Midnight Faire, Hogsmeade — 1 Jan 1895

TW: drugs, vomit.

This was his third party of the night, and probably his last; it was late enough now that nothing else would be on until evening rolled around again. He planned to be here until the fireworks or until he was too intoxicated to continue and was carried out by a friend, whichever came first. When he arrived he'd been half-drunk, but that was all. His first party tonight had involved some members of his family, and given the proximity of the Christmas Day reveal he'd been on his best behavior. The next party simply hadn't afforded an opportunity for anything stronger than alcohol, so he'd had to content himself with that. This circus thing was a place to collect people who didn't like their own company enough to go home and sleep, though. Someone here was going to have something for him, he was sure of that.

He'd been here an hour or so before he found himself in the right conversation to bring it up, but he was right; someone knew someone who had something. Twenty minutes and a discreet exchange of money and substances later, Don Juan was freshly supplied and in search of people to get high with — and when he was buying, they were seldom hard to find. Vials dispersed and plans made (downing them ahead of the acrobatics show, for a little extra spectacle) the group separated, and Don Juan started checking his pocket watch every few minutes. When it was nearly time he pulled his vial out and drank the party potion, then washed down the bitter taste with half his glass of beer. He started towards the tents — but didn't make it there. Instead he ended up in the bushes at the edge of the party area, losing half the contents of his stomach.

"Oh god," he groaned when he'd finished. Thought he'd finished, anyway; he still felt nauseated. The potion must have been bad, he determined. He could hold his alcohol better than this. His face wrinkled in distaste as he glanced at the pile of sick in the grass. He took another sip of his beer and swirled it around his mouth to replace the taste, then spat it out where it landed against the rest with a rather sickening slick sound. He ought to vanish this before he went back to the party, he decided — but on half-turning to pull his wand out, he noticed that he had an audience. Grand.

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MJ made this <3

There was a strong possibility that the next person who mentioned resolutions to her would begin the 1895 in St. Mungo’s, such was Angeline’s conviction that each and every individual who had mentioned the dratted word to her in the last twenty-odd hours was commenting upon her matrimonial status. Or lack thereof. What then was the point of making resolutions? Women like her had no need; it made no odds what they resolved to achieve in a bright shiny New Year because their entire lives depended upon the men in them.

Laudanum – she had decided about half past eight this evening when an especially garrulous friend of her mother’s had commented on how appealing Victoire was these days – was a far better thing to put one’s faith in. It had never let her down, always blurred her edges wonderfully and she wondered now how she could have ever thought it was a good idea to try to stymy her use. So it was that she was positively floating around the fayre, her chaperone doing her usual bang-up job of being nowhere useful, and clutching at the neck of a bottle of champagne she had hidden underneath her fur-lined cloak. It would get warm but it was doing a marvellous job of making her not care.

Her head swam beautifully for a while, making the lights brighter, the sounds sharper and everything feel quite wonderful until, quite quickly, they were not. Everything, in fact, felt as though it was on a sped-up carousel and she was one of the eternally screaming horses that could never get off. Staring fixedly ahead Angel walked quickly away from the crowd – defying the carousel – and found herself taking deep gulps of air as she approached the bushes and saw someone else throwing up.

Which, curiously, settled her a little.

“Are you alright, Mr Dempsey?” She said in a low voice, keeping herself as still as possible despite feeling like things that were not her were definitely spinning.

The following 1 user Likes Angeline Malfoy's post:1 user Likes Angeline Malfoy's post
   Don Juan Dempsey

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time of death: when MJ dropped this heart-stopping set

That was an interesting question to ask someone after just watching them throw up. What did she expect him to say? He supposed the polite thing to do would be to lie. If he said he was fine, he implicitly granted her permission to ignore what had just happened and carry on. If he said he wasn't, she might feel obliged to... worry about him, or something. He wasn't sure what would come of that. Probably nothing enjoyable for him — dragged off to a healer, or some matronly type to fuss over him, or worst of all to his actual mother.

"Fine now," he said, deciding on a middle ground. "Something I ate." True in the broadest sense, he supposed. He'd definitely swallowed the potion, and it seemed pretty obvious that had triggered this unfortunate reaction. His friends were likely off puking in the bushes at the other edges of the fair ground right about now — they were going to blame him for this, even if it wasn't his fault, and he'd have to find some way to make it up to them. What a striking way to be starting the new year.

He got his wand out and vanished it. "Were you driven away from the party out of concern for me, Miss Malfoy?" he asked as he turned his attention back to her, in as cheeky a tone as one could manage with the taste of bile still hanging at the corners of one's mouth. They weren't so far from the crowd, but far enough that it struck him as odd that a debutante had drifted out this far on her own, and he doubted it had anything to do with him whatsoever.

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MJ made this <3