[hampstead] its the most wonderful time(bomb) of the year. [michael]

December 2003

Christmas at the Nandamuri's was nothing if not entertaining. It was dry, uncomfortable, and chock full of Tupperware containers. It was endlessly amusing for Mavis, who by no fault of her own, had become accustomed to consuming the drama unfolding like it was some BBC Christmas Special. A part of the problem and a spectator, the silly little witch was always waiting for the next tense moment. The trouble had started earlier in the afternoon when Esther had accused Mavis of stealing her favorite pair of heels. Denying until the end (even though she had rifled through her sister's closet for shoes,) Mavis decided to boycott shoes for the rest of the evening out of spite. Next came the burned potatoes, the girls fighting over who got to eat the leftover cake icing, and Ray wanted to listen to the rebroadcast of the Puddlemere match.

By the time Grandmother Dawson showed up, annoying ferret-sized ankle-biting dog in tow, poor Sandra's forty-five-minute hairdo was a frazzled frizzy mess, and the kitchen looked like a warzone. Sandra, the beautiful soul that she was, deflected her feelings of inadequacy in the face of her mother toward her own children. Nitpicking how Mavis had braided her hair and bragging about her Hogwarts grades in the same breath had the Gryffindor rolling her eyes. More and more lately, the two had been getting into it. The summer had been dreadful, constant arguing, both looking to Mavis' father to take a side, and being left disappointed. It seemed the winter holiday would be more of the same.

They made it through the arrival of Michael, a half-hour of Esther and Grandmother Dawson singing Christmas Carols, and almost finished dinner before things came to a head. Mavis was used to her mother trying to decide Esther and her future. She had pushed them toward skills she thought would be useful (hair, makeup, keeping house while doing as little as possible, and so on), but the two had never seen eye to eye when it came to Quidditch. Sandra thought it was a boy's sport, which Ray hadn't corrected her on, and Mavis had defied everything expected when she made the house team. When she fell last year and didn't join the team at the start of the term, the subject became a powderkeg in the Nandamuri house.

And while she might not have meant to, Sandra lit the fuse with a smile. "Mavis gave up Quidditch to focus on more important things this term; my baby is going to be a mediwitch," The woman told the oldest witch at the table over a bite of storebought mixed vegetables. "Mum," Mavis had whined, but it hadn't stopped Sandra from elaborating. "Honey, you quit, and there is nothing wrong with that. Besides, the odds of making a decent living playing professionally are astronomical. Better to work at St. Mungo's as we planned."

Terrified to fly again but too stubborn to admit it to her parents, the Gryffindor let her fork slam down on the over-buttered mashed potatoes (Sandra's "trick" to cover up that she had burned them when they were scalloped) and huffed. "I am not going to be a healer. We never planned that!" Mavis shouted before she got up from the table. Her chair fell back against the wainscotting with a thud. She stomped out of the room with a glare through the patio door and into the mushy backyard. It had snowed a few days ago, but it was all melted and gross now, leaving deceiving wet patches in the grass that soaked the black tights covering her otherwise bare feet. Her feet and arms were cold before she reached the Chicken Coop, but there was no chance she would turn around now.

After fighting with Sandra, sulking in the yard was Michael's play, but Mavis hoped he wouldn't mind her borrowing it for a little while. Mavis couldn't be trusted to be in the same room as her mother right now.

@Michael Corner

These days Michael showed up as late as he reasonably could to holiday dinners, in the hopes that his family would get through the worst of it all beforehand; by the time he made it in the door it was late afternoon, most of the food was already done, it smelled like something had burned, his sisters were clearly in a tiff, and Ray had turned up the radio too loud over the rest of the hubbub. He’d decided that he was going to be reasonable this year. No arguing, no sulking, no swearing. This was going to go well if it killed him, ergo, he spent an hour and a half sitting in dead silence with Ray listening to the game.

His mother was definitely paying attention to how much wine he was drinking -- he’d worked this out last year when she’d asked him loudly if he really needed that fourth glass -- so this year he had gotten drunk beforehand. This had been a bad idea. By the time dinner started he was edgy, groggy, and no longer drunk. His mother didn’t even seem to be paying attention to his abstinence -- she was too focussed on the girls. Serve him right for being reasonable for once.

He might have expected this; the last time he’d come to Christmas determined not to get into a fight, Esther had taken up the mantle. It was Mavis’s turn and that felt right to him. At least until she stormed off before she and Sandra could really get going.

It hadn’t escaped anybody’s notice that storming off was a leaf straight out of Michael’s book. Even his grandmother’s ratlike little dog was giving him a look. Michael stood it for two seconds before deciding that they’d all already ruined Christmas and it wouldn’t do any harm to ruin it a little more -- “Damn it, Mrs. Dawson, this is your fault.” That worked like a charm: the adults started to protest and he and Esther excused themselves from the table.

One year he’d almost bit Sandra’s head off because she’d come out to the coop to bother him too soon after his tantrum, so he knew better than to go straight out to see Mavis; instead, he waited in the kitchen for his mother to inevitably go for a new bottle of wine.

He rapped smartly on the door to the chicken coop, then stooped over -- almost in half -- to get inside; Mavis looked like she was freezing, so he shut the door quickly behind him. “I asked your mum about your recipe and she told me you just get ‘em from the grocer and put ‘em in a dish.” He held out the plate of biscuits for her to take. “Made my life easier, I’ll tell you.”

He lowered himself to sit cross-legged opposite her -- Mavis had taken his usual spot -- and wormed his jumper over his head, held it out to her. “Your mum’ll kill me if you die of frostbite on my watch,” he said, “Why didn’t you wear shoes?”

Mavis had so much more she wanted to say to her mum and her grandmother, for that matter. Twice she headed back out of the coop, stomping toward the house, before spinning around and retreating again. The teenager was so mad that she could barely string two sentences together. It was strange to her. She loved to talk, and now she was speechless. Pissed off and out of words. It was rough. She leaned against the shelf where the eggs were collected, wrapping her arms against herself and shivering as she played out a few different approaches in her head.

When she heard the door to the coop opening, the words came rushing back to her as a violent dam breaking loose. "Get out," She called, assuming it was her mum coming to drag her back to the house, but when she saw the tall figure doubling over to fit inside, she eased up. Her fingernails left little half-moon shaped marks on her bare upper arms from where she had gripped, and they turned blue when she let go. "Oh, sorry," Mavis said, apologetically, but still as tense as before as Michael joined her in the cramped chicken coop. This was his haven, she was borrowing it, and she tried to remind herself of that.

"She did not!" Mavis threw her head back dramatically, stomping her barefoot. A ridiculous amount of straw had begun to collect on the underside of her muddy feet, one of the nylons had already ripped, and her pinky toe was sticking out, but Mavis couldn't be bothered. Her store-bought cookies were a time-honored tradition, and she was quite proud of them. Snatching one of the biscuits from the plate Mavis took a theatric bite of it, the crumbs falling down the front of her dress, and huffed. "Well, she burned the potatoes, and that cake is store-bought too," Mavis mumbled with her mouth still full of cookies, her head tilting from one side to the other chaotically as she went on the defensive.

Rationally she knew Michael wasn't attacking her, and her mum hadn't told him the truth out of spite, but right now, Mavis was having a hard time living in reality. The teenager accepted Michael's sweater like a consolation prize, trying her best to give him a thankful smile, but looked petty instead. She pulled it over her, the cookie hanging dangerously out of her mouth as she fixed her hair around the collar. "Because Esther accused me of stealing her shoes," She shot back, shrugging as the tension in her shoulders started to loosen up. Being angry was a powerful feeling, and more often than not, the hormonal teenager felt so overwhelmed by it that there was nothing she could do but let it out in the form of hysterical laughter.

"So I threw her shoes back in her room, out of protest," She said smugly, giggling as she bit off the head of the store-bought gingerbread cookie with more force than was necessary.

He ignored the ‘get out’.

Mavis didn’t take the plate -- just a single gingerbread man -- so he set it down on the floor, then -- thinking better of that -- on his lap, and took one too. “Yeah, I saw the cake box in the bin,” he said, and realised -- too late -- that Mavis probably wanted to feel like she was telling him things he wasn’t supposed to know, as if he’d never lived here before. (He had spent half of his Christmases in this house; he knew how the sausage got made.)

He scratched his nose as he waited for her to put his jumper on; his right knee was already cramping up, so he extended the leg carefully, directly into a heap of straw -- he grimaced, but he didn’t feel like getting up again and brushing it off, and he probably had it all over his bum by now anyway, so he just folded his arms across his chest to keep warm and leaned more carefully against the shelf. Some hay was sticking into his back, but if he started scratching it now he’d never stop, so he did his best to ignore it.

Michael had snapped at Mavis dozens of times at Christmases past, so he knew better than to get defensive for no reason; it would have been hypocritical. Studiously he bit the arms off his biscuit and said, “Malicious compliance?” He obviously wasn’t any stranger to self-endangerment to prove a point -- besides the obvious, he’d once gotten his dad to rescind a don’t-come-in-until-you’re-ready-to-be-reasonable mandate by sitting out all night and giving himself pneumonia (which had, of course, been unreasonable) -- but if he wanted to stay on his mother’s good side this year, he probably didn’t want to tell Mavis about that stunt, so he sniffed and said, “Just don’t step in bird poo.”

It was cold in the chicken coop; he sort of wished the biscuits had been homemade, so they could at least have been warm. (Come to think of it, he wondered if Mavis had been warming them up in the oven all this time to further the illusion -- he wouldn’t have put it past her.) He finished his biscuit and took another one, tapped it thoughtfully against his cheek. “Why are you so set against being a Mediwitch?” he said, finally -- Mavis was (to his delight, and also to his chagrin) enough like him that he suspected there was more to it than that.

Mavis groaned loudly, the dramatic look on her face showing just how displeased she was that Michael had figured out one of her secrets. Mavis knew she hadn't hidden it well, it was a surprise the rouse had lasted as long as it did, but still, it felt like just another thing on today's list of annoyances. And while she knew he hadn't brought it up to offend her, Mavis still felt miffed by it. "Well, it's not as if I bought the cheap ones; that has to count for something, right?" She defended, ready to lay down on yet another sword. To Mavis, everything felt like the literal end of the world.

The young witch pulled Michael's jumper on and immediately felt a little bit warmer, the chill that had been creeping up her spine now kept at bay. She was reasonably sure there was hay in between the sweater and her dress; it was itchy and annoying, but the Gryffindor tried to convince herself it would serve as added insulation and not mess with it. It was okay, as long as she didn't move, but every time she shifted, a little stalk would irritate her back.  "Indeed," Wasting very little time in between when he said Malicious compliance and agreeing, the dramatic witch folded her hands in front of her chest and looked away. Mavis was an absolute professional when it came to conform to the letter, but not the spirit, of a request.

"And if Esther won't share, then my frostbite is on her, innit?" Mavis knew she was ridiculous, but she had her sister-goggles on now, and any form of the argument made a lot more sense, so long as she won in the end.

Michael reached for another cookie, and Mavis's arms slid further toward her stomach, holding back the hungry growl that was threatening to surface. She should have eaten more before making a dramatic exit, or at the very least, brought her plate with her. Grabbing a store-bought biscuit for herself, Mavis took her time mulling over what her brother asked. Why was she so adamant against becoming a healer? Honestly, it was a good job, and Mavis liked to help people (also known as Mavis loved to be right), but something about the idea irked her. "Because that is what she decided," Speaking before she finished chewing, Mavis made a face as little bits of cookie spit from her mouth. Mavis brushed them off of Michael's sweater with an apologetic smile.

"I'm not saying I would hate it, but it should be my choice, right? Like isn't that what all the stupid pamphlets and meetings with the head of house are for? To help me choose?" Being the fifth year was hard enough with boys and homework and gossip and boys, but now she also had to decide her entire future? It was too much to deal with all at once. "When did you know what you wanted to do for the rest of your life?" Mavis's head tilted back as she said 'the rest of your life,' emphasizing the idea theatrically.

Michael felt like Mavis was saying extreme things now just to say them and not because she meant them, but he paused to consider for a moment whether it would be on Esther if Mavis got frostbit. “No,” he said -- he was tempted to temper it a little and change it to ‘Not really,’ but his sister was being sort of ridiculous. He had never seen much point in their bickering with each other.

Bickering with their mum, he understood.

Mavis took a while to think over what it was about Mediwitching that bothered her before she answered -- vehemently. “Oh,” he said, not entirely surprised. Their mum had made all the wrong decisions when she’d been seventeen and had gotten rather strict with him when he’d started to show signs of poor decision-making. She spewed crumbs onto his jumper and he returned her slight grimace -- it’d taken him ages to make, even if it’d come out fairly asymmetrical. (He had a lot of fubar knitwear he’d just opted to keep.)

He was still staring at the sleeve with the mismatched stripes when she spoke again -- he glanced back up at her face. “Yeah,” he said finally -- she was really not at an age where she’d want him to tell her that, like it or not, her parents did have a say in this -- “It should be.” He sat forward and rubbed his hands on his knees -- he wished he’d just worn jeans, but he’d had some cockamamie desire to not look like a slob in front of his grandmother -- and blew out a breath, puffing out his cheeks. When had he known what he’d wanted to do with his life?

After a moment he sat back into the hay again and swore under his breath. “Not sixteen,” he said at last, and grinned ruefully, not quite meeting her eyes. “I dunno, Mae, I guess I had plans when I was your age but obviously they’re not doing me much good now -- tell that to your mum, I guess.” He paused, then added, “I was an idiot back then.” He wondered what she remembered about him at that age, or -- oh God -- what their mother had told her about it. Michael himself had been unforthcoming; it was a lot to explain.

He scratched his nose and changed the subject -- “Why did you drop out of Quidditch?”

Mavis pretended she hadn't heard Michael disagreeing with her because it was easier than letting herself go down a road of rationality. The stubborn little witch was perfectly happy blaming Esther, her mum, and the world for all of her problems right now, and she didn't plan on stopping anytime soon. Pouting a little, Mavis looked more like a child throwing a tantrum than a teenage witch who was capable of making life decisions. Mavis continued badgering her brother with half questions she didn't want to be answered, and things she knew deep down weren't true until she ran out of steam.

Michael went on to tell her that his plans hadn't done him much good, and she supposed she had already known that to be true. Come to think of it, Mavis couldn't name a single adult in her life that had said, 'I grew up and do exactly what I always thought I would.' It was a pity, but Mavis was much too young to feel the acute pain of such disappointment. She still had her whole life ahead of her, as her grandmother loved to awkwardly remind her, so there was no use in mourning something she hadn't wasted yet. "I was an idiot back then." , Michael had said, and despite her emotional breakdown, the little witch couldn't help herself.

"Back then?" She said, the temper tantrum behind her and a mischievous smile sliding onto her dark features. It was easier to talk to Michael about more important things that they both found interesting, like how to properly compose a bulleted list or Baby Spice's upcoming solo album. Mavis moved to sit on her feet, the little bits of straw poking through her now destroyed leggings, and started to feel a little bit better.

Until Michael brought up Quidditch.

"I had to," She answered quickly as if that was the beginning, middle, and end of the story, but Mavis had a feeling the conversation wouldn't end there. Sighing, she began to look around the chicken coop at anything other than her brother. Anything to distract herself. "It is filthy in here, by the way," She mentioned as if that would change the subject. Remnants of what she had felt when her parents had the same questions started bubbling to the surface, and Mavis went on the defense. "I can't fly anymore, so why would I stay on the team?"

“Oi,” Michael protested, though he knew she didn’t mean it. One of the few things he felt he could take for granted with his sisters was that they still thought he was, like, alright -- maybe not cool, maybe not even clever anymore, but not a complete moron. At least it had cheered her up to poke fun at him. “Near got expelled from school, have I ever told you that?” He didn’t think he had -- it’d gotten rather difficult to discuss his first round with the D.A. once he’d gone the second.

Their mum might have told them, though. Again he wondered what his mum had told any of the Nandamuris about him or his dad, before he’d moved in here. Or what they believed of him. He’d been happy as a kid to imagine that it would never really matter to him, what his replacements thought of him, but once he’d had to live with them, it had started to bother him that he didn’t know for sure.

Mavis sat down, and Michael relaxed a little into the straw; carefully he selected another biscuit and bit off its arms. It was filthy here, but like hell was he going to clean something on Christmas when he’d already worked half a shift this morning, and Mavis was just trying to change the subject, so he said “Nice try. Why did you drop out of Quidditch?”

Theoretically, she should still have been able to fly -- she still had all four limbs and, as far as he was aware, all her ribs and clavicles were back to normal -- but she was avoiding his gaze and he was starting to feel a weird déjà vu about this whole thing; it made him remember coming home for Christmas in ninety-eight and telling his mum he’d dropped out of Potions. “Well -- why can’t you fly anymore?” he said, finally. “Sure it’s like riding a bicycle, innit? You only need to learn it once?”

"You did not." Mavis countered. There was no way Michael Corner had almost gotten expelled from Hogwarts; she couldn't believe it, okay, actually, the more Mavis thought about it, the more it seemed plausible. She vaguely remembered her mother stomping around a lot one summer and Esther telling her to stop eavesdropping from the top of the stairs. "What happened?" Mavis blurted out, unable to stop herself from being needlessly nosy. It was more than just curiosity or wanting to follow in her brother's footsteps; it was also an excellent way to keep the conversation off of herself.

Or so she had hoped. "Nice try. Why did you drop out of Quidditch?" . Damn her brother and his reasonable attention span. Mavis scrunched up her nose at him; she didn't want to answer the questions but knew she would anyway. She felt like she had explained this a hundred times, but in reality, she'd barely scratched the surface. Anytime her mum asked her about it, it was about thirty seconds before Mavis huffed dramatically and stomped away. Life was so hard.

"Well yeah, you would think that wouldn't you?" Mavis answered, instinctively moving to cross her arms in front of her chest and stare at him. If it was just like riding a bike, she should have been just fine, but it wasn't that simple. "I mean, I still remember how to fly, it's just, every time I think about it, I get all... I don't know...." Mavis took a deep breath, exhaling through her mouth, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She felt vulnerable, and she hated it. "I guess I'm scared of falling again."

“Did too,” said Michael automatically; that made him sound all of twelve years old, which made him grin, but he said more helpfully, “I went out with Ginny Weasley, is what. Let her drag me and my friends into some cockamamie club trying to take over the government.” That was how his dad had put it every time it came up for the rest of his life, at least -- that’s what you said before I found out you were in some cockamamie club trying to take over the government -- and though Michael had used to protest that this was a major mischaracterisation and that they had never planned to usurp anything or anybody, he thought it made him sound cooler now.

In a sense, anyway, they’d gotten there eventually.

Michael thought it was hilarious when Mavis was upset about things -- not because he lived to see his sister in acute distress, but because she never really seemed to know what she was arguing, other than ‘against’. Like her default setting was antagonistic -- and though Michael could understand the feeling, though Michael had been just as disagreeable when he was sixteen, he had never been as impossible to argue with. He thought, in fact, he had been rather easy to argue with.

Right now, though, he didn’t even want to argue with Mavis. She was clearly still upset. “Mae,” he said softly, but he didn’t know what else to say that could convince her that he was trying, here -- he averted his gaze, stared instead at one of the chickens pecking at the straw as she spoke again.

“So,” he reasoned slowly -- “You had a big scare, it’s natural that it would be hard to go back up there.” It felt immeasurably stupid describing it like that -- like it was a snake in a hole or a clown behind a door, and not an altogether feasible possibility -- but this was starting to remind him of his own biggest scare. Every time I think about it. How often was that? Once a week? Every day? Constantly? Did it churn in her stomach or buzz in her head or choke her chest?

How was he supposed to help her when he’d never figured out how to handle his own fear? Michael lifted his head again to look at his sister’s face, her eyebrows knit nervously. She looked a lot younger suddenly. “I get that,” he said finally.

Mavis didn't remember a lot of what was happening around the time Michael was describing. She had been quite young and nearly completely sheltered from it. Michael had been a student when everything had taken a turn, and he'd been able to be a part of something. Dating Ginny Weasley (THE Ginny Weasley!!!!) and joining up with Dumbledore's Army sounded like such an amazing experience to Mavis, but of course, it did. The young witch had glamourized the whole thing in her head, leaving out the traumatic bits and only highlighting and underlining the heroic parts. She thought it was so cool.

"Cockamamie," She repeated, giggling a little at the silliness of the word Michael had used and was suddenly brought back down to Earth, inside the filthy chicken coop, where she remembered her big brother was kind of lame. Cool for trying to change the world and all, but still kind of lame. "You don't regret it, though, right?" Mavis asked, sitting up a little with an apparent interest in the subject. The witch always wanted more details, more facts, more data.

Though she would have much rather been listening to Michael recount his glory days (?) Mavis couldn't avoid the subject of flying forever. She scrunched up her nose at the way he explained it, she had a big scare, "It was more than that," She protested, pulling on the collar of her dress to show off the scar across her collar bone. She'd broken bones, knocked out, and woke up in the hospital wing, it was more than just a scare, and Mavis resented Michael for reducing it to such. She was fighting him for no reason again, protesting anything he said because it was better than admitting defeat. Mavis knew her battle wasn't with Michael, though, but he was a whole lot easier to fight than her fears.

"I get that," He said, and Mavis felt the weight behind the words.

"You do?"

Frankly, Michael didn’t regret it, if “it” was dating Ginny Weasley, or joining the D.A., or rejoining the D.A., but he couldn’t say truthfully that he didn’t have other, quasi-related regrets, so he grimaced and said, “Short answer, no.” That would make her curious about the long answer, but he was determined not to talk about it, so he added, “Long answer is too long.”

Sitting like this, though, antsy and itchy, talking about big scares, he couldn’t help thinking about it, and thinking about it in rather more detail than he liked to think about it when he was here with his mum’s family. She tugged her collar down to remind him of the damage her fall had left; dutifully Michael glanced at it, and then politely away – he’d always hated the look of scars – and said, “You know what I meant. It scared you.” He’d taken the torture badly, but the fear had lasted longer.

He’d stopped talking, and stopped looking at her, and stopped moving almost entirely; he realised that all at once, and took a deep, hasty breath, finally reached behind him to scratch at where the straw was poking him. Mavis took it in – you do? – and he shrugged, and didn’t quite manage to unshrug. “It’s part of the long answer,” said Michael truthfully. “I had a bit of a big scare myself.” That made him want to snicker, which was wholly inappropriate for the situation, but which he couldn’t bite back. Hastily he added, “Sorry. It were a different kind of scare. I only needed the hospital for one day, but.” It was her Christmas breakdown, after all – he already felt like a prick having had a bigger scare than she had, so if he could help it, he wasn’t going to tell her he thought that.

There was only one way he was going to manage that, though: he knew Mavis and her curiosity. He would have to keep this conversation centered around her. “You’re never getting airsick, now, are you?” he asked. Maybe there was a genetic component to distress-induced nausea.

Mae folded her arms over her chest again, lips pursing as she considered the best way to get Michael to tell her the long story. It was like he had never met her, and Mavis was shocked that he would tease her with a non-story. "I'm not in a particular rush," She offered, as a sweet smile floated onto her face instead of a dramatic frown. In truth, Mavis would have understood if he did not want to tell her the details. If it was all too painful to remember, to share, she supposed she could relate. But she really wanted more details. What did he do? How did it feel? Was it terrifying, or was he too busy to stop and worry at the time? She was full to the brim with questions.

While he hadn't gone right into it, Mavis did find more clues in what he said next about his big scare. And she felt a twinge of guilt when he put them side by side. His was much worse; she didn't need the entire story to understand as much. Mavis had gotten hurt, but she'd been safe the whole time; there were charms to break her fall, adults to patch her up, and friends to support her. Michael had been in actual, legitimate danger. Mavis did not know the extent of her brother's suffering, and deep down, she didn't want to. "But," Michael had stopped without finishing his sentence, and Mavis didn't give him more than two seconds before she inserted her thoughts. She wanted to meet him halfway; she wanted to let him help.

"It never goes away... does it?"

Mavis swallowed, her throat dry from crying and the dust of the coop, and looked away. She wouldn't cry again, she had decided. "The fear, I mean." Mavis knew she was strong enough to one day get past it, but there was this nagging feeling in the back of her mind reminding her that no matter what, she was never going to forget what happened. There would always be some part that was afraid to fall again, even if she managed to get back on a broom. And that wasn't very reassuring. "Just thinking about flying makes me sick." She answered truthfully, shrugging her shoulders as if to say she had identified the problem and already decided it was irreparable.

“I am,” said Michael, “I want cake.” He did not want cake – he did not like cake – but he wanted the whisky Ray had in the cabinet above the icebox, which Sandra and the girls couldn’t reach without a stepstool, and if he was going to tell his sister anything unflattering about himself (which was a big if already) he wanted to have had enough warning to decide what he was and wasn’t going to say. Mavis might consider herself mature and worldly enough for the unabridged version, but Mavis had just thrown a tantrum at dinner.

Besides, the closest he’d ever gotten to sharing the unabridged version had been during the first meeting he’d ever had with the Ministry lawyers, out of some petulant teenage need to see them flinch, and even that had been tempered by his more fanatical need to stonewall. Anthony had been tearing at his hair by the end.

He opened his mouth to keep stonewalling, but Mavis spoke first. “The two of us aren’t a useful sample size,” he said after a moment of thought, because he hadn’t wanted to say that, in his experience, no it didn’t. If Mavis made up her mind that there was nothing she could do about it, that would be that and she would never fly again, so he had to find a positive way to spin this.

But, damn him, he was totally stumped. He hadn’t put too much brainpower in fixing this, when it’d only been affecting him. He’d mostly stopped going to breakfast.

“Have you tried actually flying?” he said. “Maybe it just takes practise. Or time.” Or tea; that had served him well since he was like, eight, after he’d forced himself to like the taste of it.

While Mavis wasn’t in a particular rush to go back inside, to face the looks from her grandmother and mum, she supposed her half-frozen legs wouldn’t mind a bit of warmth. The teenage witch was almost afraid to look down at the raggedy shape of her stockings, but remembering these belonged to Esther gave her more joy than it probably should have. She shrugged at Michael; he was evasive, but who was she to demand answers when she’d fought so hard not to tell him anything. She wanted them, sure, but she’d give it a beat before asking again. Mavis owed her big brother at least that.

The idea that she’d be afraid to fly for the rest of her life was not a new concept. Her brown eyes searched Michael’s after letting the question slip, but it was unclear on her face how she felt about his answer. Part of Mavis was annoyed that he hadn’t really answered, but another was relieved that he hadn’t treated her like a child and just lied. Her mum would have said something like, "of course it will," even if she didn’t actually know that. “That’s… not really an answer…” Mavis replied, some hesitation in her voice.

“Yea, maybe,” She’d given it plenty of time. It had been months, which in Teenager Time was basically forever. How much more time did she have to give it? In three years, she’d be graduated, and none of it would matter anyway. She had to get back on the pitch, and she had to do it before she was old and gray. Michael had asked if she had tried flying again, and Mavis gave him another shrug, but this one came with more details. “A couple of times, but never got very far.”

Brushing some of the hay from her skirt but clearly losing the battle, Mavis felt better than she had ten minutes ago. Talking to someone who didn’t just tell her how to feel was a nice change of pace, and while Michael didn’t have all the answers, at least he didn’t pretend to. She turned, craning her neck to see through the chicken wire and into the house. The light in the dining room was still on, but she couldn’t see anyone at the table. Maybe the coast was finally clear, or maybe her toes were finally cold enough to submit. She pushed off of the ground unexpectedly and gave Michael a half-smile.

“Cake first, and then you can tell me all about your whirlwind romance with Ginny Weasley.” And all of the other things he wasn’t telling her, though, Mavis already knew she’d let it go if he asked.