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[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly had, of course, sworn to fight at Harry's side in the matter of the dishes. Or, if Harry prefers, to lend moral support from nearby. He...hadn't really sworn to get up before dawn to do this, if only because Harry had neglected to explain his cunning scheme.

So it's his usual breakfast time when Feuilly comes down to the common room, his laptop under his arm, and pokes his head into the kitchen. And blinks to see Harry already there. "--When did you start?"

Uh, and good morning and stuff, that too.

Comments

[harryhotspur]

As the Bar seems to have automatically offered up two of everything, Harry finds himself staring down a cup of coffee. A small bowl of sugar appears beside it. As he all but shovels sugar into the cup (why is the spoon so tiny?), he glances up at the TV just in time to note with surprise: "That is my name."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"--eh? Oh!" Yes. It is. Feuilly hadn't quite caught it, but he'd heard it, and now he's looking at the screen with more attention. It's gone in a moment, but there's very definitely a picture of a rooster standing on a ball, labeled TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR.

Then there's people running around again. "It's--we saw this before, when we were looking for a, a movie. Is Tottenham a--place?"

[harryhotspur]

"I think--" He frowns. "There is a village so called. Near to London."

(Henry V will build an abbey near there, and after Henry VIII dissolves it, the land and building will ultimately pass into the hands of the Percy family! But not yet.)

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Everything that used to be a village is part of a city," Feuilly grumbles. He still has trouble, reading histories, reconciling the thick urban Paris neighborhoods with the fields and markets he remembers. It must be a greater change still coming from 1403.

...And, right, speaking of reading histories, he could be finding out about this. Bagel gripped between his teeth, Feuilly opens up his laptop and starts typing, four-fingered. TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR.

[harryhotspur]

"Thinkest thou it is a city?" It certainly seems like it would have to be, where else would you gather that many people?

Harry leans to peer over Feuilly's shoulder, to see if he has answered the most important question: "Why does it bear my name?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

"I don't--" Look, he's typing as fast as he can, okay? It just...takes a while for him to work out what he's looking for. Wikipedia. All right, he's heard of that. "--founded in 1882--oh, they have a motto, it's Latin, Audere est Facere, to dare is to do--"

Right, right, sorry, why are they called Hotspur? There's an article about the history--

"Just--a moment--see if they say something on the, the television?" While your boyfriend wrangles with this Future Tech?

[harryhotspur]

Yeah, but-- yes, alright. He turns back to the TV. Mostly they seem to be narrating the action, names he doesn't recognize coupled with anecdotes that don't really make sense. But gradually, he realizes--

"Football. This is football?"

If it is, why is no one hitting each other? Why does the man in the striped shirt get angry every time they push each other? God, the future is weird.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Mmhmm, football--um. It says that, um. You. 'Lived locally in the 14th century?' And also that your family had land in the neighborhood later on?" And also that Harry is famous as a character from Shakespeare's play, but Feuilly isn't going to poke at that just now.

He looks up at a noise from the crowd, but nothing seems to have happened. Oh. Oh, all right, someone...came close to getting the ball into the big net. But he didn't.

[harryhotspur]

Harry frowns. "If we did, I know not of it."

But he also might not be considering the question too deeply: he seems rather distracted by the game. Not that he's still entirely clear what's going on.

"Which is mine?" Again: the important questions.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Shrug. "I'm just reading from here."

He grins to himself at the question. Right. "Their emblem is a cockerel standing on a football--hm. Colors, white and navy blue." It looks white and black on the television screen, but the other team is in red and blue, so. There you go. Tottenham Hotspur.

"Does it say the score?"

[harryhotspur]

It takes him a moment of searching the screen to notice the little box in the top corner.

"Neither for either, if that is the score," he says, pointing.

He props his chin on his hands, coffee and bagel momentarily forgotten. "It looks not like football."

[tu_vas_triompher]

...hm. No points. All right. Plenty of running around, though.

"What should it look like?"

[harryhotspur]

"More people. More kicking. Kicking each other," he clarifies. There's lots of kicking the ball going on.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Ah." At the moment, they seem to be sending the ball more or less back and forth? "Kids play something like it in France, too. But not so--" Not so big and bright. Just, you know, kids kicking a ball around, if someone has a ball or a reasonable equivalent.

Hm.

He goes back to the Wikipedia page. Are these Tottenham Hotspur people...good at football?

[harryhotspur]

"It is played very oft for Shrove Tuesday-- betwixt parishes. Some do come to look, but not--" He waves his hand at the screen. "Not so many as this. --what, is't done?"

They seem to be stopping, though Harry can't see any reason why. "Half time," he echoes after one of the commentators. Huh.

[tu_vas_triompher]

There are a lot more people in the world than there used to be. But yes, it's quite a crowd, bigger than Paris theaters.

Feuilly looks up again. "'Half Time?' I'll look that up. But here--you have a long-standing rivalry. With some players called Arsenal. Probably not the same as parish games, but--" Hey, Harry knows who to...cheer against...?

[harryhotspur]

"That man-- that man who wears no colors, he would not let them hit each other." It is plain from Harry's tone that he finds this simply disgraceful.

He edges over to peek over Feuilly's shoulder again.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"They probably have rules against it," Feuilly points out, the voice of tedious reason. "But here--" He taps the screen. "There's your motto, To Dare is to Do, and here's your, um. Rivals." He clicks the link. "Is that who they're playing now?"

The voices talking over the game keep saying something about Crystal Palace, but presumably that's the grand building that holds the game.

[harryhotspur]

"Nay, they bear the wrong colors. These they face are parti-colored blue and red, this here--" He pokes at the screen. "'tis red and white."

Harry leans his chin on Feuilly's shoulder. "Audere est facere-- ay, 'tis very well. I would say very strange, and yet-- sure we had such great ado for tournaments. Though this is no joust." You can't even hit each other!

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly leans back into him. "No, it's very--it's not like anything I can think of, exactly." It's not gentlemen's dueling, it's not a fight, it's busier than bowling, but more spread out than tennis-- He pushes back his hair. "I think they'd be watching a play, in Paris."

It's not a value judgment, it's just the closest he can come to naming the spirit of the crowd watching the game.

And oh--right--half time. Unsurprisingly it turns out to mark the halfway point of the game. And that article leads to another link--this is enjoyable once you get the hang of it-- "Played by 250 million players in over 200 countries. 200 countries!"

[harryhotspur]

"I could not name two hundred countries," Harry says dubiously. "I did not think there were two hundred countries on earth."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"I--" He's already counting on his fingers, and folds his hands together to stop. "I don't know that I could either. But it's--there's an International Federation--"

That's probably less interesting to Harry than it is to Feuilly. "There's a, a link, to the rules--oh, but a World Cup, that must be a, a competition amongst all countries--!"

[harryhotspur]

Harry turns to try and hide his grin against Feuilly's shoulder. He nuzzles against Feuilly's neck, just a little: Feuilly is being a dork, how is any man to resist?

"A great contest, I do not doubt," he says. A idea strikes him, and he straightens up. "O, but thou needst must see-- who fared the better, England or France?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly makes an entirely unconscious mmmming noise at that. "I wonder if they really all play--hmm? Oh--ha. Yes, all right, Harry."

He reaches behind himself to swat at Harry before looking it up, though. "I--hm--if I'm reading this right--" Is he? There are diagram sas complicated as anything you'd expect for, oh, for delineating the governing bodies of a nation-- "I--ah. Sorry, Harry. I think France came seventh, and England--"

He keeps scrolling down.

[harryhotspur]

Harry tries to duck out of the way, then gives Feuilly a jab to the shoulder in return.

It takes Harry a minute to even figure out what the diagram is saying, but once he does, he scowls.

"I have never heard tell of the half of these places," he mutters.