LUNAR (A Harry Potter Universe Fanfiction)

Thirty Nine. The Cannons vs. The Wanderers.

On Saturday morning, the first weekend in April, an owl arrived for Caiti. The owl in question looked rather battered and harried like it had flown quite a distance at a very fast pace.

She untied the letter quickly and offered her own goblet of water to the owl looking alarmed.

"This had better be important," she told the owl. "Or else you shouldn't be working so hard. I can wait another day for a letter."

But when she slit open the envelope it became immediately clear that this particular message was time-sensitive. Caiti stood up so fast she banged into the table, sloshing water all over the place, including all over the owl who squawked and ruffled his feathers indignantly before he flew off again.

I'm playing this afternoon, Marlowe had written hastily. His handwriting was a mess, but she could feel the excitement and nerves in each of the words scrawled on the parchment.

Walters is out because his wife's in labor and McSorley's just come down with dragon pox. Fingal would usually be put in next, but he's at his sister's wedding, so of the other three of us they're putting in me and Liam O'Reilly. Dad's coming to pick up you and Elliot at eleven. Tell Elliot because I haven't got time to write him a letter, too. Dad's letting Professor Ossett know he's coming. Can't wait to see you. Love you. Marlowe.

He had written all of this in one big block of text, not even skipping down the page a bit to sign his name.

Caiti was vaguely aware that Amelia was talking to her from across the table, trying to get her attention, but she ignored her and hurried down the Ravenclaw table looking for Elliot. She found him where he and his friends usually sat, down at the far end nearest the staff table.

"Elliot," she said hurriedly. "Marlowe's playing today. Your dad's coming to get us at eleven."

"What?" he asked. Caiti thrust the letter out to him.

"No way," Elliot breathed.

"I know," said Caiti. Her stomach was flip flopping all over the place. She was so anxious for him.

Amelia appeared at the end of the table with them. "What's going on?" she asked.

"My brother's gonna play in a real match," said Elliot excitedly.

Amelia's eyes widened and she looked at Caiti to see if it was true. Caiti could only nod. She had been saying all year that she thought he'd get to play at least once before the end of the first year of his contract. She only realized now that saying that and having it actually happen were two very different things.

She knew Marlowe was a very good quidditch player. He wouldn't have made it on the team at all if he weren't. And by the sounds of his letter, he'd passed up at least one other person who could've played that afternoon, which was a good sign, but professional quidditch was not quite the same as playing against Hogwarts students, some of whom were twelve or thirteen years old.

Elliot handed the letter back to her and she looked it over again, this time, with Amelia peering over her shoulder.

"I wish I could go," she said.

"Honestly I wish you could, too." She felt like she might be sick. It'd have been nice to have Amelia there to prattle on about things and distract her from how nervous she felt. She was reminded of how it had felt watching Sean compete in the Triwizard Tournament. He'd obviously been qualified; His name had come out of the Goblet of Fire. But knowing this didn't make it any easier to watch.

—-

Several hours later, she sat in between Elliot and Mrs. Finnegan high up in a violently orange section of the crowd. Caiti had not had a single orange thing in her wardrobe so she'd used a color changing spell on one of her shirts for the occasion. She'd told Marlowe she'd start buying Chudley Cannons gear when they started making things with his name and number on the back.