[Trickett household] Hush ~ [Hal]

“…And then I scored, and we knocked out the Ravenclaw seeker and… BOOM! Three warlocks, I win again!” Freya slammed her cards down on the bed; each one showing a grumpy looking warlock waving oddly shaped jewels at her. “You’ve gotta up your game, Hal!” The blonde grinned at her older brother, absolutely beaming as she raised her hands above her head in an obvious motion of victory. The girl quickly gathered the gemstones representing chips and moved them into her small pile of winnings. She’d been totally destroying Hal at this game for the last twenty minutes, and was hoping to win a few sickles off of him before the night was through.

It was a surprisingly quiet night at the Trickett household. Freya couldn’t really remember her home feeling so vacant for quite some time. She had to remind herself that most of her siblings and all ten bajillion-squillion of her cousins would be arriving on their doorstep over the next few days for the Christmas holiday. At the moment it was just a couple of siblings and her parents. Freya remembered the time when her brothers and sisters had all gone off to Hogwarts and she was at home alone. The thought made her shudder. She might only come home for breaks now, but at least when she did, the place was always bustling.

“What was I talking about?” Freya gave her brother a puzzled glance before nodding as she caught her train of thought. “Oh yeah, how we totally smashed Ravenclaw in quidditch this year…” The blonde continued to chatter about the game as she picked up the cards and shuffled them absentmindedly. She dealt out each of their cards in the intricate pattern that the game required, and then reached over to her bedside table to take a sip of her hot chocolate. Her mother really did make the best hot chocolate there was! “…And everyone cheered and we had the best party in the common room,” she concluded, picking up her hand and taking a look at her cards.

Hal was distracted.

He barely reacted when Freya threw her cards down, only providing her a soft smile and a simple shrug.

She was sat before him, excitedly recalling her team’s achievement in Quidditch. But despite the pride that welled up in him for her successes, he was only half-listening, caught up in thoughts about her growth – the growth he’d seemed to miss, despite it happening right before his eyes. It was both melancholic and utterly distressing.

The brief, vague conversation he’d had with Ruari a few weeks ago replayed in his mind. They’d been catching up over a cup of coffee, something that had become a sort of ritual since their run-in at Hogsmeade, and when he brought up Freya’s name, there was an unmissable spark in his companion’s eye. Curious, he questioned whether she was still familiar with his youngest sibling, and she’d accidentally let it slip that they had had a run-in not too long ago. He could tell she had not meant to tell him, as her eyes had widened considerably. There was no going back after that.

Hal’s interest had instantly been piqued, for he wondered what Freya might have said. She was an intelligent girl, but she was also a sentimental creature, and the sight of Hal’s ex might have been enough to have her expressing a desire for the former Hufflepuff’s return.

He knew Freya missed Ruari, perhaps just as much as she missed Dash. And she was not alone. His entire family had been pushing him to bring her by lately, and though he was certainly not opposed, he was – as much as he hated to believe it – afraid. Afraid that she might decline. Perhaps it was a foolish thought, but Hal had the feeling that rejection would leave him more than disappointed. He couldn’t find the right word to express his fear.

But their conversation had not been related to that at all. After pressing, he learned that something was troubling Freya, or rather, someone. A boy. And though he had tried to elicit more information from Ruari, she swiftly dropped the topic and tied her mouth shut, refusing to utter another word on the matter.

For the remainder of that day, he’d wondered what had happened. What had Freya said to Ruari? Had she confided in the woman? Hal would not have been surprised if she did. The thought was bittersweet. Shouldn’t he also be offering advice to Freya? Boys were fickle, after all, and he knew this. He was supposed to protect her from them – to keep her away from inevitable heartbreak. Or, if he could not do that, he wanted to at least help her somehow.

But he didn’t know what to say. Not yet. He was going over different ways to introduce the subject without veering off track. He needed to ensure he did not reveal his source, or make it obvious that he had one, especially since Ruari had requested that he avoid mentioning their conversation to Freya if he could. He didn’t want to betray her trust, and he didn’t want to make it seem as if she had betrayed Freya’s, even though, by keeping the contents of their conversation private, she hadn’t.

The conversation was still on Quidditch. Good. There were numerous ways he could lead into the topic from here. To stay away from suspicion, he chose the easiest, most obvious one.

“Your friend must have been pleased,” he noted, resting his cards down. “Finn? Did you spend most of your time at the party with him?”

He got the sense that he hadn’t quite steered clear of not appearing suspicious yet, and he added with a smile, “As captains, you must have given some elaborate speech to rouse your fans after you won.”

“Finn?” she repeated, raising her eyebrows a little. Vaguely, Freya wondered if her older siblings were still somewhat under the impression that there was something going on between the two of them. She tilted her head to the side a little, wondering what Hal might think of Kerr. The idea made her cheeks redden a little and she glanced down quickly, knowing all too well that she was far too easy to read. “Yeah, I spent most of the party with him,” she answered vaguely, shuffling their cards together and re-dealing the complicated card formation the game required. Freya wiggled her hips, bouncing the bed a little in an effort to get more comfortable.

Her mind was fixed on the party. She’d spent a lot of time with Finn, but he was definitely not the only one she’d spent time with. In fact, Freya’s favourite memories of that party were the squiggly flutters she’d had when Kerr had hugged her rough and tight and told her how well she’d done. She had done a fantastic job, after all. Their teamwork had been immaculate, and even Freya, who found it hard to praise herself, understood that a lot of their win could be attributed to the planning and captaining that she and Finn had done together. Finn was an amazing quidditch captain, Freya thought vaguely. “You know I’ll get captain next year,” she said thoughtfully. Freya had thought about this before, but whenever she did it felt like a new surprise.

“Unless something drastic happens… like I get expelled or irreparably injured or something…” The girl smiled. The likelihood of the blonde getting expelled was so close to zero that it was hard not to find the idea funny. She shrugged again, subconsciously waving the thought away. It was a scary idea, and a lot of pressure… But Freya felt ready. She still had quite a while left before Finn was graduating anyway, but the Gryffindor had already planned to spend a large chunk of her summer training. If she was going to be the captain of the team then she had to be the best player, right?

Freya set down a few gems, following the game’s unnecessarily complex format with ease. “I spent time with others at the party too, obviously,” she commented offhandedly. The blonde turned a couple of silver coins over and placed a card face-down on in the space between them. “Everyone on the team… and everyone else. It was a busy party.” She couldn’t help the small smile that crept onto her lips.