A/N: I was asked to produce a sequal to Ogden's Old Firewhisky. This is the result. It was originally posted on its own as a oneshot, but I've re-vamped it and decided to put it here as a second chapter.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all relating characters are owned by J. K. Rowling.

Red Currant Rum

"Do you remember that time the Slytherins charmed our alcohol?" Fred and George, who had been passing the kitchen doorway of Grimmauld Place froze at the sound of Sirius Black's voice speaking the words 'Slytherin' and 'alcohol' in the same sentence.

"Vaguely. I think I passed out," Remus replied.

"Yes. You fell asleep in the gravy. Or was it pudding?"

"Pudding. Chocolate pudding. I woke up with chocolate in my hair."

"You know what we never figured out? What charm the Slytherins used to compel us to drink that alcohol."

"Not that you or James ever needed much persuasion to drink alcohol."

"That's true."

"What I've never figured out is why there weren't more charms on the Firewhisky. You know, like something to turn our skin different colors. That sort of thing."

"Or poison."

"Don't be ridiculous. Slytherins aren't that malicious. Maybe they were trying to be subtle?"

"Or they're just stupid."

"One of the Head Boys was Slytherin when we were there. They aren't all stupid."

"Moony, you're too nice for your own good. Slytherins are either stupid, evil, or both."

"So you say."

"I do indeed." Fred and George exchanged significant glances and crept up the creaky stairs as quietly as they could. Once in the bedroom, Fred shut the door and turned to his twin.

"Charmed alcohol? How come we never thought of that?"

"Because it's not usually necessary to charm alcohol. Teenagers are drawn to it like dementers to happiness," George pointed out reasonably. Fred made a face at the comparison.

"Yes, well. What do you say we charm some alcohol? Only, we'll add a little something extra to it." The twins shared a mischievous grin.

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Two days later found Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny dashing out the door to catch the train back to Hogwarts – all of them, expect maybe Hermione, wishing that the winter holidays had lasted just a few days more.

"Where did you put the rum, Fred?" George asked, less than an hour after the younger teens had departed.

"I hid it with the potion bottles in the study. Why?"

"Because the potion bottles aren't there. And neither is the alcohol." Fred looked confused for a moment before realization dawned and he gave his twin a horrified look.

"Bugger. George, do you realize who those potion bottles belong to?"

"Snape?"

"No. Hermione."

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"What's this?" Hermione murmured as she pulled an unfamiliar potion bottle out of her trunk. She shrugged and moved as though to set it down next to her trunk.

She frowned in confusion a moment later when she realized that she'd instead uncorked it and was raising it to her lips. She sniffed the contents.

A strong spice scent hit her noise and Hermione detected a slightly fruity untone, with the faintest hint of molasses. Had she been in her right mind (rather than under the influence of the handiwork of a pair of mischievous twins), Hermione would never have done what she did next – which was to take a tentative sip of the unknown liquid.

But she was not in her right mind – especially fifteen minutes later – and it wasn't long after she stumbled into the Common Room that the compulsion spell the twins had cast on the bottle latched onto someone else.

"Hermione?" Harry asked uncertainly, when his friend literally tripped into the Common Room looking suspiciously flushed and giddy.

"Harry! Harry, you must try this," she told him earnestly and thrust a potion bottle under his noise. Harry recognized the smell of rum immediately, but that wasn't enough to stop him from doing as she'd asked.

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Dear Ron,

We think Hermione may have accidentally taken one of our, shall we say, untested products. We recommend you remove it from her possession immediately as we don't know what the side effects might be.

Whatever you do, resist any temptation to drink it. We would very much like to get at least some of it back.

Cheers,

Gred and Forge

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"Harry? Hermione?" Ron asked, entering the Common Room.

"Not here," Seamus told him absently from his chair by the fire. Ron frowned, and retreated back to the boys' dormitory to retrieve the Marauder's Map.

Ron was surprised to see that the little dots that represented his friends were meandering in circles in the corridors of the Second Floor.

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"What do you do with a drunken sailor? What do you do with a drunken sailor? What do you do with a drunken sailor, earl-eye in the morning?!" Harry's off-key singing echoed from the walls as he and Hermione stumbled past the library. The portraits followed their zigzagging route with expressions of annoyance and disgust, their constant shushing only making the inebriated teens louder.

"Harry! Hermione!" the sudden voice startled the pair and they tripped over each other to land in tangled heap on the floor, giggling madly. "Good gods, are you two drunk?"

"Hi Ron!" Harry slurred, waving excitedly at his friend. "Have you come to join us?"

"We're off to see the Wizard!" Hermione's muffled voice added from beneath Harry.

"What wizard?" Ron demanded as he yanked Harry off the girl, barely keeping him upright as the bespectacled boy swayed unsteadily.

"The Wizard of Oz!" Hermione lay on the floor before the boys with a silly grin on her face. "I've always wanted to meet the Wizard. He's wonderful." She threw hers arms out to the side to demonstrate how wonderful. Ron stared between his two friends, unsure of whether to be amused at their drunken state, or annoyed that they were drinking without him.

"Where did you get alcohol?" he asked finally, deciding that despite his curiosity about this so-called Oz person, the situation at hand was more important.

"Hermione," Harry began slowly, as he was having trouble enunciating clearly, "found some really good rum."

"Sorry, did you say 'found'?"

"Yep!" Hermione joined the conversation, stumbling to her feet and throwing her arms around Ron. She put her mouth against his ear and whispered, "The house-elves put it in my trunk as a thank you present for starting S.P.E.W." Ron chuckled nervously and pushed the girl off him, holding her at arm's length and trying not to blush. Didn't she realize how attractive she looked with her alcohol-flushed cheeks and too-bright eyes? Ron cleared his throat.

"Right, well, I guess I should get you – wait, did you say you found it in your trunk?" Hermione nodded and tried to wrap her arms around the redhead again, murmuring something about him being warm. Ron gritted his teeth and resisted a groan – she's drunk, she doesn't realize what she's doing, he told himself firmly and once more pushed her off him. "Listen to me. That rum was one of Fred and George's untested products. Where is it?" Hermione pointed behind Ron to Harry, who was doodling little glowing pictures in the air with his wand. "Harry?"

"Look what I can do!" Harry giggled and added yellow glasses to what vaguely resembled a green butterfly. He was surrounded by the colorful floating images.

"Er, very nice. Harry, where's the rum?" Harry stopped drawing and gripped the pocket of his robe possessively.

"Dunno." Ron pointed to the suspicious pocket.

"You have it there. Hand it over."

"Nuh uh. S'mine," he protested, backing away. Ron had never been the most patient person (with the exception of chess, of course) and after a moment's consideration he lunged at Harry. He was immensely grateful his friend was so short as he unsuccessfully tried to grab back the bottle that Ron held out of reach.

He was even more grateful the bottle was empty when found himself trying to drink from it.

Ron shook his head, trying to clear it of the spell. Temptation my arse, he thought furiously. Bewitched alcohol! What were they thinking? He handed the empty bottle back to the seething Harry, who cradled it against him as though it were a precious treasure. Ron sighed.

"Come on. Let's get back to the Common Room before a professor spots us."

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The trip to the Common Room was both frustrating and exhausting. Harry sulked for a while about Ron's attempt at stealing his precious rum, though eventually he took to amusing himself with leaving a trail of multicolored pictures. Ron didn't have time to figure out how to erase them and could only hope that if they didn't fade by morning there would be no way to trace the pictures back to the three students.

Hermione, on the other hand, had finally noticed the whispering portraits and would frequently stop to tell them off for being rude. And when she wasn't trying to deduct house points from the paintings, she was chasing shadows – which at one point turned out to be Mrs. Norris and Ron was forced to drag his friends onto a moving staircase to escape.

By the time Ron was forced to carry a half-unconscious Hermione (draping her over his shoulder and trying ignore the very fine derriere that was now in very close proximity to his face), Harry had taken off ahead of them. Ron could only hope he had gone straight to Gryffindor and was not off wandering the castle somewhere.

Thankfully, they found Harry entertaining the Fat Lady not ten minutes later with (by this point unrecognizable) glowing doodles. He managed to kiss the portrait goodnight before Ron dragged him through the portrait hole.

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With a very vague explanation, Ron had Parvati and Ginny cart the unconscious Hermione upstairs to the girls' dormitories. Ginny grinned bemusedly at her brother until she was out of sight, while Parvati tutted and frowned disapprovingly at the girl who was suppose to be a model student.

With Hermione being taken care of, Ron turned to his best friend – who was about to stick his hand in the fire.

"Oi!" Ron yelped in alarm, jumping toward the dark-haired boy. Thankfully, the nearby Seamus (who had obviously not moved from his seat since Ron had left the room half an hour before) yanked Harry's arm backwards before he could hurt himself.

"You don't want to be touching that Harry." Harry blinked at him.

"Pretty."

"Yeah, the fire's pretty. Now let's get you upstairs." The Irish boy easily pulled his roommate to his feet and with an ease that spoke of previous experience dealing with drunk people, maneuvered him to the stairs, where Ron was waiting to help haul the Boy-Who-Lived-And-Was-Drunk up the stairs and to his bed.

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Harry was confused by two things upon waking the following morning. One was a monumental headache for which he could not think of any possible cause, and the second was the fact that the canopy of his bed seemed much closer than normal.

He quickly discovered the reason for the latter when he tried to get out of bed.

He was floating.

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The students of Hogwarts were confused by two things upon leaving their Common Rooms the first morning back to school after the winter holidays. One was the glowing doodles floating in the air in numerous corridors, and the second was the strange way Hermione Granger and Harry Potter were walking.

Those familiar with the muggle world compared it to astronauts walking on the moon.

Both Hermione Granger and Harry Potter discovered that morning that paper was not necessary for artistic expression, and heavy textbooks could be used as something other than just sources of information or boredom. They could, for example, be used to keep one from floating around like a balloon.

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Fred and George, unfortunately, did not get any of the alcohol returned to them. Fortunately, they were saved from Hermione's wrath by the unexpected side effect of neither accidental test subject remembering anything of that night after their first sip of the enhanced Red Currant Rum. (While Harry was later told of their drunken escapade, Hermione was kept in the dark about it for years after the incident.)

The Weasley twins – after the initial mishap – eventually produced a non-alcoholic beverage called Head in the Clouds, which simulated an alcoholic-buzz for a short period of time and caused the drinker to feel as though he were floating, without the unfortunate aftereffects of heavy drinking. It became one of their most successful products and when asked about what inspired the idea they were quoted as saying that they owed it all to a pair of trouble-finding canines.

Which lead the public to believe, inaccurately, that the twins owned a pair of disobedient dogs. The assumption was never corrected, and image of Remus and Sirius as pets became a running joke among those who knew the real story.