June 1990

Unfortunately, Violet was invited to Draco Malfoy's birthday party, and since they were cousins and all Mum said she had to go. She didn't even get a pretty dress for the occasion, because the invitation said the children should be dressed appropriately for broom flying — what was the point of going to boring fancy rich people parties if she didn't even get the nice fancy dress?

There were a couple of hours between breakfast and when they had to get ready to go. Violet spent it in her room, with a cup of her mint and lemon balm not-tea — Mum had to remind her to put clothes on before she went out to pick the leaves, ha ha, oops — adding some embroidery to the hem of one of her skirts with the radio on. Magical radio was a thing, and they had music and news and stuff, but radio dramas were also super super common, probably more popular than music, even. Mages still did theatre a lot, as Violet guessed from all the theatres Mum did duelling stuff in, but for normal people going into the city to catch a show in a real, physical theatre was kind of hard. Theatres tended to do fancier shows that the rich people liked, and they had all the staff they had to pay, and the costumes and sets and special magical effects and whatever else, so the tickets were expensive for normal people too. Doing a show on the radio was way cheaper, though, and there were different stations and all the time in the day, so they had time to do controversial or weird stuff the rich people wouldn't like as much, or even just silly stuff for fun. Some shows were recorded, but some were live — sometimes that meant there were hiccoughs when they made mistakes, but that also meant they could goof off a little, some of the regular people doing stuff were very silly.

Most of this morning, she was listening to a childrens' programme Dora told her about — well, really more for teenagers, Violet was a little young for it, but it wasn't like she was too stupid for it or anything. It was kind of a fantasy story, she guessed? It was about a group of kids who for some reason ran into Princess Morgen of Avalon — as in Morgan la Fey, the mages thought she was a faerie, an Avalonian like the healers who fixed Violet's scar — and after some kind of mistake or something ended up travelling around time and space getting into adventures. Violet didn't know how it started exactly, she never caught that episode, but it didn't really matter, because you didn't need to know the rest of the story to listen to the episodes — the kids came out of one of Princess Morgen's special faerie gates, they bumbled around the new place they were in, helping out the locals or something or getting in trouble and needing to fight to escape, eventually finding the next of Princess Morgen's special faerie gates, needing to find some way to get all their friends there, and then the episode ended with them jumping into it. Some of the episodes were kind of scary, with the kids getting into trouble with mean people trying to hurt them or monsters or something, but some of them were just interesting, with real-life places and history and stuff, and all of the episodes were very silly, people cracking jokes and messing with each other and the latter half of the episode devolving into a complicated series of shenanigans as they scrambled to get to the gate and everything went wrong at once. It was pretty fun, she tried to catch it whenever she wasn't doing anything else on Sunday mornings.

She tried to share it with Lasairín once, completely forgot until the programme started that it was in English, and Lasairín didn't know nearly enough to follow it. Oops, sorry...

Normally she was listening to the radio when she wasn't doing a drawing or a painting thing, or reading — art took too much of her attention to follow what was going on, and thinking about two words things at the same time was super confusing. (Especially since a lot of her books were in Gaelic, and most of the radio programmes she liked were in English.) Master Walter actually wanted her to not do art stuff for the first couple weeks of summer break, for funny reasons about refreshing something or other, she didn't entirely understand what he was getting at but whatever. So instead she was decorating one of her skirts, because stitching was repetitive enough that it was super easy to do that and listen to the radio at the same time.

Over Violet's second year at craft school, they started tapering off craft subjects the kids didn't like as much or just weren't as good at, getting into more advanced stuff in the crafts they stayed in. Enchanting and potions were required for everyone going into academy, and of course everyone still helped make lunch, but everything else was optional, they could pick and choose what they liked. Violet had stopped going to everything but the textile workshop and the music lessons. She'd wanted to stick with music at least until they started learning the flute, and that was kind of fun! so she'd ended up staying in that through the end of the year, and her lessons with Master Walter meant the little things they did in the art workshop were honestly a waste of her time now — she'd left a couple of her slots for club time free, she spent those playing around in the art workshop by herself, which was the better option for her, she thought. She kind of liked glass art, like, making mosaics and stained glass windows and stuff, but they weren't allowed to use the glass-making stuff themselves, just ask a grown-up for what they wanted, and Violet quickly got tired of explaining exactly what she wanted and waiting her turn, she quit pretty soon. None of the other craft things were really interesting, she'd rather do other stuff with her time.

But textile stuff was fun! She was still rather ahead of the other kids in her year with needlework — their teachers kept giving her embroidery projects to do on her own to keep her occupied when she was bored — and this year they did, like, basic tailoring stuff, how clothes went together and how to get all the measuring and the cutting and the sewing right and everything. Honestly, Violet didn't find that stuff nearly as interesting? Like, the embroidery was fun, she still really liked that, kind of like drawing with cloth. And Violet could get kind of fidgety and distractible, enough that it annoyed people sometimes — when she was just sitting around talking with her friends, it was pretty common for her to pull out an embroidery thing she was working on, just to keep her hands busy. But actually making clothes from scratch was boring, and she really couldn't explain why...

Anyway, she'd started adding little embroidered decorations to her clothes, just because she could. Little swirly spirally patterns or flowers, Violet thought they were pretty! It did take a lot of time, since the hem of a skirt going all the way around was longer than it looked, the triskelion design she'd copied from the decoration on some old stuff at Susan's house took a lot of stitches, hundreds and hundreds by the time she was done. But she got a good rhythm going, it was kind of relaxing, and it didn't take so much brain power that she couldn't listen to her radio programme at the same time.

She was considering making something nice for Síomha, as a thank you for...well, lots of things. But that was still just a couple practice drawings in her sketchbook, an idea she was playing with. This skirt was Violet's — most of her everyday clothes didn't have the special enchantments and stuff in them most magical clothing did, since metamorphs changed size a lot so it wasn't really worth the expense, so she could do whatever she wanted to them. And the little spiral design was pretty! There were a couple other projects she had planned, but she wanted to finish this one first...

Violet got through a whole bunch of the spirals, her programme finished and well into a romance drama she didn't like nearly as much — it didn't help that the plot mattered more and she couldn't catch every episode, was kind of lost — when Mum showed up and said it was time to get going. Her clothes for this party were just trousers and a wrap-around tunic thing, which was boring! At least the cloth felt nice and soft and smooth, and it kind of shimmered when the light hit it right, the yellow and white almost looking rainbow-y in places, like the light fixtures at Ancient House or oil in sunlight. She'd still prefer one of those pretty lacey fwooshy dresses, but oh well. She also had sandals, because sandals were a summer thing, and she was supposed to be dressed for flying on a broom and she liked to do that without shoes on — nice sandals, with all the straps and things, and since her feet were showing she quick changed her toenails to a nice strong blue to match her outfit. Or, she thought the colour matched, she changed her fingernails too, and see? The blue went with the yellow! It was pretty.

Mum and Violet got to the Malfoy's house a little early, before most any of the other guests showed up — but they were family, so that was allowed. They'd come to the Malfoys' place a few times now, for parties and things, a couple times Aunt Narcissa invited them over for tea just because. Violet still thought their house was pretty (if very white), and the gardens were nice! but unfortunately the flowers everywhere was just something they made happen in spring, and not all the time, so the lawn was mostly, just, grass, which was boring. They had more neat stuff in the garden garden part, around the fountain courtyard (where they'd be having the party), there were berry and rose bushes and stuff. Some of the roses were red, like normal, but some of them were super white, almost glowed in the sunlight! Very pretty.

She guessed the white was probably just because it was the Malfoy colour, so many things were white here, but it was still pretty.

They were early enough that they were the first people to turn up — when they got to the courtyard only Aunt Narcissa was there, hanging around and talking at a group of people setting up everything for the party. (Some humans, some elves.) She broke off whatever she was doing to say hi to them. Violet didn't really like Draco much — he was mean to some of her friends, for no good reason! — but Aunt Narcissa was nice enough, all smiling and pretty and soft, and yeah, Violet could do her nails now! It wasn't hard, Mum just transfigured them for her, and Violet remembered the feel of it so it would look right. (In her early tries colouring her nails, the stuff was still partly see-through, so it looked funny, she had to change what her nails were made out of and not just the colour.) Violet had actually been playing with this for a while, but she didn't do it super often, she guessed Aunt Narcissa might not have seen it yet. Wasn't it neat? Violet thought it was neat — and doing it herself didn't make her hands smell bad like real nail polish...

Draco wasn't outside yet, Aunt Narcissa said he was still indoors getting ready. (Not like Violet was looking forward to seeing him anyway, but whatever.) The two grown-ups said some gossipy things — Lord Arcturus was getting worse, Mum didn't think he was going to make it very much longer (his was going to be Violet's first funeral) — they didn't bring a broom for Violet, that was fine, they'd rented a bunch from somewhere for the kids, more gossipy stuff, blah blah. Violet got bored pretty quickly, and excused herself to go wander around the courtyard. She was kind of curious what the people bringing stuff in were up to, but she didn't want to bother them at work, so she ended up poking around the rose bushes instead.

The mages had split off from the rest of everyone hundreds of years ago now, and they had a lot of their own original stuff, so sometimes they could do things pretty differently from what Violet knew growing up. Birthdays were one of those things that were different. Confusingly, because magical Britain could also be very confusing sometimes, it was one of those things that could change a lot depending on who you were looking at. There was a small chunk of the country, especially people who had muggleborns in their family recently, who basically just did muggle birthday parties, with the cake and the presents and everything — a little old-fashioned, sometimes, but the same idea. There were a lot of people who didn't really mark birthdays at all, like, Mum said she didn't have birthday parties or anything when she was growing up, and that was perfectly normal.

Or it had been perfectly normal, anyway, there was a generational thing going on. When she was growing up, Mum said it was normal to have birthdays on special milestone years — seven, thirteen, and twenty were common — but that was more a thing for rich people, it wasn't as common for normal people to have any birthday parties at all. At some point around the middle of the 1900s, the milestone birthdays started getting more common, spreading down into the middle class, and only very recently people started doing annual birthdays — though more for children, it wasn't common to do it for adults yet, and still mostly for the super rich or people close to muggleborns. Mum definitely didn't get a tenth birthday party, and Aunt Narcissa didn't either, but the culture changed enough over time that now Draco having one was normal.

But that wasn't the way it always worked — Mum was talking about the big, Cambrian-speaking part of British culture, which wasn't everyone. A lot of the English-speaking mages did regular birthdays — that was why Mum got sent birthday gifts sometimes, from people like Albus, who did grow up with normal muggle birthdays with the presents and cake and candles and everything — and the different religious groups in the country sometimes did birthdays, depending on which one you looked at. The Gaels mostly did, though theirs were different, just meeting up to hang out and play games and stuff, and gifts were common for children but not so much grown-ups. (It was normal for grown-up birthday parties to have a lot of drinking instead.) For Mistwalkers, and a couple other little groups dotted around, birthdays were a quieter, more thoughtful day, often with religious rituals and stuff — and it was also common for people to be really really nice to their mum, and give her presents and stuff, kind of thanking her for working really hard this day however many years ago, you know. The Boneses did that kind of birthday, but Susan's mum was dead, so, every year Susan would stay home all day and light a candle and just...think about her. Sounded really sad, honestly, but Violet didn't think it was right for her to stick her nose in — she got that it was, like, religion stuff, and people could take that super seriously, not her business.

The mos maiorum people, like the Malfoys, also did birthdays, but they were different from the birthdays Violet saw growing up. A bunch of people gathered together — family especially, everyone who came today would be related to Draco somehow — and there was food and drinks and stuff, and they would hang out and play games and just have a good time. There would be sweets, but not a decorated cake with candles — mages thought that was a muggle thing. Also, normally there weren't gifts? There were supposed to be on the milestone birthdays, but for the annual ones, no. Sometimes for children the parents would get them stuff, normally practical things they needed anyway but, like, nicer than usual, so it still counted as special. All the guests and people weren't expected to bring gifts, though. Bringing a bottle of wine or snacks or something for the party was common, but you had to be careful with that with rich people, in case you accidentally insulted their hospitality — Mum said that was why they weren't bringing anything, Aunt Narcissa was the kind of old-fashioned person who'd take that personal.

So, pretty much like the springtime party from the first time she visited the Malfoys, really. Less telling stories, more playing games, but not really that different.

It was some time later, Violet trying to entertain herself by drawing shapes with the floor tiles in her head — she should have brought one of her embroidery things, she was so bored already — when people finally started to turn up. As always, Violet was drawn into saying hello to everyone, because that was the polite thing you were supposed to do. She was kind of surprised with how few people she knew already. The people who were invited were invited because they were family, and not because of politics, or knowing each other through religious stuff, or anything like that, so they were different from the people Violet normally saw at parties.

There were a lot of French people? Aunt Narcissa's mum had been a Rosier, who lived in Brittany, which was part of this country on the magical side and most mages spoke a kind of Cambrian, but the Rosiers were French-speaking, and married with a lot of French families. (Mum said Aunt Narcissa was raised with Cambrian and French and English growing up, which sounded confusing.) There were more French families on Uncle Lucius's side, but also a few Yaxleys (who were English) and Selwyns (who were Cambrian). The grown-ups came with kids, mostly Draco's cousins from the opposite side of the family from Violet (she wasn't related to them at all), but they were all new people to Violet — they weren't going to go to Hogwarts, most of them going to magic schools on the Continent instead. A lot of them didn't speak English very well, sometimes even none at all. As more and more people started turning up, there was a lot of talking in French going on — Violet was being taught a little bit of French, since it was an important language on the magical side, but she barely understood a little bit of it here and there...

(She'd learned Gaelic super fast, people said, but that had been really important to learn, since all the neighbours spoke it, she wasn't focussing on French nearly that much.)

She'd met Irénée Rosier before — she was Draco's godmother, so turned up at parties sometimes — and also Professor Snape was here — he was Draco's godfather, and the professor for Potions at Hogwarts, and also he was the one who helped Mum set up her appointments with Shannon, so Violet tried to be especially nice the one other time they met before. (Though she quickly toned it down when it got obvious that Professor Snape was a super stiff and formal kind of bloke, didn't want to be too friendly and make him uncomfortable.) Oh, and Millie was here, with a few other Bulstrodes — her dad, but not her mum, they got a divorce recently. So Violet knew one other kid, that wasn't so bad, she guessed.

Eventually the party started properly, Uncle Lucius getting their attention and doing a quick little speech to ring it in. It was pretty short, but also it was in French, so Violet didn't really understand it — Millie didn't understand it either, asked one of the older Bulstrodes (an older girl, like late teens, called Audrey), but she didn't know French either. So, they just didn't get to know what the speech meant, which was fine, it probably wasn't important. After maybe only a couple minutes, there was some shouting of..something (it was still in French), and then the group started moving for the food tables. Good, that was it, then.

Or not quite, actually — there was a toast first, turned out. The little kids, including Violet and Millie, were given cider, which was still alcoholic, but just had less than the wine. Violet didn't see Mum, er, could Audrey transfigure the alcohol out of hers for her? She didn't like the taste, you know. Audrey gave her a very funny look, which at first Violet thought was because she stammered really bad, but then she asked if she'd actually seen someone do that before, because that shouldn't be possible.

...Right, that was one of those things Mum did that normal people couldn't. Never mind then, she just wouldn't join in the toast. Maybe rude, but.

Once the toast was done, then it was lunch time, and she could check out the food and stuff. (She'd been avoiding the food tables earlier, didn't want to get in the way.) Because nobles could be annoyingly fussy about these things sometimes, there were multiple different kinds of parties, with different degrees of formality which all had slightly different rules. This was an informal garden luncheon, Violet was pretty sure — and yes, all three of those words mattered, it was very silly — so there wasn't going to be assigned seating or anything, or even seating at all. There was food and stuff setting out that they could just come up and take, though there were rules about manners and stuff to remember, and walk around and talk to people as they ate. There were places you could sit, but you weren't really expected to.

Violet was still going to, though, because she couldn't hold her tea and a plate at the same time, and she didn't want to drop anything or make a mess. It was all mostly finger-food stuff, which you could eat by hand and not make a mess, but Violet didn't trust herself not to. There were little bits of toasted bread or crackers or whatever, with boards with different kinds of cheeses and meat — mostly soft, spreadable cheese, and dry sliced ham or beef and salami — and others had fruit and, like, slices of carrots and whatever, and there were croissants (because French people), and there were pre-made sandwiches, some of them little thin pancakes rolled up with stuff, others were little open-faced things on crackers, some of them were sandwiches made with croissants...

She and Millie wandered around the tables, plucking up things and plopping them on plates — not everyone was using plates, but Violet didn't want to keep going back and forth for every single thing — and checked out the tea. Ooh, this one smelled really orange-y! Neat, wonder what was in that. Once they had their food and tea and everything, Violet and Millie went to a table, to the side out of the way. Neither of them really knew anyone here, and trying to talk while carrying food around was super awkward anyway, she still thought this kind of party was weird...

Violet got one of those croissant sandwiches, and it was pretty good, she guessed. It was some kind of roast beef thing? The onions weren't done enough, but once she picked them off, and then spread some cheese on it (because why not), it was much better. And the rest of it was just, you know, random little food bits, whatever. The tea was great though! Now that she was drinking it, she was pretty sure she had this one time they had tea at the Malfoys', but she never did ask why it was so citrus-y. Did they put zest in with the tea leaves or something?

The two of them weren't left alone, maybe after only ten, fifteen minutes Draco came by with a handful of his French cousins. These ones spoke passable English, at least — it was still awkward, since Violet and Millie weren't great friends with Draco or anything, but at least everyone spoke the same language, could be worse. Some of the French kids wanted to ask about being a metamorph, uugghhh, could we talk about something not-Violet instead? Like this tea, this tea was good. (It was Uncle Lucius's favourite, they grew it in the greenhouses here, Draco said.) Or professional duelling, that was also good! Anything that Violet didn't have to talk as much, she was stammering so badly today...

Of course, Draco mentioned almost right away that Violet's Mum was Cassiopeia Black, and some of the kids who payed attention to duelling actually heard of her, so now they were asking Violet questions again, ugh. Mum was here at the party, um, that was her right over there, go ask her about it if you really want to.

Stammering so much and embarrassing herself quickly started making Violet feel all flushed and twitchy and too much, so she kind of stopped paying attention to the conversation for a while, ducking her head and focussing on her tea. People asked if she was okay at first, but Draco said she just did stuff like this sometimes, and went on babbling about a duelling match Irénée brought him to recently — okay, she guessed Draco could be nice, when he put his mind to it.

She was feeling better after a little bit, started paying attention again after she came back from getting more tea and one of the tiny cakes (best part of fancy parties). Not that she had much to say, they'd moved on to gossip, mostly about people she didn't even know. Ignoring the rest of the table, Violet and Millie ended up talking about embroidery and art and stuff, for some reason. Um, honestly, she was pretty sure the reason was that Violet randomly went babbling off about something, but at least she wasn't, just, talking at Millie, she had things to say too. Millie did some beadwork stuff at home, just playing around (an easy craft to teach kids to keep them occupied), but she thought woodworking was neat, even played around with knives (with grown-ups keeping an eye on her) carving stuff out of stuff, though she wasn't very good at it yet. And then Violet was babbling about some painting thing, and the only painting Millie did was on figurines and whatever else (which was different), apparently buying models you could put together and paint up was a thing mages did, Millie had a collection...

"Hey, Violet, you live in Ireland, right?"

She blinked, turned back to Draco — Millie had been in mid-sentence, which was rude, but Draco. "What? Oh, yeah? Why?"

"Have you heard anything about what Soars Gallach is up to? Mum says they'll be using this to their advantage," said in a way that made Violet think he was just repeating his mother's words exactly, "but I haven't heard anything about what's going on over there since."

...What? Frowning to herself, Violet mouthed Soars Gallach, Soars Gallach, Soar— "Oh, you mean S-s-saoirse Ghaelach? the social club?"

"Social club?" one of Draco's cousins said. "I thought they were a nationalist militia."

"Um, I don't think so..." They were definitely nationalists — as in, they thought the Gaels should have their own country — but they were just normal people? They'd put on these big dinner parties for everyone on the block, or just hang out in little groups talking about the news or whatever, and Síomha said they pooled together to help people if they, she didn't know, needed repairs for their house, or to go to a healer they couldn't afford, or something. Saoirse Ghaelach did lots of stuff, but she didn't think they were a militia? "And, what are you t-talking about, since what?"

Draco frowned a little, maybe annoyed she hadn't been listening. (Oops.) "Since Síomha and her people took out those vampires. You did hear about that, right?"

For a second, Violet was very confused — she wasn't sure Síomha ever even met a vampire before. But then Millie leaned a little closer to her, whispered over her ear. "Síomha Ní Ailbhe, he's talking about the Glasgow Seven."

"Oh! Okay, sorry, I d-d-d— Mum's, um, Mum's friend is called Síomha, a– I– I d– confused." Now that she knew what Draco was talking about, she had heard about this before — the Glasgow Seven were what the papers called a group of serial murders, who happened to be vampires. They'd been making trouble for a while, Violet didn't know how long exactly. Síomha Raghnaill Ní Ailbhe — people often used her second name, because there was more than one Síomha Ní Ailbhe (common name, big family) — and a few of her friends tracked them down and killed them a few weeks ago now, Mum told Violet all about it when it was in the papers one morning.

Violet's vampire friends were actually happy about that, the next time they visited Starlight, because they thought that people like the Glasgow Seven made other vampires look bad. The British government was already mean enough to them — they didn't need people going around murdering people and making it worse for everyone else.

"Um. No, I haven't heard anything? P-p-people are happy about it, since, the Seven were awful?" Some people thought Síomha Raghnaill was really cool now, like hero stuff, but that was really it. "But, I don't, I don't, I d— Um, Saoirse are starting a, a, a, club house, or something, in town. That's all I know. Why?"

Then Draco and his French cousins were talking about, like, a lot of political stuff, kind of explaining to Violet why Draco was asking and also just talking about it with themselves. Violet didn't follow a lot of it, and also she was pretty sure they were making it up? Like, they were all talking like Síomha Raghnaill was a big important person, but Violet didn't think she was really — maybe famous now, but, she was around their Síomha's age? Not sure, but... They were within a couple years of each other, but Violet didn't know exactly how old Síomha Raghnaill was, so, but she definitely seemed too young to be the leader of a nationalist militia. (Especially since mages lived a lot longer than muggles, Violet thought someone like that should be even older than would sound right to normal people.) Also, Saoirse Ghaelach wasn't a militia? She thought that was kind of an important point to bring up again and again, because people kept talking like it was...

They didn't believe her when she insisted they were just people being neighbourly and helping each other out and stuff, it was really frustrating. Violet stopped paying attention pretty quickly and just went back to talking about crafty stuff with Millie.

Lunch went on for a while, and eventually Draco said they should go play quidditch now. Oh, were they actually playing? The invitation said to be dressed for broom-flying, she didn't know they were going to be playing — she went out flying with Mum sometimes, at Ancient House where the wards would stop any muggles from seeing them, but she never played quidditch before. Since she didn't know how to play and would just make an idiot of herself, she kept quiet, thinking she would sit this one out. Which was sad, because she did like flying, but she didn't want to get in the way and annoy everyone with not knowing what she's doing.

Like half of Draco's French cousins made faces at each other — Violet got the immediate feeling that they didn't want to play quidditch, some of them weren't even dressed for it. (They did seem very fancy, all...delicate, not sporty types.) It wasn't going to be full quidditch, they didn't have a snitch — kids on kid brooms would have trouble ever catching it — but there were hoops set up — scaled down from the real version, set up by Uncle Lucius for Draco to play around with friends last year — and his parents had rented some extra brooms, and they even had some safety bludgers, like the ones they used in the youth league. The Hogwarts teams actually didn't play in the youth league, partly because they were school clubs and not club clubs, but also they played...closer to professional rules — their pitch wasn't quite as big as a professional one, but it was somewhere between the two, and they used the same golden snitch, and also the same bludger made of special alchemy-made cork covered in iron, just with a few extra safety spells. The bludgers the junior league used were squishier, when a beater made a swing at one you could kind of see the bludger smoosh around the bat a little bit before flying off. They only rarely actually knocked someone off their broom, more likely to just bruise a little and shove them around, mess up whatever they were doing at the time.

People getting seriously hurt was super rare in junior league games, but Dora, who played chaser for Hufflepuff, said that people being hospitalised at quidditch matches was pretty common at Hogwarts. Dora herself had been stuck in hospital after a match once for like a day, but only because the healer was stubborn — it was just a broken arm and a few bruises, Dora fixed them all herself, but the healer never believed her when she said she was okay.

Quidditch did seem kind of fun — Violet didn't really like the people getting hurt part, but mages were it tougher than muggles, and it was less bloody than duelling — but she never did it before, and, Draco was mean sometimes, but she still didn't want to ruin his birthday party. Then that would be Violet being mean, so.

And she would have stayed out of it, but after a couple minutes of half-listening to Draco trying to convince enough of his French cousins to play, Millie nudged her to get her attention. "Hey, Violet, you play hurley, right?" Millie's speech had gotten better since they met — sometimes her Rs still sounded off, but she hardly ever stammered anymore. Violet was honestly kind of jealous.

"Um, yeah?" That was what they called iomáint in English.

"Play beater with us." It didn't really sound like a question.

...She had pretty good aim with a camáin, she guessed, but she never tried it while flying before. After a couple seconds thinking about it, Draco looking at her with big blue eyes — was he trying to be cute or something? Violet wasn't his mum... — she gave a little shrug. "Okay, I'll try. I'll meet you there."

Violet detoured through the Manor to use the toilet, but by the time she got to the pitch behind the big building — within sight of the duelling platform where Mum beat up that one bloke their first time here — only a few other kids were there already. Draco must still be trying to talk people into playing with him —Violet was starting to get the feeling his French cousins didn't really like him much. (Which was fair, because Violet was also his cousin, and she didn't like him much either.) There weren't, like, the stands and everything here, that would be ridiculous for Uncle Lucius to put up just for Draco to play around, but the six hoops on tall posts were here like they were supposed to be. The boundaries of the pitch weren't marked at all, but she guessed that was fine if it was just kids playing for fun. A few people were already in the air tossing a big reddish leather ball (the quaffle) back and forth, while Violet was walking toward the pitch one of them fumbled it, dropping to plop into the grass. The quaffle didn't bounce at all, just coming to a sudden stop against the ground. Quaffles looked limp and floppy to Violet, like someone had let the air out or something, but she was told they were supposed to be that way — if you threw it with a spin, it could flatten into a disc in mid-air, so you could get the ball to curve as it flew, which was a neat trick. Some good players did that to make goals around the keeper or do tricky passes and stuff, but it was hard to do right, you mostly only saw it in professional matches. The junior league balls apparently looked the same anyway, though.

"Violet! Over here." Millie was a little bit away from the pitch, on the ground, standing by a little wooden trunk — it was jittering in place, like something was trapped inside and trying to get out. Which Violet guessed there was, since you couldn't really turn off enchantments. When she got close enough, Millie handed her a funny fat, squat sort of bat. It was much shorter than a camáin, with a narrower handle and a wider hitting end, kind of like a cricket bat...except the handle was much shorter, meant to only be used with one hand. Though at least the hitting part was small relative to the shorter handle, just the proportions were pretty close to a cricket bat. Except it was round, instead of flat. Most of it was smooth, polished wood, except about a third of the hitting part right in the middle was wrapped in a curled-up sheet of metal, so it went handle-wood-metal-wood.

Also, it was heavier than Violet thought it would be, and the balance was weird, way above the handle, making it feel clumsy in her hand. Seemed like it would be kind of hard to swing this thing around...

Millie had a couple cousins who played in the junior league, she helped them practise, so she could show Violet how you were supposed to hold it and everything. It wasn't hard, after playing iomáint all school year she figured it out pretty quick — it was still heavy and awkward, though. Millie said it was fine to let it rest on your shoulder or in the crook of your elbow when you weren't using it, so your arm didn't get tired just carrying it around, which made sense. You wanted to hit with the metal part if you could, it would send the bludger further, and since the kiddie bludgers would smoosh when you hit them it wasn't as important to make sure you hit it straight on, there was more wiggle room.

They took a few practice swings, Violet trying to get used to how awkward the bat felt in her hand. And then Millie asked if she was ready before letting one of the bludgers out of the trunk.

Millie was leaning away, hit the latch with the end of her bat, so she could duck out of the way when the big brownish-black ball went zip! flying up through where she'd been a second ago. It kept going for several metres before wheeling around — it couldn't stop and turn in place, so it had to come in a long arc, zipping right back at Millie coming from their left, Violet scrambled back out of the way. She could hear it whistling in the air as it came, a high fluttery buzzing sound, Millie let the bat drop from where it was resting on her shoulder, coming down and swinging back up—

Whock! The noise was louder than Violet expected, she twitched a little, and the underhanded swing sent the ball flying up at an angle, the blow setting it into a funny wobbling spin. Watching it over her shoulder as it started wheeling back around again, Millie skipped around behind Violet, ducking a little — Millie's growth spurt had already started somehow, she was really tall for their age. "You try it this time. It won't hurt you."

Oh, well, okay. It wouldn't hurt her badly, anyway, it wasn't one of the iron ones — probably not any worse than some of the hits she'd taken playing iomáint. She watched the ball move, it stopped curving around, now a bit more to her right, she set her feet, the ball changed direction a little, focussing on Violet instead of Millie, it— Oh crap! It was coming straight at her, she couldn't bat at the ball sideways like in iomáint, she had to hit it in front of her, um...

She swung when the timing felt right, trying to copy what Millie did, letting the bat drop and swing around — the weight and the pull of the swing tugging at her elbow, the bat was so heavy — and then coming up at the bludger from below. There was a funny hollow whom sound, a shiver going up Violet's arm, and—

The bludger slammed into her shoulder, sending Violet stumbling back a couple steps, letting out a hard cough. Her bat thumped to the ground, didn't really mean to drop it, Violet rubbed at her shoulder, gritting her teeth — the pain hit a second later, but it was just a dull throb, it wasn't that bad. "Close," Milile said. "You hit it too late, with the curve of the bat here," tapping her own bat below the metal band, the wood curving in toward the handle.

"I saw." The ball moved fast, but not so fast that Violet hadn't seen that the bludger had kind of skipped off her bat at a funny angle, not being pushed away like it was supposed to. "Swinging the bat t-took too long."

"Yeah, it's heavy. Look, it's coming back around."

Oh crap! Violet scrambled to pick her bat up again, as Millie took a couple steps away from her. Looking up, the bludger was flying in at Millie, so she was safe (for now). It came in, with its funny fluttery whistle, Millie took a swing, whock, it went flying off at an angle again...

Toward the people playing with the quaffle! It bounced off of someone's back — he was shoved against the handle of his broom, lurching in the air, but the hit didn't seem too hard — the bludger continued on a bit, before wheeling around again...back at one of the people playing with the quaffle.

"Oh crap! Come on!" Her bat tucked in her arm, Violet started running that way — they were further away, the bludger would keep coming after those kids up there rather than her or Millie, and they didn't have bats to protect themselves. The flying kids managed to dodge out of the way of the bludger, yelling, it was curving around again... "Up!" Violet shouted as she ran past the row of brooms laid out on the ground, focussing on her magic and imagining one coming up into her hand — there was a little crackle of magic, zip, and one of the brooms obeyed, snapping into her grip hard enough it made her palm sting a little. Without slowing down much, Violet swung her leg over the broom and hopped up onto the foot posts and zoomed up into the air.

Broom-flying was super easy — it was kind of supposed to be, designed so someone could pick one up and figure it out without too much trouble, like riding a bicycle. (Violet never rode a bicycle before, but that was what Dora compared it to.) There was a spell to make it weightless, just kind of hang in the air, a spell to make it speed up, a spell that made it slow down, and spells to turn this way or that, all of them controlled by shifting around how you were sitting on it, or pushing or pulling on the foot posts, or tugging the handle. There were instructions, a normal way people were taught, but Violet figured it out herself in a few minutes just playing around — Mum said that was pretty common, they were easy to use on purpose so some people didn't need to be taught.

It was a little awkward only being able to use one hand, Violet having to grip the handle from the top palm-down, sitting a little skewed to keep the weight of the bat balanced. But after a second of wiggling in the air, she found her balance, leaned forward to speed up, rising up toward the kids yelling and trying to fly away from the bludger. It was flying at one of the kids, Violet turned to come in against its path, coming up from underneath the girl. Without really thinking about it, she tweaked the angle she was coming at a little, leaned back, cutting off the speed spell, lifting her left hand off of the handle of the broom to grab onto the bottom of the handle of the bat, rearing back, her broom listing to the side a little as her weight shifted, waited a breath, now, she swung hard, and—

Whock!

Her arms both shivered with the impact, she could feel the echo in her chest, and the bludger went off at an angle back the way it came, not following the girl anymore. She'd saved, um, whoever that was, yay!

She wiggled in place against the cushioning spells on the broom, feeling all light and bubbly — pleased that she got it in time, good job, Violet — and then she noticed the bludger was curving around toward another of the kids again, oh no! She grabbed back onto the broom handle and zoomed forward, the kids yelling and scattering again, the bludger turned to follow them. Her first try to hit the bludger was super awkward, because it was coming at her, but it was actually really easy when it was following someone else, because she could come alongside it just like making a hit in iomáint — the bat was heavy though, so she had to stop and bring up her left hand too, sliding along because she didn't have the time to brake, but her timing was good, she swung again, and whock!

They were close to the ground, and her swing hit it downward, flying away from her and skimming against the grass for a bit before curving up again. Millie was in the air by now too, as the ball came around she swept into place to hit it away from the other kids again, rearing up and whock! the sound a little muffled from here. She'd still been moving when she took her swing, managed to hit it but at kind of a funny angle, the bludger spiralling away...

The kids who were playing with the quaffle calmed down now that Millie and Violet were here, went back to passing the ball back and forth, occasionally taking a throw at the goals. The two of them circled around the other kids, smacking the bludger away again whenever it started zooming in at someone. They did miss a couple times, the bludger slipping past them to smack into someone, but they mostly managed to keep it away, one hit after another after another.

Violet noticed pretty quick that the bludger didn't seem to be aiming for her or Millie ever, that was weird. Maybe it was enchanted to not go for beaters? She didn't remember if that was in the rules...

After a few minutes playing around with it, Violet started to notice that...this was kind of fun actually? Like, flying was fun, just by itself — magic was so cool sometimes, she was literally flying — but also the whock of hitting the bludger, watching it go winging off wherever she smacked it, was oddly satisfying. She couldn't explain why, just one of those things.

Also, whacking away a bludger that was going right at someone was making her feel...kind of cool? Like, they did hurt — not badly, but they still weren't fun to get hit with — and oh no, one was flying in at someone, they were in trouble, and Violet came in, swooping straight into the right spot in between, and whock! got it, you're safe now, you're welcome...person whose name she didn't even know. She kind of felt she should be wearing sunglasses, and some of those neat fingerless gloves, you know. Maybe a cape...but that was probably too much...

Once one of her hits sent the bludger right at one of the posts, bouncing off with a hard bong noise — Violet giggled, couldn't help herself, it was funny. She wasn't sold on the hitting bludgers at people part, but this was fun! She was glad she'd agreed to play, she had no idea she'd like it this much.

Kind of like iomáint, when Violet thought about it? Maybe she was actually a little sporty, just, she hadn't known that about herself. Mostly liked to do indoor things, like drawing and embroidery and stuff, if she wasn't forced to do a sporty club last year at school she might never have noticed.

...Maybe she should think about trying for one of the local iomáint clubs, just for fun. Violet had kind of a busy schedule, with her art lessons and meeting with friends and travelling around for duelling stuff, so they might not be able to get that to work. But she was apparently kind of sporty, so, might be worth trying. It wouldn't cost her anything to try out, so she might as well think about it.

Or maybe she should try for quidditch instead — when they started actually playing, the face Draco made the first time she hit him with a bludger was very funny. His glittery white hair messy and his face going all pink, she laughed at him out loud, couldn't help it.

(Maybe she didn't mind the actual hitting people with bludgers part so much. Or maybe that was just because it was Draco, he was so mean sometimes...)