"So, let me get this straight." The blonde boy leaned across the table, tapping the fingers of one hand against the back of the other. "You actually have to say what you're going to do, before you do it?"

Everybody at the table was staring.

"Well... yes."

"That is so stupid."

The other three agreed, with more or less embarrassment for the way it was put. The dark-haired older boy with more and the blonde long-hair with somewhat less.

Although he had a nice smile.

"It's... it's just the way things are done."

Cedric was feeling more and more uncomfortable with this dinner meeting. Apart from the fact that they seemed to have reserved the entire restaurant just so that the five of them could sit around and talk about magic, they were Muggles. They had to be. No wands, no idea even of what wands were or how they were necessary. Absolutely no potion knowledge, and he'd heard the schools in America were slipping but that was a bit much. They didn't know about the war. They had no method of non-Muggle communication.

In short, they had to be Muggles. What other explanation was there?

"So, you have to wave around these..." The long-haired blonde made a gesture with a spoon that would have gotten him glared at and rapped on the head by Snape.

"Yes."

"And you can't do anything without them?"

"Well, there are potions..."

The other blonde snorted. The youngest one muttered something about a roof. Cedric didn't understand.

"What?"

There was a Look. Cedric knew Looks, small groups of students got them all the time. Mostly girls.

"What?!"

The blonde one, the other one, shrugged. "Might as well. It's not like he's going to tell anyone who matters."

Hey...

"You guys are crazy," the dark-haired older boy stood, pushing away from the table. "Fine, tell him, whatever you..."

Cedric blinked. The table was floating.

"Reid."

"What?"

The other blonde laughed.

None of them were of legal age. Not in England and certainly not in the States where they happened to be at the time, but apparently if you had enough money that didn't matter. Either that or the boys weren't worried about whether or not the bartender would check his stock in the morning. Or they could pay the fine without blinking and do the community service or whatever other punishments the American laws would impose.

Hee. Impose. That was a funny word after four, five shots.

"So, like, he's this big evil guy? Trying to rule the world and everything?"

He'd learned their names by now. Somewhere in between the second and third shot he had even started calling them by name instead of trying to remember. And that one was Reid, stretched out over the billiards table.

"Yep." He drawled it out, giggled, and said it again. "Ye-erp."

Not that they sounded like that up here. But he'd heard stories. Oh, he'd heard plenty of stories.

"Sounds like Darth Vader," opined Tyler, who seemed to have taken it into his head to hang by his knees like a bat from one of the ceiling beams.

Cedric wasn't sure how he got up there. It must have involved magic.

"Doesn't the blood rush to your head like that?"

Tyler blinked at him. "Hm?"

"The blood. To, your... er..."

Caleb pushed to his feet when no one could come up with anything to say to that, staggering towards the door. "I'm gonna go outside. Need some air."

"No you don't, man," the long-haired blonde, Pogue (which made Cedric giggle for reasons the boys wouldn't understand), slung his arm around his friend's waist and steered him back inside. It was a friendly gesture but almost resulted in both of them toppling over.

"C'mon..."

"C'mon..." the younger two mimicked, laughing.

"It's not that bad," Cedric offered. "I promise to behave?"

It seemed a reasonable request, considering Caleb acted as though he were responsible for the other two. Cedric remembered, himself, how it could be taking care of those younger.

"Yeah, but..." Caleb gave him a weak smile and gestured at the other two. Cedric smiled back.

"Have another drink," Pogue offered, handing him a glass with something clear and wet inside. "It's not alcohol, I promise."

Reid grinned. Cedric thought he saw a flash out of the corner of his eye.

Caleb took a drink.

"REID!"

They were all stretched out on surfaces by the end of the evening. Cedric couldn't see much of the room anymore, most of it hidden beneath the table in front of the booth he was lying on. Reid had stayed on the billiards table for most of the evening; Caleb had been straddling a chair last he'd seen, but then the wood had scraped and he wasn't sure where the other boy went. Pogue's hand was visible over the bar.

"Should pour ourselves into bed," he mumbled. It took a moment for Cedric to remember that they, too, had dormitories to get back to.

"Anyone got a phone?"

"I got a phone. I got lots of phones." Reid giggled. Tyler snored.

There was another chair-on-floor noise, and a couple of heavy thumps that sounded like footsteps but might not have been. He heard Caleb's voice. "Okay. Bad idea."

The door creaked. Cedric tried to sit up, guessing that the bartender wouldn't be happy to find a bunch of drunk underage boys in his establishment. But he caught a hint of swirling robes and thought he saw the shadow of an upraised wand on the opposite wall and that didn't look very bartenderly.

"Uh. Caleb?"

The voice hissed. "Avad--"

THUD.

"Reid." Caleb sounded as though he had his face planted against something. "What did you do."

"What? He was gonna do something."

"Reid..."

"What?"

Caleb sighed. "Never mind."

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