The new year had been a very busy one so far, for all the four weeks it had been here. Penelope herself had spent a good deal of it working long hours for knuts at the forge (where she'd earned herself two very interesting burns), learning more about water-dwelling creatures, gobbling uprisings, and the nine most common ways to misbrew a potion than she ever knew could exist, and engaging in the eternal, unending process of proper home decoration (at least, when you were two young girls of a most sophisticated and dynamic palette).
It had been no different for Charles Spinnet, what with his demon captain and the generally rigorous life of a professional athlete on a winning team who also happened to be voted into the All-Stars Quidditch match. Despite the dreamy whirlwind of New Year's Eve, they had seen very little of each other as their scheduled failed to coordinate. Just a few notes by owl, mixed with a handful of rather stolen visits which were a curious combination of strange and familiar. If she was being very honest with herself, Penelope admitted that she was maintaining her distance from him at least partly on purpose.
Even if he wasn't involved with someone else, they had still been apart for three months. They didn't know each other particularly well before that time—how could they be even close to the same people now? No, she didn't actually
know Charles Spinnet, and found herself shyly paralyzed at the idea of revealing all the glorious faults and shortcomings of her real self.
Luckily, today was neither the time nor place for such unpleasantness.
Perhaps they didn't know all that much about one another, but she did know his broom make of preference, which side of the hoops he favoured, exactly how he carried himself when tense, and the number of times he had to nervously pace before an intelligible thought could be pried from him. Today, especially, that was all she needed.
For today was an important game—though the words were a gross understatement. Having ultimately secured first place in the Phoenix league by just a margin of 20 points, this was the game that would determine to what advantage the Kestrels entered the play-offs, and the state of morale the team would be in. Frankly, she wasn't worried about the former so much as the latter, as she watched Charles get up and find some excuse to pace the length of his sitting room for just about the tenth time. His tension had been nearly palpable since she'd dropped by to wish him luck that morning.
Curled up on the sofa, with her chin resting in her hand, her eyes tracked his non-progress. "I could take your mind off it," she offered in a politely salacious manner that was only half joking. "If you'd let me." This had also been a small point of contention between the two of them, if largely unspoken. But only a small one, of course.