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The walls in the West manor were covered with patterned wallpapers, but Quinn's room's walls were painted in a two-toned color scheme with the ceiling and crown moldings painted in white while the walls were cobalt blue. The dark walnut floor hadn't changed, which tied together all the wooden furniture like Quinn's study table, bed, and the small round table and two chairs set that sat beside the room's window, which was right above the room's fireplace. The room's right wall held a white two-panel door that opened into the walk-in closet; the door was surrounded by a top-to-bottom array of half-filled bookshelves from all three sides. The bed was opposite the room's entrance and on the wall above the headboard was a wall painting made with hexagonal rings and solids of white and sparse golden-yellow contrasting well with the blue background. Finally, the room was equipped with MLEs which Quinn had embedded/fused right into the walls for lighting and in the lamps sitting on the bedside dressers and study table, which had replaced the candle chandelier and lamps which previously hung from the ceiling.
Sitting on one of the chairs by the window, Quinn stared at the envelope in his hand. He had just returned from Italy yesterday, and today, his grandfather had handed him the letters which arrived in his absence.
Quinn opened the envelope and read the calligraphy on the letter card inside, "You're cordially invited to celebrate the Birthday Anniversary of Harry and Ivy Potter on July 30, 1995, at [.. .] as the guest of Harry Potter [.. .] Best Regards, James and Lily Potter."
Quinn sighed, "Yeah, this almost slipped my mind. Damn, this is tomorrow, huh. I haven't prepared any gifts for them," he looked around to see if something would do for a gift, and his eye fell upon the miniature Leaning Tower of Pisa sitting on the round table in front of him.
"No, I'm not giving you away," he scoffed. The miniature was made from marble that Quinn had skimmed off the original Leaning Tower of Pisa using transmutation. It was too unique for him to give it away as a gift.
As a side note, Quinn had miniatures of the Colosseum, the Duomo di Milano, Giotto's Bell Tower, Duomo di Siena, Doge's Palace, Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Pantheon, and many other buildings across Italy made from the materials stolen from very important places inside the original buildings.
Quinn stood up and entered the walk-in closet, which was essentially a mid-size room. Then he waved his hand for his suitcase to come out from a corner. The locks snapped open, and the suitcase opened, expanded to quadruple its size, and instead of standard insides, there was a ladder going down leading into the expanded space contained inside the suitcase.
He climbed down and passed through a couple of corridors to push grand red-oak doors that opened up to Quinn's ever-growing library. The same library which held all of the books that Quinn had obtained during the world tour, their translations, the books which Quinn had personally brought since then, the books Lia had brought him as souvenirs, all of his notes and research that he had ever penned, and finally, it held the entire Room Of Requirements library copied as part of Project: Babel.
"Now, what should I give Ivy?" he muttered to himself. He had a lot to choose from; Quinn was sure he could find something.
Five hours later, Quinn was hunched over a table, holding his head between his arms. He had spent the first ten minutes looking for a gift for Ivy, but then he found an intriguing book (for himself), got distracted.. .. and recovered out of his book-coma five hours later with an empty fountain pen and twenty-odd pages of double-sided notes.
He groaned loudly as the books flew back into their places and pages filled themselves into appropriate files.
"Screw it," he spat and made his way to a specific section of the library and took out a book. "This one will do," he said, staring at the book in hand.
- (Scene Break) -
The Potter family preferred living in their homely home, more than comfortable enough for the four family members, but their social circle was bigger than their home could support. As such, they had booked a great campground inside a forest with a stream nearby. Proper arrangements were made to accommodate all their guests and have a great outdoor party.
At the campground entrance, Harry and Ivy stood to greet the arriving guests while their parents took the shift inside.
"I'm going to win this year," said Ivy after receiving birthday wishes from yet another guest, "like I did last year and the year before that — a champion's three-peat."
Harry scoffed, "Not a chance. I'm going to destroy you and your stupid friends this year."
".. .. A lot of them are your friends too."
"Not today; they are not."
"Whatever, Hermione and I are going to win to get our three-peat. You should work harder, you know; it's only time that this starts gets boring," said Ivy with a smug smirk on her face.
Harry stared at his sister with a look of disgust, "I'm going to have a lot of fun wiping that smug smirk off your face."
"Dream on, four eyes."
Harry briefly glanced behind Ivy, whose back was turned towards the entrance, and caught a glance of a certain someone. He held back a smile that, if not, would have split his face.
"Twins." — Ivy heard the voice, and thinking it was another guest, she turned to greet them with a smile, but the second she laid her eyes on the 'guest.'
"Q-Quinn," she said in astonishment, "what are you doing here?"
In front of her, dressed in a sea-green full t-shirt and white pants over tan boots. One could say that Quinn looked effortlessly good, and Ivy was one of them.
Quinn didn't immediately answer. Instead, he leaned forward and softly grazed his lips against Ivy's cheeks, rendering the girl into stone. Quinn didn't seem to notice the change in Ivy and moved towards Harry and repeated the same with him.
"What?" uttered Harry, staring at Quinn in shock.
"Hmm?" Quinn felt confused for a second, but then he too froze, realizing what he had just done. "A-Ah, sorry about that.. .. I-I just returned from Italy, and I guess I did that on auto-pilot.. .. again, my sincere apologies for making you two uncomfortable." Inside, he was smacking himself for making things awkward.
Harry nodded, but Ivy was still quite flustered; she could feel her cheeks searing and felt like her entire face was on fire. Everything had happened so fast and so suddenly that her brain hadn't had the time to catch up with the events. And it didn't help when Quinn stepped closer to her, onsetting another bout of heartbeat elevation.
"I was invited, of course," said Quinn answering Ivy's question. He took out the invitation card and handed it to her.
Ivy creakily received the letter and hadn't been paying attention to Quinn's words, so when she looked at the square letter in her hand, she froze. She could clearly see the invitation to the party, but what caught her attention was the ".. . as the guest of Harry Potter."
All her previous embarrassment evaporated, and she all but snapped her head towards Harry to see her twin brother with a smugger smirk on his face. When Harry saw Ivy looking at him, he mouthed out the words, "I —am — going — to — win."
"I take my arrival was kept a secret from you," said Quinn with a smile, facing both twins, who both nodded but with entirely opposite energies. "Well, I don't know what this competition would be like, but I'm looking forward to it."
"Ah, and before I forget," continued Quinn, putting his hands behind his back, and when he brought them back to the front, he had two packages wrapped in a solid golden-tan gift wrap and tied up with a pistachio-green colored satin ribbon.
"Those are your birthday presents," said Quinn, handing the twins their respective gifts, "I hope you will like them. You can open them now if you so desire."
And desire they did. The twins undid the wrapping in their own ways and uncovered the gifts inside.
First was Harry, who found himself a pair of glasses inside; they were identical to what he wore. He looked up at Quinn in confusion, who smiled, "Give me your glasses and the one I gifted you," he took Harry's round glasses, detached the eyeglasses making Harry squirm a little before attaching them to his gift.
"I didn't know your prescription, but fortunately for me, you wear like huge glasses.. .. now they were perfect," said Quinn handing them to Harry, who confusedly put them on."Touched the thin button on the leg of the frame and look at yourself in this," he said, giving Harry a conjured mirror which he had pretended to take out from his pocket.
Harry stared at his reflection and grasped around for the button to feel a slight bump. When he pressed the button, Harry saw his glasses change from round to wayfare shape; he pressed it again, and the frame shifted to a square shape.
"On the other side, you'll find another button to change the thickness of the frame, and if you remove your glasses, you'll find two more buttons for lens and frame color. There's a manual inside the box that you can refer to for different functionality, you know to experiment and find the perfect fit for yourself.. .. there's even the option where they turn to quidditch goggles, so have fun and happy birthday, Harry."
"Thank you, mate, this is great," said Harry, still looking at himself in the mirror.
Quinn turned towards Ivy and saw her staring at a book in hand. As Harry had suggested when he had invited Quinn, Ivy would like a book, so he decided to give her a book that he thought was top-grade reading material.
"That's an original Quinn in your hand right there," he said, gaining Ivy's attention.
"You wrote this?" she asked.
"Uh-huh, that's the seventh edition Compendium of Charms written your truly and contains the most practical and useful that I have come across and provides practical insight to every mentioned spell." Quinn didn't use a wand; as such, he couldn't use the convenient wand movement, and it was a personal choice to not use vocal chants, so Quinn had to truly understand every spell to perform it to the best of his ability.
"If you read that and actually implement the insights mentioned inside, you'll be able to pass to pass OWLs and NEWTs without breaking a sweat," smiled Quinn and pointed at himself, "the proof is right in front of you — I crushed the OWLs.. .. also, there are some pretty cool spells inside, so you won't be getting bored of this one in a very long time."
Quinn had thought about simply gifting Ivy a rare book from Room of Requirement but decided that one from him would be better. This way, she would actually be able to apply every word inside in the short and long term. Of course, it went without saying that the version in Ivy's hand was heavily curated.
Inside, Ivy was comparing her's and Harry's gifts, and while her twin's gift was clearly custom-made for him, her book, as Quinn has said, was a seventh edition, which meant that Quinn had handed her the result of at least a couple of years of his hard work.. .. and that touched her heart.
"Thank you, Quinn. I'll talk to you about this when I read the book," she said and was looking forward to the day Quinn and her could talk, talk and talk.
"Sure, it would be my pleasure," nodded Quinn.
.. .
Quinn left the twins to their duties and headed inside to enjoy the party. The campground was set up pretty nicely, with plenty of tables for people to sit around and talk. There were food and drinks at every corner with the hired help refilling to keep the party going. The Potters had set up tents in case there was a need for privacy or someone wanted shelter from the sun. Not only that, Quinn could even make out a few game activities going on for younger children in the Potter family social circle.
All in all, it seemed a pretty fun party. Quinn picked up some refreshments and decided to find some familiar faces, and found his favorite pair of sisters by the cotton candy booth.
"It's not nice to patronize with the enemy, Astoria," he said.
The black-haired Greengrass turned with a smile; she had already recognized the voice. "You're finally here. I thought you wouldn't be coming!"
"I was a bit busy with some last-minute shopping," meaning that he had to do a rush job making Harry's gift.
The blonde older sister, too, turned and raised both her hands with fluffy pink clouds, "It looks like you got your eye back."
"Yes, it is. It's as good as new. Though I do miss the eyepatch look; it was the only good thing about that time."
"You looked like a happy pirate," said Astoria.
"Isn't that the best kind?" smiled Quinn.
"I thought he bore a resemblance to Odin," said Daphne.
"I like that; Odin is much better," said Quinn; plus, he had the Raven connection going for him.
"I bought the sausage rolls — oh, Quinn, you're here!"
Quinn turned to see Tracey with a platter of sausage rolls in hand. "Hey, Tracey. Which team are you on?"
".. .. You start with that?" said Tracey as Astoria took a couple rolls from the platter, "I'm on Ivy's team, of course."
"So, who else is on Harry's team?" he asked.
And soon, he got the answer.
.. .
"So, this is our team," said Quinn, looking at Team Harry members gathered around with Astoria by his side, looking at Harry and Ron, along with other Gryffindor boys, as in Neville Longbottom, Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnigan, Lee Jordan, along with Katie Bell, and Terry Boot.
He turned to his competition and saw Team Ivy — Ivy, Hermione, Daphne, Tracey, Susan Bones, Hannah Abbott, Ginny Weasley, George and Fred Weasley, and Sue Li.
"Why in the world are the Weasley twins on Ivy's side?" asked Quinn, "weren't you guys supposed to be prankster buddies or something?"
Harry turned his face away from Quinn's gaze, "It was two years ago when I was sort of upset at them for a prank, and we had temporary falling down.. .. Ivy swept in and invited them as her guests — she hasn't let go ever since then."
"No wonder you lost two times in a row," said Quinn, "no offense to you guys, but Ivy's been stacking her team with talent — look at them, Ivy, Hermione, and Daphne are top of the grade; Tracey might seem she's all bubbly, but that girl is really clever and street smart. I have worked with Susan and Hannah; they are good at what they do. I don't know much about Ginny, but Sue is intelligent and really athletic and freaky fast."
"But worry no more, for I'm here," smiled Quinn as he raised his fake wand, "we will conquer this year and show who the real bosses are."
"Uhm," Neville raised a hand and spoke hesitantly, "we are outside Hogwarts.. .. so no magic."
Quinn paused for a moment before putting his fake wand back in, "Okay, we are screwed. Those fellows are winning."
"Eh, why?" asked Astoria.
"If you guys haven't noticed, my 'thing' is magic. If you took that away, all I got going for me is smart, handsome, great style, funny, fit, good at fighting, sick with a violin and piano, public speaking, selling stuff, and magic tricks.. .. I feel really restricted, you know."
The nine people stared at Quinn, not knowing how to reply to that.
"Alright, all you guys gather around." Both teams turned to see prank master general Sirius Black standing in full black with two top buttons unbuttoned. When they gathered around, he spoke with a grin, "First of all, I welcome the new ones to the Potter battles; it will be a fun thing, just ask the ones who have been here before."
"Okay, move on," interrupted Ivy, "tell us what are we going to do today?"
Quinn looked around and saw that none of his team or others showed any negative reaction to abrupt cut-off, so he shrugged and nodded in agreement. 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do,' he thought while silently chuckling to himself.
"Tch, tch, tch, so impatient," laughed Sirius, taking Ivy's word as enthusiasm. "If you do want to know, then we are going to play dodgeball today.. . ."
The Wesley twins high-fived loudly.
".. .. with water balloons," continued Sirius, catching everyone's attention. "Of course, seeing that this year I volunteered to come up with the competition activity, you know that there is a twist." He took out a red water balloon, "the twist is in the balloon."
"What do you mean?" asked Ron.
Sirius smiled and turned towards Lily, who was watching with a smile. But then she saw Sirius raising his hand holding the water balloon, and her smile vanished. "Sirius, no!" was she could say before the Auror threw the water balloon in her direction.
But contrary to her exception, the water balloon curved in the air at wild angles and hit not her but her husband right in the back of his head while he was talking to a guest. James Potter, soaking in dark red liquid, slowly turned towards Sirius with a stunned expression.
"As you can see, the balloons will follow an irregular path," said Sirius, ignoring his best friend, "so you might be really close to your target, about to hit them just for the balloon to miss them."
"Is there a pattern to how they balloon curves?" asked Hermione.
"There is — but you will have to figure that out on your own, or believe in your luck and throw with faith that it will hit." Sirius then raised both of his hands in different directions, and there sat five buckets. "Red balloons are for Team Ivy and green for Team Harry." He then threw ten red and green tags each on the ground. "Stick them on your clothes, and if a balloon hits you anywhere, I will know.. .. each member gets three hits after that you're out.. .. the team with the last person standing wins. Finally, every time a person gets hits, they come back here and stay for half a minute before rejoining the game."
Sirius clapped once and grinned, "Now, let's get started and have a day of fun—" He had just completed his sentence when a massive splash of ice-cold water hit him from behind.
Everyone, including a shivering Sirius, turned to see James Potter, pointed at Sirius with his wand brandished in Sirius' direction.
"Have fun, kids," said James with a satisfied smile.
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Quinn West - MC - I am truly nothing without magic.
Ivy Potter - Birthday Girl - She has been gathering talent for domination.
Harry Potter - Birthday Boy - Recruited a Behemoth in hopes of victory.
Sirius Black - Game Master - Worked on the game during work hours.
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