9 YEARS LATER

Drunk Harry was definitely my least favourite version of Harry. Godric, how was it that his drunken habits hadn't changed over the years? He still liked to talk and talk whenever he was smashed and I still had the unfortunate task of sitting and listening to him as he spoke about whatever he was rambling on about.

Merlin, he went on these 'guys' nights with his friends and whilst he never left with the intention of getting drunk that was the way he was returned at the end of the night. At some point the rest of the 'guys' would leave Harry and Ron alone but would have the sense to owl someone to sort the two drunkards out. More often than not, Hermione or I were owled to pick them up from some random pub corner. Today Hermione had the misfortune of being the person that was owled. She had not been happy to have been called away from home to come and sort them out.

She had apparated into my apartment and the sound of their drunken grumbling hadn't surprised me. I simply lowered the heat on the stove and walked out of the kitchen and into my front room to find her struggling under Ron and Harry's combined weight as they both hung off her. Rushing to the older woman's side, I took Harry off from her and we shared an eye roll as I did so.

"Why the hell are you so drunk at 7 bloody o'clock?" I questioned my drunken boyfriend as I led him to the sofa. He gratefully sprawled across it, closing his eyes and I looked back to Hermione.

"They started early," she explained with a frown, glaring at Ron when he began to press wet kisses to her cheek, "Apparently they had some 'important business' to discuss and why that led to them drinking I have no idea."

"Honestly," I muttered with a shake of my head, waving a goodbye to Hermione as she apparated away.

Harry, feeling my eyes on him, blearily opened his eyes and gave me a slow smile. He held his arms open, "Come here, love."

"No way." I pushed his arms down, grimacing at the smell of alcohol on him, "Godric Harry, just how much did you drink to smell so bad?"

He frowned heavily at my words, fumbling with his clothes and reaching into his trousers pockets. I watched unamused as he wrestled his wand out of his pocket and tried and failed to cast a Scourgify charm on himself.

"Scour- Scor- Scourg –"

"Merlin." I rolled my eyes, casting the spell for him and snagging his wand from him. He went to take it back but I held it out of his reach. Harry gave up, falling to his seat with a humph. "I think there'll be less damage if I hold onto this for a while, don't you?"

I went to walk back to the kitchen, aware that I had left the food unattended for a while. But he reached out to catch my hand with a speed that was surprising in his currently inebriated state. He blinked up at me with glazed eyes when I glanced back at him.

"Let's talk," he whined and I tried not to groan when I realised that it was about to begin, "please."

"I have things to do," I tried to excuse myself but his hold on my hand tightened.

"Love."

"Godric, Harry," I muttered with rolled eyes. I should have never told him that I had a weakness for him calling me love."

He blinked up at me and I sighed, pulling my hand from his hold. His expression faltered as he became crestfallen.

"Let me just go and turn the stove off."

I took longer than I needed as I walked slowly to the kitchen and turned the stove off. Dealing with a drunk Harry wasn't the way I saw myself spending the rest of this evening. Godric, sometimes he'd blurt out some details of an auror mission to me, details that no one outside the department were supposed to know and I couldn't help but grow suspicious that ministry officials were going to come crashing into my apartment to take me away. Sometimes he'd tell me random pieces of gossip that Ron had confided in him like the pregnancy scare he and Hermione had at the beginning of the year. The worst part was that sometimes he forgot what he'd said to me, and sometimes he remembered every single detail. The morning after he'd come to my apartment was always a bit touch and go as I tried to figure out whether he remembered anything.

When I returned to Harry's side, he pulled me down beside him and I rolled my eyes skyward, knowing what was going to happen next. Sure enough, he set his head on my thighs and laid himself along my sofa. I tipped my head on the back of the sofa, pleading silently to the ceiling that he fell asleep quickly.

"Why are you drunk at 7?" I questioned, running my hand through his hair, "Isn't it way too early for you to be in this state?"

"We started early," he repeated Hermione's earlier words, reaching up to take the hand that I was carding through his hair. "We needed to sort something out." Taking the hand he was holding between both of his, Harry started to trace his fingertips over my palm. "Ron wants to propose to Mione soon."

"Why are you saying that like it's a bad thing?" I asked with furrowed eyebrows, spotting the damp patch growing in the corner of the ceiling. I really needed to talk to my landlord about that.

"Because I was planning on proposing soon," he muttered with a pout, not seeing the way his words surprised me. "But we can't both do it at the same time – apparently that's bad luck or some rubbish like that. We were having a drinking game – whoever got drunk first had to push it back."

I kept silent, reeling from his sudden announcement. It took me a few moments to gather myself before lifting my head from the back of the sofa. Just when I went to ask Harry if he meant it, and if he was going to remember what he'd told me, he let out an huge snore.

Typical.