Great Balls of Fire

[Harvey Beauregard]

This wasn't funny. Half the town was on fire, people were dying left and right, there was a plague rampaging through the village and Harvey was here laughing about it. Of course, he had the laughing sickness himself, just a mild case, according to his mother, though he trusted Miss Burdon's opinion much more, considering she was an intern at the hospital. They all had a touch of it, even Elsie and Adella were giggling uncontrollably. They couldn't quite tell with Owen, because he normally laughed at all the wrong times but he seemed perfectly normal, well for Owen anyway. Perhaps he had escaped without catching it.

And of course Andren was staying with them, his own house in danger of the fire ravaging Wellingtonshire and High Street. It wasn't funny- but it was! Harvey laughed aloud to himself at the thought as he and Andren sat in his father's study. "Sorry-" He didn't know why he was apologizing, they'd both been laughing at ridiculous moments all day, even when nothing triggered it. Apparently that was a sign of the sickness. He hadn't been sleeping all that well the last couple nights either and he couldn't even blame Andren for that- his best mate was a bit of a snorer but Harvey was used to that.

"This needs-" He burst out laughing again. "To stop." He clutched at his stomach, which hurt from laughing so often, grimacing as soon as he could stop long enough to.

  

[Andren Lovegood]

The last time Andren had seen his house, it had been slightly on fire. Since then, he had been staying with the Beauregards - the Herondales were perfectly nice, but he would much rather be here and safe from fire. And seeing as he already had the laughing sickness, it wasn't like he could get it again from the Beauregards.

And besides, here he and Harvey could get away with drinking in Mr. Beauregard's study. Even if Mrs. Beauregard found out, Andren didn't think that she would kick him out - he and Harvey had been friends far too long for that!

Harvey's laugh made Andren start giggling so that his sides twinged. He winced - though really the giggling wasn't the worst thing, he had also been sick long enough to develop a fever and lose his appetite. Luckily neither of these were enough to commit him to bed yet - not that he would have been able to sleep if they did.

"Can't laugh and drink at the same time," Andren managed with a bark of genuine laughter.

  

[Harvey Beauregard]

Why on earth they thought sneaking into his dad's study for a drink would help the sickness but he'd be damned if he could think of anything else to do at the moment. Cloudy judgement was expected when you could hardly keep it together long enough to form coherent sentences. All that laughter must have been been preventing oxygen from getting to his brain- that was a good enough excuse.

"It is rather diffi-" He paused to laugh. "-cult." Though the brandy they had found in his father's study (Harvey hoped nobody would notice the missing booze) was at least helping to distract from the pain of laughing too much. It wasn't particularly to his taste, but it was doing the trick.

"Cannot wait until this is all over." Harvey had every optimistic thought that nobody in his immediate world would succumb to the laughing sickness entirely. As far as he knew, their case in the house was mild and therefore they had nothing to worry about.

  

[Andren Lovegood]

Andren took several large gulping sips of his brandy, hoping to get as much of it down before he started laughing again. "Me neither," he said with a nod, grinning at Harvey despite himself. They were far too young and full of themselves to actually die; he wasn't even really worried.

"We should play a drinking game," Andren said, "Could be, uhhh - shit, what sort of games can you play with just two people?" He laughed, and couldn't tell if it was a laughing sickness induced one or genuine. This epidemic stuff sucked - he was just glad that no one he liked had managed to die yet.

  

[Harvey Beauregard]

Harvey laughed- though again had no idea if it was genuine or not, when Andren suggested a drinking game. It didn't take long for his best mate to realize that two people was not exactly ideal for any such activity. "Anything that will knock me out enough to sleep through laughing." That really was the most obnoxious part; it was like getting the hiccups, there wasn't anything you could do about it and it was annoying as hell.

Drinking through the sickness was probably not the best of plans, but when had the two of them ever really made the best decisions? It was a miracle Harvey had even gotten a prefect's badge, let alone kept it this long. He took a long swing of his drink and tried to hold back another laugh. "And I have no idea, never needed a game to have a drink." Of course they were barely old enough to drink (legally) so it wasn't like he had a lot of experience either.

  

[Andren Lovegood]

Andren shrugged and took a large gulp of alcohol. "'Take a sip whenever you feel like it,' then?" he said, grinning at his best friend. That one wasn't so much a game, but, well - they had the plague. They could do whatever they wanted. And as long as they had each other for company, there would at least be good conversation.

(Well. Good drunk conversation, which was often significantly different from good sober conversation.)

"You know," Andren said, giggling, "In hindsight, my textbooks probably burned to ash." Well. At least he didn't technically need them yet, and at least the Lovegoods could certainly afford it. But still.

  

[Harvey Beauregard]

Harvey simply raised his glass to that, thinking that opening his mouth would just invite more laughter to escape and he was really tired of that. "Ah that's rubbish mate." Harvey supposed that out of everything to lament over losing, textbooks would not be one of them. Unless you were Elsie of course.

"Can borrow mine till yeh get-" He hiccuped and laughed simultaneously, scowling right after. "New ones." So done with the laughing. They had plenty of time though and Andren was well-off anyway, it wasn't like he couldn't afford new ones. "At least we had only a little summer homework?" Harv only had a creatures assignment... that he could remember. Maybe he should look further into that. He'd written down things to do this summer... somewhere.

  

[Andren Lovegood]

"Pfsh, summer homework," Andren scoffed. He objected to summer homework on a deep and fundamental level. No one wanted to do it, it always ended up half-assed, and he thought that perhaps he should have written a whole petition about it before entering his Seventh Year because if anyone managed to change the system now it wouldn't benefit him in the least.

"We can worry about that in August," Andren added, taking another swig from his bottle. He supposed that he'd probably have a house again by then, but even if he wasn't living with the Beauregards they would inevitably end up doing their homework together, or at least writing letters about it.

That was assuming they didn't die. Andren giggled.

  

[Harvey Beauregard]

Harvey fought his way through a long, painful laughing fit, missing half of what Andren said. He did catch the last part, about worrying about homework in August. That was completely true, they had plenty of time and hopefully would still be alive. He wasn't one to be pessimistic and certainly wasn't planning on letting this laughing sickness get the better of him, but then he supposed he would have worse things to worry about other than summer homework. Hopefully, this whole miserable thing would be over by then. Really, they should be forgiven their summer requirements in light of the terrible summer they were having.

Rubbing his aching ribs with his free hand, Harvey reached to refill his glass and then subsequently shot the whole thing before refilling it again. "True enough, really though, she shouldn't have to do it after all the nonsense." He said, voicing his previous thoughts.

  

[Andren Lovegood]

"Agreed," Andren said. Between the fire in Wellingtonshire and the sheer amount of dead people, it seemed unfair to have to worry about schoolwork at a time like this - there were legitimately lots of other things for them to be concerned about! And what about the sick people - how would they get their work done, if they were lucky enough to pull through?

"But it's not as though our professors will see it that way," he added darkly, punctuating the sentence with a gulp of bourbon from his bottle. Stupid professors, with their 'academic priorities' and professorial tendencies. At least Andren only took four N.E.W.T. classes. He'd hate to be one of the people taking six.

  

[Harvey Beauregard]

Mostly likely Andren was right. Harvey figured that professors would assume clearly, if you survived the summer, you could do your homework. Laughing, Harvey shook his head, a look of pure frustration crossing his features for a brief moment before he sighed in resignation. Taking another long sip of his drink, Harv had to wonder just how much he would drink before passed out. Sleeping was becoming difficult, though not unbearably so, the laughing keeping him up.

"Damn I'm tired." He emphasized with a yawn, followed by an unnecessary laugh. Gulping down the rest of that glass, Harvey debated another and decided against it. "Think I might attempt a nap." He grimaced as a laugh punctuated his statement, and he nearly growled. "If that doesn't work, I'm drinking myself into a stupor." It would be a regrettable action certainly, but Harvey just wanted this sickness thing to go away.