Dean Thomas + this World Cup


"Dad, you're so embarrassing," Ila mumbles, but Dean barely hears her.

"That's it, that's it," he's roaring, waving a flag in the air. "Run faster, you git!"

Jay tugs on his mother's sleeve, his bottom lip stuck out in a tragic pout. "Mum, what's so exciting about this game? Everyone's on the ground —"

Parvati hushes him. "Just pretend it's Quidditch without the brooms."

"Still boring," Jay whines.

Something happens on the field that makes everybody around them groan. Parvati cranes her neck to see the aftermath, but the man in front of them keeps shifting, obscuring her vision.

She sighs, unsticking her shirt from the nape of her neck. She's sweating and uncomfortable; she hardly even knows the rules of football. This morning, in a fit of foolish vanity, she put on a pair of large gold earrings that are now tugging down heavily on her earlobes, making them ache. By all rights, she should be miserable.

But as she looks at her husband bouncing eagerly on the tips of his toes, one corner of her mouth lifts.

At the start of June, the Thomas family took a series of Portkeys to Argentina. They watched the Quidditch World Cup quarterfinals there, in the Patagonian desert. Parvati enjoyed herself immensely, especially the surprise victory by Bulgaria — but they had to cut their viewing of the tournament short, so they could move to Brazil for this football nonsense.

England's first match was a disappointing loss to Italy, and this mess against Uruguay isn't shaping up much better. There are only a few minutes left, but Dean is yelling bravely, refusing to acknowledge their inevitable defeat.

If they lose here, they'll be ousted from the tournament entirely, which Parvati finds ridiculous. What's going on with this 'group' business, anyway? What even is a FIFA? That sounds like an instrument.

Honestly, the depths to which Parvati doesn't care about football are rivaled only by the depths to which Ila and Jay do not care about football. Ila, their first child, is a speed-flier, frighteningly good for fourteen, and considers any sport that doesn't involve brooms an utter waste of time. Jay, on the other hand, is thirteen and bookish, and couldn't care about any sport at all if he were bribed. Which Dean has tried to do, repeatedly.

Dean has become almost frighteningly invested in sports. He bets hundreds of Galleons a month on Quidditch matches, and he's damn good at it, too. He and Parvati both work for the Ministry, but they wouldn't be nearly as well-off if Dean weren't so gung-ho about his Sports Guesses, as Parvati calls them.

It's strange. She can't remember him being as rabid about Quidditch, or even football, when they married fifteen years ago. But now he is practically frantic about it all.

The match ends in disgrace. Dean is crestfallen, his enthusiasm sliding off his face like raw egg. As the family traipses back to their hotel, he grows quieter while the children grow louder and happier, finally freed from their obligation to pretend like they care about Muggle sports.

They arrive back at the hotel. Privately, Parvati thinks this hotel is the best part of the trip. Dean apparently felt guilty about stealing his family away from Quidditch, guilty enough to book them a place at the Fasano Hotel. It's a five-star place with embarrassingly luxurious suites. Crisp white bedsheets and gauzy curtains complement the warm hardwood floors — and the view of the city? Spectacular.

Parvati sets down her bag on the recliner, tugs out her wand, and straightens up their Muggle suitcases, which — while strange — are at least fashionable. The kids vanish into their room, Ila fishing out her broom polish to groom her Nimbus Slant, Jay pulling out the novel he's reading now. It's about a cleaning witch who pretends to be a Muggle for a year, God knows why. Parvati has stopped questioning their son's reading habits.

Their door shuts with an enthusiastic bang. Parvati tugs her earrings from her ears with a relieved sigh, heads to the bathroom, and coaxes the pain out from her earlobes with warm water.

"What are you thinking for dinner, honey?" she calls out.

"I don't know," says Dean's voice quietly.

Parvati sets down the washcloth and heads back into their bedroom. She places her hands on her hips, eyeing Dean shrewdly. He sits on the edge of the bed, his hands clasped in his lap.

"What's wrong?" she says.

"The match."

"Oh, don't," Parvati says. "What's wrong, come on, you can tell me."

He looks up at her with fondness scrawled across his honest features. "Come here," he says.

Parvati sighs and seats herself beside him. He cranes his neck and kisses her on the temple, brushing a wisp of black hair from her forehead. "Thanks for doing this," he says quietly. "I know you would've rather stayed in Argentina."

"Well, of course I would have. Padma was there — and the Weasleys; it was so nice to catch up with Ginny." Parvati looks at him frankly. "But there's no need to thank me. It's not a compromise. Half and half makes sense."

He grins. "Yeah. Always has, hasn't it?"

Parvati cups Dean's hand with hers. "And it's nice, being here," she admits. "At the Quidditch Cup, too — but this, as well. Seeing you this excited."

"Yeah, it's a rush, isn't it?" he says.

There's something strange about his voice. Parvati can't place it.

Dean shakes his head, twisting the gold band around his fourth finger. Suddenly, he says, "Everything's — everything's just quiet, you know? Still quiet, and sort of far away. And this wakes me up a bit, I think." He looks at her. "Do you know what I mean?"

Parvati can't quite meet his eyes. "Are you saying you miss …"

"No, of course I don't. That would be … no, I don't miss being scared all the time, I don't miss …"

They sit in silence for a good minute.

"But there are some things," Parvati says quietly. He meets her eyes. She remembers blasting a Body-Bind curse at Antonin Dolohov, illuminating Dean's face with the light of the spell, saving him by seconds. She remembers the instant gratitude on his expression, the split-second of recognition — the hasty words spat through the battlefield; she remembers diving for safety with her heart hammering so hard, she could swear it was writing a battle song there in her chest.

She remembers Lavender's funeral, her friend's dead face, unforgettable and young. The swarm of people hounding her with a million words, pretty condolences. She remembers Dean walking up to her, wordless, and she could see the emotion stuck there in his throat, choking him, and she knew he could understand. He clasped her in a brief, hard hug, and the warmth of him bled right into her.

She remembers how everything felt after the battle. How immediate and raw. She remembers how mercilessly time ground forward. Days of celebrations, and it still didn't feel like it could be true; everything was a haze, wasn't it? Everything was an insane high, he was gone, they were free. It was hard to sleep, the celebrations through the nights were so loud. Politics in the newspapers were a joke; even hunting for Death Eaters was a joke; everything was a big fucking joke all of a sudden. There were no feet on the ground. Parvati didn't feel real.

She remembers the blistering summer of 1998, walking through Hogsmeade with tired feet. She remembers colliding with Dean there, at the Three Broomsticks, by accident, and how they spoke with strange strained voices, and how suddenly — mid-conversation — their small talk blistered and broke, turned into something more. Something frighteningly honest, something about loss and exhaustion and fear and relief.

She remembers how frantically their relationship advanced. How, when they saw each other every night, they grasped each other like nervous children clutching at the hems of their clothes. She remembers her heart pounding through the first whisper of I love you, in August, buried at 1:30 in the morning in a haze of dreams that weren't quite nightmares but were dreadfully close.

He called her brave and beautiful. She called him brave, and hers. They were married a year later. She remembers, even now, the soaring, searing taste of the wedding, of his kiss on her lips.

Now, sitting here on a hotel bed in Sao Paulo, Parvati feels disconnected, like her mind is swimming in the ocean of her body. Is everything faded, here in Brazil, aged thirty-four? Does he feel it too? Is that just their mutual imagination?

"There are some things," Dean echoes. His voice is as soft and empty as the brush of grass. "I know."

"It's funny," Parvati says, remembering the gold of Lavender's hair, the excited slap of her laugh. Everything. "It's funny, really it is. What I mean to say is — you don't miss looking over the edge. You don't miss hitting the ground. But you miss the falling part of it, you know? Do you know what I mean?"

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fin


Thanks for reading! Please do drop me a line if you liked it.

xx

-Speech