Super Doubling

To avoid arousing suspicion, and out of curiosity, Kyle wandered around some other places. By the time he returned to the Valley Tavern, it was already evening. The place was packed, even livelier than it had been at noon.

Kyle spotted a familiar person... no, more accurately, he heard one.

"Give it up, Aberforth. I'm not selling alcohol to a little fourth-year like you." Standing behind the bar, the owner looked teasingly at the young boy before him.

The boy glared back at the owner, his face full of anger. "I'm already a fifth-year!"

A burst of laughter erupted around them. Everyone was watching that side of the room as though they were enjoying a particularly entertaining show.

"Fifth-year doesn't make a difference." The owner raised an eyebrow. "Until you're seventeen, you're all little kids, and little kids don't drink."

"Here, this is for you." He slid a cup across the counter. "Milk pumpkin juice. That's what you ought to be drinking."

The tavern erupted in laughter again. A bearded wizard beside them slapped a Sickle onto the table and shouted, "Will, don't swindle a kid out of his pocket money. I'm buying that glass of milk for him."

"You... I want whiskey!" Aberforth's face flushed red with fury. He grabbed a handful of Sickles. "I can pay double!"

"Even ten times the price wouldn't help." The owner shook his head again. "You're not old enough to drink. All you can have is milk pumpkin juice."

"And you care about that?" Aberforth craned his neck and swept his gaze around the room. "Don't think I don't know. Half the alcohol here was illegally smuggled in from Romania, wasn't it?"

Rather than getting angry, the owner simply chuckled. "A correction: not half, two-thirds. And besides, only things on the prohibited trade