Land of Confusion [Brody]

[lyka cruz malkin]

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September 12th, 2026

Two full weeks at Ilvermorny had passed now, and Lyka had made little headway in the way of figuring out the Quidditch dilemma. There had been discussions between the house team members that were at the American school about starting up practices again in October, as a sort of holdover until a decision could be made about either practice matches or a schedule to work around Quodpot. Because apparently that was the more important sport here. She still couldn't understand that, and had held multiple passionate discussions regarding it with other students since. The immediate solution hadn't been found yet and she was upset by that. Another issue was that classes had kept her so busy that she hadn't even been able to get her broom out to fly yet. The first weekend was sort of understandable, but by the time the second week of school was ending, she realized that this was the longest she'd gone without getting on her broom.

To solve that problem, she made sure the field wasn't being used for anything Quodpot related, got her flying robes and broom out from under her bed, skipped breakfast, and headed out of the school. Massachusetts was a cold place in the fall, though it wasn't that far off from the crisp mornings that Scotland had. As far as she was concerned, this was prime flying weather.

Marching down to the field, it looked like she was the only outside of the school currently, up way earlier than the majority of the students. Her broom was freshly waxed from the night before and every bone in her body was aching to fly. Two weeks was too long without it. The only real problem? The gates to the field were locked when she tried to pull them open. Not inherently an issue because she had a mechanism for flying in her hands, but breaking the rules was certainly something to worry about. Rules didn't trump Quidditch though. Getting her broom situated under her, Lyka neglected to check her surroundings before gently lifting the broom off the ground.

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[brody christopher dubois]

September 12, 2026

Being back at Ilvermorny felt better than Brody could have expected. He and his siblings had made it out of Hogwarts, and he knew that that was only because of luck. What was so strange about the whole thing was that he was back at Ilvermorny after two years—and he hadn't had to leave Yvonne behind at Hogwarts. No, the both of them were back at Ilvermorny, and it was all that he had wanted as soon as he had learned that she had had to leave for London because of her parents' deaths, before going to Hogwarts himself had ever been part of the picture. It didn't quite feel the same, though he had other things to think about, too.

It wasn't surprising that he was awake early on a Saturday and out on the Quodpot field, unaware that the gate to the field had locked behind him as he was polishing the handle of his broomstick. He didn't realize that anything had happened until he heard some slight noises—just in time to turn and see someone taking off on their own broomstick. The good thing about having been an Ilvermorny student to begin with was that he knew most people around the school—and he recognized the girl who was mounting her broom, too.

"Hey, Lyka," Brody called to the younger girl, previously a Hufflepuff like himself. "Did the gate lock on you?" Lyka was also a Quidditch player and—from what Brody had seen—maybe the biggest fan of the sport at Hogwarts. Seeing her down there wasn't a shock.

lyka cruz malkin

[lyka cruz malkin]

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Hearing her name called out as she threw her leg over her broom almost caused her to tip over while still standing up. Her first thought was that a professor or groundskeeper had caught her, and while unlikely that any of them knew her by name yet, that didn't keep her mind from going there. The second immediate worry was that it was coming from another Quidditch player or someone on a Quodpot team. She tried her best not to judge her friends that changed their allegiance to the American sport but it was so hard not too. The amount of times she'd been told to shut-up about it over the past two weeks was uncountable at this point. Apparently not everyone saw this issue the same way she did. At the end of the day, she knew how to keep her mouth closed if it meant her friends were getting to the end of their wits with her. But they still needed to be more enthusiastic about her ideas of getting Quidditch going again.

"Err...yeah it did," she responded slowly, still not sure where the voice was coming from. Glancing inside and past the gate, Brody stood there. Considering it was just him, the panicked death grip on her broom handle released on its own and she brought her broom up to her side as she stared at him. "Is it not usually locked? I didn't want to use my wand on it if it was supposed to be like that, so flying over seemed like a good idea." She wasn't sure why she felt like she needed to explain anything to Brody. They'd been housemates and played Quidditch together. If anything, having an insider amongst the Americans that she trusted could prove itself valuable. It was definitely a good idea to come down to the pitch today.

"There isn't a practice going on, is there?" Lyka asked as she shook the gate again - as if it could unlock itself in the seconds since she last checked it. "Because I checked the schedule and didn't see anything going on. I don't think I'd be able to keep myself from saying something snarky if I ran into an entire Quodpot team." Considering the things she'd said in confidence to her friends thus far, letting a flurry of disdain towards the inferior sport would not win any of the Quodpot athletes over. Unfortunately she knew herself well enough that it would be an uncontrollable situation. She had a bad habit of needing to say something, always, even if it ended up being detrimental to what she wanted to actually do.

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[brody christopher dubois]

September 12, 2026

Though he hadn't intended to startle Lyka, Brody wondered if there might have been a better way to announce his presence without spooking her. Most people at Ilvermorny were on edge in general because of the way their time at Hogwarts had ended, and he couldn't blame them; he'd been there, too. When she replied to say that the gate had locked, Lyka sounded shocked that anyone had spoken to her, seemingly not recognizing his voice at first. (Granted, it was definitely easier to pick out an American from the crowd when there weren't so many of them, Brody imagined.)

"Is it not usually locked?" Lyka asked, though it seemed that she had relaxed some. "I didn't want to use my wand on it if it was supposed to be like that, so flying over seemed like a good idea." Instead of flying over it, however, Lyka rattled the gate as she added, "There isn't a practice going on, is there?"

Brody set down his broom and the broom polish. There wasn't anything important going on—no practices or anything. The gate was just troublesome on occasion, and that could make it a pain to open.

"Because I checked the schedule and didn't see anything going on," continued Lyka. "I don't think I'd be able to keep myself from saying something snarky if I ran into an entire Quodpot team."

"No," Brody said with a slight chuckle, "there's no practices going on. You're fine." Leaving his broomstick on the ground, he stepped over to the gate and yanked on it forcefully, pulling it towards himself and holding it open for Lyka to enter the field. "They just couldn't put any oil on this thing in two years," he muttered.

lyka cruz malkin

[lyka cruz malkin]

▲

No Quodpot meant she was safe to fly freely. Thank Merlin, because she was not looking for confrontation today. The only problem with that was that she didn't know how to contain herself, and using her calm, indoor voice was virtually impossible once she got too heated. The Quidditch/Quodpot debate - which may have purely existed only within her own head because she didn't bring it up nearly as much as she could around others - was one of those things where she was instantly at her breaking point, usually bordering on hysterics. Confronting an entire team at practice when they weren't supposed to be there would have made her so frazzled that she would have ended up with detentions for disrupting them. There were several very vulgar words that only appeared when Quodpot came into the picture. Her parents would die if they ever heard them slip out of her mouth.

The wave of relief that she wasn't going to be dealing with anyone else yet was enough to get her to let go of the gate as Brody approached it from the other side. He yanked on it, hard, and it scraped open with a creak that could wake the dead. "No kidding," she responded as she squeezed through the gate and onto the other side. Now the field was within reach!

"Have you been in the air already?" she asked Brody as she stepped past him and closer to the empty field and arena. She had dressed for the weather, but things changed once you got a hundred feet up or more. Slight breezes on the ground could be raging gusts that only ever bothered the tallest of trees. "I haven't had a chance to get out yet...this is my first since we got here." The combined nervousness that came from the excitement and anticipation was reaching a tipping point now that she was on the other side of the gate. Getting into the air was only a few seconds away now...

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[brody christopher dubois]

September 12, 2026

Lyka squeezed through the gate before he had even opened it all the way, but he knew that she of all people would be eager to get back into literally anything resembling Quidditch. "Have you been in the air already?" she asked him.

Assuming that she meant that day, Brody shook his head. He heard the gate shut on its own after Lyka but didn't pay much attention to it. They weren't going to end up locked in there. "Uh, not yet this morning," he said. "I was just doing some broom maintenance when you got here, but I've been back out here since school started."

They were almost two full weeks into the semester, and it had felt weird but good to be back flying at Ilvermorny. He didn't have the learning curve that he had had at Hogwarts, though it gave him a better idea of what the Hogwarts kids were going through since they had transferred there. And then there was Yvonne, who wouldn't have been back at Ilvermorny at all if Hogwarts hadn't been destroyed as it had.

"I'm guessing you haven't been on a broom since summer break?" Brody honestly didn't know how long most of the Hogwarts transfers had been in the United States before starting the school year, though he knew that it had varied when nearly everyone had come from Ilvermorny to Hogwarts.

lyka cruz malkin

[lyka cruz malkin]

▲

Looking between the polish Brody had and his broom, it looked like he had done a pretty decent job on it. Nothing beat a good scrub down before going for a fly. Finding the balance between perfectly polished and garishly greasy was a fine line for a lot of people, but she’d souped-up her broom more times than she could count so it always came out the way she needed it to. True wear and tear didn’t need to be fixed though, like grooves forming where her hands went. Once those started to appear, you knew it was going to be a good ride going forward. The average Quidditch aficionado could go for a fly, but she knew exactly where to grab onto every single time. “You polish it often?” she inquired, tilting her head to try and get a better look at the label. She preferred Santini’s Shellac Sheen, which led to an almost seamless finish on the grain of the wood. Not that she was an expert in it the same way she was with the sport, but Mr. Santini had never steered her the wrong way when it came to Quidditch supplies. It was by and far better than Fleetwood’s in her opinion. That cheap stuff came in literal jugs because of how much you needed to constantly use.

Merlin she was envious of the fact that Brody had managed to get out and fly already. She’d tried everything to be a little faster about it, but things had been getting in the way at every turn. In other words: schoolwork. “The first week here I legit had the shakes from the withdrawal,” she stated flatly. It was also partially caused by the constant anxiety attack that had been plaguing her since she arrived at Ilvermorny. Everything all at once had been too much, and had Lea not been here with her, she was sure that she would have suffered from a nervous breakdown. Things had not been going well.

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[brody christopher dubois]

September 12, 2026

"You polish it often?"

Brody wasn't one of those Quidditch players who ate, slept, and breathed the sport. Being outdoors was the aspect of it that he most enjoyed; playing a game up in the air was sort of secondary to that. He was pretty sure that Lyka would throw a fit if she were to hear him say that, though, so he didn't. He also knew that there was a good chance that she would be appalled that he didn't polish his broomstick before every single time he flew on it. Letting it fall into disrepair was one thing, but he wasn't being neglectful by not shining it up at all hours of the day.

"I polish it when it needs it," he said, answering Lyka's question with a little shrug. If he needed to do maintenance on his broom, he did. If he didn't, he didn't. Brody assumed that that was what most people did. (He polished his broom more than the staff at Ilvermorny had done maintenance on that gate, he thought.)

"The first week here," Lyka told him, "I legit had the shakes from the withdrawal."

Somehow, Brody didn't find that as hard to believe as it might have been, and he gave her a smile. "Do you wanna practice anything," he offered her, "or just fly around a bit first?"

lyka cruz malkin

[lyka cruz malkin]

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Such a tame answer. There was definitely a point where too much polish was a problem, the same as if there wasn't enough, but waiting until the broom needed it was amateurish in her mind. Keeping everything catalogued and dated to make sure her broom was in tip-top shape depending on how much she'd flown it (and in what conditions) was absolutely important. At least that was what Mr. Santini was always telling her. Hopefully that wasn't just so he could sell her more polish and other cleaning materials...

"I should probably do a couple of loops to warm-up..." she mused as she felt her broom in her hand. Too much time off made her rusty, and she couldn't handle being like that anymore. Even with the horrible other sport being played, she was going to have to find a way to get out and around. Flying on the grounds sneakily would work too. Lyka didn't really care if she got in trouble for unsanctioned flying at this point. Ilvermorny lacked the lost important sport in the world. They could deal with her rule-breaking and she'd gladly take the detentions.

Saddling her broom between her legs as she got further out onto the field, Lyka glanced around. It was no Quidditch pitch, but similar enough that she could simulate flying around one. Getting in the air was really all she needed to do to be happy. "Any headwinds up there?" Going to see the nurse the first day back on her broom was not something she wanted to be doing.

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[brody christopher dubois]

September 12, 2026

Lyka expressed that she likely needed to do some loops on her broomstick first to warm up before she decided to do anything more advanced, and Brody felt that that was probably a good idea. While he didn't think that she could have gotten totally out of touch with her flying abilities in such a short span of time, a lot of flying well depended on muscle memory. In the same way that other athletes needed to warm up to avoid injury, so did Quidditch players—just not always in the same ways.

Brody bobbed his head in a slight nod, listening as Lyka questioned if there were any headwinds. There weren't, fortunately, which meant that she would be in the clear. "Nah, you should be good," he replied, looking up at the sky above them. "It hasn't been super windy or anything." With Ilvermorny's position atop Mount Greylock, it was good to use caution, though. "You want me to go up with you or spot you from down here?"

lyka cruz malkin

[lyka cruz malkin]

▲

Merlin it felt good to be on her broom again. Aside from the occasional levitation in her bedroom whilst everyone was asleep at three in the morning, she'd had no actual flying as of late. Even that was tough to pull of though, her mum having some sort of strange sixth sense to whenever Lyka attempted it. She had only been caught twice, but there had been a number of times the following morning where she received a cautionary look over her bowl of cereal. One day she'd ask how her mum knew, whether if it was from sound or if there was some sort of magical sensor that kicked it off. Now wasn't the time and she couldn't really risk poking the bear more than she already had over the summer. Having Howlers delivered wasn't exactly out of the ordinary if she really messed up. They usually got the point across well.

Feeling her feet pull away from the ground, her entire body started to get the familiar tingle of flight. Having been so long since she'd been higher than two feet in the air, there was a slight nervousness that coursed through her body and down to her fingers and toes. Brody had responded, saying that it was clear up higher and that she would be fine. No wind meant a great day of getting back into flying. Lyka enjoyed a headwind every now and again, but considering her extensive break from it all, she needed it to be as clear and calm as possible. "If you want!" she called down to Brody as her broom jumped up another ten feet and continued to climb exponentially. "I'm starting with a few laps around the arena," Lyka added before assuming a more aerodynamic position on her broom. Giving it a small surge of pressure, she took off in an instant. It was so hard not to go fast right from the beginning. But she wouldn't have a position on the house team next year if she didn't work on her speed and broom handling. That practice started now.

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[brody christopher dubois]

September 12, 2026

Lyka, who was already making her way into the sky, said that he could come join her up in the air if he wanted. Brody figured that he would; there was no reason for him not to. It wasn't Lyka's first time on a broom, and her decision to start with some laps was a clear indication there. Even though it was her first time on a broom at Ilvermorny, it wasn't going to be under different conditions to how it had been at Hogwarts, really. The biggest difference was probably that the air temperature was in Fahrenheit instead of Celsius.

"Alright. Cool," Brody confirmed aloud. "I'll be right up." Before he took up his own broomstick, he went ahead and set aside his broom polish. Though obviously there was no chance that either of them would run into it while flying, he didn't want anything to happen to it while he was up in the air.

With that taken care of, he mounted his broomstick and took off. Doing some laps to warm up didn't sound like a bad idea, Brody thought to himself as he continued to ascend.

lyka cruz malkin

[lyka cruz malkin]

▲

If the wind hitting her eyes hadn’t already caused them to teat up slightly, then she would probably cry tears of happiness. It had been too long since she’d managed to fly, and with everything that had happened so far this year, it felt amazing. Had she not had such a gap in practice, she felt like she could have gotten away with some more daring moves. But not today. Today was for getting the feeling of the broom under her back again, and the resistance of the air fighting against her. Having a little bit of control back made her realize how out of whack she had been over the last several weeks. Especially after coming to Ilvermorny. Even if she refused to play Quodpot, she still had this.

After a few of her own laps around the stadium, she looked down towards the entrance and spotted Brody kicking off the ground as well. While on the opposite end of where he was, Lyka forced her broom into a dive, cutting directly across the pitch in an attempt to join him. ”This feels brilliant!” she screamed over at Brody as she approached him, broom turning parallel to his as it slowed into a gradual curved turn. ”I’m doing one more before heading back down,” she added, before dropping into an aerodynamic position and pushing her broom to its max speed. Her hair had been tied back, though that didn’t last long as the hair tie ripped itself out of place and disappeared onto the pitch below. Such things happened, but it only proved to her that she was actually going as fast as her broom allowed.

With her final loop completed, now wind-whipped and full of adrenaline, Lyka landed on the ground, her legs almost giving out underneath her as she found herself extremely unsteady. The excitement of flying made her not care about that at all, and the wobbly feeling soon went away after a few steps. She knew her hair was sticking in all directions because she could feel it, some strands sticking to her face, others pointing directly backwards. Merlin, flying was exhilarating!

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[brody christopher dubois]

September 12, 2026

Maybe it was his affinity for owls, but Brody really did love the feeling of flying through the air. He reached a reasonable height from which he could watch Lyka on her broomstick without getting into her flight path. The last thing either of them needed was to collide with the other at that high up, without any referees. He was there to spot her, so that would defeat the whole purpose.

"This feels brilliant!" Lyka hollered as she flew around. It had to feel freeing to be flying again. Brody knew how obsessed with Quidditch Lyka was—and having come from a school filled with die-hard Quidditch fans, that was saying a lot. "I'm doing one more before heading back down," she then informed him as she neared him, turning and then starting off at speed again.

"Alright," Brody called. By then, however, Lyka was already gone. He was pretty sure that her hair had been pulled back, but he could see that it wasn't anymore.

The seemingly unintended change in her hairstyle didn't appear to bother Lyka in the slightest, and she came back down to the ground and landed safely. Brody hadn't been doing laps alongside her, so he gradually made his way back down to meet back up with her.

He dismounted his broom and walked over to Lyka, whose hair had been styled by the wind more than she probably had intended. "So… How was it?" he asked, as if he didn't already know the answer to his question based on how excited Lyka had been.

lyka cruz malkin

[lyka cruz malkin]

▲

Settling down after zooming around the pitch was so hard to do. It was sort of like drinking her first cup of coffee again every single time. Completely energized, wired, and excited for everything the day decided to throw at her. Eventually it wore off but having been off of her broom for so long, she had a feeling she was going to be riding this high all the way into the wee hours of the morning. Adrenaline tended to linger in her system the entire day.

Running her free hand through her hair to try and collect all of it together at one point, she wasn’t surprised at the shape it had taken. If only she had a mirror right now. Brody was asking her how it was, but she barely caught it. Her ears were still ringing slightly from the wind rushing past them. ”Amazing…” she breathed out as she wiped at her face. ”I really need to figure out what the schedule is here so I can come down when practices aren’t going on. If I can get out every couple of days, it makes focusing in class so much easier.” And her parents would love her for that. They were definitely excited that she wasn’t going to be writing home about her attempts at Quidditch try-outs.

”I’m going to sleep so well tonight,” Lyka added with a laugh. ”It’s crazy how much I took flying for granted. There’s like, nowhere to safely do it in Diagon, so I’ve always been stuck waiting until Hogwarts.” Her dad was not thrilled whenever he caught her levitating between the back patio and the window to her bedroom that overlooked it. She’d been warned for years that doing so would eventually end up with a broken bone, and that they’d have it healed the muggle way instead of with magic. It was quite the threat, but she didn’t care. She only needed one hand to fly anyways.

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