[IC] Please Stay

[SirensCall]

It was a rather odd meeting to be called, a rather odd one indeed. For the last few months, the auror's office was finally regaining some order, hell the Ministry and the Wizarding World in general really, but as the blonde haired, grey eyed woman sat with some of her new colleagues, she could feel some tension. There were still Death Eater loyalists at large, and dangerous ones at that, but life couldn't be put on hold forever, and with Quidditch season coming around, the auror's office knew that large gatherings like that would be likely targets for the most violence.

But that didn't stop these volunteers, and one Ryan Lockwood was just waiting for the team she would be assigned. They weren't just worried about the audiences, they were worried for everyone, afterall. And this meeting was dragging on. Especially with most teams getting ready to start practicing within the next few hours. "Lockwood!" Her name was called, and she looked up.

"Yes sir." She spoke, and the man handed her the paperwork she needed. Most of the captains had been informed, but others either ignored the owls, or just hadn't been reached yet. So paperwork was necessary.

"You have been assigned to Puddlemere United. The top packet is for you, the bottom letter is for their captain. You best be off, you have a half an hour before their practice starts."She was informed, and Ryan rose a brow. Still, she stood, and exited the meeting, heading towards the floo chimneys and apparating out of it and into the field in front of a housr she knew all too well. The Weasley home.

She noticed a tall, red haired man with a sleeping blonde boy in his arms, and a small smile twitched at her face. "Hey Ryan." The man greeted, and she approached, placing a kiss to the boy's forehead.

"Hey Charlie. Thank you for this. I thought I would have a bit more time before I had to be off, but I have to leave in the next fifteen minutes. Got to be there before the rest of the team and all." She explained, and Charlie nodded.

He had been staying with his family since the Battle of Hogwarts, where he lost one of his younger brothers. Not to mention, he had been helping her with Ayden. Who was still asleep in his arms, but Charlie spoke again. "You know I don't mind. Ayden is my godson, and ... " Charlie trailed off, Ryan knowing where it was going. He picked up again, just on a different topic. "So which team were you given?"

"Puddlemere United." She answered, and Charlie smiled a bit.

"At least the captain is a familiar face, and I am sure he wouldn't mind this little man coming to practices." Charlie chuckled, quietly.

Ryan shrugged. "I can't do that, I can't put Ayden in that kind of danger. Besides, he'll get to come to games with me, so there is a silver lining somewhere."

He nodded, and Ryan looked at her watch before placing a kiss on the sleeping boy's forehead. "Thanks again, Charlie. I will be by to pick him up later. If you have any problems, send me a patronus or something."

"This isn't my first time watching him, just go. I have this." He said, and Ryan nodded before apparating to where the practice was said to be held in her file. And there was the team, and she looked to her watch. She wasn't late, but then again, she remembered who the captain was. Oliver Wood. The Quidditch Nazi as he had often been referred to, but he got good results.

She approached the team, who looked at her, and when she finally got close enough, one spoke. "Are you lost, ma'am?" He asked, and she shook her head.

"Where's Captain Wood?" She asked, and another spoke.

"He's getting the rest of the practice stuff. You're dressed up quite a bit if you're a new addition." He said, looking her up and down. She was in a pair of slacks, a white blouse underneath a black blazer, and a pair of flats. She sighed, seeing some movement and the man she knew as Oliver Wood.

She walked over, letter in hand. "Captain Wood?" She addressed, and she offered her hand to him. "I don't know if you remember me, but I am Ryan Lockwood. I'm from the auror's office, sent to watch over your team in practice and the like."

She handed him the letter, and looked back to the team. She felt sorry for whoever had the Falcons and the Tornadoes. But then again, she knew her colleagues could handle worse, and she finally looked back to Wood. "I promise I will be out of the way." She told him before she headed over towards a bench away from them, where the best vantage point was and began going through her files.

[SirensCall]

It would be quite a day, quite a day indeed. Marcus Flint could feel it in his bones. Fall was coming, and Quidditch pre-season games would be starting, and before he knew it, the World Cup would be coming round. And he was going to try his damnedest to get on the England team. He had come so close he could almost taste it last year. But after everything that happened, he needed to focus elsewhere. He had lost friends, and though he hadn't been on either side, he lost people. Old classmates, old teachers, and though Marcus dare not admit it, it changed him. He was still the cocky guy he always would be, but firewhiskey had become a vice of his. He drank to forget the pain, to numb himself, but since trying to sober up for Quidditch, he'd been having a hell of a time. With a sigh, he ran his fingers through his hair and headed outside, Quidditch gear in hand. He still had an hour or two before practice began, and with this auror shit being thrown on them, he knew he would have to watch himself. His background probably sent off a flag to them. He headed off, the Leaky Cauldron seemed like a good place, and their breakfast wasn't so bad, and once he got there and situated, he saw other Quidditch players had the exact same idea. "Shit, I'm late." One grumbled. "Wood is a fucking slave driver." He had been talking to a woman, but Marcus couldn't help but to feel steamed. He had been pro just as long as Wood and he still wasn't Captain. What a load of bull! "What can I get for you?" A waitress asked, and after ordering, Marcus closed his eyes. "Fucking Wood, always held on a pedestal." He mumbled, and when his food came he saw another familiar face, and he just ignored it as he ate. Though his teammate was approaching. "Ready for practice, Flint?"he asked, and Marcus continued to remain quiet. "We've got a really ugly auror, I think his name is Drake or something, Daniels is pissed." "Well, the auror's office is stupid for having auror's protect Quidditch players." He grumbled, and looked up. "I kind of get it, but it's better to put their resources elsewherw." Marcus went back to reading when another teammate approached. "I just heard from my brother in law that the Falcons got an auror worse than ours, a tall, barely understandable dude named Gregory." What was it with his teammates and being around him when he didn't want to be bothered? "Puddlemere probably got an even worse one." Marcus amused, but yet another teammate approached. "Actually, they got a cute blonde woman." As if Marcus wasn't pissed enough. "Well then, how about we drop the topic, get ready for practice. Daniels is already going to be a dick, so why give him more of a reason?" And now Marcus really wanted the day ro be over so he could dig into his flask of firewhiskey. Really wanted it to be over.

[El Taco Taco]

Hogwarts is burning. She doesn’t know how anyone can see, how anyone can fight in all the smoke, but the green and red and metallic tang of spellfire is proof enough that the battle still rages. Katie is running along cobbled stones, ducking beneath curses. She has to keep running—if you stop running, you die, and she’s fought too fucking hard to die now—

Everything is fire. She’s burning and all she wants to do is scream, but she is trapped in stillness. Ice, she realizes, but ice doesn’t get inside you like this, she thinks. She doesn’t know. She’s drowning in needles and smoke and there’s death in her veins. She can’t breathe—

Katie woke with a start. Instantly, her hand grasped at her bedside table, fingers clumsy with sleep. The touch of ash beneath her fingertips spread warmth through her body. Her wand was here—the room was empty but for a small kneazle, glowering at her wild thrashing—everything was fine. She slumped back into her pillows. Her lungs burned for air. She couldn’t breathe quite deep enough to ease her wildly beating heart.

The bedside clock informed her that it was quarter past four. Katie groaned. Wand still in hand, she palmed her eyes. The groan became a frustrated shout, and she directed her wand skyward at her light. It exploded in a shower of glass, streaming down onto her bed. Her kneazle snarled, darting beneath the bed. Katie swore, then vanished the mess with a muttered word and a vicious flick of her wand. Muttering darkly beneath her breath, she rolled out of bed to begin the day. No point in trying to get back to sleep; she might as well go for a run.

Maybe it was daft, running herself to exhaustion with practice later that day, but Katie had never been one for good ideas. All she knew was she couldn’t bear to keep still with a dream like that in her head. She’d nearly collapsed in her shower, muscles burning. She wasn’t sure whether the pain was due to her run, or her old injuries. Either way, Katie downed a pain potion, and it took the edge off.

Never one to cook, the blonde swung her grey duffel bag over her shoulder and apparated to the first place that came to mind. The Leaky Cauldron came into view, Diagon Alley awakening all around her. Hitching her bag higher, she set off for the pub. Running a freckled hand through her loose blonde waves, she sidestepped a large wizard bustling towards the Apothecary. It was strange. During the war, the Alley had been half shut down and cold. Now, you could barely tell that the war had touched it. The only evidence was the tea shop where Fortescue’s had once stood.

A wiry old man held the door for her into the Cauldron, and Katie slipped inside with a cheery grin of thanks. The pub was packed. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who abhorred cooking. Approaching the only empty seat at the bar, she dropped her bag and leaned across the counter. Little Hannah Abbott smiled in greeting, bustling over.

“Kates! Got a bit of sun, haven’t you?”

Katie grinned, glancing to the galaxies of freckles on her shoulders and arms. She’d spent the off-season in Spain on holiday and emerged rather bronzed. A summer in the sun had burned thoughts of war and spellfire from her head, and she had half a mind to pack her bags and go back. Would England always taste of war?

“A bit,” she agreed, crossing her ankles as she leaned on her elbows on the bar. “How long you been working here, then?”

“A couple of weeks now,” Hannah remarked, looking fondly at the bar. “I quite like it. Keeps me busy, you know? Anyways, what can I get you?”

Katie could read between the lines. Busy was the only thing she had to keep the dreams at bay. Annoyingly, her leg throbbed, as if it could sense where her thoughts were going. She smiled tightly. She focused intently on relaxing the muscles in her leg. Merlin’s tits, not now.

“Eggs and toast? Thanks.”

Breakfast was dull. Hannah was busy with the slew of other customers, and Katie kept to herself. There was loads of gossip bandied about, but she could barely focus on it. Fuck, her leg hurt. She needed to drop by St. Mungo’s and get Alicia to write her a script for a better pain potion. This was getting ridiculous.

Her watch informed her that practice was drawing near. With a sigh, she dropped a galleon and eight sickles on the table. She dropped off the stool a little stiffly, swinging her bag on to her shoulder.

“Cheers, Hannah, we’ll do tea sometime,” Katie called over her shoulder, raising a scarred hand in a friendly wave. Hannah returned the wave, before returning to her duties. Katie turned around to finally pay attention to where she was going. It was a little late for that; she’d knocked into somebody annoyingly tall. Graceful as she was on a broom, she was a little less coordinated on solid ground, especially with her leg flaring up. Goddamn Malfoy and his fucking necklace. How that piece of shit had avoided Azkaban was beyond her. Ferrety bastard deserved the Kiss, in her admittedly biased opinion.

“Shit fuck, sorry--” she swore without thinking, stumbling back and definitely not wincing at the pain in her leg, no sir. Her expression went flat as she recognized who exactly she’d bumped into. Brilliant. Flint was rather high on her list of People Katie Bell Would Like to Personally Set on Fire, for reasons such as him breaking her ribs three times while at Hogwarts. Katie had never been a delicate player, but he’d taken things to extremes not quite meant for school quidditch. How she yearned to make first string and break his ribs in return. “Oh, it’s you. Fucking perfect.”

[El Taco Taco]

Oliver Wood had been playing Quidditch since he was old enough to walk. In his nearly twenty years of flying, he had never quite learned to manage first day nerves. In his youth, he had been prone to obsessive compulsively pacing his room, running through plays in his head. Oliver liked to think he had made significant progress in that he now spent his first night seated while obsessive compulsively running through plays in his head. While it wasn’t quite restful as, say, sleep, it left him a shade less exhausted than pacing had.

As far as first days went, this one was not going well. Oliver hadn’t played Quidditch proper in nearly a year—not since the ill-fated protest last December. Morally, it had been the right thing to do, of course, but it had thrown his life into a chaos for which he was ill-prepared. He’d nearly been thrown in Azkaban with his muggleborn players and had been issued a lifetime ban on playing Professional Quidditch. Oliver hadn’t quite realized how grim things were until he’d realized he was being tailed by Auror’s, marked for a dissident. And, well, since they thought he was a rebel proper, he’d given it a shot. Frustratingly, he hadn’t been able to do as much as he would have liked; the downside of being a former national Quidditch star. But he had lent his wand to old friends and helped smuggle a few muggleborns out of the country. And when the call to battle went out, Oliver was one of the first to answer.

The war had ended, and though it took a few months to sort through the mess, his lifetime ban had finally been reversed in time for the new season. Oliver noted with some bitterness that Kearney Stevens, one of his Chasers still hadn’t been freed from Azkaban, his paperwork somehow taking much longer than Oliver’s. No matter how he pushed, the Ministry was still slow to respond. Never mind the mess it made of his training schedule; Flitney should never have spent a day in Azkaban, let alone nearly ten months. Even without Dementors, the prison was not a place for good men. Now, he found himself in the Team Manager’s office, sorting through the aftermath. He should have been with his team at breakfast, raising their spirits, not drowning in a sea of miserable bureaucracy.

“Kearney Stevens' paperwork will be seen tae in due coorse',” Oliver read in disgust from a scroll of parchment. At the table, a weary witch groaned, dropping her face into her hands. Azkaban had aged Manpreet Bellamkonda—when Oliver had last seen the woman, she had been polished and bright eyed, passionate about Quidditch and brilliantly suited to liaising between the business and the sport. She had agreed to allow Oliver defy the order to fire all muggleborn players and go to play the Harpies with their original team in solidarity. The owner of Puddlemere had thrown her beneath the broom. He had blamed Manpreet for the stunt when it had (predictably, he realized now) gone to hell. She’d been sentenced to Azkaban where Oliver had escaped. She had not been protected by fame. Yet, unlike Kearney, her release paperwork had gone through almost instantly. Of course, unlike Kearney, Manpreet was a full blood. It shouldn’t have surprised Oliver, and yet, he’d thought that once the war had been won, things would be fair again. It was an awful lesson to learn. “This is disgustin’. They’re dragging thair feckin feet because he’s muggleborn.”

“I know. I’ve arranged for a hearing, but the earliest I could get was next month. They’re booked solid, or so they claim,” Manpreet sounded close to tears, raising her head to look at Oliver helplessly. “I’m beginning to think he’s dead, Oliver. I’ve been sending Kearney letters since I got out. He stopped writing back a month ago.”
Oliver’s blood ran cold. He’d been playing with Kearney for six years now, and the idea of losing one of his closest friends to that fucking prison was enough to make him want to scream. Instead, he reached out to drop a steadying hand to Manpreet’s slim shoulders. He drew deep for the confidence in his voice,
“Don’t think lik’ that. He’s going tae be okay. We’ll get him home.”
“Right,” she nodded, as if she were trying to convince herself. She took a shuddering breath, and then smiled weakly at him. “Okay. For now, pull up the reserve Chasers, see who we can substitute for him. I’ll write an appeal to get Kearney’s hearing moved forward, see if I can find an advocate to help out. You should get to practice.”
“Of coorse,” He squeezed her shoulder one final time, rising and gathering the folder of paperwork she’d assembled for him. Everything was mad; the Ministry wouldn’t release his innocent forward chaser from prison, but they’d assigned the team an Auror to protect them from blood elitists. He wondered if they’d purged their ranks of the scum who had served under He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, or if they’d be protected by a war criminal.

Oliver dropped his paperwork off in his small office off the locker room, hefting the practice chest out and onto the shoulder of his navy blue robes. Grasping his broom in his offhand, the burly Scot made his way towards the pitch. The autumn sun and the crisp morning air were a welcome comfort. Quidditch was back and soon he’d have his mate free and in the sky. Everything would be okay. It had to be; it was the only thing that kept him going some mornings.

He nodded to his assembled players as he approached, raising a brow at the sight of a neatly dressed woman. Approaching, he lowered the large chest to the ground in a smooth movement as she walked to him. The blonde looked a little familiar, but he couldn’t quite place her.
“Captain Wood?” She addressed him briskly, holding out her hand. He grasped it in a firm shake, giving her a questioning look. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I am Ryan Lockwood. I’m from the Auror’s office, sent to watch over your team in practice and the like.”
“Aye, that’s me,” he assured her, before his brows knit together at her greeting. A muscle in his jaw clenched. The Auror’s office. He’d been followed by Aurors, had dueled a few during the war, and it was difficult to forget the terror of being watched, of being hunted. Her name sounded familiar, but Oliver could only assume that they had been at Hogwarts together. “Ah heard you’d be joining us fur th' neist while. We… appreciate it,” he forced the words out, trying not to let on his discomfort too much. This was part of things getting better. She was trying to protect them. He needed to trust that.

She informed him she’d be out of the way, and presented him a letter. He accepted it, opening it and scanning it. Same paperwork that Manpreet had gone over with him. He stuffed it in a pocket in his robes.
“Whatever ye’ll need tae dae yer job, let me know, I’ll make sure ye get it,” He told her, before allowing her to depart. He turned to his team, watching him curiously, some of the lads watching the Auror leave with interest. A few had the same wary look on their face that lingered in his gut. War had changed all of them. “A'richt ye bastards, git in th' air! We're flyin’ suicides.”

The familiar chorus of complaints brought a grin to Oliver’s face, blue eyes dancing warmly as his team grudgingly obeyed. War had blighted the skies, but Quidditch would clear the air.

[SirensCall]

His voice... it brought her a sense of comfort. It was familiar, but Ryan could barely show when she was happy or sad, much less uncomfortable. So her plain look remained as she nodded to his statement. She could sense all around tension, and for having what seemed to be the emotional range of a teaspoon, Ryan had always been particularly good at picking up on emotions. Perhaps it was because of her inability to show them. Either way, she went to her business, a rather large file case being pulled from her bag. It contained everything about the team so she could gauge who would possibly be more of a target, but hearing a chorus of complaints her head turned. It would have made her smile, remembering the times McGonagall had asked her to sit in practices her last two years of school to make sure there was someone who could administer immediate healing help if need be.

That memory was so distant now, and she quickly returned to her work, opening the first of many files. The first file had been Oliver's, and she already knew he would be a target. Just as her husband had been... but he didn't make it, and it was her own sort of personal mission to make things right so no one else would suffer a similar fate. Her next file was of a person she hadn't seen. Kearney Stevens. Her eyes glanced up, studying the players before she saw his status. She read it aloud to herself. "Pending release from Azkaban?" Her voice was soft, and she set the file aside. That raised plenty of questions in her mind. If it hadn't been so hard on her to return to the Department of Mysteries after the war, she would have... but where she was at it would have made it difficult. Especially when she did work with the veil.

She shook her head ad she continued reading through the files, and after what felt like an hour, a large crack filled her ears. She wrote it off as another player, who was late, but a pair of puffy blue orbs met her eyes, and she immediately set down her work and saw Charlie there. "Charlie..." she began, standing momentarily, and he looked at her. She was silenced, and she picked up the crying boy, and rubbed his back.

"George is having another break down. He picked up on it, so mum insisted I bring him to you while we deal with it. Since Katie is at practice too." Charlie explained, setting down Ayden's bag. Ryan nodded

"Then get home. Ayden will be alright for today. I hope." She said, and Charlie nodded disapparating on the spot. She sighed, and she sat with Ayden, playing with the boy's hair. She couldn't afford a distraction right now, but family did come first to Charlie, and he wanted to remove, even his godson, from the negativity.

"Mummy..." he whimpered, and she placed a kiss to the top of his head.

"Watch them, Ayden. Quidditch, remember?" She whispered and the boy's eyes lit up ad he looked to the sky, and Ryan kept her eyes peeled as her son became instantly enthralled at the flying sport. Her mind was so pre occupied. Reading the files and the like that she had nearly forgotten how beautiful Quidditch looked from the ground. It was amazing to watch what they did in the sky, but something seemed off...

And it was probably the absence of the one player... Kearney Stevens.

"Mummy..." Ayden's voice came and snapped her from her thoughts as he pointed up. "Fly?"

"We'll ask Uncle Charlie when we see him." She said, using her fingers to brush his thick locks of blonde hair. Obviously today, though it was a practice, was going to be uneventful. So she picked back up the file of Kearney Stevens and read it over, and Ayden frowned at his mother's expression.

"What wrong?" He asked, his head looking straight up at her and she leaned her head down and placed a kiss to his forehead.

"Something isn't right, Ayden. Keep watching." She urged as she found some of the paperwork. "Seen to in due course? Oh no... that isn't right at all."

[SirensCall]

This little pre practice meeting had become quite a nuisance... quite the nuisance indeed. Marcus now regretted not signing with the Falcons, because Merlin knew that Daniels was a terrible captain compared to what Marcus could have been. And fuck were his teammates annoying. He just wanted to be left alone. He wanted to play Quidditch, drink, and be left alone.

He finally dismissed himself from the group, paying for his breakfast and heading to leave. He had gotten out of the Leaky Cauldron and was walking down Diagon Alley before realizong he had left his gear. He cursed beneath his breath and turned back. As if his day could get any worse. He already had thoughts of leaving Tutshill and practically begging the Falcons owner and captain take him. At least then he would be with competent players.

He felt someone knock into him as he headed back into the Leaky Cauldron. He couldn't help the smirk that fell over his face. Katie Bell, the Gryffindor firecracker, now a Falmouth Falcon. Oh, this was just adding to his list of reasons drink. "Little jingle bell. Look at that, nearly knocked me down. Better be careful, you may break yourself in half."

He gave a half chuckle, but he noticed a small sign of pain on her face. He noticed someone coming in behind her, nearly slamming her into the groun, but he grabbed her and moved her aside. He didn't think, he just reacted, like when he was going after the quaffel. He let her go and gave her a small pat on the arm, covering himself up. Can't let the enemy know you're soft. "Watch it jingle bell, you might get yourself hurt out there being that absent minded." He quipped before he turned and grabbed his things, seeing his teammates do the same. He could almost feel himself groaning.

"So, Flint, are you ready?" One asked as they passed by Katie again before Marcus stopped. Captain Daniels was standing there.

"There you bunch of half wits are, come on. Moved practice time forward so the auror can ask questions." The man spat. Flint rolled his eyes, and Daniels caught it. "Better things to do, Flint?"

"Yeah, actually. Practice. Isn't our first game against Puddlemere?" He hissed, and Daniels nodded.

"Well then, let's go." He said before most of the team promptly apparated. Marcus stood there though, gear in hand, remembering his flask in the front pouch of the bag. He shook his head.

"Wonder if they'll arrange a meeting with me." He grumbled, walking out and disapparating to his practice.

[El Taco Taco]

The past three weeks had been brutal. Katie had been at the pitch from six till ten, six days a week. But she needed to make the cut. If she didn’t get onto the team, she wasn’t going to get onto any team. Who else would take a chance on her? Katie Bell, damaged goods, the girl who took every opportunity to foul and fight. It was the Falcons or bust. Finally, Fenrir and Gutaale had sent word that they had selected a new team. Katie Bell couldn’t sleep at all the night before, throwing and catching her stress ball over and over until her kneazle, Freddie, tackled the leather sac out of the air. She reluctantly rolled out of her bed, staggering to her shower, waving her wand at the tea kettle on the way. Katie breathed deep, studying her reflection. She’d pulled her wet blonde hair into a lazy milkmaid braid, to keep it out of the way during practice. Her freckles had only gotten darker; it had been a hot summer. She had never seen this much sunshine in all her years in England. The split lip she’d earned from a wayward bludger was finally healing up. After the fucking necklace, most simple healing charms couldn’t quite patch her the whole way up anymore. Her bones could still be set, and life threatening injuries could be managed, but little things—black eyes, cuts, sore ribs—they remained stubborn in the face of magic. Katie shrugged on her uniform, dark grey and white, praying this would not be the last time she would wear it. She’d worked so hard, had never played better Quidditch in all her years. She needed this. She needed to prove she wasn’t broken, that she could still be the scariest witch in the league. She apparated after feeding Freddie, the stadium appearing before her in a rush. It was as crowded as it had been the day their team had been discovered to contain Death Eaters. Katie, blessedly, escaped most of the cameras, hitching her bag on her shoulder and making her way indoors. They had assembled on the pitch. Katie fell in with Kamala, punching her shoulder encouragingly. The dark witch offered a tight smile, clearly worried. “Hey,” Katie greeted, looking around. Everyone looked grim. Fenrir and Gutaale stood in the center of their makeshift circle, a rolled up parchment in their Captain’s hand. “Good luck.” “You too,” Kamala squeezed her hand. Katie looked around. That should be everyone, shouldn’t it? “We're still waiting on one more person,” Gutaale intoned, as if he’d read her thoughts. “We’ll get this over as quickly as we can.”

[El Taco Taco]

Oliver Wood hated formal robes. No matter how many times he wore them, he would never enjoy the stiff collars or the pressed lines that, no matter how often he practiced the charm, he could never for the life of him get crisp. He hated to bother his mother but, for this, he’d been willing to make the Floo up to Scotland. Kearney Stevens’ hearing. Ryan had made good on her word, pushing paperwork through to get them here. Three weeks had felt like forever, but when he’d heard how long others had been waiting, well… they were lucky. Manpreet leaned into his side beneath his arm, her face drawn with worry. She’d been a good manager and a better friend in the years he’d known her. She took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to steady herself. Oliver squeezed her shoulder. “Hoo’s yer wife daein’?” He asked. She sighed in relief, evidently welcoming the distraction from the courtroom looming ahead of them. “I huvnae seen ‘er around th’ pitch lately.” “Gaelle’s in Iceland on a field expedition,” Manpreet smiled softly, and it was one of the few genuine smiles he’d seen her give since before the war. “I’m taking the Floo over after the hearing. She’s got some time off from chasing after Yetis and armored bears.” “Hoo much lahnger will she be gain, dae ye reckon?” He remembered the woman from a team holiday party—Gaelle always left an impression. The curly haired magizoologist was certainly a character, flitting from thought to thought without finishing half her sentences. He’d rather liked her, even if it was evident that was the sort of brilliant that meant she was completely mad. “They’re scheduled to come home late October,” she sounded reasonably cheerful, all things considered. “And she’s promised no more field work until next summer, at least. It’ll be nice having her home, driving me spare.” “Mr. Wood. Mrs. Bellamkonda,” a small wizard in stately black robes had exited the courtroom. He eyed them rather condescendingly. Oliver arched a heavy brow. Behave. For Kearney, he reminded himself. He smiled politely, slipping his arm from Manpreet with a pat on her back. “The Wizengamot is ready for you now.” Where’s Lockwood? Oliver glanced down the hallway. Maybe she’d decided not to show her face. Surprising—he’d thought, with what she’d told him about her husband, that she might have shown. He nodded, following the tiny wizard and Manpreet into the courtroom. The Wizengamot was as untouchable as ever, many of them dour, and his jaw clenched tightly. Many of these same people had sat on the registration commission. He may not have been a Malfoy, filthy ferrety bastard, but his family was old enough to have linked him to a good deal of other wizards in Britain. He knew some of these bastards—and they belonged in Azkaban far more than his chaser.