For The Love Of Scrabble

"But, but ..."

"Stop it, they'll hear us."

"But why do we have to ..."

Hermione clapped a hand over Ron's mouth to keep him quiet. When she was sure he wasn't going to utter another syllable, she removed her hand from his mouth and gestured to a by-lane nearby. The two sneaked there.

"I told you, Harry's got his Invisibility Cloak with him, so we couldn't use it."

"No, I mean why are we doing this in the first place?" Ron queried. "Sneaking into a Muggle shop in this crowded mall ..."

"I thought Harry had explained."

"He didn't. He said Hermione would explain."

"Men!" Hermione hissed, before going on. "Okay, Ron. Dobby knows I like to read, correct?"

"Correct."

"So, Dobby bewitched these squares of a game the Muggles call Scrabble. He thought it would amuse me to read them, bless his heart. He summoned them to him and made them change colour. Fortunately I've put them back to their original colour but now I have to find the precise box which they came from and return them."

"Why?"

"BECAUSE ..." Hermione began, then realised she was talking too loudly. "Because, Ron, the Muggle who buys the game needs these squares to play it with. All the boxes will have been checked and sealed before putting them on the shelf. There might be suspicion of magic if they're not there now."

Muttering about house-elves under his breath, Ron accompanied Hermione into the mall. "Can't I at least do a shield charm to prevent them bumping into me?"

"Quiet, Ron!"

The two managed to find their way to the toy store in the basement. Ron made a mental note to tell his Dad about the escalators. Hermione read the signs put up all over the store and managed to get to the 'BOARD GAMES' section before any of the salesladies caught sight of them. In any case, the salesladies were busy with last minute shoppers, and were only too glad to let customers who wanted to be left alone actually alone.

"Now," Hermione whispered.

She glanced around. The crowds were at 'Dolls' 'Trains' and 'Soft Toys'. There was nobody in their section. She put her hand into her pocket, and slid her wand slightly out. "Sqares-um Wantum?" she murmured.

They heard a tiny buzzing sound. Actually, they heard TWO tiny buzzing sounds. Two of the Scrabble boxes glowed a little. One was at one end of the shelf, the other, way on top, was at the other. Hermione groaned. How was she to know which letters had been taken from which box?

"This is going to be more complicated than I thought," she was whispering to Ron, when a saleslady tottered up, looking harrassed.

"May I help you?"

Hermione smiled. "My nephew is very fussy," she replied. "He gets it from his uncle, here." She pointed at Ron."It'll take a while, I'm looking for something that'll be just right for him."

"How old is he?" the saleslady asked, looking at Ron.

Ron replied, "12 years."

At the same time, Hermione was saying, "He's ten."

"Typical!" Hermione laughed it off. "Dear, we're buying a gift for Jerry, not Tommy. We bought Tommy's gift already, don't you remember?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry," Ron mumbled.

Fortunately, someone called out to the saleslady and she hurried off.

"Now then," Hermione whispered. "Since he's taken the letters from two boxes, I'm going to have to replace them one letter at a time. It's going to take a while."

"Yeah, that's what I needed," Ron retorted.

"Scrabble-Unscramblus!" Hermione hissed, her hand in her pocket.

A square with a letter on it flew out and inserted itself into one of the boxes.

Standing there, pretending to peer at the description of one game and then another, Hermione managed to return every square in her pocket to its original box.

"That's done," she breathed, straightening up.

"That was a neat trick, lady," came a small voice.

The two of them turned, startled.

A small Muggle girl was standing there, licking a lollipop, watching them with bright black eyes. She had a wooly cap on and Hermione absurdly thought of the Sorting Hat, the way this hat was on the child's eyebrows. But of course this child was too young to have been sorted if she'd been a witch.

"How'd you do that? I'll give you a lollipop if you tell me."

"We - er - don't like lollipops. Are you lost? Where are your parents?"

"They're looking at dolls for me and I sneaked off to watch you."

"MARGERY!" came a voice. "Where are you?"

"She's here!" Ron called back, looking around for the source of the call. "At Board Games!"

Running footsteps, and a nervous-but-relieved couple came into view.

"Mom, this lady can do a neat trick," Margery said.

"Yes, she can, she can find you in a shop and return you to us. Thanks, thanks," the mother said, hurrying off with her husband and child.