"Yeah, we can talk to dragons," Harry says, hunched over in front of the oven to check on the pastries.

The three boys look up from the sprawl of books and papers across the dining table, Tom and Gellert having been casually chatting about what language they were going to force Credence to learn first while planning for a particularly large economic endeavour.

Credence stays quiet like he usually does and will inevitably be dragged along into the adventures, more as a backup threat than an actual partner but everyone seems fine with the arrangement, so Harry hasn't stepped in yet.

Except for a few reminders that Credence doesn't actually have to be a person to be treated with respect.

"What was that about dragons?" Tom says, needing clarification.

Harry straightens up and blinks. "We can talk to all reptiles, technically, but it's like different dialects - sounds mean different things and the grammar is sometimes a bit off. Only snakes will listen to you as well - the others tend to ignore you."

"We should go visit Nogard," Gellert declares, wanting to test this.

Tom laces his fingers together in front of his mouth with elbows propped on the table. "So we could, theoretically, have an army of dragons-"

"Let's not," Harry interrupts, reaching for the oven mitts. "Dragons and I do not go well together."

Gellert raises an eyebrow. "Well considering you're still alive, I'd say you get along just fine."

Harry raises an eyebrow back. "You're surprisingly optimistic that it wasn't sheer dumb luck."

For once, Gellert is speechless.

"Who's Nogard?" Credence asks quietly, barely louder than a whisper.

"Spell it backwards," Tom grumbles.

Credence takes a moment and then his eyes widen. He looks at Harry, a trembling, tiny smile that looks a bit wary still. "I – I think that's a fun name."

Gellert looks up at the heavens. "Please no, there's two of them."

Harry is feeling pretty damn smug, putting one mitten-clad hand on his hip, the other braced against the counter, striking a pose. "Thank you, Credence, at least someone in this family enjoys my witty repartee."

"You're using that phrase wrong," Tom deadpans.

Credence stared at a tarot deck for too long when they went shopping in a muggle bookstore so Harry bought it for him.

Credence doesn't really seem to be interested in reading the future but is instead entranced with the images on the cards – carefully printed in gorgeous colours, incredibly well done. Harry makes a mental note to buy Credence drawing supplies later.

Gellert is off plotting something upstairs, so Tom is showing Credence how to shuffle cards as a distraction (and how to false shuffle or hide a card up his sleeves too) and demonstrates a reading by placing three cards face down on the table in front of Harry who's sitting across.

"This is a simple reading," Tom is explaining to Credence. "The first card is Harry's past." Tom flips it and it's the right-side up death card.

"Understandable," Harry muses, the black bunny of Death on the table nodding along proudly.

"The second card is the present," Tom says and flips over another death card.

There's a long pause because a tarot deck has no repeating cards.

Tom flips the last card and it's also death. Tom collects all the cards, shuffles quickly by splitting the deck and doing a waterfall then skims through all the cards. There's only one death card, everything else is as it should be.

Tom pulls out three more cards for Harry, flips them, it's all death. "I thought these were muggle?"

Harry purses his lips. "Considering we got them from an identical stack at the front of the bookstore for a couple pence, I'm pretty sure they are."

"Did they turn magical?" Credence asks, still not too certain how this magic thing works.

"That's not quite how it goes but let's check." Tom riffles through the deck again and scans through it all, checking for magic, even pulls out the holly wand to make sure with some diagnostic spells. Perfectly muggle. Tom picks up the three of swords and narrows his eyes at it.

He hands over the three of swords and Harry takes it with a frown. Harry starts looking at it from all sides. "It seems fine." The card does a full flip in his hands and it's now the death card. "Are you kidding me?" he complains and turns to his pet Death.

"I am genuinely not doing that," Death admits and the round bunny sitting on the table sounds very amused.

"These are muggle cards, someone has to be doing it," Tom says in annoyance.

Harry snatches the entire deck and spreads them out on the table. Every single one is now the death card and they all have Harry's face. Harry grumpily gathers them up and slaps the deck on the table in front of Tom. "Divination is trash anyway."

"Seems pretty accurate to me," Death muses.

Credence hesitantly leans over to Tom. "Can I have a Harry card?"

"The whole deck is yours," Tom reminds him.

"Oh, right. So I get to keep all the Harry cards?"

Harry misses this adorable moment because he's too busy staring incredulously at the deck of cards that is now bleeding all over the table. "No seriously, are we certain these are muggle?"

Two days later, Harry is sitting at the window seat in the library room of their house next to Credence, reading a nice story together where Harry does different voices for the characters.

"Um," Credence begins, staring out of the window.

Harry looks over as well. "Where did that dragon come from?" he muses. "And why is it so familiar?"

Gellert looks over. "Oh, you recognise it? Did we steal the same one as you?"

Harry turns to look at the blond.

"Tom and I were visiting our Gringotts vaults," Gellert begins, putting the book on his lap, hands coming up to better outline the situation with gestures.

Harry holds up a hand to stop him. "Okay, you don't need to say more than that. I understand what happened, I'm just not sure why you two did it."

"I remembered you spoke about stealing a dragon from the bank before," Gellert points out with a shrug. "And then Tom strong-armed me into it after hearing we could talk to it."

"You both enjoyed it," Harry corrects because he knows at least that much.

"My enjoyment levels are negligible compared to the selfless concern and empathetic horror I felt when I became fully cognisant of just how awfully these dragons were being mistreated."

Harry raises an eyebrow.

"So anyway, Tom is trying to communicate and it seems to be going well."

The dragon is lying on its belly, forelegs propping itself up, staring down at something in front of it that's too far away for Harry to see clearly. The dragon looks lazy and half asleep but nods along occasionally. Mooney is pawing at the end of the dragon's massive tail, and it makes the wendigo look small – which is quite concerning.

"You are not riding that thing into battle," Harry orders. "No burning anything down, and you are feeding Dnoces Nogard yourselves because that is now your responsibility-"

"Harry, we are not calling it Second Dragon."

"Well you should have thought of that before you brought it home."

.

A/N: I don't know who the chapter title is referencing but I do like the thought of Tom being a card shark. You know he'd clean out a casino.