A/N: Hello everyone! Look at me only making you wait two weeks for the next update!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Table Topics, SPARKS, and Spells
Monday, May 6th 2024
7:58 AM
". . . So Molly's in the corner pouring Louis and Dom several rounds of Firewhiskey to help them drown their sorrows. In the middle of the living room, Uncle Charlie's trying to keep Daria calm while he himself is simultaneously freaking out. He can barely get a word in edgewise though because both Aunt Hermoine and Aunt Audrey are hovering around them talking about how learning about magic can seem overwhelming at first but that it's fascinating once she accepts it, yada, yada, yada; and Uncle Percy is glaring at the whole lot of them because he's also in the mix trying out these new Ministry approved techniques that are supposed to dispel muggle suspicions when they're faced with magic –which don't actually work by the way. And while Charlie, Hermione, Audrey, and Percy are all working at cross purposes with Daria and trying to downplay the existence of magic, three feet away from them Uncle Bill's arguing with Aunt Fleur about her wand and that she needs it for her own protection, and that it's more powerful than any other wand she'll ever have etc. Auntie Fleur though, apparently got tired of arguing so she took the wand back from Uncle Bill, and then turned and chucked it right into the fireplace," James retold the story with a dramatic flourish.
His captive audience seemed to appreciate his performance though.
Oliver Wood's mouth popped open wide while his wife Katie gasped, "She did not."
"Oh, she did, and I can do you one better. If Auntie Fleur hadn't chucked her wand into the lit fireplace, we wouldn't have discovered that veela hair is still fire-resistant even after it's been removed from a veela, and that a veela hair core can even imbibe the entire wand with its fire-resistant abilities," James explained with a smirk.
Oliver gaped, "Are you saying that Fleur's wand didn't catch fire?"
"Nope, perfectly intact. Anyway, Baxter was obviously curious, so he fished it out of the fire to see what was going on. Uncle Bill asked him to hand it back to Auntie Fleur, but Auntie Fleur glared at Baxter so terrifyingly that he said he'd keep the wand in the interim and use its specs to find her a similar one that might work for her if she does choose to get a new one."
"Sweet Merlin, is this what we're in for if we go to the wedding?" Mark asked from where he and Clark were leaning on their lockers behind the bench James was sitting on, also avidly listening to James' recitation.
Clark rolled his eyes at his partner, "Weren't you listening to the story? Victoire and Dom both told their great-grandmother to piss off. No way she's going to show up to the wedding and cause another scene."
Nadia crossed her legs as she sat on the bench next to James, "What was Victoire doing during the crazy aftermath where half your family was trying to convince Daria there was no such thing as magic, while the other half went out of their way to talk about magic?"
"Glad you asked. Victoire spent that time puking up blood in the downstairs bathroom. Turns out she has another ulcer."
Katie frowned sympathetically, "Poor girl."
"Ally spent her time almost literally hovering over Victoire, and debating with her, in-between her retching, whether she should start a new potion regime to treat the ulcers, or whether she needed to finish her original course of medication first."
Clark rolled his eyes, "That's definitely on brand."
"Which leaves us to Lucy. She decided that the best use of her time would be to loudly berate Freddie for obnoxiously using magic to keep summoning food from the kitchen because it was past dinner time at this point and he was hungry. Freddie argued back that there was no reason for him to starve and that his summoning charms were the least of Uncle Charlie's worries at the moment," James added.
Oliver glanced at his son, who was sitting on the other side of Nadia and tying his shoelaces, "And what were you doing during this chaos?"
"Trying to melt into the living room wallpaper next to George and wait for the coast to be clear," Xavier answered as he straightened up.
"George was staying out of the whole mess?" Katie asked incredulously.
Xavier nodded, "Apparently one of the finer points to facilitating chaos is to recognize when there is enough going on and realizing that adding anymore would just be a waste of energy."
"Yeah, that sounds like George," Oliver agreed.
"So how did it all end? Did you guys eventually get your uncle's girlfriend all calmed down?" Nadia asked, she was now as invested in the story as Katie and Oliver had been.
James ran his hand through his dark fringe and shared a look with Xavier before replying, "Actually, Daria was noticeably overwhelmed and Uncle Charlie suggested the best thing would be for them to go back home. Their return trip obviously wasn't scheduled for right away, so Grandpa stepped in and briefly explained magical travel as he created a portkey for them to take. Daria wasn't super keen on it, but I think she was just thinking about escape at that point, so they took it back home. Uncle Percy checked on them later that night to see how everything went, and according to Uncle Charlie, Daria left to stay over at a friend's place and said that she needed space."
"Ohhhh," Katie muttered, "That doesn't sound good."
"Well, she is a couple's therapist, so hopefully she knows what she needs," Xavier offered.
They had come to the end of the story of the latest Weasley family dinner debacle, and everyone else went back to double-checking that they had everything they needed for that morning's practice. Just as James was straightening his shin guards the locker room door opened and the rest of the team's coaches filed into the room, along with Puddlemere's head publicist Mr. Webb and their newest publicist, Teagan Childs.
"Time for Table Topics," Mr. Webb announced to the group assembled in the room as he directed Teagan to stand with him in front of the strategy board that was magicked on the side of the wall.
Mark and Xavier grumbled as the rest of their team slowly gathered close to where Mr. Webb and Teagan stood. James noticed Chris Mullin awkwardly move to stand near the lockers behind where Xavier sat, and pursed his lips. Mullin, Knopp, and Okonkwo had all been in the locker room getting ready as James recited his family-drama filled story for Nadia, Katie, Oliver, and the two beaters. Knopp and Okonkwo were use to hearing the ridiculous stories their teammates would share about their lives (Clark was always up for retelling a story about some night of debauchery even if it was from years ago) and every once in a while, they'd throw in stories of their own. Chris Mullin was always quieter when the team was together and shooting the breeze, but James had noted that the seeker had turned his head towards their direction every time he had mentioned Victoire's name.
Table Topics was an activity the starting team did with Mr. Webb and the other team's publicists almost every Monday morning. They'd gather as a group and Mr. Webb would inform that players about any news or gossip going on about them in the media, or about things which may be brought to Puddlemere's publicist team before it had the chance to get to the media. Table Topics also had a section where the players were expected to offer up information about them which might end up getting into the news; it allowed them to get all of their cards out on the table.
"I've already given our new team member Ms. Childs a run-down on how Table Topics operates, but please put on a good example of it for her this morning," Mr. Webb announced to the team, specifically eyeing Clark who was known to offer up a few too many details during Table Topics when just a rough outline would have sufficed.
The players nodded.
"So, to kick-off this morning I thought we'd start with another installment of one of our favourites: guess who's being accused of having an illegitimate love child in another country!" Mr. Webb announced with a bit of a smirk.
"Ugh," Clark moaned loudly, "I swear if it's another picture of me playing quidditch with Zach-"
Mr. Webb shook his head, "It's not you this time Westin."
"Well, that piece of news is already shocking," Nadia snickered.
"Our accused baby daddy is Xavier Wood," Mr. Webb announced.
Katie clapped her hands together, "Oh, grandchildren, exciting."
Xavier rolled his eyes, "Is it just the one this week?"
"No Mr. Wood, unfortunately there have been several claims from many different sources this week that you're having affairs with multiple women," Mr. Webb told him sympathetically.
"Don't worry too much," Knopp said as he leaned forward and squeezed Xavier's shoulder, "It's just because your wedding's coming up. The few months, and weeks, before a wedding are when rumours like this run the most rampant. Heck, the only time I was ever considered the most popular bachelor on the team was the three-week period before I married Anya."
Mr. Webb nodded his head, "Who else wants to hear that they're cheating on their significant other?"
"Well, I'm safe from this at least," Mark muttered as he crossed his arms over his chest.
"Mr. Okonkwo's had two different men come forward this week, both claiming that they are his side-piece-"
Clark started clapping and cheering, "Whoop, whoop! Way to go mate!"
The chaser in question rolled his eyes and tossed Clark a rude hand gesture.
Mr. Webb continued his recitation, "There's a woman who claims she's been having a year-long affair with Mr. Mullin-"
Chris looked at the publicist and sighed, "Bloody Hell."
"Thankfully, the woman doesn't seem to be too insistent and it should disappear rather quickly," Mr. Webb assured him, "And our last cheating partner is also the winner of our crack-pot theory of the week."
"Drumroll everyone!" Clark announced before starting to pat a rhythm out on his thighs. The other members of the team followed suit, not without an eyeroll from Chris, and Mr. Webb offered Teagan the chance to announce the next Table Topic.
Teagan cleared her throat, "The winner of this week's crack-pot theory is Nadia Cassano for apparently being pregnant with Xavier Wood's baby, and fabricating an entire relationship with his cousin Malcolm Wood to explain away what will no doubt be a family resemblance."
"Yay, two illegitimate grandchildren in one week!" Katie announced with a grin.
"Cazzo, are people really that ridiculous?" Nadia scowled and crossed her arms over her chest.
Mark stared at Nadia, "Last week's crack-pot theory was that you were pregnant and acting as a surrogate for Oliver and Katie, and you're still shocked at how absurd people can be?"
"Yeah, I don't need a surrogate. I've never had trouble getting pregnant," Katie replied with an eye roll.
Xavier pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered, "Avada me now."
"It would be kind of a genius plan if it was true though," James mused as he glanced between Nadia and Xavier.
"Our final title to award before we get to your actual deep dark secrets is Puddlemere's most eligible bachelor. Would you do the honours for us please Ms. Childs?"
Teagan nodded at Mr. Webb, "The un-married player who had the most Lothario-related claims this week is: James Potter."
James's ears went red while the rest of his teammates gave him a round of applause. Clark patted James on the head, "Congrats James, looks like you beat me out of the spot this week."
"Is this really something I should be getting congratulations for?" James asked awkwardly.
Nadia patted James on the arm in a similar condescending manner to Clark, "It's all in fun James. No one actually believes you've slept with all of the women who are claiming they've hooked up with you."
Teagan glanced down at her notes and then looked back at James with a smirk, "Or the men."
"Good on ya mate. Equal opportunity all around," Clark commended James with another pat on the head.
"Let's get to our turn at laying down our cards. I wanna hear how many of Potter's conquests were giving accurate information," Okonkwo teased James with an evil smile.
James ran a hand stressfully through his hair, "None of its true!"
"I can confirm that," Teagan added with a smile, "James is apparently one of the only people out there who goes to clubs and doesn't get staggering drunk or fall victim to the scores of young women trying to rub up against him on the dancefloor."
James rolled his eyes at his old classmate, "Thanks for the vote of confidence Teagan."
Mr. Webb addressed all the players assembled before him, "So time for you guys to spill your secrets. Anybody do anything tabloid worthy this week?"
"Anya and I took the kids to the Sunday afternoon Cannons versus Appleby game, so there may be photos of that circulating around, and whatever gossip could go along with it. Maybe I'm looking into changing teams?" Knopp offered.
Mr. Webb nodded his head and wrote a note down on a piece of parchment, "Knopp, opposing quidditch teams, possible transfer gossip. Got it. Anybody else?"
The rest of the players shook their heads.
"No one? Cassano no pregnancy related day trips which may turn into slanderous gossip?"
Nadia raised a dark eyebrow, "I spent the whole day at our house demanding that Malcolm hold my hair back as I vomited every two hours."
"Got it. Westin, what about you?" Mr. Webb asked.
"Mark and I spent Sunday morning coaching my nephew's mini-league quidditch team and then we went back to my sister's for brisket," Clark explained.
Okonkwo titled his head as he looked at Clark, "You've really mellowed out in your old age."
"Piss off," Clark retorted to his teammate.
"So, no surprises for this week then?" Mr. Webb asked, "Nobody did anything that's frowned upon, or slightly illegal?"
"Oh," Clark called as if he'd just remembered something important, "Potter and Younger Wood were telling us earlier this morning that they watched their family break the International Statute of Secrecy and exposed magic to a muggle."
Mr. Webb glanced between James and Xavier, "Do I want to know the details?"
"The Cole's notes version is that my uncle's been dating a muggle for the past few years and any time they're around we pretend to be muggles. They stopped by unannounced at Sunday night family dinner yesterday and there were some accidents and accidental magic that resulted in her coming face-to-face with the existence of magic," James explained to their publicist.
Mr. Webb pursed his lips, "Were you specifically involved in exposing magic to a muggle?"
"No, if anyone is at fault, I think it would be my cousin Victoire . . . although I don't really know if you can blame her because she didn't intend to shatter all of the windows at our grandparents' house. It was accidental magic," James explained.
Mark looked worriedly at James, "You don't think Victoire will actually get in trouble for that do you?"
"Get in trouble? A little. Ministry follow through on punishment? Nah, no way. She did so much magic outside of Hogwarts as a kid that the Ministry had to eventually stop following up with every incident because their methods obviously weren't working. She had enough of those letters from the Misuse of Magic Office that she could probably wallpaper a room with them," Xavier assured Mark.
Clark scoffed, "And the Ministry never did anything else about it?"
"The story goes that Uncle Percy agreed to bring one to her one day hoping that he'd be able to get through to her instead. It was the summer of her third year and Uncle Percy started in on her because she was at home with just Louis and Dom and her tracer went off signalling that she'd used magic, so he knew it was her. He was halfway through his speech when Dom and Louis started arguing in the other room. I guess Dom got so angry that she accidentally lit something on fire, Victoire turned her back on Uncle Percy, tossed an aguamenti charm in the direction of the fire to put it out, and then turned back to Uncle Percy and said 'want to get me another letter for that one too?'," James explained.
Mark whistled, "She was ballsey."
"Sounds like privilege to me," Nadia muttered in a tone that made it clear that she'd got dinged for using magic as a kid and didn't get off as scot-free.
"Oh, it was," Xavier agreed with a nod, "They couldn't exactly threaten to expel her from Hogwarts when she could just transfer to Beauxbatons instead. And yeah, threatening to break someone's wand is scary, but most of her underaged magic was done without her wand so taking her wand from her wasn't really going to help the issue either."
By this point in the discussion, Mr. Webb had brought Table Topics to a close and was off to the side of the room talking to one of the coaches. The rest of the players, sans the ones who were invested in hearing gossip about Victoire as a pre-teen, were collecting their things because they knew they were going to be told to hit the pitch shortly.
Teagan had intended to follow Mr. Webb, but Knopp had stopped her to welcome her once more to the team and congratulate her on her professional demeanour during the insanity that was Table Topics. Their short conversation had just ended when she heard Xavier listing off Victoire's privilege.
"I know that as a muggleborn I would have never gotten off so lightly," Teagan told the group.
James raised an eyebrow at Teagan, "Are you saying that you never did any underaged magic outside of school?"
"Once," Teagan admitted with a bit of a smirk, "Summer after second year. It took like less than ten minutes for someone from the Ministry to show up at my front door and scare the pants off of my parents with talk of expulsion and ministry hearings. Don't know what would have happened if Selene hadn't been over. She followed me to the front door, told the two ministry ladies that it was actually her that did the magic, and while they gaped at her she said, and I quote "I'm not quite sure how my tracer didn't end up going off since I was in such close proximity to the magic, but that's alright. I'll go with you to the ministry; I can even show you to my mum's office". She then asked the ladies if they were going via portkey or floo, and their heads almost exploded. I didn't realize until much later that she was never actually in trouble considering that both her parents were purebloods."
James's teammates started to get up from the bench they were sitting on and collect their practice cloaks, it had started to rain outside.
"Why aren't you working for the Harpies doing their PR? You're already guarding all of Selene's secrets apparently," James asked curiously.
Teagan shrugged, "Better not to be friends with the people you do publicity for. Don't want to mix business with pleasure."
James made a gasping sound and clutched his heart, "Are you saying that I'm not your friend?"
"Potter, we've spoken more in the past few weeks than we ever did during the seven years we attended Hogwarts together," Teagan pointed out.
The chaser nodded, "Yeah that's fair."
"But I'm not looking for a new bestie, so I think being this semi-friends, semi-acquaintances thing we are won't be too out of bounds," She added.
James raised another eyebrow at her, "So not friends then?"
Teagan rolled her eyes, "You're a dork."
Wednesday, May 8th 2024
3:45 PM
"So, what do you think about the proposal?" Victoire asked the couple sitting in matching chairs across from her desk.
Despite her question she allowed Mr. and Mrs. Norton some time to consider the proposal she had just laid out for them. The last time Victoire had seen Mrs. Norton, the both of them were at the Ministry's Lycanthrope Support Services office and they had both just found out that funding was being frozen for post-moon symptom treatments. Victoire had found out from Mrs. Norton that most of the support they were getting for post-moon treatments was to treat Mr. Norton's pain after his full-moon transformation, which seemed to stem from the scars he got when he was first attacked. Victoire had offered Mrs. Norton her card and said that she could come up with something to help.
The plan she had just described was a simple one, if most of Mr. Norton's pain was stemming from the scars that were imbedded with dark magic, then making the scars disappear should make most of the pre-and-post full-moon pain ease up. She had explained to Mr. and Mrs. Norton that she had a spell that could heal Mr. Norton's most permanent scars, and that with those scars healed the pain that seemed to settle in those scars would disappear as well. Victoire had told them that in the few instances she had attempted the spell on scars caused by werewolves (her father, but also two other people who had volunteered to for testing when she and Healer McDavid were still working on their initial trials) and that after-reports seemed to confirm that pain directly related to the dark magic that was trapped in those scars had vastly improved.
It was up to Mr. and Mrs. Norton now to decide if they wanted to go that route. Since Victoire's offer of medical aid was a relatively quick out-patient procedure, it was covered by the hospital and would not cost the Norton's extra, as the salves and potions for post-moon symptoms had. Her spell wouldn't take all of his pain away, but it would help with some of the pain, and at the moment that was all she could offer. Short of crashing back into the Lycanthropy Support Services office and forcing them to give all of the funding (that they apparently weren't receiving from higher up the food chain) back to their clients, this was the only way she could help.
For now.
Victoire got up from her desk and told the couple that she was going to give them a few private minutes to discuss without her there. She took a file with her from her desk that needed to be filed at the main healing station anyway, and left Mr. and Mrs. Norton in her office.
It only took her a few moments to hand the file off to the attendant that managed the central healing station on their floor, but she took a few moments to look around the ward as she had promised the couple in her office a bit more time of privacy. She noted a few of their second-year healing residents striding in and out of some of the rooms of patients who had already been healed and were just resting up or in for observation. Since it was the beginning of May and the second-year healing residents were down to only a few more months of practical before their healing exams, it was D. A. R. ward department policy to allow the residents who were excelling to start to visit some of the easier cases on their own.
As she watched the second-years wandering about and she assumed completing the pre-discharge checklist, Healer Seward came down the hall from his office and made a beeline for her.
"Healer Weasley, do you have a moment to spare?"
Victoire nodded her head.
"Excellent, you're on the night shift tonight, am I not right?" Healer Seward asked her.
"Indeed I am."
He put his hands in the pockets of his green robes, "Would you mind tacking on an extra four hours to tomorrow morning and staying until ten? I have an appointment and won't be able to start my shift until then."
"I can do that," Victoire assured him with a nod.
"Thank you," Healer Seward replied a little awkwardly.
When Victoire was doing her residency, he was always a little stuck-up and a little sexist towards her and Cassidy. He had only marginally gotten better when she became a full-time healer with the ward and she was supposed to become on of his colleagues, but she was far from acting chummy-chummy with him.
He was still standing around her, and Victoire was about to ask him if she could help him with anything else when he asked her how her private patient session was going.
"I'm giving them the chance to discuss it between them first, but I think they'll agree to join this next stage of trials. He's already in pain so there's not really much for him to lose, the spell will either help with the pain, or the pain will stay the same," Victoire mused.
Healer Seward nodded his head, the only interest he had ever really paid to her research project with Healer McDavid was when they had started to take it to the Ministry to make it official. He had asked Victoire at one point when she thought they would get to widely disseminating the spell and training all Dark Arts Reversal healers on how to use it, and when she responded that it would probably be a few more years, he'd seemed to lose pretty much all interest in it. He left her a few moments later, obviously having run out of interest to pay her.
Victoire glanced down at the gold watch she had received for her seventeenth birthday to see how much longer she thought Mr. and Mrs. Norton might need, and when she glanced back up, she spotted Auror Burton walking out of one of the rooms and talking to Healer Cassidy Hopewell. Cassidy said something to Auror Burton before she turned around and went back into the room they had just left.
"Everything alright Auror Burton?" Victoire called as she walked up to the auror.
Auror Burton turned at her voice and sent Victoire a tired smile, "Hello Healer Weasley, everything's fine. My partner and I were on a call and he got hit by some offensive spells. I cast the counter-curse for the stunning spell on him and it seemed to work, but you know how it's department protocol for everyone to get checked out by a D. A. R. ward healer when being attacked by any offensive magic."
"Oh," Victoire muttered sympathetically, "Who was your partner today?"
Auror Bruton almost rolled her eyes but stopped, "I believe you're acquainted with him actually. Auror O'Toole."
"Yes, I am familiar with him."
"Then you're also not surprised to find out that he wasn't able to dodge a simple stunning spell. Healer Hopewell just confirmed that that was the only magic in his system," Auror Burton explained.
Victoire pinched the bridge of her nose and whispered to Auror Bruton, "How did he pass training again?"
Auror Burton proceeded with rolling her eyes this time and whispered back, "I don't know. Personally, I think Aurors Smyth and Wentworth had spent so much time training aurors that they were starting to let some of them slide. I honestly think it's a good thing Donaldson and Ted are getting a crack at this year's newest recruits, hopefully they'll be able to weed out all of the other O'Tooles before it gets to this point."
"If it was up to me, I'd get rid of everybody who can't cast a proper wordless episkey, but from the look of the trainees I met last week, that would be like half of them. So, it's probably a good thing it's not up to me," Victoire told them
Auror Burton chuckled and Victoire glanced down at her watch once more and then said goodbye.
Back in her office she found Mr. and Mrs. Norton looking softly at each other.
"Am I interrupting anything?"
Mr. Norton shook his head, "Not at all Healer Weasley. In fact, we have our response to your proposal."
Victoire sat back down behind her desk.
"And?"
"We'll do it."
"Perfect," Victoire exclaimed with a bright smile, "I've got the paperwork right here. I'm going to give it to you to take home and fill out, because I'd like to give you the night to sleep on your decision. Once you have it finished drop it by here and I'll schedule our next appointment."
Mr. and Mrs. Norton nodded and Victoire handed them the paperwork. She walked with them to the lift and wished them a good afternoon.
Wednesday, May 8th 2024
7:10 PM
Cecilia drummed her fingers on the table-top next to her file folder.
Beside her, her mother Katie was quietly chatting with Ginny Weasley and Gwenog Jones. Across the table from Cecilia, Alejo Rodríguez and Maksim Ignatiev were spinning around in their chairs trying to combat their boredom.
"Did practice run late or something?" Alejo asked as he spun around in a blur.
The question was directed as Katie, "No, if anything everyone was in great form today and got out on good time. If it was just Clark who was late, I'd put it up to having taken a nap and slept through his alarm. The fact the Mark's also not here does worry me a bit."
The words were barely out of Katie's mouth before said late pair of beaters came striding through the doorway of their conference room, "We're sorry we're late!"
"They must really feel bad," Katie fake-whispered to Ginny and Gwenog, "Clark never apologizes."
Mark and Clark slid into the only two empty seats at the large table everyone else was sitting at while Clark expanded upon his apology.
"Had to stop by Tabitha's and calm her down. Zach caught a bit of a spring cold and she was freaking out about his runny nose. It took a while for Mark and I to convince her that he was okay and that she didn't need to take him to St. Mungo's. She finally relented when I pointed out that they probably wouldn't be able to do anything unless he develops a fever."
The rest of the members nodded with sympathy at his words, everyone involved with The Charity was well aware of Zach's illness from the past year.
"So, Mark went with you to Tabitha's then?" Cecilia asked Clark, as he had sat down closest to her.
"No, he was already there, said he had stopped by earlier to drop-off some quidditch gloves one of Zach's teammates had left on the pitch at our last practice. Mark had picked them up, and Tab offered to give them back to the kid's mom since she always stops by the bakery on Thursday mornings," Clark explained.
Cecilia pursed her lips at this information, and nodded her head.
"So now that everybody's here we can start," Katie announced, "Maksim, can you read the summary of last meeting's minutes?"
"That implies that Maksim can read Katie," Alejo snickered from beside the other quidditch player.
Maksim rolled his eyes, despite the fact that both players had played for different quidditch teams during their careers, they were almost as close friends as Clark and Mark were. Maksim ignored Alejo and succinctly read the minutes aloud for everyone.
". . . and that will bring us to our meeting tonight. This is the official start to tonight's meeting of Organizational Charity Venture for Youth in Sports number 121, and our first matter of business is to decide on a different name before we lose all of the credibility we've already worked hard to establish."
"Thank you, Maksim, anybody have any name ideas you'd like to share?" Ginny asked the other seven people around the table.
Clark opened his mouth, no doubt to champion once more one of the awful names he continued to pitch each meeting even though the others always voted them down, but Mark spoke first.
"I thought of something."
The rest of the members looked at him expectantly.
"Supporting Play and Recognizing Kind Sportsmanship, or S.P.A.R.K.S for short," Mark announced a little self-consciously.
There was silence for several minutes and then Gwenog smiled brightly, "I love it."
Katie, Ginny, Maksim, and Alejo all started nodding their heads in agreement.
"That's perfect Mark," Cecilia exclaimed, she was so excited that she could barely stay in her seat, Tthe name, the acronym, its absolutely perfect."
Clark patted Mark on the arm, "Brilliant job Mate!"
"Let's go ahead and vote on it then, all in favour for remaining The Charity to Supporting Play and Recognizing Kind Sportsmanship, also known as S.P.A.R.K.S.?" Alejo asked as he went ahead and raised his own hand.
The rest of the members' hands shot into the air and it was a unanimous vote.
"Perfect," Cecilia said with a nod as she pulled out the paperwork to officially name their charity and began to fill it out. She'd send it into the correct ministry department the next day during business hours.
Katie and Ginny took the lead in sharing the charity's financial update.
"As for our first big fundraising venture, I heard from Giavanna Tracey-Mullin that Puddlemere is not planning on having a charity fun day for the kids this Hallowe'en. She's decided that they are nowhere near as glamourous as she'd like them to be, therefore she's suggested that they do a Hallowe'en ball instead and have people pay exorbitant amounts of money for tickets to attend. Since she's single-handedly taken charge of Puddlemere's charity and none of the other members want to tell her no, that means that the fun-day market is no longer saturated. I think tentatively planning one for September would be a good first activity to implement. It directly involves the younger kids who our charity is aimed at and those of us who have been involved with the Puddlemere-led charity fun days before know how they operate so it won't be too difficult to plan. I've also tentatively spoken with Garrett about it, and he seems open to letting us use Puddlemere's stadium even though it won't specifically be a Puddlemere sanctioned event," Katie explained.
Clark smiled, "Great idea, even though it's not technically a Puddlemere sanctioned event Mark and myself will be involved, and obviously Katie, Oliver, and Xavier. If Nadia's not too uncomfortable in her pregnancy at that point she'll be down, and Knopp's usually onboard for the fun days because he's got young kids himself and he thinks they're a great idea. Okonkwo will most likely join in, and I'm sure James will be down too, so out of the starting team we can pretty much guarantee that everyone will be there except for Mullin, which is probably for the best anyway because his wife's such a nosy cow."
"And that's not counting all of us of course," Gwenog said as she gestured between her, Ginny, Maksim and Alejo, "We can definitely get some past and current members from our teams' franchises to join in, even if it's just to take pictures with the little kids and participate in a snitch on a spoon race or two."
Alejo nodded, "I think this is a good first event to test the waters, it should give us enough time too, to plan and also build up S.P.A.R.K.S.'s reputation before the first money-raising event."
They went through the arbitrary action of voting on whether to go ahead with the September charity fun-day fundraiser, and then Ginny asked Clark and Mark to give them an update on what was going on in the world of mini league quidditch.
"Well Zach's team is the best obviously; they've won eight of their-"
Mark interrupted Clark's recitation, "Mate, I'm pretty sure they meant our demographic research and not an update on Zach and his teammates specifically."
"Oh, okay well in that case, Mark's got the numbers."
Mark pulled out their notes and went on to share the information they'd gathered about the local kids' quidditch mini leagues. None of the local leagues, not even Zach's which was by far the most well-managed, kept much demographic information on the children enrolled in their leagues or the statistics of the magical children living in the areas that their leagues served. Because of this Clark and Mark were leading the effort to gather demographic data on the children enrolled in Zach's league specifically, and they would use that information and extrapolate it outwards until they could get more information on the other leagues. Clark and Mark had spent the duration of Zach's mini league quidditch season -which was already almost halfway over- having the parents of Zach's teammates and the parents of the children in the teams Zach played against fill-out voluntary surveys about their families.
They were instructed to collect information on the children's ages, genders, addresses, socioeconomic statuses, and family history of magic. Obviously, some of the information was easier to gather from the families than others, and since everything was done on a voluntary basis there were a lot of gaps in the information, they had been able to collect, and even the amount they did have was heavily biased towards the area around where Zach's league was based.
"So, we know that everything we've painstakingly gathered isn't even close to enough to be that useful for us this year. However, Clark's been sweet-talking the people who manage a few of the different leagues and we've reason to believe that by the time registration starts for next year's season, we should be able to get surveys out during the enrollment process, which should give us much more data," Mark shared.
Clark jumped in here, "We also got some good feedback on the surveys themselves, which we should be able to adjust in time for enrollment for the summer quidditch league season for the eleven to thirteen-year-olds. You two still good to disseminate those through your kids' leagues?"
The question was directed at Maksim and Alejo.
"Yes, between the two of us we should be able to hit up two of the different eleven to thirteen leagues in the UK. However, I assume we'll run into some of the same problems you two did when implementing them through the voluntary basis, but it will still be more information than what we have right now," Alejo replied.
"I spoke to our nephew Duncan about Callum's mini quidditch league, and he said that he could probably get them to do the surveys when registration for next year's season comes along as well," Katie added.
Ginny tapped her fingers on the woodgrain of the table-top, "I honestly think that if S.P.A.R.K.S. gets a good footing and reputation by next February when registration for mini quidditch league for four-year-old's and up starts, that we'll be able to send a convincing request into the Department of Magical Games and Sports to ask them to get all of the leagues to offer the survey with their registration. We'll have to volunteer all of the manpower to handout the surveys and collect them, but if we can get an official 'go-ahead' from the department it should make it easier."
"The biggest thing we can do right now is to make sure we get firmly established and generate some goodwill. To do that it will be imperative that we get the media on our side," Maksim reminded everyone.
"I can write up whatever we need written, from there we just need to decide which publications to run it in. I can easily get in in Up in the Air, and Aunt Audrey has already said that she has connections to get it into The Daily Prophet. Malcolm has a few close acquaintances who work for Witch Weekly if we wanted to branch out of quidditch-based and daily news based, but we'll definitely need to get it into Quidditch Weekly if we want it to spread. They have the widest readership, and despite Up in the Air's rising popularity the past few years, Quidditch Weekly is still most people's go-to for quidditch news," Cecilia announced during her turn.
Gwenog glanced at Cecilia, "Do you need one of us to help you get the announcement in Quidditch Weekly? Use our star power or something like that?"
Cecilia shook her head, "No need. Ally's good friends with Grace Monahan and even though she chooses not to work for her father, she can definitely get anything we need published that's charity-related."
"Excellent, I guess we'll just start discussing the details of our first official fundraiser then, unless there's something else anybody would like to bring to the floor?" Katie asked brightly.
Cecilia cleared her throat, "Actually Mum I'd like to propose something."
Katie nodded and gestured for Cecilia to continue.
Cecilia went on to propose that along with their intention to raise awareness about the importance of sport for children, and to raise money to fund quidditch enrollment for underprivileged children, that she'd like for them to also consider how unequal the ratio is of boys and girls who enroll in mini league quidditch. The enrollment numbers are much higher for boys than girls along all age brackets of quidditch leagues, and even though the youngest age brackets are the ones where the numbers are closet to even, the numbers of females enrolled in quidditch drop off drastically as age increases. Hogwarts years and professional quidditch league teams were the worst when it came to gender gap, and even though there were more women than ever before in professional quidditch leagues around the world, it seemed to be a theme that most women were bringing in paychecks lower than their male counterparts.
The information she was sharing wasn't novel or ground-breaking by any means, but Cecilia felt that it highlighted the importance of focusing on encouraging girls to join quidditch at an early age, and to help them keep playing as they got older.
"Obviously I'm not suggesting that we only offer mini league scholarships to only girls or anything like that, but I think it's important to focus on representation throughout all that we do. For example, right now we have an equal number of male and female identifying members on this board. I'd like to propose that we keep these numbers even going forward. If we choose to extend the number of voting members on the board, I think we should increase it by an equal number of males and females. If a member steps down for whatever reason, a new member of the same gender should take their place."
Slowly, all of the other members of the board started to nod their heads in agreement.
"I think that's a good idea Cecilia, and a good point. We can't very well try to tackle some of the inequities we see in quidditch availability to youth if we don't take into consideration issues like gender inequity along with socioeconomic considerations," Maksim agreed with a serious nod of his head.
"Another small step I think we can take is adding another question to the survey."
"It already asks about the gender the player identifies with," Clark reminded Cecilia.
She nodded her head, "Which is a good start, but I think there should be an added question about the child and the child's family's quidditch history. We should be collecting data on whether the players' parents or siblings play quidditch. I think we'd definitely see a theme of male-based influence, but it should still give us more information."
"I could easily add that in at the bottom," Mark agreed as he pulled out the master-copy of their survey, "All the data we've collected so far does won't contain that information, but anything we gather going forward will."
Ginny smiled, "Good. Cecilia since you brought this to us you can spear-head this section. Now, lets get to the planning details of our fundraiser."
11:12 PM
Knock-knock.
Victoire got up from her desk and walked over to her office door and pulled it open. Healer Sarah MacGregor was standing on the other side of it.
"Hey Sarah, you on a night shift too?"
"Not just any night shift. I'm in the Emergency Medical Ward," Sarah explained to her friend and colleague as she walked into the office and shut the door behind her.
Victoire smirked at her, "Trying to one-up me I see."
"Yeah, I actually need you to consult with me on a patient I've got waiting downstairs," She replied as she handed Victoire a patient chart.
"A neurological issue that may be related to dark magic?" Victoire guessed before looking at the chart.
Sarah bit her lip, it was a habit of hers when she was worried, and Victoire picked up on it right away. During their years together at healing school Sarah almost chewed her lip raw whenever they had a big examination due.
Victoire glanced at the chart in front of her, "This looks like a normal concussion."
"Which was my initial diagnoses," Sarah agreed, "Only there were a few things that just didn't sit well with me."
"Like what?"
"Minute muscle spasms in the fingertips that the patient didn't seem to notice. Not a normal symptom of a mild concussion, but it could have been a stress-induced response."
Victoire pursed her lips, the minute Sarah had said the words 'muscle spasms in the fingertips' she immediately understood why her colleague had started to become suspicious. "Are there gaps in her memory from today?"
"She can't quite recall what happened directly before and after the concussive blow, but that's definitely a normal concussion symptom.''
Victoire nodded and then glanced back down at the patient report in her hands, "Is that everything that's suspicious?"
"Something just didn't feel right, so I ordered a blood test. I just got the results back, they're on the second page," Sarah explained.
The D. A. R. ward healer followed her instructions and looked at the second page. Her blue eyes bulged out of her head, "Good Godric Gryffindor! Tell me there was some sort of interference with this test and you're getting a second set of results."
"Nope."
"These cortisol levels are ridiculously high, no way she's only got a mild concussion. What's her occupation? Was she an auror or an M.L.E. agent who was recently in a life-or-death duel or something?" Victoire asked. The numbers she was reading were just not making any sense.
Sarah shook her head, "She came in with her boyfriend about an hour and a half ago. Apparently, she was reaching for some sort of crockery in their kitchen and a large glass bowl fell down from a high shelf and knocked her on the head. She says she remembers bits and pieces of this, and her partner corroborated it."
"Something else needs to be going on, these cortisol levels are way too high. They're indicative of extremely high levels of stress that have been consistent and extremely long term. Have you ever seen any other concussions with cortisol levels this high?" Victoire asked Sarah, still not fully believing what she was looking at.
The healer who specializes in neurological healing shook her head, "No, which is why I've brought it to you."
"High cortisol levels, missing sections of memory, and micro muscle spasms. You're suspecting a possible Imperious Curse?"
Sarah nodded her head, "The memory loss doesn't concern me greatly, but the minute muscle spasms in the fingertips were a surprise. After talking to my patient and her boyfriend I decided to do the blood test, which has brought us the cortisol red flags. In just a few conversations concerning my patient and the incident that brought her in tonight, her boyfriend has displayed some very controlling behaviours. He was continuously trying to answer for her and she was cowing down to him. He also kept trying to put his hands on her and attempted to hold her wrist or arm several times while I was trying to examine her."
"You think he might be abusive?" Victoire questioned, the pieces of the story starting to fill in a little bit better.
"It seems possible. I'm not an expert of course, but his controlling behaviours are a little worrying. Her head injury seems genuine, but what led to it may not have been. Which is why I'm concerned about the other symptoms she's now presenting with."
Victoire nodded and took a few moments to think. Sarah had been right to be surprised at her patient presenting minute muscle spasms in the fingers. It wasn't normally a symptom consistent with concussions, and that paired with a controlling boyfriend's behaviours probably would have led Victoire to run more tests too.
In the intervening years since the last war, Dark Arts Reversal healers had been researching people who had been subject to the Imperious Curse to see if they could find any after effect symptoms that could help healers pick out who might have suffered the curse. Memory gaps were the only symptom that were widely acknowledged, and those could be caused by a myriad of things that weren't an Imperious Curse. After interviewing hundreds of people who came forward with their stories of being under the Imperious Curse, they found a few more possible symptoms that occurred in a statistically significant portions of the volunteers.
Minute or micro spasms in the far extremities, usually fingertips but also found in toes, were an odd connected symptom that kept cropping up in their research. While they could be explained away as a stress response, some of the healers came up with an alternative reason for the symptom. Healer McDavid and a few other healers posited that the micro spasms may be a delayed reaction of the victim of the Imperious Curse, and that they were the result of the victim trying to subconsciously work against the magic of the imperious Curse. They thought that the muscle spasms may be deferred gross muscle movements and signals being let out after the curse finishes, and that the body synthesizes all of the pent us signals into micro movements through the fingers and toes because they would be less detrimental to the body than delayed gross muscle spasms.
During this era of research many tests were also ran on victims of the Imperious Curse, and it was found that many of the them had extremely high amounts of cortisol in their bodies. Since being under control of a spell that takes away a person's free will is a very stressful event both for the physical state and the mental state, it made sense that several of the victims showed high levels of the stress hormone. Unfortunately, the stress hormone seemed to decrease as the time between the Imperious Curse and the blood test were taken, and as it was often difficult to test victims of the Imperious Curse directly after they were cursed, there was not enough data on the theory to use it as proof.
"And you want me to go take a look at your patient and tell you if she's been Imperious-ed?" Victoire asked Sarah as she moved towards her closed office door and opened it up.
Sarah walked through the open doorway, Victoire following after her, "I know that it's almost impossible for you to actually do that bar getting access to her boyfriend's wand and seeing his Priori Incantatem. However, I'd still like your professional opinion. Perhaps you'll see something I'm not and get enough evidence to call in the Auror Department and have them legally check his Priori Incantatem."
The two healers shared a nod and it only took them a few moments to get on the lift and travel down to the Emergency Medical Ward.
"Ms. Chamberlin, I've brought in another healer to consult with me. This is Healer Weasley and she's going to be asking you a few questions, is that alright?" Sarah asked her patient as the pair walked into one of the closed-off emergency medical bays.
Ms. Chamberlin, who was obviously the woman in her early thirties who was sitting on the hospital bed, tried to nod her head only for her agreement to be cut off by the brusque tone of the man sitting in a chair directly next to the hospital bed.
"Why does another healer need to consult? We've already been here for like three hours."
Sarah took a deep breath and faced the man, "Mr. Boyd, sometimes healers work together on patients' cases." She turned from the man and then addressed her actual patient, "I just received your bloodwork back Ms. Chamberlin and there was something that concerned me slightly, so I've brought Healer Weasley in for another opinion."
"What's in her bloodwork that worries you?" Mr. Boyd interrupted yet again, "Is she pregnant?"
Sarah glanced at Mr. Boyd and frowned at him before addressing Ms. Chamberlin again, "No, Ms. Chamberlin your bloodwork does not indicate that you're pregnant. It does however indicate that you have very high levels of cortisol. Cortisol is our body's stress hormone and when we are in high states of stress our cortisol levels are very high. Since your cortisol levels are very high, I've brought in Healer Weasley to-"
"Is Healer Weasley some sort of psychological healer or something?" Mr. Boyd asked, once again not allowing Sarah to finish.
Both healers completely ignored him this time. Sarah because she was tired of his interruptions, and Victoire because his question was actually giving her a way to explain away her presence without fully introducing herself as a Dark Arts Reversal healer.
"I will be asking you some questions about your psychological and physical states Ms. Chamberlin. Would that be alright?" Victoire spoke to the patient specifically.
Ms. Chamberlin nodded and Victoire began to ask her some questions that she hoped sounded like routine concern for her stress levels, but were actually questions that were supposed to give her more insight into whether she'd been Imperious-ed or not. Unfortunately, as Victoire and Sarah had discussed previously, even with a D. A. R. ward healer looking into the case, it was still difficult to determine whether or not someone had been Imperious-ed without having an eye witness or access to the curse castor's wand.
"Thank you for answering my questions, Ms. Chamberlin. If you will excuse Healer MacGregor and myself for just a few moments, we need to discuss something," Victoire told the patient after finishing her examination.
Victoire and Sarah left the examination bay and looked at each other.
"You don't have enough to go on, do you?" Sarah asked Victoire.
"No. I mean her cortisol levels are still really suspicious, but if she's in an abusive relationship -even without being Imperious-ed- it could explain the high cortisol levels. Not that we have any proof of that itself besides her partner being verbally controlling. Ugh," Victoire groaned as she pinched the bridge of her nose.
"There's no medical reason for her to stay here any longer," Sarah summed up.
"No. I can't officially do anything either," Victoire replied sadly.
Sarah glanced down at Ms. Chamberlin's chart again, "I'm going to ask her to come back next week so that I can check on how her concussion is progressing. In the meantime, I'm going to request her medical history. If there's a history of physical abuse this probably isn't her first visit to a hospital."
"Sound plan," Victoire said with a nod, "Make me a copy of her chart? I'll see if there's any new research around the Imperious Curse and if I can pick out anything else."
Sarah nodded and pulled her wand out to duplicate of the patient chart, "Thanks again for you help."
A/N: I hope everyone liked this chapter, it may seem a bit like a filler chapter, but we are really getting to the details of some of the (many) storylines going on around here.
Thank you all for staying with me during my erratic updating schedule, and sticking with this story.
So Mark named The Charity S.P.A.R.K.S., but I would like to thank Rensk3N, Izzy, and Hensha for all offering me some suggestions for the name of The Charity. They were really good and got my creative juices flowing, so thank you SO much for the help :)
I saw that a lot of you read my James/Selene one-shot The Incident, and I'm glad that you liked it. If you haven't read it yet, you can find a link to it in my Author's Profile.
Next Chapter: An actual Weasley family dinner this time, but with more visitors!
Next Update: Once I finish writing it. I am about to start practicum and getting into the thick of it with school assignments, so it might be a little slow going, but my goal is to get it to you within a month.
I want to thank everyone who has followed, favourited, read, and especially reviewed!
BIG Thank-Yous as always to:
Guest (1), Janeth16, xXSlytherinsQueenXx, ntlpurpolia, carbo21, Nobothersgiventoday, NicoleTheSmith, Guest (2), Gnool, CrackHeadBlonde, AishaD1, Manydifferentfandoms, Potterhead192007, liverpoolss, J, MC5809, xpopcornxx, Guest (3), and Izzy.
Janeth16: Thank you for the wonderful review, I'm glad that you enjoyed all of those details I throw in.
ntlpurpolia: Well Baxter still needs a date for the wedding, and since everyone seems convinced that he should ask Bakery Girl to go with him, I'm sure there will be some interaction between them at some point before this whole roller coaster ends ;)
carbo21: I appreciate the concern, but I am fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and so are my family and all of the people I see in close quarters outside of my home. If I end up with a break-through infection I won't get very sick from it. Yay science!
Manydifferentfandoms: Good luck with your studies!
Potterhead192007: I hope James's story telling gave you a bit of an explanation, but don't worry, this is not the end of that storyline.
Izzy: Online schoolwork sucks. I'm doing everything but my practicum online right now and while I appreciate not having the commute, doing group work via Zoom is a pain. Good luck with yours!
I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please let me know,
Until next time, follow all public health and safety guidelines and,
DTFBA!