129 Chapter 126
"Spin the bottle rules!" Ron announced. "Otherwise I'm not playing."
"Spin the bottle rules it is." Dean agreed. "Everybody ready?"
"No stupid or dirty dares, or I swear I'll jinx the person who asks it when we get back to Hogwarts." Hermione said fiercely before agreeing to play, along with everybody else.
Ping!
Quest Alert!
Play I Dare You with your friends!
Reward-
100xp
Failure-
Reputation as a spoilsport
YES/NO?
With a shrug, Harry accepted it and joined in as well. The exp was a pittance, but this was just for fun.
They cleaned up the middle of the room and Dean laid out the rules, "We spin the bottle and then come up with a dare for whoever has to do it. The entire group decides points for that dare. First to get to fifteen wins. Alright? Fair enough?"
There were various sounds of agreement from around the room. Harry's personal favorite sound of agreement was Ron's flippant fart and the subsequent groans of disgust.
"Three . . . Two . . . One . . . Go!" Dean said, spinning the bottle and starting the game.
Fifteen minutes later, Ron was suckling on a raw lemon, his face looking like a dried raisin, the Patil twins were dared by Harry to try speaking in total sync like the Weasley twins, which they tried and absolutely failed to do, and Terry had ended up having to lick Ron's foot, which had been quite gross.
The worst of all, or best depending upon who you ask, had been Hermione's dare, in which Ron had dared her to throw a book into the fireplace. She had done it after much coaxing and persuasion but kept giving Ron the stink eye, promising some serious revenge for later.
The points lay as follows.
Dean - 0
Harry - 0
Ron - 3
Terry - 3
Parvati - 2
Padma - 2
Hermione - 5
Hermione gave the bottle a spin, and it landed on Harry, who had yet to have a turn. He groaned.
"Dare or Dare, Harry?" Hermione asked with a grin that didn't bode well for him.
"I wonder what I'll choose from that incredibly diverse set of choices."
The rest of the room chuckled, while Hermione laid out her dare, "I dare you to send a letter, to the Daily Prophet. About how you discovered that Hedwig is actually a chicken in disguise and not a phoenix."
"No…" Harry's voice was filled with dread, "They've been raving about Hedwig and me ever since some kid got a photo of her on my shoulder. This will…this will…I don't even know what this will do. And then there's Hedwig herself! She'll kill me! You're evil Hermione."
"That's the fun of it." Hermione said, her grin unmoving, "So Harry what is it going to be? For eight points. Is Hedwig the chicken, or are you?"
Harry hesitated for a second, before the forfeit of licking the rim of Dean's sister's potty seat came into his mind, and he decided to do it. Screw being the wizarding world's savior, there was absolutely no way he was going to lick a toddler's toilet.
It took Harry a few seconds to pen down a note and attach it to the leg of Dean's owl Rudy. The entire group converged onto the window to see Harry send his letter away. With a final deep breath, Harry opened the window, and with a flap of her wings, Rudy took off.
They stood there, staring at the tawny owl fly away for a second, before Harry went back to his seat and spun the bottle again, this time falling on the birthday boy Dean himself.
However, before he could give his dare, there was a muffled but distinct pop that came from outside the house. Startled, Dean and Harry ran over to the window again, only to be shocked to a standstill.
Rudy was flying back without the letter, yet there was no way she could have delivered it to the Prophet in such a short time. Harry and Dean stared at the owl for a second before exchanging a meaningful glance, each having a pretty good idea of what this meant. They made their way back to the group and told them that it was nothing. The players decided to excuse that round with a confused shrug and went back to the game.
But Harry's mind wasn't in the game anymore. He, just like Dean beside him, had a nasty feeling that he had just heard the letter thief in action.
Unknown to them, a pair of large eyes watched from the bushes outside the window.
The next weeks passed with rigorous alchemy spell practice, Harry desperately trying to get the alchemy skill window to pop up. And then there were Harry's desperate attempts at catching the letter thief.
He would go to the post office at Diagon Alley, borrow owls, tie random letters to their legs and send them off. Then he would use his invisibility cloak to follow them using Unicorn Boost speed. Yet every single time, the same thing happened.
Every time, the owl would rise up into the skies and vanish into the clouds, and every time Harry would hear a small but distinct pop before the owl would come back to him without the letter.
Even having Hedwig follow the owl and see what was happening didn't work.
And the only letter he had gotten without involving Hedwig was from the Minister, that Dumbledore himself delivered to him when he came to visit the Flamels. It contained a message from the Minister who was inviting him for a personal tour around the ministry in mid-August.
Harry had sent an acceptance letter.
And soon, amidst burns from lightning spells and ink stains from hours of note taking and homework, July passed.
Harry lay on his bed staring at the clock on his wall, that read 11:59 of the 30th of July. His mind was filled with oddly nostalgic thoughts of how far he had come from last year. He had become what he was meant to become. He had made so many friends. And he had found an actual home.
Harry smiled.
Despite Quirrell, his own numerous near-fatal misadventures, and lately the letter thief, he had truly found a place for himself.
The clock struck twelve, and with a really odd looking burst of virtual confetti, a rainbow colored screen popped up.
Ping!
It's your 12th birthday! Congratulations! Here are two presents!
A Stat boost - Take +3 to each one of your stats!
Your new stats are:
STR-17
VIT-23(+4)=27
DEX-22(+4)=26
INT-38
WIS-40
LUC-27
A new skill has been created!
Modern All-Speak, Lv-MAX
You can perfectly understand and speak all modern human languages. This skill does not, however, grant you the ability to read or write any of them. You have to work and practice for that.
Harry could almost feel his brain's language centers rewiring. He was ecstatic at the new skill. Even if it just granted him the ability to speak all languages, and not read or write them, it was still an amazingly powerful skill by and in itself.
With a content smile, he fell asleep.
The next morning, after a breakfast, he was pushed out of the apartment by Perenelle and told to not return until well in the afternoon, since she wanted the decorations to be a surprise.
Hedwig was feeling terrible due to her being near a burning day, and thus, she stayed in Harry's room, nibbling on the chocolate Harry had left there for her.
Taking the elevator down to the ground floor and going outside the building, Harry wondered where he should go. He wasn't in the mood to grind; he didn't want to deal with rotting zombies on his birthday. So with no destination in mind, he just started walking through the streets, enjoying the sights he was seeing.
After a while of wandering around, he noticed the sun getting higher, and headed towards the nearest park, to spend some time in the shade.
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