Today's line: "This music is shit. Turn it off and chuck on The Who."
Isabel slaps his face with The Daily Prophet to wake him up the next morning.
"Congratulations," she says brightly. "You're the top item in the Sporting section."
Blearily, Oliver looks down at the paper. QUIDDITCH COUPLE CAUSE SCANDAL, reads the headline, above a picture of he and Aidan in mid-kiss at the party. He notices that while Jenny, beside them in the picture, is smiling in amusement, Howard beside her looks horrified. Whether that's because they're two men kissing or because the sudden attention on them kissing is stealing the attention from him and his Romeo and Juliet anecdote, Oliver can't quite tell.
He reads the paper with his toast and pumpkin juice at the kitchen table; he's barely finished the first sentence – some overdramatic drivel about the sensationalism of the way they 'outed' themselves – when the mail starts to arrive.
The many owls jostle each other around the table as Oliver picks one at random and starts to read. A few Howlers start smoking around the edges; he quickly contains them before they can wake the neighbours.
The actual article is fairly complementary, applauding their courage in announcing their relationship so blatantly if picking out ways they could have done it in a more tsteful way. Oliver has to admit that the kiss was a little over-the-top; the plan had simply been a peck on the lips and then some hand-holding to see if they could subtly attract a few photos, but they'd both been so nervous they'd got carried away.
Some of the mail, on the other hand, is anything but encouraging. Oliver picks out the sentence disgracing everything Quidditch stands for more than once, and the phrase can't believe someone I had so much respect for could do something so disgusting makes his heart drop to somewhere in the vicinity of his knees.
Flottie soars inelegantly through the window and knocks over several waiting owls with a few choice shoves of elbow-like wings to get to him. Oliver laughs and carefully extracts the letter from her leg; Aidan's familiar writing makes him smile.
Could deal with this easier if I was with you. Send Flottie back if it's not okay for me to come over.
He smiles, fishes a bent quill out of a drawer in the kitchen and scribbles back, Please, I need to see you.
It takes barely ten minutes for Aidan to knock on the downstairs door; Oliver throws down the letter he was reading and vaults the stairs to let him in. He's enveloped in a crushing hug the moment the door opens. "Thanks," Aidan murmurs into his ear.
"Let me read you this one," he says in return, taking Aidan's hand and leading him up the stairs. In the kitchen, a new plethora of owls have landed on the floor. He scoops up the letter he was reading and yanks his lover into the living room and onto his lap in the armchair by the window. The forest of owls follow them; Aidan looks up and snorts at them.
"Dear Mr Wood," Oliver reads aloud, letting his free hand stroke up the curve of Aidan's elbow. "I was absolutely delighted to see the article in the Daily Prophet this morning regarding your revealing of your relationship with Aidan Lynch. Both of you are players I admire greatly but your courage in taking this step has me in complete awe of you. As an out-and-proud homosexual myself, I fully understand the difficulties of revealing something that will put you in such a vulnerable position, especially as a celebrity and a sportsman. Your confidence in yourself and your sexuality has even inspired my partner to begin talking about 'coming out' to his office, which I had begun to despair of him ever doing. Congratulations to the both of you; you are both remarkable people and I am very pleased you have each found someone as fantastic as you. I wish you the very best of luck for your futures.
"Sincerely, Isaac Hampton."
The two of them sit in silence for a moment. Aidan sighs. "It's nice to know we still have fans," he says quietly.
Oliver hums in agreement and kisses the back of his neck gently. "I didn't even consider what he was saying about his partner. There are people out there who haven't told anyone, and now maybe seeing how easy it is – maybe having someone they look up to do it they'll have the courage to start thinking about it themselves."
For a moment there's silence but for the burbling of the WWN. Then Aidan huffs irritatedly. "This music is shit," he says matter-of-factly. "Turn it off and chuck on The Who."
Chuckling, Oliver waves his wand at the radio, wraps his arms around his lover and settles in for a lazy morning of discarding the hate mail and treasuring the people like Isaac Hampton, whom they're helping and inspiring, thoroughly pleased that Aidan, too, believes they can get through this as long as they do it together.