Charley held back a laugh, as fiercely as her throat desired it. If she gave into it, despite everything in her favor, that might just spell her end. Losing to the older boy, with his stiff upper lip about the whole affair, was a fate worse than the urchin could imagine. She hadn't realized, until now, that this match was more than just about wiping the smirk off of the ol' Chuckster's face.
It was about her dignity as an up-and-comer in Hogsmeade.
Any nitwit could cheat and win over an easy mark. A few might even pull it off over a skilled one, matching them move for move. So far, Charles had done enough to keep the urchin on her toes this game. But by now this was about so much more than just a game, or about him in the first place. It was everything he stood for, squatting across from her with the circle of gobstones drawn into the dirt of the street between them. Someone well-bred and upstanding, indifferent to a point of contempt, and with far more years of skill and schooling that Charley would never have. She couldn't just trick him, nor could she just beat him fair and square. Her win had to be humiliating enough to put him in his place, a place not too far from her own in the grand scheme of Hogsmeade, someone just as dirty and inept as folk considered her to be.
Someone hardly more worth considering than a mere street urchin.
"That'd be some rotten luck," Charley commiserated, but as more of a prayer for herself. She wasn't in need of sympathy or compassion from the boy, nor did she want it. All she needed was true aim and a bit of luck. Not so much luck now, with the enchanted gobstone beneath her thumb, but a little more couldn't hurt. It was owed her, after all, for everything that the urchin endured after Hogwarts closed its doors, she had earned a bit of luck coming her way for once.
The press of the thumb came as a surprise to Charley, who had thought to wait just a few more seconds to be sure. Her eyes tracked the gobstone as it rolled, gliding over grooves in the dirt and debris in its path. Spinning, the gobstone curved, getting closer and closer to the prize at the center of the circle. The one that only she could reach right now, unless she failed. It stared at her, aiming with a threat on its curled lips that might have only existed in her mind's eye. That would feel real enough when its ink squirted out in her direction, and leaning so close Charley couldn't help but take it full in the face this time.
She gritted her teeth, watching in the span of a single heartbeat, though she knew her heart was pounding furiously beneath her chest. Closer and closer her stone came, all while Charley's eyes narrowed and her lips formed one, single word. Not a spell, not a clever trigger hidden in the enchantment, but just a small, silent plea, "I need this."
The crack hit her like an explosion in her ears, but to anyone else it might have sounded like nothing more than the typical ambiance of the street. Her stone veered off suddenly, and Charley turned away, bringing up her hand to wipe off the inky mess she thought to find in her mouth and on her cheek. They were dry, and the only taste in her mouth was that of sheer victory as the center stone rolled right up against the toe of her shoes.
"Now that's what I'm on about!"
Charley grinned a broad, toothy smile, her hands swooping down to grab the gobstone from the ground. It wasn't an aggie like she'd been playing for before, that chance had run away the moment Charles had shown up. But it gleamed with the same sheen of satisfaction that glinted off her teeth, a hard-won sort of glee that she found impossible to contain. It sent the urchin leaping to her feet, brimming with pride now that she had brought low the mighty Chuckster.
She looked down at him, for once, glowering loud as she held out the stone in her hand. "That's match, and I en't even sorry!" Shifting from foot to foot, Charley couldn't hold back the thought she'd carried since he first laughed at her gamesmanship. Something that might not seem like much to him, or anyone else, but that the urchin would wear like a medal of her valiant campaign against such scorn. Pointing at his coat, she proudly declared, "I'll be having one of those buttons now."
That would be her true prize, and if Charles was any real sort of upstanding fellow, he'd gladly hand it over.
![[Image: bZbZdaH.png]](https://i.imgur.com/bZbZdaH.png)