Gideon had been quite content for the conversation to spin off into Quidditch details and leave him behind, and was surprised to become the focus of attention a moment later when Billie brought up the idea of him playing beater. "I'll stick to flying club, thank you," he said with a chuckle and a shake of his head. He had played beater a time or two during pick-up games of Quidditch back at school, but he hadn't been very passionate about it; he'd play whatever spot needed filling, really, with only very modest skill at any of them. His brother had been better at Quidditch when they'd been schoolmates, he thought (or was it just that Gervaise had been older and stronger than him at the time?) and Gideon's leisure time had mostly been spent elsewhere. Boxing had been his hobby of choice, but he wasn't even sure that it was the athletic aspect that most appealed to him; when he'd been a teen and young man he'd been more enraptured by the atmosphere. Every time he'd boxed he'd been surrounded by drunk and mildly violent friends. It had appealed to him at the time, but less and less since he'd taken in Billie. Realizing that there had been consequences for some of his youthful follies — consequences that had been mainly felt by his daughter, not by him — had taken the fun out of much of that sort of behavior.

"Do they have broom racing for women?" he asked Miss Robins speculatively. It was another of those leisure activities that filled the same niche as boxing — mostly practiced, in his experience, by hot blooded young men who had had a bit to drink. He couldn't imagine that there was a respectable version of broomstick racing that women could indulge in — but then, some people didn't think it was very respectable for women to play Quidditch, and they had their own team, so anything was possible. "Broom racing seems like the sort of thing you might like, Billie," he added. "If the Quidditch teams are full."