Think Thrice

AlwaysPadfoot

i. once

"How long have you been up?"

I looked up, rubbing the crick in my neck from having my head buried in magazines for the last two hours. I checked my watch.

"Not long," I lied. "I had a dream that my Dad found out about me playing Quidditch and came here and yelled at me."

Elliot Creevey dropped into the seat opposite me, pushed her hair to one side, and gave me a pointed look. Great, I was about to be subjected to one of her intense questioning sessions.

"Are you sure he's going to be that bothered?" she asked.

I sighed, shutting my magazine. "My sister was Head Girl and got all O's at N.E.W.T. level. When I got on the train he said: 'try do better in class this year'. If he thinks I'm wasting time playing Quidditch, he's going to be pissed."

"But you could easily go pro," Elliot argued.

I snorted, "Yeah, okay."

"They don't give youngest Captain ever to just anyone."

"That was last year," I reminded her.

"So?!" she said. "You're a Hogwarts record holder, and as much as I love your sister, she ain't."

I felt a smile spread across my face. "That's true."

"Too right," Elliot said. "Let's go get breakfast; I've got a tonne of homework to avoid."

"That's because you never do any."

Breakfast was already buzzing with activity ahead of the Hogsmeade visit today. Elliot reckoned today was the day she would get inside the Shrieking Shack. She'd only been trying since third year and had not yet succeeded. It was all warded and stuff, so she'd literally been studying everything related to Ancient Runes in depth ever since. Unsurprisingly, that and Charms were her best classes.

We were just about to get up to leave when Professor Longbottom came into the hall and stopped behind us.

"Morning, Professor." Elliott said.

"Morning, Miss Creevey," he replied, before turning to me. "Miss Weasley, could I borrow a moment of your time?"

"Sure."

"You have a visitor in my office," he explained, I followed him out of the hall and up the stairs.

My heart dropped. "Um, is it my Dad?"

"It is."

Oh God, this was a nightmare. I forced myself to think straight. He probably wasn't here to tell me he knew about Quidditch, although I was sure he wouldn't be here if it wasn't important.

What if I wasn't being dramatic enough?

I could be overreacting about the Quidditch thing; what if someone was hurt or sick? My hands were shaking and I quickly stuffed them into my jeans pockets as we approached Professor Longbottom's office.

"As a heads up, did he seem mad or more, like, upset?"

"Thing about your Dad? He's got quite the poker face," he said, opening the office door.

He stood aside to let me pass, before closing the door behind me. Dad was by the window, his arms folded and I could easily read his body language; he was pissed.

"Is everything okay, Dad?" I asked.

I figured if I pretended I had no idea what was going on then maybe I could get out of this quicker.

"Lucy, why didn't you tell me?" he asked.

I swallowed thickly, but determinedly stuck to my guns. "Tell you what?"

"That you've been playing Quidditch since second year," he retorted.

"I didn't think it was such a big deal," I replied, leaning against the wall. "It's just a game."

Thing is that Dad, when given an opportunity to agree, would do just that.

"Exactly, it's just a game," he said. "Last year you didn't get any grades higher than an Acceptable. Focusing on Quidditch doesn't mean you're going to become a professional."

"Dad, they gave me Team Captain last year." I protested.

"That's why your grades have dropped," he said. "Maybe you should focus on your O.W.L.s so that when you leave Hogwarts you have a job to walk into."

"I'm fifteen!" I snapped, knowing that I'd, without a doubt, just triggered a huge fight

"Don't take that tone, Lucy," he warned.

Irritated, I said the worst thing I could probably say. "What do you want me to do?"

He gave me one of his usual half-hearted sighs. "Maybe, whilst you're taking your O.W.L.s, take a bit of a step back -"

"I'm not going to do that," I said bluntly.

"You asked me what I wanted you to do," he snapped.

I couldn't stop all my words from tumbling out. "Well, I don't really care about what you think."

"Lucy Amelia Weasley." Dad's voice cracked through the office and I'd never seen him so furious. "How dare you talk to me like that? You can forget about spending New Year with your friend -"

I stopped listening after that, my hands curled into fists at my sides. It was almost as if I was getting an eerie sense of déjà vu; this was exactly what happened in my dream last night. It was just another case of him being completely unreasonable about my marks and finding the perfect opportunity to blame it on something I actually enjoyed.

Even though he was still yelling, I raised my voice over his. "Next time, just send a letter."

I left the office, Dad yelling after me; having no intention at all of responding. As soon as I was out of sight, I ran.

ii. twice

Dad had me banned from Hogsmeade for yelling at him. Professor Longbottom had to come down the the village to escort me back to the castle.

Elliot sulkily came back with me, finally having no choice but to actually do some work. I was furious all day and took it mostly out on Elliot, who eventually ditched me to go play Exploding Snap with Kian Finnigan. I ended up dozing on a sofa in the Common Room, Divination book open on my lap.

Whilst sleeping I had a vivid dream about my younger cousins, most specifically Dominique and James. The two of them enjoyed one-on-one Quidditch, house versus house, and in my dream that was exactly what they were doing. The both of them got extremely competitive and often practised pretty risky moves. Unfortunately, the sight of seeing James hit the sand at the edge of the Quidditch Pitch made me jerk awake.

What the hell was that?

"You look a little pale there, Luce," Kian said from across the Common Room.

"Huh, yeah. Hey, do you know whether James went down to Hogsmeade today?" I asked.

"Um, yeah he did." Kian said.

"But I saw him head back earlier, with Dominique," Elliot added.

"Shit." I replied, getting to my feet.

Elliot immediately frowned and got up. "What's up?"

"I dunno, I just have a really bad feeling," I said, my hands shaking. "I'm going to have to go down there, just to check everything's all right."

"Check where?" Elliot responded confused.

"The Quidditch pitch, obviously."

I stumbled through the portrait hole, still pulling on a shoe as I did. Elliot and Kian followed closely behind me. The dream had just been so realistic that I had to be sure. Mum told me I was a worrier like her. I wasn't even sure that was a good thing, but at least if I knew they were okay then I could relax and continue to be pissed at my Dad.

Outside it was grey, overcast, and the horizon was smudged. Grandpa taught me that when the horizon looked like that it was going to rain, and it certainly smelt like a storm was coming.

Elliot caught up with me as I walked as fast as possible without turning to running. "Are you okay, Lucy?"

"I'm fine," I muttered. "I just have this killer headache and I had a weird feeling. Look, let me just double check on my cousins."

Elliot held her hands up in surrender, "All right."

When we arrived at the pitch both Dominique and James were high in the air, doing their usual thing. I breathed a sigh of relief, there didn't seem to be any problems, and I turned back to Elliot.

"All right, they're okay. They're fine, what the hell is wrong with me?" I said to Elliot as Kian leaned against the gate behind her.

"I don't know, are you sure you don't need to see the nur-" she began.

There was a yell behind me and Kian swore loudly. Both Elliot's and my eyes turned to the sky to see James falling towards the pitch. I immediately began running, yelling James' name. He hit the ground, sand (hopefully) softening his fall, and I skidded to a halt at his side.

"James, are you okay?" I asked, my words stumbling out at a rapid pace.

"Shit, shit. Fuck."

James words came out as jagged breaths as he sat up. His shoulder was hanging low, most definitely no longer in the right place.

"It's all right, James, it's gonna be fine." I said; I turned to Kian and Elliot. "Go get a teacher!"

They both turned and ran, just as Dominique touched down on the ground, tears already streaking her face.

"Is he okay?" she asked, panic lacing her voice.

"He's gonna be fine," I replied. I turned back to him. "Otherwise he's gonna have me to answer to. We've got practice tomorrow."

James laughed, but it looked more like a grimace. "Not... funny."

"Deep breaths, James." I demanded. "Elliot's pretty fast, she'll have a teacher down here before you can recite the rules of Quidditch."

James sucked in what he considered deep breaths. I could tell he was trying his best not to cry, but his eyes were all watery. He was lucky that what looked like a broken collarbone appeared to be the worst of the damage he'd done. A fall from that height could have easily been life-changing or even fatal.

Professor Longbottom was the first person on the scene and Dominique and I accompanied him and James up to the hospital wing.

It was indeed a broken collarbone, and whilst I was sure I seemed calm on the outside, internally I was freaking out about what had happened. I stayed with James for a while until he went to sleep and I made my way back to the Gryffindor Common Room. In the dormitories, Elliot was waiting, sitting in the centre of my bed reading a magazine.

My bottom lip trembled. "I think there's something wrong with me."

iii. three times

Over the next few weeks, minor things started to happen that scared me even more. I kept getting scarily accurate feelings and, alongside that, weirdly omniscient dreams.

I considered telling the nurse multiple times, but something in my mind kept defaulting to it all being coincidence.

Elliot had been helping me focus on other things, well, until I started skilfully ignoring her.

About four days ago I had a dream that involved her and I figured the best way to solve that issue was to avoid it like the plague, a little like I'd been dodging Dad's letters.

Unfortunately today was the Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff match and Elliot was on the team, leaving me no choice but to talk to her. I made the excuse of heading down early to clear my head, like I always do, and changed into my Quidditch robes alone. When the rest of the team arrived – James thankfully in perfect health after the accident – I was lying across the centre benches with my eyes closed.

"Morning, CP," fourth year Daniel Wood yelled on his arrival with James. Elliot was following closely behind them with the rest of the team.

I automatically activated Captain Mode upon their arrival. "Morning guys. Fifteen minutes and then we'll talk about the game, all right?"

There was a murmur of agreement through the room, before everyone turned to their lockers. I sat up, taking a ridiculously long time to put on my shoes, and hoped that Elliot would avoid talking to me.

Of course, her being one of my closest friends didn't help that. When she was ready, she sat down beside me and put her hand on my back. "You've been overly weird the last few days. Are you worried about this game?"

A little light flashed on in my head. Lie.

"Kind of," I said. "Just want to know James is in top form, and Hufflepuff's Seeker did pretty well last season."

"Pfft," Elliot scoffed. "That is why I'm your Beater; Lennings will be concentrating on wayward Bludgers far more than the snitch."

That didn't really solve the problem I actually had, but I felt better that Elliot was completely oblivious. I gave my usual team speech pre-match, checking that everyone was happy with everything we'd done in practices; they were.

Face-to-face with the Hufflepuff team on the pitch, I temporarily forgot about the dream including Elliot. Within ten minutes I'd already put four of the five goals on the scoreboard for Gryffindor. James had scored the other. I was on a roll; the whole team was in form. One by one we put goal after goal through the hoops at the end of the pitch, Hufflepuff providing very little competition.

"GRYFFINDOR ARE ON FIRE!" the commentator yelled. "TEAM CAPTAIN, LUCY WEASLEY, PUTS ANOTHER PAST THE HUFFLEPUFF KEEPER."

Elliot flew by for a high-five, which I subconsciously took part in, grinning wildly. "We're doing amazing."

"They won't win even if they get the snitch at this rate," she yelled.

In the end their Keeper did not catch the snitch: Wood did, after Elliot gracefully sent a Bludger barreling towards Lennings. It caught the end of his broom and landed him face-down in the mud.

Winning created a killer atmosphere in the changing room. Elliot put the wireless on loud and pulled seven bottles of chilled butterbeer out of her locker. Gryffindor celebration always came in two stages: post-match in the changing room, and later that evening in the common room. The former tended to be far more intimate and often exceeded three hours in length.

I sat on the floor of the changing room, Elliot was on my left, her feet up on the bench that James and Daniel were sat on. Callie Abbott, our Keeper, was exchanging a Quaffle with Morris Keegan - our other Chaser - longways across the changing room. Our other Beater, Liam Morgan, was lying longways across the floor, head propped up under a large conjured pillow.

He glanced at his watch. "Bloody hell, it's an hour to party time. I said I'd help decorate."

Liam, being one of the new members of the team this year but also the oldest, was part of the group of sixth and seventh that prepared the common room for parties. He booted the pillow at Elliot and got to his feet.

One by one people left until only Elliot and I remained. Once James and Daniel had gone, she swung her legs across mine and leaned back on her palms.

"So, a little bird told me that because of how absolutely stunning you are as Chaser, that you might be scouted by a youth team," she said.

I choked on a fourth bottle of butterbeer. "What?"

"Juniper McGonagall's Dad scouts for the Magpies, and she told me that she lets him know when there's someone good," she explained. "You're that person."

"No way," I replied. "No way! Holy shit, as if she told her Dad about me."

Juniper McGonagall was the great-niece of our first Headmistress before she retired. She was a seventh year Ravenclaw, Quidditch Captain and Head Girl. Exceptionally nice, and had appointed a killer Ravenclaw team.

"Well, she did," Elliot confirmed. "Now, will you believe me when I tell you you're amazing?"

I stared at her and we ended up doing that thing that couples do in romantic movies where they stare at each other for what seemed like hours before -

This was what my dream had been. Elliot and me, sitting on the floor of the changing rooms before that exact scene played out in full.

Elliot pushed her still-damp blonde hair back, her face serious. "Is there something here?"

I swallowed heavily. My stomach twisted in knots, but I forced all panic about my next move to the back of my mind. I nodded; there was definitely something. Elliot and I were close, her legs were draped over mine and I hadn't even batted an eyelid when it happened.

I leaned forward. "Before my mind explodes, could you just..."

I saw Elliot smirk just before her lips touched mine. Why the hell had I spent four days avoiding this girl?

The two things that exact moment seemed to have confirmed was: one, I was pretty I was some sort of seer; and two, I did not give a shit about the consequences: I definitely had a thing for Elliot Creevey.