So I mention the name Bellatrix once and everybody sits up and takes notice. Now I know that she's a hugely popular character so to answer a few questions;
1. Yes she will be involved in quite a big way.
2. Yes it's going to be exciting and fun.
3. No I'm not telling you what I've got planned for her.
I was inspired to do the quidditch scenes in this chapter by one of my all time favourite stories 'Uchiha of Ravenclaw' by Hebisama. I was honestly not very interested in the whole thing but they write it so brilliantly that I actually started to enjoy it and I thought I'd give it a go myself and you know what, it was actually rather fun. Don't worry though, Cassie still hates it.
As always if you have ideas, suggestions or want to see something happen then put it in a review or give me a PM. As you have seen in Silent World I am more than happy to adapt it as we go if I find something that you've suggested helpful, useful or just plain amusing.
I still don't own Harry Potter otherwise I'd be writing all day instead of working to pay the bills.
Dylan the Rabbit. xx
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Season of The Witch.
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7. Flying Without Wings.
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Ginevra Black's fourteenth birthday was celebrated in grand style with the entire family and all of her Housemates turning up at Bones Manor to celebrate it. The birthday girl herself had only had one stipulation and that was 'no teachers' which Cassie and Susan who were the ones organising it were happy enough to comply with. The grounds of Bones Manor then were once more employed for a day long summer party although this time the guest list was more youthful than for the wedding that had taken place here a few weeks previously. Another difference from that occasion was the large golden hoops hovering above them and the line of brooms laid out on the grass.
Ginny's total love of flying in general and quidditch in particular had inspired the theme of the party and the activities had all been arranged to indulge the ginger haired Black sister's obsession with the sport. Anyone who had ever met her would have been more than aware of her favourite team so decking everything out in Hollyhead Harpies colours was no problem but with Susan still trying to hide her interest in quidditch they had draughted Greg in to help out with the details. The pride he had felt at being the one to escort the two witches to Diagon Alley in order to spend a quite obscene amount of gold on Ginny's main present, a Firebolt broom, and the other supplies that they needed was clear on his face. He had stood tall and felt absolutely on top of the world as he strode down the cobbled alley with a gorgeous young woman on each arm, just happy to be of any use whatsoever to his lovely new Housemates.
Once everything had been purchased and arrived at the Manor Cassie had gone over there the day before the party to do some setting up. She had taken Vince and Greg with her because, well, what was the point of having these great lumping lads around if you weren't going to use them for the heavy lifting. Frankly she and Susan could have done it it with magic in half the time, since Bones Manor was unplottable and they wouldn't be at any risk of getting in trouble, but she was going out ot her way to include the boys and make them feel useful and wanted. They needed to be integrated into the House and she wanted them to get used to being around a gaggle of exciteable teenaged girls, some of whom were in the habit of running around in their underwear, without fainting.
When the day of the party dawned Susan and the Black sisters flooed in along with Draco and the boys to have breakfast at Bones Manor and change ready to meet with the other guests. Since it was such a beautiful sunny day most of them were in shorts and tee shirts or little tops or in Cassie's case a very skimpy black bikini and a short sarong to wrap around her if the breeze got up later. The reactions that her ensemble sparked ranged from shocked silence along with some slight drooling from the boys to small, excited yelps and growls from her betrothed who suddenly became decidedly handsy while giving her a thorough snogging. This display didn't really improve the raging hormone situation for the red faced young men who all moved their hands to cover their rather obvious ... discomfort.
Walking outside after the embarrassment of the male Freaks, which Ginny had laughingly declared to be her first birthday present, was finished none of them except those who had been involved in the set up were quite prepared for the sight that met their eyes. It was like someone had dropped the Mad Hatters tea party into the middle of a semi professional quidditch stadium. Everyone was very excited. Well with a couple of rather obvious, black and silver haired exceptions that is. Cassie and Fleur shared a look of exasperation before settling themselves in a couple of comfy looking loungers, happily sunbathing as the others ran yelling and screaming for the quidditch equipment.
While her bathing suit wasn't quite as scandalously revealing as her companion's the platnium blonde, veela, Dark Lady had still gone rather risque with it and with her naturally enhanced good looks she was receiving just as much surrupticious attention from the young people as Cassie was. In fact since they complemented each other so well, the bright, sunny veela an the smoky, dark, tattooed witch next to her, that even the staunchly loyal Cedric Diggory had been noticed checking them out. Of course that had gotten him a slap from Katie but she had then ruined the effect slightly by also giving them a blushing once over. Their smiles were almost identical at the half joking argument that this caused between the mortified couple.
Being here like this was quite a big deal for Fleurdamorte as, to her mind, it meant that despite the Black heiress' obvious reservations she was slowly being accepted as 'one of the family'. An unidentifiable feeling crept over her making her feel all warm and tingly. At first she thought it was just the exceptionally warm weather but it wasn't. Her caged host cackled maniacally as she leaked her feelings of familial love into Fleurdamorte's consciousness. Forcing the sexual awakening of Feurdamorte had been amusing enough but giving her the capacity to feel love as well was really going to put the cat among the pigeons.
Ginny meanwhile was in heaven. From the second that she had laid eyes on the full sized quidditch pitch she had known that her present would be a broom but she had never dreamed that it would be a Firebolt. The finest, fastest broom ever made, used by National quidditch teams around the world and it was all hers. For possibly only the second time in her life Ginevra Black was speechless and more than a little bit weepy. The first time had been when Sirius had accepted her into the House of Black and adopted her six weeks or so ago and now it was happening all over again. She felt like such a soppy cow crying over a bloody broom.
Oh who was she kidding? This wasn't just a broom, it was a Firebolt.
After she had been shocked again by the appearance of Fred and George, the only Weasleys that she could actually stand to be around, Ginny's eyes finally sprang a proper leak as she cuddled her present. Many kisses and many thank-yous and some enthusiastic encouragement by her sisters and friends later the World's biggest Hollyhead Harpies fangirl had tentatively mounted her fantastic new broom and gently kicked off into the air. Oh my good goddess it was amazing. The way it responded to her slightest touch, changing direction the instant that she moved and the speed ... oh the speed. She was now flying high above the ground, some several hundred feet and something in her dare-devil flyers soul compelled her to point the nose straight downwards and put herself into a thrilling and dangerous vertical dive.
The feel of her facial muscles distorting as the wind rushed past her was fantastic and the danger of her supersonic plummet was only matched by the insanity of how late she left it before pulling off her perfect Wronski Feint. That. Was. Sooo. Cool. Gaining height once more she at last spotted the young woman who had caused such a monumental shift in her life and her fortunes lying there, all sexy like, and Ginny banked steeply and slowed as she reached her oldest sister.
"Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod. I can't believe you got me a Firebolt I love you so much!"
The green eyes widened as Ginny leapt off of her still moving new broom and on top of her sister to squeeze her tightly before repeating the action on an equally startled Fleur. The ginger, who seemed oblivious to the fact that her clothes were now covered in Cassie's rather expensive and laboriously applied SPF 30 sun cream, then jumped back on her clearly appreciated birthday present and roared off again with a 'Woo Hoo'. The two girls on their sun loungers shared a shrug, an eye roll and a knowing smirk before each of them reached down to the side for their respective lotions watching as more brooms began to take to the air and the flyers started throwing around a quaffle between them.
Hermione was standing off to one side of all the excitement, peering over the top of her sunglasses at the bikini clad Black heiress and enjoying the view very much indeed. Just because she was in a committed relationship with her former crush's sister didn't mean that she couldn't have the occasional sneaky peek at the insanely beautiful, firm, toned young woman. Especially when she was 'wearing' such a ridiculously skimpy bathing suit that barely covered anything. Yum yum. Dragging her eyes away from Cassie's tits and up to her face Hermione was horrified to see those emerald eyes looking straight into hers and the ruby lips that were twisted in an amused smile as she remembered what the raven haired lovely had been researching for the past week.
The mind arts, as in occlumency and leglimancy. Oh my God she was such a stupid lesbian. To try and mask her embarrassment at being caught having decidedly less than pure thoughts about her oldest friend Hermione 'Gryfindored up' and attempted to change the subject.
"Are you not going to go flying with the girls then?" She knew full well that Cassie wasn't but it was a good way to distract her from her previous perversions.
Not fucking likely.
"Come on Cass just give it a try."
I've tried it. I was shit.
"I remember." Hermione smiled at the memory. "I don't know who was worse you or me."
"It was you Hermione."
There was no mistaking that seemingly polite but always insincere, aristocratic drawl. The bushy haired girl scowled at Draco's amused insertion into the conversation. She decided to go on the offensive.
"Weren't you too busy stealing Longbottom's remembrall and trying to get him killed to be paying any attention to us."
The two of them set to good natured bickering with a will. One of the most surprising developments of the last couple of weeks was the odd friendship that had sprung up between Draco, the haughty pureblood princeling, and Hermione, the muggle born brightest witch of her age. Once they had broken their four year habit of trying to bully and belittle each other the two found that they shared a wickedly sarcastic sense of humour and their interractions became much more of an amusing game of wits. Apparently Draco had some and nobody was more shocked than him to discover it.
Another discovery that he had made was that he enjoyed studying and that he was actually rather good at it. Not as good as Hermione obviously but not far off it. The budding friendship was finally sealed when she walked in on him tutoring her sex obsessed Irish girlfriend in Ancient Runes and being successful at keeping her attention on the subject. Something that Hermione herself had all but given up on. From then on it was almost impossible to find one without the other. They worked on homework together, engaged in wide ranging and occasionally pretty heated debates on everything and anything, assisted the less mentally gifted Freaks with their own work and pounded each other at wizard's chess. It was both startling and scary. Even more so when Draco's mother would join in. Cassie tried not to give her away as the perfectly attired older blonde woman stealthily crept up behind the engrossed teens before laying a hand on both shoulders eliciting a pair of small girly screams.
"Are you two at it again?" Narcissa sighed resignedly. "What is it this time?"
"Flying."
Cassie watched the unlikely trio wandering off towards the stack of very few remaining as yet unused brooms still arguing with an almost manic intensity and smiled broadly.
Amelia wearily pulled up a nearby lawn chair, sat down with a sigh next to her, reached over and patted her hand.
"I know you hate it love but look at how much fun they're having."
She couldn't deny that. The teens had now been joined by Sirius, Remus and Andromeda and since they now had enough willing participants an intense pick up game of quidditch had started. The yells and shouts of the players, the solid thwacks of the beaters bats as Vince and Greg engaged in a fight for dominance with the Weasley twins and screaming girls flying everywhere in and between. They did truly look as if they were having fun. Not her kind of fun admittedly but then where was she going to find a dragon to fight on this short notice. Or even a troll.
The grinning face of her sister flashed before her eyes and she was whipped by the long ginger hair as Ginny whizzed by inches from her head laughing like a maniac, cradling a large red ball and being chased by three smaller witches. Juliet, Cerys and 'Tilde were laying flat along their brooms to rinse every last ounce of speed from them as they careered, grinning determinedly, after the birthday girl intent on relieving her of her prize.
I fucking hate quidditch.
There was no venom in her statement and Amelia knew it. She knew it from the way that she was smiling as she tracked the whooping, giggling shapes of her family and friends across the cloudless sky. She was rather enjoying the view herself until it was obscured by a mass of curly, bushy brunette hair that bobbed into view and she goggled in total shock as the face beneath hair was brought into the light of day by the gentle breeze. Hermione Granger, the worlds worst flyer, was astride a Comet Three Sixty broom and so out of control that she was only just managing to keep the thing airborne while sitting still. She had a very determined look though as, taking her life in her hands she held out her hand towards Cassie with a slightly grim smile on her face.
"Come on let's do it together, you and me, like old times."
Cassie was gob-smacked. Also a little impressed at the sheer bloody mindedness of the girl. Shaking her head to indicate just how insane she thought this was she reached out and grabbed the hand of her first ever friend who pulled her awkwardly up behind her and they were off. Sort of. The broom wobbled alarmingly as the two witches voted least likely to even own a broom let alone fly it, skimmed across the lawn at barely crawling speed before a burst of misplaced confidence had them rising and accelerating into the air. Yeah this was so not going to end well for them. Still at least nobody apart from Amelia and maybe Fleur was watching them.
After a few minutes of lazy, inexperienced and wobbly circling Cassie was feeling a bit less scared and was actually starting to enjoy their impromptu trip. This feeling was not going to last for long, however. It was the sudden quiet that alerted Cassie to the fact that she and Hermione were no longer alone and unobserved and she gripped tightly to the other witch praying that she was wrong about was coming. Unfortunately she wasn't. Twenty feet from the safety of the ground and suddenly they were surrounded by a multitude of grinning faces.
Her dad, sisters, friends, cousins, they had all stopped their game to come and poke fun at and annoy the two witches who didn't like heights very much and positively hated flying. And probably to see their screams of horror as they fell off which they inevitably would since their broom control was practically non existent. Even Luna was there and in more control than them. Admittedly she was hanging upside down from her broom and smiling languidly like a mentally disturbed sloth but she was still in control. Well as in control as Luna ever got anyway. It was in fact this sight that startled Hermione into losing her tenuous grip on their flying machine which shot from underneath them at her heavy handed attemps to recover her seat and plunged the two of them towards the ground.
Of all the people that could have done it, it was Fleurdamorte that managed to avoid laughing too hard at them and cast the cushioning charm under them preventing any serious injury to Cassie and Hermione. The hidden Dark Lady could not say that she had intended to do so. One second she was watching the girls fall and the next her wand was in her hand and the spell was thrown as if on a protective instinct. She didn't like the thought of herself possessing on of those. They were awfully inconvenient. Now, however, she was looking at the two of them laying on their backs giggling and feeling glad that she had done it. Curiouser and curiouser. What the hell was going on with her lately?
Cassie decided that she should have known something like this would happen the instant that flying was suggested as a theme for Ginny's party. She couldn't believe that the Freaks were actually going to be participating in this ridiculous bloody ... well ... freakshow when they got back to Hogwarts. She fucking hated quidditch. Her Housemates, however, appeared to absolutely love it and she simply couldn't bring herself to deny them the opportunity to play this year. Or anything else that they desired for that matter. Staring up at the sky from her position flat out on her back on the grass she let out a frustrated huff which prompted a snort and a giggle from the bushy haired girl lying next to her. She couldn't help the grin that formed and within seconds the two of them were holding hands and laughing up a storm. Susan Bones landed quietly a few feet away and watched them in silence. She was going to have to think up a proper way to say thank-you to Hermione for getting her girlfriend more involved in today's activities.
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Molly Weasley not in a good mood.
Dumbledore looked on as the tubby ginger housewife threw things around her kitchen with impressive force while she alternated between bemoaning the loss of her 'precious daughter' and railing against the 'evil' Blacks.
The thing that had sparked all of this ranting and raving was the copy of the Daily Prophet that had hit her kitchen table that morning. The article that had been reproduced in newspapers all across Europe and the Americas was front page news and was accompanied by what was essentially a family portrait of what was becoming once more one of the most powerful Houses in Wizarding Britain. At the centre of the picture was the figure of Cassandra Evans-Black in all of her leather clad glory seated in a throne, surrounded by her sisters, parents, aunts and cousins and giving the camera that small, enigmatic smile of hers. She looked like what she was. The boss. The wild, dangerous and charismatic leader of a dark and ancient wizarding clan that could trace it's lineage all the way back to before the time of Merlin.
The inside pages were no better. It gave the only in depth interview availlable with the participants in the horrifying events at Delacour Villa earlier in the Summer and made for grim reading for anyone who thought to challenge the Blacks either politically or in any other sphere. The multitude of pictures of the brave and beautiful trio of witches would be enlarged and hung on the walls of many bedrooms as their occupants dreamed of rescuing the veela princess or being rescued by either the young auror or the smoking hot Black Witch.
Not that Molly would be doing that.
She truly believed that Sirius had betrayed the light by blood adopting the 'girl-who-lived', taking her away from the headmaster's control and allowing her to be influenced by the darkness that had pervaded the House of Black for centuries. And then, not content with just corrupting the already fairly corrupted Cassandra, he had gone and done the unforgiveable by taking her only daughter away from her. The fact that Ginny looked so happy with her new family and her new situation just made matters worse and had left her apoplectic with rage and led to her destroying her kitchen
Dumbledore meanwhile was rather amused by it all.
He felt that the articles in the Prophet actually helped his cause by painting the dratted Evans brat as the kind of witch who let her emotions and her temper rule her actions. The fact that she could kill sixteen decent (to his mind anyway) pure blood wizards without hesitation for an offence that was committed on foreign soil would, he was sure, be remembered by the public when she went fully 'dark'. Nobody cared what went on in a benighted country like France and he was certain that with this act of wanton murder his recruitment drive for the new Order of the Phoenix would be boosted when he revealed their purpose for forming.
And he needed to do some recruiting too since a great many of the old order were either dead or in the Black Witch's camp. James and the Prewetts were dead, Sirius and Remus always were and always would be flakes, Amelia and Andromeda, although light-ish in their outlook had been on the outskirts of his order and Narcissa had been literally sleeping with the enemy. Having been caught out getting a bit too happy with the memory charms Minerva was gone too but it was Severus Snape's betrayal that really hurt.
Severus had made a useful spy but he sensed that with his avuncular connection to the 'girl-who-refused-to-die' and her assorted freaks that that time was past now. Sentiment. It had always been the potions master's biggest flaw. It had made him a tepid and mediocre Death Eater, easily swayed by empty promises but a reasonably effective double agent and rather valuable. Perhaps it was time to reveal his part in the deaths of her parents to Evans to see if he could cause a rift between the two and possibly get him back on board. If not that then she might just end up losing her temper and killing him, giving her the much deserved villain status and proving his point about her.
In fact that would probably be his preferred outcome. Albus started to think about and make plans for how he could engineer such a confrontation to be as public as possible. Many of his supporters were not overly keen on Severus but there was no way that they would stand for a public execution of one of their own by a proven murderess and manipulator like Evans,'girl-who-lived' or not. The Chief Warlock smiled his patented twinkly eyed 'favourite grandad' smile giving the Weasleys a sense of calm serenity while he did an internal happy dance at how useful their anger and outrage was going to be when hostilities with the Black Witch began.
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The basement shimmered and her wand shuddered as the dark skinned witch pushed her magic through the focus to force the floor and surrounding walls down by fifteen feet. This done she extended the stone steps down to meet the new lower level before creating a floor/ceiling and divided the now cavernous space into two separate floors. Next she threw some pebbles onto the upper level and transfigured them into walls to break the space up into rooms, one hallway/reception room, two dorm rooms and a large bathroom. Excellent. The whole job had taken under an hour. McGonagall could have certainly done it faster but she had wanted to do this job herself. They were her students after all and it was her task to do.
Aurora Sinistra stepped back, folded her arms and viewed her handiwork with pride and satisfaction. For the first time since becoming the faculty Head of Psycho Freak House last September she had finally managed to make a major structural transfiguration work and permanently stick on her own. Her reasons for all this work was twofold. Firstly was that she had recieved a message from Miss Evans-Black informing her of three young men who had been invited to join the House over the Summer and secondly was that she suspected the sorting hat may well find some more freaks in the new intake next week. Especially since young Cassie had become so incrediby popular with the younger generation of witches since her displays of power and compassion in last year's Tri-Wizard Tournament and beyond. Aurora could see many girls wanting to join the House of their role model and herione and possibly a few boys too.
The expected influx of first year witches into the House had also prompted her to add a storey above ground so that she could split the upper and lower years up and give them a floor each only some of which was for the comfort of the girls. A larger part of this decision was her desire to keep the disturbing influence of one Miss Luna Lovegood as far away as possible from innocent and impressionable young minds. Normally she could rely on Cassie for this kind of thing but she did seem to have a very sizeable blind spot when it came to her lunatic, blonde friend. Of course she didn't really know what kind of strange and broken individuals the new arrivals would have to be for the sorting hat to let them in in the first place so she might be worrying over nothing. If so then at least they wouldn't have to fight over the bathroom.
Making two entirely new floors of the Psycho Freak tower was quite a bit of effort since there was already a perfectly useable cellar but she could just imagine Cassandra giving her one those hard stares of hers if she messed with the girls basement training room. Although very sweet most of the time the Black heiress could be unbelievably intimidating and creepy when you crossed her and given her rather short, rather violent temper it was probably best to just not risk it. Even if she was giving the girl and her newly betrothed lover a very special present which would be revealed when they got back here.
Aurora had decided to get some brownie points in the bank at the start of term and had made Cassie and Susan their very own private suite at the top of the tower in what was the old roof space. Although it was a lot less work than putting a whole new floor in she still had to make the stairs and divide up the area into bed, sitting and bathroom. She was hoping that the girls would at least appreciate the sentiment behind her actions even if they weren't exactly blown away by the lack of effort involved.
The tired Astonomy professor decided to have a little bit of a sit down and a restorative cup of tea in the Freaks' common room and killed two birds with one stone by asking the same elf that brought her drink if she could arrange furnishing the new dormitories although not the attic suite as Aurora wanted to take care of that personally. Perhaps a trip to the room of lost items was in order to search for some unusually weird items with which she could make it a properly strange room for the Freak in chief and her red headed betrothed. While she was planning her raid on the come and go room Severus Snape who had been passing the tower and seen the lights on had decided to drop in and see how her renovations had progressed.
"You'd better not have messed around with the Potions lab."
"Hello Severus." She smiled at the grumpy sounding professor, knowing his act all too well by now. "And no, your precious Potions area is all safe and sound."
He grunted and moved around the Tower's main common room muttering to himself as he checked that there was nothing missing or out of place in the potioneer's study and preparation area that he had painstakingly set up at the beginning of term for the last two years. Making a note that he should add a few first year Potions texts to the library and adding it to the list of the ingredients and reagents that needed to be topped off Snape turned back to his colleague.
"So who are your prefects going to be Aurora?"
"Prefects, why would I have prefects?"
"You now have fifth year students of both sexes, yes?"
"Well yes."
"Then you need to appoint prefects. One male, one female."
It was at this point that Aurora realised that she was the faculty Head of an actual, proper Hogwarts House and that her responsibilites would only increase as it grew in size. She didn't exactly have a problem with this apart from the fact that she didn't actually know what these responsibilities were. Luckily there was someone who did know that was sat right here in front of her and seemingly with nothing else to do this evening. Summoning a second cup for her guest Aurora Sinistra poured him some tea and began to put her considerable charms to work extracting the necessary information from him. There was a lot of it and it turned into a very long night.
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Relaxing in 'her' sun lounger on the lawn at Bones Manor Cassie was reading her book about Soul Magic and pretending that she couldn't see the training match that was being played out in front of her. Her bushy haired companion nodded at her and made a face at the other girls who seemed torn between checking out Cass in her bikini and watching the training. Hermione chuckled to herself when her girlfriend told her that she couldn't talk as she did the exact same thing. The studious young woman had sufficient self knowledge to accept this as a distinct possibility and had been hanging out with the Blacks for long enough that laughing at herself had become a fairly regular occurrence.
As it happened Cassie was actually entirely uninterested in the ridiculous broom sport and was actually engrossed in her very helpful and interesting book that was giving her all sorts of insights into Cerys and Gabbys veela bond. The only useful thing about the game that she could see was the armour that was thick enough to provide good protection while being flexible enough to allow a full range of movement. Of course she wouldn't have used it for bloody pointless, shitty quidditch, no she'd have used it for making sure that her family stayed safe and uninjured in a fight.
Above them the newly formed Psycho Freak quidditch team definitely were interested in the sporting uses of the armour as they were with every other aspect of, what they and many others considered to be, the most fun game ever. Their starting line-up held the most rabid of these fans.
At beater were Vincent Crabbe and Greg Goyle, solid and experienced players with a great rapport and understanding between them and a shared love of hitting stuff. Protecting the goal, Draco Black who was a good, quick flyer, had an excellnt tactical grasp of the game and a very safe pair of hands. High above the pitch in the role of seeker was the slim, small statured Ginny Black, the only choice with her lightning fast Firebolt broom and dare-devil spirit.
The surprise came with the chasers.
Mathilde Black and Juliette Jones were fast, agile and ferociously tenacious in their pursuit of the quaffle and they had impressed everyone with their bravery, tactics and their talent. The lead chaser was most impressed of all by the slight second years. A lead chaser who added some much needed muscle to the line-up. A lead chaser by the name of Susan Bones.
Much to the horror of her betrothed the red headed Bones heiress had proved to be, not only fully conversant with all of the intricacies of the stupidly dangerous sport, but also extremely good at playing it. There were many joking references to how one of the most famous lesbians in wizarding Britain toady had such good 'ball handling' skills but it was banter born out of respect rather than derision. Cassie's future fiancee really was very good indeed.
Supplementing this quality line-up were the two reserves. Charli was a decent utility player who could slot in pretty much anywhere necessary and Cerys, the little muggle born Welsh girl had turned out to be an absolute quidditch prodigy. The only thing that stopped her being their most valuable player and kept her out of the starting team was that she was much more careful about her personal safety than the others. Like a great many magicals who had not been raised in the wizarding world Cerys was still a bit sceptical that the injuries that she would very likely receive in this violent 'game' could be healed quickly and painlessly. It made her cautious. Too cautious to be a really great quidditch player, she was, however, a great asset as a reserve.
Luna, Gabby and Hermione stayed out of harm's way and joined the totally unmoved Cassie in what was laughingly referred to by the team as the 'cheerleading section'.
In their first of their daily scheduled practices it had become very clear who the team captain was going to be. The drive and determination of one girl who had decided that if they were going to be playing quidditch at Hogwarts this year then they were damned well going to be competitive was instantly recogniseable and utterly unquenchable. There was no other choice. It had to be Ginevra Black. She was a tartar to rival even the feared Grandma Walburga when it came to her team's fitness, preparation and performance but the others accepted it without question simply because she made them better.
Ginny was a true believer and her belief transferred to her team.
This was the last day of freedom in the final week of their Summer break which had seemed to just fly past at record speed and Ginevra Black was determined to make the most of it, doing what she loved more than anything else in the whole world. Except maybe for making out with Luna that is. Tonight was the Psycho Freaks last night with the Black adults and the semi formal dinner that they had planned was sure to be a riot but for now it was all about the flying.
She streaked through the sky in a ginger and black flash in another of one her break-neck dives, dodging as bludgers and dirty playing chasers tried to knock her off of her course to intercept the elusive golden snitch. The team roared in appreciation as their magnificent captain swept the little winged ball into her glove once more before peeling off into a fast victory barrel roll which earned her a small Mexican wave from the watching witches on the ground. Well, nearly all the witches on the ground.
Cassie looked up from her book and blinked owlishly wondering what all the noise was about. Realising that it was just more stupid quidditch stuff she rolled her eyes, huffed dramatically and recommenced her reading as she was just getting into a really good bit about something called a horcrux. As the others were pulled onto brooms and taken up into the air for some patented Ginny relaxation techniques of 'doubles' quaffle catch she looked up into the soft brown eyes of her red headed lover who was hovering in front of her with an expectant expression on her pretty face. She sighed heavily and slid up behind Suzie (under protest) resigned to the fact that her book was going to have to wait until she was on the Express tomorrow.
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