Closed The World Goes on Around You

[Harper Alston]

There were a lot of reasons why Harper disliked Hogwarts' school calendar. For one, her winter breaks were now longer than her summer breaks. Plus, her holidays never aligned with that of her muggle friends. But there was one reason that she hadn't realized until a few days into her first year, when she'd fiddled with a magical radio and discovered that wizards didn't care about any sport except Quidditch. With the way the school calendar was set up, it was impossible to catch the football matches she cared about most.

Over the years, she'd developed a workaround to this problem — sort of. Harper was eating breakfast at the Gryffindor table when an owl swooped in and dropped a heavy package in front of her. She only had to glance at the parcel's size to know what it was, and she immediately abandoned her porridge to rip open the oversized envelope. Out spilled a couple football magazines and a thick packet of printed out sports articles. Harper glanced at the magazine covers, grinning when saw they were filled with Premier League match predictions and previews. She'd get to those later. For now, she began to flick through the print-outs, which mostly comprised recaps of New Zealand games.

As Harper started to read, she realized the magazines had slid into another Gryffindor's space. "Oh, sorry about that. I'll get that out of your way," she said, giving him an easy smile before trying to push everything into a neat pile.

 

[Stan Beckett]

Stan wasn’t allowed to leave his bed in the hospital wing after the night of a full moon but he was starving and did not really feel like spending the entire day there, even with every bone in his body aching badly still. He didn’t care much about the aching as he was filling up his plate with quite literally everything he could find on the table, however. He was so hungry that he even scooped some baked beans onto his plate. Stuffing his mouth full with bacon, eggs, beans and sausages, Stan glanced around him to see who else was at the table at the moment and if he knew any of them.

He caught a glimpse of one of the magazines the girl next to him had pushed to the side, and read something on the cover that made him quickly forget about the pile of food on his plate in front of him. Arsenal had lost against Liverpool, again? It didn’t surprise him, his favourite team had been playing terribly as of late, but it was still somewhat of a letdown to read. ‘’Oh, no, it is ok!’’ the Gryffindor replied, quickly looking up at the girl when she started to push the magazines into a pile. ‘’I do not mind at all. It is disappointing to read that Liverpool annihilated Arsenal, though,’’ he said with a soft chuckle.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper was a bit startled to hear that the boy next to her not only know what football was, but also recognized the teams splashed across the magazine covers. It wouldn't have been a surprise in the muggle world — these were some of the biggest clubs in the world, after all — but this was Hogwarts. Some people here still gave pencils strange looks.

She stopped fussing with the magazines and grinned at the boy. "You support Arsenal? I'm so sorry," she joked, and not just because she was a Chelsea supporter. From what she remembered of the matches before school, Arsenal hadn't been doing well. "At least they're playing Southampton next week." It was a match Arsenal was heavily favored to win, even given their recent track record. Harper pushed the magazines closer to him. "You can look through them if you want. I also have recaps for the New Zealand National League if you follow any of those teams," she said, gesturing to the print-outs.

 

[Stan Beckett]

Stan shook his head in mock disappointment as the girl joked about Arsenal being the team that he supported. It was not much of a surprise that they couldn’t clutch it against Liverpool but to lose like the way they had done, they had been humiliated for sure. What did surprise him was that the girl apparently knew about football as well. It was a nice surprise though.

He agreed with the girl that Arsenal should not have any difficulties against a team such as Southampton, but it would not be the first time in the seasons that Arsenal had lost against a lesser team. It was always those games in which you expected a win. ‘’Not as closely,’’ he answered. ‘’But I will happily look through any magazines discussing the Polish football league,’’ he told the girl. The Ekstraklasa was an interesting football league, especially after his favourite team was knocked off their throne. Wisła Kraków had dominated the league for twelve years until Legia Warschau began their winning streak, which was still a sore topic to talk about amongst Wisła fans, even after all those years. The worst thing about it was that Warschau fans repeatedly reminded them of Wisła’s terrible performance ever since stopped being champions. ‘’So you follow football, too? Do you have a favourite team?’’.

 

[Harper Alston]

"The Polish league?" She wasn't really familiar with the teams in that league though she vaguely remembered a Polish team going decently far during the last European Cup. Harper started to rifle through the magazines and picked out a couple. "Try these. They usually cover the European teams in detail, though they mostly focus on the Big Five. But they should at least have scores for the most recent matches." It was difficult finding news about the smaller leagues, which is why she asked her brother to send her articles about the New Zealand league. "Are you from Poland?" she asked curiously, noting that he had an accent.

At his question, Harper nodded. "Yeah. I try, at least. It's kind of hard to keep up with everything while at school." The magazines were an okay substitute, but it didn't really compare to actually watching a game live. Plus, her brothers occasionally spoiled matches in their letters to her before she got a chance to read about them. "Yup, Chelsea and Auckland City. What about you? Arsenal, I'm assuming?"