“You missed a great match today, George.”
“How’d it go? I’m assuming Puddlemere won if it was ‘a great match.’”
Fred nodded to verify. “Short, but very intense. Seventeen minutes, Puddlemere took the game 180-10 against the Harpies, and those women only scored after their Beaters had attacked Oliver.”
“Impressive. Good start to a Cup year. I, however, went to a great exhibition match and an excellent victory party.” George winked at his brother.
Fred laughed. “Spare me the details of the party, but I’d be interested to hear how the game went. How many goals did your girlfriend score?”
“Eleven of the fourteen.”
“A real team player, that one.”
“They pass to her in almost every play unless a member of the other team manages to get near her, which is rare because she’s a crafty flier. There’s a reason that the Falmouth Falcons were wetting their knickers to get her on their team.”
“She certainly surprised everyone by playing over in the North American League,” Fred said. “It was a smart move though - made everyone here realize how much they wanted her. She’s on the national team for sure next summer.”
“I’d put on the Oliver team. Charlie, too, if he has a year like he did two years ago.”
After a few more minutes of discussing Quidditch, George finally announced that he’d better be off to bed. “I’ve got a breakfast date with Andrea,” he smiled.
“Good for you. You were too miserable without her, even if you tried to cover it up.”
George rubbed the back of his neck, looking down at the floor. “I want to marry her. Do you think I should?”
“What sort of a ridiculous question is that?”
“Well, would you mind?”
“Merlin, George, of course I would mind, but only if it ruined the business. I want to have a bird of my own someday, not be sharing a flat with you when I’m eighty.”
“I’m a good flatmate,” George smirked.
“You’re a terrible flatmate. You walk around mooning about some girl all hours of the bleeding day,” Fred laughed, “and you eat all of the jam.”
Hermione continued flipping through the Prophet as she sat at the table, her breakfast bowl already long empty. She only had a few more pages, and she didn’t have much of anything planned for the day.
Even though Hermione was happy to be home with family and friends close by, the truth of the matter was that she, Hermione Jane Granger, didn’t know how to take a vacation. When she’d left Australia, Muriel Stenthis had given her a set of tasks to take care of at the Department of Mysteries’ headquarters at the Ministry. Hermione had already completed the tasks. She’d weeded the garden. She’d made some small modifications to the kitchen, just a few remodels that would make things nicer. She’d read Hogwarts, A History again for old times’ sake. She’d gone to the Puddlemere exhibition game, and she’d also spent quite a bit of time with Charlie.
She smiled at that thought. Charlie was indescribable.
Flipping another page, she came to the Quidditch Coverage section. It had been a good match, and Fred had kept up a detailed commentary for her through the match, but Hermione read the article anyway. There were a few summaries of other matches that had taken place. However, the thing that caught Hermione’s eye was a small paragraph on the opposite page. There were four or five sentences about a small magical mishap on the twenty-first. A field south of Glastonburry had been set aflame, and they knew that it had been a magical fire because of the evidence found at the scene. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement was looking into the case.
Hermione was getting ready to think about the lack of information when there was a knock at the kitchen door. She looked up to see Charlie’s face smiling through the pane of glass in the door, and waved him inside.
“Good morning,” Hermione greeted, folding up the paper and then tossing it into the rubbish bin.
“Good morning! How would you like to come and have afternoon tea with me?” He asked.
Hermione smiled. “That sounds lovely.”
“It’s the annual Quidditch League Tea at the Benning Manor near Kent,” Charlie explained.
“Well, do I need to wear anything special?”
“Best not to wear anything particularly special. Last year there was a bit of a food fight. The Harpies actually started it, and we already know they’re not in a good mood this year.”
“Because you beat them soundly yesterday?” Hermione asked teasingly.
“You know, that might have something to do with it.” Charlie scratched his chin, and then the two laughed.
“Would you like anything? Tea or toast?”
“Well, I did already have breakfast at the Burrow.”
“Oh, I’ll just clear this away then.”
“Oi, what about second breakfast?” Charlie protested. He sat down across from Hermione and pulled a plate of toast towards him. “I didn’t say I didn’t want anything. We Quidditch men have to keep up our strength.”
“My mistake,” Hermione laughed.
Andrea and George were talking in two entirely different conversations, but they were still holding hands. Andrea had missed the way she and George were together. She didn’t realize just how much she’d missed him until he was back in her life. She honestly didn’t know if she could ever want to be away from him again. Not in the long-term sense of things anyway. It was always nice to have one’s own space and things that one did without one’s significant other, but she enjoyed spending the majority of her time with George more than any other person. Even now, when they weren’t involved in the same conversation, just having him right behind her gave her such a positive energy.
Andrea had worried that perhaps what they’d had at Hogwarts had been a fluke of first love that was more than it actually was. She was glad she hadn’t fooled herself about the feeling of perfection in her relationship with George, that it hadn’t simply been her own recollections being tainted by time. They still had their different views about some things, but after their reconciliation, the years seemed to fall away, and it was like they’d picked up where they’d left off before the breakup. She couldn’t seem to get the smile off of her face now. She hadn’t been left desolate and completely miserable, but having George back in her life just made things all the better.
George gave her hand a squeeze at that moment, and she felt a butterfly whiz around her insides. She concentrated on listening to Hermione’s thought, though. It was always nice to see the good-natured Hermione Granger. It was good to have her back in the country for a few weeks. Andrea took the opportunity to tell her so.
Hermione smiled warmly. “It’s good to be back. I confess I’m getting restless, though.”
“You’ve not even been back for a whole week!”
“I know, but I can’t help it,” Hermione defended.
“Hasn’t Charlie been keeping you busy?” Andrea asked in a whisper, smiling innocently.
“Don’t give me that look, Andrea,” Hermione scolded, blushing even as she busied herself with stirring her cup of tea. “Charlie’s been nice enough to entertain me.”
“Entertain you?” Andrea raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, for goodness sake! What gave you that idea?”
Andrea tried very hard not to laugh at the shade of red Hermione’s cheeks were taking on. “Why? What sort of entertainment do you think I’m talking about?”
“I...nothing,” Hermione answered, knowing that she wouldn’t beat Andrea in her teasing.
“What are you doing tomorrow morning? I know Puddlemere’s got practice.”
“How do you know that when you don’t even play for them?”
Andrea rolled her eyes. “If you think there’s not a team in the league that doesn’t know when the others are practicing, then I underestimated your intelligence. That’s beside the point. How would you like to meet me in Diagon Alley in the morning? I need to go to Flourish and Blotts to pick up a book and to talk to a woman named Tara about the appearance she wants the team to make. They want to attract some of the younger readers for more than just textbooks.”
“I’d like that. There was a new book about centaurs and their astronomical studies I wanted to pick up.”
“I figured there would be something,” Andrea said just as the crowd grew quiet. The time for the announcement of the season’s game schedule had finally arrived.
The Falcons were given a lot of international exposure games in addition to their regular league schedule. All of the teams were because it was a World Cup year. The World Cup schedule was also announced. If Andrea ended up playing all the way into the final match of the Cup, and some people told her that she would, and of course that’s what she wanted, then she would be playing and practicing nearly every week until the end of August the next fall. It was going to be a very busy year, and that was putting it lightly.
She looked to her left at George who was studying the dregs in the bottom of his tea cup. She knew what he was thinking. Quidditch was going to take up a lot of her time for the next eleven months. She tugged on his arm to get his attention. Their eyes met, and she smiled at him reassuringly. “Hey, don’t worry about it.”
“But my tea cup is empty,” he pouted.
Andrea shoved him slightly. “That’s not what I’m talking about. You are important to me.” She planted a short kiss on his lips. “I love you.”
He grinned. “I love you, too, Andrea.”
Paint the Silence by electronicquillster
Chapter Notes: Readers: I know you think I'm severly lacking in action...but you should know that I've really got stuff up my sleeve that I've been hinting at heavily in this chapter and chapter four...