Author's Note: Here's chapter seven, but I've noticed I haven't been getting many reviews L Why not

Author's Note: Here's chapter seven, but I've noticed I haven't been getting many reviews  Why not? What happened?

La Vie Comme Un Infirme-Chapter Seven: Best Day Ever

Over the next couple of weeks, life was absolutely, positively, horrible for the Gryffindor Quidditch players. Well, for six of them, anyway.

Wood constantly monitored their food intake at every meal like an overseer. He had yelled at Alicia one night for trying to sneak a piece of chocolate cake, causing the entire Hall to stare at the Gryffindor table. Alicia had gone red in the face and very angry, like she wouldn't be in a situation like that.

One morning in October, a week before their first match (against Ravenclaw), Wood had gotten so frustrated with George Weasley for trying to eat a cinnamon role that he flung himself onto the table, sending food flying everywhere.

"DO YOU WANT TO BE BIG, FAT LOSERS THE REST OF YOUR LIVES?!" Wood roared, directing his comment to every member of the Quidditch team. His face was beat red and looked like it was on the verge of explosion. Harry felt shocked. He had never been yelled at like this before. But, then again, he'd never met anyone like Oliver Wood before, either.

The teachers were staring at the Gryffindor table in horror (excluding Snape, who actually looked quite delighted with the scene). Harry saw Remus, McGonagall, and Flitwick (the Charms professor) rising from their seats and heading toward the Gryffindors. The Slytherins were snickering, Draco Malfoy being one of the loudest.

Wood turned to face the professors and looked all in all embarrassed. As well he should, Harry thought angrily. He had no business making a scene like that. Across from him, George stuffed the cinnamon role into his mouth.

"Wood," McGonagall said sternly as she approached, her eyes boring through her square spectacles at Wood. "Are we going to have to deprive you of the place of Captain?"

Wood's face went from beat red to ghostly white in a split second. Everyone knew how much being Captain meant to him.

"Good captains are fair to their team members," Remus said calmly, although the look in his eyes was just as stern as McGonagall's and he was not wearing that bright smile that Harry was accustomed to seeing. "And by fair, of course, I mean that they don't yell at or starve them."

"We suggest you show your team some kind of decency, Wood." McGonagall's eyes flashed. "Or else they won't be your team anymore." She gave one of those bitter smiles of hers and, with the other two teachers, walked away.

Wood turned back to his team members in shock.

"Oh well," said Fred Weasley happily. "Looks like the diet things out of the way."

&

In truth it really wasn't. Well, the dieting was out of the question, but it was replaced by harder exercise. As the week wore on, Wood increased their practice times and added more crunches, more laps around the field, and required much faster flying times.

Harry came back to the common room each night so exhausted that he had hardly any time at all to do his homework. He would have asked Hermione Granger to help him, but she was very uptight and intimidating. It was impossible to have a decent conversation with her.

The teachers, however, were for the most part very lenient on all the Gryffindor team members. McGonagall had given Harry several extra days to turn in his essay on the process of transfiguring a mouse into water (a very hard process), and Remus had decided to exempt Harry from homework entirely until after his first match. Hermione, of course, made yet another complaint after class.

"I know how worn out you are," Remus told him with a smile. "You don't need all this pressure on you right now."

"Thank you, R-Professor Lupin," Harry smiled back. He let out a deep sigh as Remus passed by. No homework from at least one class.

Potions, predictably, was one class where Harry could not avoid turning in all of his assignments on time. In fact, Snape was even more intimidating and had even more homework piled on the class than usual that week.

"Don't worry, mate," Ron reassured him. "I'll take care of your homework for you."

That'll be the day, unless he means copy off of Hermione, Harry thought. Ron was terrible at doing homework. He either copied off Hermione or made up the answers. Either way, he always wound up getting a zero.

"That's okay, Ron," replied Harry, trying to sound grateful. "I can do it myself."

Later that night, Dean Thomas asked if he could do Harry's homework for him. Dean was actually a very good student, not quite as smart as Hermione (because no one was), but smart all the same. Harry knew could count on Dean. So, with that out of the way, he was able to put his entire focus on Quidditch.

&

Finally, the day of their first Quidditch match arrived. The Gryffindor team assembled out on the field for one final practice before the game began. Unfortunately, it turned out to do more harm than good.

George Weasley vomited because he had stuffed himself full of food before coming out to the field, and Angelina Johnson stubbed her toe when landing her broom on the ground.

"Oh!" she moaned. "Oliver, it's bleeding."

Sure enough, blood was gushing from her foot as she took her shoe off to examine it.

"Well," said Wood carelessly, "luckily, you don't use your toes in Quidditch. Now get up! You too, George. We have five more hours until the game starts."

&

Sirius had contemplated all week about whether or not he should have taken Dora to Harry's Quidditch match. Her parents were strongly against it because they were still angry about the statue incident. They didn't want her to have any privileges until she could learn to be less clumsy. Besides, it could have been too dangerous.

"What if she falls off the stands and breaks her leg?" Andromeda had asked one afternoon. "I have enough patients to deal with already. I certainly don't need to add my own family to the mix."

But, Dora had proven herself to be good at spell casting. She knew all the defensive spells and seemed to be getting quicker at blocking others. Besides, it wasn't like she would be doing anything to fall off the stands, anyway.

So, in the end, Sirius decided to allow Dora to come along. She was very excited, and on the entire way there, babbled about how much she loved Quidditch and the games she saw when she was at Hogwarts.

"One time, Charlie Weasley caught the Snitch and fell off his broom and landed right into the stands. Got a broken shoulder and had to go to the hospital. Won of course, but I was sad though, because I wanted Hufflepuff to win, obviously, you know, because I'm a Hufflepuff. No offense to Gryffindor or anything, but Charlie was a really good Quidditch player. He even asked me out once in fifth year and I said yes, but then his ex got all mad at me and wanted him back. But why? I mean hello, he broke up with her, why would she want him back? We were both so mad, me and Charlie, but she started stocking us and stuff, oooh I wanted to kill her, she drove me so crazy. But finally we broke up and I don't think Charlie ever dated anymore because that stupid girl kept following him. I don't understand why she didn't just—"

"We're here!" Sirius said, glad to stop Dora's talking.

"Yea!" Dora shouted happily, her hair turning her favorite shade of pink. As usual, she was wearing one of her wizarding punk band t-shirts (Dueling Dragons) and as such, was not dressed appropriately for the weather. It was October, after all, and starting to get colder.

The two of them made their way up to the stands. There was no visitor section, so the teachers and the visitors had to share. Sirius sat down next to where Remus was and greeted him.

"Hello, Remus." They clasped hands in a brotherly manner.

"Hello, Sirius. How's life?" Remus asked cordially.

"Well. I'm actually mentoring someone right now. You remember my cousin, Nymphadora Tonks?" Sirius gestured toward Dora, who was sitting next to him.

She waved happily. "Hi Professor Lupin! Oh guess what? I got a new tattoo! It's a unicorn. Wanna see?"

"Actually, no thank you, Dora. The game's about to start." Remus looked a bit sick to his stomach. Sirius knew Remus hated tattoos, mainly because he hated the idea of needles being pressed into someone a thousand times. Once was enough for him.

"It's on my arm." Dora turned her left arm towards them. "See?"

"Shh!" Sirius said. "The game's starting."

&

Harry's stomach was in knots as he flew out onto the field with the rest of the team. He didn't know what he would do if he lost. What would Sirius say? Harry tried to see where Sirius was out in the stands, but there were too many people. Madame Hooch was standing out in the middle of the field with her whistle in hand, about to blow it.

"Now, I want a nice, clean game from all of you!" She ordered.

Harry looked over at the Ravenclaw team. Their captain, Roger Davies, was a handsome dark-haired boy with green eyes and dressed in the Ravenclaw colors of blue and silver. He and Wood shook hands briefly. Then, Harry noticed a very pretty girl with dark hair and dark eyes. She appeared to be of Chinese decent. Harry suddenly got a funny feeling inside his stomach, but he knew it wasn't nervousness.

Madame Hooch blew her whistle and both teams soared into the sky. Fred and George Weasley's best friend Lee Jordan was the commentator and was now naming all of the players on each team.

"For the Gryffindors, we have Keeper and Captain: Oliver Wood on a Daredevil; Chasers: Alicia Spinnet, Angelina Johnson, and Katherine Bell all riding Firestreams; Beaters: Frederick and George Weasley on Cleansweeps; and for the Seeker, we have our newest member, riding his brand-new, state of the art, priceless, three thousand-galleon, authentic—"

"JORDAN!" McGonagall's voice roared over the megaphone.

"Alright, alright. Good grief, Professor. Riding his Nimbus 2000 is Harry Potter!"

The whole crowd cheered and Lee began naming the members of the Ravenclaw team. Cho Chang was the pretty Seeker whom Harry noticed earlier. Her hair flew back behind her as she flew through the sky like an angel.

Stop! He ordered himself. Concentrate! You have to win this game! He flew around the stadium, trying to pay attention to the scores and find the Snitch at the same time. In the first four minutes, Angelina, despite her injured toe, had knocked the Quaffle into the Ravenclaw goal twice already, giving Gryffindor twenty points. She must have been playing for years.

It was rather cold now and the wind was causing Harry's glasses to become askew. How are they staying on at all? He wondered.

Suddenly, he noticed a little speck of gold out in the distance. The Snitch! Harry charged after it, looking around to make sure Cho didn't do the same.

She did. In fact, she was right on his tale. Harry tried to speed up faster, just as she did. Soon, they were neck-in-neck, broom-to-broom, parallel. The Snitch was getting closer, but so was the stadium wall. Harry was going so fast that the wall was scraping through his scarlet robes all the way to his arm. That's going to need some bandaging later.

Harry tried to move outward away from the wall, just as a giant Bludger flew toward him, barely missing him.

"I got your back, Harry!" Harry heard Fred Weasley yell at him as he swung his bat at the Bludger, knocking it away from both Harry and Cho.

No time for thank yous. Harry was catching up with the Snitch with every breath he took. It was inches away from him now. He stretched out his hand…moved his feet to where he could balance on his broom…He could hear the crowd cheering him on and Lee's voice shouting at him in the distance…Cho reached out to and mimicked Harry!

No! He told himself. You have to win! As fast as he could, he knocked Cho's hand out of the way, feeling extremely guilty, although he knew he had to do it. His fingers touched the Snitch and soon they closed around it. Harry grabbed his broom with his free hand to keep balance. He let out a deep sigh and heard the entire crowd leap from the stands and shout.

Lee let out a loud "woop" and screamed into the megaphone. "HARRY POTTER HAS CAUGHT THE SNITCH! GRYFFINDOR WINS!!"

The entire team crowded around Harry as he landed on the ground. Wood was literally in tears.

"We won…I can't believe it…we won…but, I knew we would."

The girls enveloped Harry in a big hug. "You were great, Harry," they said.

"Really great," Fred and George said in unison, patting Harry on the back.

"Great job, Harry." Cho was standing right behind him and smiling.

"Thanks…yeah, good job to you, too. I'm sorry I had to do that." Harry felt the guilt rising and his cheeks reddening.

"Don't be sorry," Cho made a wave motion with her hand, signifying that it wasn't a bother. "You had to do whatever you could to win."

She said goodbye and walked away, her black hair shimmering in the sun.

"Harry!"

Ron, Dean, Neville, and Seamus, along with all the other Gryffindors, came running toward Harry.

"You were great, mate!" said Ron.

"Fantastic!" piped up Neville.

"Awesome!" said Dean.

"Better than Krum!" said Seamus.

Harry rolled his eyes. Of course, he would never be as good as Krum.

"Harry!" A very familiar female voice called out from behind him.

"Dora!" He shouted, running toward her and giving her a big hug. Her bright pink hair illuminated her features in the sun and she had goose bumps on her arms.

"You were wonderful, Harry! Best Quidditch player ever!" She gave him a big kiss on the cheek.

"Thanks, Dora." Then, Harry noticed something on her arm. "Hey! Is that a tattoo?"

"Yeah," Dora giggled. "Got it a couple weeks ago. It's a unicorn."

As Dora let go of his embrace, Harry noticed his godfather standing next to her with the widest smile on his face that Harry had ever seen him wear.

"Sirius!" Harry shouted with glee and jumped into his godfather's arms.

"I'm so proud of you, Harry." Sirius gave Harry a squeeze. "You did such a great job."

At that moment, Harry felt like the happiest boy in the world. This truly was the best day ever.

End Note: I hope you guys liked it. PLEASE give me some reviews, especially if you put this story on an alert list or a favorite story list or anything. There was barely any for the last chapter. And don't worry. Hermione will become friends with Harry in the next chapter. Speaking of which, this is the last chance to go to my profile and vote for what the tragedy will be. It's coming up next! Brace yourselves….

Beaucoup d'amour à tout le monde,

Amélie