InsaneJournal

The sandwich shop Anna had picked was an ‘old standard’ of the San Francisco community, a place that was ancient and had traded ownership half a dozen times. It still managed to be famous and people still visited it by the dozens during lunch hour. Anna was excited to see what a ‘sub’ sandwich might be, and she’d practically died when she’d gotten to the counter. They were huge! They reminded her of the gigantic sandwich Elsa had made for her for her birthday.

She held up a large handful of credits and told Sirius to get whatever he wanted, and after they’d ordered and paid she’d quickly grabbed the next available seat. “Isn’t this amazing!? Look how huge these are!” She said, as soon as she was seated.

“This is pretty brilliant,” Sirius conceded. He wasn’t even certain how he was supposed to fit the sandwich into his mouth, which only made it better as far as he was concerned. He took a bit and quickly decided that it was better than anything he’d had at the mess hall, no offense to Peter or the other cooks.

For a bit his attention was consumed by that sandwich, until he remembered he was supposed to be explaining Quidditch to Anna. “So, you sure you want to know about Quidditch?” he asked. “I mean, it’s the best sport in the world but if I knew about it and couldn’t play it, I’d be miserable.”

"Isn't it better to know that it exists, though?" Anna asked, while wiping some stray mayonnaise away from the corner of her mouth. The gigantic sandwiches had been slathered in the stuff and while she didn’t mind, it was extremely messy eating. "What if everyone in the world forgot that Quidditch was ever a thing? And then no one would remember it existed, and that would be even more sad than if we knew it was there but couldn't play it."

Maybe she'd change her mind after she learned more about the sport, but right now Anna was certain that this was for the best. Half of her sandwich was already gone, and she decided to pace herself for the second half. "Do these sandwiches seem more filling to you than the stuff we get on the ship?"

“Yeah,” Sirius agreed. Ever since he’d learned the replicator could produce both food and things like shoes, he didn’t trust the food on the ship. This seemed safer and tastier.

Taking a break from eating, he started to describe Quidditch. “Alright, so Quidditch is played on brooms, flying in the air, and there’s two teams. Each team has seven players. One Keeper, Two Beaters, Three Chasers, and a Seeker.”

If they’d not been in public he’d probably have spelled something up for a visual demonstration, but as it was, he wasn’t going to take the risk. So he gave her a breakdown of the different positions and what they did, then asked, “Following so far?”

"Beaters? Is this supposed to be a violent sport?" Anna asked, squinting her eyes. Seven people on a team, and the other positions, all of those sounded kind of straightforward. She was definitely following all of that so far, so she nodded her head. "That sounds easy enough to remember so far. But how do you all get around on brooms without running into each other?"

“It can be violent, yeah,” Sirius agreed. “And you’re not just running around on the ground, remember, so you’re flying all around, different heights, but sometimes players collide and then it gets exciting. Anyway, I mentioned the Chasers try to score, and it’s ten points each time the quaffle goes through any of the three hoops. But often the Seeker makes the game, getting the snitch and scoring 150 points, and ending the game. So even if the other team’s Chasers are having the game of their lives, they need to have that point difference for it to matter. But that’s happened, which makes things exciting, if not bloody mental.”

He paused. “Anyway, it’s a brilliant game and we’re working on brooms that even Muggles can fly.” And by we, he meant Ginny, though really, why wasn’t he helping her with that?

"So the quaffle is... some kind of ball?" Anna asked, imagining some of the sports and games she'd heard about since she came here. There was football and football and one of them involved a lot of kicking. But almost every game involved a ball. "There are so many sports about balls. I wonder if there's a common root! And what's a snitch?"

Her mind was buzzing trying to imagine a game where people flew around all over the place beating a ball around through hoops. It sounded like absolute chaos, and she couldn’t imagine that people didn’t get hurt. She guessed that added to the excitement. "Does the ball float, or can it fall to the ground? And what are Muggles? Is that like... a me?"

“Oh,” Sirius said, before launching into a description of the different quidditch balls and how they behaved on their own, then how they were used. “And yes, you’re a Muggle. You’re not a witch. And you’re not a Squib because you would know if you were.”

He thought that he’d given a pretty decent rundown of the game, so he turned his attention to Anna. “Do you have any fun sports where you’re from?

"Hmm..." Anna squinted, while trying to think of the various things she'd heard about. In the Castle, the only pastime she'd engaged in was occasional pond fishing and riding her bike around the hallways, but she'd heard of more. "Well… there’s ice skating? People race each other on their skates, there's competitions! And there's Handball, and fighting competitions - I've never seen one, but they held them in Corona, that's my cousin's kingdom! And we've got this really strange one where men basically carry their wives and race each other? And then of course your usual things with horses."

“But I’ve never seen most of that,” Anna added, after taking a long sip of her drink. Straws, now THOSE were an amazing invention. “I lived shut up in the castle for MOST of my life. I got to read about them, though! And when we were younger we’d skate out on the pond. Mostly Elsa would. I’m really no good with skating.”

“You lived shut up in a castle?” Sirius asked, blinking at Anna. “Why?” He also wanted to know what sort of sport where men raced each other while carrying their wives, but his other question had a higher priority of interest.

Anna waved a hand through the air like it was no big deal, though it certainly had been one for a while. "Oh it's just... my older sister, she kind of had magical powers that I didn't know about. So my father shut the castle doors when we were young, and we didn't leave for much at all. When they died - uhm, my parents, that is. They were at sea when a storm came. Wow, that's depressing."

She shook her head and smiled at Sirius, "The point is, it got a little worse, and then when Elsa was coronated and became Queen we all found out about the magic, and that was kind of crazy, but now it's better!"

Sirius managed to finish his sandwich during that story, which surprised him because at least twice he stopped eating just to look at her. She handled everything so casually, and she really was as cheerful as she seemed on the journals.

“Right. I’m glad it’s better,” he said, meaning it sincerely but still a bit dazed by the magical powers, locked in a castle, at her parents dying at sea bits that she’d just glossed over in a couple of sentences like it wasn’t any big deal.

It had only happened a few years ago, but Anna had been told to try and keep her courage up. She missed them every day, it was hard, but she liked the idea of being brave. "I think they'd be proud of how she turned out, my sister. She really rules Arendelle well! And now that her secret's out, she's been so warm and so open. Everyone loves her."

It was hard to be angry at Elsa for the first eighteen years of her life. Things were moving forward, and she mainly just hoped the next eighteen were going to be amazing. "It might seem kind of strange but I'm glad that we're here in the future. I mean, I miss Arendelle and I miss Olaf - he's our talking snowman - but... there's so much more that I can DO here! Being a Princess was nice, but it was kind of boring. I wish we could have Quidditch on the ship, that sounds fun."

“Oh, I understand that. Well not the talking snowman bit… But uh…” Sirius lost his train of thought momentarily. “Oh. Being here in the future. Where I’m not going to be imprisoned in a couple years and where my friends are still alive.”

“I’m not sure there’s a place to play Quidditch on the ship, though there’s definitely places to fly,” he added, the conversation slightly disjointed but it had been this entire time, hadn’t it?

"Okay, hold on." Anna had picked the other half of her sandwich up, but she put it back down and blinked her eyes at him. Prison? Death? She'd glossed over the death of her own parents, but she didn't know if Sirius needed to talk about this or not. And friends were there to talk about stuff with!

"How do you KNOW you're going to prison? That sounds awful. And... people die? Oh no, I'm so sorry. Do you want to- I am right here and not going anywhere if you want to say more."

“Oh,” Sirius said. “One of my friends here is actually really older than when I last saw him. And so he told me everything about the future and it’s really… dark. So this place is sort of a second chance where I don’t have to live through all of that?”

He gave her a shrug. “I’m done feeling guilty about it.” He hoped he was, at least.

Anna squinted at him for a few moments, not entirely sure if she was actually buying it. She'd only met a few people in her life of course and she was the first to admit that she wasn't always good at reading them. Or their intent.

But Elsa held onto guilt like it was permafrost, and Anna knew that guilt was a lot more clingy than some other things. Either way, he looked like he needed cheering up, and they were almost out of sandwiches.

She looked down at her own, and carefully - but quickly - wrapped it back up so that she could eat it later. Then she bounced up out of her chair, tucked the sandwich in her bag, and held out her hand. "We should do something AMAZING with that second chance. And it might even put a smile on you again! Come on come on - I saw a place that has thirty six different flavors of ice cream back there. We can even get it in a drink form!"

“You mean a milkshake?” Sirius asked. Anna’s unbridled enthusiasm about damn near everything was almost contagious. “Yeah, come on, let’s go. I haven’t had ice cream since the last time I was in Diagon.”

They maybe were an unlikely pair of friends, but a break from all the stress of his normal group of friends was actually rather welcome.