The sigh began sometime during the sorting, stacking and shuffling of a great many number of cards. A sigh from Philo, your average Ravenclaw geek could mean anything from mild exasperation to bemused bittersweet contentment.

The Gaming Club did not really have a budget, per sae. All games had been either from Philo's or another member's ownership or generously donated from some other non-attending student. If anything, Philo had just spent all of his accumulated pocket money (accumulated over a sadly long period of time) on a full set of a new popular card game called 'Gargle.'

The game was called Gargle but the name printed on the box was a nigh unpronounceable word in gobbledegook, the goblin language, and those that attempted to do so generally sounded like they were short the mouthwash in a morning rinsing. It was being lauded as 'the most authentic representation of the goblin banking market' ever in a game, which in retrospect should have been a tipoff for Philo. Between the many stacks of cards players created their own deck as they refined the base currency into more wealthy treasures, made investments or sanctions against other players and aimed to dominate the economy by owning the most valuable resources.

To Philo, who had been self-educated in Arithmancy as a kid with a side order of Ancient Runes, the game had been fascinating, especially when one considered all the different strategies different players could take when they had access to purchasing the same supply of cards.

Not that there was a soul to share in Philo's enthusiasm. Sure, Gaming Club had never been a big bonanza of popularity. Philo and his friend Pax Wintergreen had known that since they scraped together a few interesting meetings towards the end of their second year. And while the exposure on Club Day had risen attendance somewhat that had dropped again as Hogwarts sat in the middle of term, midterms and the prospects of exams before the winter holiday weighing heavily on the minds of the collective student body.

Even Tim Pepper, who Philo knew to be a good chess player and would take a genuine if dry interest in most games that passed through the club, had abandoned 'frivolities' on the weekends to study up for tests. And considering Philo's more pessimistic side considered most of his other friends attending out of pity as opposed to any real gaming amusement (take Obderedria's honest but sometimes absent minded attempts at the rules of a four player game, and her dragging along Heliotrope who mainly got the cards wet) it was easy to consider such no-show afternoons as pointless, especially when Philo hadn't the heart to actually cancel any of the club meetings.

Though the room was quiet Philo didn't mind that, as he could easily keep himself entertained when by himself. During the unboxing of his new game he was marveling at the artwork on the cards. Ones like a self-correcting scale of gems being valued against gold, or the underground halls to ancient vaults being guarded by a riddle-imposing sphinx, or the dreaded action of a rogue bookkeeper embezzling thousands of galleons with cheated numbers. Read; get a lot of treasure from your opponent's deck, many of these cards didn't shy away from the darker side of financing. The artwork on the retaliation cards of what the goblins did to thieves probably shouldn't be shown to any kid before Hogwarts age.