Demelza Robins was having a bad day.
You'd think that just the mere fact that she would play quidditch again this year would cheer her up, and it did, to some extent. But quidditch when Ginny Weasley was your team captain was trying at best. Practices included rain. Always. Basically, if it wasn't raining, practices were called off. Apparently, in Ginny's opinion, training in fair weather didn't do much: if you could train in horrible, nasty, wet weather, then you could play in any condition.
To make a long story short, today was one of those rainy days, and she was flying through the air on a broomstick, her mud-stained robes whipping through the air behind her as she went, exchanging the quaffle swiftly with Ginny and the newest addition to the team, Kristina. Her dark hair seemed to be slapping her, the wind was so fast and unforgiving today. She pressed on, though, determined not to complain and be called out as weak by Ginny, or Harry, for that matter. Defeating You-Know-Who made her continued resistance of whining in bad weather seem like a trivial thing.
Harry was there. He would always come to the quidditch practices, every single one of them. His auror training was few and far between, mostly because it had been dubbed that he had more experience than most full-fledged aurors, so he wouldn't need much training before he became one. That's all Ginny had told her when she asked questions about it the first time he had spectated.
He didn't seem to mind the rain and thunder much. In fact, it never seemed to irk him at all. He seemed perfectly content to sit there and stare at the seven players of the Gryffindor quidditch team for hours. To be fair, though, most of the time, he did stare at Ginny.
Anyway, Demelza had quite had enough of this rain by the present time, which happened to be November. Combining that with the stressful school year she was having, what with her O.W.L.S. coming up, and the huge amounts of homework that were seeming to just pile up, with no way to finish them all quick enough, so far, this year hadn't been wonderful.
To hear the sound of an overly loud whistle being blown was almost like music to her ears. Or it would be, anyway, if it wasn't busy blowing out her eardrums. She looked over at the stands, even Harry seemed to think the sound was painful, his ears were covered, and his face sporting a grimace.
She dove quickly to the ground, and touched down, eager to get out of the freezing rain and mud: taking a warm, steamy shower, might just get her through the rest of the day. Her feet hit the ground, and she sprinted off the pitch, not seeing anything else, just concentrating on the locker room door until she heard the unhappy sound of the whistle being blown once more, and Ginny's cries of, "Get back here, Demelza! We're not done yet!"
Trudging miserably back to where she had haphazardly tossed away her broom, she mumbled something along the lines of, "I can decide when I'm done," and tried to convince herself that killing herself would not be the best idea in this situation. She kicked off from the ground, not ready to resume this never-ending practice. Even the rest of her team-mates had looked hopeful when the whistle had sounded. Now, they all just looked depressed. Maybe Ginny had some crazy glitch in her brain that made her want to play in these conditions, but Demelza, and the rest of the team, for that matter, most certainly did not.
*
After the trying practice had officially ended, the shower was more than pleasing. The hot water that cascaded over her back untangled her muscles, putting the stress of her life into the back burner. Of course, there was always the walk back to the castle. Demelza was trying to put that off for as long as possible.
When the rest of the team had left the changing room, she knew it had to be time to at least get out of the shower. She slowly stepped out, feeling the cool air rush over her body. Quickly pulling on her Hogwarts robes, she magicked her still dripping hair dry, and walked over to the doorway. The rain seemed to be pounding harder than ever, and lightning seemed to be flashing every second. God, she hated storms. Not only were they loud, and made it so she couldn't focus, they were wet. Unless it was warm water, being wet wasn't exactly her cup of tea.
She eyed the door of the castle. "Three, two, one," she whispered under her breath, and began to sprint toward the safety of the school. She didn't notice much else, apart from a crooked old tree, completely uncovered from the rain. A dirty blonde haired girl who looked to be about her age sat perched atop it, looking at the dark, cloudy sky.
"Oi," Demelza called, stopping in her tracks. "What are you doing out here? It's storming." The sound of Demelza's voice seemed to startle the girl. She jumped, briefly loosing her balance on the branch.
The girl's brown eyes connected with Demelza's own, and she spoke, "I know. I like the rain, it's calming. I always come out here when it storms." Demelza stared at the girl, incredulous.
"You don't mind getting wet?"
"I can dry myself when I decide to go back in."
"But you like being cold dripping with water while you're out here?"
"S'not so bad. You should try it sometime." The girl patted the spot next to the branch she was sitting on. Demelza shook her head.
"I've got a lot of homework. O.W.L.S. are this year for me, and I'm already behind."
"Come on. I've got them too, this really helps to relieve stress." Reluctantly, Demelza went to sit under the tree, a branch below the girl, trying not to get more wet than she already was.
"I'm Demelza," she said, as she was climbing to her seat.
"Astoria."
A/N: Okay. Let's talk about the characters' age. This story is set a year after Deathly Hallows, and it states that Demelza is in fifth year, or is at least taking her O.W.L.s this year, as is Astoria. I've said this on the premise that Demelza was in fourth year in HBP, meaning that she would be in fifth year in Deathly Hallows. However, I think, since the education that year was scarce, that students would probably not be expected to take the O.W.L.s that year.