The Order Games

~~ I don't own the Harry Potter universe, and I doubt anybody would pay me for my writing even if I did have the right to demand money, money that belongs to J.K. Rowling, not me

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like the Muggles Do

"I'll have you know, I received nothing short of perfect marks on all of my Muggle studies lessons when I was in school," he informed her defensively and then added, with a snarl, "despite my distaste for the people we were learning about." The fact that he was accustomed to making people defend themselves, not the other way around, did not elude him and his words came out crisply and aggressively, despite his comfortable tone.

"Oh, Severus. Getting good grades however many years ago in a class taught by a wizard is not conducive to understanding the everyday life of an ordinary Muggle."

Hermione had to stifle a giggle at his look of sheer horror at her inference that he might not know everything. How hard could it be, to live like a Muggle? And it wasn't like it would take a long time before those other, inferior teams gave up. Team Snarky-Smarty would easily triumph over the other contenders. Not only was he highly capable himself, he was partnered with the only Muggle-born Order member that participated in these ridiculous contests. It was ludicrous to think that his success was not guaranteed. He could live like a Muggle. He'd be able to do it better than the average Muggle, too. He was sure of it.

Hermione had not only been his partner in these foolish but enjoyable games since they had started, she had also developed a mutual friendship with the decidedly difficult man that she had worked beside for two years. She knew exactly what he thought, and didn't bother trying to hide the rolling of her eyes at his misplaced confidence. Why keep trying to explain it to him? He was as confident as a Slytherin and as stubborn as a Gryffindor.

She pulled out the – very short – list of directions and rules as Severus took out the key to their new flat. After five minutes of struggling and the decision that the keys or the door or both were defective, he handed the obnoxiously noisy things to his partner who had the deadbolts unlocked and the door opened in mere moments. Hermione sighed as he swept past her into their temporary home. 'This is going to be a really long experience,' she thought to herself. Then, following her new roommate inside, she amended, 'or a really short one.' Frighteningly, she was beginning to think it would somehow be both.

===----===----===

The Order of the Phoenix was decidedly bored. The war that they had all expected never really happened; the battle between Harry Potter and Voldemort had been highly anti-climactic. The Dark Lord had left behind his loyal followers and tried to attack Harry on his own. The crazed wizard was over-confident and under-prepared, and the boy-who-lived triumphed again, having only worked marginally harder this time than he had the first. With Severus Snape's knowledge of the majority of the Death Eaters' hiding places and meeting locations, over half of the dangerous men and women had been captured and detained before the Wizarding world even knew it had achieved its freedom. After that the Order of the Phoenix had a brief period of searching and chasing and hexing and attacking, but there had been a very limited amount of casualties on both sides and all in all everybody was quite satisfied with the outcome.

But they couldn't help the fact that they were bored. Happy and relieved, but bored.

All of that training and planning and stress had adequately prepared them for the short period of unrest that followed Voldemort's demise, which ended with the last Death Eater captured and sent to Azkaban. From Voldemort's fall until Valentine's Day (how ironic), they were kept busy with attacks and counter-attacks. But they couldn't help but feel cheated. Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger were at a loss. Their entire lives, all through school and afterwards, had been spent in constant vigilance and preparation. The war that had haunted seven years of education ended in an alley two blocks from the Leaky Cauldron, and their hard work and impressively honed skills meant almost nothing.

So when Albus Dumbledore had called a meeting of the heroes of the Wizarding world, the famed Order of the Phoenix, half a year after the final not-quite-a-battle, interest was piqued. And when he had explained his plan, his game, to the group of powerful and jaded wizards and witches, there had been a general agreement that this could be fun. Even Severus Snape grudgingly admitted that he longed to challenge his long-time rivals once more.

The plan was simple: the Order would split into groups of two and compete every six months in a game of skill, power, intelligence, cunning, and perseverance. And they would do their best to kick each other's butts.

When Dumbledore had started pairing people, the promising idea was almost lost: Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy; Ron and his mother Molly; Fred and George; Ginny and Nymphadora Tonks; Minerva McGonagall and Mad Eye Moody; Remus Lupin and Luna Lovegood; Neville Longbottom and Arthur Weasley; and last but not least, Hermione Granger and Severus Snape.

Needless to say, only Fred and George had been completely satisfied with their arrangement. Everybody else could think of some argument that they were not partnered with the best choice. But Albus had insisted that the choices were not only logically determined but magically chosen, and one by one each pair agreed to give it a shot. The Order members would convene twice a year, once during summer and once shortly after the New Year. Then they would listen in stunned silence as Albus gave them their objectives and rules before sending them off to compete.

After two and a half years of these games, all of the pairs had developed a working arrangement and became closer and able to work together more every time. Ron and his mother didn't bicker nearly as much as they had during the first set of games, when the exact replica of a Muggle picnic had awaited everybody. Challenges of walking back and forth with eggs on spoons, shaving balloons, three-legged-races and more had all been given a Wizarding twist and the mother and son pair came in last place. They were unable to agree on anything and any time Ron tried to make a suggestion Molly would silence him with her 'I'm your mother and I said so' glare, leaving Ron to pout like an insolent first year.

During the next challenge, McGonagall and Moody had entered into a fight so public that two blocks of Muggle London had to be Obliviated by the time it was all over. The sparks had flown, literally, as the two argued over a road map and its correlation to the map all of the teams had been given by Albus. Apparently the tower housing Big Ben and a very prominent tree a bit further south were nearly impossible to distinguish, magical eye or not.

When Albus had sent them all into the New York Subway System and given them a week to visit a list of stops, Fred and George had been thrilled. Being lost in a different country wasn't the only setback. Albus had made one half of each team blind and the other half deaf. While the other pairs tried to communicate through a series of grunts, pokes, gestures, and yelling, the identical boys had the time of their lives. The twins had been seeing hearing speaking and thinking for each other for long enough to make it to every station Albus had directed them to and then some, with time to explore.

Harry and Draco had surprised everyone; coming out of each game with nary a scratch (inflicted by each other that is). The pair had grudgingly, but quickly, accepted Dumbledore's decision and agreed to try working together. As Draco had promised Harry on their first day at Hogwarts, the two were a perfect balance of talent, drive, and loyalty and worked together almost as seamlessly as the Weasley twins. Their combined power was a force to be reckoned with and their minds seemed to work alike, making them a very satisfying duo. For the next Order Games, shortly after the students had left Hogwarts for Christmas break, Albus created a large maze and obstacle course taking up most of the Hogwarts grounds. Harry had already experienced one Wizarding maze and was at an advantage over the others. He and Draco were also very skillful at defensive and offensive techniques, needed against many of the obstacles. And once put onto brooms, the light and dark pair had shone brighter than any other team. Only Severus and Hermione came close to the two, a mix of intelligence and powerful spells solving the problems and getting past any complications. Everyone else had done quite well, they thought. There were only a few broken bones and only one truly severe burn, and the Order members felt quite satisfied with a few scars and stories as opposed to other possible outcomes of their near-death experiences.

The alphabet scavenger hunt had taken Neville and Arthur over three weeks to complete, while everybody else finished in under a week and a half. Neville was adequate at figuring out the riddles that led them to each required item (in alphabetical order, of course). But Arthur had been far too distracted to help at all when they collected Muggle objects, which made up about half of the list. Rather than going straight on to the next clue, Arthur managed to pull Neville into a thorough examination of each article. When Albus told them that they were allowed to keep all of their treasures when it was all over, Mr. Weasley was more thrilled than the winners, Ginny and Tonks.

Remus and Luna had cried that the most recent game had been unfair. Nobody had expected the whole excursion to take as long as it did, and the coming full moon brought Lupin back from Hong Kong before they had reached all of their destinations, disqualifying the two. Each pair had been given a list of cities, Muggle and Wizarding alike, that they had to visit, all across the globe. They were only allowed to Apparate within a country, could only use a Portkey once, and had to use all of the Muggle traveling systems. Airplanes, trains, rental cars, cruise ships and a hot air balloon were just a few of the required modes of transportation. It had been quite a trip for everybody, and the length of the game was an unexpected necessity.

Severus and Hermione had not come in less than third place in all of their trials, but had also never won. Although no disagreements were ever witnessed by outside parties, there had been a fair amount of shouting and cursing in private. But they worked well together and neither could deny that. Every plan they made was well researched, well thought out, planned to perfection, and executed with the precision and determination expected from the exacting potions professor and bossy know-it-all. When, shortly after the treasure-map game, Hermione replaced Irma Pince as the Hogwarts librarian, the two developed a subtle but promising friendship. Severus had easily noted her discomfort at joining the staff halfway through the school year, and when she sought him out and tried to engage him in conversation, he bit back more than half of the insults he had the opportunity to use and discovered that she was quite pleasant and her company was agreeable. They had, after all, done quite well in their first two Order Games, and neither could name a single person who matched them better in their intellectual achievements. It was one evening during dinner a few weeks after she joined the staff while he pointed out to her the students to look out for, the ones to look after, and the ones that actually held some promise, that she summoned her courage and insisted that he stop referring to her as Miss Granger. He had obliged and allowed her to use his given name as well, and a level of comfort was introduced. The two managed to work and spend time together with spectacular results.

Her knowledge of potions and his love of books had bode well for the pair, and they never ceased to have something to discuss. The whole of Hogwarts was shocked to discover that the Bastard of the Dungeons could smile - genuinely rather than his usual nasty-spirited smirk - and even award house points to non-Slytherins every now and again. Not many people had been privy to his laughter, but those who were found themselves in agreement that Hermione was the best thing to ever happen to the ill-tempered man. Albus himself had been surprised to see just how well the two suited each other, and nobody could understand or deny the facts: the two were happiest and worked best when together. Severus became slightly more sociable with other people, the ones he didn't consider to be idiots, as her amicable nature influenced him. She cultivated a wicked sense of sarcasm that she knew would not have suited her school days. Hermione found herself emotionally and intellectually engaged for the first time in her life; her best friends had never been the type to encourage her pursuit of knowledge or engage her in intelligent conversation. And Severus had never bothered looking for someone to engage in intelligent conversation and discovered that it was a pleasure when his discussion partner was the know-it-all, stubborn, brilliant witch. As one learned to encourage students in their progress, the other learned to thoroughly discourage students in any questionable activities. They were rubbing off on each other as new friends often do.

When Albus had dubbed them Team Snarky-Smarty they had bit back similarly scathing reactions and humored the old man. The other pairs had all been given equally ridiculous names but Dumbledore insisted and refused to talk about the games at all without people using the proper team names. Hermione and Severus had, shortly after regaining their lost senses in New York, decided to change their team name, arguing with the headmaster that Team Snarky-Smarty could and should be changed to Team Sugar-Has-Rotted-Albus'-Brain. But they had only received a chuckle and lemon drop for their efforts and didn't bother trying to reason with the old man again. Both of them thought the name fitting; clearly sugar had rotted Albus' brain if he really thought his nickname for the two (which he proceeded to use all of the time and not just during Order Games) to be anything but cruel and unusual.

Their last excursion as a team, the around-the-world adventure, had changed everything and nothing. With only four cities left, the two found themselves stationed in Paris for an evening. They made plans to set off the next day to travel through Berlin and make it into Transylvania in three days time, and the two then settled into what had become a familiar routine, food and conversation being the necessities. They had a delicious dinner at a small French bistro that Severus had insisted on, walked by the Seine in a deep discussion about the properties of various dragons blood and ground sephiopporous petal combinations, and found themselves feeling distinctly like Muggle cinema characters as they stood before the Eiffel tower, studying each other rather than the architecture. A truly fabulous snogging session had followed shortly after and might have gone further had they not been interrupted by several flashes of light. It would seem that they weren't the only ones to think their situation surreal; a group of American tourists, possibly thinking they were part of the attraction, had stopped to take pictures of the entwined couple. The two had gone to their separate beds that night pondering the possibilities but had been too busy with their travels to discuss anything for the next few days. By the time the two had a chance to sit and talk again after their first day back to work at Hogwarts, they had unfortunately both decided to leave the subject alone. Their friendship returned to the companionship they had already achieved. It wasn't discussed again, much like the proverbial seven-foot purple hippogriff. Their friendship and working relationship didn't seem to suffer from it, and eventually their discomfort waned. Paris was a lovely city, a romantic city. Who couldn't help acting as they did after the evening they spent together? Without speaking about it, the two agreed to leave the reasoning behind it at that, and not dwell on it. But if they did have to remember it, they both recalled that evening in Paris particularly affectionately.

Shortly after the school year had ended, Albus called another meeting to begin their next game.

Everybody had scoffed at what the headmaster insisted was their hardest challenge to date: to live like Muggles. No loss of senses, no travel destinations, no direct competition with the other groups. They just couldn't use magic. Be they cooking a meal or calling a cab or starting a fire, there was no wand use allowed (or wandless magic, the headmaster amended, while giving Team Snarky-Smarty a knowing look). No spells, no charms, no potions. Nothing magically oriented. They were to live like Real-Life-Muggles. Whichever team outlasted the rest before resorting to magic was the winner.

Expenses, like always, would not be a problem. The goblins managing Gringotts had supported Albus' games in a very generous and unexpected agreement. The war – or lack thereof – and its effect on their business and their welfare had indebted the miserly creatures to Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix. They were the only beings other than the players that had intimate knowledge of these games, and they were happy – or at least willing – to fund the games from beginning to end. None of the Order members could be sure of their motives, as the goblins weren't known to share their personal business, but Albus would not deny that the sponsors of the Order Games were always quite interested in all results. Team Sugar-Has-Rotted-Albus'-Brain was quite certain that there was an intricate pool of sorts on the outcome of each game; their sponsors were betting on who would win.

Living expenses, food expenses, anything they could wish for, was taken care of. They could spend however much money they liked (within reason) and needn't worry about their job security or other various responsibilities. The headmaster had his connections and a good deal of influence and nobody was about to argue with the most powerful wizards and witches in the Wizarding world. There was nothing to stop them from disappearing and living without magic for as long as they could possibly stand.

So the Order of the Phoenix split up into pairs once again to do something they'd never imagined to attempt; live like Muggles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Authors Notes Well, I simply can't be blamed for the introduction of this story. I was highly encouraged by the last thing I wrote and am still on a bit of a confidence high.

I respond to every review I get. I also make a loud squeaking noise of excitement every time I see a new one. I won't insist again that I am not a writer and need serious prodding to grudgingly admit that as long as I'm writing, I'm a writer. But I will ask for feedback. Because if I'm going to admit to being an author, I'll damn well insist that I've no idea what I'm doing, and admit that I'm scared as hell.