I do not own Harry Potter, the Wizarding World, or any canon characters.

Extended Family

Chapter 167 – The Spellball Incident

Takes place before chapter 121 (the one with the bunnies baking pies and things ending with Hedwig being determined a legal adult).

Potter Village, or the Barony de Potter, was a very pleasant place to live in. It was beautiful in a pastoral sense, plenty of open grounds and trees and a vibrant creek around the whole village. Everyone who lived there was close, with a few closer than others but not in a bad way, and there were plenty of occasion to spend time together but people also respected each other's privacy when desired.

The families and people who lived there ate together multiple times a week whenever they wished too, with Harry cooking happily the vast majority of the time. Everyone was fine with sharing their skills and expertise when asked. It was a wonderfully lovely place to be.

Another reason why was how they typically approached the rare disagreements they had. Usually there would be a person with more knowledge of what the disagreement was about and could provide counsel and advice. Harry, once more, was also a willing mediator and arbiter in the very rare times it was necessary. When things had come to a head and only a very specific outlet was needed, there was the Quidditch pitch for the flyers and Quidditch players to vent stress at.

The other outlet was spellball.

Harry still possessed the original spellball that McGonagall confiscated from Flitwick all those years ago. In the years since, Fred and George perfected a version and sold it as a Weasley Wizarding Wheeze product and it was always in high demand. They also made sure the newer versions with different modifications were available to the village, though the majority of the time, they used the original one.

Amusingly, much to the twins' delight and the chagrin of Andromeda and Samantha, St Mungo's hospital did in fact open a small wing that was dedicated to treatment caused by the spellball game and it was called the "Ward for those who can't dodge".

Typically, any disagreements that were unable to be completely smoothed out verbally could be ironed out with an exuberant spellball game. The disagreement would be forgotten as both players got their frustrations out with the game and things would return to the normal of pleasant contentment.

Typically.

As most things started, it did with a somewhat innocent question.

Hermione looked up from her couch. "Come in," she called out. She smiled as Dahlia scampered in and practically jumped on her. "Hi Dally!" Hermione grunted, losing her breath a little when the little girl landed on her.

"Hi Auntie Hermione!" Dahlia yelled, hugging Hermione and snuggling close.

"Hi Hermione," Harry smiled, following his daughter.

"Hi Harry! What's up?" Hermione smiled back.

"We have a legal question for you," Harry said with a sigh, one that she recognized.

"Oh? What is it?" she asked, smiling already.

"Does Hedwig count as a legal adult?"

Hermione blinked owlishly. "In terms of what?"

"In terms of needing a legal adult for supervision purposes," Harry sighed wearily.

"I honestly have no idea," Hermione said. She sat up, holding onto Dahlia as she did. "What brought this about?"

"Remember the Stone Soup thing? When I said they needed an adult to watch them for some things? Well today Dahlia asked me if Hedwig counts as an adult. To which I said she is an adult, as in a fully grown and mature snowy owl, but I don't know if she's a legal adult. Then she asked what counted as a legal adult and well, I have no idea so we came to you. I was going to call Uncle Ted later too."

Hermione got up from the couch and walked to her library, holding Dahlia's hand. Harry followed, carrying Crookshanks who had climbed up Harry when he arrived. "Let's see. A legal adult is someone in their majority, which is 18 in Muggle Britain and 17 in Wizarding Britain. As a legally recognized adult, they can then make decisions as long as they are in sound state, and that's a bit of a nebulous requirement."

She pulled a few books off her legal bookcase and paged through them. "For us magicals, it's roughly the same, again from a 17-year-old. Now if there is just cause to think that the individual is incapable of making said decisions without help, then that's a different story."

"How old is Hedwig?" Dahlia asked.

"I don't know honestly. She tells me something different every time I ask," Harry said seriously.

"But owl years aren't the same as people years," Dahlia protested. "Like Bailey years are different from people years. And Crookshanks years."

"You're not wrong," Hermione said, reading one of her books and frowning a little in concentration.

"What are you looking up?" Harry asked, petting Crookshanks as he purred.

"Magical animal guardians aren't actually an unknown thing. That has happened in history several times, so there is precedent. I'm just looking up the most recent legally recognized magical guardians and how old they were in both literal years and relative years to species. A fair amount of them were dragons, there's actually one that was responsible for an orphanage and the children under her care for some years."

Hermione put the book back and opened another. "Also many have willed assets and material goods to pets such as kneazles and crups and other magical animal companions, which you don't necessarily have to be a legal adult to inherent or accept, but it's part of seeing what the law recognizes as legal adults." She looked at Harry. "I mean, if we can determine if her age in owl years is above what the relative definition of adult is, then she could be. It'd be better if she took tests for competency though, if we wanted to make it legally official."

"Hedwig doesn't believe in tests," Harry said.

"Like at all?" Hermione asked. "As in literally? But they're everywhere. She helped on O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s."

"No, not like in their existence, but she doesn't believe in them in principle," Harry explained. "At least in regards to her. She thinks they aren't a good way to determine what she knows and doesn't know."

"But…that's…that's the point of a test! To test someone's knowledge!" Hermione said, sounding offended.

"Hedwig thinks tests are silly," Dahlia giggled.

Hermione shook her head. "Well, that's the rule of it."

Harry sighed when Dahlia looked up at him and gave Hermione a pleading look.

"I suppose we can have her take an aptitude test as a gauge?" Hermione suggested.

"This is going to go well," Harry sighed.

-0-

"What are we doing?" Katie asked, looking at the strange sight before her.

Hedwig was standing on the table and scribbling on parchment with a quill in her right talons, balancing perfectly on her left leg and wings slightly outstretched. Hermione was keeping time with her watch and others sat around watching with varying levels of amusement.

"Believe it or not, part of the tests to determine if Hedwig is a legal adult for supervision purposes," Harry said wearily.

"Hedwig is a legal adult," Luna sniffed. "Snowy owls can live up to 35 years and while Hedwig didn't tell us her exact age, which is her right, it is still above the relative age needed to be considered a mature adult snowy owl."

"I'm not disagreeing with that," Harry protested when Luna poked him repeatedly.

"Then what's with the test?" Katie asked, smiling.

"Hermione wanted to do it for legal reasons, Hedwig initially refused. The bunnies begged her to take the first part to prove that she could take a test if she wanted to, and she agreed to do that much." Harry rolled his eyes and then gave Luna a flat look as she continued to poke him irritably.

"Okay, that's time," Hermione said. She raised an eyebrow as Hedwig had been sitting for the last few minutes, having finished and was giving her a flat look. "Let's take a look." She pulled the test papers and looked at them. "Your quill writing is very good. Better than Harry's actually."

"You just remember what it looked like when I started school," Harry huffed, much to other people's amusement. "My handwriting is decent!"

"Full marks on the arithmetic portion," Hermione said, checking Hedwig's math. "You normally would show your work but I'll take the answers as is. You lose a few points by not showing work though, actually. Got all of the reading comprehension questions right." She frowned as she flipped the page. "No, I don't accept a picture of you in a crown as an answer to who the monarch is."

"We do," the bunnies trilled and Hedwig cheeped lovingly at them.

"She's not wrong," Harry grinned.

"Hey! This is just rude!" Hermione gasped, looking at the last part of the test. She glared at Hedwig who glared back just as mightily.

"Nice picture of a donkey," Luna said, looking at it. "And I think she wrote your name out very prettily, Hermione."

"Well in that case, then you have no problems taking the competency tests," Hermione said scathingly, glowering when Hedwig mooned her irritably.

"Just accept that she is a legal adult and that the tests, while legally required, does not fully ascertain her abilities," Luna said crossly. "We both know there are plenty of people who would do very well on those so-called tests and be terrible supervisors and adults. Why does she have to do all this? I can read too and dragons do not have to do the tests!"

"Because there are plenty of occurrences of a dragon guardian," Hermione argued back. "There's even a subsection of dragon species that are exempt from the tests because they are well-known to be intelligent enough!"

"Oh please, we all know that there are outliers to that! I wouldn't expect all dragons of those species to be qualified!"

"I love Hermione and Luna arguments," Alicia said eagerly. "They're the best."

"Very much so," Daphne agreed.

"And we know there are probably outliers among snowy owls and I personally haven't met one as talented as Hedwig," Hermione returned.

"Have you met many?" Luna asked snidely.

"No, and that isn't the point," Hermione retorted. "In fact, that further proves my point about specificity versus blanket statements!"

"But that is why we are accepting Hedwig, as a singular individual, as a special case!"

"Luna, I know you typically like to think outside the constraints of rules and the like, but legally, we have to abide by certain things and not everything can be explained via myth and conjecture!"

Luna stood up. "Is that right?"

"That is!" Hermione said, standing up too. They glared at each other for a long moment before they both said "spellball" at the same time.

"Is that necessary?" Harry asked, holding his hands up in a placating gesture.

"It is!" the women said together.

"I'll go get it!" Katie said and dashed for their home to get the spellball. She came back out, holding the large glass sphere in her hands while the others marked off the dueling space. The girls sat at carefully measured space away from the dueling space, shouting at their aunties to be careful while the adults started a string of bets.

"I hope you're proud of yourself," Angelina said with disapproval.

Hedwig narrowed an eye at her while tilting her head in a very clear "how is this my fault" sort of nonverbal communication.

"Are you ready?" Katie asked. Both witches nodded. "No hitting the face, no dueling to inflict permanent harm, and try to keep the property damage to a minimum. Begin!" She threw the ball up in the middle of the circle and swiftly left the space.

Hermione summoned the ball to her first and cast a spell into it and threw it directly at Luna. The ball spun as it was launched right at the other girl and it burst into brilliant light, shining brighter than the sun. Luna managed to duck under it, shielding her eyes with a spell, and then took command of the ball. The light dimmed slightly but then started throwing off rays of multicolored light and it went zooming back at Hermione.

The older witch dispelled the light spell and filled it a Stunning Jinx, making it vibrate and hum. She then hit it with Banishing spell and it zoomed at Luna with an eerie hum. Luna deflected it with a shield charm and sent it back fast and hard before it was returned with equal energy.

"I always forget that Luna can duel with how sweet and spacey she is," Alicia said with admiration.

"She is good at self-defense with all the travel she does," Harry remarked.

"Hermione is still as talented as ever despite all the time spent sitting in an office," Daphne said as the ball was wreathed in fire that crackled without heat, glowing blue. It was shot at Luna who conjured thick paint that put the fire out, making the ball drip rainbow paint. Luna spun it and threw it back, sending splatters everywhere.

Hedwig dove behind Harry, avoiding a splatter of purple paint. She peeked out from behind it, hooting angrily at the situation while looking relieved at the near miss.

"Hey!" Hermione shouted. She had avoided the initial pass by the paint covered ball and aimed at it to do something with it. However, Luna had conjured a water spout from the side, making it hit the ball and sending it off at an angle. The ball had missed Hermione but the water caused the paint to explode off of it and Hermione's brown hair turned bright green.

"I didn't aim the spell at you!" Luna crowed while the others laughed. Luna was still laughing when Hermione, in a fit of pique, cast her own water spout charm, drenching the circle and turning the former hard packed ground into mud. Hermione threw the spellball back and then made a wave that knocked Luna off her feet and covering her in thick gooey mud.

"I didn't aim the spell at you!" Hermione shouted back. "Just in your general direction." She shrieked and coughed when she got a face-full of mud, thrown by hand by an incensed Luna. The mud wave had knocked her over, making her drop her wand, and she retaliated by literally slinging mud and charging at Hermione. They collided and both went over into the mud.

"And now they're mud wrestling," Katie laughed, holding her middle as the others laughed too.

"Okay, that's enough," Harry sighed and waved his wand. Luna and Hermione squawked when they were yanked apart by his magic and drenched with a Hosing Charm, washing the mud away. More waves of his wand transfigured the mud into plain earth once more and the water evaporating completely. He vanished the splatters of paint everywhere and then summoned the spellball to him. "No spellball for a while."

"But Harry," Luna and Hermione whined together, looking at each other with surprise while the others howled with laughter.

"No spellball," he repeated emphatically. "For anyone! Hiatus on spellball!"

"What? Hey!" Alicia complained. "We weren't the ones that did it!"

"Don't care," Harry sniffed, sending the ball back to the Potter home. "We can all resolve our disagreements like adults for a little while."

"Great! You two made him mad and now we all can't play," Angelina pouted.

"I'm not mad, just disappointed," Harry said, frowning at them. He sighed as Luna and Hermione and Angelina and Alicia and Daphne started to argue more amongst themselves. He smiled fondly as the three bunnies were rolling on the ground, laughing their heads off at their parents and aunties being scolded like them. "Why did this happen again?"

Katie looked over and snorted and coughed and covered her mouth, noticing what Hedwig was drawing. "Yeah I should take that," Katie giggled, taking the parchment from Hedwig who clacked her beak and looked miffed at her. "Hedwig, you know better."

Hedwig fluffed up and hooted, the picture of someone who indeed did know better and was very deliberately being contrary to such knowledge.

-0-0-0-

kjtrack - That might be coming soonish.

TheSphynx - That's the fun part, you can go back and reexperience the original and enjoy the extra stuff.

odonnellzoo99 - She is a vengeful and greedy goddess that knows her worth.

Ghostwriter - They deserved to.

alix33 - Hedwig is the best leader.