“Mm, I’m famished,” Gus said brightly, sticking her head briefly through the open window to give George his due warning that she was back before she ducked round to the door and let herself in. She always felt a little that she was disturbing the peace, when she was the last home and it had just been George and their mother in the house - she couldn’t picture her brother ever being loud, particularly not when he was alone.

Still, she didn’t like to let her brother do all the work when he’d come back from all day at his Ministry job - although it was not as physical as her career, it sounded tiresome sometimes all the same - so she rolled up her sleeves. After splashing her face upstairs, she thudded back down and ripped off a small piece of bread to chew discreetly as she began pulling bowls out from the cupboard.

“How was - your day?” She said, through her maybe-not-so-discreet mouthful of bread, too busy to notice that the graze at her elbow (where she’d scraped it against the hoops at practice) was beading up with blood again.

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