He was thankful for Hermione’s presence the morning they were rushed out of bed and out to the airport, where Mr Weasley found everything highly interesting and more than once Harry wondered how he was going to survive a prolonged stay in the Muggle world with the Weasleys when, for all their supposed love for Muggles, they were completely hopeless in the Muggle world.
If it hadn’t been for Harry and Hermione’s combined efforts, the Weasley twins would have ended up being left behind because they irritated the security, Mr Weasley would have been so fascinated by the check in desks that he wouldn’t have made through security, yet alone gotten to the right gate.
Soon enough though they touched down in Egypt and checked into their hotel, one of the many in the wizarding section of Cairo. He and Ron got the pleasure of sharing a hotel room on the third floor of a surprisingly Muggle hotel, while Percy and the twins took over the room on one side of them and the girls got the other. The parents on the other hand, were up a floor and across the hotel.
“Bill will be joining us tomorrow.” Mr Weasley said as they gathered in the hotel’s atrium after settling all their stuff, “And he’s going to take us on a tour of the local area, so I thought, since we all have a little spending money, we’d explore the bazaar.”
“Awesome!” The twins grinned at each other.
“Before we go anywhere you’re to take this,” Arthur handed each of them a pair of sweets. “They’re called Babel Bombs. They come in different flavours and each flavour teaches a different language. We’ll take two, Arabic and Ancient Egyptian.”
To Harry the ‘Babel Bombs’ kind of looked like gobstoppers, but he put the first in his mouth and sucked on it, enjoying the spicy flavour and wondering when it was supposed to take effect. He only worked out that it had, and had been the Arabic Babel Bomb when the sign on the wall, which until then had been in what looked like squiggly lines suddenly became legible words in his mind.
“Do Not Feed the Crocodiles.”
“Wow.” Hermione looked delighted, not that Harry was surprised. This opened up whole new opportunities for Hermione to learn, and as he popped the other sweet into his mouth, he could already see his friend making a plan to hit every book stand she could find in the bazaar.
Ron, of course, looked rather bored by the whole situation, as he normally did when Harry and Hermione were introduced to something new. It was an example, Harry realised, of what Hermione had mentioned when they’d been playing Duel Monsters. Ron was a Pure Blood, he had been raised around magic, had seen it every single day growing up and had probably seen it do much greater things than create such trivial things as Babel Bombs.
As they left the hotel and wandered down the street, Harry wondered when and how he should share the information that he’d gathered on the Serpent Bracer with his friend. Hermione, of course, had read the books and worked it out for herself, but Harry knew full well that Ron would never do such a thing. Trying to get Ron to read his text books was bad enough, getting him to read anything extra without bribery involved would be impossible, especially on his holiday.
Plus Harry had a horrible feeling that even if Harry swore he wasn’t going to use the item’s powers, Ron would either instantly condemn the Serpent Bracer as a dark magical artefact and start shunning Harry, or he would see the powerful golden item and want it for himself. Harry didn’t want to believe it of Ron, but something in the back of his mind kept offering that as an option and Harry had learned to listen to his instincts.
Still he had to tell Ron about his findings sooner or later and sooner was probably the better option.
In fact he was going to tell Ron the moment that they split up, Ginny going with her parents, the twins and Percy wandering off, probably to split up further along, once they were certain their parents weren’t watching, and Harry and his two friends sticking together to explore, except he was distracted almost instantly by a voice he recognised. A voice that really really shouldn’t have been in Egypt.
“You like that bike then?”
Harry wanted to groan and complain but he had to keep the fact that his godfather was in Egypt a secret, as it was he headed towards the voice, only to find Sirius chatting away happily to a surprisingly pale Egyptian boy whose hair was almost white, about the motorcycles in a magazine.
“Harry.” Sirius, and it was obviously Sirius even with his changed hair and eye colour, grinned and waved when he spotted him, “I wondered when I was going to run into you.”
“Mr Grey.” Harry nodded back, unable to avoid the irritation that seeped into his voice, “I thought you’d cancelled your flight.”
“You know him Harry?” Ron asked, confused since he’d never met the man before and though Harry could recognise his Godfather, the fact he’d shaved and tidied his hair up, along with the grin on his face made him different enough that Ron didn’t recognise the wanted criminal in front of him.
“Mr Grey was Padfoot’s previous owner.” Harry explained, noting the way the boy Sirius had been talking to seemed fascinated by the conversation, “We met in Diagon.”
“Marik, this is my friend Harry and I’m guessing his friends Ron and Hermione.” Sirius introduced the boy, Hermione and Ron nodding to the boy as Sirius mentioned their names, “Guys, this is Marik. He likes motorcycles.”
Hermione just rolled his eyes at that, but before she could ask Marik any more questions a black haired, just as pale skinned, girl popped out of the crowds looking exasperated. “Marik, we must be getting home. You know father will be cross if we’re not back in time.” She scolded the boy, who had gone slightly more pale at the mention of his father, before turning to the others, “I’m sorry but my brother and I must be going now.”
“But Isizu,” Marik complained, “I’ve just met them and he,” He pointed at Sirius, “Has a flying motorcycle.”
Isizu gave Sirius a sharp look, muttering something about it being ‘a bad idea to drag Marik to the magical bazaar’ under her breath and started to drag her brother off. Marik, of course, put the breaks on so Hermione, being the one with the most common sense made a suggestion.
“Why don’t we walk you home?” Hermione asked, wondering why Isizu seemed even more put off by that idea then she did the idea of Marik staying a little longer. “Then Mr Grey can tell Marik a bit more about his bike.” And she could listen. She was intrigued as to how he had gotten it to fly, considering that she’d never had a chance to see Mr Weasley’s car in action before Harry and Ron had crashed it into the Whomping Willow.
“No, no. That’s not necessary.” Ishizu seemed more shocked at Hermione’s response to Marik’s complaint than anything else and, “We really do need to get going and you wouldn’t want to rush past all the... hey!”
Ishizu’s tone of complaint made the man who had barged into her and caused Marik to go tumbling into Harry, causing them both to fall over and hit the ground hard, wheel around and glower at the group. “Yeah what?”
“You should apologise to the kids.” Mr Grey pointed out as Marik picked himself up and offered Harry a hand.
“For what?” The man, who was obviously on holiday as well since he didn’t fit in with the crowds and had none of the relaxed attitudes of the locals, sneered, “They walked into me.”
“They were stood still.” Sirius growled slightly.
“No, that’s not how I remember it.” The man snorted back, turning to leave when Marik put himself between the man and his route forward.
“Apologise to my sister.” Marik growled.
“Look kid, just move.” The man was less amused now and when Marik refused he took a swing at the boy, knocking him into one of the stalls.
That was quite enough for Sirius who seized the guy’s arm and wheeled him around to face him. There would have been a fight if Harry hadn’t put his hand on Sirius’s arm and shook his head.
“I have an idea.” Hermione shot Harry a sharp look and froze when she realised that Harry didn’t look very much like Harry anymore. The browner hair and amber eyes were disconcerting in her friend. “Why don’t we play a Game?”
“A game?” The man looked confused. “Why should I play a game with you?”
Ishizu watched Harry carefully as she realised she’d seen this before. Her father had used much the same sort of tone when referring to games while wielding the Millennium Rod. She quickly looked the boy over, wondering whether he held one of the remaining mystical items and only just caught a glimpse of gold at Harry’s wrist.
“Because if you win, we’ll admit you were in the right. If you lose or refuse to play, we’ll report your attack on Marik to the Egyptian version of the Aurors.” Harry replied, except Sirius knew full damn well it wasn’t Harry anymore, it was Powel.
The man paused to consider it and then shrugged. There was little harm in it and if he lost he could always obliviate the group any way. “What’s the game?”
Powel pulled a pound coin out of his back pocket and flicked it up in the air.
“Heads or tails, best of three.” Powel stated confidently as the Shadows flickered and danced around the pair, touching, but not harming those who weren’t involved while testing the mental defences of the two players, poking for weaknesses. Luckily Powel had the advantage there. Though he had plenty of flaws that the Shadows could exploit if given the chance he had proved before that he wouldn’t cheat. He was almost certain his opponent would.
“That’s it?” The man asked, looking highly amused by the ‘boy’s’ audacity.
“That’s it.” Powel nodded, offering the coin to the man who reminded him of another bully he’d had to deal with on the behalf of his host since awakening. “I’ll even let you flip, but the coin must land on the floor and you must call before you flip AND,” The emphasis on the word made the man look at him sharply, “You mustn’t use magic to help you win. Also you are not allowed to hurt me or any of my party and if you break the rules, you’ll suffer a Penalty.”
The man nodded his understanding, wondering why the kid was even going through all of this considering it was all a game of chance.
“Heads.” He called, tossing the coin into the air milliseconds after he spoke. The coin flipped in midair, rotating again and again until it bounced off the floor, rotated one last time and landed heads up. “Ha.” He crowed, smirking at the kid who had challenged him, trying to work out whether the amber eyes were a trick of the light or the kid thought it was intimidating. “Give me a second and I’ll have this won.”
“You do know what you’re doing, don’t you?” Sirius asked Powel who just gave him an amused look as the man bent down to pick up the coin and toss it again, “I mean...”
“Don’t worry.” Powel murmured back, taking his eyes off of his opponent to reassure his host’s godfather, “I’ve been doing this since long before you were born.”
The spirit of the Bracer had a point, Sirius had to admit and he backed off slightly so the game could resume. At the end of the day it didn’t matter one way or the other and he had to wonder why Powel had gotten involved in a dispute that didn’t even really involve Harry except by accident.
The man Powel was playing against wasn’t concerned, in the critical few moments that the boy had taken his eyes off of his opponent the tourist had taken the opportunity to slip his wand into his sleeve, just in case it was needed.
“Heads again.” The man said, flipping the coin again and scowling as one of the uniformed policemen walked around the corner and started heading their way. This time the coin landed on tails.
“All even.” Powel stated with a small smirk, knowing that that it was the man’s lack of concentration that had cost him the round. Even with something as simple as luck the Shadows were forever testing the players. Though the Game had to be fair, at the end of the day the one with the strongest will was almost always the one who won the game. “One more round?”
The tourist hesitated as one of the merchants further down the row of stalls came out from behind his counter and started talking rapidly to the officer, gesticulating wildly towards the man.
The man scowled, realising that he’d wasted too much time humouring himself with the group and attempted to leave, only to find he couldn’t walk away from the coin on the ground.
“What have you done to me?” He demanded, drawing his wand and pointing it at Powel, who seemed to gain an eerie smirk.
“You cast a single spell you lose.” Powel merely pointed out calmly, seemingly unphased by the fact he had a wand pointed at him.
“I’m done with your game, freak.” The man snarled as the policeman left the vendor and headed for the man, looking rather irate, “I’m leaving.”
‘Freak’ was the wrong word to use around Powel, who had, thanks to Harry’s relatives, a rather negative view on it and the Ex-Teacher scowled. “You can’t leave until the game is played out. You only have to toss the coin once more. Or is that too hard for you?”
“Heads.” The man seized the coin, tossed it at Powel’s head and attempted to scarper. The coin hit Powel’s forehead, just above his right eye and bounced off to land on tails, but that wasn’t what everyone was watching. The moment the coin had impacted with his forehead, Powel’s scowl had darkened and his eyes had glowed with magic, along with a glowing serpent that settled upon Powel’s brow.
The man got less than two steps away before he was dragged down by shadowy hands and though he tried to get to his feet, he found that the most he could do was turn to face his accuser.
“You broke the rules.” Powel’s dark tone frightened Harry’s friends, who backed away slightly from the spirit possessing their friend, “And for that there’s a Penalty.”
“Wh...What?” The man demanded, fear obvious in his tone as he realised that his wand had gone flying when he’d been dragged down and he couldn’t move, “What are you talking about?”
“Penalty Game,” Powel didn’t pause to explain, raising his hand, fingers splayed out, magic surging around him, darkening the surrounding area, “Rectitude.”
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