The driving rain would have made it hard to see had she been walking across the Hogwarts grounds. Shooting through the air on a broom which really consisted of little more than a stick and a few suggestions of twigs formed into a tail, she was all but blind.
The players on the pitch had been soaked through before they had taken to the sky, and in the centre of the pitch, thirty feet in the air, a boy with dark hair plastered to his head and a voice filled with impatience and frustration sharp enough to cut through the howling wind and rain, called out to them, correcting their grips though he couldn't possibly see them and chastising sloppy passes of a Quaffle which had miraculously not been dropped by the numb hands of the few who had managed to catch the slick ball amidst the weather.
"What kind of idiot would force us out to train in this weather?" A voice called from behind and she twisted her head around to see Benjamin Hastings, reserve Beater, shouting from a few feet away. "He can't make us do a full hour, I won't have hands by then!" He held up ten cold-reddened fingers, which were hardly helped by the fingerless leather gloves they all wore. A whistling brought her attention to her left side, where a Bludger was whipping towards them, though she was relieved, seconds later to see Ben had swooped in front of her and seen the cannonball-like threat hurtling – completely coincidentally, she was sure – towards the middle of the pitch.
"Very gallant of you!" she called in thanks, and then, to the sound of more yells from their Captain, turned in the air and dove back into the action, catching the Quaffle in seconds and sending it screaming towards the centre hoop which it sailed through. She felt she had made her point, as Archie, Gryffindor's very passionate captain only glared at her as she flew past him, and grumbled: "You wouldn't have found it so easy if we had a KEEPER WHO KNEW WHAT HE WAS DOING!"
She could imagine Laurie's reaction to that, and was glad, for everyone's sakes, that the goals were too far away for muttered curses to be easily overheard.
Again and again, the chasers mounted attack after attack, feinting to the side, quick sharp passes like street magicians diverting the attention of onlookers, rushing sharply at goals, counter-attacks, sharp turns in the air, turning defensive moves into attacks, passing and passing and passing, all through a deluge which was entirely to be expected in the early September Scottish Highlands.
Though she had given Ben a sympathetic nod to his complaints, and would bemoan Archie's scheduling alongside the others, she couldn't deny that this was what she was made for. Flying through proper Scottish rain was a feeling unlike any in the world, there was a crispness and a clarity to the world from this vantage point, that she hardly felt that the rest of the world existed. She always felt a little excitement when a practise, or better, a game, was scheduled on a day when the heavens had opened and the skies were a moody grey. She always scored more in the rain, she knew and wondered if anyone else noticed that. It felt more natural to her, and she really was in her element on days like today. Archie called in the two reserve Beaters, as well as Edie, and she heard the start of a lecture on not aiming Bludgers at players on their team, in particular not at their captain, and in particular not five times in one practice, which gave her a little laugh. As she awaited further instruction, she closed her eyes, turning her head upwards and allowing herself a small smile. The progress of the practice was lost to her, and it was only a few seconds, but it was noted.
"Oi! Get on with it, we're a chaser down while you pick out a favourite cloud, they're all pissing on us just the same!" Archie bellowed, and she turned back to him with a roll of her eyes and a taunting smile on her face. She flew close enough to be heard, and then, keeping the goading look on her face, asked sweetly: "What move are we trying now?"
She gave a little look, though she knew it would get them in more trouble and felt a little bad about it, to where Edward Mulligan and Henry Barrow were punching one another on the arm in turns. They were probably just checking they could still feel their limbs. Even she was beginning to dream of the warmth of the castle.
Archie set about giving a similarly aggressive dressing-down to the two Chasers, and then started to berate the entire team for their ineptitude, which was less brought about by any failing of theirs, and more related to his recent and very public breaking up with – or rather, being broken up with – his girlfriend, on the Hogwarts Express. Five minutes after it had left London. Very loudly. She was told that it had been quite a spectacle, though all agreed that it stopped being an amusement and began to get on the nerves around about Liverpool. By Hogsmeade, half the train was advocating for the sound-proofing of individual carriages, by Muggle means or Magical and she was, for once, rather glad to have missed the journey.
"Here we go, reckon he'll actually burst a blood vessel, or go straight to an aneurysm?" Edward muttered to her, though quiet enough not to risk drawing attention. Edward was funny, she had found since they had joined the team together in their third year, never having had much occasion to speak with him outside of class before, beyond asking him to pass the potatoes at dinner. He was quiet though, which explained their lack of conversation before they had Quidditch in common. She wasn't exactly quiet, but certainly wasn't the sort to seek out conversation.
"Who knows? I don't expect they'll be able to tell what got him when his head has exploded..."
"Oi, something funny?" Archie turned on them and she and Edward both blanched. She shook her head, and shrugged in response, but that was all it took to turn her into a target. "Right, well, if you've nothing to say, maybe we can get back to flying?"
"Yes, Captain!" she said, with a sharp, military tone, a reflexive grip on her broom the only thing stopping a hand flying up in fake-salute. That response had been the wrong choice, though everyone knew there was no right choice.
"Right, let's see you flying then, that's what we're here for, swan dive from... let's say fifty feet!"
You complete tosser, she thought, even as she nodded curtly and flew away from the crowd to give herself space. He knew she was rotten at dives, she wasn't a seeker, it wasn't something she often needed to do, if a Chaser was diving from fifty feet, it was because one of the other chasers was rubbish and was dropping the Quaffle. She hated him, but she was a Gryffindor, and besides that too proud to have shown a hint of hesitation. She knew her Captain well enough to know that looking scared or asking not to, or even refusing, would have done nothing to sway him, once he was in a mood such as today.
She gave her broom a few little preparatory lifts and dives, a few feet up and then down, feeling the handle of her broom shift, preparing both it and her like a horse and rider before she leaned her weight back and began to climb up and up and up into the sky. Cold air in her lungs, she counted 1... 2... 3, 1...2..3, 1...2..3, though she wasn't sure why, it seemed to help. You can do this, she told herself as she looked with one eye, the other twisted up in something she wouldn't admit was fear, at the world below, and guessed that she was about thirty feet up, perhaps a little way off. She thought that it was probably fifty because it felt like two hundred.
She edged a little higher, and then reached the height of her climb. Before she could think, and with a rushing intake of breath to dampen her fear, she twisted the broom backwards and began to fall. The world slowed, and quickened, all at once, as she descended through the air, a breath lasted a century, the rain whistled, the wind cheered and screamed, at once pushing her on and pulling her back, the specks of brown and scarlet turned into streaking blurs, the match-stick stands grew and splayed out beneath her, the world larger than it had looked only a second before, and she only had one more second until... she yanked on the handle, and the broom bucked, one of them was screaming in resistance, shaking, and then she was whipping upwards again, this time to a stop at a spot five feet or so above the ground, at which point she took a second to swallow the terror and possible vomit, let out a long shuddering breath, and, certain that if she landed her legs would turn to jelly beneath her, sailed towards the centre of the pitch, the ringing in her ears fading away to be replaced with an electric hum in her bones and a wide grin on her face as she came to a halt alongside Archie. Only then, as she loosed her hands from the handle did she feel how tightly she had been holding it.
"You're mad, you are, properly mad!" Archie blustered, but others had begun to gather in to congratulate her and in hopes of her stunt having called brought the practice to a natural end. Archie was a tosser, but he had to concede her some points then, and as they reached the ground and she managed to begin an, admittedly shaky, walk towards the changing rooms, she felt an arm around her neck as he blustered: "We'll make a seeker of you yet, McGonagall. Good to know if I'm ever incapacitated!"
She gave a laugh, and pronounced her change in playing positions "not likely", as her thoughts turned from elation at her survival to the aching of every muscle in her body. She couldn't deny that the success of the dive had been exhilarating, and that the glowing, roaring feeling in her chest couldn't have been any stronger if she had caught the Golden Snitch and they had won by two hundred points. As they neared the tunnel, she could feel Archie's weight on her and realised that he was probably as exhausted as she and, in a moment of kindness he had not earned, she didn't shrug him off as she wanted to. Had her father seen her at that moment, a boy's arm around her neck, others punching her on the arm and ruffling her hair so that the neat bun she had began with was quickly turned into a bird's nest of sodden, raven-black strands, he would have been less than pleased. Her mother, at least, would have been proud to see her pull off a dive like that. She was just considering whether to write to them to let them know, when the thought of her father's expression at the sight of an owl winging its way down to the kitchen window put the thought from her mind. She would simply tell them at Christmas, she decided, though she was not silly enough to think that she would actually remember or that they would talk about her Quidditch practices in any detail upon her return for Christmas. Her father would have pretended to be proud of her, and he might actually have been, but it would have been tainted by the reminder that he would have to lie when neighbours or parishioners asked how she was. Any news of his daughter, the one who attended the same English ladies' boarding school as her mother had before her, had to be carefully thought out before being passed along. She was talented at... her classes, she had a passion for... sports, and so on until the subject of conversation changed. Her mother, on the other hand, loved to talk about it, and would needle her whenever Dad was out of earshot to talk about Transfiguration tests, Hogsmeade visits and, most of all, Quidditch. It would have been nice, something that they could bond over, if she hadn't done it all with that needy, desperate look in her eyes, as though she were ravenously hungry and her daughter was dangling a piece of bread above her head. She made it impossible for a piece of news to be simply a piece of news, it was always a morsel she had to cling to and mull over to sustain herself for long months ahead. Perhaps that was where her aversion to striking up conversation had begun.
She stopped in her tracks, unwinding herself from the group as they marched on wearily to the changing rooms. Edward kindly took over her near-carrying of Archie by slinging a casual arm over his shoulder and taking the weight, their captain being tired beyond pride at that point and simply slumping from one victim to the other. She stood her broom against the wall and took a moment as the rest of the team rushed towards their long-awaited showers, to look out on the muddy pitch and the brightly-coloured stands, the hundreds of long wooden benches, the sound of wind almost sounding like the roar of the crowds that would soon fill the seats, and above it all, the moody grey sky, almost black in places, and pearlescent in others as the rain poured down on the whole scene, washing away a summer she would much rather forget. God, she had missed this. She was back where she belonged, she was home.