Arthur was down twenty sickles, now, which was really a galleon and three sickles, which felt both like a lot of money and very little money at the same time. It was not the sort of sum that could break a family - or, at least, it was no longer the sort of sum that could break his family - but it was a lot of money to lose in a week and half. He knew, on some level, this is not normal. But twenty sickles wasn't going to break him, if he made a little bit of the money back it wasn't unlikely that Desdemona would never notice. He could make a little bit of money back - he could win - and then he could stop going to the casino and it would be as if he never slipped up at all.

Besides -- Quidditch was back to normal. He had other things to do, now, a game to prepare for on February 20th - with Quidditch as a real distraction, it would be easy to pull back out, to go to the casino left often. He'd be fine. He was sure of it.

He was surprised, to get an owl from Ben - usually they sort of dropped in on one another. He felt on some level that he was in trouble; or maybe Ben was in trouble, and this was about Melody. (Guilt, there - if Art hadn't been so busy thinking about cards and the casino and money, all of a sudden, he would have dropped in on Ben by now, sent a letter, something.)

So he was already waiting in the front room when Ben arrived via floo network, tossing one of Gwenog's blocks from hand to hand so that he had something to fidget with. "Hey," Art said, "Desdemona's out." Whether Dez and Gwenog had left because Desdemona had pre-existing plans, or whether they had left because Art mentioned Ben was coming - he wasn't sure, hadn't asked.

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