Quidditch

When Cordelia appeared at the guest room door, Gavin was drawing a detailed equivalent circuit diagram of a battery's internal structure in his notebook.

She knocked twice on the doorframe and waited for him to say "Come in" before pushing the door open.

She wore a fitted dark-blue outfit with snug cuffs and trousers tucked into short boots. Her hair was pulled into a neat high ponytail, without a single loose strand slipping past her ears.

She looked nothing like the girl in a floral dress who had asked him "Do I look nice?" at King's Cross Station.

"Want to play Quidditch today?" she asked excitedly.

Gavin's pen stopped on the page. "How? In the garden?"

Gavin did not actually like flying on a broomstick. He was a little afraid of heights and preferred solid ground.

But seeing how excited Cordelia was, he did not want to dampen her spirits.

He had known since their time at St. Mungo's that Cordelia loved Quidditch. Whenever he talked to her about it, she lit up.

After hearing how Gavin trained Cedric, she had even secretly sent Dibby to buy mathematics textbooks.

Cordelia had already turned toward the stairs, her ponytail swishing behind her shoulder.

"You'll see when we get there."

After Gavin and Cordelia left the manor, skirted a stretch of woodland, and reached a valley on the other side, Gavin was stunned by what he saw.

There stood—

A Quidditch Pitch.

Rowle Manor's Quidditch Pitch lay at the far end of the private woodland behind the main house. A low stone wall surrounded it, with an old iron gate at the entrance.

When Cordelia pushed the gate open, its iron hinges gave a low groan, startling several crows from a nearby pine tree.

The pitch was regulation size and meticulously maintained—