Hermione Screamed

We have a longstanding “drinking game” with regard to Harry Potter stories. It started back with the second movie, when we noticed that Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) had a marked tendency to flair her nose when she was overacting. We thought when we saw it in the first movie as often as we did that it was a fluke. We discovered in the sequel that this was not the case. It evolved into a game. Whenever someone noticed she was flaring her nostrils, they would say, “Drink,” and the rest of the room would toss back whatever beverage they had in hand. It’s worth noting that it is rarely alcohol in our house, but that doesn’t stop us. You just drink what you have. If you don’t have anything, you can pretend.

When we started reading the early books in the series to the girls, the game was expanded to include scenes in the books where Hermione was being overly dramatic (of which, if you’ve read the books, you know there are a fair number). We spend time each night reading to the girls and, while we were working our way through the first two books, the reader would occasionally be interrupted by the phrase, “Drink” from one of the adults in the room. It was sort of an inside joke. We didn’t think the kids understood it.

The women of the house went to see a local high school’s version of Beauty and the Beast, and they brought with them Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. They wanted to finish the book that day so they could watch the movie in the evening (tradition dictates that we read a book first, then watch the movie). They arrive at the theater with a fair amount of time to kill, so Wifeness is reading the last few chapters. One of the chapters at the end of the book bears the name of this post.

When Wifeness read it, without looking up or skipping a beat, NiNi said, “Drink.”