In the weeks since she'd been evicted from her apartment, Claire had abandoned all previous notions she'd had about bumming from friends. It seemed to her like they were happy to do it, and she no longer felt guilt at all for taking advantage of their offers. It wasn't like she'd felt particularly in the first place, nor did she have much of a choice. The generosity of her friends made it easier to accept the fact that she was homeless- mainly because if you had a roof over your head, it was hard to call yourself 'homeless.'

One particularly generous friend had been Ahmes, whose flat she'd been lodging in for the past couple of weeks. Claire had taken up the couch and hadn't done much besides that for the entire summer. She had her job at Zonko's, but just barely, and during the summer customers were scarce. Claire didn't do well with boredom, and she also had a unique perspective of what could be defined as 'boredom.' She'd take an entire day off work just to sleep in and then eat an endless string of fried foods while flipping through magazines.

Today was such a day. Work seemed pointless, even if Hogwarts students were back in school. It wasn't a weekend where they were visiting, and even if staff tended to pop in with their families and treat the kids to some ludicrous toy- Claire had better things to do. Today she was attempting to perfect the product that Ahmes had helped her come up with. She wondered if she would have to share the profits with Ahmes.... but that didn't seem very important, since she was attempting to make whiskey poppers. Treats that got you drunk.

She was in her standard costume of an inappropriate shirt, weird hat, and bizarre bottoms. There probably wasn't a single 'normal' item in Claire's wardrobe, which was currently stuffed in bags and placed precariously around Ahmes' place. She hadn't bothered unpacking any, just dug through them as she needed to. Right now she was looking for a pair of socks that she knew had to be in one of them. It was vitally important to her in her deliriously drunken state. The poppers had been more than effective, apparently. She'd gotten so plastered off of two that she forgot the poppers were alcoholic and had eaten three more.

"Soooooockies, where are ye!?" Claire bellowed through the house. She searched through a bag in the kitchen, throwing the items carelessly behind her as she was wearing one of the socks, while the other had somehow ended up on top of a plant in the front hall. She was belligerent and determined and convinced that the socks were somewhere in one of these bags.

Ahmes entered the door like a shipwrecked woman reaching land.  Her knees buckled as she fell to the ground, kissing it happily. "My God, I'm hoooome!" she proclaimed, instantly looking around for Claire. "Y'won believe--"

She didn't see her directly but little pieces of Claire--socks, magazines, books, a forgotten popsicle--were everywhere.  There was a momentary thought that there'd been a robbery, somehow.  But no--the evidence of Claire was strong: she heard the sound of empty cans clattering.  No thief would be that clumsy.  Ahmes scrambled up from the floor, looking around. "Claire?"

It was a toss-up.  Ahmes absolutely loved having someone to come home to.  She could instantly interact with someone, venting about the day, getting a few laughs--without needing to set up elaborate plans or go on a prowl for a lover to do the job.  Roommates were great.

As she pulled herself up from the floor, Ahmes hand was in something sticky on the coffee table.  The popsickle.

Roommates were great sometimes.

"So..." she called, rounding into the kitchen.  A-ha.  "Are y'a hit wizard on the prowl or...?" Her friend was most definitely sloshed. 

Suddenly and without warning, Ahmes appeared in the room. Claire screamed. "How long ye been here!" She was so amped to have a friend around that she completely forgot what she was looking for. In this state it really didn't matter if she was only wearing one sock. Claire made a dramatic path towards Ahmes, spinning clumsily and bumping a few things. A couple of things fell off the table, but Claire made no move to pick them up. She slung an arm around Ahmes' shoulders and leaned heavily on her.

"How m'ny licks does it take to get to the center of a popsicle?" Claire asked her, framing the question as if it were massively important. She began to count on her free hand, then turned the counting into a strange-looking interpretive dance round the kitchen. It might have been a means of distraction, as she was beginning to recall the large sticky mess she'd caused in the bathroom. Initially it seemed like a good idea to attempt to brew the poppers in the bathroom... but the potion turned out to be a lot more reactive than she expected. Claire had totally forgotten about this until she saw Ahmes, however she failed to bring it up.

After her dancing she skipped back over to Ahmes and said "Popsicle, madam?" She grabbed a half-melted popsicle from the table and offered it while bowing down low (out of respect, of course).

"...Just now, Claire," Ahmes said, hands up in surrender.  Claire still had not ruled out the hitwizard hypothesis, but there was now the added possibility of run-of-the-mill insanity.  Make no sudden movements! 

Then, the heavy, clumsy friend-hug.  Ahmes smiled. Cringed.  She was not sure which emotion was conveyed.   "How m'ny licks does it take to get to the center of a popsicle?"

"...I think y'left the guesswork out of that equation when ye left it unattended for..." who knows how long.

Ahmes was concerned.  This wasn't just drink. Surely. This was... "Claire," she began quietly, "what've ye had today? Besides just drink?"

She gave a slight chuckle at the popsicle, taking it from her friend and inspecting it.  If that's what she'd been having..."  Experimentally, she took a bit of a lick.

Ah, yep. Yep.  Those were the whiskey poppers all right. A bit more... than she'd expected, however.  She shook her head, moving to the kitchen--blatantly ignoring the mess for now--and depositing the popper at the bottom of the sink. 

"Good hell, Claire," she said, moving back to her friend, who was twirling about the front room and--for some reason--overly interested in the furniture, "this is potent stuff. Too much success."  She glanced at the door.  "Howsabout we go for a bit of a walk?" she proposed.  As she was, unloosed and unleashed upon the house, this made Ahmes' flat her mess.  When loosed onto the great wide world... well, Ahmes had a high threshold for embarrassment, and... well, anything Claire chose to break out there would be somebody else's mess.

Claire could almost be classified as a fish, she was such a seasoned drinker. And this was definitely one superb drunk. She was blacked out, she knew that much, and she also knew that she didn't care. Now that Ahmes was here Claire was elated and desperately wanted her to join in the fun.

As she danced about the room, she wondered how much liquor it would take to get Ahmes drunk enough to start playing for the other team. Claire had recently experienced one of her first sexual escapades and she had definitely enjoyed it. She knew Ahmes was straight, but even Ahmes seemed aware of how powerful the whiskey poppers could be.

"Howsabout we go for a bit of a walk?"

This suggestion made Claire instantly drop to the floor and crawl about on all fours. She began panting and ran up to Ahmes, pawing at her like an eager puppy. She barked, for extra emphasis. Claire probably wasn't ready to be in public, or more accurately, the public wasn't ready for her.

Oh God.

Well, this was unexpected.  Ahmes shook her head.  They needed to go somewhere where insanity, drunkenness, and animal impersonations were more or less pedestrian.  "Been to Hyde Park?"

She'd cut through there only once and managed to catch a corner of the park--Speaker's Corner, she thought--where speakers, dressed in tie-die and a rhinoceros hats delivered these little gems of quite, straight-faced through megaphones.

"Princess Diana was a prat! No, a man! You have LSD? LSD FOR SALE!" and   "The Dark Lord will rise again! Haven't you seen Beiber's videos?"

Yeah, Claire wouldn't stick out all that much, there.  The trick was just getting there in good time.  It was at least a 45 minute walk, And Apparation--well, what if she flailed around too much? Splinching was definitely still on the table.  Mungo's! Mungo's was near Muggle London.  They could Floo over---

Except perhaps the only thing worse than being caught with a not-canine best friend crawling on all fours was having this happen at work. 

Well, a long walk it was. 

"No leashes though, right?" she asked her friend with a bit of a wink.  "Dinna want people getting ideas."  Ahmes paused, considering what she would need for the trip.  After a brief jaunt back to the kitchen, Ahmes was able to track down at least 2 bottles of beer.  She'd have to dig through the mess later to see if Claire'd managed to leave anything else.

One couldn't make poor life decisions sober. 

Flicking the lid off with a little magic, Ahmes began chugging as swung the door open. 

Of course Claire had been to Hyde Park. That was the best place to get the trendy muggle drugs that Claire occasionally experimented with. For her products, of course. She had a few friends in the area, so maybe they'd invite her over for a pint or two. They were all fun party people- you just had to tolerate their conspiracy theories. Claire found that most of the time, they provided very compelling evidence.


"HYDE PARK!" Claire barked and in one swift motion jumped up onto her feet. If she wasn't heavily intoxicated, such agile movement would never have been possible. Even Claire seemed a bit surprised by her spryness, tilting over to the side and stumbling a bit. After a beat she blinked at Ahmes and raised her arms in victory. Claire howled loudly.

Claire didn't need a leash because she had run out Ahmes' front door, leaving it wide open, in pursuit of her destination. About two minutes in she remembered she was a witch and Apparition was free.  Her arms were still in champion mode so she closed her eyes and did her best to imagine the place. She popped over, splinching herself only a little on the left leg- barely a flesh wound, really. Hardly a layer of skin- nothing a tab of LSD couldn't fix!

Ahmes had just crossed the threshold before she ducked back in to grab her hat.  However, by the time she'd plopped it atop her head, Claire had made a gazelle-like run for it with freakish speed and grace.

"Claire! Wait--du--"

Shit.  Ahmes fumbled with the keys, drawing the top lock and herself was gone in a loud crack.

She squinted her eyes as they adjusted to the fading sunlight, dearly hoping she had considered the same part of the sprawling greenspace that her very inebriated friend had.

If Claire was going to resume howling--and scare the Muggles--at least she'd know where to find her.  "CLAIRE!" she called, seeing only robes-less Muggles.  Speaking of--she probably shouldn't have her wand in her hand.  Shoving it into the pocket of her--well, there was no hiding the cape.  She just hoped that with Claire on the prowl, any questioning Muggle eyes would be diverted.

It didn't take much time, however, to spot the blonde pulling improbable reels and occasional cartwheels on the green.  By the time Ahmes padded up to her, she noticed a trickle of blood running down her leg. "Hells bells, Claire!" she said, shaking her friend.  "Does that even hurt?"

She definitely should have packed another bottle. Or gilly weed.   "You don't have any poppers, do you?" she attempted, hopefully.

The breeze felt good, Claire decided as she did a few sloppy cartwheels. Healthy. This had to count for at least three weeks' worth of exercise; as Ahmes walked over, Claire had to stop and catch her breath. She also had to work hard to find her center of balance. Claire had an athletic bone in her body, she'd played quidditch at Hogwarts- but that bone must have been broken one of her drunken adventures.

Or possibly it was the large intake of whiskey that was skewing her abilities.

"Does that even hurt?"

Claire wasn't entirely sure what Ahmes was referring to, but when she looked where Ahmes' eyes were directed she remembered about the splinching. It probably hurt, but Claire was far too inebriated to make the effort to care. "Bollocks." Claire shrugged as she finally regained her composure. "Well, it'll make a grand scar, that's fer bloody sure." For this Claire believed she deserved a high five, so she put up her hand for Ahmes to slap.

You don't have any poppers, do you?"

Before Ahmes could have even had a chance to partake in the celebratory high five, Claire's attention was already off in another direction. "Oy!" She shouted and pointed at a pair of pre-teens in the distance. "I sa'dat!" She started making a beeline for the hooded figures, who scuttled off quickly. She stopped running once she reached the spot where they had been standing.

Stupidly, they had abandoned their goods, which was exactly what Claire had been hoping for. She scooped up the bottle of vodka (in a plastic bottle, no less) and inspected it curiously as she walked back towards Ahmes, who she had quite abruptly deserted. Claire wasn't sure how Ahmes felt about the myth of bacteria, but Claire was already unscrewing the cap in preparation for delving further into her blackout.

She thought a moment and decided she'd allow her friend, who was really playing the role of her parent these past few weeks, to take the first sip. "A drink, melady?" She offered the bottle of cheap liquor with a dramatic bow.