Hocus Pocus // T. Stark

Epilogue

The streets of New York are uncharacteristically calm on the night of ten may. Between the remaining pieces of rubble only few people walk on the what used to be energetic sidewalks. An owl flies by the city that normally never sleeps. It flies past the buildings, avoiding the clean-up teams that are busy filling up trucks with remains of the alien invasion that happened six days ago. The red feathered owl makes a dive towards a wall at the end of an alleyway. Instead of flying into the brick, the animal smoothly flies through. Tons of lights reflect in the owl's eyes as the feathered animal takes in all the peculiar shops and buildings around. It slows its flight once it nears a small bar. A sign hangs from the side, showing a majestic animal with the body of a horse and the head of a bird, a halo shining above its head. Casual chatter and laughter comes out of the open windows of 'The Holy Hippogriff'. 

The bird flies inside the warm space, making its way towards a group of sixteen people sitting in a circular booth. Beside the table stands a wheelchair filled with coats and bags. The owl hoots as it finds its landing spot onto the held out arm of a brown haired woman. 

"Hello to you too Tyto." Amelia says while fondly stroking the bird on its head, "Did you have a nice hunting trip? Catch any big mice?" She asks her owl, wiggling her eyebrows.

Tyto hoots an affirmative causing the witch to chuckle, "Yeah I bet you did." 

The owl hops onto her lap, cuddling into Amelia's sweater and tucking its head in, preparing for a nap, knowing that the people surrounding his owner were to be trusted with keeping her safe. New friends and old family. Tyto drifts into sleep, even the small explosion coming from the table doesn't shake him awake.

The middle part of the table had decided to play exploding snap. But since the card game requires wands, teams were made. Ron and Clint had chosen to team up, and made everyone around them regret it. Not because they were playing good, they weren't, at all, but because the small amount of words that could be heard in between their giggling were awful dad jokes. And Clint isn't even a father (although Amelia is getting some serious dad vibes from him). 

Next to them sit Ginny and Natasha. With Ginny's fast quidditch reflexes and Natasha's good eye they were as competitive as ever. Surprisingly, they weren't first. That place was for the Steve and Harry team, which mostly consisted of Harry not even trying and still winning with his natural seeker and auror reflexes. Steve wasn't half as bad, but he seems to dislike holding a wand and keeps getting partly distracted by the conversation next to him between Bruce and Hermione, who weren't participating in the game. Amelia wasn't allowed to do any fast movement so she was just watching the game happen, seated between Ginny and the last team, which consisted of Tony and Timothy, who didn't have any points. 

"How am I supposed to compete with these super spies and their super reflexes?" 

Just as Tony says that Amelia grabs his hand in hers and guides the wand to tap two similar cards at an impressive speed. 

"You're not even playing!" The genius says.

"Oh I'm sorry, do you want me to take back that point I just earned you?" Amelia quips.

Exploding snap was a fairly simple game. Cards lay on the table with their moving images facing up. On the image stands a magical creature. Every image has an identical pair and the only thing you needed to do was touch your wand on a pair to earn a point. It would have been too easy, if it weren't for the card constantly shuffling on the table, going faster after each collected pair.  Another fun thing was that touching two different cards, makes them explode. 

The two matching cards float towards them and lay on top of one another. Tony narrows his eyes and inspects the image of a green stick figure on top, "What animal even is that? A stick insect? A grasshopper?"