Another non-adventure in the life of our Slytherin hero.


His forehead was creased with concentration. Ignoring the loud cheers all around him, he carefully adjusted the focus of his Omnioculars. After a moment's work, he brought them to his eyes and gazed through.

Perfect.

Framed within an infinity symbol, Pomona Berkins smiled prettily and waved her yellow flag with enthusiasm. She was forever doing things with enthusiasm. It was one of her most lovable – and consequently, most despicable – qualities.

It was the first game of the Quidditch season; a real humdinger, Slytherin vs. Gryffindor. This, come to think of it, made it rather strange that Pomona was holding a yellow flag. But perhaps that was just another symptom of the inferior Hufflepuff intellect.

He himself did not play Quidditch. There was a perfectly legitimate reason for this fact (one he frequently gave himself, along with the rest of the world): that he hated the sport with every fibre of his being. Of course, proclaiming a loathing for the most popular wizarding sport did not say much for his masculinity. But he found that it added to his dark, mysterious image, causing women everywhere to pine for him and thus earning him the respect of his male housemates.

But this was carefully concocted nonsense. He did not hate the game. The constant backdrop of noise that accompanied it did not give him a headache. The rush of adrenalin and testosterone on the Quidditch pitch did not make him want to roll his eyes, or do something more sophisticated instead (such as have sex with a French person, or light a cigarette, or pointedly ignore someone, or light a cigarette while having sex with a French person he was pointedly ignoring.)

The reality was that he had tried out for the team in his second year, performed terribly, been laughed off the pitch by the burly captain and his minions, and had never been back since.

Not until a certain maiden had captured his attention.

But this could in no way be considered an improvement. Acting cowardly was one thing, but being brave enough to beat his fears for the sake of gawking at an (admittedly charming) Hufflepuff girl through a piece of mediocre magical equipment was a shameful demotion in the eyes of anyone who wasn't a Gryffindor.

After a few minutes of peaceful, creepy stalking, his view was impaired by an enormous pointed hat. Closer inspection revealed that the hat was perched upon the head of Albus Dumbledore (the head of the Head, he thought, giggling, before snapping out of it), who was walking towards his seat one level below Pomona's. He waited patiently for the headmaster to continue on his way, but instead received a nasty shock when Dumbledore sat down right in that very spot, obscuring Pomona completely.

He lowered the Omnioculars from his eyes, bristling. That old git and his enormous hat.

What was he supposed to do for the rest of the match – watch it?

He frowned sullenly. It was no wonder the man kept a beard – it was said that the neck revealed a person's true age, in which case, the neck of Albus Dumbledore must have decomposed to ash fifty years ago.

Heh. Good one.

With a sigh, he got up, and walked towards a different spot. He had only just sat down and begun to gaze at his would-be lady love when she jumped up from her seat, grinning from one dainty ear to the other, and hugged some lucky bastard beside her. Simultaneously, the entire stadium erupted in a roar of impressively high decibel. In the air, the Gryffindor players had embraced to form one giant crimson mass, slowly descending to the ground. The imbeciles had won, and the match was over - as was his dream of having an enjoyable afternoon.

Both Potter and Dumbledore were clearly conspiring against him – couldn't the lad just miss the snitch from time to time?

Frowning, he placed the Omnioculars in the pocket of his cloak, and began to exit the stadium with the rest of the crowds.

On reaching the ground, he heard a voice call his name. He turned around to see Ivan Urquhart, captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, walking towards him. Not two feet away (his heart began to thump painfully), was Pomona Berkins – and in an unusual turn of events, she was walking alone.

"Not used to seeing you around here, old pal!" boomed Urquhart, falling into step beside him. "Had a change of heart?"

In his fourth year at Hogwarts, he had walked into the dormitory one morning to find Urquhart in the bathroom, hurriedly washing his damp, slightly smelly sheets and underwear. Urquhart had weepily confessed to having bladder problems, made him swear never to tell anyone, and had treated him like a king from that day on.

Which really put liking a Hufflepuff into perspective, he supposed.

"I...yeah," he now replied, his voice suddenly and suspiciously deep. He had suddenly spotted Pomona from the corner of his eye, only separated from him by a lovelorn couple holding hands. "Can't get enough of that Quidditch!"

"Really?" asked Urquhart. "Are you any good, then?"

He let out a laugh as sudden and sharp as a blowhorn.

Then he considered for a moment. The laughter ceased abruptly.

"Er…yes, I suppose so."

Lies.

"Great!" said Urquhart, punching his shoulder excitedly as these overtly manly types are wont to do. "Tell you what…Malfoy's been a bit strange lately…head isn't in the game. You should play Seeker for our next match!"

Damnation. Served him right for trying to impress someone who was kind to small animals and children.

"Er…well, I don't know about that…"

He glanced surreptitiously at Pomona, and saw to his shock that she was listening intently. Her eyes were on the ground, true, but her stance was one of such careful attention that she might as well have had her ears cocked.

"Come on!" said Urquhart. "It's only Hufflepuff we're playing-" here he thought he detected a faint eyebrow raise in the vicinity "-we'll beat them easy!"

"Well, you know, I wouldn't say that…they're an impressive team! Good sports, too, the lot of them. No chance of fouls."

It was only Urquhart's deficient urethral sphincter that kept him from passing a snide remark about brain damage.

"Brilliant, so you'll play!" he exclaimed, clapping him on the shoulder. Overt manliness seemed to imply a lot of shoulder casualties. "Listen I'd better head to the locker rooms - forgot my, uh, medicine. See you later, then."

He, of course, knew this medicine to in fact be a brand of invisible diapers (Deirdre's Disappearing Diapers: "You may have a leaky willy, but you need never feel silly!"), and so simply nodded his goodbye, not trusting himself to speak.

Really...did everyone he knew have some humiliating secret or the other? Behind the intimidating looks and blatant prejudice, Slytherin house was an embarrassment.

He had barely taken a step when he heard another voice – this one, all too familiar.

"So I guess we'll be competing, then?"

His heart stopped beating, his diaphragm alarmingly lost the ability to contract and relax, and he thought he might have suffered a problem similar to Urquhart's, albeit on a much smaller scale.

He looked towards her, now standing right beside him, forgetting entirely about maintaining a deep voice.

"You play seeker?" he whispered, sounding afraid. This was ridiculous. He had never been the rugged, shoulder-punching type (though he was the proud owner of three whole chest hairs), but the girl was a head shorter than him!

"Yeah, I do!" she said, smiling in her usual chirpy manner. Please. Didn't she know emo was in?

"Oh." Then, in a childish moment that typified the kind of behaviour cause by the male genome, he said, "Be ready, I'm going to take you down."

Oh, for God's sake. He might as well have pulled her pigtails in the playground.

"Well, in that case, we'd get a penalty and probably score…so please, go ahead." she said, rolling her eyes.

Had she just outwitted him? How…adorable.

"I just meant - "

"I'm sure," said Pomona, somewhat briskly. "Hey listen…don't I know you from somewhere?" Her brow furrowed, as though she were in deep thought.

He was caught between falling on one knee asking Her Royal Cuteness to marry him, and telling her to be careful with the thinking, or she might lay an egg. And also, if he was honest with himself, weeping noisily because she couldn't recall him.

Slytherins have dramatic tendencies.

She scrutinised him. "Didn't you lend me a beetle in Potions that one time?"

"No, I don't think so."

"A quill in charms?"

"No."

"Parchment in Muggle Studies?"

"Certainly not!"

She nodded slowly, dropping her gaze to floor. Then she let out a gasp, and looked up at him suddenly with narrowed eyes. "Are you the guy who pinched my bum in the corridor yesterday?"

"Er…no." Most unfortunately.

Her face lit up in sudden realisation. "Wait a second…aren't you in my History of Magic class? I asked you for a book! Grover, isn't it?"

"Er, no," he said yet again, flinching. "It's –"

The girl walking in front of them chose this moment to let out a deafening cackle of a laugh, her boyfriend grinning, obviously proud of himself. The two then began to engage in appendage-entangling behaviour that would have made Rita Skeeter blush.

It certainly had this effect on Pomona. Her cheeks flushed a deep shade of red, matching her scarlet ears. It looked surprisingly good on her.

And though he wouldn't have thought it possible (he'd been there and done that – in fact, he had done more, and done it better), he found himself tuning pink as well. Somehow, the fact that it was Pomona who was beside him made him feel rather hot under the collar.

By now they had reached the school doors. They walked into the Entrance Hall together, unsure of how to depart politely (with him all the while fighting the urge to push her up against some wall somewhere), before exchanging slight, embarrassed smiles and heading their separate ways.

That night was one of little sleep and much grinning into the pillows.

And this was how our Slytherin hero came to find himself fifty feet up in the air, scared out of his mind and gripping a broom for dear life.


So I found this on my computer recently, having written it a few months after Chapter One. Suddenly I find myself once again picturing the trajectory of my foolish Slytherpuffian. He just can't resist that model of chirpy goodness, can he?

Please review! YOU WILL GET COOKIES AND WATERMELONS. ON SEPARATE OCCASIONS. Think about cookies. Now think about watermelons. Don't, under any circumstances, picture watermelon cookies.

Isn't a little reviewing nothing compared to the idea of watermelon cookies?

Thanks for reading!