They weren't her favorite teams, but Peony followed every match on the wireless that she was able to. Her father had bought her a mostly portable wireless so she could listen when she wanted. (Mostly portable in that the wireless was large, but not so large she couldn't carry it with relative ease.) Today was the Falcons/Magpies game, and Peony was cheering for the Falcons. Next to the Holyhead Harpies they were her favorite team. Mostly because she thought that the beater- Wiedman- was a devilishly handsome fellow.

She'd carried the wireless out to the courtyard, along with a large blanket and a few snacks she'd nicked from the kitchens. Peony spread out the blanket on the grass, dropped down a pillow, carefully settled the wireless and turned it on. The announcer for the match blared out through the speakers. There was still about fifteen minutes before the match was slated to begin. The announcers were talking about the line ups for the teams, Dominik's last minute decision to sign on for another year, and rookie beater Callum Knight. (He'd be in Peony's year if he hadn't left Hogwarts to play pro!)

Peony kicked off her shoes next to the blanket before standing on it. She picked up an apple, she settled carefully onto the pillow and leaned forward, staring at the wireless in anxious anticipation. "Watch the blanket!" she said, without looking away from the speakers, when someone walked nearby. "Don't want mud tracked on it, shoes off if you're going to listen to the match with me!" She punctuated her statement with a loud bite into the crunchy apple. "Falcons and Magpies," she explained around a mouth full of fruit.

Figaro tore down the giant staircase in a dead panic.  His bollaxed, piece of shit wireless had finally seen its last days and just as he was firing it up to listen to the Falcons beat the Magpies (or that was the inevitable end, his supporter-for-life opinion). 

He was in his Domink Wiedman Falcon's jersy and had his arms loaded with junk food and butterbeers.  After unsuccessfuly trying to fix his wireless, he heard from a housemate that Peony Flickwick was planning to listen out front of the castle. 

So what if the Sellaphixes no longer snogged with Flitwicks - this was Falcons Quidditch. 

He tore down the stairs and charged up to Peony who was spread out on the ground with a blanket and everything.  Figaro immediately dropped his armful, fell to his knees and put his hands all over her wireless, fiddling knobs and messing with the antenna.  It had to be perfectly tuned and turned all the way up.

"Shhh!"  he shushed attempts by anyone nearby to interfere.  "SHH!"

Peony watched as Figaro came barrelling toward her, and he dropped down on her blanket- she winced, hoping the butterbeer bottles didn't break. Then he started prodding at the nobs and antenna on her wireless. Noni didn't even have the presence of mind to tell him to keep his hands off of her wireless. She was too surprised by his sudden and very loud appearance at her side.

Then he started shushing people. "Get this straight, Sellaphix," she said simply, "I am not going to sit here quiet as a church mouse to listen to the game on my wireless." Because it wasn't a Harpies game. If it was the Holyhead Harpies, she'd barely make a peep- other than yelling at the box when her team made a mistake. But since the Falcons were only her second favorite team, Peony could chat if she wanted to.

"Besides, it hasn't started yet," she added, reaching out to pick through the junk food he'd tossed onto the blanket. His junkfood was better than what she'd nabbed from the kitchens. At least he'd had presence of mind to get some butterbeer.

"And shoes off, Sellaphix," Peony reminded him firmly. "No telling where you've been walking. I've heard about the boy's toilets. They don't always aim well." She crunched loudly into her apple again, giving him a level stare. He would take his shoes off or she would boot him onto the grass.

Peony was right - she had the proper channel, and it was tuned as best it would go.  The announcers were preparing to to end their pre-match analysis and move into their post pre-match analysis, which directly preceded the match actual.  (And would be followed by pre post, then post, then post post run-downs.)  All of it exceedingly vital to the enjoyment of the game. 

And so with the Wireless set properly, and Peony demarkated her local authority over the blanket, Figaro retreated back to sit himself down. 

"We aim precisely where we mean to," he responded as he took of his shoes and tossed them outside of the blanket's perimeter. 

Figaro's junkfood included a tub of cottage cheese, assorted Honeyduke's faire, jalapeno crisps, and a few old chocolate frogs. 

"Can't believe Callum's beating alongside bloody Dominik Wiedman," he said and got started on that cottage cheese.  "Who gets to do that?"  Figaro's tone was distinctly marvelled and jealous.  He'd kind of hated Callum, but clearly he must have been good - good enough to get picked up by the Falcons...!

Kirby Gracean was settling down for a quiet afternoon out within the beautiful grounds of the school she loved so dearly. She let the wind blow through her perfectly curly blonde hair as she gracefully waltzed around the grounds. She noticed two similar faces sat down on a patch of grass around a radio device. She wasn't sure what her fellow sixth years where doing but it looked interesting to her so she decided to approach the couple. "Hey Fig hey peony" she chirped happily as she head the commentary to the current professional quidditch game. "What you up to? Mind if i join you?" she then asked them curiously.

Kelvin had planned on going for a walk, or maybe reading a book, just anything to distract him but when he walked out of the castle a new distraction presented itself. "We aim precisely where we mean to."  He heard Fig say over the announcer on the wireless.  Quidditch, always quidditch, he thought.  It wasn't his favorite distraction, but it would do for the day. 

He walked over to the blanket as Kirby walked up and asked if she could join Peony and Fig.  Figuring that they would have picked a more private area to lay out the blanket if they didn't want people to join them. "Hello."  Kelvin said as he dropped his bag on the ground and kicked off his shoes.  Stepping onto the blanket he sat down next to Peony.  "So who's playing?"

"Shame he got stuck with so much talent and such a shite personality, eh?" Peony offered to Figaro. It was hard to believe someone who had been the same year as her had already left Hogwarts to play pro-quidditch. Even if he had been a particularly awful person, there was no denying talent. If he wasn't even legal age and the Falcons had picked him up, he had to be good. Better for the school, though. It would make defeating Slytherin easier since they'd lost their star beater.

She looked up when Kirby approached, and offered a bright smile. "Sure you can! Just no shoes on my blanket," Peony stated. And not even a moment later, a younger boy had come along. His shoes were immediately kicked off, and he sat down next to her. "Falcons and the Magpies," she said to Kelvin. "Going to be one hell of a game."

Peony motioned for Kirby to take a seat. "Don't know if either of you follow pro quidditch, but they're both undefeated so far. So this is the first real challenge they're probably going to have. Me and Fig are rooting for the Falcons."

"Of course, my team is undefeated too," she quickly added. "Holyhead Harpies are the best quidditch team there is. A team of all girls kicking ass like that? It's great!" It was also why she was a fan of that team. Peony was definitely the girl-power type of person. "If I had any quidditch talent I'd kill to play for them one day. But... I don't," she offered with a shrug. Peony had talent in plenty of other things without having to worry much about being good at quidditch.

Peony took another bite from her apple, then looked to Figaro. "Can I have a butterbeer?" she asked around her mouth full of fruit.

Immediately Kirby kicked of her converse trainers and took a seat to the right hand side of the mat. She liked the fact she would be following the quidditch game in the warm sun and surrounded by such beautiful scenery. She began to relax as she listened to Peony start to talk about her quidditch interests and support. Kirby had been a loyal fan of quidditch since she first entered the wizarding world years earlier and she hoped that one day she would be recruited to play the sport professionally. She was already on the gryffindor quidditch team as her desired role of seeker so hoped that experience would help her. "I support Chudley Canons i have to admit they are some what under rated unfortunately cause they have got some good players look at Michigan she rocks" she chirped melodically.

Figaro handed over a warm bottle of butterbeer to Peony who, despite her fanciful notions that Holyhead was not a fluke this year, knew her Quidditch.  Oh and look at that - it was Kelvin.  He and Fig were acquainted.

"Alright, Kelvin," he greeted, and moved his foot to make room.  He also knew Kirby who'd become Head of the Choir club this year, or so he'd heard.  Figaro loved music, but he was about as suited to the discipline of organize music as he was to organized sport.  The only musical talent he had focused mostly on covers of Three Owl Standard, and making up vulgar songs for shouting at Quidditch matches or teasing fellow housemates. [1]

"Kirby.  Kirby.  Kirby," Figaro began as gently as he could.

"To call Chudley underrated is to call Callum Knight unpleasent.  They're shit and so is he.  They're horrible and there's no way around it.  No one ever supports Chudley unless they're being funny.  You being funny, mate?" he asked smiling at her, egging her on a bit.

"Even Nony here doesn't even support Chudley.  And she's a Harpies fan."

1.	Lost is girlfriend Sophie over that one.

"So the match is a big deal then?" Kelvin asked looking over at Figaro, "Since they are both undefeated."  Quidditch was more his brother's thing, Kelvin was less interested in the game itself and more the distraction and break from everything else the matches, either at the school or over the wireless, provided.  "I like the Harpies too.  I think its great that they are an all women team."

"To call Chudley underrated is to call Callum Knight unpleasent.  They're shit and so is he.  They're horrible and there's no way around it.  No one ever supports Chudley unless they're being funny.  You being funny, mate?"   Figaro said to the other older girl.

"Wait, so does that mean the Falcons are supposed to win?"  Kelvin asked.  "I thought it was supposed to be a challenge for both teams?"  He picked up one of the snacks nearest him, "Do you mind?"

My god. He was surrounded by muggles.  They had to be muggles to be this out of touch with the Wizarding World's finest artform.  Figaro enjoyed very much the look of complete 'you people are hopeless' he gave Kelvin and Kirby.  He enjoyed the smugness very much indeed.

"Merlin's Pants, Watkins."  He shook his head.  Were the Falcon's supposed to win? Were the Falcons supposed to win? Stars and mercy.  John's bollocks.  Bloody freaking hell.  Muggles.

But he shared his junk food without complaint, passing over a butterbeer and gesturing at the crisps, cottage cheese and the sweets.

Nony shot Figaro an agitated look. "You keep on talking bad about my team and you'll find somewhere else to listen to the match, Sellaphix. I'm not about to share my wireless with someone who is giong to compare the Harpies to the Canons. They're undefeated so far this season." Peony snatched the butterbeer from him then gave a smile to Kirby.

"Maybe one of these years the Canons will have a better season," she offered. Peony didn't really believe it. They were a horrible team. But she wasn't going to tease Kirby for her choice of teams. It wasn't very nice, and Gryffindors had to stick together, didn't they?

Peony rolled her eyes at the way Figaro responded to Kelvin's question. "We think the Falcons are supposed to win," she gestured to herself and Fig. "They're my second favorite team. But they're good. Even if they are starting Callum Knight. Wiedman is one hell of a beater, though. Dangerous bloke. Good looking to," she said with a grin. "Course, most of the male quidditch players do end up being handsome. I love the look of a crooked nose from one too many bludgers to the face."