Real Quidditch — that was good, and Ben found himself latching onto it. Maybe that would make all the difference. Maybe Art would be too busy, or maybe he cared too much about his team and his upcoming season to risk things (though if his wife and child hadn't had that preventative power to keep him away from gambling, it was unlikely a group of men he worked with would, either). Maybe Quidditch itself could stand in as a replacement. Ben's own career in the industry had been short-lived, but there was a rush of being in a stadium when people were cheering. For Ben, at least, it was similar to the rush when you unexpectedly won some money at a card table (though Art had ruined his whole life once before, and he'd been playing Quidditch then, too).

Honestly, Ben just wanted to latch on to something. Even though he knew there was no reason to expect this would fix everything, he wanted to believe it would. If Quidditch fixed everything, that meant it wasn't Ben's responsibility to do it. It meant things could be fine and Ben could go back to focusing on his own deeply Fucked Up life, without worrying that Art was about to fuck up his life even worse, somehow.

"That's great," he said, with too much enthusiasm. "That's good. It'll be good to have people in the stands again. I'll come cheer for you," he added, though he had not run that one by Melody, whom he was sure wouldn't want him to go — after their last Quidditch match together, he couldn't really say he blamed her.

  

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MJ made this <3

Ben was too enthusiastic, but so was Arthur. Quidditch had never bailed him out before - perhaps the British National Team had, except when Art remembered 1883 and 1884 he remembered being tired of ruining his own life all the time after Azkaban. But maybe this time it would, because things were not that bad and no one was whispering about him yet and he did not have enough assets to lose. And if Ben was enthusiastic then Arthur could be, too, because maybe that meant he was right.

(And he wasn't sure that Desdemona would be in the stands, for the discussed reasons, and he already missed having her there. He missed playing Quidditch with her, missed flying with her, missed the way things had been a year ago, before Ben and Melody Crouch had even gotten married.)

So Arthur grinned. "Great," he said, "Great. I think it'll be good this year."

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The following 1 user Likes Arthur Pettigrew's post:1 user Likes Arthur Pettigrew's post
   Reuben Crouch

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set by MJ <3