England vs. Bulgaria (Padfoot/Open)

[eri]

The crowd’s roar was lost to her ears. The wind in her face and tugging at her tightly braided hair was ignored. Dimly she heard the announcer yelling, “Conner passes to Lancaster; Lancaster to Aaron; Aaron to Conner; Conner back to Aaron. Aaron’s heading to goal! She scores!”

The Quaffel, one of the four Quidditch balls, went sailing from her hand through the far left goal-hoop. They were leading 100 to 90! Now all they needed was for their Seeker to catch the Snitch and they would win The Quidditch World Cup!

“They’ve done it! The Windborne Wasps Seeker has caught the Snitch! England wins! The Windborne Wasps have won The World Cup! Miracle Rookie Corrine Aaron has led her team to victory!”

She led her team in a victory lap around the Quidditch Pitch. Adrenaline pumped through her veins. Down on the Pitch’s green grass she saw a figure waiting for her, smiling at her. She crash landed, flinging herself into his arms—

The ear itchingly obnoxious screech of her alarm clock went off right next to her ear. “Damn it,” she groaned into her pillow. Reaching with one lightly tanned arm she smashed her hand onto the snooze button. Instantly the noise stopped and she rolled over so she was staring up at the ceiling. She lay there for a moment before forcing herself up out of bed with another groan, wondering why the hell she had bought the noisiest, most irritating alarm clock she could find.

Twenty minutes and one bowl of cereal later Corrine Aaron, preferably known as just plain Cory, was feeling much more her usual morning self. Standing roughly at five feet nine inches, the professional Quidditch player was lithe, well-muscled, and dressed in a pair of jeans and a form-fitting blouse. Cory grabbed her uniform bag as she left her Brighton, England flat. After all, she had a Quidditch game to play today against Bulgaria as one of England’s The Windborne Wasps’ Chasers and she couldn’t be late.

Five hours after she had left her home Cory found herself strolling down a row of booths in the bazaar-like market set up just outside the Quidditch Stadium. The Windborne Wasps had won against Bulgaria and Cory was happy. She had played well, had even managed to score two out of seven goals, which was pretty good considering she was just a rookie.

As she walked down the aisle people got out of her way, eying her warily. Cory sighed. So maybe managing to knock away a bludger aimed at England’s Seeker with her arm hadn’t been the smartest move. For one thing, she now had a fractured ulna and a broken wrist. For another, people now seemed scared of her, never mind that her arm ached even after she had worked a rudimentary healing spell on herself. Cory flipped her now-dark hair out of her face. How she wished there was more sunshine in England. The country always seemed to be in a fog and it was beginning to take its toll. Her hair, which had once been considered to be a very dark shade of blonde, was now almost such a dark brown it was almost black. Her temperament wasn’t helped by the weather either. Oh, she missed the sunshine.

[rodney]

Not often did Michael actually get to go out and do things on his own at this point in his life. It mostly was due to the fact that he was the father of a three year old little carrot-topped boy and he would do anything for that little boy. From the time he was born Michael’s whole life went from one hell of a place to a place filled with pampers and bottles and burp cloths. But now with Cody being three years old some of the harder stuff was passed but his ex girlfriend had finally given birth a few months back to her second child, one with her new husband. To relieve her of some stress, Michael started taking Cody full time. That had meant a bigger apartment, one where Cody could have his own room, one with space for his toddler bed and all his toys and clothes, everything a little one would need. Mikes house genuinely looks like a young child lives there, where as when he only took Cody a few nights every couple weeks, and his house had still looked much like a bachelor pad.

Only a month ago or so, Michael had been forced to make a tough decision; his girlfriend was going to be forced to move away if they did not think of another solution. Seeing as Michella did not ever mind being around his young son and she was surprisingly good with him, he offered for her to come and live with him. So for the past month he had gone from being a some what single man with a child to a man in a relationship, living with his girlfriend and more or less a family of three when you include his toddler. It was a nice feeling, having someone else around besides his son. Someone he could hold a real conversation about real life events with. Often enough he wondered if he was spending too much time with a three year old and not enough around adults, because he spent a lot of time talking like a child anymore.

The idea was not completely new to him, he had once before had a girl that stayed with him for a while. A couple summers ago, during the Quidditch World cup he had met a young women with blonde hair, her name was Talek Aaron. She too, had gotten along with his son quite well, when she met Cody though he was still in diapers, not quite two years old yet. Michael had taken Cody for the summer that was when he was still in school. Actually it was before he had switched from Durmstrang to Hogwarts. The two had met because his son had run out of his tent and she happened to be the one to catch him before he went running out to catch the baby. The two then spent the whole day together, all through the match and then he invited her back to his place. The two dated that whole summer but there was a problem, they went to different schools. And she was hiding from her family.

After that summer Michael never saw Talek again, and he still wondered from time to time what might have happened to her. But at the same time, he was quite content where things were now. He loved Michella, and he loved having her stay with him. His son had grown quite attached to her rather quickly, so it was a good thing it looked like it would be working out long term for them. The past couple weeks had been busy, Michella had been at school for most of it, and he had to admit he liked having her home because that meant a little help around the house. Not that he was not used to playing the dad roll by now; but a little help was always a nice thing to have every once in a while.

A week before now an owl came to his bedroom window at about eight o’clock in the morning and he had been sleeping. The one time his son slept past seven and the damn owl’s were waking him up with the post, of course. The young man sleepily opened the window and grabbed the mail and paid the owl for the prophet but realized something else was in its beak as well. His tickets for the upcoming England VS Bulgaria Quidditch match! Smiling, Michael went and stuck them to the magnet on the refrigerator and went to check on Cody. That next weekend the he would be setting up his tent to attend the England VS Bulgaria Quidditch match with Michella. The two were going to have a blast; he had not attended a professional match since the world cup a few years earlier.

Unfortunately for Michael he was cooking dinner for him and Cody the night before the match, and in a hurry to get a burning thing of food out of the oven, he burned his hand badly on the inside of the oven leaving huge blister like red marks on his hand which caused him to curse left and right for hours as he tended to it as best he could. Michella not being there really sucked because he wasn’t sure if she was any good at healing spells but he was horrible at them so he ended up with bandages on his hand, and that would have to be good enough. The rest of the night smoothly once he got Cody fed and bathed and put down to bed for the night and he went to bed himself not long after once Michella returned home for the night. Then early the next morning they apparated the little “family” to the Quidditch grounds to set up their tent, and got all that done before noon even with Cody along for the ride.

The young couple chattered away in Bulgarian almost all day, because Michella’s family had traveled all over the place Michella was fluent in many languages and Bulgarian happened to be one of them. As well as Michael spoke English he was still much more comfortable speaking in his native tongue. Michael tried to keep the time spent speaking both languages equal for Cody’s sake because his mother was English he really wanted his son to not only be fluent in his own language, especially when they were raising him in England. Though today, there was no doubt about it he was rooting for his home team to win the match. Dressed in typical Bulgarian colors the couple watched the match arguing the whole time over which team would dominate in the afternoon’s proceedings. When the match was over the two went back to the tent but Cody kept asking his dad to go walk around so he asked Michella to work on getting them something to eat and he would go take Cody to play for a while –the match had been way too long for a three year old.

Michael pulled his shirt off because it was pretty warm out to him –very cold to most but being from Bulgaria he was not the only Bulgarian man walking around with his shirt off. His son held his hand that was not bandaged, which was his left also the arm which he has his forearm tattoo of Cody’s name written in traditional Bulgarian print which he got just after his son was born. His newest body art was across his shoulder blades now being shown off to the world on one of the few occasions that it is. Cody was dragging his father around weaving in and out of people but in traditional toddler fashion Cody broke loose of his fathers hand and ran off. “Damn it Cody,” he muttered under his breath as he then took off after the child who was now darting under peoples legs knowing it was the only way to stay ahead of his father. To Cody this was a game, to his father it was only annoying.

TAG/ CORY-TALEK
WORDS/ 1,351
LYRICS/ I TOLD YOU SO -CARRIE UNDERWOOD
CREDITS/ ALL PADFOOT'S OWN!
NOTES/ NOT THE GREATEST POST EVER, BUT GOOD ENOUGH!

[eri]

•

[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color]
all out of my control,[/font]
CAN'T SAY WHEN I'LL BE THERE AGAIN
IT'S TIME NOW TO TURN AROUND
TURN MY BACK ON EVERYTHING[/font]
•[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color][/center]

Cory rounded a corner and picked up her pace. Currently she was headed to a team press conference. Basically a whole bunch of reporters for the Daily Prophet and other news organizations would be there asking her team mates about the match. She would be relegated to sitting at the end of the table waiting for the whole messy affair to end so she could get her arm seen to by a healer. Cory really hated these press conferences. They were a waste of time. It would be a couple more seasons before the reporters had anything to say to her; either that or a really big scandal.

Stopping to tie back her waist-length hair Cory sighed for what felt like the millionth time that day. She thought that now as a professional Quidditch player her life would start to turn around, but it hadn’t. Instead she was forced to change her name after a couple of wizard private detectives came snooping around her affairs, having been sent by the Aaron Clan in America. The worst part was, they weren’t sent to bring her home, oh no. They were sent to get the money she had “borrowed” from the Aaron’s family vault at Gringotts. Bloody scrooges.

Cory continued on her way, the black cloak she wore swishing about her legs. Just as she was slipping past a cluster of brightly dressed witches, a little boy roughly three years old ran into her leg. Cory looked down in surprise. “Where are your parents, little one?” She asked the youngster. Something about this toddler seemed oddly familiar. Cory crouched down and looked him directly in the face.

The toddler had a mischievous face with sparkling eyes and bright red hair. The breath flew from her lungs as she stared at Cody Rodney, son of Michael Allen Rodney, her old Bulgarian boyfriend. Cory picked up the toddler who clung to her and looked around wildly. She couldn’t see Michael or Cody’s mother.

“Cody where’s—“ but she never go to finish her sentence. A frantic looking team manager came running up to her just then and started berating her for being late to the press conference. “And we can’t start without you!”

“But I need—“

“—Oh good. You brought your son. That’ll get you some popularity. Now come on!” The team manager grabbed her arm and started pulling her towards the press booth. Cory’s eyes searched the crowd desperately for Michael as she was being pulled away, Cody still resting securely on her hip.

[rodney]

Of all the places Cody chose to do stuff like this, it was almost always at somewhere busy because the child thought stuff like this was funny. Boy was that kid ever in trouble when Michael finally managed to catch up to him again. He continued to weave in and out of people trying to catch up to his little boy, sometimes Michael wondered if he was really doing well as a parent. This was not the first time the little boy had run off; maybe he was not being tough enough with the punishment part of it. Though, he knew he often enough sent the toddler into time out or whatever else he could think of he wondered why he continued to test his father. Was that just something that all children did at this age? Either way, it was getting very old, very fast. The boy had been able to run since he was just over a year old, so by now, Michael had done this several times and each time the little one got a little bit smarter about how he did it.

Finally! He could see his sons red hair, he was almost there! Wait, what was this? Someone picked up his son, and he was relieved to see that they were staying put, their eyes searching, probably looking for a frantic parent which in this case would be him. But Michael of course, did not look like he was old enough to have a three year old, hell he had been fifteen when Cody was born. But he was finally getting close when he saw that it was one of the England Quidditch players, the newest one to the team, this year’s addition. For a second, there was something familiar about her, but he knew there was no way he had ever met her before. Unless they were someone he had seen around school in her last year at Hogwarts.

Just as he was squeezing his way through the crowd, not more than ten feet away from the young women holding his son, he saw the team manager walk up to her and drag her away. “Fucking damn it.” He cursed under his breath, as the women walked off; looking rather reluctant about it as though she was trying to explain she had someone else’s child with her. Michael started to sprint through the crowds again; people crowded around the team members trying to get pictures with them as they passed by. This was going to be impossible! Mike needed to get his son; even though he knew he would be fine with another adult it was the fact that it was a woman he did not know walking off with his child. He was aware that they probably did not give her even the slightest chance to explain what was going on, but he did not care either way. That was his child being taken farther from him second.

Every step the women took there was another person trying to get pictures of the team as they made their way towards the press conference. Soon, Michael was going to start shoving people aside instead of weaving in and out of them, as he watched the crowds get thicker as people noticed the team walking through the camp grounds. After walking through a little farther but gaining no space between him and his son, he did exactly that. Instead of apologizing in English it was coming out Bulgarian as he was in a rush and not thinking before he spoke. This was working; he was closing the gap between him and the young Quidditch player holding on to his son. Cody did not seem to mind, Michael could see his sons face now, and he looked quite content to be carried around by someone else.

Just before the team reached the press, he reached them and he grabbed hold of the young woman’s shoulder. Now thinking just before he said anything he remembered to speak in his thickly accented English, “I’m really sorry, that is my son, he got away from me…” Michael felt terribly stupid saying this, but it was the truth. Cody was now smiling widely at his father and saying loudly, ‘Daddy found me!’ Michael turned to his son, “Yes and do you realize what trouble you are in, kiddo?” he sighed and shook his head and turned to the dark haired girl again. “Again, I’m very sorry, I’ll take him now thank you for catching him.”


TAG/ CORY-TALEK
WORDS/ 755
LYRICS/ I TOLD YOU SO -CARRIE UNDERWOOD
CREDITS/ ALL PADFOOT'S OWN!
NOTES/ VERY SHORT POST, SORRY!

[eri]

•

[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color]
all out of my control,[/font]
CAN'T SAY WHEN I'LL BE THERE AGAIN
IT'S TIME NOW TO TURN AROUND
TURN MY BACK ON EVERYTHING[/font]
•[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color] •[/color][/center]

Cory was really going to kill this team manager. Couldn’t he feel her trying to pull her arm out of his hand? Cory was just getting ready to yank her broken wrist out of the man’s hand when she felt someone grip her shoulders. She whirled around, effectively yanking her wrist out of the manager’s hand—which hurt—and came face to face with a man she hadn’t seen in two years. “Michael.”

Michael Allen Rodney looked exactly the same and totally different, if that made any sense. He looked much older and wiser and stronger, yet there was something indefinably Michael about him. True, there were darker circles under his eyes but there was a twinkle in them, just like last time. Obviously he hadn’t recognized her or else he wouldn’t be apologizing in his thickly accented English.

Seeing his father Cody cried gleefully from his place on her hip ‘Daddy found me!’ To which Michael replied sternly that yes, Daddy did find him and that Cody was in serious trouble. Cory had to smile at that. It was such a strange idea of Michael seriously punishing the little redheaded toddler.

The team manager grabbed Cory’s fractured arm roughly and started tugging at her again. She stumbled, gasping in pain. “Come on!” he ordered. “We’re late. If you weren’t the new hotshot Chaser, Corrine Talek Aaron, the coach wouldn’t stand for this.”

“Please. Just let me—“

“I don’t want to hear it. Bring your boyfriend with you and let’s go.” He successfully managed to drag her to the press box, Cody still in her arms. Instantly the reporters swarmed around her, Michael and Cody. “Ms. Aaron! Is this your son?” “Ms. Aaron, who is this handsome young man?” “Ms. Aaron—“ “Ms. Aaron—“

Cory didn’t know where to look first. Quick-quotes-quills flashed and made marks on floating bits of parchment and she couldn’t see a way out. Cameras flashed and blurred her vision. Her head started to pound. What was she going to do?