A/N: This is a multi-chapter fic spanning a single night in Percy Weasley and Oliver Wood's lives. It's a wild adventure with equal parts friendship and romance mixed in. Rated T for cursing, drinking and drug use. Perciver endgame. I don't own anything HP. Hope you enjoy. I love reviews!

Last Night

Chapter 1

It was the last night of the term and excitement was thick in the air. High in the Gryffindor common room, a party was in full swing, fueled by a dozen nicked bottles of Ogden's Finest. The prefects were truly doing their best to be lenient given the nearing Christmas holidays, but one couldn't expect pompous Percy Weasley to look the other way indefinitely.

Poor Percy was having a rough night, especially when a belligerently drunk fifth year named Ignatius Huxley attempted to go to bed with an equally smashed sixth year girl. The staircase to the girl's dorm—unforgiving as ever—spat Huxley down three flights of stairs, whereupon he crashed headlong into an unfortunate pair of fourth year girls. In addition to managing their injuries, Percy had to mend an ornate ceramic bust of Godric Gryffindor, who'd met a grizzly end when the mess that was Huxley knocked him soundly to the floor.

"Really now, lads, this is childish," Percy said, his exasperation falling on deaf ears. He'd been bustling around all night, trying to kill the wireless and curb the drinking. Unfortunately, he seemed to be the only prefect present with the decency to uphold the rules. Sighing, Percy busied himself with repairing the statue and containing the small floating fire of burning parchment that some genius had lit in the center of the room.

Percy knew he was being somewhat of a buzzkill, but someone had to be the adult and it might as well be him. He glanced around the common room, shaking his head when he spotted his dorm mate, Oliver Wood. Wood was standing on a table, his shirt discarded in a heap on the floor, his Gryffindor tie hanging round his head like a bandana. He was juggling several kiwi fruits whilst dancing suggestively to the music blaring from the wireless, much to the amusement of the several giggling girls gathered before him. Percy rolled his eyes. Wood could be such a blasted show off.

"Oliver, you're so good at handling balls!" Ignatius Huxley shouted from the armchair where Percy had forced him to sit. He was clutching an ice pack to the side of his head, one eye slightly out of focus.

"Quiet, you!" Oliver shouted. He leapt off the table and wrestled the other boy playfully to the floor. "At least I know how to cast a self-arresting charm when I get thrown down a flight of stairs!"

Percy was just about to intervene and pull Wood off Huxley and tell him to mind the head injury when he was distracted by an almighty crash on the other side of the room. Whirling around, Percy saw three girls standing in a triangle around the poor statue of Godric Gryffindor, who was once again lying on the floor in a million pieces.

"Honestly!" Percy moaned, dragging a hand exasperatedly through his ginger hair. "I just fixed that!"

"Sor...s…sorry, Weasley," one of the three girls slurred while her friends dissolved into peals of laughter. "Here, I'll fix it for you, jus' you watch now…" She raised her wand, her aim comically awful due to her drunkenness. A few nearby people stumbled backward to get out of the way. "Re…re…r…reparo!" She slurred, missing the statue by several inches. Instead she lit her friend's shoe on fire. "Oh! Oh fuck! Suzy, I'm so sorry!" Roars of laughter filled the common room as the girl attempted to stomp on poor Suzy's foot until Percy put out the blaze with an aguamenti charm.

"Now this has gone far enough!" he shouted, angrily flicking the excess water off his wand. A few people snickered and someone called him a prat, but Percy ignored it. He sighed and looked around the room almost desperately. "At least hide the booze, will you? There's no way McGonagall didn't hear that ruckus."

As if on cue, they heard the telltale clackity-clack of hard-soled shoes marching purposefully down the stone corridor. Instantly, the Gryffindors mobilized, reattaching the torn wall hangings, righting the upturned furniture, and hastily banishing bottle upon bottle of contraband to a dorm room upstairs. Somebody mended poor Godric while Oliver pulled his shirt on with one hand and hastily added another dressing to Ignatius Huxley's bleeding head with the other.

A moment later, the portrait hole swung open to reveal a very irate looking Professor McGonagall. She was wearing a midnight blue dressing gown and a scowl. Utter silence met her scandalized gaze as her eyes traveled across the thirty odd poker faces before her. All incriminating evidence had been removed, save for the faint wisps of smoke rising from Suzy's shoe and the subtle stink of old liquor still lingering in the air.

"What in the name of Merlin is going on up here?" McGonagall said. She scanned the room until her eyes fell on the one person she could always trust to tell the truth. "Weasley?"

Percy, who always fancied himself to be very articulate, was suddenly at a loss for words. "I—er—well, you see professor…" he stammered, gulping audibly as his cheeks and ears flushed crimson.

Suddenly, Oliver Wood appeared at his side and slung and arm around his shoulders like they were old friends. Percy glanced at him in surprise; although he'd always gotten on fine with Wood over the years, they were never exactly mates, so the random act of comradery caught him completely off guard.

"Nothing to see here, ma'am," Wood said easily. "We were just enjoying a nice quiet celebration to usher in the Christmas holidays."

McGonagall glared at him. "Quiet? You call that quiet? I could hear you lot from two floors down! It sounded like a hippogriff was loose in here!"

"Oh, heh…we're sorry 'bout that, really, we are." Oliver's carefully schooled voice faltered a touch under McGonagall's steely gaze. "We're just excited for the holidays, you see. We promise to keep it down for the rest of the night." The other students, relieved that someone else was doing the talking, nodded earnestly. "I assure you that nothing, and I mean nothing, is going on in here that would bring shame to the noble house of Godric Gryffindor." He gave Percy a little shake. "Besides, we have Percy here to keep us in line!"

Her eyes flicked to Percy and back to Oliver. "Is that so, Mr. Wood?" She asked skeptically, cocking one thin brow. "Then why is it that I smell a curious combination that could only be described as alcohol and fire?"

"Oh, er…" Oliver said, and Percy winced when the fingers of Wood's hand on his shoulder dug rather painfully into his deltoid.

"We were getting rid of potions ingredients, professor!" Percy suddenly blurted out in a half-shout. The pain of Oliver's grip seemed to help him find his voice.

"Indeed?" McGonagall asked, as several heads whirled to face Percy and snapped back to the professor at whiplash-inducing speeds.

If his classmates were stunned at rule-loving Weasley telling an outright lie, it was nothing compared to the shock and horror Percy felt himself. Why did you say that? WHY DID YOU SAY THAT! He screamed at himself internally. He could feel himself start to tremble under McGonagall's stern face. He would surely be in for it now! But then he felt a small squeeze on his shoulder from Oliver—so small it was almost imperceptible—but it was enough to stoke his Gryffindor courage.

"Fluxweed!" He blurted, looking up at McGonagall's sour countenance, well aware that he'd started to sweat. "Yeah, fluxweed and sneezewort. They weren't going to survive the holidays stored improperly so we—we burned it…"

Nobody else spoke, praying that by some miracle, Percy had said something that would appease the transfiguration mistress. She continued to glower for several long moments, and just as Percy was beginning to panic, his mind cooking up terrifying visions of expulsion, McGonagall gave a curt nod.

"Very well, Weasley. Carry on then. And you lot had better keep the noise down or I swear on Merlin's beard I will take every last house point you've earned this term. Do I make myself understood?"

"Yes professor," the Gryffindors said in unison, unable to believe their luck at narrowly escaping their Head of House's wrath.

As she backed out of the portrait hole, McGonagall's gaze lingered on Oliver's hand still gripping Percy's shoulder. Percy could have sworn he saw a tiny smile cross her face before it was once again replaced with a fierce glower, but he was too panicked to know for sure.

No one spoke for a good minute until they were sure McGonagall was gone. Gradually, the talking resumed until they were laughing loudly from relief. A seventh year thumped Percy on the back hard, making him cough. "Mate, that was bloody brill. I've never seen someone pull the wool over old Minnie like that."

"Yeah, maybe you're not such a prat after all, Weasley," said Lucinda Lathrop, a seventh year who sidled between Percy and Oliver. She looked flirtatiously at the Quidditch captain, grabbing his chin between her thumb and forefinger. "But it was your finesse. So what is it, then? You become a Quidditch star and now you can do no wrong?"

Oliver's eyes widened as she tugged his face towards her. His eyes briefly flicked over to Percy, who'd been pushed to the outskirts of the group. "I-I s'ppose not," he managed—and rather uncomfortably, Percy noted—before she kissed him lewdly on the mouth to a chorus of loud 'ooohs!' and catcalls from Lathrop's gaggle of friends.

Percy crossed his arms and looked away. He told himself he was embarrassed for the girl for conducting herself like a cheap harlot, though his mind's eye was still focused on the look of surprise that flashed across Wood's brown eyes. When it was safe to look again, he noticed Lathrop smiling smugly at her friends while Wood subtly dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. Percy found that amusing. If he didn't know any better, he'd say that Wood looked a touch uncomfortable after that kiss…

But he was torn from his thoughts when a seventh year named Garth Wilder charmed the radio back to life and announced that the party was continuing. Percy, who'd recovered from the shock of Lathrop's mating display, found his voice again. "Uh, lads, it is getting rather late…perhaps this party shouldn't continue in the common room…"

"Can it, Weasley! You finally stopped acting like a swotty nancy-boy for once in your sorry life, playing McGonagall like you did back there. Don't go undoing it all by being a kiss-arse prat!" Wilder shouted, and Percy had to duck on reflex when Wilder snatched something up off a sofa and hurled it roughly at his head.

"Oh come on!" Percy shouted when the thing—a nose-biting teacup, apparently—smashed loudly on the wall behind him. "Ten points from Gryffindor!"

"Really Weasley? Think you're a big man taking house points?" Wilder crossed the distance between them in three strides and gave him a shove. "You really want to play that game?"

"Hey, hey, hey!" One of Wilder's dorm mates stepped up, stopping the fight before Percy could respond. "Weasley here has a point. Let's just continue this party upstairs! The booze is already up there anyways."

Cheers met that suggestion, and Percy slapped a hand to his forehead. "No, no, let's just head to bed; we've a big day of travel ahead of us! The train will be in Hogsmeade station in ten hours!" But nobody was listening. The group was already filing its way up the boys' staircase. "Well…try not to wake the younger students at least!" he called after the herd of noisy footsteps. When the last of the stumbling girls had disappeared down the corridor, Percy was left alone in the now ringing silence of the common room. He sank down into the nearest armchair and dropped his face tiredly into his hands. "Ah, screw it all."

It sure was tough being the only responsible one.