“Nothing too earth shattering,” Frankie said, doing a perfect impression of someone who had had an earth-shattering break and wanted to hide it. If Holland was talking to Danny or Emmett or Marissa or even Rose, they would have pressed for details. Partially because of nosiness but mostly because bottling things up made people feel worse and Holland didn’t want any of their friends to feel worse. They also didn’t want Frankie to feel worse, but Holland was pretty sure they weren’t close enough to Frankie to ask potentially invasive questions. Holland and Frankie had been in school together for five years and got along, but outside of Quidditch and some common friends, they didn’t interact much. If Frankie wanted Holland to weigh in on whatever was going on with him, he’d ask.

Further evidence that Frankie did not want to talk about his midterm: he immediately changed the subject. To Holland’s hair. Which the fifth-year was pretty sure Frankie had never ever cared about. They grinned at the second-hand compliment, though. Holland didn’t know much about the younger Munro, except that he was really tall for a third-year and ran a tutoring business. Emmett went to him for tutoring sometimes and hadn’t failed many classes, which said a lot for how smart Wyatt was if he was tutoring above his year.

Holland started to respond but was cut off by the arrival of Francine, who had never arrived anywhere quietly. “Hey Francine,” they said. It seemed like a bad principle to practice with a member of a rival team, but they weren’t doing actual Keeping work and passing drills weren’t state secrets. Plus Francine probably didn’t care enough to pass anything on to the Cetus team. Slightly winded, Holland shrugged and tossed the Quaffle to Francine.

And then they stopped moving because Francine was suddenly leaping spontaneously from Holland and Frankie running passing drills to Holland and Frankie being a couple. While doing a perfect impression of a bad soap opera star. There was, Holland decided, a reason that Francine mostly did behind-the-scenes work in Drama Club.

Holland stared at Francine, one immaculate eyebrow slightly raised at her. “This is the first I’m hearing about it,” they said dryly. They glanced at Frankie. “If we are, you should take me out sometime,” they joked, “but I’m pretty sure we’re not.”