Chapter 59.4- Doom Days

“Oh hey Sirius. How’ve you been?” Harry turned to him and Sirius was struck by the resemblance again. It was like staring at James from all those years ago.

“So-so. Got bored and heard you laughing so I came to find out what’s so funny”

“Oh nothing in particular. Just a game they’re playing.”

“A game?”

“You were born in Barcelona, but moved to Madrid not even after you’d turned a day old” The girl suddenly said.

The boy groaned, fishing out a galleon. Harry burst into laughter again as the girl pocketed the gold.

“What’s going on? Are we gambling?”

“Something of the sort. Angel here fancies himself a master occlumens in the making, and Cece was just helping hum test his defenses.” Harry said, stretching out his own hand to receive another galleon from the Spanish wizard. Instead of pocketing it, he flicked it into the air, catching it a second later and then began to work it through his fingers.

“So she’s a legilimens then”

“I am THE legilimens, Mr. Black” She said, and Sirius felt himself retreat behind his occlumency almost instantly.

“Do not bother. Shields mean nothing to her” The Spanish wizard said somewhat grumpily.

“How do you do that? I’ve not heard of a legilimens just being able to ignore shields before” Sirius said.

“I’m not. Not really. Just that I am a natural legilimens. It probably takes me more effort to stay out of minds than it does to get in” She said.

“I don’t ignore shields. I can just bypass them”

“Most of them” Harry added.

The girl growled with some annoyance on her face.

“Yes, most of them. Somehow your mind just won’t let me in. I’m almost beginning to think it isn’t legilimency and you just have nothing going on in there” She said somewhat sullenly.

“Now don’t be mean” Harry said, the laughter in his eyes reminding Sirius of James when he was playing a prank only he knew about. The rest of the Marauders had been mischievous in their own ways, but James had mischief in his blood. There was a reason the rumor that the ghost that had spawned Peeves was actually one of James’ ancestors had lasted so long.

Even Sirius had believed it for a while until Aunt Euphemia had thoroughly disabused him of the notion.

“Have you guys gotten anything to eat?” He asked, feeling a twinge in his stomach.

“Nope. The tables were much too crowded, and everyone kept trying to talk to me so I banished myself over here” Harry said.

“Well, it’s not much of a banquet if we don’t do any eating, is it? And the tables are free now” He said, pointing over. The crew of duelists followed him towards the meal table and Sirius picked up his plate first, heading straight for the pork. He knew enough to avoid fish at events where dancing would be expected at some point, but he was much too starved for anything lighter than the pork. The Chinese girl, Cece, followed his lead while Harry seemed to be picking out his meal on the direction of the Spanish boy.

He took his meal towards an empty table, sitting down. Harry sat last, spinning his wand into a grip and slashing it this way and that.

“A notice-me-not charm?” He asked. Those were rude to cast at public events like this.

“Nothing so drastic. Just a mild aversion ward. Anyone that comes towards us has to really want it” he said. The Spaniard burst into laughter. The Chinese witch looked over at him for a second before she began chuckling as well.

“Pretty certain that most people want to talk to you very much” Sirius said.

“Yeah, they’d have to want to talk to me more than I don’t want to talk to them.”

“That doesn’t sound so mild”

“Because there is no such thing as a mild aversion ward.”