Life in a Chokehold Solo

Backdated to July/August 2025
Cork, Ireland

Sunlight glared in the reflection of tinted windows. This building was surprisingly modern for wizards, but certainly the right one, Magic Marinas in large blue and teal lettering over the entrance. The exterior was inconspicuous enough, between the architecture and the lack of duelling iconography, though the Tesco's just down the street suggested they were either very good at turning away any muggle who wandered in or maintained a solid casting of Repello Muggletum. Likely the latter. Bridget squinted at the words and wiped her palms on her trousers, again.

Up to this point, her commute had been a welcome distraction. She had tested it the week before, but it still required some amount of timing and focus: a walk from her flat to a bus stop, minding the streets called, walking the last two blocks. She'd never had a phone, only a laptop she'd left at her mum and dad's so it wouldn't fry, so spent the ride staring out the window, primarily. She tried not to observe the commuting muggles, since that made her feel sort of weird. Displaced, even if she blended in.

She wasn't sure what she was here. A fool, maybe, picturing the insides of this facility to be a copy of the duelling room at Hogwarts, the same wooden bleachers and worn pistes painted with the moon cycles. Of course they wouldn't be. Duelling was duelling, she reminded herself. The distance and the room and even the people shouldn't matter, really. She would try to be a professional, instead, head held high and forcing her shoulders to relax. It would all just take some adjusting to, new people to meet and routines to memorize. She'd try to pretend she liked all the newness.

The door creaked softly when she pushed it open, heavier and slower than expected, and shut by itself behind her. Bridget paused for just a second, steeling herself. Right, front desk first. "Hello, how are you?" The man beat her to a greeting; she'd been waiting to get closer. "Collins, is it? First day?"

"Bridget Collins," she confirmed. She returned his smile, but was sure she lacked most of his easy warmth. She'd be horrible at his job. "Is there anything else you need from me?" In theory she'd completed all the paperwork, but had found the Magic Marinas' communication to be a bit too scattered for her liking, and shown up generously early this morning as a precaution.

He flicked through a file, then looked up with that same grin. "No, looks like you're all sorted. Lockers are that way."

As promised, the locker room was down the hall. She was unsurprised to find the exterior modernity had not truly bled inside; wood and stone dominated the building materials, and it was difficult to make anything look truly muggle without electric lighting. The locker room was occupied, of course. Bridget gripped her bag tightly and tried for that same smile she wasn't sure quite reached her eyes, relieved when the pair simply smiled back and exchanged brief hellos. She'd like to put her stuff down before dealing with everything else. She'd really like for it to be normal right from the start, no introductions or uncertainty needed, but this wasn't a team she'd been with for years.

She left her bag at her name-designated locker and found the door that led out into the main duelling space. There were two duelling pistes and a line of dummies, and that was what she limited her initial observations to, because these things were familiar, even if the pistes were lined in teal paint and the dummies looked much newer than any she'd seen before. Three of the dummies were already occupied by duellists in the midst of personal warm-ups and she was happy to copy them. Quiet steps to the standard distance away, squared shoulders, readied wand. She selected a simple spell to start, something she must have cast a thousand times. "Flipendo." No hitch in the cast, but the dummy wheeled itself to the left faster than she knew they could go so that her jinx slammed past it into the wall. She nodded once to herself. That made sense; of course a professional team would have enchantments for greater speed than a school.

Bridget took her first proper deep breath since arriving, really settled into a duelling stance. This was a challenge she would accept gladly, something quick to consume her focus as she waited for the start of practice. She'd duelled plenty of speedy duellists, only they had little tells in the dart of their eyes or the shift of her muscles. Likewise, the dummy couldn't read her, and while she faced away from the teammates filtering in, neither could they. That was the hope. Perhaps she was digging herself a deep hole of perceived awkwardness, but she was sure it would be worse if she attempted to stand around and make small talk with strangers.

Practice was soon enough brought to order by Coach Boyle, a tall woman in a pantsuit that Bridget had met twice before. Her program's communication left some things to be desired, but she commanded a room easily, all eyes immediately on her. "Welcome to our first practice of the 2027-2028 season." Coach Boyle's voice was deep and carried easily; she'd have no issue going without Sonorus as a match moderator. "I look forward to what we will achieve this year."

Her green eyes scanned the room and stopped briefly on each of her duellists. Her presence in this environment was strange; Bridget hadn't had a sports coach since her childhood football team, since Hogwarts sports were run by captains. Sharp, but not unfriendly, she smiled lightly as she returned her focus to the team as a whole. "Be sure to welcome Duffy and Collins sometime today."

Like she used to get when called on it class, the room felt stuffy and full of eyes. Bridget smiled briefly -- she really was trying to seem friendly -- then returned her attention resolutely to Boyle and her overview of the season's structure until the feeling faded. Preliminaries were September to December, nationals in February and March. Internationals were after that, technically, though the Magic Marinas did not historically make it that far. "I would love for you to surprise me," Boyle added, "which I do believe is possible with sufficient focus and effort." That left all of summer for preparation.

With opening comments completed, Boyle handed it off to Callum McCoy, their captain, for a structured warm-up. The rhythm of dynamic stretches, then basic casting was familiar, but the tongue-twisters were new. An odd addition, but one that made enough sense. Nothing good happened if you tripped over Nec Divinos Crepitus.

Then they were told to get into partners. Perhaps it was inevitable that her attempts to make eye contact led her to the other new member, a woman with curly dark hair and a gap between her front teeth that showed when she smiled and extended her hand. "Fianna Duffy. Partners?"

Bridget shook. "Bridget Collins. And yes, definitely."

It took the pressure off, that they equally didn't know all the beats of a Marinas practice. Besides, Fianna seemed to be a very smiley person, predisposed to laugh off anything going a little bit wrong rather than worry over it. Bridget had enough of a light-hearted streak to find it endearing, but appreciated that it didn't seem to affect her focus. They traded spells in a drill focused on aim and balance and Bridget learned Fianna had a cat named Mr. Squiggles.

Then, Boyle called, "Right, good work so far. Let's try King of the Piste." If there was any drill effective at introducing her to a good portion of her teammates, it was this one. She said goodbye to Fianna, then hello and goodbye again many times as she shifted up and down pistes, never really nearing the top one. The drill's other use was wearing her out so completely she forgot to worry what her new teammates might be thinking about her, too focused on her magic and theirs. Duelling was duelling.

•••

Bridget left her first professional duelling practice with her head quiet. She collected her bag and found her bus stop, watched the streets of Cork pass and walked the last stretch to her flat. The day had warmed considerably since she left this morning. If her energy recovered later, maybe she'd take a longer walk.

At the flat, she showered and checked on Sherlock. Then she brewed a cup of black tea and sat in the living space's armchair for a while as she processed. The practice had not been bad. She quite liked Fianna so far, she was happy to be back to duelling. But so much about the Magic Marinas was slightly... off. Not in a bad way, necessarily, but it was stubbornly and consistently different from so much of the routine that duelling had become for her that she felt off-foot, like someone had half-hit her with a Sponge Knees Curse. Expecting it to be the same as her five years of Slytherin duelling was quite silly, she knew, but she'd expected it all the same.

She missed the Viridian Vipers. By the time she finished the dregs of her tea, that was the conclusion she reached. The dull ache somewhere between her ribs was a poor sign this early.

•••

Since there was nothing she could do about missing her old team other than try to ignore it, she threw herself into what she was good at: duelling as much as she possibly could. There was plenty of work to do, given the great talent and superior experience of her teammates. The first week of practice left her fantastically sore and settling into her return to the bottom rungs, no longer a seventh year part of the undefeated, proven best trio of the school. That part didn't bother her so much. She had no reason to feel bad about losing to duellists who would be representing the Magic Marinas in League One this year, but she let the climb be motivation anyway.

The problem with duelling as a job and being used to duelling as an outlet was that the long hours of work did not count as unwinding. In the long-term, she should find some other hobbies -- maybe she could dedicate more time to her art, or get really into magical cooking? In the short-term, she learned that the facilities were open to duellists after hours and naturally decided this meant she should come back in the evenings. Bridget didn't know what else to do, really. She could hang out with Koko and Howard, but not if they were at work or had their own plans, and they weren't exactly close friends at this point. Her good friends from Hogwarts lived far away (even if magic made the trip fairly short) and had their own jobs. Her schedules and favorite nooks had been upended by the move, by the closed chapter, and what she cobbled together as a new schedule wasn't perfect in terms of balance.

Practice was just so structured. An hour or two extra let her work on what she wanted to, experimental spell combos and trickier nonverbal casts and her continued fruitless endeavor to split her spells on command (that she definitely couldn't try with all her teammates here, because it was always an embarrassing string of failures). She still had her nights at the flat, and she never stayed continuously after practice -- the check on Sherlock was too important, with how old he was now -- but she was sure she was clocking more hours than most of her teammates.

They used the open hours, too, just not as consistently, or perhaps just at different hours. Usually there was at least one other person and she said hello before settling into her solo work. Two and a half weeks in, Fianna was there for the first time. Her initial reaction was surprise when she heard Bridget was there every day, and then she picked the practice dummy two over and did her own thing.

After that she came in more. Not every day, but pretty close to every other, always overlapping with Bridget. They talked a little, when she first came in and when they took water breaks. Of her teammates, she still knew Fianna the best.

The Friday of the fourth week, they had only been slinging spells in relative silence for about fifteen minutes before Fianna stopped and turned to her. Her eyes narrowed in apparent consideration, intent enough that Bridget also stopped to watch her.

"Take a break," Fianna decided. "Grab a drink with me?"

The practice dummy was still rocking on its wheels from her last Confringo. Her ears rang, that small, steady hum any duellist was used to. "Alright."

A drink with a teammate was not an entirely foreign concept -- butterbeers had been wagered frequently throughout her later years at Hogwarts -- but the context felt thoroughly different. Bridget kept her hands tucked into her light jacket and was overly aware of the choice and of the way the shorter strands of her hair had snuck out of her braid and likely formed a frizzy halo. How Fianna could look so at ease and put together, she didn't know, but the fascination with her more extroverted peers was nothing new. At least they tended to make it somewhat easy, as Fianna was doing now.

She followed her lead, through the streets of Cork and to her choice of pub, then to a corner table. Fianna ordered a beer; Bridget ordered a cider and did her best to settle into her chair. This was much more of a commitment to conversation than remarks exchanged during practice, she knew. At least Fianna started it off by telling her about how Mr. Squiggles had caught a rat this morning, a minor fiasco that had nearly made her late for practice, and Bridget got to tell her he was disallowed from visiting Sherlock. Her rat wasn't an entirely safe topic these days, though, and luckily the drinks came fast.

Fianna took a swig and then returned her attention to Bridget, eyes bright. "So what's your deal? You're aiming to be one of the greats? Marinas are a bit of a shit place to start for that, huh?"

One of the greats. That must be what it looked like when she put in so many hours. "Not really." She'd never really cared about being a high-level duellist. An oddity for a Slytherin, she wasn't sure she had career ambitions. It was more that she cared about the magic, her own ability to wield it as effectively as possible, and duelling was an avenue for that. "And the Marinas are alright." Not world-class, but alright.

"You like it so far?"

Bridget shrugged. Yes and no. She was getting used to it, but that same dull ache spread in her chest if she thought too hard about it. "Do you?"

"I do." Fianna nodded, as if convincing herself, and took another drink right as Bridget did. "I was helping my mum in her shop last year and starting to lose my mind. Too much standing around, too much being 'round her. This is better."

It took another swallow before Bridget decided to say, "My mum and dad live in London. I came here to have some space from them, I guess." She sighed quietly. "It's just odd, when I'm home. Figured this was easier."

Fianna laughed and lifted her glass, tipping it into Bridget's when she did the same. "Here's to not mucking it up any more."

She was pretty sure she was only setting them up for more of the same, slow deterioration, but she could hope Fianna was right. And it was okay, anyway. Expected. As long as she built something here, she'd be alright.

Word Count: 2667/2000