draw it in front of your eyes { j e r e m y + }

"Camm, hi!" Freya said brightly, pleasant surprise in her tone. She gave her surroundings a quick glance before looking back, "I'd give you a hug, but," she motioned to the seat, how cramped in the corner she was. She and Camm had been friendly in school, but their friendship then had been similar to how it was now - mostly based around Ari. She saw Camm every now and again when she visited her other friend at their place, but it was rare that she'd end up in a one-on-one conversation with him. Actually, it was pretty rare that he'd be at one of these sorts of things either, but that was all the more reason to give him a warm greeting.

"Mmm?" The blonde blinked at him, honey-coloured eyes flicking down to the numbers again. "Weeee... don't really know what this is?" she told him, cringing outwardly to indicate her awareness of her own ignorance as she waved a hand at the paper. The girl slid it across the table, this time not entirely missing the damp parts, and rested an elbow on the table, her cheek in her palm. "The bar guy gave it to us," she added in a conspiratorial stage whisper. She flicked her eyes at the bar without moving her head before reaching for her glass with her other hand.

He'd heard a lot from other lads in his year about how Freya was the ideal girlfriend, and looking at her now, he supposed he understood the appeal. She was pretty, but in the sort of approachable, girl-next-door sort of way. And now that he'd made that realisation, it made things a little... awkward? Weird? He wasn't sure, but previously she'd just been Ari's friend, and now she was 'a pretty girl'. He'd need time to get used to this new classification.

"That's alright, don't trouble yourself." Camm rubbed his palms together and slapped them on his knees. He never knew where to put his hands when he's sitting on the tall stools every pub seemed to rely on. He definitely wasn't going to lean his elbows on the table with the spilled beer, he just couldn't be stuffed to do more laundry this weekend and he needed his jacket to smell decent for at least another week.

The grin made its way back on his face when Freya explained that the bartender had given the number. "It's a phone number," he struggled to explain, "muggles use this thing called the telephone, yeah? Sort of like a howler, but you can have a proper conversation. The technology bit is difficult to explain, but basically this is like us giving someone our address for them to write to." He turned around to look at the bartender. Not bad looking, tall and broad shoulders, he was probably more the type girls would normally go for. "I would ask which of you ladies turned his head, but I dunno, Jeremy could very well be the lucky guy." Camm clapped him on the shoulder to show that he was only joking, and made a move to get up.

"Another round? I'll buy." A peace offering, if anything.

If one more healer asked her what had happened Linnet swore she was going to slap someone.

It had been two weeks since she had returned from her involuntary morph to find herself naked on the earth of the Madin shrine, barely able to remember how to breathe, let alone walk or talk. But that had already been far too long for the young woman who had never asked to be the centre of attention anywhere. From what they'd said, and what little she could remember, someone had poisoned her at the Hogwarts end of year feast the previous year. She'd morphed into her elemental form almost reflexively, her body reacting in an effort to save her life. everyone had assumed she'd been transfigured and Ministry specialists had tried all kinds of magic to bring her back, before someone from the Council - she hadn't found out who, but assumed it was Ms Grey - had had her transplanted inexpertly to the Madin shrine.

Inexpertly, as evidenced by mutilated toes and a slight limp which well-meaning healers kept twittering that she would "learn to live with". Linnet didn't want to learn to live with a limp or weird-looking toes or hair that was turning grey far before her time. She wanted to be a tree again. She wanted the peace and tranquility of the shrine, or just somewhere she could be alone to dream the rest of her life away. So she had walked out of the Council buildings early that morning, claiming she wanted some time alone, in a tone of voice so sharp that it brooked no argument. She'd gotten good at that in the past couple of weeks. Still speaking exclusively Council gaelic - not even sure she could remember any other language - Linnet had left the Council and walked. Find a forest, walk into the centre, and stay there.

Immediately she'd started to wonder the sense of her plan. Her family thought she was dead, and strangely that didn't bother her, aside from her grandmother who she'd always been closest to. Linnet assumed the woman was still living in Chatoeil. Maybe she should go there, explain that she wasn't dead, she just wanted to be a tree now, and... okay, maybe that plan needed thinking through a bit more. But if she just walked into the forest, they would find her, try to drag her back again...

She walked until she found the town of Inverness itself, a place she had never been. Clad in council robes, soft slippers and a borrowed cloak; carrying nothing she attracted her share of stares as she wandered the streets, hoping for the telltale signs of a wizarding area, or even a shop, an owl office, anything... A man, taller and much broader than she, well-dressed but clearly not well bred, made an off colour suggestion as she passed. With an almost casual gesture she made a patch of grass grow up the middle of the street, sending him sprawling. Casting her hood over her hair, she walked until by sheer chance she saw another cloaked figure, followed into an unfamiliar street. Some of the words...the memory was returning. Floo network...yes. That was the way to travel. She pushed the door, went in, stood and stared as five or six other people went about their business. Someone mentioned a portkey; two elderly witches were standing next to a battered kettle, and she remembered that, too.

So it was that she had grabbed onto the kettle at the last possible moment and been transported to the outskirts of London, not even speaking when the old ladies asked who she was and what she thought she was doing. The air here was less clear, not somewhere she wanted to transform, but at least she was hidden. They wouldn't find her...she wasn't even sure who or what she was hiding from. So she walked, or at least limped, the soft shoes on her feet doing nothing to protect her from the hard pavement. She had no money, not until she'd stopped to admire the display outside a florists and the strong leaf of a calla lily had snaked into a pocket, providing her with a paper note with £10 written on it. That meant something, she knew... It was getting cooler now, evening drawing on and there were more people. Her feet ached, she was exhausted, and she wanted...

She didn't want to go into a pub full of muggles, but somehow she ended up doing that anyway. Someone asked if she was there for the quiz night and she nodded, not taking her hood down. They said something about a team, and she frowned, they said something about food and a special offer, and she nodded, remembering the piece of paper. She handed it over, was given some coins in exchange and a large glass of something brown and a plate with some sort of food. She held them as if they were alien creatures, saw an empty corner, and walked towards it. A table with a single chair...the group at the next table must have taken the rest for their party. Linnet picked a piece off the piecrust and put it into her mouth, staring at the group. There was something familiar about them but...this was a muggle pub. There was no way she could know them, was there?

[OOC: We accepted the invite...]

Keela eyed her friend and his mane of red hair.
“If you keep holding out just to wind us up, I swear to f—”

“Hey mate.”

Instinctively, the blonde swiveled in the direction of the new arrival; while she recognized his face instantly, it took her a few heartbeats longer to place his name. Camm smiled at her in greeting and she replied with a jaunty wave. They’d barely interacted despite sharing the majority of their school years; but Hogwarts was a small enough school that everyone pretty much knew who everyone else was, even if the people in question had never actually exchanged a syllable.

“Welcome to the greatest Mug— er, pub trivia team.” She grinned.

Interestingly, the older Hufflepuff alumnus’s gaze went almost immediately to the series of numbers with which Freya was preoccupied. Keela raised her eyebrows at his use of the word ‘lucky’. Had Freya won something?
Her brows furrowed as Camm explained; the word ‘telephone’ sounded vaguely familiar. However they contracted forcefully before shooting upward towards her hairline at his next comment.

“Like a Howler? You’re not bloody shouting at each other, are you?” The concept was intriguing, but odd… though the bit about the address being an analog did help her understanding somewhat.

Keela raised her glass for another sip; and promptly snorted into her beer when Camm suggested Jere had been the object of these pondered affections.
“Oh, aye, can’t go anywhere without this one stealing the spotlight.” She grinned, wiping the foam from her lip and off the tip of her nose. And at Camm’s offer she raised her glass to toast him in thanks. “And I’ve got the next. Or I’ll buy the pies. Beer or pies, you lot?”

As she cast a surveying glance around the table, Keela picked up a cloaked figure in her peripheral vision. Suspicious and intrigued she watched curiously, still peripherally, as the person moved towards the only empty spot in the crowded pub – the tiny nook with a two-person tabletop just a few arms’ lengths from where they were sitting – and sat down. And, she was quite certain, was staring at them.
Keela felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

“Blimey,” she muttered, casting the most fleeting of glances in the person’s direction. “Don’t look now, but” – she leaned in a bit closer to the group, trying to act nonchalant – “d’you reckon that’s one of our lot, there in the corner? Bit dodgy to stroll into a Muggle bar in a cloak…”
Hopefully neither of the other three would be terribly obvious when they did look. And it was probably nothing; but regardless, Keela felt a prickle of unease run up her spine. The current political climate was enough to put anyone on-edge.

Freya stared at Camm as he started talking, focusing hard on his words over the gradually increasing noise of the bar. She nodded a little; she knew about telephones. Sort of. Her gaze followed Camm's as her friend looked in the bartender's direction. She wasn't really listening to Keela's questions about yelling on the phone. Was Duncan trying... something? Trying to flirt, connect? Freya sunk in her seat a bit with a small a sigh. How did muggles and wizards even date? Freya knew that it happened; there were people in her year with just one muggle parent, one of them was sitting right beside her. Still, it felt impossible. How could she even get a telephone to find out? Such different worlds, she thought, turning her attention back to the group.

"Cheers," Freya said, catching the end of Camm's words. Something about drinks. "Beer," she added definitively in Keela's direction, a smile playing on her lips. She was pretty sure the question part of the quiz had just started (she'd heard someone call out something about a date some football thing was established, Freya didn't have the fuzziest clue), but she didn't need to be sober to participate. She turned her attention back to Keela as her friend spoke again.

Don’t look now, but -

Freya looked immediately in the direction Keela was pointedly avoiding. A frown appeared on and then quickly disappeared from her pretty face as she met the other girl's eyes and dropped her gaze to the table, feeling flustered. She did look like "one of their lot", as Keela had put it. Actually... Freya glanced up again, a little more subtly this time. "Looks kinda..." she tilted her head to the side slowly, then flicked her eyes in between her other friends. She almost didn't want to say it out loud. "Doesn't that kind of look like... Linnet?"

Eating was strange. She still hadn't quite got over the fact that everything happened so quickly when you were human, that things just passed right through you and...ugh. Not like the beautiful, slow symbiosis of spirit and natural world when one's leaves fell off at the end of the season...though Linnet-as-a-tree had apparently kept her leaves throughout the previous winter, something else she had been repeatedly asked about before leaving the shrine. As if she would be able to explain why her leaves hadn't fallen off and regrown with the changing seasons. It was like asking them why they grew hair out of the tops of their heads and their... She picked off some more of the piecrust, not sure if she liked it but knowing it would sustain her, and then came to something else, something dark and unfamiliar. She couldn't pick that out with her hands, so she lifted the pie to her mouth and took a bite. It was an odd taste, one she couldn't place, but she ate it anyway.

The large glass of unknown liquid was another matter. The colour of sandy soil, it looked enticing and smelled earthy. She carefully lifted it with both hands, drank cautiously, and felt her face attempt to form a long-forgotten smile. Slightly bitter and yet refreshing, it was the best thing she'd tasted since resuming her human form. She considered the flavour of the liquid as it ran down her throat, decided she liked it, and then drank some more. It was only then that she became aware - properly aware - of the group at the next table. At some point her hood had fallen back, not entirely, but enough that she couldn't hide within it any more. She stared anyway, thinking there was something familiar about them, at least something safer than all the other strangers she'd seen since leaving Inverness. And they were talking, not words she could hear or understand exactly, but there was a glance, and then some words, and then someone stared directly at her.

Linnet lifted her glass and took another drink as if she didn't care, she hadn't heard, hadn't seen. They weren't in council robes, they weren't going to take her back. She vaguely remembered her previous plan and wondered how she'd ended up here, in this crowded, unnatural room with strange unknown food and the best drink she'd ever had and then she heard her name.

She heard her name?

Did they know her, then? Did she know them? Were they...yes, they looked about the same age as her. So had they been  - she fumbled mentally for the word - friends? Slowly, she raised her hand and lowered her hood completely, staring in their direction as she did so. Her face was expressionless, her eyes intense as she tried to remember how people greeted each other. She had been reminded at the Council, but after so long without speaking it all seemed so complicated. She wanted to ask who they were, how they knew her, where she was, did they know where she could sleep tonight, were there any forests nearby...

She settled instead for a hoarse, "Yes?"

"No, it's not really– tell you what, next time you guys can all come over to my dad's and I'll show you how it works. It's a lot more bloody convenient than owls, let me tell you that." Camm laughed and raised an empty glass as a mock toast back. Telephones wouldn't take a shit on your stuff when they felt like it either. He loved his owl, don't get him wrong, but that thing could be a right menace when it wanted to be. Things like this just reminded him of how different the two worlds he had a foot in each were.

Leaving the conversation there, he got up to go buy the next round. He briefly considered getting two jugs but between the four of them, who all didn't seem like heavy drinkers, one jug should be alright for now. Four clean pint glasses and they could deal with on tap. He's not blowing anymore cash until he gets paid again.

There was a girl who winked at him while he waited for the glasses, and Camm scratched the back of his head, looking away somewhat bashfully after a quick smile. He still wasn't sure what to do with this sudden attention he got since he'd been going to the gym, and he definitely wasn't used to it yet. He made a hasty retreat after he got the clean glasses—which apparently were flying off the racks quicker than the beer—and got back to the table just in time to hear Freya mention Linnet.

Sure enough, the person who dropped her hood and stared at them as if she'd clean forgotten who they were was Linnet. Or at least, it looked like the former Hufflepuff. Camm felt a bit guilty thinking this, but he didn't even know that she was still alive. He'd been selfishly wrapped up in his own life as usual, and his former housemate just wasn't on the top of his mind. "Um, hey Linnet. It's been a while, yeah? What've you been up to?" He turned to the others for help, and mouthed well? Should we ask her to join us? as discreetly as he could.

The redhead smiled coyly, shrugging his shoulders too, as he narrowly avoided answering any more of their questions about his dramatic night with Lesleigh. He knew they wanted details, and normally he would of been jumping to tell them, but this was a bit different. Nothing really had happened, it was a series of weird events that should have led to something but didn't. It was basically the sum total of his entire life... come to think of it. A bunch of nonsense, a big mess, going no where.

Instead of answering their questions he gave the newest addition to their group a nod of hello as he sat down before playfully sticking his tongue out at Keela as the conversation took a turn back toward the numbers scratched on a napkin. Growing up the child of two halfblood parents with their feet firmly in the wizarding world Jeremy wasn't exactly up to date on these things so when Camm began to explain what was before them he paid attention. Well, as much attention as Jeremy Edwards was able to muster. He listened with one knee bouncing and occasional glances around the room anytime someone laughed or something shiny happened. When Keela chimed in about the idea of telephones being like howlers Jeremy couldn't help but chuckle. "Sounds like my kind of thing." He was the type who was constantly shouting across the apartment, never bothering to walk up to his roommates and actually talk to them.

Turning back to Camm the former Gryffindor bounced a little on the edge of his bar stool and then fluffed the ridiculous mane of hair that cascaded off of his shoulders in weird fire red curls. Keela's comment about stealing the spotlight lined his next remark up perfectly as he joked back with them. "It's the hair, ladies can't keep their hands off of it." He tossed some of it from his shoulder and finished with a whisper. "It's a leave in conditioner."

The former badger was headed to get them the next round when Keela told them not to look over in the corner and naturally both Freya and Jeremy were quick to do exactly the opposite. Curious eyes darted to a familiar looking witch dressed in a cloak sitting alone and Jere knew exactly who she was. Though they had never been very close growing up Jeremy spent a lot of time in the Greenhouses and excelled at Herbology. Linnett had always been one of the few students their age that was actually better at it than he was, almost freakishly good at the subject really, and he hadn't forgotten what happened on the last night of Hogwarts either.

Just as things were getting awkward Camm showed up, with the perfect ice breaker and Jeremy, ever the social butterfly, wasted zero time getting things going. Grabbing a few glasses he was ninety percent sure were totally clean from the empty table behind him Jeremy started pouring glasses for everyone, including a fifth for Linnet. He held it toward her with a typical grin and spoke. "Come join us Linnet, you can watch me crush these mugg-- locals with my awesome trivia prowess." He corrected himself with a poorly placed cough and continued.

Jeremy was terrible at muggle trivia.

He was terrible at wizard trivia too.

She hadn't expected this. Truth be told, she hadn't expected anything, hadn't in fact had any plans at all besides to get away from the Council where everyone bombarded her with questions and wanted to know how it had felt to be in her elemental form for so long at such a young age, and why she'd decided to return, and... Questions she didn't understand, even if she had got answers for them.

The man - boy - who spoke now seemed familiar, and she had a flash of a memory once again. This time it was a colour. A flash of yellow when he was speaking. She took that to mean they had known each other once and, because he didn't immediately start asking the standard questions, that he didn't actually know where she'd come from. A good sign. She remembered at this point that one was supposed to smile at friends so she tried that, even while she tried to remember how to answer. Blurting out the truth wouldn't have seemed at all odd to the elemental, though thankfully words were slower in forming, thus a squad of obliviators wouldn't be needed this evening. While she tried to remember how to answer a question that wasn't how did you change back or are you sure you can't remember anything? she ate some more of her pie, the gravy running down the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away with the back of her hand as someone else spoke.

There was less familiarity now, no flash of memory or colour as there had been with the other boy, but there was something else. An invitation, a glass held towards her and she understood that far better than the words that accompanied it. Her own glass was almost empty now, she saw what she was being offered and didn't take long to figure out how to react.

"Thank you..." After a moment's consideration she stood, brought the remains of her pie to the table and then carried her own chair across, oblivious of the fact that half the people round this table would likely have had to remind themselves not to simply summon it those few feet. She seated herself again, glanced around the pub as she actually saw it for the first time, noting how people were seated in groups and most of them had the same food as herself. "This is...a contest?" she asked carefully, remembering that there was a reason one didn't talk freely in front of the sort of people  who weren't at her table, but not yet the reason why.

Freya had spoken too loudly; Linnet had heard her. Shit. She froze for a second as Linnet lowered her hood and fixed the group with an unnerving stare.

The blonde offered a weak smile, and was grateful when her friends piped up and covered for her. She'd never been particularly close with the Hufflepuff girl - knew who she was obviously - but it wasn't like they'd been good friends or anything. She hadn't really thought about her since shortly after school had finished. It made her feel a little bad. Freya exchanged glances with one of her friends as Linnet dragged her chair over. She kept smiling, still not sure how she should be acting.

It was awkward.

Should they ask about last year? Should they ask about where Linnet had been, what she'd been doing? She didn't really know what to say, but after a couple of beers she was more loose-tongued than usual. When Linnet asked a question, there was a momentary pause. Regrettably (but surely to no one's surprise), Freya went with the embarrassing path of over-speaking rather than not speaking enough.

"Yeah just a quiz," she gushed immediately, leaning forward a bit, elbows on the table and her chin in her palms. "they just ask a bunch of questions and we fill in this paper - " she leaned in to tap on the piece of paper " - and at the end whoever got the most answers right wins a prize. Usually it's just a round or two, or sometimes it's something random like a meat platter ooooorr a bakery hamper from the bakery across the road or something." A quick breath. "But we never win because we don't know anything. Well, usually we don't." Freya glanced at Camm. There usually weren't any muggleborns in the group, but even when there were, the questions were often too niche or obscure for any of them to know. "But it's just for fun anyway," she said, glancing back at Linnet with a hopeful smile.

Predictably, Freya and Jeremy immediately looked over, and Keela barely resisted the impulse to face-palm – but couldn’t quell a small smile of amusement despite her unease. As though she might counteract the other two Gryffindor alumni’s stares, she chose to watch Jeremy’s curly red mane opposite her instead.

And then Freya’s next words made her heart stop.
“Doesn't that kind of look like… Linnet?”

At the mention of the older girl’s name, Keela had the sudden sensation that a block of lead had just dropped into her stomach. The conversation around her faded into indiscriminate buzzing as she felt the blood drain from her face.

‘How?’

Her first instinct was to whip her head back around and stare, but she kept her gaze fixed on her mug of beer in front of her; both hands that were just casually wrapped around it seconds before now gripped much tighter. Her first identifiable emotion (aside from shock) was relief that Linnet was, in fact, not dead – closely followed by the realization that the former Hufflepuff’s sudden resurfacing could be a game-changer for DJ. Somehow nearly two years had already passed; but it suddenly felt like the End-of-Term disaster had been just yesterday.

Dimly, she registered Camm’s voice, but was still too frozen to look up – until Jere dove in headfirst and invited Linnet to sit with them. For a wild moment, an illogical wave of panic seized her. It was common knowledge (or so the Gryffindor thought) that Keela and DJ were close friends; would Linnet blame her for what had transpired? Hate her? Did she even remember what happened?

Questions swirled like a vortex in her brain, but fortunately Jeremy’s knack of steamrolling any awkward pauses seemed to break up some of the tension and she took a steadying breath.

‘Just act normally,’ she reminded herself. If she were in Linnet’s place, she would probably appreciate minimal questioning; her suspicions were confirmed when she seemingly avoided Camm’s question but accepted Jere’s invitation. Pulling herself together as quickly as possible, Keela scooted over to make room for the older girl, offering a brief smile in greeting and praying it didn’t waver. Linnet asked what was happening in a strangely halting manner, and thankfully Freya quickly leapt into an explanation. When she was finished, Keela had recovered herself enough to have the presence of mind to engage in conversation instead of sitting like a deer in headlights.

“Some teams are really competitive so it can get a bit… mad… but all-in-all it’s pretty relaxed. Like Freya said, it’s usually a bloody miracle if we get a single question right.” The blonde laughed, reaching for her glass. “We mostly just come to catch up and get a change of pace from the— our part of town.” She shrugged casually. It was unlikely that any of the surrounding tables were listening intently to their conversation, but all the same it was probably safest to steer clear of any references to the magical world.

Although – Keela thought as her pale blue gaze briefly found Linnet’s face – that might be more difficult than usual with their newest addition dressed as she was. With any luck, people wouldn’t look twice; the lighting wasn’t the greatest, in any case. She brushed aside the concern for the moment.

“It’s… good to see you, Linnet.”
It was a simple phrase that the Irish witch said in greeting to nearly every schoolmate she met on the street outside of school – but it felt so strange in this case. Taking another sip of her beer to hide her awkwardness, she raised her eyebrows at the older girl over the rim of the glass.
“So… you up for helping us improve our track record?”

It wasn't that Jeremy was completely insensitive to the darker history that connected all of them like some kind of tangled spider web, the fact that a lot people had thought that Linnet had died, that DJ was imprisoned for the crime, that it was yet another notch in Hogwarts' less than stellar recent history. Surely they all wished that was the only bad thing that had happened during their tenure but alas it was not. No he wasn't insensitive to any of that -- he just didn't really remember it.

Two years was a long time and a whole lot of nothing (and a bit more drugs) had clouded the memories he'd made in between. They'd finally graduated, escaped that death pit of a school, and moved on to become well-adjusted contributing members of society (some more than others, most more than Jeremy). They were on their own and the world seemed to be orbiting right on by them. Jeremy felt swallowed whole by all of it in the beginning. He'd started a meaningless job as a tie-wearing drone at the Ministry. He lived with more young adults than was probably legal as far as England housing codes were concerned. And he hadn't eaten a vegetable in at least four months. It was safe to say he was not living his best life. Never the less, all of it made it that much easier to distance himself from the nonsense and terror of Hogwarts. All the bad memories seemed to fade away, sometimes with the help of hazy substances, and all that was left was the good stuff. Like the Quidditch matches Keela owned, the pranks with Henry, the time he got gum in his hair and nearly saw Ariana in the Prefect's bathroom, the time Danny did see Freya in the tub (not that he believed Danny's stories of course), only the good stuff.

And that selective memory made it easier for Jeremy than it might have been for some of his friends at the table to welcome Linnett with out hesitation. Not that Gryffindors (or Hufflepuffs!) were ever unaccommodating, naturally. He listened to Freya and Keela as they took turns explaining a bit about what a bunch of witches and wizards were doing in this muggle pub and then smacked the table excitedly by the end. "By 'some of the teams' she means Freya." He said with complete seriousness and some air quoting finger movements. "Sore loser that one." He whispered loudly at Linnett, his hand blocking his mouth in Freya's direction before howling with laughter. This was honestly the best part of his week. Jokes and drinks all around, it didn't get much better.

Finally the microphone squealed followed by a couple taps which to this day Jeremy Edwards still did not understand. Why did they always have to test it first? Shouldn't it just work? Muggle technology was supposed to be reliable right? "Alright lords and ladies, it's time for Trivia!" Suddenly came over the mystical loud speakers that filled the room with the voice of the announcer and Jeremy began to rub his hands together excitedly. The first question was about to be announced, and not a moment too soon because Jeremy's buzz was starting to kick in.

"This English singer-songwriter gained international fame with her song Thank You, and then went on to collaborate with an American rapper in a song about a crazed fan going too far."

Freya was thankful when the others took over, so she could shut her mouth and stop awkwardly babbling. She had that problem sometimes. leaning back in her seat, the girl picked up her glass with two hands and took a long drink. Maybe if she was drinking, she wouldn’t be talking?

“Sore loser!” she scoffed, playing along. Freya hadn’t even been that competitive when she’d been captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team (though of course she relished the fact that they’d won, like, three years in a row), let alone a casual pub quiz night. She tried not to exchange glances with the others at the weird situation they were in, but couldn’t help swapping glances with Keela. Weird, both their sets of eyes said.

The blonde sat back up straight as the actual quiz started, but she totally missed the question. Something about a singer? “Rachel,” she said immediately, locking eyes with Jeremy. Sometimes they did this; threw out all kinds of possible answers like they were playing cards and picked their favourite ones to put down. Without Danny and his “surveillance” skills, it was extremely rare that they ever got anything right.