WHO: Charlie Spinnet and Drystan Fawcett!
WHAT: Uh oh!
WHERE: Before the Kestrel/United match tonight!



He was either going to get punched in the face or...Charlie couldn’t think of how else this meeting could end up, so he was mentally preparing himself to be swollen throughout tonight’s match. He checked the time; he still had a good thirty minutes before Axe demanded they be in the locker rooms, but he was already dressed and equipped because of nerves. With the Kestrels tied for first after his two weeks of captaining, Charlie should be riding high on adrenaline, but all he could think about were the pile of returned letters sitting on his bed at home.

Penny had been completely ignoring his attempts at contact, and at first Charlie had thought it was because of his talk with Bess, that she was giving things some space, but now he was just getting worried. He didn’t think she would break everything off without at least...you know, telling him. He could understand a break up, as much as he didn’t want it, but this complete shut out made a large twist in his gut that couldn’t be undone until he had an answer.

Best place to go was the source, right? Charlie paced back and forth in front of the guest locker room, avoiding eye contact with the other United even though he found himself a bit star struck at the line up---he’d only been a starter for three years, whereas these guys, most of them had been playing for ages and---Finn McLaggen glared at him----there he was. Charlie pushed off the wall he was leaning against and started toward Drystan Fawcett, but hesitated and stopped. Maybe if he kept his distance he could keep from getting punched for a little while longer.

“Dr----Mist-----Fawcett,” Charlie stuttered, feeling like a third year about to receive his punishment from a professor. Except this professor was a good half a foot taller than him, and at least thirty pounds heavier and---this was a really, really bad idea. But he was a Gryffindor, and going along with bad ideas was in his blood, “I need to talk to you.”

It had been an interminably long week. At home, things were tense and silent and a little empty. That night, realizing Penelope wasn't coming back, caused the severity of what Drystan did to just drown him. And even as he mourned that, it was impossible to deny a small, ugly part of him, perhaps the origin of where this terrible beast had come from, that swore it would do the same every time. It made him hate himself just a little.

Bess and he were no longer fighting, it was true, but they felt far from repaired. They walked on eggshells around one another, both lying awake at night, yet divided by something bigger than separate sides of the bed. His family was hanging on by a thread, and the idea that he'd in part caused it devastated him, but his attempts to fix it were lost. He hadn't spoken with Penelope, certainly hadn't been the recipient of her few letters home. Drystan tried to convince himself that if she was safe, that was all that mattered, but it simply wasn't true. Then there were his children, who he could barely look at without being overcome with guilt, as if they knew what he’d done and judged him terribly for it. How much of that was the projection of his thoughts outward and how much was the truth, he couldn’t say.

It occurred to him, as he made his way to the locker room, that he ought to have sat the match (the first match his sister wouldn’t be coming to in a year) out, taken some time to sort things out at home. But the thought of the inactivity made him crazy. When he'd come back to practice, it was with a steely glint in his eyes, a curt nod that everything was fine even if it was falling apart, and a deadly focus on the game. If there was one thing he could do right in the mess he'd made of his life recently, it was not fail his teammates. The idea of playing the Kestrels, well, that might have had something to do with the almost pleasurable jolt of violence he felt course through him when he thought of the team and its players.

One player, in particular.

As he approached the door, Drystan saw it was that same player toward whom he had some questionably violent thoughts, and felt a kind of out-of-body, clinical surprise at the force of violence just that first glimpse of him had summoned in Drystan. What he wanted was to turn on him, shouting obscenities, preferably using his wand, then fists, to berate him about how this was all his fault and how he'd stolen his little girl away from him. Then he had to stop himself, because his next thoughts were about the friend his sister claimed to be staying with remained nameless and genderless in her letter to Bess, and was more than likely this man in question, someone she would be speaking to, unlike her own brother. And because it was still easier than blaming himself, he blamed it all and then some on Charles Spinnet, standing hesitantly a few feet from him.

"You shouldn't be here," he growled instead, absolutely avoiding eye contact, wondering if the five feet between Spinnet and the door was worth chancing the fitful rage that might erupt or not.

He was a Gryffindor, he was a Gryffindor, he was a Gryffindor, and though Charlie felt like turning around and walking (sprinting) away would save his face a few good bruises and breaks, he straightened his back and lifted his chin. Okay, so Penny had told her brother about them, that much was obvious. Or her sister-in-law had told Drystan, but either way that wasn’t a tone of someone who appreciated his presence, and it wasn’t because of some random picture in the Tattler. If anything, their secrecy had been going on for too long (if Delilah had noticed things, definitely), and Charlie would deal with the repercussions that came from it.

“Penny’s not answering my owls,” he said boldly, putting his hands out because he had nothing else to do with them. If Drystan was keeping his owls from Penelope, then Charlie wouldn’t be as calm as he was right now. He wasn’t her father, she was an adult, she could make her own decisions even if her older brother didn’t approve. Charlie was a good guy no matter what the tabloids made him out to be, he’d be able to prove himself to Drystan if need be, “I want to know that everything’s all right with her.”

Charlie would have gone to her job, but realized quickly that all he knew was that she had an internship at the ministry. He felt bad for not knowing more, but he knew he’d asked her...things had been so busy, he just couldn’t remember. Boring, he knew it was boring, she’d always say, because then she’d entice him to do something more interesting...and Charlie’s mind usually went blank after that.

Drystan, who'd been made a wide berth to the door furthest from Spinnet with the intention of cutting off their conversation there, found himself rooted to the spot. Penelope hadn't been answering his owls. Drystan had heard the phrase quite clearly, but he was having trouble wrapping his mind around it. If Penelope wasn't answering Charlie Spinnet's owls, it certainly meant that she wasn't staying with him, let alone talking to him. If she was not in contact with Charlie Spinnet, that meant that he'd lost the one conceivable link to his sister and her whereabouts. No, surely Spinnet knew something, he had to. Drystan's brows drew together as he thought of the unanswered letters—if they were coming to his flat, he'd not known. It wasn't difficult to imagine Bess keeping them from him to save him from the apoplectic fit that was sure to have brewed, but if the letters had found Penelope… that flush of shame was stronger as he recalled with vicious clarity some choice words of his in their argument. Maybe, he thought, maybe he hadn't been quite so astute in his judgment, as he looked Charlie, who was certainly convincing in his portrayal of tense nerves that seemed little to do with the upcoming match. And because a steely band suddenly tightened around his gut at the thought, the whole train of thought, he forced it out of his head.

He should have played it tough. Should have laid into Spinnet here and now for all the trouble he'd caused, and wasn't sure he wouldn't, later, when the opportunity arose, but there was a more pressing matter which demanded to be addressed. Wanting to take it as far away from his teammates as possible, Drystan dropped back and went to the door leading to the outside corridor, gesturing impatiently for Spinnet to follow as he pushed them open.

"When was the last time you heard from her, then?" Drystan asked in a low voice, trying to ward off the compulsive nervous behaviors, like fidgeting and pacing, that beckoned to him so strongly at the moment. He settled instead for running his hand through his curls in an ill-masked manner of part-frustration, part-worry.

Like hell was Charlie going to follow Drystan down some empty hallway where no one could hear him scream. Charlie’s feet hesitated before coming through the doorway, and made sure he ended up a safe distance from Drystan when he passed the door. Axe would likely murder him if he found out that he willingly went alone some place with his girlfriend’s giant brother who hated him, right before a match, but---Charlie probably wouldn’t survive this meeting to tell his captain anything. So, maybe he should stop worrying about it.

He was about to start rambling on about how he didn’t want any trouble when Drystan’s question stunned him. A brother who did not want his sister to contact her boyfriend did not ask questions like that. Charlie’s expression grew hard, and he stepped closer to Drystan, feeling a panic building up in his chest.

“What’s that---is she not home?” Charlie stood, bewildered and confused; why would…last time he’d heard from her? That made it sound like Drystan hadn’t seen her either. “Fawcett.“ His tone grew much sterner than before, and louder, “Is Penny all right? What the hell happened?”

His hands went up in shock, quickly rushing through his hair as he began to take short steps back and forth across the hallway as he thought; no, no he hadn’t spoken to her in days, he’d been too busy getting back under Axe’s regiment to shoot her journal entry or anything like that, he’d only been sending owls and he had thought that maybe Drystan was intercepting them, “Well!” he snapped.

Temper snapped at Drystan. It was all well and fine for the cause of all this trouble to go tramping about the hallways like he had nothing to answer for, wasn't it? For one gleeful moment, Drystan was happy that someone else was feeling the same bite of worry and fear rushing through them, even if it meant he was further from Penny than he’d previously thought. Here at last, he thought, was someone deserving of all the vitriol that burned up inside of him, meant for himself, but that he couldn’t stop from bubbling over onto others. Maybe the majority of the fault lay between himself and Penelope, but there was a deliciously perverse side of him that wanted to throw it all on someone else. What Drystan did not linger over was how much of this was done through a selfish need to forget the terrible things he’d done, yes, but also how much of it was fueled by the worry, the fear, the terror of the unknown when it came to the precarious balance of his family, and the need borne out of that to strike out at anything which gave him reason.

"Yes, let's discuss what happened," he said coldly, crossing his arms as he squared his body off. "Let's discuss the self-destructive path my unemployed kid sister has taken, how she's been lying and sneaking around to her own family to see the absolutely inappropriate Quidditch player.” His tone grew more caustic as his irritation did. “I suppose, too, you'd like to talk about how when the truth came out, there was a fight so explosive, she ran out and has barely sent word since.

“Is that what you want to know about?” Drystan barked.

There were a lot of things in Drystan’s statement that Charlie should have been paying attention to. He pushed them to the side, however, as the man completely blasted him in the chest with the admittance of an apparently explosive fight. Charlie’s face turned a deep red at the thought of Drystan, of anyone yelling at Penelope and stormed toward Drystan, shoulders heaving.

“What did you do to her!” he shouted, using everything within himself to not put his hands out to shove Drystan hard in the chest. He had to keep thinking about how initiating a confrontation would only make matters worse for Penny, though clearly her brother had already created a terrible mess, “What the fuck did you say to her, because Penny is not---she----“

The rest of Drystan’s words were coming back to him, but Charlie tried hard to keep them down, his eyes darting to the ground in confusion before looking back up. Unemployed kid sister. Well---she’d lost her job, then. That would be enough to avoid talking to Charlie, she’d lost her job and was embarrassed, that was no reason to send a girl racing out of a flat and never looking back. Charlie’s mind raced; where would she have gone? He only knew of her one friend, the blonde who’d come with them to the bar in Tutshill.

He threw his hands down angrily, glaring hard up at Drystan, “You’re lying and it’s pathetic, you got---mad at her for---nothing! I care about her, I---do!”

Drystan's jaw clenched as he stared down Charlie, willing himself not to make a bigger mess than had already transpired, telling himself he could keep his anger in check. It was easier to believe as he began to feel sorry for Spinnet, who'd clearly been shut out, however intentionally or unintentionally, perhaps even more than Drystan, who'd eventually learned the truth. Oh, Penelope, what all could you possibly have done? He couldn't help but agonize over that sharp feeling of resentment he felt towards his sister.

What would be worse for her, he wondered, if someone told him what she'd been concealing, or if she were to do it herself? But then, he thought with contrition, enough people had taken choices out of her hands in the last week. That would have to be something Penelope grappled with herself.

Not trusting his hands to move in a civilized manner towards Spinnet, he kept them firmly crossed. "I did get mad. I expect family to be honest with one another,"the glint in his eyes was challenging though his face had an air of sympathy. "I'm sorry it's come to this, but I'm not sorry it all happened. That girl needed to wake-up, and it's happened, and I can't be all sorry, no matter how ugly it got."

It was easier to ignore the wrench in his gut than allow his emotions to get the best of him. The more Drystan talked, the more Charlie thought about his words, and the more he was realizing that he really had no fucking clue what was going on. He allowed his confusion to fester on the idea of Penelope getting yelled at, screamed at, and Charlie was finding Drystan’s relatively calm and passive tone infuriating.

“You’re not sorry you sent your sister fleeing from your flat?” Charlie snapped, eyes turning into slits. Thinking about how the fight must have gone, thinking about how the fights he’d had with his own twin and how he’d never allow himself to get so mad, there was nothing that could get him mad enough to make Delly cry. It made his hands begin to shake and it was becoming harder and harder not to do something with them. Thinking about Penelope in that state... “I would be ready to kill any bloke that even thought about raising his voice at my sister, and you---”

He stepped back, his hands going up and clenching tightly at the thought. The nerve, the---was Penelope really keeping so much from him? ‘That girl’. Like she was some insolent little child, and---that was his sister. Charlie would beat someone senseless if they treated Delilah that way, how could....she was unemployed? For how long? No one knew where she was? ‘Self-destructive path...’

“You---” Just as Drystan was finding it easier to lay the blame on Charlie, he couldn’t focus on the idea of Penelope not being honest with him. No, this was all Drystan’s fault for not being understanding, for not taking the time to talk to his sister about everything (‘absolutely inappropriate’?). Everything was about ready to go to shit because of Drystan and he couldn’t hit the bastard because that would cause even more confusion and trouble and without thinking he let out a sound of aggression and punched the very hard, very cement wall of the stadium.

The crack of his knuckles reverberated not only off the walls, but through his arm and bones and Charlie took a few stumbled steps back in shock. His whole arm was struck in pain, and he cursed loudly at his stupidity.

He shook his head, unable to look up at Drystan as the pain shooting through his arm made everything he’d heard in the past five minutes sound remarkably clear. He really was a dumb Gryffindor, wasn’t he?

Drystan wouldn’t admit to being shaken by the scene, certainly didn’t show it, but the perverse satisfaction he thought he’d have over seeing someone go as to pieces as he did left him feeling sadder and emptier than he had before. No, when it came down to it all, he didn’t want anyone hurting, not even Spinnet, not even if Drystan had thought he deserved it. But it was too late, much too late for that. That didn’t mean he was encouraging Charlie, however. If Penelope wanted to be found, by either of them, she’d have to find the way. And, finally, he realized this wasn’t his duty to tell. Careful to keep his eyes away from Spinnet, he said with restrained civility, "I expect your captain will be waiting."

He paused in the midst of opening the door, not wanting or being able to make himself turn. "Should I hear from her, I’ll—" he clenched his teeth, "—pass the message along."

The only problem was, Drystan didn’t know when that would be. And in those darkest moments, "if" it would be, at all.