Chapter One: Back to Hogwarts

Part One: Horrendous Public Breakup in the Great Hall

"You did what?" Scorpius Malfoy yelled at Rose Weasley in the middle of the Great Hall. I noshed on some crisps while watching. It was fascinating to see the star couple of Hogwarts for the last couple of years have an open row.

"Bel, you're staring!" My best friend, Liam Finnegan, growled at me.

"What? The great couple of Hogwarts is about to fall. How can I not stare?" I asked as I stuck my tongue out at him.

"Real mature," he replied in his condescending tone that was specifically reserved for me.

"Shush! I'm missing what she did!" I demanded as I went back to the show happening between the Ravenclaw and Slytherin tables.

"I told you Scorpius, you're an emotional void. I did something to act out to see that you actually fucking care!" Rose shouted at him from among her Ravenclaw mates.

Scorpius took a step toward her with his wand, "Rose, arguing with me is acting out. Sleeping with Richard Macmillan is just being a selfish bint!"

"Oooh," I whispered. This was getting good. I couldn't believe she had cheated on him. I mean really the boy was phenomenal looking.

"Bel, stop watching," Liam commanded.

"Liam, everyone and their professor is watching this. Why can't I?" I asked in a haughty tone since I pointed out Professor Longbottom staring with interest at the fight. Liam just shook his head and gave up on me. It wasn't his fault that he wasn't interested. Neither Rose Weasley nor Scorpius Malfoy was his type and he just wasn't the gossiping kind of person.

WHAM! The Great Hall doors had slammed behind Scorpius as he just left Rose staring behind him. I frowned at having to see him go. I would have preferred her highness to have been the one to leave.

"Hey Liam and Annabel," Al Potter greeted as he sat down at the table. We've been in the same house for six years and on the same Quidditch team for four and he still called me by my full name. You would think someone who would want to be known as Al instead of Albus would respect that I wanted to be called Bel instead of Annabel.

"Hi Al!" Liam said happily. He was glad there was a distraction from my drooling over Scorpius Malfoy. I fancied him, so sue me. Scorpius Malfoy had been a distant crush since my third year. Unfortunately, he and Rose started dating at the end of that same year. Bloody bad luck for me. I mean it would have been real bad luck if Scorpius knew me as something other than the Gryffindor Keeper.

"Hey Wood! Are you ready for Quidditch practices to start up?" James, Al's older brother and the Quidditch captain of Gryffindor, asked me as he sat down across the way.

"Of course I am," I said with excitement. This year was James' last year and we were going to win the cup if it killed us. Ravenclaw had it last year and Slytherin the year before that. James couldn't believe how he had brought the team to victory his second, third, and fourth years only to lose it the last two.

"Good, because we're going to do more practices this year," he said with authority and I just shook my head. Of course we were going to practice more; James Potter believed that we were shite since we lost two years in a row. The last time I saw a Quidditch victory I was thirteen.

"Well we may have the edge over Slytherin this year," Al started, "Rosie just broke up with Malfoy."

"Did she really?" James asked excitedly. He was never a fan of Rose's relationship with Scorpius. I mean James Potter wasn't my best mate the way Liam was, but we did talk a fare bit being teammates and all, so I knew how much he didn't like the whole thing.

"Yes, you just missed the horrendous public break up," Liam chimed as he shot me a look. He was the only Gryffindor in the world that knew about my crush for Scorpius Malfoy and I would like to keep it that way. I didn't want to lose my friends. James would disown me and kick me from the team in a heartbeat. Not to mention my dad would tell me to never return home. I mean he never had an outright arch nemesis thing going on with Draco Malfoy, Scorpius' father, when they were kids, but he still hated the bloke.

Liam and I joined James and Al for the walk back to Gryffindor Tower. The topic of conversation had changed from Scorpius and Rose's break-up to what our Quidditch strategy for this season was going to be.

"I think we need to be fluid," James said thoughtfully. We all looked at him confused. What did he mean?

"What?" Al asked what we were thinking.

"We don't fly like we have one mind. We've become a disconnected team since our last Quidditch cup victory. None of us thinks the same as one another," he explained. When I thought about it, he was right. We didn't ever think as a whole. I never knew who was ready for me to pass to them when I just caught the Quaffle from a blocked goal.

"Yes, but how are we going to get that?" Quinlan McLaggen asked as he joined us. Quinlan was James' best mate. He was also one of our three Chasers. Lily and James Potter were the other two.

We had arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"Obliviate," Liam said and the portrait swung open to reveal the Common Room. We all climbed through and thought about what James was saying. I thought about something that may help us.

"James, I have an idea," I said to him.

"Okay Wood, let's hear it," James said with his eyebrows raised. I couldn't tell if it was because he thought my idea was going to be rubbish or because he was actually interested.

"We need to practice without being able to see," I told him, "That way we have to think like one another." He stared at me for a moment.

"Wood, you're brilliant!"

I actually didn't think he would go for that because flying and not being able to see would be challenging. I watched as Al's jaw dropped. I'm sure he was thinking about how he had to find the damn Snitch with his eyes closed.

"You've got to be bloody mad to think that we're going to practice without being able to see!" Al protested his older brother. I could tell by the smile on our fearless leader's face that he was thinking exactly that.

Part Two: Blind as Bats and Flying Too

This was the first time in my life that I had ever been afraid of flying. I was wondering what in Merlin's name I had been thinking when I suggested this.

"Bel, what in Merlin's name were you thinking when you suggested this?" Liam echoed my thoughts. I giggled. "This is not funny! I have to protect your precious arse from a Bludger while not being able to see." When he put it that way I was truly regretting James had even agreed with me.

"Oh look what we have here mates. The Gryffindors want to further their embarrassment by having an excuse to fly like a bunch of house elves on brooms."

I couldn't see but I knew that voice belonged to Brannon Flint, git extraordinaire. He was just shy of a year younger than me and he acted as if he was a seventh year. He wasn't even his team's captain. No, that privilege was Scorpius' and Scorpius' alone.

"Bugger off Flint!" I heard James yell down at the younger boy. I thought that was weird because James had a hard time telling who was speaking when he could see the person. Maybe losing one of your senses really did heighten the others.

"Flint! I told you that we were not to come out during the Gryffindors' practice."

I immediately knew the owner of the second voice. It was a voice that haunted my dreams for the last two years. Scorpius was yelling at his teammate for doing the dishonorable thing, which wasn't uncommon for a Slytherin. It was especially not uncommon for one as slimy as Flint.

"Bloody Slytherin. Wankers the whole lot of them," I heard Liam mumble and Lily voiced her agreement.

Not long after the Slytherins left, we were up in the air blind as bats and flying too.

"Merlin's pants! This is working!" Quinlan shouted as I heard him catch the Quaffle. Honestly I was just as surprised as everyone else that it was successful.

When we were back on the ground with full vision, James spoke, "Well mates, it seems Wood here knew how to put us back together. From now on we'll do three practices a week and one of them will be without vision. This way we'll gain the ability to think like a team."

Everyone told me how they thought I was brilliant. After that we walked back to the Great Hall to eat dinner.

"So, did you know who our second Slytherin visitor was even though you couldn't see?" Liam asked teasingly. I rolled my eyes at him. He could make fun of me for fancying Scorpius Malfoy all he wanted but it wouldn't change anything.

I ducked behind my text book hoping that the group outside my train compartment wouldn't notice I was in here. It was Reinald and Pierre Higgs with their lackeys. I called them the Torture Twins. They had been tormenting me for two years, since I was eleven. However, the problems became worse when I became Gryffindor's Keeper and we won our first match against Slytherin.

"Well what do we have here?" Pierre asked his brother. Reinald looked at me.

"I believe we have Gryffindor's little Keeper all alone in a train compartment. She must be excited that she gets to go home and tell her family over the holidays that she helped beat the Slytherins at her first match," Reinald said aloud and his cronies laughed. It was an odd gang. Reinald and Pierre were friends with Keith Boot, Cornelius Smith, and Astrid Preece. These other kids were in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. My father had always told me that Slytherins were barely friends with anyone outside of Slytherin and it would never be with someone from Hufflepuff or Gryffindor. However, here they were the bullies of the school and they were from every house but my own. I tried to seem like I wasn't scared. I knew I was. These kids were two years older than me and I knew the types of hexes and things they did.

"For a Gryffindor, she is fit," Keith chimed in with his comrades. Reinald smiled.

"Yes, she is," he said as he removed his wand from his robes.

Someone rushed into the compartment from behind the lot of them at that moment. In an out of breath voice he asked, "Is this seat taken?" He gestured to the seat across from me in the compartment and I shook my head. I recognized him as Scorpius Malfoy. My father didn't like his father very much. After the Second War, Draco Malfoy's family name had been drug through the mud, but he had grown up to put it back into power. He now owned sixteen wizarding companies and fourteen Muggle ones. He had great relations with his Muggle employees and was a respectable man that no one would dare cross. Harry Potter, the saviour of our world, had helped restore him to that glory. Now no one would mess with the Malfoys just as much as they wouldn't mess with the Weasley-Potter clan.

"Oh, were you lot looking to take this seat?" He asked them with a smirk.

"Of course not, Malfoy," Pierre answered in a rather dejected tone. I assumed it was because his fun with me had been ruined. Scorpius watched as they left.

"Thanks," I muttered.

"Don't worry about it. I heard that they were looking for you and I knew the type of bollocks they would try to pull. As long as I spend the rest of the ride with you, you'll be fine," he said to me. Since all my friends were already at home or staying at the castle, I told him I would be glad to have him share the compartment with me. We sat there like that in silence. It was in that moment that I developed a very strong crush on Scorpius Malfoy.

"Bel?" Liam asked me and I was pulled from my memory.

"What?"

"Were you even listening to me?"

I shook my head. I wasn't listening to him and I wouldn't lie and say I was.

"Next week we have no classes on Tuesday! Merlin how I love the saviours of our world," Liam repeated his sentence to me. I looked at him confused. What was he on about?

"What are you on about?" I asked.

"Next Tuesday is September nineteenth. You know? Hermione Granger-Weasley Day, we're planning a Common Room party Monday night," he told me with a heightening sense of excitement in his voice. Liam never could resist throwing a Common Room party. Every Saviour's holiday was turned into a Common Room party affair with Liam. He'd been doing this for three years. It was how he became so popular with the older kids.

"Mate, it could be just another Tuesday and you would plan a Common Room party," I said to him with a grin.

Part Three: Best Mates Drink Together

"Thank Merlin for HARRY POTTER! Thank Merlin for THE WEASLEYS!" Liam shouted his toast to the Common Room. The lot of Weasley-Potters shouted the loudest for their parents. Everyone then did shots of Firewhiskey. Liam came down from the table and let the partygoers continue doing whatever it was they were doing before he interrupted. Liam and I walked back over to James, who was starting a game of Truth or Dare. This always was a bad idea when we were mullered. We still did it anyway. The Gryffindor Quidditch team was notorious for bad ideas during their games.

The bottle spun vigorously on the floor. It stopped with the neck pointed at me. I looked at Liam. It was going to have to be Dare because he knew all my truths.

"What'll it be Bel?" He asked as if he didn't know. The whole team loved when we landed on each other because our best dares came from it.

"Dare," I answered reluctantly. He winked slyly.

"I dare you to go down into the dungeons tomorrow after breakfast and snog the first Slytherin you see," he challenged. I glared at him. He was trying to do something sneaky.

"Ooh that was a good one Liam," Morgan Thomas slurred. She would like the dare because usually it was her handing out snogging sentences.

"Wait, any Slytherin or just Slytherin blokes?" Lily asked for confirmation. I'm glad she did because if I ran into Isabelle Nott I was going to take the 'out.'

"Slytherin blokes. I wouldn't wish Nott on even the slimiest gits," Liam answered. I sighed in relief for at least that much consideration.

"I hate when we drink and do this shite," I said to him.

"Love, you enjoy it. Best mates drink together," Liam countered with a smirk.