runaway_cub (runaway_cub) wrote in snark_n_bark, @ 2008-05-29 10:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | complete, faelan, padma |
Isn't happily supposed to be ever-after?
Characters: Faelan, Padma
Summary: Recent happenings need to be discussed.
The scent of Frollicking Fireroses filled his nose even after Faelan let the door of the hothouse swing shut behind him and stepped out onto the lawn for a break, toeing his shoes off so he could walk barefoot through the dewy grass. As its name implied, it was hot in the hot house and he was dirty and sweaty from harvesting the roses, which liked to play more than cooperate. Today, they had taken great glee in tossing dirtballs in his face with their roots. He knew the roses were just trying to have a good time -- and he was glad for it, too, after even his hardest attempts at crazy faces had failed to make them lift their buds during the magical drainage -- so he wasn't annoyed, just in need of a few minutes of peace and quiet after the roses had finally nestled into a short nap in their buckets.
Stripping his shirt off, he laid back under the shade of his favorite tree, the outside air less oppressive than the humidity of the hothouse but still warm, a welcome reminder that summer was coming. He rested with his eyes closed for a moment, and then rolled onto his side, idly pulling over a copy of the Daily Prophet that Neville had left under the tree with some of his things.
The sections weren't in order, so he didn't see the front page first. Instead he flipped past some ads, tossed aside some stuff about investing at Gringotts, and was about to disregard the Quidditch pages when something caught his eye.
There, on the top of the page, under a headline at least an inch high, was a photo, complete with a crowd of fans waving their arms, brooms swooping around in the background, and in the center, smiling like he'd just been given a trophy for it from Witch Weekly, looking more handsome than ever in his dark blue uniform robes, was his brother Oliver.
"Quick Keeper Quits Quaffle, Reaches Record", the headline read. Sitting up, Faelan hunched over the paper, eyes sweeping over Oliver's grinning face. He looked old, Faelan thought. Or, not old, just older. Grown up. There were little lines around his eyes from the wide smile and something in the depths of them was different than he remembered. He hadn't seen a picture of his brother in a really long time, and when he had, it was usually in team pictures or candid mid-game shots that showed up in the paper every once in a while, when he took the time to read it. But this was his brother looking right into his eyes, waving and smiling, but not, Faelan had to remind himself, seeing him.
Heart beating a bit quicker, Faelan quickly scanned the article, learning that Oliver had spectacularly blocked a goal with his foot in the previous night's game against the Cannons, kicking it so hard that it soared across the entire pitch and flew through the opposite goal posts, scoring 10 points for his own team. This happened so rarely that it was always newsworthy, and Oliver had now done it more than any other Keeper in Puddlemere's 840 year history.
His brother was a big Quidditch hero.
Faelan stared at the picture for a long time, idly placing his fingertip on Oliver's gleaming teeth. The photo just continued flashing its grin, and eventually, very carefully, Faelan tore the picture out of the paper and folded it up, stuffing it in his pocket.
Deciding he'd had quite enough of a break, he was stacking the paper back up when something else caught his eye. The front page was crumpled, torn as if someone had curled the edges in their fists, and on it was another picture, another man that made his breath catch, but this one wasn't smiling at all. Looking nervously left and right, as if afraid of being caught or hurt, was Bartemius Crouch, Jr. The accompanying article relayed how he'd confessed to his crimes, how victim Padma Patil had testified in his favor, and Faelan's jaw clenched. Roughly shuffling the pages together, he shoved them back under Neville's jacket and prepared to go back to work.