March 21st, 1890 — Gallivan Home

Ever since she took up the task of helping her brother sponsor the Chuddley Cannons, Cecily had been following Quidditch, both on a local and international level. The first was a given. When you sponsored a team, you had to know everything about what was going on with the league. Even if a second string player of another team had a cold, Cecily felt that she needed to know.

She already knew that Britain would host the world cup's final that year, because those sort of news arrived at the Quidditch industry first. She had also done her research on all the teams involved -- their coaches, their players, their broomstick types, everything.

"One of Morocco's chasers is a rising star, from what I've heard," Cecily told her brother, after she'd done narrating that day's article about the Quidditch world cup. "I was thinking, Theo, that this is an opportunity to import some talent. I did my research and it appears that the team he plays for in Marocco has some financial struggles. Something about its sponsor's investment in a new type of broomstick not paying off. We could potentially strike a good deal with him."

Theodore Gallivan

  

While Cecily read out the article, Theodore poured himself a drink, never mind what time it was. He could do that, as an adult - as the only adult in the house these days. (Not true, of course: but Cee was younger, so didn’t set the rules, and Veronica, like her as he did, had never truly counted.)

He shrugged as he sat back down, leaning back to consider the proposition. Thank Merlin for Cee, really, for taking an interest. It was a great deal easier to fake interest himself when someone had already gone and done the legwork, and could tug opinions out of him without having to pull teeth. He had used to love a tactical conversation like this, when their father had been the Cannons’ sponsor. Now it was little more than something to pass the time.

“We could do,” Theo mused. “We don’t really have a standout chaser. But -” he glanced across at her, raising a skeptical eyebrow, “Isn’t the Moroccans’ style of play a bit too - French?” Which wasn’t to say the French themselves weren’t good, but... there would be no small bit of a an adjustment from one team to the other, and the likely possibility that sort of player just wouldn’t gel.

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Like with everything the French did, the French style of playing was considered flamboyant. If someone wanted to be really harsh in his characterizations of the French, he could even accuse them of cheating. They were known for using sneaky tactics on the pitch.

"Yes, indeed," Cecily agreed. "But I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, for certain positions. They produce some of the worst beaters, I agree, but they are masters of weaseling their way through the pitch. Don't you remember that game we watched? It was almost impossible to get the quaffle off that chaser's hands!"

They had been invited to a game in France, by some business partner of theirs. Even though their beaters had the same level of skill as a really good student (aka, not that good by professional standards), their chasers had been really swift and really effective at increasing the score in their favour.

"I see what you are getting at, though. You are afraid that our referees might be overly sensitive to rule breaking?"

  

For a moment, Theodore tried to imagine having a sister who didn’t care a fig for quidditch. God, what would they talk about then?

No, this was better. This was good. Cee could go ahead and make all the decisions for the Cannons’ future if she liked; it sounded like she cared about their future more than he did, these days. People in society would whisper about them either way; if Theo made all the decisions by himself, they’d still blame him for being a young idiot, and it’d worse if he had no one to talk to.

“Mmhmm,” he agreed, giving her her point about the style being useful for chasers sometimes. The Moroccans (and the French) had style, see, whereas some players in the British league were almost too well-drilled together, too much of a team - which could, occasionally, make things almost boring to watch. A star chaser would liven things up at least.

“Come on, you know they are,” Theo added, on the matter of referees. “They might let Falmouth get away with murder,” - a bit of an exaggeration, but Falmouth committed so many fouls it sometimes felt like the referees just gave up trying to rein them in halfway through the game - “but they also like pinning fouls on easy targets.” A foreign player would be just that sort of scapegoat.

He wasn’t entirely opposed, though. The Cannons were still lacking in something, as a team.

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Cecily rolled her eyes at the mention of the Falmouth Falcons. Why were they still allowed to play professionally, Cecily couldn't understand. She didn't have it past their sponsor to use illegal measures to not get his team disqualified from the league entirely. Maybe he had Imperio'd someone high up in the Department of Magical Sports, or they were threatening one of the referees' children.

"Unless they are women," Cecily commented. "I believe that Mr. Elrashidy is sweet for one of the Holyhead Harpies and that's why he's so lenient on them!" Cecily had shared her assumptions about Mahdi Elrashidy to Theodore before. One of those days, she would write Fitzroy Prewett about it.

"If we are afraid of some bitter referees, though, we'll never have a standout team. And Thom Pettigrew will play with himself." The Puddlemere United were considered the winners of this season, once again. Cee actually admired Mr. Pettigrew's talent at sponsoring a Quidditch team. She hoped that she and Theo would become like him one day.

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“Probably,” Theo said with a snort, at Cee’s reiteration of her long-held theory about the crooked referee. After the scandal with Holyhead’s recent coach having been sleeping with one of his own players, he wasn’t sure he’d exactly put it past the league referees, either.

Theo was personally quite relieved Cecily wasn’t on the Harpies, anyway.

“Yeah,” he agreed with something of a sigh, a little annoyed at Chudley’s failures - which were not all his fault, thank you very much, even under his father they hadn’t been winning every league - but wary, all the same, of meddling with their current roster and somehow making things altogether worse. (What would he do if he fucked up the team he sponsored now too? What else would he do with himself?) “Yeah, I’ll look into it. Though I think we ought to wait and see if any of our chasers make it on the national team.” Maybe that would be enough to boost their confidence, catapult one of them to national stardom. He didn’t want to get rid of anyone prematurely, in case one of them stood a shot at it.

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"Hmm, yeah, maybe," Cecily replied. "Though, if I am being honest, I would say that only Jack Cardew stands a chance of making it on the team." Their other two chasers weren't bad, per se, but they weren't great either. They were just average. They knew how to play the game well but they had no style. Cecily would like to see two chasers that were more creative on the pitch. Who didn't simply play like they were taught to properly play at Hogwarts and had never taken any risks on the pitch.

"We can see how the Cup games go too. See if there is any talent among them."

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“Well, yeah, if our captain can’t do it, who can? The others have no hope,” Theo remarked in response at her mention of Cardew - their best bet, indeed - but he was still not overwhelmingly optimistic, by any means. Nor, apparently, was Cee.

“Unless, you never know, maybe there’ll be a freak thunderstorm at tryouts that wipes out half the potentials so they have to take Cannons,” he said sarcastically, with a sigh and a slight roll of his eyes. No, their chances weren’t good, not for chasers at least. Lestrange might get seeker if he tried for it - on a good day - but after their little heart-to-heart the other day Theo wasn’t counting on him even necessarily showing up for the tryouts.

“I’ll look into drawing up transfer plans, anyway,” Theo added to Cee - just in case. See what they could afford on some new talent, whether it was imported or poached from another team. “You keep an eye out for the right chaser.”

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Cee tried not to be as pessimistic as her brother and hope for a freak accident to occur to any non-Cannon, so the Cannons would have a chance of representing Britain. That being said, she kind of agreed with Theo. Their roster needed to be revamped. They needed to find new talent or the Cannons would always end up getting unimpressive places, like the 4th or 5th. Neither terrible nor good.

"Alright," Cecily agreed with a nod. She was glad that Theo took care of the more practical and logistical parts of running a team. Cee was a bit of an idealist about it. She got ideas but then Theo grounded her by reminding her of the money factor.

"Oh, it's almost ten!" Cecily then said, catching a glimpse of the clock. She and Veronica were supposed to call on some friend of Veronica's. She took a final sip from her coffee and then exited the room.

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