Chapter Nine
O.W.L. week was just around the corner, and it seemed that the weather had decided to burst fully into summer to spite the fifth years who had, for weeks, been cooped up in study rooms, and common rooms and huddled around the small library study tables.
There was an aura of mass hysteria drifting about all the fifth year classes. Abigail and Delia had resorted to pepper-up potion to stay up later for studying, and even Carolina had been tempted to join them. There were rumors of fifth years breaking down in the middle of the corridor, sobbing and screaming, before being whisked away to the infirmary for a calming draught from Madam Pomfrey.
Not only had Carolina been practicing her own studies with Adrian every day in the library, she had also taken on the task of helping her brother study for his N.E.W.T.s, if only for the fact that if he didn't graduate, Carolina would be forced to spend an entire year at Hogwarts with him again. And she was quite ready to be done with being called "Flint's sister," as if she wasn't a Flint in her own right. So, for the past few weeks, after she had finished her own homework and O.W.L. review, she would stay up late with Marcus in the common room, quizzing him on whichever subject he pleased.
It came as a great relief to all of the fifth years when they finally had a legitimate excuse to extract themselves from the O.W.L. furor: the Slytherin Gryffindor Quidditch match.
"Aren't you glad you aren't playing, that you can actually enjoy the spectacle?" Carolina nudged Adrian from up high in the Slytherin section of the stands.
"You always feel the need to be right, don't you?" Adrian grinned back.
Carolina laughed, feeling exquisite to be in the sunshine, with her best friend, enjoying the Slytherin spirit. "Perhaps!"
"As long as you don't say 'I told you so,'" Adrian replied.
Carolina merely stuck her tongue out at him, before turning back to look at the pitch. "Oh look! Here they come!" The Slytherin team darted out from the entrance to the pitch, immediately flying high on their speedy Nimbus 2001s. The stands around her erupted in roaring cheers and Carolina yelled along with them. Despite all of her grievances with her brother, it would be nice for Slytherin to win the quidditch cup this year, and beat Gryffindor.
"And here come the Gryffindors!" Boomed out the commentator's familiar voice. "Captained by Oliver Wood, the Gryffindors have had to fight their way back to be in the contending for the cup after their embarrassing loss-sorry, Harry-to Hufflepuff earlier this year. And even still, they need to win by nearly 200 points if they want any chance at-" His commentary was drowned out as the sea of Slytherins booed and yelled profanities at the idea of Gryffindor winning the cup.
"Not very likely!" Adrian yelled out from next to her.
"The captains will now shake hands," the commentator said and Carolina watched with bated breath through her omnioculars as her brother gripped Wood's hand with his vice-like grip, twisting Wood's wrist maliciously.
Fortunately, Wood seemed to push through the pain without responding to Marcus and Carolina breathed a sigh of relief. It would be just like her brother to instigate a fight just before the game to get the other team's captain kicked off the pitch.
"And that's the whistle!" the commentator, who Carolina recognized to be a Gryffindor friend of the Weasley twins (an unfair choice by McGonagall, in her opinion) shouted as the two teams sprang into action.
It was a ridiculously fast paced a game, faster than Carolina had ever seen. The score was quickly 20-0, Gryffindor having scored twice at the very beginning; but then Slytherin seemed to get tougher and stabilized the scoreboard.
"Warrington and Montague have improved!" Adrian yelled over the crowd.
"Still've got nothing on you!" Carolina yelled back, but she wasn't watching the Slytherin chasers. Her eyes were trained on the two redheaded beaters playing for Gryffindor who were deftly sending bludgers back at the Slytherin team, much more effectively that Derrick and Bole were.
"Ooh!" the crowd winced unanimously as Warrington flew directly into one of the Gryffindor chasers, knocking her nearly off her broom. She caught herself with her legs and swung back on effortlessly, looking a little worse for wear.
"That's a foul, isn't it?" Carolina leaned over, asking Adrian.
"Are you a Slytherin or not?" He yelled back, before focusing his attention on the game.
"Just saying," Carolina said under her breath. Of course she was rooting for Slytherin to win, but she wasn't supportive of either team if they used violent tactics to win-which seemed to be the case.
Ten minutes later, Slytherin had scored two goals as well, both by Marcus, equalizing the scoreboard.
Carolina watched as Marcus soared through the air, a conceited smirk plastered on his face. She could tell he was beginning to get overly cocky. Suddenly, he grabbed the beater's bat from Bole and swung it with all of his might as at a passing bludger. It ricocheted off, heading straight towards an unsuspecting Weasley twin. Carolina let out a yelp as it smashed into his left hand and his broom spun wildly backwards, nearly knocking him off. The Gryffindors let out a fearsomely angry roar of insults and protestations as Madame Hooch blew her whistle, signalling a penalty.
Carolina however, wasn't watching as one of the Gryffindor chasers easily scored the penalty against Miles. Her omnioculars were focused directly on the twin, as his brother flew up to him. She realized that perhaps her brother's foul had been especially targeted, as she read the 'F. Weasley' on the back of the injured beater's robes. The twins muttered together for a moment, as Fred cradled his hand against his stomach, before shaking it and wincing. But no sooner had they flown together, had the game started up again and they both took off in opposite directions.
The game continued, the Slytherins growing more and more outright vicious as they realized they were losing.
"Don't they realize they're going to lose if they keep giving up penalties?" Carolina leaned in, asking Adrian who looked exceedingly glum as the Gryffindors were now up 80 to 20, despite the massive list of injuries obtained throughout the game.
"They still would have to catch the snitch to win the cup," Adrian responded glumly. "And Potter's a tosspot."
Carolina nodded her head in agreement, knowing in the back of her mind that Potter, despite his obnoxious desire for trouble, was a significantly better seeker than Draco Malfoy. Besides, apparently he had a firebolt.
"It looks like Potter's seen something!" the commentator called out, before adding "And Malfoy's hot on his tail! This is going to be a close race!"
The match seemed to move in slow motion as the entire stadium, including some of the Slytherin Quidditch team, paused to watch the two seekers race at breakneck speeds to catch the tiny golden ball that glinted in the late spring sunlight. Then, in a moment, it was over and the Gryffindor crowds had burst into a joyous uproar
"And Gryffindor win the match with a score of 230 to 20, that's a 210 point difference, winning us the inter-house quidditch cup!" yelled the commentator, before jumping up and giving a very disgruntled Professor McGonagall a hug. She initially looked put-off, before giving in and giving him a brief pat on the back and turning back to the pitch to applaud the Gryffindor team.
"Move outta the way!" came an angry voice from behind Carolina. Pushing their way through the moping Slytherin crowd, came two angry figures. Carolina recognized them as the two thugs who hung around Malfoy-both much bigger than the average size of a third year.
"Hey! Watch it!" she snarled as they shoved past her, forcing her back onto her seat with a strength so mighty that it knocked her wand out of her pocket. Carolina reached out her hand quickly to grab it, only to have her knuckles stepped on by the hefty weight of one of the boys-either Crabbe or Goyle, she could never tell them apart. "Ow!" she called out in dismay as she watched her wand roll away and fall through the cracks in the floorboards, plummeting to the bottom of the Quidditch stands. "Bloody third years, Carolina," muttered under her breath. "Don't wait for me, Adrian." She grumpily headed down the stairs to search for her wand in the tall grass.
After nearly fifteen minutes of weeding through the reeds beneath the stands, her shoes thoroughly caked in mud, Carolina finally found her wand. She mentally scolded herself; this would have been much easier if she had forced Adrian to join her and he had simply accio'ed her wand back to them. Not her brightest moment, indeed.
She scowled as she crawled back out from underneath the stands, muddying her knees. Her robes were dirty, she still had O.W.L.s to study for, and now Marcus was going to be a total git until graduation, probably. Things would have been much easier for her had Slytherin won the match, or at least not lost so thoroughly.
"Carolina?" a familiar voice said from behind her.
"Weasley," she snarled, turning around to look at him, not in the mood for his antics, however her expression softened upon seeing him. He still had his hand cradled to his chest, but it was significantly redder now, and quite swollen, and a dark bruise was beginning to grow on the pinky finger, which was hanging limply at a strange angle. "Are you okay?"
"What, this?" he said waving the injured hand, before wincing. "It's nothing," he chuckled.
Carolina knitted her eyebrows. "I'm sorry, I think it might be my fault," she said, walking a few steps closer to him to better look at his hand.
"How in the world would this be your fault?" Fred questioned, a confused look on his face.
"I think my brother sent the bludger at you because he saw us talking in Hogsmeade," Carolina said quietly.
"Then, it's still his fault for being a git. You can talk to whoever you want," he said, smiling down at her.
"Still. Do you want me to try and fix it? I'm not as good as Madam Pomfrey, but I'm okay at healing spells."
Fred eyed her suspiciously. "And what if you just made it worse? You are a Slytherin…" he trailed off, raising his eyebrows, grinning mischievously.
"Hey!" Carolina said, pushing his shoulder slightly in protest, as he mocked wincing in pain. "Here, I can at least fix your pinky." She held out her hand and he gingerly placed his in hers. She held her wand up and opened her mouth.
"What in the bloody world happened to your wand? And your hand too! It's bruised!" Fred said, before she could say the spell, eyeing her mud-caked wand and red knuckles.
"Just a bit of mud, Crabbe and Goyle's fault," she muttered, before saying "episkey." Fred's pinky snapped back into place as he inhaled sharply.
"We seem to be making this a habit of this, me getting injured because of you, you healing me," Fred said, grinning again.
"I thought you previously stated this time it wasn't my fault!" Carolina argued back, matching his smile. "How changeable you are!"
"'How changeable?' There you go again, talking like a professor," Fred admonished, taking a step closer to her.
Carolina opened her mouth to respond wittily, but was cut off by a booming "Carolina!"
Carolina swung her head around wildly. "Get away from that blood-traitor!" Marcus snarled nastily, his wand raised.
Carolina turned to face her brother as he exited the changing rooms. "Or what, Marcus? You're going to tell mummy and daddy? You already tried that."
Marcus looked even angrier, and Carolina knew in the back of her mind, this was not the time to push her brother, but she couldn't help it. He was acting like a stuck-up brat.
"Or Weasley'll get another broken bone to match his hand!" he yelled, pointing his wand at Fred's chest.
"I'd like to see you try!" Fred yelled out, picking up his own wand.
"Marcus, why don't you go back to the common room." Carolina said, deciding that diffusing the situation was the best course of action.
"I'm not leaving unless you come back with me and promise not to talk to that idiot again!"
"Oi!" Fred called out.
"I can talk to whomever I please," Carolina said, frowning.
"No, you bloody can't!" Marcus yelled, waving his wand and sending a stinging hex at Fred, who it missed by inches, hitting Carolina in the shoulder.
"Marcus, you twat!" Carolina cried out, holding her shoulder, before sending a jinx right back at him, hitting him squarely in the stomach. He keeled over and fell down in the grass.
Carolina turned to Fred. "You should go," she said seriously. Fred nodded quickly at the hardened look in her eyes and scampered up the hill to the castle doors, not needing to be told twice
She slowly approached her brother. "You all right?" She asked, kneeling down next to him. He grunted in response. "You should really work on your aim before the N.E.W.T.s, Marcus," Carolina said lightly, hoping to diffuse the tension.
Apparently, she had misread how mad Marcus actually was because his face turned a bright red color and his eyes ignited in fury. "You will learn to stay away from him, you bitch!" He said, sitting up abruptly and grabbing his wand again.
Carolina eyed him coolly; she wasn't afraid of him. She knew that her magical prowess greatly outshone his. "Don't call me that," she said standing up again. "And you can forget about using me for your studies," before turning her back on him and walking away. She could hear the rustle of grass as Marcus pulled himself up and started back to the castle.
Carolina suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion overcome her and she quickly made her way over to the lake, before slumping down on a rock in the shade. She leaned back, closed her eyes and tried to inhale deep, calming breaths.
It was almost too much, everything she was feeling—her rage at Marcus trying to control her, the constant stress over O.W.L.s, her sleep deprivation from studying so much, the confusing feelings she felt when she thought about how she could actually stand a Gryffindor's (and a Weasley's at that) presence, the anxiety that coursed through her veins at the thought of Marcus telling their parents that she hexed him, the disappointment that while Abigail and Delia had gone on dates for all of the Hogsmeade weekends and that she hadn't, how she longed for a sibling she could feel close to, everything. She felt her eyes well up with wetness and she squeezed her toes together inside her muddy shoes to halt the tears. "Don't cry," she whispered to herself. "Don't fucking cry." And she didn't.
