The Past is Another Land (Angelina)

[KATIE ANN BELL]

After surviving the brutal tryouts that the Holyhead Harpies coach had put them through, she was more than ecstatic to get an owl saying that the coach wanted her to meet with the Manger/Trainer of the team in order to see if she'd be a good fit for the team. It was a perfectly acceptable request, and Katie wasn't worried. She got along great with everyone! Well... except for a lot of people. A lot of people tended to get annoyed with her loud mouth or her tendency to be far too blunt. Still, she was friendly enough, and the last Quidditch team she was on became more like a family to her, so she was sure it would be the same way. They'd all feel like sisters and make their way to the World Cup. Maybe... or they'd get halfway there and fail miserably like Katie's other career choice. She hoped that wasn't the case, though. Plus, if the Manager liked her it'd mean that she'd get to see Oliver more whenever they had matches against Puddlemere. That would be nice. But before she could think about all that she had to survive this little interview with the Manager of the time. She had to remember her manners and keep her snark to herself, and try her hardest not to be as loud as she usually was, though she couldn’t quite promise herself that last part. Ever.

She made her way through Hogsmeade, a village she’d spent a lot of time in since the end of the war, yearning for a familiar face. She’d always been so disappointed, but this time at least she was there with a purpose, rather than aimlessly wandering like she so often did. She’d end up with the shady creeps in the Hogs Head and end up hitting someone or pissing someone off. She was so close to being ban from there she could practically taste it, so she stopped going. She was tired of being disappointed, so she stopped letting herself be and started taking things into her own hands. She’d visited George at the Burrow and talked with him about Fred’s death, and things started to go up from there. She tried out for the Harpies, had gotten the owl about being recruited, and now she was on her way to the interview. All she had to do was not mess this up, and she’d have a career, and she could stop letting herself wallow in disappointment (if that was what you could even call it, really). She felt disappointment about not being there for her friends, at failing her choice career, at the state of the wizarding world. And yet somehow she pushed through, determined not to let it get her too down. She pushed through, kept herself busy, and tried to keep in touch with her friends in every way she could. She’d written George at the Burrow and at his flat near Wheezes, even though she knew he wasn’t staying there. She’d written to Angelina, too, at her last known address, but the owl always returned with letter in beak. So Angelina had moved, retired from her career, and practically disappeared completely.

Katie sighed at the thought, her black heels clicking against the stone walkway as she finally arrived at the Three Broomsticks. There were so many memories that rested inside this little pub. So many trips to Hogsmeade over the years, so many hours spent inside, laughing, joking. Katie smiled at the memory, trying not to linger in the doorway too long. Wouldn’t want people to think she was mental or anything (not that they didn’t already…). She lugged open the door and stepped inside, allowing the sticky heat of the pub to envelop her. It was a breezy day outside, so there were a few fans spinning on the ceiling and the windows were open, but other than that, it was a bit too warm for her liking. Katie loved the cold and the snow. Summer was no friend of hers. Her eyes wandered around the pub for a moment, trying to remember where the owl said the trainer would be sitting. She knew she should’ve brought the damn letter with her, but nooo Katie was Katie and she knew she’d remember everything the owl said. Nope. Wrong, very wrong.

She inhaled, sighing inwardly angry with herself that her stubbornness got the best of her again. Then again, when didn’t it? She smirked at the thought, and it was only as her eyes fell on the table in the back right corner that she remembered what the owl said. And the woman who was sitting at the table was the last person on earth Katie had expected to see that day (or ever, maybe). Her blue eyes widened as her heart beat faster with excitement, and a huge grin made its way across her face. She was torn between running for the table, yanking Angelina up, and smacking her, or running for the table, yanking her up, and spinning her around in a hug. She was filled with excitement, and she wasn’t sure whether to squeal or stay quiet so the noise that left her was a strangled kind of squeak, and though she tried to keep it quiet half of the pub was looking at her now.

She bit her bottom lip and laughed gently before starting to make her way to the table where none other than Angelina Johnson sat. A smug grin made its way to her face.

“Well well well, what do we have here? The manager and trainer for the Holyhead Harpies sent to inverview little old me?” she grinned, sliding into the booth across from Angelina. She paused only momentarily, studying the girls face before she was shouting.

“Angelina Johnson! Where did you go!? Where have you been!?” She wanted to shake the woman for disappearing for so long, but managed to refrain herself (surprise!). Instead, she sat back, looking around at all of the people who were staring again. “Oi! Mind your business,” she shouted to the lot of them, and they went back to whatever it was they’d been doing, and her face turned back to Angelina, grinning, despite the fact that the woman looked like she’d been through hell and back, waiting to hear what she’d have to say for herself.

[angelina]

To say that Angelina had been annoyed when she had set out for this interview would have been a mild understatement. She had been in her office, getting ready to meet this new Chaser who apparently had great promise for their team and the file that she needed to conduct the interview was not there. The person who had run the try-out had assured her that everything she would need would be in that file, which they promised to have on her desk that morning. But as usual, Angelina was left looking like a chicken with her head cut off because someone hadn't bothered to do their job. So yeah, she was a little annoyed at the moment. She had only an hour or so left before she was supposed to meet them in The Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade and there was no file!

Running her fingers through her black locks, newly straightened and styled into a slightly more professional manner, Angelina once again looked over her outfit, the tight black pencil skirt that hugged her hips all the way to her knees with the dark purple shirt she had chosen to pair it with. Such clothing was not customarily what she wore, but then again, she seldom handled things like this either. For the most part, when the person running the try-out picked a name, Angelina just went along with it and played them as often as she could, provided they could fit in with the team. From what she gathered from the other girls though, this person had great potential and had proven themselves without a doubt on their ability to play and blend into the team, and that was something that was incredibly important to the way that the Holyhead Harpies operated. Then again, that was the way that any team should work, in Angelina's opinion...

At last there was a knock on the door of her office, springing the girl into action as quickly as her damaged leg would allow. She crossed the floor in almost no time at all, pulling it aside to reveal a rather timid looking young intern standing there with the much desired file in her hands. "Nessa, what took so long? I needed this an hour ago!" Angelina said, turning her back to the inter so that she could store the file with all of the other things she had packed up for the interview. The girl seemed hesitant to answer, careful of what words she chose because she knew that Ang wasn't in the best of moods at the moment. "I'm so sorry, Miss Johnson. I meant to have it to you much sooner than this, but Mister Hawkes was still busy going over it again and again....he said he wanted to make sure they were going to fit in with the rest of the team."

The brunette rolled her eyes, snapping the briefcase shut with an unusual amount of force. "If that was what he was doing, then perhaps he should be the one dealing with this interview," she said, a hint of annoyance evident in her tone. But she said nothing else to the girl before she held onto the briefcase at her side and turned, Apparating with a familiar crack and leaving the office room behind her. It took only a split second for her to arrive in Hogsmeade, a place she was all too familiar with from the seven years she had spent at Hogwarts. It wasn't the place she'd have picked if she had had her way, but due to everything being prearranged by someone else higher up in the Holyhead Harpies management, she didn't have much of a choice.

Ang hadn't been that close to the castle since...

But now was not the time to think about that, she reminded herself quickly with a shake of her head. Now was time for business, for getting someone recruited for their team. Keeping her eyes down, Angelina walked slowly into the Three Broomsticks and attempted to keep herself from looking up, afraid that perhaps someone would recognize her from the time she had spent down there as a student. A table and set of chairs near the door quickly became the place that she occupied as she pulled out the file that had nearly made her late for this meeting, deciding that perhaps it would be good to brief herself on the candidate before they were actually offered a position on the team that she managed. After all, she'd be dealing with them quite a bit if they chose to accept the offer.

And as she pulled aside the cover of the file, Angelina felt her heart stop in her chest. The name blazing across the top of the profile was one that she knew from her past, a name that she had struggled to avoid since the disasters of the battle that had raged in Hogwarts and completely upset her life. No...no, it couldn't be...

An outburst from the front of the pub was enough to bring her already wide eyes up from the papers and toward the speaker, her shock plainly written on her face as she heard the voice booming loudly enough to catch the attention of every other patron in the pub. For a moment, the entire world seemed to stop. She couldn't think, couldn't breathe...couldn't even speak. She knew that people were looking over at them, and Angelina wanted nothing more than to run as far and fast as possible. "Katie..."

[/justify]

[KATIE ANN BELL]

Angelina's one word greeting hadn't quite been the warm welcome she expected from such an old friend, but she tried not to think too much on it as a barmaid came over to offer them drinks.

"Er, sure, I'll have a butterbeer," she said, even though she knew she was in an interview. This was Angelina, after all. If it had been anyone else she might have remained more professional, and maybe she should have. This was an interview for her future career, after all. But hey, she failed out of one career, she could fail at a second and probably wouldn't be as bad as the first. She'd never forget that horrible day. They told her to pack her things and leave, and she thought they were joking. Katie Bell thought they'd never kick anyone out of Auror training. Tonks had been an Auror for Merlin's sake, and while Katie hadn't known the woman well, she knew her well enough to know she was just about as thickheaded and impulsive as Katie was. Perhaps Tonks handled it, better, though.

Katie's thoughts wandered back to when she packed up her things. She refused to cry, and she left the Auror training facility with a smile on her face, thanking them for the opportunity. But the second she was out of those doors, the tears began to pour like there was tomorrow. And, part of Katie felt like there was no tomorrow. She'd spent her entire life wanting to be an Auror, and she'd failed. And the people she wanted to talk to most about it were all gone missing or ignoring her completely. It would have been a lie to say it didn't hurt. It hurt a lot, actually, but Katie refused to hold it against them. They'd all been dealing with their own kind of drama, their own emotional scars. Hell, you could tell just by the look on Angelina’s face she didn’t want to be there. You could see the emotional distress she’d been under, even though she tried to hide it well. Katie knew her well enough that she didn’t need to look over the woman more than once to know she was still reeling with hurt and pain from the battle, and it wasn’t just in her leg. Katie frowned slightly at the thought, but Katie refused to bring it up just yet. Stick with easy topics. Angelina had up and disappeared from the entire world for four months, leaving every trace of who she had been behind. Like she’d written George, Katie had written Angelina countless letters as well, but they were never answered. And when Katie went to Angelina’s old flat she was nowhere to be found.

But what sheer, dumb luck that they’d be brought back together by the thing that had their friendship blossom in the first place. Alicia and Angelina became like older sisters to her, more than friends. She’d learned so much from them about Quidditch and about life that she was sure she’d never find a proper way to thank either of them. But there was never a need for verbal thank yous in that group. Not when they were still in Hogwarts, at least. They all knew each other well enough to know that their words of advice and life lessons were appreciated without having to hear a thank you. Her eyes lifted from the table she’d been staring at back to Angelina, a smile replacing the frown that had formed. She wouldn’t think on what grief had destroyed over the past four months, she would concentrate on how to start on a path back to where they were, and that started by surviving this interview.

“How have you been?” the question was simple enough, and since her other rapid-fire questions had been ignored she hoped Angelina might grace her with an answer. She was sure that the answer would be negative, given the state of things. She left her whole life, for Merlin’s sake! But she had to start somewhere, and how things were was a pretty decent start. Katie wasn’t sure what kind of interview questions Angelina had prepared, but the moment her eyes landed on the dark-skinned girl, the interview became the last thing on Katie’s mind.