A/N – Well, you know that order I was on about in my last A/N? It didn't work... Because I've got a bit of a – major – block on 'The Quarter Quell' at the moment.
I suppose I should also apologise about the appallingly long time it has taken me to write and post this chapter too... So, sorry:)
Thank you to you wonderful people who are reading this and thank you to Shaybo27, iwantsprezzatura, Edward Haters, Georgetteb321, textingfreak22 and thesilverdoealways for being great on the last chappie and anyone else who has ever read, followed, alerted, favourited, reviewed for the whole story.
I hope I replied to everyone's reviews... I'm really crap at being punctual and efficient. Not that you've noticed... Heh...
Aaaanyway, ENJOY
Disclaimer: Jo owns this work, I'm merely playing with her lego.
Never, in my whole time at Hogwarts, had I been more completely terrified than I was when I woke up on the day of our first match of the year.
Granted, practices had been outstanding and absolutely no-one proved James wrong in his choice of the team. But the thought of playing as a beater in my first real match, discounting those when Sirius and I had beaten up some of James' relatives over the summer holidays, had me petrified between my bedsheets.
I lay awake in the dark of the morning for about three hours, my biggest movement being when I closed my eyes to fool Lily in to believing I was asleep so she wouldn't wake me as the other occupants of my dormitory all traipsed downstairs to breakfast. Excitedly, and loudly, talking about how they were looking forward to my beater debut.
"Jennie?" Came a soft voice from the dormitory doorway.
I groaned and rolled over so my back was to whoever stood there.
"Jen" The voice said, more seriously as its owner realised I was awake.
"What?" Came my short response, muffled by my duvet.
"You don't want Sirius and James thinking that you're actually scared do you?" Said Remus, as he approached my bed and perched himself on the end of it.
"I don't suppose you're going to tell me how the hell you lot get up here, are you?" I replied, sitting up and pushing my hair out of my face so I could see him.
"No," He said, with a laugh, then "I never thought girls were this untidy." He stated, looking around the dump of a room.
"Most of it's me," I replied, kicking a pile of clean underwear under my bed as I stood up. "Me and Steph." I added, nodding towards Stephanie's bed, which today played host to several empty ink pots, two quills, one huge ink stain and six unfinished essays. On the floor surrounding her bed were various food wrappers.
"Blimey," He exclaimed, a huge grin spreading over his face as he took in Stephanie's mess. I quickly remembered his bed, the neatest area in the whole dormitory, and laughed.
What a match.
I didn't think it kind to let on that I knew about his feelings towards her though, so instead I grabbed my quidditch kit and some clean underwear and went in to the bathroom to change.
Once I had changed, Remus and I headed down to the Great Hall to grab a bit of breakfast before the team was required, at James' orders, to attend a briefing in the changing rooms before the match.
The team was easily distinguishable as they sat in the hall. The usual excited hush lingered in the air, so it wasn't difficult to hear James' muttering of "And here she is, finally, she'd better have a bloody good reason for this."
And Sirius' retort of "Alright mate, she's probably bricking it even more than you, calm down."
"You've got that right." I backed as I carefully sat in the space made between the seeker, Lyra Thomas, and keeper, Finley Godkins. Godkins looked confident and ready for the game, whereas Lyra's spoon was clashing with her bowl as she held it.
"Morning Midge." Greeted Sirius, shoving a plate with toast and jam on it towards me with a cup of pumpkin juice, "Sleep well?"
"Mmm" I replied, my mouth full of toast, "great thanks..."
"Ready for the match?" Godkins asked from beside me, after wiping ketchup from the corner of his mouth with a napkin.
My stomach squirmed. To be perfectly honest, the only times I had actually been thinking about the match over the past few weeks had been at practice and this morning. And one very important bit of information had slipped my mind. "Mm yeah... Remind me," I said clearly, "who are we playing again?"
I swear, in that moment, James was going to stab me with his fork.
But then my question was answered by the rise in the general noise level in the hall and as I looked towards the doorway my heart hit the ground and kept on going.
The Slytherin team, each looking annoyingly confident swaggered in to the Great Hall and took a reserved space at their table, acting today as though they were gods among vermin, no different to usual.
I thumped my forehead down on to the table and groaned. Slytherin's beaters were Yaxley and Mulciber, Yaxley a giant, who could probably throw a good punch at even Hagrid. And Mulciber only recently released from the hospital wing with a patchy re-growth of hair, holding a vengeance for me that would probably shine through on the pitch.
"Jennie, finish your toast." I heard James say as I raised my head. "The rest of you follow me for the briefing."
The team all got up and followed James out of the hall to cheers from the Gryffindor table and jeers from the Slytherins. Only Sirius stayed to wait for me.
"So you really are bricking it then?" He said, teasing.
"Uhuh." I replied, stuffing another bite of toast in my mouth.
"You have nothing to worry about." Sirius said, reassuringly, "Apart from the fact that if he can, Mulciber will definitely kill you." He continued, mocking seriousness as his expression slowly changed.
A light tap on my shoulder made me jump and realise why.
"Hey Charlie." I said, tugging on his sleeve to encourage him to sit down next to me. He complied and put his arm around my shoulders as he did. I noticed that, like many other Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, he was wearing the Gryffindor colours of Red and Gold.
"Lawson." Sirius greeted, managing a smile, for which I was grateful.
"You feeling alright?" Charlie asked as he stole a crust from my plate and took a bite from it.
"Scavenger," I teased, "And if you count on the verge of vomiting as alright then I'm just great."
"You'll be great." He replied, "Especially with Sirius as your partner, you two will be unbeatable."
Sirius looked at Charlie, "Thanks Lawson" He replied, pulling the end off of a sausage and popping it into his mouth. "How's your hand?"
Charlie lifted his hand off from around my shoulders and held it out so that Sirius could see. The bandage that Madame Pomfrey had applied in the hospital wing had now been taken off and the cut seemed to have cauterised now, but it didn't look as though it was getting any better. The cut still looked as fresh as it had on the day that he had cut it four weeks ago, minus the flowing blood.
And the tiny dots were still there.
"That," Sirius said, putting down his juice, "Is one manky looking cut."
"I thought Madame Pomfrey was treating it?" I asked, looking up at him, telling myself that I was confused that the wound wasn't healing. When really, this was just how I had seen before.
"She is," He replied, "Or, she's still looking at it every day, she says she's never seen anything exactly like it before." He put his hand on my leg and out of sight. "I suppose it'll just heal up in its own time."
"Probably." Sirius mused before standing up. "Anyway, come on midge, we've got a game to win!" He announced, gesturing for me to get up. "Let's go and get a bollocking from Jamesy-poo."
I laughed and stood up, Charlie standing beside me, and clambered out from the bench.
We walked to the doors to the entrance hall, with the occasional cheer or good luck wish from the Gryffindor table and Lily, who came to hug me and tell me to be careful, and then I turned to Charlie. "Have fun watching." I joked grinning, and kissed him quickly on the mouth before following Sirius through the entrance hall.
"Oh have fun watching me ride my broomstick Charlie! Oh kiss me Charlie! Mmm..." Mocked Sirius in a high pitched voice, making kissing faces and noises.
"Oh shut up." I laughed and hit him.
"Where the hell have you two been?" James burst out as Sirius and I crept in to the tactic talk in the changing rooms.
"I'm a slow eater?" I tried, smiling at the ever increasing anger shown on James' face.
"Especially when her boyfriend's around." Sirius grumbled, poking me in the back to get me to move along so we could sit down.
"Doesn't matter anyway, what matters is this match. Now if we lose, and I'm pretty sure we won't, but if we do, we're going to be training longer and harder and much more often." The whole team groaned. It had only been four weeks since the people in this room became the quidditch team, but in those four weeks we had left every practice feeling as though every bone in our bodies had been broken and every muscle ripped in two.
"Now, Slytherin play dirty. That's a fact. So, if we want to beat them we're going to need more than just our ridiculously skilled team." At this, Finley, Rosalie and Lyra all straightened up and grinned. "We're going to need the eye for an eye strategy. An eye for two eyes for all I care. Just don't get yourselves killed or sent off." I had to laugh at that. The only time I had ever seen anyone get sent off in a game of Quidditch was when Remus and I went to watch the world cup one year, much to James' annoyance, Finland VS Belarus. And one of the Finnish players decided that the best strategy to distract the opposing team players was to strip butt naked and perform hip thrusts whilst standing on his broom. And he was only sent off because someone from the stands set his chest hair on fire.
"You two." James directed at Sirius and I, "Try and knock Dimitrov off of his broom."
Annolus Dimitrov was the Slytherin seeker. Obviously from a rich, stuck up family on account of his name, and possibly the dirtiest Quidditch player I had ever witnessed. If he decided to wipe Lyra out of the equation, she wouldn't be playing for long.
"Got it captain." Sirius said, seriously.
"Right," Finished James, "I think that's it. Now, let's kick some arse."
As we stepped out on to the pitch, the roar of the crowd was deafening. Sirius, James, Finley and I were used to it, and the familiarity of it settled me, and all of the nerves disappeared. All of us having been on the team in former years, albeit in different positions for Finley and I. Both of us had been chasers on the last team with James, and we had worked together faultlessly.
The Slytherin team had already walked out before us and were now standing in the middle of the pitch. As we reached them and got in to our starting positions, Madame Colfe, the soon retiring flying instructor, declared that she wanted a "clean game from both sides" I heard Sirius snort loudly and saw Yaxley nudge Mulciber whilst glaring at me. I swallowed quickly, knowing that this was going to be interesting.
When the whistle blew we soared up in to the air and I had to make a dive within about a minute as I dropped my bat whilst messing around with it in mid air.
Conditions for this match were ok, there was no bright sunlight which was good, but there was quite a strong wind which toyed with all of us, swaying us from side to side. However, within five minutes, the score was 20:10 to Slytherin.
"Jennie!" I heard Dean shout from behind me about ten minutes in, as he zoomed past and put the Quaffle straight through the Slytherin hoops before the keeper even realised. I turned to see Mulciber smash a bludger straight at my broom. Letting out a short laugh I moved upwards and swung my bat at the bludger, changing its direction and sending it straight in to the handle of one of the Slytherin chaser's broomsticks.
"Nice one midget!" I heard Sirius call as he flew past me, dodging a disgruntled looking Yaxley as he chased him. Yaxley seemed to have given up on hopes of hitting Sirius with a bludger and was now tearing after him, taking swings at him with his bat.
I quickly located one of the bludgers and tore after it, rounding and whacking it at Yaxley. It missed him, but flew through the gap between him and Sirius, throwing him off course.
After another twenty or so minutes, the score had risen to 60:40 to Gryffindor.
James and Rosalie flew around me, throwing the Quaffle between them and tiring out a Slytherin chaser. "GET" James shouted as he slammed the chaser out of the way and threw the Quaffle back to Rosalie, "DIMITROV."
"Right." I mumbled to myself as I flew up high above the stands to search for the Slytherin seeker. I found him quickly, his stupid black hair billowing out behind him like a stupid black cape. He and Lyra were both in a dive, and Lyra was in front of him. Suddenly he reached out his hand to grab the end of her broom but she was a little out of his range, I had to act now or Lyra was going to be in the hospital wing later.
Luckily, just at that moment, Mulciber pelted a bludger straight at me. As I straightened myself up I caught a glimpse of Lily and the rest of our dormitory, Peter, Remus, Billie, Jake and Charlie all in the stands cheering as the bell went to signal that Gryffindor had scored again.
The bludger reached me and I put every effort I could in to smashing it straight at Dimitrov. Thankfully, this was one of my more accurate shots and the bludger came in to contact with the exact centre of Dimitrov's back, causing him to flex in to quite a disgusting shape before crumpling and falling the ten feet that was left between himself and the ground.
I could hear the commentator, Dylan Norland, a sixth year Gryffindor, commenting on the event "Now, that was quite an underhand move from Gryffindor beater Smith but it's always nice to see the tables turned on Dimitrov, if we'll all just take a moment to remember the 'accident' involving his broom handle and the ear of- but wait, is that the snitch in the new Gryffindor seeker's hand? It is?" I turned my back to the commentator's box and squinted down at Lyra, she was flying low now, and had her fist held up in the air. "Lyra Thomas has caught the snitch! GRYFFINDOR WINS!" Shouted Dylan as the stands erupted.
I cheered and clapped, feeling so proud of Lyra, I knew James would be ecstatic. I turned to see the happy reactions of Lily and everyone in the stands but when I looked over, the group was not cheering, but pointing behind me and screaming something unintelligible. Quickly I turned around, and saw Mulciber and Yaxley floating in the air some forty feet away from me, both smirking. Then I saw the bludgers, both of them, flying at me. I turned and began to speed away from the balls, but they were faster than me. And although one of them sped straight past, only grazing my elbow, the second crashed in to my shoulder with a weird squelching sound and a sudden searing pain.
Luckily not losing control of my broom, I directed it down to the ground where Sirius and James stood, hurling obscenities at the Slytherin beaters. Trying desperately not to faceplant once my feet hit the ground I ran forward a few steps and awkwardly hopped off of my broom.
It took a while for James and Sirius to reach me as the crowds, eager to congratulate the team on their victory, spilled on to the pitch surrounding each team member and clapping them on the back, hugging them, pumping their arms and shouting things that just got lost in all the noise. I didn't have the heart to shake them off when hands were beating down on my shoulders as cheering students congratulated me on the team's success.
Soon enough, just as the pain was becoming slightly unbearable someone began to clear a space around me and I sat down on the muddy grass of the pitch.
"Alright Midge?" Came Sirius' tired voice from above me and there was a dull sort of thud as he too sat down in the mud.
"Just peachy." I replied, grinning at him. For some reason he had mud smeared on his cheeks in the style of red-Indian war paint and a lipstick kiss mark on his forehead. I had to laugh.
"Hospital wing'll love you," Said James, disentangling himself from a large group of third year Hufflepuff girls, "That's two patients on your account so far this year."
"Oh my God you complete idiot." Charlie's voice came, as he pushed his way through the crowd, followed by Lily, Remus, Billie and Jake.
"I'm fine, thanks for your concern Charles." I called, teasing him as I hauled myself to my feet.
He pulled me in to a hug, before a sudden intense stab of pain made me awkwardly twist and sort of crumple in to him. He steadied me, laughing and motioned Sirius to come and help hold me whilst they began to march me off of the pitch, followed by the team and the group of friends that had barged through to meet us.
"It's a nasty one," Madame Pomfrey said, bustling around my bed and taking lids off of various jars of ointment and sniffing the contents, wrinkling her nose at most of them and replacing the lids quickly. "Your shoulder bone is completely shattered." With this she poked at my bare shoulder and I watched as her finger quite clearly, painfully and unsettlingly moved something. Lily, Billie, Rosalie and Lyra all of whom were watching the proceedings with mild disgust, each screwed up their faces at the sound it made.
"Can we come in yet?" Sirius whined from outside of the white curtains that surrounded the bed, keeping out James, Sirius, Remus, Jake, Charlie, Finley and Dean, who had also all decided to stay and wait until Madame Pomfrey had come to a verdict. But as she decided that the only way to get a proper look at the injury was to have me sit without my shirt on, they were all made to wait outside of the curtain, much to Sirius' over dramatic disappointment.
"No," Billie shouted through the divide at him, "Unless you want a good beating from her boyfriend." She put extra emphasis on the word 'boyfriend', and we could hear Sirius make a grunting sound as he obviously bit back some sort of comeback.
Madame Pomfrey finally seemed to have found the correct Jar of ointment- a thick, brown paste, vaguely reminiscent of the dung that had covered me on my journey to Hogwarts. "Luckily for you," She announced, digging a large blob of the stuff out of the jar with her hand "I can fix it in a few hours if you hold still and it'll just leave you with a small bruise." She slapped the substance on to my slightly deformed shoulder, not sparing any force or pain as she roughly rubbed it in, repeating this a good five or six times until my shoulder was about an inch thick in the brown sludge.
"Beautiful." I remarked at my shoulder, which smelt slightly like my brother's sock drawer.
"Well don't knock it." Madame Pomfrey shot back, "It'll only take longer..." She shook her head as she screwed the lid on to the jar and collected her other things.
"Oh great, it has feelings now does it?" I asked incredulously as Pomfrey lifted her wand out of her pocket.
"I'll come and see you in three hours to put a new coat on, don't be surprised when this lot absorbs in. Put that gown on, and then we can let the rabble in." She waved her wand at the gown beside my bed and it floated upright whilst one of the sleeves ripped off at the left shoulder and left through the overlap in the curtains.
"That's dignified." Lily giggled from beside me as I used one arm to pull the thing over my head, trying my hardest to not smear the sludge everywhere in the process.
Once I had managed to climb in to the gown and settle back on the bed with the help of Rosalie and Lyra, Billie pulled back the curtains to reveal a bored looking bunch of friends and a muddy half of a Quidditch team.
"You've looked better." James remarked as he pulled up a chair next to my bedside table.
"You haven't." I replied. This made him consciously drag a hand through his hair, even though he knew I was joking. He had mud matted in to one half of his hair and a little bit of blood spattered on his cheek, probably from a tussle with one of the Slytherin chasers.
"How long have you got in here then?" Jake asked, he was playing with a bit of Billie's hair as he talked and it really was quite adorable.
I shrugged, then regretted it, which set Sirius off laughing at the weird noise I made. "Not really sure, Madame Pomfrey said it should take a few hours. But then she said she's re-applying some more of this stuff in three hours because it's going to get absorbed or something..." I explained. The very thought of it made me squirm.
"Sounds... Pleasant" Jake replied, pulling a face.
Throughout the next two and a half hours of conversation, Rosalie, Finley, Jake, Billie, Lyra and Dean all left and a series of groans and grumbles were being omitted from the far side of the hospital wing. I had ignored it up until now, but finally it got to me.
"Will someone shut that up?" I impatiently snapped, interrupting a heated debate between the boys over the importance of an umpire in a quidditch game. Sirius and James seemed to think that an umpire merely caused an unnecessary delay on possible goals and tackles, whereas Remus and Charlie were getting rather wound up stating that without an umpire, people like James and Sirius would kill other players.
The whole group turned around to look over to the source of the noise.
In the bed on the opposite wall was a shirtless Dimitrov, sitting up and groaning and coughing up blood in to a cauldron. Quite a grim sight.
"Maybe you hit that bludger a bit hard..." Said Charlie from his seat on the end of my bed, looking at the heaving Slytherin with a furrowed brow.
"Or not hard enough..." Muttered Sirius on my left side. Over the afternoon various people had been visiting the hospital wing to tell me to get better soon and give me gifts, mainly consisting of food, as rewards for my assault on Dimitrov. And over the afternoon Sirius had eaten almost all of the food I had received, and he was now feeling very sick.
Mercifully, Madame Pomfrey also seemed to have grown tired of the noise, and she suddenly marched over to Dimitrov's bed. "Could you please, do that quietly Mr Dimitrov? Or do I have to send you elsewhere?" she threatened angrily.
In response to her, Dimitrov coughed and retched again and more blood dropped in to the cauldron which Madame Pomfrey snatched out of his grip and dipped the end of a wooden spoon in to the contents.
"You're fine for treatment now." She said, "lay on your stomach."
The grimacing Slytherin moved to lay down but coughed and spewed blood all over the white bed sheets.
"Into the cauldron please Mr Dimitrov!" The matron stressed, putting the cauldron back in front of his face.
The Slytherin made some sort of exasperated noise and lay on his front, exposing a brilliant, huge green and purple bruise where the bludger had crunched into him.
Madame Pomfrey stabbed the bruise hard with the end of her wand, drawing a high pitched yelp from Dimitrov which made me snort with laughter. But then the whole bruise began to recede and vanish from his back, and with a nasty clicking noise and a strange jolting curl of his back, Dimitrov seemed to be healed.
"You can go now." Madame Pomfrey said, waving her wand and clearing away the bloody sheets and cauldron. Dimitrov smirked in our direction and pulled his shirt on before stalking out of the hospital wing. "Right... Who's next?" the matron muttered to herself whilst placing some vials into a holding rack. She always seemed busy. "Mr Lawson," She called over to Charlie who was just in the middle of joining in James and Sirius' overt insulting of the Slytherin team. "Let's have a look at that hand while you're here."
Charlie left the group to be taken to a few chairs where he sat and waited whilst Madame Pomfrey prodded his hand with her wand and pondered out loud to herself.
"That's gross" Remus commented, snapping my attention back to the group around my bed, he nodded at my shoulder which I had declined to look at since the end of the first hour. Unwillingly I peered at it now, wishing I hadn't. The brown stuff had all been... well there really was no other way to put it... absorbed. And the skin on my shoulder was rippling in a way that skin should definitely not ripple.
"Poke it." James said, looking fascinated at the waves passing over my shoulder.
"Oh no don't!" Contradicted Lily, sounding as disgusted as I felt.
Slowly, I lifted my right hand and gently poked the moving skin. There was a sudden, loud clicking sound and I let out a loud yell of pain, making Lily jump.
"That probably wasn't good was it?" Said Sirius, looking confused at my now, non-moving, still slightly disfigured shoulder.
Madame Pomfrey bustled over, pulling Charlie with her on a bit of bandage that was half wrapped around his hand. "Oh no Mr Black, that was quite normal for this process." She said, quickly finishing off wrapping up Charlie's hand. "I'll just re-apply the ointment and then you'll have to wait another three hours for another lot Miss Smith. You're going to have to stay with us overnight I'm afraid as the procedure will not be finished until late." She produced the jar of ointment from a trolley near the next bed over and scooped a lump out, slapping it on my shoulder, again not sparing any pain.
"Great." I replied through gritted teeth as Sirius laughed.
I hated spending any time in the hospital wing, because I hated not being able to do things for myself.
Madame Pomfrey screwed the lid back on the jar and my shoulder was once again, covered in brown muck. I guessed I couldn't do much apart from wait for the stuff to work its magic...
"You're gonna love tonight aren't you?" Remus asked, knowingly.
"Well, at least Dimitrov's not here." I pointed out, that was at least one good thing about the situation.
"Yeah," Sirius commented, "Otherwise you might as well have been sleeping in a mortuary."
