Peyton nodded along with Mace's assessment of the cheerleaders back home. He wasn't about to say anything on the subject for fear of saying the wrong thing. Girls in Lycra uniforms doing flips just wasn't his thing. He'd be much more interested in what the actual quopod uniforms looked like on all the male players. So instead he simply added, "Lucky bloke." Since it seemed like the right thing to say.

Thankful that the conversation had drifted back to sports Peyton visibly perked up, "it'll be a lot of hard work if I end up getting it. Madame Hooch is in charge of quidditch but she mostly just referees the games. It's up to the captains to pick the players, schedule try outs and practices, that sort of thing. A whole season of the house cup can be ruined by having a bad captain." Peyton tried to think of anyone else in Ravenclaw that would runfor captain against him. With Klint and Monroe having graduated the team had already lost two of their best players. Then a horrible thought struck him - what if quidditch was flat out cancelled this year because of the tournament? Wasn't that what happened the last time the TWT was held, when the famous Harry Potter was a champion?

Parker's departure was enough to pull him out of his spiral of worrisome thoughts and bring him to a whole new set of even more worrisome ones. He was now alone with Mace, what was he going to do? Wait, no not completely alone, Helena was still there and much to his relief Mace had sisters too.

"I can't even imagine what trip - wait, Merry, Sherry and Cherry? Seriously?" Peyton suddenly realized how rude he was being but he couldn't help himself. What kind of hippie parent gave their triplets rhyming names? "Sorry mate, that was so rude of me but I've never known triplets with rhyming names before. I'm surprised theydidn't name you Gary." He chuckled nervously trying to make light of his embarrassment.

"Hmm," Mace mused at the information about Quidditch. "We've got more than one sport at Salem so Coach Jimmy has to plan everything but the individual practices, however he gets by with it." Spiked coffee seemed to be the primary method. "Then some weekends we have exhibition games with the other schools in the Americas. So the dragodirigible gets plenty of travel."

Mace grinned at the joke. "Well, it's not like they knew they were going to have triplets after they had me. I was five when mom's stomach grew the size of a boulder and suddenly I'm a big brother three times over. Those were actually their second pick of names. Pop had been debating on 'Flora, Fauna and Merryweather' and from there they simplified things."

"They go gaga over the puffs, though. So how about that one for your sis? Got some spares back at the blimp and they're really easy to take care of."

Peyton smiled, "Sounds like you guys get a lot of play back home," He winced slightly at his choice of words, "I'd love to be able to play quidditch against other schools. The only time we get to see other schools though is when they do these tournaments which isn't all that common either. The last one was over a decade ago just before the Second War." Peyton found himself suddenly wondering if Mace knew anything about the war. He had no idea whether Voldemort's reach had gone overseas or not.

"I can only imagine how weird that'd be. Helena's only two years younger than me so I wasn't really aware when she was born and my brother -" Peyton cut himself off. He glanced around thankful that Helena seemed to have become bored of the conversation and was checking out a box of trick quills. He hoped she was out of ear shot. The last thing he needed today was to explain to his little sister that they had a half brother.

"Umm yeah sure, getting a puff sounds great." He waved away his previous hesitations on the subject. If his sister kept the thing at school their father never needed to know and he knew she was more than mature enough to take care of one, "Hey Lena! You still want a puff?"

The girl's mousy features lit up and she skipped back over to the two boys, "What are we waiting for?"