Chapter 3: Marked
Two months later, Hermione would be very happy she had packed the volumes of Combat and Survival that detailed the sources of edible flora and fauna and the methods of testing for them. In particular, she waa beginning to become an expert mushroom picker.
"So who gets to be Mario and who's Luigi?" Harry had asked her while the two of them were out berrying. Hermione's parents had never been big on letting their daughter have video games (ballet lessons yes, video games no), so Harry had had to explain the intricacies of Italian plumber abilities. Granted, Harry had never played video games before either, but he had hours and hours of second-hand experience from watching his cousin Dudley play, either alone or with his best friend Piers Polkiss. It had always amused and annoyed Harry that Dudley, who generally did nothing around the Dursley household, would fight so hard over who would be a short plumber with a bushy mustache, especially considering that the said plumber apparently had some sort of magic since he grew if he ate mushrooms and he could even shoot fireballs from his hands. Perhaps any form of violence made it okay. Dudley always did seem to enjoy flattening the turtle-things and whatnot in the game.
"I don't really know, Harry, but you can be Mario if you want," said Hermione, who really couldn't care less about who was who but sensed that Harry had some hang-up over being that particular character.
"Yessss!" said Harry, throwing his arms in the air. "I'm Mario, watch out Mushroom Kingdom!
So saying, Harry dashed off.
Harry came back about two hours afterwards, looking abashed and carrying a bunch of slightly-flattened mushrooms. Hermione took the fungi from her friend and began to sort them out, with help from her trusty Combat and Survival guide. There were three usable puffballs of decent size - sadly, the fourth puffball had been ripe when Harry's overenthusiastic mushroom-hunting occurred, and it had already released its spores; her book said it wasn't a good idea to cook opened puffballs; some
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