "With Malfoy, I mean."
"Not really," said Oleandra, shrugging. "Unless you're counting Malfoy landing himself in detention today to be a part of his master plan. Failed to hand in Professor McGonagall's homework one too many times, or so I've heard from Theo."
"Maybe he's too busy with the task You-Know-Who gave him," suggested Ron, taking a sip of his drink. "That's why he's not doing his Transfiguration homework— he doesn't have the time."
"That's just silly," scoffed Hermione. "He'd have to do his homework in detention anyway, so he'd be losing more time than he gained."
The two lovebirds then began loudly arguing with each other, making Oleandra and Tracey regret their decision to accept sitting with them.