"I tried, but Cuff made me give that stupid story on Bulgaria trading Falkov precedence," said Seamus Finnigan, his still boyishly freckled face grimacing in distaste. "And once something's knocked down the queue, there's only so much I can do to promote it."
"But that story's a week old!" protested Jillian Napier, head profiles writer for the Daily Prophet's Magic in Business section. Her long brown hair shone in the dim light of the pub as she pushed it off her shoulders impatiently. "What more can there be to say about a stupid Beater moving to Romania? I mean, the season's not starting for another two months!"
Seamus, who oversaw the Prophet's MagicApp, Accio News!, shrugged.
"Sorry, Jillian. Cuff's ancient – he's about 90 and all he wants to hear is what's happening in quidditch and whether Sotheby's is still stocking his favorite talcum power. And he's not wrong, really. People just care more about quidditch than they do about Ministry finance appointments."
Jillian fumed. "Of course they do. I care more about quidditch than fucking finance. How did I end up on this beat anyway?"
"A question we all must ponder," said Rachel, dropping down into her seat after depositing three pints of firewhiskey onto the table. It was Friday and Katie, Seamus, Rachel, Jillian, and Anna Warschek – the kind, mild-mannered American girl who worked as a runner for the Prophet's fourth floor – were gathered at the Rose and Wand pub for a semi-regular, end-of-the-week drink.
"I mean it though," Jillian protested. "Everyone who spends more than two seconds talking to me knows there's no one out there who knows more celebrity gossip than I do. But somehow, I'm sidelined into fucking Magic in Business working under that miserable bastard Erastus."
"You do know a weird amount about Gilderoy Lockhart, Jr.," Anna put in, raising a glass of the firewhiskey to her lips.
Jillian softened visibly. "Who could help knowing it? He's gorgeous, dim, and has an invalid father – bless," she added with a sigh.
"Well, knock off Rita Skeeter, and the job's yours," Rachel said darkly. "Mind you, she'd come back as a ghost just to make sure she scooped whoever took over her position."
"I'll never understand why the Prophet continues to employ her," Anna frowned. "She's evil."
Seamus, who harbored a hopeless crush on Anna but more frequently slept with Jillian – at least after they'd both been drinking – nodded vigorously.
"Well, it's bullshit," Jillian said and Anna patted her hand sympathetically.
"I haven't had much to complain about on my own account for a few weeks, but Katie's story on Leary really should have been better promoted," Rachel said, pushing a glass toward where Katie sat at the edge of the table.
"Are you even alive?" Seamus asked, waving a hand in front of her face. "You've barely put two words together for the last hour."
Katie frowned and accepted the pint. "I'm fine," she said. "What's going on?"
She had been perched on one knee, head on her hand, staring at the thickening rain outside the pub window. With the weather turning colder and more foul, there were fewer people on the streets, but she'd started staring at a group of teenagers who were pushing one another toward puddles and laughing uproariously. She didn't understand why they weren't at Hogwarts – but she supposed she and her friends had had several sneaky off-campus trips of their own when they were at school.
"Your Leary story," said Jillian. "How it should have been at the top of the MagicApp?"
"Oh, that." Katie wrinkled her nose. "That was shit. I mean, I can't even take credit for it – I had a tip."
Rachel scoffed. "As if that isn't the way most journalists work."
Katie shrugged. "Wouldn't have happened to the journalists at the Quibbler."
The whole table either groaned or rolled their eyes, and Jillian interjected, "Oh, fuck off. The Quibbler's shit. And I'm goddamn sick of you not taking credit for your good work. False modesty's annoying. Sorry, Anna," she added to the honey blonde, who disliked curse words.
Anna sighed. "I really do think you don't give yourself enough credit, Katie," she said.
Katie smiled at her, sweetly but dismissively. She'd read some of Anna's work the runner was hoping to get published in the paper, and privately thought it didn't speak much to her news judgment, however nice the girl was herself.
"This is boring," Seamus announced. "As far as I'm concerned, everyone at this table is brilliant. Now, what are we all doing for Halloween tomorrow?"
Rachel quickly begged off – she and her husband, Ryan, were planning a lazy night in, getting fat off of sweets, she said – and Anna cited a party with her boyfriend Andros, who played reserve chaser on the Greece quidditch team. Jillian, meanwhile, launched into a full-throated promotion of a party at a private wizarding club in Hackney.
"– And Viktor Krum might make an appearance," she finished. "You'll come, won't you, Katie?"
Katie tried to look disappointed as she explained she had her goddaughter's birthday party to attend. In truth, partying with Jillian was not on Katie's list of best ways to spend a weekend. If she went to this club, she knew Jillian would be hammered by 11, ignore her entirely, and either stumble out with some random, seedy bloke or throw up on her as Katie tried to drag her home. And if Seamus was there, she would either have a help or a hindrance, depending on how much he drank.
"Are you taking the piss?" Jillian growled. "A kid's birthday party is going to last until 4AM? And don't try to tell me you're not going to want a drink after that."
"Might be more of a drinking alone need to drink," put in Rachel, who also disliked partying with Jillian.
"You're going, Katie?" said Seamus, surprised. "Isn't that Angelina's daughter?"
"That'd be the one," Katie said, raising a sarcastic toast in his direction before drinking the firewhiskey.
"Well, shit."
"Honestly," Jillian interjected, rolling her eyes. "I don't know what's wrong with you, Katie, I thought you cut those arseholes out of your life."
"She's my goddaughter," Katie groaned, putting her head in her arms and sighing. "And I haven't seen her in more than a year. I don't have a huge array of choices."
Jillian shrugged. "She's the daughter of a former quidditch star and the owner of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. What more could she possibly ask from the universe?"
"Meanwhile I'm a shit writer at a shit paper, who has nothing and no one, and fuck all to offer anybody?" Katie snapped, a bit harsher than she meant. She was on her third drink of the night on a relatively empty stomach and was already feeling a little dizzy.
"No, you know that isn't what I meant," said Jillian, but she looked a little chastened and glanced around at the group for support. She dropped her voice. "I just don't like the way they treat you. You're lovely, but you look like a kicked dog every time someone even mentions Angelina or the Weasleys."
"You should see the overture she wrote on the back of Katie's invitation," Rachel drawled, putting her legs up on the empty chair opposite her.
"I'm sorry, I know she was your friend, but I didn't like that girl back at Hogwarts, and I certainly don't like her now," said Jillian, who had been a Ravenclaw and two years ahead of Katie and Angelina in school. "Swooping around on her broom, strutting around the hallways, fighting or snogging Fred Weasley anywhere there was an audience…Everyone was bloody in love with her."
Katie was about to tell her off – hearing unfair criticism of Angelina, whom she hadn't been friendly with in four years, still stung – when Seamus piped up.
"I wasn't!" he said, taking a long draft of his firewhiskey before speaking again. "I only had eyes for you, Katie. The day you kissed me after Gryffindor won the quidditch match was just about the happiest day of my life at that point – and still is," he added, winking at her.
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, we all know you wanted to bone Katie. You've told us about eight thousand times."
But Katie grinned in spite of herself. It was an oft-told tale, but one Seamus had successfully spun numerous times – even getting her to bed on three or four occasions before it turned out Jillian did guilt-free sex much better than Katie did. But the story remained true: Katie had been a terrible flirt at Hogwarts, worse by far than Angelina, and must have snogged at least six blokes that day. She remembered Seamus best, though, because the sandy-haired boy had so obviously fancied her and was so grateful for the kiss. Seventeen years later, she was the voice of reason who wrote with neat penmanship and monitored Jillian's drunken antics and Rachel's self-endangering sarcasm until she wanted to pull her hair out. It was nice to be reminded that she had once been the fun one.
"Well if you want to meet up afterwards, the invitation is open, that's all I'm saying," said Jillian, who shrugged her shoulders and went back to her pint.
"We'll see. Right now, I've got to get home," said Katie, standing up and sidling past Anna. "Thanks for the drinks."
"Oh, Katie!" Rachel said before she could leave. Katie turned around. "Here – in case the little princess turns out to be more of a brat."
And she tossed what looked to be three or four giant, rubber spiders into Katie's bag.
Xxx
Katie woke up early the next morning, showered, dressed, and arranged her collar bone-length dark brown hair with more care than usual. Then she grabbed her bag and headed to Diagon Alley, where she paused at the head of the cobblestone street, staring at the rows of brightly colored storefronts with three hours to shop and absolutely no idea where to start.
What Jillian had said last night was absolutely accurate – what did you get a girl who had wealthy, popular parents, an army of adoring family, and access to just about anything she could possibly want?
Cursing Angelina, and more particularly Alicia who had so carelessly abandoned her to this fate, Katie gazed into the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies and considered an expensive toy broomstick she rudely hoped would eclipse Roxanne's other gifts and clear her own calendar of Weasley-related obligations for the next century.
Katie had not wanted to be Roxanne's godmother. It had been Angelina's brainchild, urged on her and accepted only after separate, insistent owls from Alicia and Lee Jordan declaring how appropriate and how sweet of a gesture it was of Angelina to make.
As if forever obligating her to an as-yet unborn baby just wiped the slate clean and undid the years of hurt Angelina had caused Katie.
But she'd said yes anyway, mostly because she was aching to return to the fold of friendship, but also because part of her loved Angelina just as much as she hated her. George had not factored into it at all – or, at least, it was what she told herself before it had all blown up again.
George.
She and Alicia had both been present at Roxanne's birth, waiting in the lobby of St. Mungo's newly minted maternity ward as various members of the Weasley family ran in and out of the delivery room to relay messages on Angelina's progress. Alicia was watching Freddie, to whom she had been named godmother three years before. That was before Angelina and Katie were speaking again.
"Do you know what they're planning to call it?" Katie asked to break the tension. She was sitting in her seat, fidgeting and feeling slightly ill.
"I heard Roxanne," Alicia replied, and then added in a lower, bemused voice, "Though maybe you shouldn't refer to her as it, Katie."
Katie had laughed a little then, superficially at Alicia's reproach but mostly relieved to hear the child wasn't inheriting the name of another dead relative. Alicia insisted it was beautiful, but she had always found the Weasleys' practice of naming their children after those who had passed on rather grim. She stared at the three-year-old Fred Weasley, Jr., who could have no idea of the weight he carried along with the name of his father's indelible, seven years' dead twin brother. It was a kind of responsibility she would never have wished on anybody, and she wondered whose idea it had originally been.
Probably Angelina's.
It was then that George burst through the door, shouting excitedly and beckoning in his parents and Angelina's father, who were already on their feet. Two hours later, he was handing a small baby with bright brown eyes and dark, wet curls to Katie, who had cried and cried and was too tired to examine the reasons why.
On a chilly street five years later, Katie furrowed her brow, walked inside, and bought the damn broomstick.
Xxx
Katie perched on a loveseat near the back of the Weasleys' small, cramped sitting room and wondered why Angelina was hosting her daughter's birthday party at the Burrow instead of at their own expansive London home. A squabble of five-year-olds, presumably Roxanne's friends from prep school, mixed with cousins of various ages in a noisy blur. The birthday girl herself was shouting at ultra-sonic levels, wearing a crown and tackling anyone who attempted to touch it.
Angelina had been cordial and superficially friendly, greeting Katie at the door and taking her coat. Neither made any mention of the passive aggressive note Angelina had scrawled on the back of Katie's invitation.
She was now ostensibly part of a conversation with Ginny, Hermione, and Fleur Weasley – the only adults in the room other than Angelina and Molly Weasley who knew her – but their child-related chatter couldn't hold her interest and Katie found herself holding back laughter during a conversation about bottle-warming spells as she mentally compared these women with Jillian, who had owled just before she left her flat to ask how many calories were in semen.
She had been zoning out for a few minutes when she heard Ginny ask the question that was foremost on her mind.
"When is Angelina planning on getting started? It's already half 12."
"I'm sure she's waiting for Percy," said Hermione, who sat up straighter to see over the heads of the milling children. "Molly and Lucy really wouldn't want to miss this."
Fleur exhaled impatiently. "I 'ave as much sympathy as ze next woman for a single father, but as a Ministry official, you would think 'e would keep better hours."
Hermione shot a frown at her sister-in-law. "I'm sure getting together two little girls is no mean feat. Molly's eight now, and Lucy's becoming a little firebrand. I can't imagine corralling them on my own."
Fleur shrugged, obviously unconcerned with Hermione's reproach. "Well 'e doesn't fix their hair, I know zat much."
Katie picked at a speck of dirt under her nail and said nothing. She was grateful to Percy for his tip on Leary earlier in the week and had always been antagonistic towards Fleur, but at the moment, she found herself intolerant of anything that was prolonging this painful afternoon. All she wanted was to go home, change into sweats, and break open the booze.
"How have you been, Katie?" Hermione pressed on determinedly. "Anything interesting on at work?"
"Not exactly, unless you count a bloke in Surrey who claims prolonged intake of Polyjuice Potion causes genital shrinkage."
Ginny snorted and then clapped a hand over her mouth.
"Honestly," Katie said. "It was one of my easier Fridays. You can look for the story in Monday's paper."
Hermione was spared from making a reply by the sound of the bell and Mrs. Weasley bustling through the throngs of children to get to the front door. Percy appeared soon afterward, tall, thin and bespectacled, polishing his horn-rimmed glasses on his shirt as he pecked his mother on the cheek.
"Oh good, we can get started," Ginny said, hopping up. The other two women followed suit, and Katie watched their progress as they went to greet Percy's small daughters. Compared to the unrestrained exuberance of the fifteen or so children running around the house, the two girls whose names Katie had already forgotten looked shy and rather reticent. The elder was a slight, serious-faced girl with round glasses and light brown hair that was arranged into two lopsided plaits. Her younger sister was more of a traditional Weasley – her bright red hair exploded from her head in unrestrained curls and freckles seemed to cover every inch of her skin. The pair of them were holding hands.
Katie remembered little of the details of Percy's divorce, only that Audrey Moreau had left in a hurry two years ago, taking her wealthier lover and designer clothes with her to France and leaving her two young daughters behind. The way they clung to each other now and glanced up frequently at their father seemed to suggest they still feared further abandonment. Katie, who in general was no fan of children, was a little saddened by this.
Angelina soon called all of the children together and Mrs. Weasley took the hands of the two girls to lead them over to the circle quickly forming around their aunt. Percy melted back into the wall, looking around with a frown on his face. He was the only man in the room.
"Hi Perce," Katie said, leaning forward and waving at him from the corner. She was alone again, the Weasley women and other mothers present gravitating toward Angelina and whatever activity she was about to launch. Percy seemed visibly relieved as he moved toward her.
"Hello Katie," he said, folding himself into the seat next to her. "Caught your byline – nice piece."
"I owe you for that," she said. "It got a whole 'interesting' out of my editor."
Percy laughed politely. "Erastus Cuff, right? He's a tough nut to crack."
"Yeah," Katie said, surprised that Percy knew the editorial structure of the Daily Prophet. Then again, she reminded herself, this was the man who once memorized the entirety of the Hogwarts Body of Rules while he was at school.
"Well, I think I actually owe you. Leary was so indignant about the article, he completely forgot to be a pain in the arse over the Floo network standardization."
"Ah, that's nice to hear. I love a happy ending, me."
They lapsed into a silence that was not quite comfortable. Katie was acutely aware of the fact that she hadn't sustained a conversation with Percy longer than 10 minutes since she'd been a 15-year-old schoolgirl caught outside the common room after hours with Roger Davies. She let her eyes drift over to the children, who seemed to be competing to blow the largest bubble from a packet of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum. When the bubbles reached the size of the tallest five-year-old, however, they would pop, reappearing seconds later as birds that pecked the heads of their creators. Katie jumped as a budgie swooped down and hit Fleur's 11-year-old daughter, Victoire, in the face and the blonde girl shrieked.
"Those are George's, actually, I think," Percy said after a moment. "He told us he was working on something for the party."
Katie's stomach contracted uncomfortably.
"Oh," she said, unable to think of anything else to say. The bubblegum birds soon rose into the air to form a circle, eventually flying over Roxanne's head and grabbing the ends of her curls, braiding them into an intricate plait. The children cheered.
Percy's eldest leaned forward to inspect Roxanne's hair, interested, and Mrs. Weasley patted her on the head before tugging the girl's own plaits into a more symmetrical position.
Katie glanced at Percy to see how he took this, and instantly regretted it when he caught her looking at him and cleared his throat.
"I'll need to see if George can send me over some of those," he laughed lightly. "I'm hopeless with the girls' hair." He said this in a casual, offhand way, but his ears had turned pink.
"I think I'll go see if I can help with the cake or something behind the scenes," he added after a beat, and without waiting for a reply, stood up and crossed the room.
Katie sighed, and returned to watch – in a detached way – the little curly-haired girl who was so clearly the apple of her father's eye.
Two hours and much mess later, Roxanne settled down in front of the Weasleys' fireplace to open her gifts. Katie, who had eventually been persuaded by Mrs. Weasley to come help with some of the activities, had lost her place in the corner of the room and was now leaning against a wall near the back of the throng. Now that she was here, she rather wished she'd gotten a less ostentatious gift. She'd spent the last hour and a half being forced to introduce herself to mothers who were clearly confused that they hadn't seen or heard of "Angelina's friend from school" before, and she wasn't eager to draw any more attention to herself.
It couldn't be helped, though. After tossing aside a children's book presented to her by Hermione's Rose and Hugo, Roxanne ripped into the considerably larger package from Katie with aplomb. When the broomstick, a youth model that rose just five feet into the air, rolled out, the room exploded. Roxanne began to shriek, holding the broomstick high above her head as her friends and family crushed around her in order to get a better look.
Freddie, now eight, wailed that it wasn't fair his little sister had a broom before he did. James Potter howled with laughter, and several of the children were already begging Roxanne to let them have a go. In general, the younger half of the room was so loud, Katie hardly noticed the hush of surprise that had fallen over the adults.
"Who got me this?!" Roxanne squealed, finally looking around for the gift giver. "Who was it?"
It was with reluctance, after seeing the look on Angelina's face, that Katie raised her hand.
"Oh my gosh, Auntie Katie!" shrieked Roxanne, and the girl ran at full tilt toward her godmother, who would have happily fallen through the floor. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
She seized Katie's legs in a vice-like grip and began jumping up and down.
"I can't believe it! I mean, I just can't believe it! Now I'm going to be just like Mummy!"
"Mummy" was currently glaring over at her daughter and her friend, however, and Katie took pains to pry Roxanne off her legs.
"Go, erm, open your other gifts now, Roxy," she said. "You've got a lot of nice things left."
She did. When the apoplectic five year old had calmed down enough to return to her place at the head of the crowd, she tore into a set of sparkly dresses, a packet of Honeydukes sweets, a dragontooth necklace from her Uncle Charlie, and a doll that had been carefully designed to look exactly like Roxanne. The broom was still the talk of the party, however, and as the crowd dispersed, Roxanne began running around with Katie's present and attempting to fly in the house.
Katie slinked off, back into her corner, while Angelina and Mrs. Weasley corralled the children into the kitchen for dessert. To her surprise, Roxanne appeared 20 minutes later, carrying a plate of her rainbow-striped cake towards Katie.
The small girl shoved the plate at her and then unexpectedly threw her arms around her godmother.
"I'm just so happy," she sighed. "Wait until Dad sees it. He's going to love it and love you for giving it to me."
And then she ran away, as quickly as she came, and Katie found there was a lump in her throat that prevented her from swallowing any of the dessert. She was staring listlessly at the slowly melting blob of vanilla ice cream, contemplating how quickly bonds that were once strong could be dissolved, when another, less pleased voice interrupted her.
"Katie, can I talk to you for a minute?"
She looked up to where Angelina was standing, hips jutted out to one side and arms crossed over a chest that was rising and falling with suppressed anger. Katie sighed and stood up, wiping her eyes hastily with the back of her hand as she followed Angelina into the narrow corridor by the stairs.
"What is wrong with you?" she burst out as soon as they were out of earshot of the rest of the party.
"Sorry?" Katie had expected annoyance with the extravagance of the gift, but not direct confrontation.
"How much did that thing cost, anyway? You know what – " she threw up her hands in impatience. "I don't care. Why did you do it?"
"Um – "
"You didn't pause to think once that maybe it was a good idea to check with me before buying my daughter a broomstick?"
"Toy broomstick," Katie corrected without thinking.
"I don't care what it is! Do you have any idea how dangerous those things are?"
Katie almost laughed, she was so taken aback by the real cause of Angelina's frustration.
"Ange, it goes five feet in the air."
"She is barely five."
Katie shifted on her feet, confused. "Well, I had one at that age…And you did, too, you told me – you were three when you got your first broomstick."
"Yeah, and look how that turned out," Angelina hissed. "I was pregnant when I fell – 100 feet in the air! If the ref hadn't stopped me in time, I might have lost Roxy. You know that! But you went ahead and bought it anyway. I can't believe you could be this irresponsible. I mean, I can, it's you –"
"Oh, sorry," Katie cut in, anger rising. "I didn't realize you were worried Roxanne might be pregnant."
She regretted the childish quip the moment it left her mouth, but she wasn't prepared for the wounded look of shock that bloomed instantly on Angelina's face. She looked like she had been slapped. There were several moments of silence before Angelina finally shook her head slowly, gazing toward the ceiling and exhaling a deep sigh.
"Get out," she finally said. "Just get out, leave – I can't handle you looking at you right now."
Numb and slightly shaking, Katie emerged from the corridor a few beats after Angelina. What the hell was wrong with her? She had known about Angelina's brush with fate, but had failed to consider how that might make her feel about broomsticks in general.She put her hand out to the wall for support as she stooped on quivering legs to reach her bag that was shoved underneath a nearby chair. When she looked up again, it was to find herself face-to-face with a bright eyed, wild-haired redhead.
"Have you seen my daddy?" the girl asked.
Percy's daughter.
Katie stood up the rest of the way and glanced around the room. She hadn't seen Percy since he'd handed his girls a wrapped present to bring to Roxanne an hour earlier.
"Um, no," she said. "Sorry."
"Rocthanne'th been bullyin' me," the small girl said, and Katie looked down again, noticing for the first time that the redhead was missing both front teeth. "She thayth I can't ride her broom becauthe I'm not her thpecial friend."
Katie looked over to where Roxanne was holding court near the kitchen, doling out permission to the children lined up to examine the broomstick. She was speaking in a loud voice, her chin raised, clearly loving the continued opportunity to be the center of attention.
"Erm, where's your sister?" Katie asked. She was unequipped to deal with the vagaries of childhood popularity and anxious to leave the Burrow as quickly as possible.
"Over there," the girl said, pointing. "She thayth not to bother her."
Percy's oldest daughter was curled up in the corner of the room, hidden by the shadow of the loveseat and turning the pages of what appeared to be the book Hermione's children had given Roxanne earlier in the day. She looked intently engrossed.
"I'm Luthy," the redhead said.
"Hi Lucy," Katie said, attempting to control the rising fit of nausea in her stomach. "I'm Katie."
"I know," she said. "You gave Rocthanne the broom."
She paused for a moment before asking, "What do you do when thomeone'th bullyin' you?"
Katie stared down at her bag, lost for thought, and then caught a glimpse of something in the recesses of the shoulder bag.
Oh, fuck it.
"Here," she said, digging through her things and handing Lucy the three giant rubber spiders Rachel had given her the day before. "You scare them with these."
"But not right now!" she added hastily, as Lucy's eyes began to widen with the possibilities. "You shouldn't scare someone on their birthday. And I guess you probably shouldn't scare your cousin, either. You should try to get along."
But Lucy was already running toward the patch of children, little legs pumping as she shouted, "Look! Look!" and proffered the fake spiders with a kind of grotesque fascination.
Katie slipped out the door just as the screams began to start.