Author's Note: Hello, and thanks for stopping by my story! I've published 15 chapters on HPFF, but I'd like to have it here on as well. I hope you enjoy it, and feel free to leave a review if you have questions/comments/concerns! :)
Chapter One: Shooting Star, After Midnight
The Shooting Star Casino was a vast, glittering den of temptations and devilry. Written on the patrons' faces were the signs of vice and virtue; too much alcohol consumed, too much money wasted on the slot machines. There at the edge of Muggle and Wizarding London, the two worlds collided in an array of kaleidoscopic fancies. There were Muggle amusements—poker, slots, roulette—but they all had a Wizarding twist. The dealers levitated the decks and a gambler never knew when his hand of cards would blow up in his face—literally.
It was a place where alcohol flowed freely at the bar and at the game tables, sometimes a little too freely when some sot knocked over his glass. That was the hook: first drink free, and then you were caught on the stuff. The blazing firewhiskey assaulted your senses, hazing your mind and putting you in that blissful state where inhibitions no longer existed. The bacchanalia raged every night, people getting drunk on the dance floor and getting drunker when they lost at cards. The nights passed in a blur of rainbow colors, blistering cacophony, and the scent of aged liquor.
But in the back of the casino, removed from the pandemonium by a nondescript wall, the real player of the night performed her dance. I was the hustler, the disco dame who drew in unsuspecting customers and beguiled them out of their money and time. I danced on a stage with no boundaries, weaving intricate patterns with my body and mind.
I was the pool player, con woman of the century, endowed with the ability to drive any man wild with just one stroke of the cue. Eyes wild, dress tight, voice smoky with the fake promise of lust and adventure, I spun a web of lies that could trick even the most astute male.
In the depths of the evening when things began to happen, there was only one other pool player in the hall, one solitary soul who probably lost at the Exploding Snap table and wanted to play a few rounds before he had to Apparate home to his unforgiving wife. He was a sorry-looking bloke, hair disheveled and eyes bloodshot, though it was probably less from the whiskey than it was from losing sleep. Freddy Weasley, my boss, always said that those are the worst patrons: not the rowdy drunks, but the lucid losers who just wouldn't leave.
My sequined dress clung to my skin as I sauntered over to his table. "Wanna play?" I purred, beginning the game that could only end in my victory.
The man looked at me with bleary eyes, but as he took in the cognac-hued tightness of my outfit, his face began to clear. He shifted stiffly out of his crouch, shuffling his cue from his right hand to his left. The wedding band on his finger glinted in the dim light and I smirked to myself. Someone was going to be in trouble with his wife when he got home.
"Sure, I'll play," the man grunted, a slow smile creeping across his broad, unshaven mug. "I could probably teach you a thing or two, sweetheart."
I reached behind me and grabbed a cue off the wall. "I'm sure you could, daddy-o. Should I rack them up, or will you?"
He looked uncertain about this, which wasn't surprising. If I racked them up, I got the "upper hand," but if he racked them up, he would be "subordinating himself" to a woman. What he didn't know is that either way, he was going to lose.
Flashing me a slightly lecherous smile, he pointed. "The rack's over there, darling. Let's see what you can do."
I turned away, rolling my eyes at his innuendo-ridden speech. Lately, all the men who haunted the pool tables had been like this. They couldn't accept the fact that a woman was issuing them a challenge, an oddity made worse by the "uniform" that Freddy forced me to wear.
I silently Summoned the balls from their pockets and tucked my wand back into the front of my dress. The man stared at me as I do so, a blatant act of voyeurism that, in my younger days, would have made me blush. But that night, I pushed my annoyance aside and racked the balls, yellow one at the head of the pyramid, black eight dead center, solids and stripes alternating all around. It was the standard racking practice, giving no player an edge over the other.
The man was impressed. "Well, you know your stuff, love, but how well do you play?"
I batted my eyes as I had been trained to do. "You'll have to find out for yourself, won't you?" The flirtation was sickening, but it is a man's world, after all. Let them think that a sexy maiden wouldn't bring them to their knees—figuratively, of course.
But this was only a game of pool, and the man had taken on a swagger that I was sure he didn't have before. "I'll break," he announced, assuming the studied stance of a man who had played pool more times than he can remember.
A light thud as cue connected with plain white ball. A crack as ball collided with pyramid. The dull thunder of an array of colors rolling around the table. Three balls—solid green six, striped orange thirteen, solid purple four—ambled slowly into the pockets, taking their time.
He was pleased, and silently went for a shot at the solid yellow one, missing by a mile. Perhaps he was more inebriated than I had originally thought. At the very least, his failure to spot my trap for what it was indicated that he wasn't of sound mind, anyways.
"My turn," I intoned softly. I crouched low against the table, a parody of myself, and took a shot at nothing in particular. The cue ball went wild, scattering the remaining balls about, but none went in. If the man were more observant, he would have noticed that my elementary shooting technique was due to the fact that I was not right-handed, as evidenced by the waving of my wand. But he wasn't, so my ruse was allowed to continue.
A few more strokes from my cocky companion, and nearly all the solids had been knocked into pockets. The one that remained was the most crucial, and he leered at me as he angles his body in the perfect position to knock it home.
"Top corner pocket," he declared, complying with the ancient rule of the last stroke of pool. "Looks like you should've stayed home, doll." And with that, he slammed the eight ball into the corner pocket.
My look of disappointment was completely fake. "Ohhhh, I thought I almost had you beat!" I cried, feigning disappointment. He approached me, skirting the table with a mincing step for someone with such a wide girth.
Offering me his hand, he chuckled. "Well, you didn't, did you? I used to beat all the lads at pool in my school days. There's not much anyone can do to beat me, that's for sure."
I shook his hand, trying not to think about its steamy dampness or where it might've been before it made contact with mine. "Yes, you certainly got me," I giggled. "But I don't want you to go!"
A look of surprise crossed his face. It must've been a long time since a woman paid him much attention. "You don't?"
"No!" I exclaimed. "I want to play again, but this time, I don't want to play for fun."
"You want to lay a wager on it?" He looked positively befuddled by this. The casino's typical gamblers were male, and it was plain to see that in his mind, the idea of women and betting didn't mix.
"That's exactly what I'm talking about," I said conspiratorially. "I bet you… Five Galleons that I win our next match."
The befuddlement doesn't lift, but as he tapped his beefy chin with one stubby finger, I could see that I had him. That was always the way they came. Hook, line, and sinker.
"That sounds like a fine idea, sweetheart. I could use some more gold," he finally said.
I smiled and gave him a slow wink. "Excellent. You rack, I break."
"Just one more game," the man begged. "I can't go home like this." It had been two hours, and we had played five games, my technique growing better and better every time. For the first three, I let him beat me, offering him a larger wager each time. Like a moth to a flame, he couldn't resist the allure of asserting dominance, taking gold from a woman who seemed to have forgotten her place.
But as he grew more distracted by the thought of money, my right hand stopped hindering my technique. The last two games were quick knock-outs, and the wager just kept growing. Like a spider in her lair, I had my juicy little fly completely trapped at all sides, unable to escape my web.
I sighed dejectedly. "I'm sure that I'm just having a stroke of beginner's luck, but I can feel it ending. I've had such a nice time with you. I tell you what: Let me play one more game with you, and this time, it's double or nothing. If you win, I'll give you double the money that we've wagered so far. If I win, you can give me the amount of the wager, no more or less. Does that sound fair?"
At my talk of beginner's luck running out, the grin returned and he shoved a hand through his grungy hair. "Yeah, that sounds fair," he leered. I could almost hear his thoughts: Yeah, fair for me! Men at the casino loved it when they thought they were getting a good deal from the devil, but what they didn't know is that the devil is in the details.
For instance, the fact that I switched my cue from my right hand to my left as he broke for the last time. No balls fell into the pockets. He was getting tired, but I was only just beginning. Forcing the smile on my face to remain neutral and vapid instead of conniving and vengeful, I aligned myself with the white ball. I took my time, because there was no hurry to win this game.
This was my favorite part of every evening.
Breathing deeply, I focused in on the nondescript ball, the one that was responsible for connecting with all of the others, a medium between me and victory. With a deft backward pull of the stick, I shoved it forward and drove the white ball right into a cluster of balls that his weak break was unable to separate.
They scattered, the striped red eleven immediately rolling into the top right corner pocket and the others—striped blue, solid green, striped purple, solid red, striped orange—rolling about the table in a dizzying dance. The three stripes made contact with other balls, knocking another stripe in before rolling in the opposite direction, each aligning with a pocket.
I didn't bother to suppress my wolfish grin now. This would be an easy clean-up. Aiming for the striped blue ten, I sent the balls flying once again, scoring two more stripes, the nine and the fifteen. Several of the solids had fallen into the pockets, but I ignored them. In pool, knocking your opponent's balls in only caused you to forfeit if you didn't knock in any of yours first. My opponent would certainly not be wielding his cue stick again tonight.
It was time to bring everything to a close, and I quickly glanced at my opponent to notice his shocked reaction before I tapped the cue ball and watch it work its magic. The three remaining stripes—blue, purple, and orange—all toppled gently into the bulging pockets.
"I guess I'm just really lucky tonight," I smirked, taking aim at the last, most important ball. "Right middle pocket!"
I heard the man snort from where he watched, as much out of jealousy as it was out of disbelief. The middle pockets were the most difficult ones to make, and the eight ball was nowhere near either of them. I liked to think of this move as my grateful farewell to my victims, one final blow before they left me with their purses empty. However, the truth was that I was just a showoff.
But a damn good one, at that.
A lithe motion, the tap of cue on ball, the resounding crack! of white ball on black. The gentle thunder as the black ball rolled around the table in angles and lines, finally coming to rest in the right middle pocket.
The look on the man's face was priceless. "But—I—you—we…" he stuttered, unable to even string a coherent sentence together. I flashed him a winning smile. My pool skills often had that effect on men.
"My luck just didn't run out!" I gushed, still playing my part. "But a deal's a deal, and you owe me three hundred and twenty Galleons." For every game we played, the wager was doubled. He was lucky that I took pity on him and was content to accept the current wager as my winnings.
The man sighed, taking out his moneybag. "Bonnie's going to kill me," he groaned, dishing out the Galleons. He'd had a fairly good night at the slots, but his luck had run out. All of his money came back to me, and I work for Freddy Weasley.
I smiled at him as he counted the gold out in tall stacks. "What she doesn't know won't hurt her." I winked one last time for good measure, and his smile made another appearance. This time, though, it wavered. Men had been known to cry when Fair Fortune decided to frown upon them.
With a heavy sigh, he finished counting out the gold and stood up. "You're a natural, love," he admitted with a shake of his head.
"Oh, you're sweet," I giggled, my voice saccharine on my tongue. The sooner that this guy cleared out, the better. It was well past one in the morning, and I was ready to get out of my itchy sequined dress and enter the land of dreams. "Will I see you again?"
"No," he grunted, grabbing his hat from a table. "I'm done with this place, at least until Bonnie says I can come back." Ah, now that he'd lost to a woman, he finally realized who has the true power. I was sure that Bonnie would give him a good hiding when he staggered in during the wee hours of the morning. It was a thought that only sweetened my triumph.
The man exited the room closing the door softly behind him. Music pulsed by the dance floor, reverberating around the casino and rattling the walls of the pool room slightly. I sighed and sat down, slipping my feet out of my five-inch heels. At last, I was alone with the red walls and my hard-earned gold.
"Brava," said a voice from the shadows, shattering my state of blissful relaxation. There was a sound of sarcastic clapping as the hidden observer emerged from the gloom, and my veins filled with ice when I saw his face.
It seemed that the night was not over for me yet.