Chapter 35: You Had Your Chance

Kir and Liviana

Kir fell off his broom and his new glasses broke during the Quidditch tryouts. It was fortunate for him that wizards had things like Oculus Reparo, since his parents probably couldn't afford one pair as it was. At least all of his friends got to be humiliated with him. Still, if Dibon and Percy had been annoying before, they were downright infuriating once they got on the Wampus Quidditch team. Dibon had been on about Quidditch ever since they became First Years, and now he had an excuse to disappear into that world and not come out till the guards called curfew every night. He acted as if Kir was invisible these days. He couldn't still be mad about that party business, right? That had been almost a year ago! If he couldn't let go of that, then he obviously wasn't too into second chances. Kir was much better off with his new friends.

…The friends who had barely written to him over the summer and left him alone with his family. There hadn't exactly been shalom bayit (peace in the home) when his very traditional and inflexible parents had discovered through a most-likely-purposeful slip of Dibon's tongue that Kir had given up wearing the hat-like yarmulke or engaging in pretty much any other Jewish expression for a good part of the previous school year. That summer, they had worked to re-indoctrinate him. Kir had been counting down the days until he could get back to freedom at the beginning of September.

The day of the first Quidditch match was gray, but not raining – yet. Every game, it always felt like their entire world got packed into two halves of crowded bleachers; professors, the older students, everyone came out of the woodwork. Even Finn, who had sworn he would be boycotting Quidditch forever when he found out he hadn't made the team, was shooting red sparks from his wand higher than other Second Year in the stands.

"I should have been Seeker," Boris grumbled for the millionth time, almost immediately followed by, "Go, Wampus!" Dibon turned from his huddle of teammates and waved both hands in their direction. Kir waved back – just out of habit, you know – when he saw out of the corner of his eye the people that his brother normally hung around with these days waving and holding up their signs from a few levels up. He quickly dropped his hand and looked around to make sure no one had seen.

The crowd was shuffling around like a swarm of gnats. No one had really settled into their seats yet. Reezie Reitherman came by to tussle her brother, Royal's, hair, messing up the perfectly combed wave that it had. Her hair was a long, rippling blonde just like his. She was so drop-dead gorgeous that just being within a couple yards made Kir's face go completely red. He edged away from the group until the blood wasn't so loud in his ears – and his shoulder accidentally bumped someone's leg.

"Sorry – oh, hey," he said to Liviana, who wasn't holding a sign, wasn't cheering, and most remarkably wasn't talking. "You didn't get in either?"

"You don't have to rub it in," she snapped. Kir rolled his eyes and looked back to the Wampus team, which looked like they were completing their first team huddle of the season. They're arms were all around each other, like a band of brothers.

"Do you ever regret it?" Liviana asked in a reflective tone. Oh boy. He had forgotten about her bluntness.

Kir decided to see what playing dumb would do. "Regret what?"

"Giving up your brother for them," Liviana nodded towards Finn's gang, who were still talking with Reezie Reitherman. Their mouths were smiling and their eyes only focused on those in the circle. Had they noticed when he had slipped aside?

"I didn't give up my brother. He gave up me." Kir argued, feeling as if the girl sitting a couple feet away had somehow violated his personal space, "And if I regretted anything, I wouldn't tell you."

"Fine then!" She tossed her long, brown pigtails. "I was just thinking that if you two were together more, you could have practiced together and you could have been a good enough flier to be on the team. But I guess it's too late now. Sorry for getting into your business."

The words It's too late now, twisted something somewhere in the boy's innards, somewhere that was, much, much too close to home.

"Yeah, it is none of your business," he snapped back, "If I wanted to stay in your group, I could have. I still could. Dibon and I are together every break, remember? I just don't want to. I like my friends."

Finn glanced his way as if he subconsciously knew that they were being spoken of, then turned away at once to catch something Royal's sister was saying.

Kir wasn't looking at Liviana, but he could hear the skepticism in her voice. "I don't think so. We all know what you did at the Christmas party –"

"Dibon told you that?" Kir interrupted.

"No. Credence and Percy did. They told us everything about what happened that year. And you were with them and you were OK with that. I never understood how anyone could do that."

Kir was stonily silent.

"Dibon always gets grumpy when we talk about it. He told me that you left him for Finn's gang, that's what he said. He said he tried to convince you to not do it and everything, but you still did. You had your chance, Kir. And you blew it."

She got up and pushed her way through the bleachers. She didn't look back as she hopped off the edge, or she would have seen Kir watching her long hair disappearing below, steam coming out of his ears. He couldn't believe he had ever been friends with her. He couldn't believe he'd ever let her rope him into a leading conversation. He… he couldn't believe her.

But she had hit very, very close to home.

A/N: I chose Dibon and Percy to be the ones to get on the team for many reasons, but I legitimately think that they would be the best players for the job. They are both beaters, if anyone's curious. All the references to Jewish culture I got from Jewish websites, although I do not currently know anyone who is Jewish. Please let me know if anything is inaccurate, as I would like to display the different cultures as accurately as possible.