A/N: Hi. Sixth chapter. Third day or something sickening like that. Hahahaha... I make myself laugh. Which is probably for the best. At least I don't normally make myself cry...
Chapter 6: Dom
The summer was over too quickly. Of course, it's summer, so that may be self-explanatory. Summer is the golden time. Especially because you can get up late, you don't have to brush your hair and you are not obligated to get out of your pyjamas. At least, not until your roommates start complaining that you've been wearing the same ones for three days now and nothing else, for the love of Merlin go take a shower.
In my own defence, that only happened once. And I was sick at the time, due to my habit of getting sick in August.
So far as summers go, it was rather unremarkable. Except for the fact I didn't spend it at home or at the Burrow. This was new. And I liked it. I still got to be surrounded by family, but also by people I wasn't related to. People who don't think I'm annoying because I'm better at Quidditch than they are, but merely because I, as previously mentioned, have questionable summer hygienic procedures. No big sister gushing about her fiancé. No little brother badgering me about Hogwarts. Just friends. Best friends at that. It was fantastic.
But then it was over. And it was back to school work and prefects and curfews. And uniforms. And being woken up by shrill voices belonging to one of the aforementioned "best friends."
"I can't find it!" Ly screamed. I held my ears and rolled over in horror. There was sunlight coming through the open window.
"Find what?" Roxie asked. She sounded just about as awake as I was.
"My other shoe!" she exclaimed.
"Please, not so animated. It's really, bloody early," Roxie said. I snickered into my pillow and curled back up into a ball.
"Eight o'clock is not early!" Ly said. "We have to be at the train by ten thirty at least!"
"Train?" I asked, sounding dead to my own ears.
"You know, Dom, the Hogwarts Express," Roxie said. "Big scarlet steam engine that takes us to school every September?"
"But yesterday it was August," I said, sitting up. The room was in even greater disarray than normal. All of the clothes belonging to the three of us were scattered everywhere. There were even three pairs of jeans, four tank tops and six socks on the foot of my bed. All our school books were piled in another corner, three cauldrons stacked near the door, telescopes, scales, all that was jammed on Roxie's bed. Three empty trunks stood near the doorway. Roxie was also sitting up in bed looking confused while Ly hopped around on one foot looking for a second black converse shoe. One that I'd seen the night before lying behind the bookshelf next to the window in the attic.
"Yes, yesterday was August, but today is September," Ly said. "September first, in fact." Oh. Oh shit. School.
"Your shoe's behind the bookshelf in the attic that's next to the stairs to the roof," I said. She and Roxie stared at me like I'd gone insane. "I'm good at finding things, thank you," I said defensively.
"Thank you," Ly said, sprinting for the door. However, the door swung open at that exact moment, whereupon James attempted to bound into the room, tripped over the trunks and went sprawling into Ly. They landed in a heap, pink in the face, in the middle of the room.
"Sorry!" they both exclaimed getting to their feet and dusting off their respective jeans. They've been doing things like this all summer. Ly dodged around James and the trunks and made for the attic.
"Dom, have you seen my Quaffle?" James asked. I thought about it for a second.
"Yeah, it's in Scor's room," I said. "Where in Scor's room, I couldn't tell you."
"Thank you!" he exclaimed, dashing back out and tripping over the trunks again.
"Suppose we should get up?" Roxie asked.
"Probably," I said.
"Mmkay," she said, closing her eyes again. She was asleep within seconds. I, however, was now fully awake. I sighed laboriously and got out of bed. I grabbed one of the pairs of jeans from the end of my bed and pulled them on. I rummaged around for a shirt which I swapped for my pyjama shirt and then went to work finding a pair of shoes for myself. Somehow, all the shoes had become partner-less and were buried under various pieces of furniture. I eventually found two matching shoes that were probably Ly's and decided it was probably time to start packing.
This meant standing in the middle of the room looking lost. Then Ly came running back into the room wearing both shoes and joined me in the centre.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Me? Trying to figure out where to start with the whole 'packing' thing," I said.
"Oh," she said. We stared around the room looking hopeless. Suddenly, the answer was clear.
"Clothes in one, school stuff divided up into the other two," I said. She nodded and we set about finding all the shoes so we could pile them at the bottom of one of the trunks. I left her to the clothes part and went on to start manhandling the cauldrons into one of the trunks. This was a Herculean task that was only accomplished when Will and Sam came bursting in looking for Will's owl, Fluffy.
"Could you guys sit on this trunk?" I asked them. They looked confused but did as they were requested to do. The latch got within a centimetre of closing, so I put my foot on top as well, managing to snap it shut just before it would have spring loaded the boys off of it and left me in very awkward splits.
"Thank you!" I exclaimed. They looked confused. "All three cauldrons are in that one," I explained, pointing at it. They, if possible, looked more confused.
"I'm never going to understand girls," Sam said. "Ever."
"Maybe between the two of us we could come up with some contraption that allows us to have like, a girl to guy dictionary implanted in our brains," Will said, running back out, followed by Sam.
"And they say we're confusing," Ly said, staring after them. I shrugged.
"How's it coming on your end?" I asked.
"Great, except I think I may have forgotten to leave Roxie any clothes," she said. We looked over at her still sleeping form.
"No, she's smarter than that," I said.
"Who? Me or Roxie?" Ly asked.
"Roxie," I replied.
"Of course," she said. We advanced on the stack of books in the corner and started throwing them with abandon into the last trunk. The thuds could probably be heard by the entire flat. Finally, we stacked the scales and the telescopes inside and closed the lid. I looked around the room. There was nothing left in it except for the three trunks and the three of us.
"Mission accomplished," I said, holding out my hand for a high five. I got one. "Now, we just need to wake up Roxie." We turned to face her bed. However, she was standing next to it in a pleated uniform skirt, a red tank top and Doc Martens while pulling her curly hair into a pony tail.
"Told you she was smarter than letting us pack all the clothes up," I said. Roxie smiled.
"Shall we?" she asked. Laughing, the three of us walked downstairs to breakfast. What we walked into, however, was more reminiscent of the Burrow on the last day of the Christmas Holidays when everyone is trying to get packed, but realises they've left all of their Christmas presents in the Den, but at the same time are supposed to be eating breakfast and as such, everyone is running wildly through the house throwing things at each other, some of which include waffles, rolls, and in one memorable case, a fried egg. Roxie walked in calmly, sat down and tucked into a plate of kippers on toast. Ly caught a blueberry muffin as it sailed towards her head, and I backhanded a scone away from myself on instinct. It smacked Fred in the face, leaving red raspberry filling on his otherwise dark skin.
"I've been hit!" he exclaimed dramatically, falling into a chair and eating the offending scone. I laughed and sat down next to Roxie. Sam and Will sat next to us. As one, we ducked the flying Care of Magical Creatures book belonging to James as it tried to dive bomb the tureen of cereal in the centre of the table. Apparently, so Uncle Ron says (which means the reliability of this statement is minimal), they once had a Care of Magical Creatures book that liked to bite you. Now we have ones that fly. I'm not sure which is worse.
James grabbed it out of the air and sat on it to prevent it from flying away again. Rose walked into the dining room and got brained with a muffin. Scor was at her side instantly asking if she was okay. She turned pink and nodded. They're sickening sometimes.
"I don't know whether they're sickeningly cute, sickeningly pathetic, or just plain sickening," I said to Roxie and Sam. They both choked on their various foods.
"All three," Roxie said.
"That's what I thought too," I said.
OOooOOooOOooOO
This big, burly sixth year paced in front of us, looking ready to disembowel someone with the Beater's bat he carried.
"Alright," he said. "If you're a first year, you can leave." A few scampered away. "Now, to the rest of you. We've got five spots on this team, and it's not going to be pretty." I glanced over at James, Fred and Ly who were huddled close to each other, as though nervous. These are the people who put gobstones in Filch's porridge at breakfast, scared of a sixth year.
"Those spots are all three Chasers, the Seeker and the second Beater," he said. He glared at me as he said Beater. It's true. I don't look like I should be a Beater. I look like I should be shopping in Paris, at least according to my mum. The whole, tall, skinny, blonde girl thing doesn't tend to make you think I'd carry a twenty pound bat around whacking at iron cannon balls. But I do. And I do it well. Dad, a Chaser, and Uncle George, a Beater, joked that somehow the wires had gotten crossed which is how I ended up playing Beater and Fred ended up Chaser. We're still not sure how that happened.
"Chasers over there," the sixth year said, gesturing to a slightly less muddy section of the pitch. "Seekers over there," he continued pointing to the other side. "Beaters, stay right here." Me and this weedy looking kid from fourth year stayed where we were while everyone else moved away. Ly was holding both James and Fred's hands in the Chaser's section. I rolled my eyes. In the Seekers section was no one I recognised particularly, although one of the boys looked like he could be from James and Fred's dorm.
The burly sixth year gave me and the other guy one last disparaging glance before stalking over to the Seekers. He muttered something to them and let go of the Snitch he was holding. The Seekers looked like horses frothing at the bit. Finally, he let them fly off and stalked over to the Chasers, where the one remaining member of his team was standing. I assume she plays Keeper. He explained something to them and then once they'd taken off he returned to us. He gave us both the once over and closed his eyes as though asking for patience.
"You," he said, pointing to the guy. "Why should you get to play Beater?"
"My uncle is a Beater for the Cannons," he said promptly. Both the sixth year and I turned and stared at him like he was insane.
"So he should put you on our Quidditch team?" I said incredulously. "But…we actually want to win the Quidditch Cup." The guy looked like he wanted to beat me up. I took a step back.
"And why should you be on our Quidditch team?" the sixth year asked me.
"Well, because I can actually play Quidditch," I said.
"What? Did you take Quidditch lessons between ballet lessons?" the other guy asked me.
"No," I said. "I played Quidditch while getting in violent hitting matches with my male cousins." The guy looked taken aback. "Matches that I quite often won." The sixth year captain looked mildly impressed.
"How many cousins do you have?" he asked.
"I'm one of thirteen," I said. The captain considered.
"Well, I'm going to set up targets around the pitch for the two of you to hit at. Try to do your best. I don't want to have to go commando." He turned and flew off. At the same time, a series of targets floating between the other players showed up. I was in the air immediately. The guy followed behind me, looking around warily for the Bludgers. I swung my bat experimentally. It was lighter than the bat I had at home. Better for manoeuvrability, but worse for strength. This should be interesting. Up ahead, a Bludger was flying straight for James. Without thinking, I was there, swinging the Bludger away into one of the targets. The target vanished in a puff of red smoke. Then the Bludger came back. I batted it into another one of the targets. Now a rogue Seeker was flying directly at my head. I attempted to swerve out of his way, only to end up further in the way. What was it that Aunt Angelina, Uncle Harry and Uncle George would say and then shudder in relation to Quidditch? Sloth Grip Roll, right! I linked my ankles around my broom and rolled sideways off it as the Seeker flew directly where my head would have been a second before. I rolled back on as the Bludger tried to dive-bomb me. I zoomed forward to meet it, smashing it into one of the targets. When the smoke cleared, I saw that it was careening straight towards Ly, who had the Quaffle. I raced towards her, pulling to a neat stop next to her and smashed it in the other direction, not really aiming for anything. I heard a distant crunch and a howl of pain. Oh shit. I'm done for. I looked to see who I'd hit, only to discover it was the other guy trying out for Beater. The captain laughed at him.
"You don't have the job," he said. The guy looked murderous.
"You only picked her because she's a Veela!" he insisted. That does it.
I sped towards the two as they landed. I dropped my broom in the mud where I landed and advanced on the guy.
"Because I'm a Veela?" I asked in my deadly tone of voice. I was vaguely aware of some commotion going on in the stands. My grip tightened on my bat. My Uncle George's voice echoed through my head – "Remember, when you're hitting something soft, keep your wrist firm" – and I went to swing. Two sets of hands caught my wrists before I could impale the guy on my bat. On my right was the captain, on my left was Sam. When'd he get here? I noticed that behind him Roxie and Will were looking worried.
The guy looked terrified. "Well, you are, right?" he said. I bet even unexpectedly Sam and the captain could hold my weight. Time to test a theory. Without warning, I pushed off from the ground and kicked the guy in the nuts. His face turned red and he sank onto the mud holding himself. There was a collective wince of pain from all the guys around. My work here is done. I pulled my wrists out of their restraints.
"So when does practise start?" I asked the captain. He was staring at me in shock and awe.
"Tuesday," he choked out.
"Lovely," I said. I picked up my broom and the bat and walked over to where Roxie and Will were standing. Sam followed at a distance.
When forced to, Roxie had played Chaser at home (further adding to the mystery of how both Uncle George's kids had not gotten the Beater gene) so watching me play Quidditch was nothing new for her. Nor was watching me beat people up for calling me Veela. Both boys, however, looked disturbed on a deep level.
"Remind me to never, ever get on your bad side," Will said.
"Don't worry," I said. "You won't."
There were three sets of sloshing footsteps behind us. Ly, James and Fred ran to catch up.
"Did you make the team?" Ly asked. "Thanks for that save by the way, probably kept my neck from being broken."
"Of course I made the team," I said.
"Why, 'of course'?" Fred asked. I glanced across the rainy field and pointed at the mass of robes that had been my opponent.
"Because that was my competition," I said. James burst out laughing.
"He called you the V word, didn't he," he said.
"Yes, he did," I said.
"Stupid man," James said.
"I'm going to take from your chipper moods that the three of you made it as well," I said.
"Yes we did," Ly said.
OOooOOooOOooOO
"You guys know this is pointless, right?" Lucy asked from her bed where she was reading.
"What is?" Ly asked, grabbing a sock out of the pile. She dug for a while longer and then pulled out another one that matched. She balled them together and lobbed them at our closet. They landed in the sock tub perfectly. But, then again, she's a Chaser so that's to be expected.
"Attempting to organise your closet," Rose said, scribbling on her Charms homework or something else scholarly like that.
"No it's not," Roxie and I said in unison, both pulling on jeans legs. Eventually, the pile made way and it turned out we were holding opposite ends of the same pair. We were really all trying to find things to wear for the masquerade themed party in the Tower on Friday (a party that happened to coincide with my thirteenth birthday) but Lucy and Rose didn't need to know that. Organisation had merely become a by-product of the costume hunt. Something shimmery caught my eye at the bottom of the pile. I pulled it out. It was a silver sequins covered tube dress. Terrifying.
"Merlin," I said. "Which one of us owns that?" Roxie grabbed it and read the label.
"It's in French, so I'm going to guess it's yours," she said. "Since you're obviously disgusted by it, perhaps Lyra should wear it."
"Why me?" Ly asked, sounding as disturbed as I felt.
"Because it matches your mask," Roxie said.
"No it doesn-yes it does, doesn't it," she said, looking at the dress with renewed interest.
"Is that what you're really doing?" Rose asked. "Looking for dresses for the Masquerade on Friday?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Duh," Ly said. Roxie just gave her a look that said, "Wait, you really thought we were organising?"
"I don't understand why it's such a big deal," Lucy said. "I mean, you put on a dress and a mask and no one knows who you are."
"But there are boys there, Luce," Ly said. "Real boys."
"James," coughed Roxie. Ly threw the nearest tee shirt at her. She laughed.
"Maybe I should look for a dress," Rose said pensively, walking over to the closet she shared with Lucy.
"The world is going to hell in a hand basket," Lucy commented drily.
"Oh, hush," Ly said. "If Rose wants to get my brother to notice that she's a girl that's her prerogative."
"Hey!" Rose said, throwing something at Ly. It turned out to be a black dress.
"Where did you get that?" Lucy asked. Rose looked just as confused as we were. Ly handed the dress back. As she did, it caught the light and we realised it was actually navy, not black.
"Rose, that's perfect. If you don't wear that, I'll have to kill you so I can," Roxie said.
"It wouldn't fit you," Rose said. "And besides, it's from my mum."
"I like your mum when she's pregnant," I said, pulling on some swath of scarlet material. It turned out to be a fluffy strapless dress.
"Yeah, me too," Rose said. She held up the dress to herself in the mirror. It would obviously make her look more grown up. She seemed quite taken with it.
"Dom what do you have there?" Roxie asked. I tossed her the red dress. "Ooh! I like it! I think I'll wear it."
"It'll be lovely with your skin tone," a masculine voice said from the general area of the ceiling. In horror, the five of us looked up. James and Fred were wearing the trademark Weasley smirk and the WWW shoes that let you walk on the ceiling. James tapped his wand to the shoes and fell with a thump onto Ly's bed. He looked much too pleased with himself. Fred did the same, landing next to him.
"Why does it have to be my bed?" Ly asked.
"Because we're related to the rest of them, and that's just wrong," Fred said solemnly. James said nothing but turned pink.
"How long have you been up there?" I asked.
"About two minutes," Fred replied.
"You mean when that first year came in the wrong way up the stairs and opened the door thinking she was in the right dorm?" Roxie asked.
"Yeah, that's about right," James said. "So, I'm a 'real boy'?" he asked Ly.
"Well, according to your cousin," Ly said without missing a beat. "You'll note I just said 'real boy'. She added you to the equation." Roxie looked outraged. Her jaw dropped almost comically.
"That's it. That is so fucking it," she said, jumping up and grabbing her wand. She pointed it at James and her brother. "Out, both of you. Out." They didn't need telling twice and ran for the door. There was a loud klaxon like wail and they screamed. We paused for a moment and heard two thuds that meant they'd hit the common room floor. "And now we can find Dom a dress." Lucy was the first to start laughing.
"I just wanted to wear jeans, but nooooo," I muttered to myself. The dress they'd eventually found for me was some crazy turquoise halter dress with ruffles on the hem and little circular mirrors built into it. I looked like a disco ball. They'd also managed to cajole me (for "cajole" read "held at wand point") into the matching platform sandals. I think the outfit had originally been Ly's, but I'm not sure. We're never really sure anymore. My mask had at one point in its life been black. Now, however, it was covered in turquoise glitter glue and circular silver sequins. I crossed my arms defiantly over my chest and stalked down the stairs in distaste. It had taken me the least amount of time to get ready due to my lack of long hair. It only came down to my chin and there was nothing I could really do to it. I'd been sitting at our couch in the common room for five minutes now, alone, waiting for all of my stupid friends. Finally, Lucy appeared. She had her hair tucked behind her ears and was wearing a black sundress with (lucky girl) flats. The heels brigade hadn't gotten to her. Nothing ever gets to her. She sat down next to me.
"I think you look very pretty," she told me.
"Thanks Luce," I said. "So do you." She shrugged.
"No! I've changed my mind! I don't want to go!" said a guy's voice from behind us. We looked around. Dylan, dressed ever so suavely as what I'm going to assume is James Bond, along with Fred who seemed to be dressed like a lion (head dress and all) were dragging someone down the stairs. The kicking and screaming guy had blond hair. He was also dressed as a pirate.
From the girls' dormitories, a similar event was taking place, except it was Roxie and Ly dragging Rose down the stairs. Lucy and I exchanged looks. Rox looked fabulous in the red dress with one big red flower in her hair and Ly sparkled more than I did in the light. Rose looked great in the midnight blue dress her mum had bought her. The heels brigade had gotten to Rose. I'm starting to wonder just how Lucy avoided capture.
Both of Rose and Scorpius's chauffeurs were watching where they were going and knew they were on a collision course. Rose and Scorpius did not.
"Let go of me!" Rose finally exclaimed, shoving off against Roxie and turning around in time to run full on into Scor. In a move worthy of Ly and James, they landed in a pile of limbs on the floor.
"Holy Merlin! For once I'm not part of the human dog pile!" James said, bounding excitedly down the stairs.
"Wait for it…" Fred said.
"Hi, James," Ly said. James's face went slack and he tripped over a rug into an arm chair and slid gracelessly to the floor.
"Murphy's Law, everybody!" Fred said, raising a triumphant fist in the air. "Round of applause? No? Okay." Ly rushed to help James up.
"Which means we're just down to Al, Sam and Will," Dylan said. "Oh, god, we'll be here all night. I'll be right back." He turned and ran up the stairs.
Oh this is going to be a fun night.
Review, you know you want to. And even if you didn't before, you do now because I just inceptioned your brain. Ha.