Author's Note: Sorry about the long wait between updates. My friends, most having been out of the country for most of the summer, and I have been trying to shove as much fun into the last two weeks of freedom as we can. But also, this is the longest chapter yet. So...
Okay, so that was a pretty useless paragraph up there. The real reason that I decided to throw in an Author's note this chapter is para muchas gracias! Although you may not realize it, your reviews have really kept me going. Even though I luff this fic and have no intention of putting it on hiatus, they have really 'inspired' me. At the risk of sounding like a cheeseball.
Right. Here goes…
Eruaphadriel: Being my first reviewer on this fic, I thank you. Also, I think that your pen name is uber sweet. I'm glad that you find the style that the story is written in refreshing, I have a sick habit of experimenting with POVs, and I'm glad that this one was approved.
hunni07: Thank you for your extremely sweet reviews, as well as your suggestions. As per your request, I edited the names in Chapter 7 so that they'd be more uniform. I only realized after I updated how confusing it looked! (You don't really need to know who Carlos is, lol, don't worry!)
rembrandt: A I have a sister, I share your pain. (Believe me, lol!) I'm glad that you like Katie's character!
Emily Spektor: Thank you!
): lol! Thanks for your review!
tree stump: Thank you for keeping me on my toes! Yes, the Alex that I referred to in Chapter 7 is indeed Nathanial Hughes. The appearance of the character Nathanial Hughes is based off a long-time friend named Alex. So…As I was thinking Nate, I was writing Alex. Also, I changed "welts" to "bruises". Thank you for that suggestion, also!
Again, I thank you for your kind and helpful reviews! I'll do this after a few more chapters again. I really wish there was a 'Respond to Review' thing.
Right. Thanks ever so much all! Carry on.
Chapter 9
The rest of the week passed almost exactly like that. Minus, of course, the nearly being sent to an early grave, as well as being thrown off of the pitch for attacking a man a head taller than me. The pattern, from far away, you see, Alicia, looked like this:
Wake up at 4:30, shower, grab duffle, apparate to pitch, gossip with Pat, chat with Mel, curse at Brain Thompson (Insufferable pig), laugh at Thompson being chewed out by Laurent, exchange pleasantries with Laurent, exchange friendly banter with Carlos/Nate/Hank/Nathalie/Devon/Zachary, admire the physique of Jonathan Lowe, show Janni Fletcher who, exactly, is boss, and change into my quidditch robes.
And that was all before practice even started. Then, the time from six in the morning until two in the afternoon would be spent running out-of-date plays, shooting around, and generally being worked into the ground by the handsome Jonathan.
After that, as you know, I would take my time in walking to your flat (You know that I don't apparate unless I have to), where I would fall asleep. Awoken by you slamming the door in whatever excess emotion you had that day, we would sit around and eat dinner with Stephanie, your curly-haired roommate, and gossip about whatever clearly needed gossiping about.
As you can see, I practically had it down to a science. It's sick that in only four days my schedule did not vary at all. I sound like an old hag, I really do.
Imagine my delight when Saturday came about and I received orders by owl to report back home and pack up my life into boxes. It came as a bit of a surprise. Even though I knew that it would have to happen, I had set it in the back of my mind. It was one of those shocking things that you can't bring yourself to think about.
What the owl had not specified, however Alicia, is that if I should come alone. Which is how I ended up at the front door of my own house flanked by you and Angelina. As Angelina had said, 'Life is a quidditch game, we'll always be around for you to pass to'. And I suppose you were, although her analogy blatantly showed her quidditch-obsessed side. The side that only the three of us and the twins knew about.
Peeking into one of my windows, while shouting at you to remember to leap over the rather large hole in our otherwise impeccably groomed lawn, I saw a set of brooms thrown on the floor and knew that my visit was not to an empty house. Not my luck, was it, Alicia?
Cautiously, I shut the door behind us and tossed my cloak easily over the hook in the wall. It was always so habitual. I motioned for the both of you to do the same as I crept down the hall into the kitchen. I had barely set a foot in the room when a voice greeted me.
"So did you really hit him, Kate?" I looked down to Emmy, who was sitting at the kitchen table with my brother. Wizard Cards surrounded them and they both looked serious and fully absorbed. I'm telling you, Alicia. It's because they're Ravenclaws. They're like…a whole different species.
Before I could say anything, Connor, who had been inspecting a handful of cards rather closely, interrupted. "Of course she didn't hit him. Since when has the Prophet been right? Remember what they wrote when she got attacked?" He scoffed and dropped the handful of cards. Sorting them through with careful fingers, he pushed three of them toward Emmy. "Queen Maeve, Wilfred Elphick, and Alberta Toothill for Bowman Wright."
On a normal day, I would have snapped a reply right back at Connor. But for some reason, I was delayed. It was just enough time for you to say incredulously, "Of course she hit him." Emmy beamed in response. Angelina, who had snatched an apple out of our fruit basket, took a large, loud, crunching bite of it and leaned over to inspect the series of cards that had been strewn across the table in such a foreign order.
Emmy, for some reason, had a large and quite stupid grin plastered to her face. I should have realized what it meant sooner. "Oh no", I groaned, as Emmy looked pointedly at my brother.
"You bet on me!" I squealed, just as Emmy informed Connor: "That will be two sickles and four knuts." Honestly, Alicia. I know that this might not come as a shock to you, as you were there. But they were betting on me. It was a titchy bit embarrassing.
Connor his face had gone from being the definition of blank to full-fledged disbelief. "Katie! Why would you hit him? Can't you take my side for once?" He unsuccessfully shook his shaggy hair out of his face and narrowed his eyes at me. Or the parts of his eyes that I could see. It just wasn't very threatening. Just like a sheepdog trying to get angry at someone. You almost want to pat it's head and feed it a treat.
"Don't do it, Emmy", Angelina warned, swallowing her bit of apple and pointing at the stack of cards that my brother had laid out on the table. I think that he may have glared a little at her through his hair, too. It may have just been my imagination, though.
Then Emmy had the nerve to look up at Angelina in an idolizing way. Seriously. Right from a bet on me, back to Angelina. "You know my name?" She asked in wonderment, looking as if Christmas had come early. Angelina nodded nonchalantly, apparently used to this kind of behavior. Which brings me to ask, what other times has this happened? I don't recall anyone stopping her in the street and asking her for her autograph!
"Don't worry", Emmy assured Angelina. "He's only been trying to get Wright off of me for the past decade." She nodded like an old soul and Angelina had no choice but to nod along. Of course Angelina thought that that might have been a hyperbole, the whole ten years part. You know; a show of the imaginative mind of the thirteen-year-old girl. But the truth was, they have always fought over that damn card. It was the same bloody one, too. It probably has been ten years.
Connr slapped a hand over the cards and drew them back to himself, muttering all the while. "Thanks Angelina", he snapped as he added them back to his deck. He looked back to Emmy. "I haven't got any money. Just three knuts." He withdrew them from his pocked, looking disgruntled.
Emmy smiled happily. "That's some money, I think. Hand it over, Bell". Scowling, Connor dropped the coins into her open palm. "I'll add the rest to what you already owe me. It comes to about two galleons and eight sickles."
"Now wait just a minute, Em! You owe me a galleon and nine knuts because the Arrows lost, remember? Just subtract them," Conner kept up his scowl as he argued this. Emmy shook her head.
"No Bell, that was for that one game that you're thinking of. I never side with the Arrows. Don't like 'em. I'm a fan of the Prides". Emmy looked adoringly at Angelina, who smiled uncomfortably in return.
"Hey! Hey!", Connor shouted and stood up, dropping his cards. "No! That's not right!"
"C'mon." I whispered to you and Angelina, as I took you by the elbows and led you toward my room. I would have stuck around, normally. Watching Emmy and Connor fight is usually quite interesting, as they shout five-syllable words quite frequently and it is quite an addition to anyone's lexicon. But when it's about money, they opt for four letter words and repeated games of Wizards' Chess.
I figure they both owe the other enough for a new broom. I just want to know why they can't just wipe the slate clean—this is the longest-going tab. Two years, I think, they've been adding IOUs to this one.
"They're quite annoying", You commented as you fell back onto my bed out of habit. "They're not so bad," Angelina told you, as she walked through the door. Still crunching loudly on that bloody apple, she was.
I would have said something in return, normally. But as I opened my mouth, I noticed something. My room was empty. I gasped and paled (I saw myself in the mirror. Not very pretty, you see). "She…She…" I couldn't finish my sentence, I was that angry. Leave it to my mother to be so controlling as to vanish my things without my even being there.
As I went to take the few steps to my closet, my foot caught something and I stumbled a bit. Angelina grabbed the back of my robes and pulled my back up before I could hurt myself. I straightened and looked down. There, on the floor, was every item that I owned… jam-packed into three boxes.
"That's twice this week, isn't it, Katie? You aren't quite safe around boxes of any sort, are you?" You commented dryly, as you examined the spread of posters and articles and nonsense attached to my walls. "I can't believe you have an Arrows Poster," Angelina told me, finishing up her apple and throwing it with ease into the waste basket.
To any normal person, it would have been a show of super-prowess, as the waste basket was quite a length away. But for the three of us, (Well, Angelina and I mostly), things like that are merely a fact of life. (And, though you try and justify it, it was a major factor in your life for six years, too.)
I gasped in horror, ignoring you and Angelina. I mean, I couldn't even go through my own things? I stomped my foot immaturely and threw open the closet door. The sketches that I had spent many-a-evening laboring over blew back in the wind created. I said a silent prayer of thanksgiving that she had not touched those.
The relief wore off in a few seconds, though. My mouth dropped open once more and I made a slightly frightening choking noise.
My entire closet was bare. All of it. Were my old schoolbooks stacked in the corner where I had left them? Nope. How about my stuffed lion, was it on the top shelf for good luck? No.
How about the rather large poster of the Weird Sisters in their artfully torn clothing posing their almost-too-good-looking selves? Was it on the wall behind the shelf where my shirts had been? Absolutely not.
What was there, though, was a pile of what looked like scraps of metal and wood. I furrowed my brows and knelt down to see, as I didn't remember such a pile existing prior to my mother's 'room exorcism'. Pulling on a silver piece, I suddenly realized what it was.
Every single picture that I owned, whether in a picture frame or not, had been thrown to the closet floor in such a jumble that it was almost impossible to tell one from the other.
I couldn't help it. I panicked. I, after all, had put my heart and soul into documenting my life at Hogwarts with said pictures! I mean, the shock of the rest of my room being torn apart paled in comparison.
"Angelina! C'mere," I said hoarsely. Angelina, as you know, condones many thoughtless acts on all of our parts. But the one thing that she does not, and never has, approve of is being bossed about. Needless to say, she took her own sweet time.
I don't even think that she really processes requests any more. Just goes about things at her own speed. Always has, I suppose.
"Yeah, what?", she asked, blinking slowly. I didn't answer her, just began salvaging as many pictures as I could– precious pieces of my life- and shoving them into her grasp.
What order they were in didn't matter. I pulled out so many. Posed with my sister against a broom shed when we were both little. The aftermath of the quidditch final in my sixth year. My brother, Emmy, and I tossing apples about. Me and my father chatting, with me perched upon his shop counter. The aftermath of the quidditch final in my seventh year, the most quiet and uneventful celebration that had ever his Hogwarts.
Finally, I pulled out my favorite set of pictures, pasted together in a pitiful attempt to never misplace them. In the first, it is the three of us. You know the one. Back in the common room after that bloody quidditch final, I was in my fourth year and you two were in your fifth. When the picture was taken, we had been sitting on the couch laughing with our arms around each other. Our quidditch robes had been long forgotten, but our Gryffindor sweaters still conveyed our team spirit.
Of course, since then our picture-selves had wandered off of the couch. But we're always smiling and laughing, true to our nature. Most of the time, anyway.
The other one was that picture of the team. Oliver and Harry are far in the background, but the three of us are entwined with the twins. We all look quite banged up, and it is hard to tell which limb belongs to whom, and when you look at it, it is quite difficult to discern how, exactly, we are staying hovering above the ground.
I love the both of them dearly.
Apparently you two did also, even then, as you hung over Angelina's shoulder and the two of you grinned down at them. "Isn't it funny that we were so carefree then?" Angelina asked, not breaking her smile. It's quite funny, because now that I think back on it, it's exactly what I thought at that same moment. And what I'm thinking now.
"I want a copy of this," You declared, as you poked the picture-us. "Why don't Angelina and I already have one?"
Before I even considered answering, I checked the bottom of my closet. All that was left on the floor was pieces of wood, silver, and glass. Good. With a wave of my wand, I vanished it. Quite successfully, I might add. There are a few spells that I have always been able to pull off, you see.
With reverence, I shut the door to my closet. It felt like closing the door on my childhood. Quite symbolic, you see. Shutting the door…ending childhood. Pictures. All quite deep, really. But I won't expect you to understand that, Alicia, dear. Depth, that is. Not the shutting of the closet.
Only kidding, Alicia. Keeping you on your toes once more, you see.
"Well, I did try to copy it," I frowned, and began to pull the sketches off of my closet door one by one, piling them on the floor. Angelina dumped the photos into a half-empty box (Pessimist, you see. I suppose that I could say that there was the distinct possibility of filling it up one day, and pose as a realist. But even that is stretching it for me.)
"Ah," I winced, and handed over the half-finished sketched version to Angelina. I had given up halfway through—Our photo-selves refusing to stay still and stop laughing, in our classically stubborn way—and instead worked on sketching our faces and robes. It was just for practice, I needed to practice shading and St, Mungos gets quite dull after about half a year.
"I'm bald." Angelina, half-frowning, told me in an amused voice. You squinted down at the picture. "My nose isn't that big, is it Kate? I'm a hideous beast, I am!"
I answered Angelina's point ("Angelina, your braids are rather hard to replicate. Sorry ever so."), but did not even justify your comment as I snatched the sketch away, and threw it on top of the others.
"Yeah, yeah. Bloody useless thing that I am, I can't even do justice to either of your beauty." Ruffled, I tossed the pile into the box and sealed it closed with my wand. You looked quite smug at being called beautiful and Angelina had a wonderful imitation of that Weasley expression that shows the bearer's deliberation on either amusement or contempt.
I put my hand on my hip. "Vanish them to your flat, won't you?" Of course I could vanish bits of trash back then. But my own things? Best leave that to the people who were capable.
Besides, I figured, if you did something utterly terrible to them, I could hold it over you and your disregard for others' feelings.
Just kidding, Alicia. Just a bit.
You lazily waved your wand and my room was empty. Utterly empty. Angelina was already headed toward the door, encouraged by the heated exchange that we could clearly hear downstairs. You followed, stuffing your wand back into your pocket.
I looked around my room a bit. The posters were colorful and free around me, and the newspaper articles swam together in a mess of parchment and ink. I slowly ambled toward my door, not having the heart to rip it all down. Taking a last look about, I shut the door. But not before a picture of myself caught my eye.
It was the headline the day that I was attacked. I blinked once, and quickly closed the door before joining the two of you in the kitchen.
Emmy and Connor had begun a list of IOU's, you remember. You both watched them in good humor, as they copied down every single bit of money that one had bet the other. In the center of the table lay a mound of money. A few galleons, but mostly knuts. They were sedate, for the most part, once in a while beginning to shout again. About what? Who knows. Money or summat.
What I was focused on were my mum and dad. My mum, neatly dressed and looking perfect as usual, was going on about something, shallow no doubt, under her breath as she packed boxes full of dishes. By packed, I mean waved her wand and things found themselves neatly tucked away. My dad, dirt chalked onto his face, leaf in his long blonde hair, was listening in a bored fashion, vanishing boxes idly at odd intervals, and nodded every once in a while for effect.
It was funny that I hadn't spotted them before, but I didn't question. Now that I think back on it, I don't think that I would have liked the answer.
"We're leaving now", I announced. Emmy and Connor looked up briefly. "Bye Kate," Emmy said happily enough. I bet that she was up in money, as Connor grumbled, "Go apparate yourself to the bottom of a cliff, Katie." I didn't bother to snap back and tell him that if I apparated to the bottom of a cliff, most likely I could apparate back out again. The male ego is a fragile thing; I could have broken him for life.
My mother stopped her wand-waving and smiled approval at the two of you. Immediately I felt a bit sick to my stomach. I knew what was coming next. It always happened…
"Hello Angelina, Alicia! How delightful to see you again!" She gave me a cutting glance and her smile hardened a bit. "Why can't you be more like your friends, Katherine? Look how sweet they are!" Instead of telling her how evil and seductive the two of you really are when it comes to men (And life in general. Almost as bad as me, really.), I plastered a grin to my face.
"Goodbye now." I snapped, pulling the both of you toward the door to my dad's hurried, but belated, shouts of hello and goodbye. Snatching my cloak off of the hook, I slammed the door behind us.
I had let go of both of your arms' in the process, and the two of you were hurrying to keep up with me as I stomped across the yard, screaming obscenities with each footfall. A couple meters from the house, I turned on my heel and informed the both of you, "To Alicia's flat.", before surprising myself and apparating before I even had a chance to worry about it.
Facing the door was how I stood until you both arrived. I suppose to anyone else it would look as if I was observing the grain of the wood or other such nonsense as that. But in reality, I was too infuriated to even move.
I mean, how dare she continue to compare me with others? I mean, honestly, Alicia! I love the both of you, but do all of you seriously think that I don't spend enough time comparing myself with super-talented and beautiful Angelina, and stunning you? How unfair is it all, anyway?
You pushed me through the doorway. "Don't take what your mother says to heart, Katie." Angelina advised wisely, steering me toward the couch and pushing me back toward it. I sunk into the cushions, thankful for friends like the two of you. Even if you were super-talented and gorgeous people hanging out with a slob like me. It's probably out of pity. Am I right, Alicia?
No doubt I am.
You made a noise as if to say something, but looked up toward the entrance to the kitchen. There Stephanie stood, looking nervous. "Alicia…I've got a bit of news." She rocked back and forth on her feet and wrapped a curl around her finger as if she was uncomfortable in her own skin.
"What is it, then? Can't you see we're quite busy?" You snarled at her, but it didn't daunt Stephanie. She shared her "News" with us anyway. She should have specified it as "bad news", ad given us a warning. Because it certainly was. Bad news that is.
I should know, because the thing that she said next shocked me so much that I began to wildly hyperventilate and, as per usual, Angelina made me hold me head between my knees.