Non-Compliant or Just How Angry Was He

by Lil Nezumi

Just how angry was he that his life was not his own, that his future had been irrevocably mapped out and that he was being forced into an unloved machination of a marriage. Well he was angry enough to do the ritual, cast the spell and let his body die... See chapter one for more.

13. Chapter 13

CH 13

Yule Vacation - I

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

Sirius waited on the docks along with the parents of other Durmstrang students. They'd been given permission to wait there or else wait in one of the local, permanently docked ship pubs that existed next to the working docks. The pubs had an announcement system that told them how long it would take for the magic school ship to arrive.

(...Durmstrang Institute ship will arrive in five minutes…) A sea-roughened announced in one language. The announcement was repeated in a few Slavic languages throughout the two dockside pubs or inns and the three ships that had been converted into pubs at the same time.

"Five minutes dear," a woman said to the man that had accompanied her. The man nodded and gulped down the remains of his coffee. "I can't wait to see our twins. I wonder how they're doing at that school."

"Right you are," the man replied as he held out his arm for her to wrap her hand around it. "You already know how they're doing and they've made good friends, according the letters we've been receiving."

Sirius grinned at the loving couple and wondered if the twins mentioned were his godson's new friends. He finished his chocolate flavoured coffee, wrapped his cloak securely about his frame and went to join the other parents and guardians awaiting the return of their children.

(…There…) One of the parents shouted and pointed to the only visible part of the underwater ship, the crow's nest with a pointed pennant banner of black and red. Everyone looked in that direction just as the ship surged upwards and then floated on the water like a normal, old fashioned muggle sailing vessel.

The ship was properly docked and tied for stability. Two plank ramps were settled and secured before the Durmstrang students were permitted to leave. This time it was the first years that left the ship first and then the rest of the years followed in order.

It was only logical since the first years were the ones that had been feeling homesick or worried about their families. Most of the little ones raced down the planks and into the arms of their waiting parents or guardians.

Sirius Black was assaulted by a small black headed whirlwind that sighed into the tightening hug with a whisper of, "Missed you Padfoot."

"Harry," Sirius sighed back into the hug. "Glad to see you, kid."

Harry chuckled and surreptitiously wiped his suddenly tear filled eyes. He'd never had someone to welcome him like that before and he knew that he'd treasure every moment with his godfather as much as he could. He looked away and coughed a bit before turning back to his friends' pointed looks seeking an introduction to the man they'd heard so much about.

"Fine then," he said. "Sirius I'd like you to meet my best friends, Magdalla and Tsaran Scalvini and I think that those two adults behind them are their parents." He nodded to the woman and the man that nodded back to him.

Sirius nodded and said, "Hello. I'm Sirius Black, pleased to meet you."

"Really," the woman perked up. "Well I'll be…you're little Silly Black?" The ex-convict blanched at that nickname. He hadn't been called that in years and never at Hogwarts.

"Uh," Sirius noised, rubbed the back of his head and looked at the woman with a confused expression on his face. "I was only called that by a select few of my more distant cousins." He paused and then looked at the woman with a frown and then he asked, "So which one of them are you?"

Mrs. Scalvini chuckled and said, "My name now is Lya Scalvini. I was Lya Burns."

"Lying Lya," Sirius grinned and took another good look at her. "Married life suits you."

"Thank you," she replied wryly. "Prison suited you."

Sirius only took that in stride, waved it off and said playfully, "Oh, you're just saying that."

The two giggled and then laughed when their family members looked confused at the exchange.

"Honey," Mr. Scalvini questioned.

"Dear I'd like to meet Lord Sirius Black," his wife said. "He's a very distant cousin of mine from my father's side of the family. Third cousin once removed if I remember correctly. Sirius this is my husband, Oscar Scalvini."

"Yes," Sirius nodded. "It's all there in the family archives." He pulled his godson forward and said, "I'd like you to meet my godson, Harrison. It's nice to meet all of you!"

The two adults looked at the boy and Harry knew that they'd figured out who he really was. "No," he said sharply. "My name really is Harrison Black."

"But…" Mr. Scalvini looked at the boy's earnest gaze and rapid shake of his head as though requesting to not reveal who he was to anyone and certainly not on these docks with all the Durmstrang families around them. He stopped his wife from protesting too.

"Thank you," Harry said. Then he looked to Sirius and suggested, "Perhaps we can invite them over for an evening party."

Sirius looked to his godson and nodded. He turned back to the Scalvinis and said, "I'll send you an invitation. Is there a day that is convenient for you?"

"Any time before the 24th," Mrs. Scalvini said. "I'm afraid we're booked until Dec. 28th family obligations you understand." The ex-convict nodded and accepted the conditions.

"A casual afternoon thing on the 23rd then," Sirius suggested and received a nod in agreement. "Followed by just a simple dinner and a few games."

"Can we meet up on the 29th in Diagon Alley," Harry suggested to the twins, who'd received a nod from their parents since they knew of the kids' shopping plans. They all shook hands and left the dock area quickly after that in order to head home for the holidays.

They mostly just wanted to get away from the presence of those they considered the darker practitioners of magic. Anyone messing about with the darker aspects of magic came away with a taint to their magical aura and there were some folk that were just sensitive to it.

Harry - James - Potter

"Harry," Remus said as he looked up from his spot by the fire. It had been a full moon the previous night and his limbs were still shaky. The boy launched himself in the man's lap and let himself be hugged and sniffed at for a while letting the wolf take comfort in the presence of one that it considered its cub.

Harry took comfort from the man that had known him the longest in this new timeline. He then chatted about his latest potions experiment and about his friends. "We're going to have an afternoon party here on the 23rd," he said excitedly. "Then we're going to meet up with them in Diagon Alley on the 29th for a shopping expedition."

"Party," Remus looked to Sirius with confused expression.

"Ran into a distant cousin of mine," the man explained. "She was an okay one. Married into the Scalvini Family. Wonder why I wasn't invited to the wedding?"

"Maybe your family wasn't speaking to them," Remus suggested. "Or maybe they were, but never let you know about it?"

"It's possible," Sirius nodded. "I wonder where they're living."

"They're living in a condo in South London," Harry replied after having swallowed a bite of the sour-apple tartlet that Kreacher had brought to him without being asked. "The twins suspected that they didn't get an invitation to Hogwarts because they might have the wrong type of 'family connections'." He finger quoted.

"Well that's just wrong," Remus commented. "They live in the jurisdiction to attend Hogwarts. They should have been able to attend Hogwarts." He looked to his honorary godson and asked, "Did they have difficulties adjusting?"

"A bit at the beginning," Harry agreed. "It was the language more than anything else. They had to be spelled with translation charms for the first two months until they got the hang of it and then they were fine. They still use the spells some of the time, but it's mostly to correct their grammar when writing essays. I do it too sometimes. Helps with our Classical Latin Literature studies."

"Did you have any troubles," Sirius asked.

"Not with the languages no," Harry told them. He correctly interpreted the real question being asked. "There were a few older students that had figured out who I was, but because of the unspoken policy to leave someone alone until you know their strengths and weaknesses, no one's attacked me overtly."

"What about covert attacks," Remus asked with an eyebrow raised.

Harry grinned wickedly and said, "I was given permission to retaliate as long as there was no permanent damage. We could be black and blue and have any number of broken limbs for all the Headmaster cares as long as we're still alive to take classes."

"What about the school nurse, medi-witch or midi-wizard," Remus asked. "Don't they have one there?"

"Oh, there is someone," Harry coughed pointedly. "But you'd only go see her if you're really desperate for treatment. She's…" He paused in confusion on how to describe the transvestite medical nurse that had been hired by the school. The nurse loved the uniform, but it was the semi-short skirted muggle version with furred cuffs and trim that kind of indicated to the students that something was off about that particular 'woman'. Sometimes the uniform was just too tight looking to be real. Almost like it had been corseted in some fashion and too much female flesh was put on display. The nurse though always did a very good job medically and knew how to treat the students' wounds properly if somewhat suggestively.

But rumours were plenty and many of the older male students were leery of entering that medical den for fear of being given physicals in the mundane and muggle way with stethoscope and hands. "…unique to say the least…," Harry continued after a long pause. "The fourth and fifth year students pointed out the medical section in the library and told us to make copies of those books as soon as we learnt a reliable copying spell."

"Really," Remus sat up at that. "The school allows you to do that?"

"They consider it a requirement for the student to have all the books they need for their chosen classes," Harry explained. "First years are given a basic overview of each class offered at the school during the first three months before we go into intensive study in the subjects we want to learn. It's more like a test of our abilities and potential letting us know what we could do if we're aware of our magical strengths."

"But you already know a copy spell," Sirius said. "I mean you've used it on most of the Black Library with great success."

"Yes, well," Harry paused to finish last of his tart licking his fingers like the child he was before wiping them down the front of his robes. "I didn't tell them that. I just copied what I needed for my studies and then checked out other books to copy them whenever I was alone in my dorm room." He grinned. "Couldn't let them know I had a way of obtaining a permanent copy, now could I?"

"Of course not," Remus snorted. "Why don't you go unpack and do a bit of your homework so that you're not rushed, unless you have something else you'd like to do?"

"Just want relax a bit for now," Harry said. "I was planning to do most of my work in the next couple of days any way. Depending on the classes, it wasn't like they could give us too much homework. They do want us to return for the next term."

"No doubt about that," Sirius said. "Off with you then and get settled, we'll see you during tea time."

Harry grinned, left them to discuss the Scalvini situation and probably to relax themselves now that he was back with them. 'Parent types are such worry-worts,' he thought. 'I'm glad they're doing it though. This is way better than anything I had with the Dursleys.'

Harry - James – Potter

December 23

"So have you found anything on the founding Headmistress of Durmstrang," Tsaran asked. "We asked our father and he said that he only knew about rumours, but that we could go to the Ministry Archives during our holiday to see if there was anything official on record."

Maggie looked at Harry and then said, "I know that you found something at school."

"I might have," Harry hedged his response. "It's not conclusive that it was hers, but I found some pages of a diary in a very old Croatian language."

"Where was it," she demanded. "Let me see them."

Harry shrugged and handed the notebook that detailed what he'd found, where it was found, in which book and which library section. "As you can see," he said. "I'm not quite sure if this was planted by the older students or just…I don't know, magically dispersed at the time of her death. It's not even relevant to the happenings during her tenure there."

"You're right," Maggie replied. "It's more to do with her home life before she became Headmistress."

"Well don't leave me hanging, what's it say," Tsaran urged his twin to speak up.

"She's upset that she'd been contracted to marry an older man," his sister told him. "The man in question was Harfang Munter."

"See what I mean by being suspicious," Harry said. "Sounds like something you'd see in a gossip rag or some clichéd star-crossed lover, romance story."

"So we'll have to test this against an exemplar of her writing," Maggie suggested. "Maybe her writing style if there's still one available?"

Harry nodded and said, "I've thought of that, but the question is where to get it and if this really was part of her 'personal' teenage diary, wouldn't her handwriting have changed over time."

"Probably," Tsaran surmised. "We'd still have to date the parchment or at least the dialogue or expressions."

"I've thought of that too, but I don't know where to begin looking for that kind of information," Harry told them. "Here," he handed them copies of his notebook. "I made you a copy. If you find anything just mark it down in the book and the book will copy it into all three."

"Excellent," Tsaran said. "It makes sense since we'd still be able to look around our school for that kind of information the next few years."

"I'll look around Hogwarts to see if they had anything related to the history of other schools," Harry told them with a nod.

"So you're really thinking of going to Hogwarts for your second year," Maggie asked.

"I'm seriously thinking about it," Harry nodded. "It will depend on what kind of courses they'll offer or what kind of support they'll allow me to have in order to continue my studies from Durmstrang."

"I don't like it," Maggie said and her brother nodded in agreement. "I just don't see why it's important for you to go there."

"It's an image thing," Harry waved it off. "You don't want to know.

"Who's image," Tsaran asked.

Harry sighed and hadn't wanted to lose his two best friends with what he was about to tell them. "Look, you all know that some of the students…um…were more…um… of the pranks than with the actual mentoring right?"

"They were harsh," Maggie said. "I don't see why you didn't report it to the Headmaster or another Professor."

"It's because I understood why they were being mean," Harry said. "My name is Harrison Black, you know that because it's a magically legal name tied to me and my magic." They nodded, but held onto their curiosity as it looked like he was about to say something important. "I am also known as Harry James Potter."

"Harry Potter," Tsaran gasped in shock.

"The Boy-Who-Lived," Maggie replied in an equally shocked tone of voice.

Harry's eyes narrowed at the two of them. He crossed his arms and waited while staring at them. "Your acting has improved," he told them. "But there's still something about it that gives the both of you away." He sighed and asked, "How and when did you two figure it out?"

"It was after the third time you were targeted," Maggie explained. "I overheard someone mumbling about how Harry Potter was going to pay for what he'd done to his father. Like a baby could have done anything. That person's father was put in prison for something completely unrelated to the Dark Idiot and his faceless sycophants."

"Maggie told me about it, but I'd already seen your scar," Tsaran said. "You try to hide it, but sometimes we can just see it. We didn't tell anyone about it or you though, figured you'd do that whenever you wanted."

"Thanks guys," Harry said in relief that his trust in these two was well placed. 'There's always something about twins that I guess I'll naturally trust. That must come from my time with the Weasleys terrible twosome.'

"You're our friend," Maggie said with a partial snort. "You helped us and we've helped you. That's just what friends do. Besides you never lied to us since we know that you cannot sign a false name, so we already knew that you are both Harrison Black and Harry Potter. Right smart of you to get an alias name down and legal like. Was probably best to get it down as soon as possible in order to have something to protect your true identity."

"Thanks guys," Harry rubbed the back of his neck. "So what do you think about this diary piece. Should we trust it?"

"We'll keep it to see if we can track down a few others," Maggie suggested. "I'll admit it was thrilling to hear the story about Durmstrang's founder's missing diary when the fourth year students told us about it. But for these pages to have not turned up before now is just too much like a tall tale to keep us 'firsties' from snooping too much around the school."

"I agree," Tsaran said. "You finding this," he shook his head. "It seems just too coincidental to me. Besides you're the one with the constant monitoring charms around him to prevent people from sneaking up on you." He paused and then said, "Don't you think someone might have set this up?"

"It's possible," Harry agreed. "But I'm going to keep making notes about what I find and see if it is her handwriting or else someone's really good forgery. It'll be interesting to find out the truth, maybe even read or find the whole story."

The twins nodded and then they discussed their holidays so far, including the fact that their parents had received an invitation too, to go to the Malfoys for their traditional Yule Ball on the twenty-sixth. They were invited to bring their children too.

"Are you two going," Harry asked.

"We kind of have to," Tsaran grumped. "Gotta show that we're still family," he raised his voice as though to imitate his mother.

"Yes and not allow others to think that we're cowards or simpletons," Maggie added. "We need to show them that we're not going to be influenced by the who's who of our world and we'll continue to remain as neutral as possible. That's our father talking. He didn't choose sides before and he claims that he's still not going to choose sides now that the Unlightened Ruler of the Ambiguously Cloaked Ones has been terminated."

"That's kinda great," Harry replied with a grin. "We're going to be there too."

"Who is," Maggie said.

"Me, Remus and Sirius," Harry said. "Me and Sirius each received the invitation that included a "plus one" and Remus is going as our plus one. We're taking him shopping for dress robes tomorrow which he doesn't know about." He paused with a slight frown and said, "I think we're all going to be getting dress robes. Sirius said something about an appointment at some tailor's shop." He shrugged and then looked at his friends.

Maggie got excited and so did her brother. "Good," she said. "At least we'll know someone there and we won't have to hang out with the Goyles or Crabbes again."

"Yeah, but we'll still have to dance," Tsaran scrunched his nose at the thought.

"Dance?" Harry repeated with a gulp. The last time he had to attend any kind of formal dance was at the mandatory Yule Ball that Hogwarts had given during the Triwizard Tournament during his fourth year. "I can't dance!"

"Sure you can," Maggie said.

Tsaran gained a wicked grin and said, "You fly gracefully in the air, but on land what are you, a duck?"

"Yes actually," Harry nodded emphatically and in good, but terrified humour. "I really can't dance. All that grace in the air is not included with the pair of feet I was born with. I can't even use the floo decently and I've tried repeatedly. I think it's one of those things that either you can or can't do."

"Ha, ha, ha" Tsaran laughed. "I'll get all the girls."

Harry huffed and said, "You can have them." The twins looked at him with a question in their eyes. "Just think about how they'll act when they find out that I'm Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Live, hurgh." He stuck a finger down his throat to do an exaggerated, mock spew pantomime. "They're only going to hang about to see if they can get their hooks in me or some such stupid thing like trying to claim that I've become their boyfriend or some other foolishness if I pay any bit of attention to them."

"So just go, dance with them when they ask and then step on their toes or ignore them," Maggie said. "It's not like they'll think we can dance either. We're just going there to show up as the poor relations or something like that, being linked to the Malfoy Family through the Lady of the House."

"Besides girls are not permitted to ask boys to dance," Tsaran told him. "If they do then they become socially branded as being too forward or promiscuous."

"That's odd considering our age," Harry told them. "I mean in the Muggle World the ladies have fought and basically won equality rights for many things including the right to ask a man to marry them if that is what they want."

"Oh, we know that," Maggie said. "But we need to keep track of who's who in our magical world or else there's too many close cousins marrying in order to try to keep the magic within our world and in the family."

Harry just shook his head and hoped that his small towns and communities will open up a world of change to include the muggleborns that much sooner. "What about the muggleborns," he asked them. "Shouldn't they figure into part of the solution?"

"That will depend on the upper echelons of our society to consider them as a necessity and to educate them that much sooner," Maggie observed with a shrug.

"I heard that Hagen Junction will be opening up a day school for the children of their village," Tsaran told them. "I also heard that there will be something opening in Diagon Alley to allow those students living in and around London a chance to enter our world and society long before they're 'tainted' by the Muggle World views. Hopefully they'll learn that we have different cultural needs."

"At the very least they won't be taken by surprise when they receive a letter for alternate schooling," Harry told them. "Can you imagine living your entire life without being surrounded or comforted by ambient magic only to be thrust into a magical world and told to just trust it? A world that basically rips the child away from its parents and anything remotely familiar…"

"I guess that the adjustment may be harder to someone not exposed to magic," Maggie supposed. "I guess the students at Durmstrang are luckier. I mean the three muggleborns that entered the school with us already knew something about the magical world. Must have been something that their government ensured to make certain that they fit in properly."

Tsaran and Harry nodded.

Maggie pulled out a deck of cards and said, "Disguise Poker for muggle beans?"

The boys nodded, grinned and pulled out a sectioned and sealed glass box of muggle jelly beans.

Harry had shared his favourites with them and they'd discovered that they quite liked them, but had also liked using the more adventurous versions Bertie Bott's bean line. There was just no way to sort them, although they had a system and the Boy-Who-Lived was determined to invent a potion or something in his lab to discover how to find the 'good ones' or at the least alter the bad ones to something edible. The thought of bogey, vomit or earwax flavours just turned his stomach something awful every time he sorted through the pale caramel or cream coloured ones. Even then he knew that the flavours could turn out to not match the colour of the bean.

It was truly challenging for him to appreciate the funny little things.

They then played the muggle game of Poker in order to perfect their acting skills. It was a way for them to sort of play dress-up or use disguises and imitate the adults of their world while trying to maintain strict poker faces and stay in character.

They were in Harry's informal parlour at Grimmauld Place. He had two, a serious one for studying and corresponding with his Gringotts' team. Then he had an informal one where he usually kept his toys and some old robes and costumes to play dress-up.

He sometimes liked to dress up in the style of the history period he was learning about and it allowed Sirius and Remus to get in on the action too. They would play out battles and such while the less stuffy of the Black family portraits would wander into the room, correct them in their assumptions or point out their errors in etiquette or even their faulty information about the everyday life of a witch or wizard of those particular times. It helped that the Black Family had been a political one too since they also pointed out where, when and why some laws had been changed when they were.

They had nothing new to say about the past hundred years, but those that had gone to Hogwarts versus those that had gotten their education elsewhere had been instrumental in providing a timeline for the loss of certain lessons once offered at Hogwarts. Something that Sirius tracked in order to bring that information to the next Board of Governors meeting in January.

This time though the portraits watched with concealed amusement as the three children choose costumes from different periods just because dressing up in oversized clothing had been part of their childhood too. The character acting also looked like fun.

Maggie had found a wide-brimmed bonnet with wispy feathers, a long dress, white gloves and a very long string of pearls that she wrapped a few times in loops. She had a fancy, colourful pouch clutch with lots of dangly bits where some were missing. She finished it with a pair of white horn rim glasses, without the glass, that had lost a few of its corner rhinestones. Sticking her nose in the air to be snooty and upper class.

Harry dressed up in an old fashioned driver or chauffer costume. He had on a cap with large goggles that flopped and fell to his neck, a weather proof coat with six parallel buttons, a couple were missing. He'd enlarged them because it reminded him of something he'd seen in a comic book. Steam Punk style, he explained to his friends. He put on leather gloves and a pair of long boots that needed to be folded at his knees or he wouldn't be able to bend them. His character was that of a commoner or working class, complete with a heavy accent.

Tsaran had chosen a very old Shakespearean style of balloon pants with heeled shoes and a white wig that he'd used a sanitizing spell on. He put on the large, faded and torn lace collar. The balloon sleeved coat and a tarnished leather belt at his waist to hold it all together. He liked the idea of being absentminded, but scholarly.

They had tea in place at their elbows and soon began to play a seriously fun game of 'Which Twitch is Which, Poker'. It was a game that they'd basically made up and at school they chose to transfigure their everyday clothes instead of dressing up.

The game was meant to force them to develop poker tells and they had to keep them up until each person had two that were so obviously faked versus the ones that looked natural to the disguise that it could fool nearly anyone. They all won and lost some beans, but they did manage to get a few that they coveted from Harry's collection.

The glass storage cases had been part of his new food preservation system that he'd had the goblins find competent researchers, spell casters and some innovative ideas from goblins at the glass smithing company which had helped them create the ball pen ink reservoirs. These cases were made somewhat similarly to the muggle versions of their plastic lunch containers in various shapes, colours and sizes. This version though had to be made magic friendly with all the same advantages that the Muggle World had with their lightweight ones in their numerous styles, colours or varieties of shapes and sizes.

Harry had suggested something simple and similar to sort out the small items in his vaults. Something that would allow the house-elves to sort them in clear containers first by generalized means, that way they could see all red or yellow jewelry were placed with similar items. The cases had helped immensely and then the young boy had commissioned one for his muggle candies which he'd wanted to have on hand and have them preserved even if he had to remove the items from their initial plastic wrapping.

That's how the company that took the credit for the ball pens were able to take the credit for the lunch box containers and the new sorting containers that were currently in the magical market for a trial run. They were made of mixed metal, wood and glass as well as several well placed charms mixed with runes for durability and preservation of freshness for food items.

They were not that well received, but they remained on the market in limited amounts as it was something that he'd wanted out there for the muggleborns seeking an alternative to their continuously disintegrating plastic. He had a feeling that it would eventually catch on or that someone would eventually wise up and realize that the muggles or squibs coming into their world would need something of this nature because they couldn't use internal magic like the rest of the population. They needed items that were magical by themselves and were usable rather than fighting to learn spells they were not equipped to learn.

Harry had given one to each of the twins on their birthday of October 31st, a date which tickled his weird sense of funny bone. They showed him the Samhain ceremony after they'd shared a small birthday cake that Harry had made. They opened the two presents they'd received from him. The second gift had been magical copies of the three muggle reference books that they constantly borrowed from him for their herbology class and their 'Experimental Potions Club for Simple Potions'.

The club name came to be one that identified its purpose as there were different levels and clubs for experimental potions including: 'Experimenting with Complicated Potions Club', 'Mid-Level Potions Practice', 'Herbal Potion Remedies for Self-Administration' and finally 'Extreme Potions Experimentation and Research' which Harry was a part of since that one had a tenured Professor and Potions Journeyman at the school to supervise the club.

The books were very much appreciated and so were the containers since they'd watched him organize his beans by colour often. They'd wanted something similar too. It helped to sort out the best ones to use as poker chips and which ones to…ahem…redistribute to any classmates that had vexed them on any given day.

"Remember Grady," Maggie giggled. "That one was the best planted bean ever."

The boys giggled and acknowledged that a suspect looking light brown bean which had been thrown into a fellow student's stew had garnered the best reaction. Suspect beans were only that, suspect until eaten. They all knew that they could potentially throw away a good one. But when any older student or dark magic affiliated student picked on them and were suddenly throwing up because they'd tasted something that conflicted greatly with the meal they'd been eating…well that became a fond memory of justified pranking and would be a sight that they would always remember.

"I smell a prank well done," Sirius remarked as he leaned in the doorway and observed the semi-serious card game that his godson had been playing with his friends.

"It was," Harry nodded in confirmation. "Did you want to join us?"

Sirius shook his head and said to the twins, "No, the night is over. Time for all little pranksters to pack up and head home. Your folks are waiting in the floo room."

"Right then," Maggie said as she collected the pot.

"Stop," Tsaran said. "Show your hand first you cheatin' witch."

Maggie grinned and showed a triple with the trump in the community or river (Texas hold 'em version with a twist, wildcards) (…i…). "Four of a kind," she said. "Neither of you could win with the trump there."

Tsaran showed that he only had three of a kind, but Harry shook his head and laid out his cards. "Straight flush," he said with a row of all clubs showing from five to nine, not including the river cards. "I win."

"Blast," Maggie said and threw down her cards. "I'll win the next time." The children returned their dress-up clothing to the wardrobe in the room, said their goodbyes and promised to hang out with one another at the Malfoy's party.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

TBC...

(…i...) Card rank - www dot texasholdem-poker dot com/ handrank (change the word dot and remove the spaces to access.)