a/n My theme was "The Headmaster's Office", looking at those in a position of power and authority and their relationships with those that are their subordinates or those within their care. Rose is the Quidditch Captain and Hugo feels betrayed by her decision not to pick him, her own brother, for the team.
Story Title/Link: Of Firebolts and Fury
School and Theme:Hogwarts: The Headmaster's Office
Main Prompt:Skipping rocks
Additional Prompts:Broom, Betrayal
Year:four
Wordcount:2221
Hugo isn't angry. He's livid. With a humourless and slightly insane laugh he thinks that Rose would be proud of his vocabulary, if he told her that. Only, of course, he can't tell Rose, because it is Rose who is the subject of his fury.
He pelts another angry rock at the lake and allows his wrath to soften just a little with the warm pride of seeing it skip a good twelve times before it sinks beneath the waves. Sure, as talents go, this is less than useless, but at least he's the best in the family at something. Maybe it's not quite as cool as being the Captain of the Quidditch team or being on course for straight O's come O.W.L. results, but it's better than a kick in the teeth.
He briefly considers whether a kick in the teeth might be the solution to some of his problems, actually. If he could just take his anger out on his sister's smug face then maybe, for once in her life, she might be forced to stop and think about how other human beings actually feel. She might find, too, that Scorpius gazed after her in a less adoring kind of a way if her face got messed up and Hugo thinks it might be quite satisfying to watch her try to process that.
He skips another rock, huffing out a sigh when the stupid thing only makes it to eight bounces. It's just not fair. None of this is fair. Why does she get to have all of the brilliant genes? And why is he left with rock-skipping and a hand-me-down broom? That's the thing that hurts most of all, somehow. Their parents are wealthy beyond their dreams since becoming the heroes of the Wizarding World all those years ago, yet still he's left pottering about on that crap Cleansweep Nineteen while his sister gets a top-of-the-range new Firebolt X. They couldn't make it any clearer, he thinks sourly, that they don't believe in him. They just don't think his Quidditch skills will ever merit decent equipment.
He reckons he might have made it onto the team if he had a decent broom. Or if he had a decent sister, or decent luck, or if there was anything decent about this situation at all, really. He just doesn't understand how he could reject her, his own flesh and blood, when she's the captain and all. What's the point of having relatives in positions of power if they don't give him a lucky break, once in a while?
He lobs another pebble, but he's rather losing focus now and this one doesn't skip at all. The bounce has gone out of it, somehow, just as the bounce has gone out of his mood. He was so excited this morning, imagining that by this point in the afternoon he'd be the newest hero of the Gryffindor team and Rose would be proudly introducing him to all her friends as her talented little brother.
Hah. So much for that.
He hears a noise behind him and he doesn't have to turn to know that the footsteps are Rose's. They know each other pretty well, as siblings tend to. He picks up another stone and makes a great show of examining it, even though he has no intention of attempting to skip it across the lake. He just doesn't think he can look at her right now. He suspects that his anger will fizzle out if he does. He's never been very good at staying angry with her for long–jealous, sure, but not angry.
"Hugo?"
He grunts. She doesn't deserve words, not after this morning's gross betrayal.
She tries again. "Hugo, please."
He ignores her again, throws the stone in his palm as hard at the surface of the lake as he can, sends up spray and hears a satisfying plop.
Taking his hint at last, she does not try to speak again. She simply bends down, and picks up a stone of her own, and chucks it across the waves in an uncoordinated mess of limbs that results in nothing more than one measly skip.
He laughs a little, finding that her failure calms his fury. She tries again, rocks back onto her heels and lets fly. This time she manages two whole bounces and she gets herself off-balance so badly in the process that she nearly trips over her own feet.
"You're ridiculous," he informs her when he cannot hold it in any longer. "How anyone can be that good on a broom and that crap at throwing rocks at a lake is beyond me."
She snorts. "We all have our strengths and weaknesses. What am I doing wrong?"
"Everything," he tells her without sympathy. "Start with a better stone, for one thing. And what's with the flailing arms?"
"I feel like I'm supposed to throw it hard. Isn't that how it works?"
"You're supposed to get it right, first. Then you can worry about throwing harder."
They skim stones in silence for a few more moments, but it is at least a less angry silence. Rose seems to have taken his advice to heart, spending longer choosing her pebbles, windmilling her arms with slightly less ridiculousness. And Hugo is a bit annoyed with himself for breaking down and speaking to her, sure, but he thinks it's probably OK. He only gave her a lecture on how to suck less at his favourite hobby–he didn't actually forgive her or anything.
She breaks the silence, of course, because she's Rose Granger-Weasley and keeping quiet has never been her best thing.
"I'm sorry, Hugo." It is perhaps the most quietly he has ever heard her speak.
"Great. More pity," he bites out resentfully.
"What do you mean?" As ever, it seems that understanding human emotions is proving problematic for her.
"I don't want you to be sorry," he tells her, sending another stone skipping into the distance. "I want you to pick me for the team. People are always sorry for me and it doesn't do me any good. I don't want another damn apology, I want a chance to prove I'm good at something for once in my life." He grinds to a halt, breathing heavily, and turns his back on her for a moment while he seeks out the perfect pebble.
It takes her longer to think of an answer to that than usual. "I didn't mean it to be like that, Hugo. And I think you're good at plenty of things. You're beating me at this, aren't you?"
"Great. I'm better at making rocks bounce on water. You're better at Quidditch and at every school subject known to wizard-kind, but sure, I'm good at something."
"You're quite a lot better at making friends than I am," she mutters, so quietly and with such raw honesty that he rather wonders if she has been replaced by an impostor.
He doesn't know how to answer that–because it's true, but he's beginning to suspect that they might have hurt each other enough for one day–so he skips a couple more stones and wonders if it's going to rain soon.
Rose takes a moment to scour the beach for her next stone, then addresses him again. "So you've worked out that I came out here to–you know–because it sucks that I can't put you on the team. And I didn't mean to hurt you, Hugo, only I can't be seen to be giving any special treatment at all to my family and–"
"Great. I'm so crap that the only way I'd get on the team is special treatment."
"That's not what I mean and you know it." She sounds affronted, now, worked up and rather more like the sister he knows and loves–and sometimes hates. "I mean that it was really close, so I had to give it to the players who aren't my brother. I'm sorry. I know it must suck being related to me, sometimes."
"It sucks all the time," he informs her, then feels immediately guilty. Because he seems to remember that's not quite true, really. There's always been something useful about having a rather fierce and very protective and mostly helpful big sister around.
He shakes himself and slings another stone out across the lake. He's beginning to run out of good rocks on this small area of the shore, he notes. It's almost as if the universe is telling him he can't stay out here, furious with Rose, forever.
"I'm sorry you feel that way," she says and he hates himself a little when he hears that she's actually fighting back tears. "I think you're brilliant, Hugo, really I do. But the other players who tried out for Beater were really good too and you're only fourteen so you're bound to get on the team one day."
"You got on the team when you were thirteen," he reminds her.
"Yeah. I did. But that doesn't take away from the fact that you're genuinely a promising player and you have years ahead of you to make the team."
"Only I never will make the team at this rate, will I?" He demands bitterly, that feeling of betrayal still burning bright despite her attempts to extinguish the flames of his temper. "Because my wonderful big sister will be the captain for the next two years and she'll never pick me because she's an unfeeling Grindylow with no family loyalty at all–"
"Hugo." She tosses a rock loudly into the water to punctuate her interruption. "I will pick you. I will pick you just as soon as you are head and shoulders above the competition and I can walk into the common room at your side with my head held high and say 'this is my brother, and he got on the team on merit'. And you're not there yet, I'm sorry, but you're not. But I really believe you will be, one day."
Rose always tells it like it is. It's one of the reasons, he suspects, that she's not great at that whole making friends thing. But right now, somehow, it makes his heart sing with joy. Because for the first time in his life, someone has genuinely told him that they believe he has what it takes to succeed one day. And if it's coming from Rose, who has never once in her life told a lie to spare anyone's feelings–well, then. It must be true.
"Thank you," he mutters, and he knows he doesn't have to explain what he's thanking her for. He knows that she gets it.
"I don't want this to sound patronising, but I wondered if you wanted me to help you train sometimes," she tells the horizon, the indomitable Rose Granger-Weasley apparently nervous at the thought of making this most awkward of offers. "I'm not trying to say that I'm God's gift to Quidditch coaching or anything, I just thought you might get on the team sooner if you got more practice."
"I'd like that. I do like playing Quidditch, after all."
She laughs at that, as he intended she should, and picks up a handful of pebbles. She is no longer making any attempt to skim them across the lake, but simply lets them clatter through her fingers, her brows knitted together in thought.
"I could lend you my broom sometimes."
He gasps at that, trips over nothing in shock. He must have misheard her. Surely he must have misheard her.
"Pardon?"
"I could lend you my broom sometimes." She gives a shrug that appears to cost her a great deal of effort.
"But you love that broom," he points out, "and it's your broom, your precious Firebolt X that you won't let anyone else even breathe on."
"I know. I do love that broom. But you're my brother and I love you more."
He stares at her, mouth gaping open, quite unable to formulate a reply.
"And I upset you today," she continues on, eternally happy to lead the conversation, "and I figure if you're going to do some more training, you should do it on a decent broom. So, yeah, let's do Granger-Weasley Quidditch training. On a Saturday afternoon, maybe? You can borrow the Firebolt and I can try not to fall off your Cleansweep and it'll be a laugh."
Hugo seems to remember that, about half an hour ago, he had no intention of laughing in his traitorous big sister's presence ever again. But he has to admit that her suggestion does sound like quite a lot of fun, and she did go and mention that whole love thing and tell him he might be quite good at Quidditch one day and–well, he thinks that maybe it's time to let this one go.
He jumps on her. There is no other way of describing the kind of all-in Weasley hugging they do best. He wraps his arms around her and squishes her until she's simultaneously laughing and telling him that she can't breathe, and he's telling her that he can't believe he's more important to her than that Firebolt, and it starts to drizzle but he really couldn't care less. He has the best sister in the world, and he has no intention of ever letting her go.
a/n Thanks for reading!