One Week Without Magic
Disclaimer: What, you think I could come up with this stuff?
Author's Note: I was looking through a past version of this and I just…wow. I'm doing some massive editing, (aka starting from scratch and putting stuff in), and hopefully this version will be much better!
Chapter 1 – Financial Opportunities?
Ron Weasley was starving. It had been a stressful morning in seventh-year Potions, and he was ready to unwind with some lunch. His idea of unwinding, however, was to grab a chicken leg, a pile of mashed potatoes, a goblet of pumpkin juice, and some bread and to shove it all in his face as fast as he could. Ahhhh. That was better.
"How is it that you weigh what you do?" Hermione Granger asked half in awe, half in disgust, as she sat down daintily between him and Harry Potter.
"Magic," Ron said through a mouthful of potatoes, grinning. Hermione rolled her eyes and took some food.
Ginny Weasley, Ron's sister, sat down across the table from them, having just come from Muggle Studies. "Hey guys," she said, serving herself. "Professor Burbage was in a really good mood today, and she spent the whole class teaching us about Muggle card games. She spent like a half hour going on about one called poker. Have you two ever heard of that?" she asked Harry and Hermione.
Harry had heard of it but never played it, as the Dursleys liked to discourage him from doing anything that might be fun, but Hermione could remember playing it one summer. "It's like playing cards for money," she said, going on to describe it in great detail.
Ron was very interested in the idea of free money. "Teach me to play, Hermione!" he pleaded.
"I guess I could," Hermione mused. "I'd probably have time to this weekend." Ron looked extremely pleased and excited.
After lunch, they all split up – Hermione to Arithmancy, Ginny to Charms, and Harry and Ron to a free period. In between doing a long essay for Professor Snape, doing Transfiguration work, and just zoning out, Ron obsessed about the financial opportunities that poker presented. But Harry, remembering Aunt Petunia's friend Yvonne's downward spiral into nothingness after she discovered online gambling, could tell Ron firsthand about the downsides of poker. "Ron, do you know why the prizes offered for poker are so high?" he asked. Ron shook his head. "Because nobody ever wins them," Harry explained. "If everyone won, the prizes would be much lower. I've heard stories about plenty of Muggles that have lost thousands and thousands of pounds playing poker. Trust me Ron; you don't want to get too carried away."
"What's a pound?" Ron asked, confused.
"A pound is a type of Muggle money," Harry explained. "Remember the 50-pence piece my aunt and uncle gave me in our first year?" Ron laughed, remembering the bizarre shape and drawings on the coin. "Seriously Ron, don't get too carried away with this. Remember what happened the last time someone in your family gambled?" Ron did remember all too well the time that Fred and George had bet all their savings with Ludo Bagman and he paid them in leprechaun gold, which of course vanished the next morning. He shuddered, thinking about losing all his savings, and Harry returned to his essay, satisfied that Ron wouldn't go completely wild over poker.
That evening, Hermione was doing her Arithmancy homework in front of the fireplace when Harry tapped her on the shoulder. "You forgot to tell Ron about the downsides of poker," he warned, not unkindly.
"Oh, God!" she shrieked, slapping her forehead. Visions ran through her head of Ron, unwashed and unshaved, living in a cardboard box in Diagon Alley and holding a sign that said "Galleons Appreciated, Jobs Accepted". "Did you tell him?"
"Luckily," Harry reassured. "He was making some pretty big plans." Hermione shuddered, imagining not only how much trouble Ron would be in when he lost all his money, but also the mood he would be in when he realized that he'd lost all his money.
"Thank God you were there!" she murmured, shuddering one last time before returning to her homework.
That weekend, Hermione was as good as her word. "You can play almost any card game for money," she said, sitting across from Ron at a table in the common room, shuffling a deck of ordinary playing cards. "But my friends and I always played Texas Hold 'Em poker." When both Ron and Harry looked confused, she added, "It's really popular in America. The way to play Texas Hold'em is each person is dealt one card, then another. Both cards are face down. After each person receives their cards, the betting begins. This is called the Pre – Flop." She went on to explain the Flop, Turn, River, and Showdown. Then they played a game, betting for elf hats. ("But you don't get to destroy them!" warned Hermione.) Several weeks of hard work, about 50 elf hats, and 10 Galleons later, Ron could play adequately – that is, he could play without losing all of his money, and mostly because Hermione took pity on him and went easy.
A couple days before the Christmas Holidays, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were walking through the seventh-floor corridor when they heard a large commotion in an unused classroom. Stepping inside, they saw Malfoy sitting behind a folding table and a single chair, with a sign over his head that read POKER TOURNAMENT, DECEMBER 23. "Surprised to see you playing a Muggle game, Malfoy," Harry spat. "Not afraid of dirtying your blood?"
"Anything involving winning money is fine by me, Potter," Malfoy retorted. "Any takers?"
Ron sauntered up to the table. "I'll play," he said, ignoring Harry and Hermione's frantic head-shakings and hissed "no!"'s.
Malfoy snorted. "You'll play, Weasel-bee? You think you can beat me? I bet you don't even have money to bet with! Your family splurged on some food this year, I heard." Ron turned purple and spluttered. "Okay Weasley, I'll take pity on you. There's no money. Instead, whoever wins has to live for one week…without magic."
"You're on," Ron snarled.