Why did she write? Why did anyone do anything, really? She wrote because she had things to say, because she had opinions to voice. Hestia ran Witch Weekly because it was something she had dreamed of doing since she was younger, once she realized that she really only had a vague taste of the blood vengeance that ran through her Carrow blood. She liked magic, yes, she loved it more than anything. Cursing and harming people had been a big part of her life, but it wasn't the most important part. It was just the little section that she held for familial expectations. She wasn't like her baby cousin nor was she like her sister in that matter. Of course, she wouldn't hesitate to hurt someone if she thought that they had wronged her. It just wasn't her first priority. Her first priority was writing, getting the story out, making herself heard. Well, that was her first priority after Flora, but she felt that her sister was so clearly the most important that it wasn't even worth mentioning anymore.

She and Flora were, after all, always together. They were only apart at work, they were apart when she was busy, but they were together more often than apart. She didn't know what she would do without her sister. Did she even exist when Flora wasn't around? She knew she did; she was alive now. But she felt that absence keenly. She was really only half of a person without Flora. Her sensitivities and her safeness were gone. She was really just impulsive choices and dangerous looks now. Coy, she was good at that. Coy and conniving, and without Flora she felt like she was all bark and no bite. The bite was there, though, no matter how hard she tended to hide it away. She was cruel and mean when she wanted to be, but she was so much worse when she was with her twin. Because then she had to protect Flora, she had to prove that she was the first twin, that she bowed to no one. Alone she was always more daring, but she wasn't the same. She wondered, idly, if Theo had ever been able to tell when she was pretending to be her sister or when her sister was being her.

She wondered if Gerald would be able to tell in the future. She wondered if it would bite them all in the end, if there was going to be something that caused them to realize that it wouldn't work. Because she loved her sister, really, and she knew that Flora would be her in a heartbeat if she needed, but how would Gerald feel about that? But it wasn't important; she didn't expect to catch feelings for this one. He was just a bite of fun for now. He was just a thing of interest, intrigue... "Oh, only to keep around for now," she insisted, her smile flashing towards a bit more biting than normal. She knew she could change her mind in an instant, and Theo knew that as well. There was a reason that she hadn't followed those little pureblood traditions. There was a reason she wasn't married yet. "Who knows? I may drop him as soon as I see fit. But I may end up with just the same gossip as you, Theo." She was being cruel, toying around like that, but she wanted to see if her friend would get the hint that she was seeing someone in the Quidditch world. As an owner of a team she rarely got the same gossip the rest did, but now...

Theodore had had a lot of ups and downs in life to date but this year particularly had been the hardest. Losing Rita, well, nothing could compare to that. He knew that his two brothers were feeling the loss just as hard as he was. In time the three of them would move past this but they would never forget Rita. How could they, she had been a part of their lives for so many years and she had been instrumental in all their lives. What didn’t sit well with all of this with Theo was how she had lost her life. What reason could someone have to murder her? It sickened him and he would never forget the moment he had learned how sister had died. His heart would forever hurt for his niece and nephews. They had lost their mother and nothing could replace her. The best solution was for them to be raised in Greece. It would be away from all the crap that was taking place in the UK. Theo would not hesitate in making the trip to Greece to see them. He missed them and he was long overdue when it came to spoiling them. He was sure that Tia would give him time off to make the trip. She like him appreciated how important family was and she knew how much he missed his sister. He was definitely closer to his siblings than he was to his parents. Theo had resigned himself to knowing that they would just never see eye to eye on so many things.

When it came to Berry, he wanted to be there for her because he had missed out on much of her life already but he also didn’t want to push her and to scare her off or push her too far that she didn’t want anything to do with him. Theo was finding it to be a delicate balance of being in contact with her and giving her own space. He would just thread the line carefully. He was glad that Tia didn’t question him too often on Berry, there was unfortunately very little he could tell her. He hoped his friend understood that while he was a gossip writer and he reported on the personal lives of so many celebrities in the magical world, he still wanted some of his own private life to remain private. Some people could call it hypocritical but he didn’t care. The people he wrote about were all in the private life, his daughter was now. Plus, he didn’t want Belladonna to get mad at him. Seeing Berry’s name in magazine or hearing about it (because he was sure that she didn’t read the magazine) would not sit well with her.

Theo could tell that his friend was hiding something and that she was just bursting to tell him but knowing Tia as well as he thought he did, he knew she wouldn’t give out the information very easily. Of course, he knew that at times she had switched places with her sister. Their looks may be indistinguishable but once Tia spoke, he could tell her from Flora. The addressed him differently. But right now he was sure he was with Hestia. If anything her coffee consumption gave her away. ”Well I hope he knows about his brief stay” the wizard replied smirking. His friend was dangling the bait for him to take when it came to questioning her on her new love interest. ”The same gossip as me…” Theo trailed off looking thoughtful wondering what she was hinting at. ”Are telling me what I think you’re telling me?” he laughed throwing his head back. ”Can’t stay away from Quidditch can you?” he asked teasingly knowing very well that his friend owned her own team.

She was a bad friend, most of the time, and Hestia knew that she had to work on it. It was really because of how she saw people and how she judged them, how she treated individuals that weren't related to her by blood. She had been blessed with a twin sister, and she knew that some people saw it as a curse. Not the Carrows, of course. Twins ran in their family tree, so it wasn't out of the ordinary to find them so connected. It was, of course, weird to strangers. she knew that they were never going to understand. They saw her and Flora as oddly intertwined, and although that was the truth they seemed to see it as a negative. They weren't negatively connected, they were just... They were one person. They were one person that had been ripped into two, and that was why they only knew how to talk to each other. So She was preoccupied with Flora, constantly. How else was she supposed to feel when someone ripped the heart out of her chest? Her other half, that was what Flora was. She didn't know what to do when her sister wasn't there, and so she neglected other people. 

It made sense, after all. Why should she waste energy on someone who wasn't guaranteed to be there forever? Flora wouldn't leave her. Flora would be there always; sometimes, Flora was her. So she failed to ask what was going on in other people's lives, and that was how she managed to lose relationships when she needed to keep them. That was why she failed so terribly, sometimes... It was why her mother seemed frustrated with her, why she rarely spoke to her cousins or her coworkers. She only needed to worry about her sister. And Hestia was fine with that. She didn't seem bothered, she didn't seem annoyed... It was good. Everything was good, and great. Somehow, Theo still didn't mind her as a friend. Maybe it was because she was his boss. Maybe he did actually care about her friendship. She wasn't really sure, and she wasn't sure that she wanted to ask, or mess with it, even.

"Brief but interesting," she assured Theo, letting out a light laugh. There was no doubt that she would be done with Gerald at some point. No matter how interesting he was, she still held true to her normal beliefs, and she was likely going to move on rather quickly. "You know I can't. I'll even skip out on a bit of Fashion Week for Quidditch... Which, of course, is how I met him." 

Theo knew that life was going to be more challenging with all that going on with the muggleborns and the Death Eaters. He was glad he was not one to have to report or write about it. He would have been fired after his first article for sure. He would have been far too biased for any publisher or editor. And that included Tia as well. While he didn’t have to go into the great detail when it came to him writing about blood ties with his subjects in his column he was still mindful about it. He knew what side his friend sided with and he was glad that subject rarely came up between the two of them. He wouldn’t really know what to say. He was also glad this mum was not here and that she and his father had moved to France. While Theo didn’t get on swimmingly wit his mum, he still wanted her safe.

He wanted the same for Berry too and as much as he hated it, he just had to put his fate in Sebastian Flint to look after his daughter. While the two weren’t close he wanted her safe just like he did his mother. He wasn’t sure if his daughter wanted a relationship with him even but the man would like her decide. After All she knew what he wanted. He wasn’t trying to ‘throw the ball in her court’ despite it looking that way, he just wanted her to have choice. He was sure that her mother was questioning his parenting but in turn he could easily question hers too. Theo was well aware of what kind of mother Lady was or wasn’t. He had seen what an overbearing mother had been like in his own and at the other end of the scale there sat Lady, now she didn’t necessarily completely ignore Berry but she had hardly been around and Theo wouldn’t have wanted that had he known about her assistance earlier. As the case was, he had only come to learn about her existence relatively recently in comparison to how old she was.

Theo looked at his friend and wondered if she was happy. He hoped she was, she appeared to be but then again Hestia as good at hiding things just like he did. They weren’t the closest of friends and he didn’t expect her to share. Theo laughed. ”Well I won’t discourage you from Quidditch, so, do I get a name or your mystery guy?” He asked, curious to see if she would take the bait or not. She probably wouldn’t but he wanted to try his luck.

Witch Weekly was the third most important thing in Hestia's life. Flora, of course, was first. She was always the person who was most important to her, she was the one who Hestia paid the most attention to. The second was Quidditch, of course, because she was clearly still obsessed with the sport. She had briefly (very briefly) wondered if she could play it, when she was younger, but her mother had set her straight. She was to be a proper girl, not one who played sports. She was polite, she was refined, and she didn't play Quidditch, she just observed it and fell in love with it. Anything else was unseemly, but that didn't mean that the sport wasn't the second most important thing to her. And Witch Weekly came after that, and it was pretty close. She loved her work, she loved the fact that she was now editor, especially since it was such a strong position to hold at a young age. She didn't think that she could have been editor if they weren't in power, if the Death Eaters and the purebloods weren't now on top. But she was good at her job, and she held the position as strong as she could. She didn't want anyone to think that she didn't deserve it.

She had worked hard and she had gotten editor. And Hestia knew that she was good at it. She had to be. There was no way that she couldn't be good at her job, not like this. She was good and she loved being the editor. She loved being able to put little things inside the magazine, she loved making sure that the spreads were perfect. And she loved her coworkers, really, even the ones that she disagreed with. She knew that it was hard to get everyone to like her, so she didn't really care to try, but she thought that most of them had been won over. At the very least she knew that they respected her for her job. She was doing well, she was making sure that she did the name justice, and she was drinking as much coffee as someone could. And it was going to stay that good. She wasn't going to let anything take this away from her. Hestia had had nothing, and she wasn't going to live with that again. She wanted everything. She had her dream job, she had a Quidditch team, and she had Flora. And she wasn't giving any of that up.

She would die before she had to give that up. It was a dark thought, but it was true. She worked her ass off to make sure that it wasn't taken away, and she played the game just as good as she had since she learned it. She toyed with people, she manipulated them... And she knew what Theo was trying to do. Hestia wasn't going to fall for that. People got the information that she thought they deserved, no more and no less. She didn't think that he deserved the name, not yet, and she knew that it would go straight into his column. She could take it out, of course; she had that power. But she wasn't willing to divulge that information just yet. That was something that she was keeping for herself. Her private life was her own. "You'll only get a name when it ends," she said, grinning. With her track record, that could have been soon... And that way, if it did inevitably fail, she could create a campaign that maligned that team and pumped up hers.

When Theo had been younger and people had asked him what he would be doing after his Quidditch would end, he had never answered them saying he would be a writer. He hadn’t been the best academic student and he thought that at least that you needed decent writing skills to be a writer. Of course Theo had heard many people criticise the Daily Prophet as a rubbish publication as well call Witch Weekly a gossip rag. If you looked at them on face value that was probably what both appeared to be like. Theo couldn’t speak for the paper but when it came to the magazine he knew the work that went into it from everyone. Yes they were all a team and Theo had been on teams his whole life despite now wanting to live a life on his own. Yes he desired love but he was unsure he would actually ever get it. People could have kept telling the man to be more positive where everything was concerned but that would be wasting their time. His siblings said much the same thing and he barely listened them. Theo was far too much a realist for his own good. It got him into troubles at times and he wondered if his relationship hadn’t ended the way it had all those years ago, would his attitude still be the same. Now, he would never know. His ex was just that, his ex. He wanted love, he was human after all. But in saying that he knew from his brother being a healer that weres and such also were in relationships. He didn’t know any personally but then again, people were more reluctant to tell him anything given what he did for a living.

Just as with Quidditch, Theo knew he wouldn’t be doing this forever. In the years to come, he would retire and probably move onto something else. He didn’t know what just yet but becoming a coach was a possibility. Right now he would just stick to reporting on them. They continued to provide him and the readers of Witch weekly with enough entertainment. He knew that should he take up a position coaching any team then he would be under (potential) scrutiny from anyone who took on his job at the magazine. Thankfully Theo had carved for him what he considered a very mundane life. He wrote for a magazine, he brewed beer and sometimes he went out to eat, what would be gossip worthy of that? People sometimes found the strangest things gossip worthy and Theo was not about to judge them. Afterall, his life was far from perfect. It was looking good for him now though.

He loved where he worked and he liked that he got to work with Tia. They had been friends from their school days and he was glad to pick that up. Theo was proud of her achieving the role of editor but also was not giving her any sympathy. The man had some idea of what pressure she would be under. He was happy with just his deadline and not the deadline for the entire magazine. Of course he would always be on hand to help his friend the best way he knew how and for him that meant bringing her coffee if she wished or alcohol, whatever worked, he supposed. He should have suspected that something was up with her given that her mood was a lot more perkier than normal. Theo still respected her privacy, after all, she was the one who oversaw his work and decided what went into the magazine and what didn’t. ”Do I have to wait that long?” he asked with a pout. ”For all I know, that time may never come” he added wondering if his friend had considered that. He knew a little of her record with relationships but he thought she shouldn’t write this one off just yet. Unless there was something wrong with the guy….if only he knew who it was.

Working as a group, that had always been something that Hestia enjoyed. She wasn’t sure why, not really, but it had been like that ever since she had started school. Because before Hogwarts, it had only been her and Flora. It had only been the two of them, and it was hard. But then she had gone to school, and she had found more people. Sienna Burke— now Zabini— had been one of those, and then their cousin Ana, and then Theo. Being together, working together with more than one person, had been rewarding. She had worked on the school paper, she had joined clubs, and she had gotten to know others. It wasn’t like she was betraying her sister. That wasn’t it at all. But she knew that she worked well in groups, she knew that she did well with some people. She was a leader. Not completely, not really. There were things that she had to work on, and she had her weaknesses, but she was a leader. She led her sister, she led some of her peers. She hadn’t been a prefect; that wasn’t her. Hestia worked well with others selectively. And that helped, in this world.

It wasn’t that publications was that hard of a career, it was just cutthroat. Some people weren’t cut out for it. Some people were. It was as simple as that, really. She knew who was on her team, and she knew who didn't quite make it. That was what made the interns so much fun; she could tell who was ready and who wouldn't make it in the end. People stole leads, people took stories, and they sure as hell took advantage of one another. It was just a fact of life, at this point. Witch Weekly might be a tight-knit group, but that didn't mean that things were easy. They all worked together until they didn't have to, and then it turned into the Slytherin dungeons once more. She loved them all, and she knew that they would turn around and take away her thunder just like that if it helped them. That was why she had been surprised that she had gotten editor. She was young, she knew that she was young, and she had cashed in a favor that she didn't think would be too helpful. But she had done it, she had gotten what she wanted. She was editor.

She didn't think it would last forever, but she was hoping. Hestia didn't think that she could have hoped for any more, and she knew that it would be taken away at some point. It had to be. She was going to hold on as tightly as she could, she was going to fight tooth and nail, and she wasn't letting go. This was hers, now. She wasn't letting go of Witch Weekly. "It's me," she said, letting out a little laugh. Marrying would mean pleasing her mother, and that was definitely against anything that Hestia believed in. Her mother was, quite frankly, annoying. She didn't do anything for that witch. So this guy would probably fade into the background just like the rest as she steadily avoided marrying. She didn't care if it was expected. She and Flora? They were skipping that tradition (unless her sister wanted to marry). 

When he had been in school Theo would have never guessed he could have loved to write as much as he did. Well there was always the threat of getting caught, Theo secretly got a thrill wondering if he would get caught. He wouldn’t go as far as likening to when he used to play Quidditch but it came close. The difference was that when he played the sport, he at least had a better idea of what lay ahead for him as compared to him being a writer for the magazine. He wasn’t sure if the person he was following as part of story had a volatile personality or if they would be the kind to get embarrassed if he featured them in a column he was writing. Sometimes he wouldn’t find out the answer to that question until after the magazine had hit the stands. Then course it was too late to change things. Theo always made sure what he wrote was the truth. He had been sure about the accuracy of his previous articles and was sure what he saw just now when he had been at the Cannon’s training was that the owner had been cheating on his wife. He thought people would try and be more careful when trying to hide something as delicate as that but he guess he was wrong.

But despite that, Theo was sure he was right in his assumption. He wasn’t sure if the owner was simply experimenting, though he would be considered well past that stage and he didn’t think it was some prank that the owner was playing on one of his team members. It would be horribly mean if that was the case. Theo wasn’t bothered in the least if the guy was gay or what, it was his choice and Theo was not against it. He knew that what he was going to write would hurt a lot of people and he hoped that he had only come out to the family before the column was published. He knew that Tia would not have any issues with publishing such a story, after all, it was stories of that nature that made the magazine fly off the shelves. Theo would only have to hope that the bloke in question didn’t pay a visit to Chutne Jidlo anytime soon. After all, it was no secret that was where he worked.

Theo was happy that his friend was dating again, even if she was not likely to release his name. He was not surprised by that given that she was careful what he said around Theo because she knew of his reputation first hand. But he was unlikely to ever write about her. It would be kind of awkward, not to mention she would probably take it out before it ever went to print. ”Well, it’s your choice, but try not to look on every relationship like it will end, this one may not” he smiled as he pushed his chair back and stood. ”I’ll be at my desk to write up the column for you” he said giving her a half a salute before he walked out of his office and to his desk.

**END OF THREAD**