Chapter 2
Sam Marquez, the casino hostess for the Montecito, was walking down the corridor on the ninth floor with two of her latest whales and their friends. Ironically, these two whales were good friends and attended a school in England that she had never heard of, Hogwarts. They were here for the reunion thing that Mary was planning but she didn't care about that. She did her research on them and discovered them to be millionaires. She was explaining the different games that the Montecito offered. She was pitching the line about getting them a private table when she was interrupted.
"Excuse me, Ms. Marquez" a tall man with messy raven hair, green eyes and glasses asked her.
"Please, call me Sam!"
"Well Sam, I would just like to know what room my friend is staying in?"
"Sure, just let me know the name and I will check with reception to see what room they're in Mr. Potter"
"Please, call me Harry, and her name is Hermione Granger."
"Ok Hermione Granger" Sam said as she pulled out her cell phone to make the call.
They continued walking down the corridor but didn't get very far as one of the doors flew open and a lady came running out of the room and straight into Harry.
"OH, I am very sorry sir." The lady said
"Mary?" Sam said as she looked at the tangled mess on the floor.
"Oh, hey Sam. Sorry about the interruption. I just came up stairs for a quick nap and overslept. I got to get downstairs for registration for that reunion thing" Mary said
"This is Mr. Potter and his friends. They're part of that reunion." Sam said as she helped Mary up off the floor.
"Oh, Mary Connell, Special Events Co-ordinator, Pleasure to meet you." Mary said as she held out her hand to Harry.
"Harry Potter" The raven-haired man said shaking her hand. Mary was immediately struck with his resemblance to Danny. They were both tall and handsome but Harry had the most interesting green eyes. Their facial features were different but there was something about Harry that reminded her a bit of Danny.
Sam noticed Mary's attention to Harry and quickly continued on with the introductions.
"Draco Malfoy, Ron Weasley." The tall blond and red head both said.
"Ginerva Weasley. Luna Lovegood" both girls said from besides the boys.
"Uh, Miss Weasley and Miss Lovegood, I don't remember your names on the list." Mary said
"They weren't in our graduating year, but they are here as dates for Draco and Ron." Harry informed her.
"What about your date?" Sam asked curiously. She had researched both Draco and Harry and found very little information about them. She did gather that they weren't married.
"I am going stag!" Harry said proudly.
"No girlfriend?" Sam questioned
Harry chuckled "For some reason I can't seem to keep girls long enough to call them a girlfriend!"
"There's a reason for that but you are too blind to see it!" Ginny said seriously.
Harry had in fact had a few girlfriends but the longest anyone lasted was six months. That honour went to Ginny herself. She had her own theories as to why Harry could never keep a girlfriend.
"If you need an escort, I would be happy to find someone for you?" Sam offered.
"Thanks for the offer but if I needed an escort that badly, I would have just asked Hermione. She's going stag too!" Harry said with a smile.
"Hermione Granger right?" Mary asked
"Yes"
"She came in early this morning. I don't think she received her welcome package yet." Mary said as she scanned through her memory for information on Hermione Granger.
"We have the whole floor to ourselves?" Draco questioned.
"As Ms. Brown requested, everyone is staying on the same floor. In fact, all of you have rooms on this floor. My room is also on this floor!" She said with a pleasant smile.
In truth Ed really didn't want them to have the whole floor to themselves, so he made sure that there was one room open. Since Mary needed a place to stay, he gave her that room so she could keep an eye on her clients. The Montecito could only put cameras in the hallways. It was illegal to have cameras in the rooms. He was hoping Mary would be able to keep an eye out for any unusual activities with this group of people.
"Good" Draco responded.
Draco was dying to use magic. He could only stand pretending to be a muggle for so long. Before coming to Las Vegas, he argued several times with Lavender about having the reunion there. He couldn't understand why the Hogwarts reunion was not being held at Hogwarts. It only made complete sense to do that but then again nobody ever put the words Lavender and sense in the same sentence.
Lavender's argument was that there were some people who didn't want to go back to Hogwarts and that Draco should try to be more accommodating. Draco then suggested Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley or any magical place for the reunion. Why a muggle place? To that, her response was Paravati's cousin works in security at the Montecito and she said it was a lovely place to host a reunion. Draco of course tried to take the argument further than that but Ginny cut him off stating he was trying to reason with a blast ended skrewt. Draco was hoping that this whole reunion would backfire in Lavenders face so he could gloat over the poor Gryffindor.
"Which room is Hermione in?" Harry asked enthusiastically as Sam got off the phone.
"931" Sam informed the eager Harry
"A few rooms down from mine" Mary said
Even though he had seen Hermione right before she portkeyed here, he couldn't wait to see her again. Being the very organized person Hermione was, she was able to finish her work early and left ahead of them as a lesson to her boys to be more organized. Harry had a bunch of paper work to finish and Kinglsey wasn't letting him come until every last report was submitted. Ron hadn't packed up till the time Hermione left. Luna could have gone with Hermione but Ron and Harry both thought that Hermione and Luna alone in Las Vegas could be a very dangerous combination. There was no telling where they would end up. Ginny had a last minute interview to submit to her Editor at Witch Weekly and Draco decided to wait for her before coming.
Harry headed straight to Hermione's room. He knocked lightly at first but then resorted to pounding hard when she didn't answer.
"She's not there Harry. You know Mione, probably dropped her bags down and went out to see all those things she read about in those bloody books of hers!" Ron stated.
"Yeah, you're right Ron. I guess we'll see her at dinner tonight." Harry said slightly put out that he would not be seeing Hermione for a few more hours.
"I'm kind of sleepy." Luna stated suddenly.
"Quick nap? That's a good idea. You guys go sleep and I'll just look around!" Draco said with a greedy look in his eyes.
Ginny eyed him wearily. "Feel free to look around Draco but if you step near any of those tables, we'll have to call pest control to remove the bouncing Ferret!"
Draco gulped. "On second thought I think I'll take a nap with you sweety."
Ginny smiled happily.
Sam frowned. The Montecito made money when her whales gambled and lost! But the first step was getting them to the tables. Ginny was proving to be a challenging obstacle in her goal but that didn't bother Sam. She would get Draco and Harry to the tables. She wasn't a successful hostess for no reason.
_____________________________________________________________________
-->