Shot!

It had been storming for almost half an hour when a dripping wet Harry Potter stormed through the portrait hole and into the Gryffindor Common Room. "Well," Harry said angrily, throwing his broom down on the floor. "Quidditch was rained out. Looks like I can't put off that Potions essay any longer. And on top of that, my scar won't stop prickling."

Ron, who was sitting on the floor next to Hermione, bit back a smile. "Ah, that's rubbish, mate," he said in an overly-sympathetic voice that Harry didn't quite believe.

"Yeah," he said. "It is. I can't believe I'm worrying about stupid Potions when any number of Death Eaters could be out there right now! My scar's been hurting more and more lately, and - what is so funny?"

Hermione was trembling with pent-up laughter. "Oh," she said. "Nothing. Ron here just told me a joke earlier, and - "

"Stop lying to me!" Harry yelled, and the sound of his own voice made his head hurt even more. "Ah," he muttered, pressing his hand to his forehead. "My scar."

Ron finally burst out laughing. "I'm sorry, mate," he said, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. "It's not your fault - you didn't know."

"What didn't I know?"

"The drinking game," Hermione said, pulling a bottle of firewhiskey out from behind her back. "Ron and I started it, but it's spreading really quickly."

"What does a drinking game have to do with me?"

"It's a Harry Potter drinking game," Ron explained. "Every time you call attention to your scar, everyone in hearing range has to take a shot. You've done it three times since you walked in."

Harry stared at them. "There is a war going on outside our doorstep," he said slowly. "The Death Eaters are getting stronger every day. And you two are playing a drinking game?"

Hermione offered him the bottle. "You want to play?"

Instead of answering, Harry stomped up to his dormitory. Ron and Hermione looked at each other, shrugged, and toasted him three times in a row.

"Oi!" called Malfoy. "Potter! I heard you walked out of Quidditch practice yesterday!"

"Shove off, Malfoy," Harry said darkly. "It was storming outside, we couldn't play in those conditions. And my scar - "

"SHOT!" cried Crabbe and Goyle in unison. Grinning, Malfoy conjured up a bottle of mead and three shot glasses.

"Boys!" Professor Slughorn called from across the lawn. He hurried over to them. "What are you doing?" he asked, eyeing the shot glasses in the Slytherins' hands. "What's in that bottle?"

"Erm . . . " Malfoy said, looking guilty. "It's . . ."

"I know what it is," Slughorn said, flicking his wand to Summon the mead out of Malfoy's hand. "This stuff is not allowed."

"Hah," Harry said under his breath. "Busted."

But Slughorn wasn't finished. "The rules clearly state you must take a shot of firewhiskey every time Harry Potter mentions his scar. Here." He reached into his robes and extracted a large bottle of the appropriate liquid. "Bottoms up," he said, and Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle drained their glasses.

"Am I the only one worried about what's going on out there?" Harry shouted. "Am I the only one who understands what Voldemort is capable of?"

"He said You-Know-Who's name," Goyle pointed out. "That's two shots!"

Harry groaned and marched off to Defense Against the Dark Arts class.

"Harry, the time for you to face Voldemort is drawing near," Dumbledore said.

Harry sat on the headmaster's couch, one hand gently ruffling Fawkes' feathers. "I couldn't agree more, sir," he said. "My scar has been hurting more than - "

"SHOT!" cried every portrait lining the walls.

"Oh, dear," Dumbledore said, moving a hand up to hide his smile. "I apologize for them, Harry."

Harry sighed. "That's alright."

"You can't forgo your shot just because Potter's in the room, Albus," Phineas Nigellus said from the corner. "Drink up!"

Harry's jaw dropped. "You're playing too?" he whispered. "Sir! You're supposed to be a role model! You're supposed to be someone we can look up to! You're supposed to be a leader! And you're playing a bloody drinking game?"

Dumbledore looked quite embarrassed. "I'm sorry, Harry," he began, but Harry was already stalking out of his office.

"Harry Potter," Voldemort said with a slow grin. "The Boy Who Lived. Come to die."

Harry was trying his best not to seem weak in front of his adversary, but he couldn't help it: he clamped both hands down over his scar.

"SHOT!" shouted Bellatrix Lestrange, and the Death Eaters paused in their leering to conjure glasses and bottles.

Harry wanted to scream. "Do you people not understand what is going on here?" he shouted. "You work for bloody Voldemort, and yet you're taking breaks to - "

"DOUBLE SHOT!" shrieked Voldemort, downing two glasses of firewhiskey.

Harry closed his eyes. "I must be dreaming," he said to himself. "I'll wake up in the morning, and my scar - "

"SHOT!"

" - won't hurt anymore, or at least it'll hurt less, and this will all be a memory. Maybe when I wake up I won't even have a scar - "

"SHOT!"

" - at all. Maybe Voldemort - "

"TWO SHOTS!"

" - is just a dream, and my parents are alive and safe and nobody's trying to kill us, nobody's given me a scar at all."

"Shot!" But the shouting was less enthusiastic now, and a little more slurred, and Harry siezed the opportunity and kept talking.

"Oh, Voldemort," he said. "Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort."

"Six shots?" somebody called.

"No, no, no," another one said. "Eight - he said it four times."

"Are you sure?" a different Death Eater asked. "I heard - hic - five."

"I'm going to throw up," announced Voldemort, and then he did, leaning over a bush to do so.

Harry grinned. "Wow, Voldemort, you're not looking so tough now. Very weak, I'd say. About as weak as a one-year-old baby with a scar."

"Four shots," someone announced glumly.

"I think it's just three."

"Stop drinking!" slurred Voldemort, stumbling into a tree. "He's using the game against us! Get him!"

But nobody could move with quite enough precision to catch him, and so Harry walked out of the Forbidden Forest unscathed, and when he brought the Ministry back later, they found a pile of snoring Death Eaters with Voldemort himself passed out on top. They brought everyone into Azkaban, where Voldemort was given the Dementor's Kiss and the rest of the Death Eaters were awarded life sentences.

And as a reward for saving the world, the Minister of Magic sent Harry an oversized, self-refilling bottle of firewhiskey, which he spent the rest of his days serving at dinner parties and then forcing his guests to drink by bringing up his scar in casual conversation.

[Cinema Competition: Amelie - write a comedy in any sense (crackfic)]

[Fanfiction Categories Competition: drabble - Write about something unexpected.]