Archery Competition:
Target 2: Casino!AU
Slytherin bow: 2 extra points will be given to you if write about somebody cunning and manipulative.
Gryffindor Arrows: 1 point bonus if a Gryffindor student is the main character of your story. (Must be a canon Gryffindor.)
At box seven a broad-shouldered man leaned heavily and lazily over the table. His girlfriend lingered beside him in a modest pink dress. "I just don't understand why you don't do something worthwhile with your money," Pink was saying. "Charity, that sort of thing, instead of throwing it away like this."
"I'm not throwing it away, Sugarplum," explained Shoulders, giving Pink a fond, infantilizing smile.
"Cormac, my name isn't 'Sugarplum.'"
"She's my good-luck charm," said Shoulders to Lee, flashing him a grin.
"Mmh," said Lee.
Pink tucked a brown curl behind her ear, fighting a frustrated twitch of the mouth.
A red-headed man and a woman in cornrows approached together but took separate boxes, rounding out the table. "All set then?" Lee asked. Met with determined nods, he spread his hands out on the table under his shoulders, affecting an authoritative stance. "Alright. Place your bets."
Cornrows hesitated, her fingers brushing tentatively over her chips. "I don't know," she said quietly to Ginger.
"I've just seen you win on the roulette three times in a row," he said encouragingly. "There's something lucky about you tonight, and if I were you I'd take advantage."
So that had been the whooping going on over there. Lee eyed Cornrows. She didn't look like the type to rig anything, but he was the first one to admit he had a bit of a bias toward pretty women. He narrowed his eyes as she slid forward a small bet.
Ginger also bet modestly, but Shoulders piled up the chips, oblivious to Pink flinching behind him. "Streaks have to end sometime," he told the table sagely as Lee shuffled. "See, me, it's my time to win."
"Gambler's fallacy," said Pink. Lee handed the cards to his right to be cut, watching covertly.
"What was that, Sugarplum?"
"Just because you haven't won doesn't mean the odds of winning are any higher—Oh, never mind." She bristled under Ginger's amused gaze. "It's common knowledge!"
Shoulders paid no attention to Pink, but noticed Ginger. "You eyeing up my girl, mate?"
Ginger glanced at Cornrows and Lee, now laying out cards down the table, like he was wondering whether someone was playing a joke on him. "'Course not, mate."
Grumbling, Shoulders retreated to consider his hand. There was silence at the table as everyone added up their cards and decided what to do. Ginger stretched contemplatively, resting his elbow on the table next to Shoulders and sliding his hand along the rim towards Cornrows, who raised her eyebrows.
Lee moved along the table dealing out hits. Ginger and Cornrows chatted quietly until he arrived at her box. She paused when he pointed to her cards: eight of spades and four of clubs. Ginger tapped his finger nervously on the table several times.
"Oh, hit," mumbled Cornrows.
In front of her he lay down the nine of hearts. It took everyone a moment to realize that she'd won, and then Cornrows gasped. Ginger hugged her gleefully. Lee watched them pensively. It just didn't seem likely. He made a note to watch her the next round if she stayed on.
Ginger stood with his nineteen, and Lee moved onto Shoulders, who had the jack of hearts and ten of clubs.
"I'd say you keep it," Pink advised. "There's a chance—"
Lee subtly glanced down at the top card of the deck, and in his unprofessional judgmental mind he was disappointed to see the ace of diamonds that would put Shoulders at twenty-one. Carefully, he arranged his face into a blank expression and waited for direction.
"I say go ahead," said Ginger, striking the table twice for emphasis.
"Now, really, Cormac, the odds…"
"I'll take a hit," said Shoulders confidently.
Reluctantly, Lee turned over the ace and set it at the top of box seven. But he had to blink several times. The card in front of him wasn't the ace of diamonds that he had seen, but a two of clubs. Twenty-two. Pink huffed softly.
Shoulders looked like he might throw something, but it was Ginger's expression that interested Lee more. It was satisfied, almost smug.
The idea struck him as odd. Presumably, someone would fix the game in their own favor, and Ginger had lost his money. But all the tapping and leaning, his girl getting exactly twenty-one, the card he'd been sure was an ace becoming one that was just enough to destroy Shoulder's hand…
He paid out the winnings, and by the time he looked up Ginger had disappeared.
"—Erm—" Lee briefly fought the temptation. "I'll be back in a moment."
He scanned the floor for red hair, and finding none, slipped out the back. Someone shifty might be more likely to get out where no one would see. Lee looked around, waving briefly at a smoking colleague wearing headphones, and saw a bright flash of hair disappear down an alleyway. Stealthily, he followed, keeping Ginger in his sights, ducking behind a dumpster when the man stopped.
What he saw then made his jaw drop.
A second Ginger appeared, coming into view slowly headfirst, like he'd been blending in with the concrete and the night. Lee stared from behind the dumpster as the two embraced. "You got it perfect!" exclaimed Ginger – the one in the suit, the one he'd followed. "I'm proud to call you my brother, Georgie-boy."
"Roulette was so much easier," said the other. "You know I'm not as good at Transfiguration."
"Well there's no way I would've known."
"Say, I've got a question, Fred," he said. "When did 'deserving' just become 'girls you fancy?'"
"Hey," Ginger insisted, "Angelina was deserving. Her mum's ill. That's not to say she isn't fit, of course—"
"But really, anyone but that big bloke," said his brother. "I could hear him all the way from the wall."
Lee had heard enough. He stepped out into the open of the alley and called, "Oi!"
The brother ginger groaned. "What did you do, Fred?"
"If you've been interfering somehow with the cards," said Lee even louder, "I've got to—"
They weren't paying attention to him. "I didn't do anything," Ginger said, "I swear—"
Brother raised some sort of stick and pointed it straight at Lee's face.
"What're you doing—?"
"Obliviate," he said. "Sorry, mate."