A Birth day

"I'm okay with however it works out," Anise told Ruby. "I'm just glad someone is here. I really didn't want to be by myself here." They walked into the locker room, and Anise looked at the posh surroundings. "I did not expect this level of luxury for students," she told Ruby quietly. She looked around and saw a snack trolley that was set up, and a trolley of beverages, and both trollies were tended by woman in a Hogwarts apron.

On a coffee table was a stack of various magazines, and there was a bookshelf with several different board games and decks of cards. One corner of the room had some exercise equipment, but as Anise looked at the other women competitors, two of them clearly were too wealthy to think they had to exercise or condition, one woman seemed like she was just downright frightened, and Anise's seers abilities suggested to her that this woman was not the first choice of that school. She was an alternate and she did not want to be here at all. The fourth young woman seemed to be exceptionally pressured--as if she was supposed to win, and nothing else would suffice. She was being pressured by someone else to win, no matter what.

"Let's get some coffee," Anise said to Ruby quietly. Anise was willing to introduce herself but she did not need to form friendships with these girls.

"I will," she told Ruby. "Thanks." She took the coffee Ruby had poured and she followed her to a place to sit. She sat and sipped on coffee and periodically worked on some stretching in order to loosen up her muscles. Because of her knee she hadn't gotten to exercise all week, and she felt stiff. She wanted to feel loose and flexible. Her competitors looked at her like she was crazy. She heard two of the girls whispering to each other, laughing, making fun of her by saying things like, "She thinks this takes real athleticism or something." And the other girls laughed and said, "Don't worry. I'll wipe up the field with her." Anise didn't react or respond at all. She wasn't going to tip her hand at them. She turned away from them, looked at Ruby and gave her a tiny smile that was intended to say silently to Ruby, "Just wait. I'll handle them."

Angus held onto Abbey until the dog was removed from the stadium. Then Brian came over and took her from Angus and took her to Robert who changed her back.

"I have not participated in a big tournament like this," Marcus told Aria. "The closest our school ever had was the triwizard tournament in our years, and I was not any sort of an athlete in those days. I would not have even begun to qualify for it. Angus wasn't a competitor either, but, he was always the athletic type. He certainly could have qualified. Not sure why he didn't try for it."

"I was not a good duelist back then<" Marcus told Aria when she asked if he had participated in a tournament, "I was really a pudgy nerd, quite the opposite of who I am now. I was, however, a good scholar. Made it into Horace Slughorns Slug Club. Slughorn was a lifelong scholar of sorts himself, and he particularly liked to take promising young students underwing to try to give them an edge up in life, and I did make it into his Slug Club. Every Christmas season he had a very elaborate supper that he invited whichever students he believed to be the brightest. I think it did also help that my uncle was the wizard who invented wolfsbane potion. Nevertheless, that was far more my speed back then than anything athletic. That changed when I decided to go from my desk job at the ministry into being an auror. I had a part time desk job as a student but by the time I graduated, I was hopelessly bored with it, and there was an opening in the auror department. That turned things completely upside down for me."

Then she asked about Abbey.

"Ah, now that is a trait she gets from her biological father. Khaat was married for about a year before she married Brian. Her husband deceived her, made her believe that he was just a nice, devoted, loving family man. Turned out he was none other than Rob Dent--the biggest illegal potions exporter in all of Britain. He had a massive lab in the catacombs under Diagon Alley, and he had massive bank accounts and assets--and Khaat knew nothing about it. Turns out that Rob is also an animagus, and his form is a labrador. When Abbey was born, Rob picked her up,. and even as a newborn, the instant she was in Rob's arms, she morphed into a labrador pup--like her father.

"So far as we know, what she's doing is purely accidental magic, like baby magic. Usually she transitions when she gets in water or when she's with a dog. Angus learned right from the outset that almost right from birth it was nigh onto impossible to keep her out of the pool. She'd dive in, transform accidently into a labrador pup, and it was horrid trying to get her out. The issue is that once she's transformed, she has no idea how to change back. Robert's had to put her to rights again every time its happened. She doesn't see it as abnormal, though. She says she's just 'wearing her fur.' Angus was very insistent that since that was just normal for her, he wanted her to see it as normal for her right from the very beginning. Her seers powers are inherited from Khaat and Kate. All the women in the Fawcett family line are seers, and Abbey's had that almost right from birth too. Apparently, having it from age two is exceptional, even in Kate's family."

"By the time he abandoned Khaat and Abbey," Marcus said, "he had millions stashed away in various banks, and Robert went after him for it because that abandonment, at the time it happened, damned near killed Khaat. Robert got every sickle and galleon he had, and he gave every tiny bit of it to Khaat and Abbey. And Brian, who was wealth himself by then, married her, and that makes them obscenely wealthy. The last we heard, Rob married some countess or something on the continent. As we understand it, she was pretty up front with Rob that she wanted a toy boy and she would keep him in the true lap of luxury if he just stayed around for her. The only time he has seen Abbey was for a brief moment after she was born, and when she went all labrador, he fainted completely. And that was the last he saw her. Now Brian is her legal dad, and they have never tried to explain that he is not her bio dad. She wouldn't get it anyway. And, in every way that counts, he is an exceptional dad."

"I am quite sure she'll learn," Marcus said. "Rob is an animagus and she's a metamorph, so she probably will have more flexibility in it. Robert believes she's still a little young to learn how to have much control in it, but i have no doubt it will come."

In the locker room, Anise saw them call Ilvermorny and Uagadou to battle, and also Castelobruxo and Manhoutokoro.

"Wanna watch the first matches and see how this is going to go?" she asked Ruby. "There are some one way glass windows over there," she pointed to the windows that were on the opposite side of the room as the door was. "They face the field." She got up, took her coffee and went over to the windows to watch the first two matches.

"You know what's ironic?" Marcus asked. "The night that Abbey was born, Khaat was having complications and was in critical condition, and St Mungos was extremely short staffed. Khaat and Brian were best friends from the time they were eight, and Brian had grown up in Robert's home after his own parents died in a car accident. Brian was working in Paris for Robert but when Khaat went into labor in such poor condition, he called Brian from Paris to help with the delivery. Brian provided life support to keep Khaat alive and was her labor coach while Robert did the actual delivery. Brian was there. He was right with Khaat when Abbey was born, and since Khaat was so ill, when Abbey was released, Brian took Abbey straight home to the estate, and turned her over to Angus to take care of her. Then Brian moved Khaat out of the cottage that Michael now lives in, in Hogsmeade. He brought Khaat home to the estate and he took care of them both and provided everything they needed or wanted, and she and Abbey have been there ever since. In my book that makes him twice the man and the only real dad Abbey ever needs to have."

Anise watched the matches carefully.

"You know," Anise told Ruby, "Angus told me that the formal duels he's ever seen are stiff and pretty mechanical. he said they can be fast but they're really stiff. He was right. This isn't anything like our fighting and sparring looks like. I thought perhaps it was just Beauxbatons but obviously that isn't the case. When I won at Beauxbatons, Ginger said she thought it was the fact that I wasn't stiff that gave me an advantage. Maybe she was right. If I don't freak out, maybe I have an advantage."