As Oliver got ready to go to Adrianna's parents' house for dinner that
evening, a thousand different thoughts were running through his head. What
if they didn't like him? What if he made a fool of himself because he
didn't know very much about muggles? What if her parents were as anti-
wizard as his father was anti-muggle? He tried to clear his head as he
pulled on a long sleeved gray t-shirt.
"Don't be ridiculous," he told himself. "If her parents were really anti- wizard, they would have never let her go to a school for magic in the first place."
Adrianna appeared with a portkey a few minutes later, and a few seconds after that they were at her front door in the middle of a suburban town. She rang the bell, and a teenage girl with strawberry blonde hair answered the door.
"Yo Age, is this your boyfriend?" the girl asked as she held the door open.
"Don't call me that! You know I hate it. And yes, this is my boyfriend Oliver. Oliver, this is my sister Leah."
"Pleasure," Oliver replied. Leah just kind of nodded slightly.
"Where's Mom?" asked Adrianna.
"Um, in the kitchen making dinner, duh," Leah replied as if this were the most obvious answer in the world. She left the room, and Oliver heard her footsteps going up the stairs a few moments later.
"She's got a bit of an attitude, hasn't she?" he remarked quietly to Adrianna as soon as he was certain Leah couldn't hear him.
"Yeah, just a bit," Adrianna replied. She led him through the living room and the dining room into the kitchen.
As they walked, Oliver looked around at the various muggle objects that surrounded him. He recognized things like the electric table lamps and the telephone, but other things were completely foreign to him. Once they reached the kitchen he spotted Adrianna's mom in front the electric stove, adding seasoning to the chicken that she was browning in a skillet.
"Hello!" Adrianna's mom said brightly as she looked up from the stove. She turned away from the skillet for a few minutes to give her oldest daughter a bear hug. "And you must be Oliver. It's nice to finally meet you," she said, reaching for Oliver's hand. "I'm Vickie."
"Nice to meet you," he replied, shaking her hand.
"Do you need any help with dinner?" Adrianna offered.
"If you want to set the table that would be great, but other than that, I think everything is just about ready," Mrs. Brighton replied. Adrianna pulled her wand out of the front pocket of her flared jeans and gave it a wave, and five place settings floated gracefully out of the cabinets and set themselves at the dining room table.
"Do you know where Dad is?" Adrianna inquired.
"He went out for a walk before dinner, but he should be back any time now," her mother replied.
As if on cue, the back door opened and a middle-aged man with short brown hair entered the kitchen.
"Hi Dad! This is Oliver. Oliver, this is my dad Roy," Adrianna said in introduction. Oliver reached for Mr. Brighton's hand and shook it firmly.
"Dinner's ready," Mrs. Brighton announced. "Adrianna, can you go tell your sister to come downstairs?"
Adrianna nodded and walked over to the staircase, but rather than climbing it to fetch her sister she shouted up the stairs. "Kiddo! Dinner's ready, get down here!"
Leah came running down the stairs wearing a scowl. "I'm not a 'kiddo' anymore. I'm seventeen, I'm almost an adult."
"You may be nearly an adult, but you'll always be my kid sister," Adrianna replied with a grin.
Leah simply rolled her eyes and seated herself at the head of the oval dining room table. Adrianna sat to Leah's left and motioned for Oliver to sit down next to her. Across from Oliver and Adrianna were Mr. and Mrs. Brighton. Adrianna's mother said grace, and then they began passing dishes of seasoned chicken breast, white rice and steamed broccoli around the table. Oliver thought that the dinner was delicious. It was so good it rivaled his own mother's cooking.
"This is a really great dinner," Oliver said, and there were murmurs of agreement around the table. Mrs. Brighton beamed.
"I can't believe you made a dinner this good without magic," he continued.
Adrianna's dad looked up very suddenly upon hearing the word 'magic' but said nothing. Oliver got the impression that he was surprised but not really upset.
"Oliver's a wizard, Daddy," Adrianna explained.
"Does he got a magic stick?" asked Leah, a devilish smile spreading across her face. Mrs. Brighton shot a warning glare at Leah. Adrianna blushed deeply.
"Actually, I do," Oliver replied. Leah's eyes widened. Oliver pulled his wand out of his jeans pocket and held it up for her to see.
"That's nothing special," she said, her eyes resuming their normal size. "Age has one of them too."
"You're just jealous that you don't have a wand of your own," Adrianna teased.
"I could have one o' them jawns if I wanted it," Leah replied.
"Yeah, a lot of good it would do you too. You haven't got an ounce of magic in you."
"Shows how much you know," Leah retorted sarcastically.
"What do you mean?" Adrianna demanded.
But Leah wouldn't speak another word throughout the rest of dinner.
They finished dinner and Adrianna's mother began to clear the table, but Adrianna stopped her. "I'll do it, Mom. You know it only takes me a couple of minutes anyhow," she said, pulling out her wand.
"I'll help too," Oliver offered, brandishing his own wand.
"Thanks," Mrs. Brighton replied.
She and Mr. Brighton walked into the living room and turned on the television. Leah returned to her bedroom as soon as she was done eating. Oliver and Adrianna used their wands to clear the table, put the leftovers away, and make the dishes wash themselves.
"Thanks for helping, love," said Adrianna when they were finished. "Why don't you go and have a seat in the living room with my parents? They won't bite, I promise."
"Why, where are you going?"
"I have to talk to Leah. I've got to find out whether she was just messing with me or if there really is something about her that she's hiding."
Adrianna climbed the stairs to talk to her sister, and Oliver walked into the living room and took a seat on the couch. He stared at the television for a minute. "Curious," he commented. "I've only ever seen one of these once before, and I've never even seen a television program."
"What do wizards do for entertainment?" asked Mrs. Brighton.
"Oh lots of things. There's wizard's chess, exploding snap, gobstones, and quidditch, to name a few."
"I know how to play chess," said Adrianna's dad. "How is wizard's chess different?"
"The pieces fight when they take each other out. It makes for some really interesting matches."
"And what's exploding snap?" inquired Adrianna's mom.
"It's a card game. The cards will explode every so often, so you'll want to pay attention when you're playing it. Gobstones are like marbles except that they can spit a foul-smelling liquid into the players' faces. And quidditch is our sport in the wizarding world. It's popularity is comparable to soccer in the muggle world."
"I think Adrianna may have mentioned quidditch once or twice. How's it played?" asked Mrs. Brighton.
Oliver went on to describe the game of quidditch, but he could tell that Adrianna's parents were lost.
"It sounds fascinating. So, Adrianna tells me that you're a teacher at the same school that she's teaching at," Mrs. Brighton said, trying to keep up the conversation.
"Yeah, I teach flying and coach quidditch," Oliver replied.
"Oh, then you both teach at a school for magic?"
"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It's the best school of magic in the world," Oliver replied.
"That's funny, Adrianna told us that she was teaching cultural studies at a boarding school in Scotland. I wonder why she lied to us," Mr. Brighton commented.
"She didn't really lie, sir," Oliver said in her defense. "She does teach Muggle Studies, and Hogwarts is a boarding school. She may not have told the whole truth, but she didn't lie."
There was a pause in the conversation during which Oliver collected his thoughts and worked up the nerve to say what he wanted to say next.
"Mr. and Mrs. Brighton," he began, "I realize that I haven't know your daughter for very long, but I love her more than life itself. When I picture my future, I can't imagine it without her. I'd like to ask for your permission to ask Adrianna for her hand in marriage."
Mr. and Mrs. Brighton looked at each other for a few moments before either of them responded.
"Well Oliver, you seem like a nice young man to me. Very well-mannered and considerate," said Mr. Brighton.
"Adrianna has a very level head when it comes to boys. I trust her judgment. I personally would prefer if you wait for a little while before getting engaged, but that is between you and Adrianna. You have our permission to ask Adrianna to marry you whenever you see fit," said Mrs. Brighton with a smile.
Oliver didn't realize that he'd been holding his breath until he exhaled with a sigh of relief. "Thank you so much. You don't know how much this means to me," he said gratefully.
A few moments later Adrianna returned to the living room with Leah in tow. She noticed immediately that the TV was on and turned it off before sitting next to Oliver on the couch.
"Hey! I was watching that!" her father protested.
"Key word: was. I hate the TV. Why don't we all play a game or something?" suggested Adrianna.
"Dominoes!" Leah exclaimed as she flopped on the couch next to Adrianna and put her feet across Adrianna's lap. "Can we play dominoes, mom?"
"That's up to Adrianna and Oliver, they're the guests," Mrs. Brighton replied.
"Can we?" Leah repeated eagerly, this time looking in Oliver and Adrianna's direction.
"Only if you get your feet off of me," Adrianna replied.
Leah stuck her feet in Adrianna's face before getting up to get the game out of the bottom of the china cabinet in the dining room. Everyone else followed Leah to the dining room and sat around the table. Oliver played the first round with Adrianna so that he could learn how to play, but he caught on quickly and by the second round he was able to play on his own. Before any of them realized it, a couple of hours had passed.
"We should probably be getting back now," said Adrianna as she glanced at the clock on the wall. There were hugs all around as everyone said their goodbyes. Adrianna found the old glove that they had used as a portkey earlier, and Oliver and Adrianna were back at Hogwarts in a flash.
"So, what did you think of my family?" asked Adrianna as they sat on his plaid sofa.
"You parents were very nice people, and Leah was a trip. Is she always like that, or was she just being a show-off?"
"She's always like that."
"What did she say to you upstairs?"
"She's a witch, Oliver. Well, she could have been if she'd had the proper training, anyhow. She got a letter from Salem when she was eleven, but she threw it away because she didn't want to go to a school for magic. She didn't want to leave her friends, and she didn't want to follow in my footsteps for the rest of her life."
"Well, I suppose the wizarding world isn't for everyone. She was raised a muggle, that's all she's ever known. Maybe she didn't want to leave what was familiar to her."
"Yes, but I was raised a muggle and I had no problem leaving to join the wizarding world..."
"Maybe she's not as brave as you."
"I'm not brave."
Oliver looked at his girlfriend in disbelief. "You left your muggle home to go to a wizarding school, then went to a muggle college full time while playing quidditch for your country's national team. You then packed up and left everything you've ever know to teach in a foreign country, and since you've been here you've helped to defeat the most evil wizard of all time. No cowardly person would have accomplished all of that."
"Well, if you look at it that way..."
Oliver gave her a gentle kiss on the lips. "I wonder what house you would have been sorted into here," he thought aloud.
"Gryffindor," she replied promptly.
"How do you know?"
"I tried the sorting hat on one day when I was in Dumbledore's office. It debated whether to put me in Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, but in the end it said that I would have been a Gryffindor if I'd gone to Hogwarts as a student."
"You mean to tell me that you knew that you would have been sorted into Gryffindor, yet you still don't think you're brave?" he asked incredulously.
"I suppose I am sort of brave," she conceded.
Just then Oliver's crup came wandering into the living room from his bedroom. "Here Crup," Adrianna called. He came trotting over to her.
"He has a name you know," said Oliver.
"Really? It took you long enough to come up with one. What is it, then?"
"Duncan." "That's a strange name for a pet. Why Duncan?"
"I dunno. It's a traditional Scottish name. And it's no stranger than calling a kneazle Chip," he replied.
She stuck her tongue out at him. "Don't stick out your tongue unless you're planning to use it," he teased.
"Who says I wasn't planning to use it?" she replied slyly before french kissing him.
"Don't be ridiculous," he told himself. "If her parents were really anti- wizard, they would have never let her go to a school for magic in the first place."
Adrianna appeared with a portkey a few minutes later, and a few seconds after that they were at her front door in the middle of a suburban town. She rang the bell, and a teenage girl with strawberry blonde hair answered the door.
"Yo Age, is this your boyfriend?" the girl asked as she held the door open.
"Don't call me that! You know I hate it. And yes, this is my boyfriend Oliver. Oliver, this is my sister Leah."
"Pleasure," Oliver replied. Leah just kind of nodded slightly.
"Where's Mom?" asked Adrianna.
"Um, in the kitchen making dinner, duh," Leah replied as if this were the most obvious answer in the world. She left the room, and Oliver heard her footsteps going up the stairs a few moments later.
"She's got a bit of an attitude, hasn't she?" he remarked quietly to Adrianna as soon as he was certain Leah couldn't hear him.
"Yeah, just a bit," Adrianna replied. She led him through the living room and the dining room into the kitchen.
As they walked, Oliver looked around at the various muggle objects that surrounded him. He recognized things like the electric table lamps and the telephone, but other things were completely foreign to him. Once they reached the kitchen he spotted Adrianna's mom in front the electric stove, adding seasoning to the chicken that she was browning in a skillet.
"Hello!" Adrianna's mom said brightly as she looked up from the stove. She turned away from the skillet for a few minutes to give her oldest daughter a bear hug. "And you must be Oliver. It's nice to finally meet you," she said, reaching for Oliver's hand. "I'm Vickie."
"Nice to meet you," he replied, shaking her hand.
"Do you need any help with dinner?" Adrianna offered.
"If you want to set the table that would be great, but other than that, I think everything is just about ready," Mrs. Brighton replied. Adrianna pulled her wand out of the front pocket of her flared jeans and gave it a wave, and five place settings floated gracefully out of the cabinets and set themselves at the dining room table.
"Do you know where Dad is?" Adrianna inquired.
"He went out for a walk before dinner, but he should be back any time now," her mother replied.
As if on cue, the back door opened and a middle-aged man with short brown hair entered the kitchen.
"Hi Dad! This is Oliver. Oliver, this is my dad Roy," Adrianna said in introduction. Oliver reached for Mr. Brighton's hand and shook it firmly.
"Dinner's ready," Mrs. Brighton announced. "Adrianna, can you go tell your sister to come downstairs?"
Adrianna nodded and walked over to the staircase, but rather than climbing it to fetch her sister she shouted up the stairs. "Kiddo! Dinner's ready, get down here!"
Leah came running down the stairs wearing a scowl. "I'm not a 'kiddo' anymore. I'm seventeen, I'm almost an adult."
"You may be nearly an adult, but you'll always be my kid sister," Adrianna replied with a grin.
Leah simply rolled her eyes and seated herself at the head of the oval dining room table. Adrianna sat to Leah's left and motioned for Oliver to sit down next to her. Across from Oliver and Adrianna were Mr. and Mrs. Brighton. Adrianna's mother said grace, and then they began passing dishes of seasoned chicken breast, white rice and steamed broccoli around the table. Oliver thought that the dinner was delicious. It was so good it rivaled his own mother's cooking.
"This is a really great dinner," Oliver said, and there were murmurs of agreement around the table. Mrs. Brighton beamed.
"I can't believe you made a dinner this good without magic," he continued.
Adrianna's dad looked up very suddenly upon hearing the word 'magic' but said nothing. Oliver got the impression that he was surprised but not really upset.
"Oliver's a wizard, Daddy," Adrianna explained.
"Does he got a magic stick?" asked Leah, a devilish smile spreading across her face. Mrs. Brighton shot a warning glare at Leah. Adrianna blushed deeply.
"Actually, I do," Oliver replied. Leah's eyes widened. Oliver pulled his wand out of his jeans pocket and held it up for her to see.
"That's nothing special," she said, her eyes resuming their normal size. "Age has one of them too."
"You're just jealous that you don't have a wand of your own," Adrianna teased.
"I could have one o' them jawns if I wanted it," Leah replied.
"Yeah, a lot of good it would do you too. You haven't got an ounce of magic in you."
"Shows how much you know," Leah retorted sarcastically.
"What do you mean?" Adrianna demanded.
But Leah wouldn't speak another word throughout the rest of dinner.
They finished dinner and Adrianna's mother began to clear the table, but Adrianna stopped her. "I'll do it, Mom. You know it only takes me a couple of minutes anyhow," she said, pulling out her wand.
"I'll help too," Oliver offered, brandishing his own wand.
"Thanks," Mrs. Brighton replied.
She and Mr. Brighton walked into the living room and turned on the television. Leah returned to her bedroom as soon as she was done eating. Oliver and Adrianna used their wands to clear the table, put the leftovers away, and make the dishes wash themselves.
"Thanks for helping, love," said Adrianna when they were finished. "Why don't you go and have a seat in the living room with my parents? They won't bite, I promise."
"Why, where are you going?"
"I have to talk to Leah. I've got to find out whether she was just messing with me or if there really is something about her that she's hiding."
Adrianna climbed the stairs to talk to her sister, and Oliver walked into the living room and took a seat on the couch. He stared at the television for a minute. "Curious," he commented. "I've only ever seen one of these once before, and I've never even seen a television program."
"What do wizards do for entertainment?" asked Mrs. Brighton.
"Oh lots of things. There's wizard's chess, exploding snap, gobstones, and quidditch, to name a few."
"I know how to play chess," said Adrianna's dad. "How is wizard's chess different?"
"The pieces fight when they take each other out. It makes for some really interesting matches."
"And what's exploding snap?" inquired Adrianna's mom.
"It's a card game. The cards will explode every so often, so you'll want to pay attention when you're playing it. Gobstones are like marbles except that they can spit a foul-smelling liquid into the players' faces. And quidditch is our sport in the wizarding world. It's popularity is comparable to soccer in the muggle world."
"I think Adrianna may have mentioned quidditch once or twice. How's it played?" asked Mrs. Brighton.
Oliver went on to describe the game of quidditch, but he could tell that Adrianna's parents were lost.
"It sounds fascinating. So, Adrianna tells me that you're a teacher at the same school that she's teaching at," Mrs. Brighton said, trying to keep up the conversation.
"Yeah, I teach flying and coach quidditch," Oliver replied.
"Oh, then you both teach at a school for magic?"
"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It's the best school of magic in the world," Oliver replied.
"That's funny, Adrianna told us that she was teaching cultural studies at a boarding school in Scotland. I wonder why she lied to us," Mr. Brighton commented.
"She didn't really lie, sir," Oliver said in her defense. "She does teach Muggle Studies, and Hogwarts is a boarding school. She may not have told the whole truth, but she didn't lie."
There was a pause in the conversation during which Oliver collected his thoughts and worked up the nerve to say what he wanted to say next.
"Mr. and Mrs. Brighton," he began, "I realize that I haven't know your daughter for very long, but I love her more than life itself. When I picture my future, I can't imagine it without her. I'd like to ask for your permission to ask Adrianna for her hand in marriage."
Mr. and Mrs. Brighton looked at each other for a few moments before either of them responded.
"Well Oliver, you seem like a nice young man to me. Very well-mannered and considerate," said Mr. Brighton.
"Adrianna has a very level head when it comes to boys. I trust her judgment. I personally would prefer if you wait for a little while before getting engaged, but that is between you and Adrianna. You have our permission to ask Adrianna to marry you whenever you see fit," said Mrs. Brighton with a smile.
Oliver didn't realize that he'd been holding his breath until he exhaled with a sigh of relief. "Thank you so much. You don't know how much this means to me," he said gratefully.
A few moments later Adrianna returned to the living room with Leah in tow. She noticed immediately that the TV was on and turned it off before sitting next to Oliver on the couch.
"Hey! I was watching that!" her father protested.
"Key word: was. I hate the TV. Why don't we all play a game or something?" suggested Adrianna.
"Dominoes!" Leah exclaimed as she flopped on the couch next to Adrianna and put her feet across Adrianna's lap. "Can we play dominoes, mom?"
"That's up to Adrianna and Oliver, they're the guests," Mrs. Brighton replied.
"Can we?" Leah repeated eagerly, this time looking in Oliver and Adrianna's direction.
"Only if you get your feet off of me," Adrianna replied.
Leah stuck her feet in Adrianna's face before getting up to get the game out of the bottom of the china cabinet in the dining room. Everyone else followed Leah to the dining room and sat around the table. Oliver played the first round with Adrianna so that he could learn how to play, but he caught on quickly and by the second round he was able to play on his own. Before any of them realized it, a couple of hours had passed.
"We should probably be getting back now," said Adrianna as she glanced at the clock on the wall. There were hugs all around as everyone said their goodbyes. Adrianna found the old glove that they had used as a portkey earlier, and Oliver and Adrianna were back at Hogwarts in a flash.
"So, what did you think of my family?" asked Adrianna as they sat on his plaid sofa.
"You parents were very nice people, and Leah was a trip. Is she always like that, or was she just being a show-off?"
"She's always like that."
"What did she say to you upstairs?"
"She's a witch, Oliver. Well, she could have been if she'd had the proper training, anyhow. She got a letter from Salem when she was eleven, but she threw it away because she didn't want to go to a school for magic. She didn't want to leave her friends, and she didn't want to follow in my footsteps for the rest of her life."
"Well, I suppose the wizarding world isn't for everyone. She was raised a muggle, that's all she's ever known. Maybe she didn't want to leave what was familiar to her."
"Yes, but I was raised a muggle and I had no problem leaving to join the wizarding world..."
"Maybe she's not as brave as you."
"I'm not brave."
Oliver looked at his girlfriend in disbelief. "You left your muggle home to go to a wizarding school, then went to a muggle college full time while playing quidditch for your country's national team. You then packed up and left everything you've ever know to teach in a foreign country, and since you've been here you've helped to defeat the most evil wizard of all time. No cowardly person would have accomplished all of that."
"Well, if you look at it that way..."
Oliver gave her a gentle kiss on the lips. "I wonder what house you would have been sorted into here," he thought aloud.
"Gryffindor," she replied promptly.
"How do you know?"
"I tried the sorting hat on one day when I was in Dumbledore's office. It debated whether to put me in Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, but in the end it said that I would have been a Gryffindor if I'd gone to Hogwarts as a student."
"You mean to tell me that you knew that you would have been sorted into Gryffindor, yet you still don't think you're brave?" he asked incredulously.
"I suppose I am sort of brave," she conceded.
Just then Oliver's crup came wandering into the living room from his bedroom. "Here Crup," Adrianna called. He came trotting over to her.
"He has a name you know," said Oliver.
"Really? It took you long enough to come up with one. What is it, then?"
"Duncan." "That's a strange name for a pet. Why Duncan?"
"I dunno. It's a traditional Scottish name. And it's no stranger than calling a kneazle Chip," he replied.
She stuck her tongue out at him. "Don't stick out your tongue unless you're planning to use it," he teased.
"Who says I wasn't planning to use it?" she replied slyly before french kissing him.