Chapter 10: The Game
We had been picked. Seven on the men's picked team, and seven for the women's picked team. I was on the women's team, whereas Ginny had been picked for chaser of the men's team.
As this was the last seminar of the day, almost the whole school had joined the crowd in the stands. There were even people who surely weren't teachers or students.
"Gwen, who are those people?" I asked, pointing to the high stands, as our coaches had gathered our team for a pep talk.
"Oh, don't mind them, they're scouts. Just the hype and all." Gwenog said nonchalant, even though for the rest of us it was a big deal. My team consisted of three Ravenclaws, two boys and a girl, who I trusted to be good Chasers, and the regular Hufflepuff Keeper. Our Beaters were one from Slytherin, Crabbe, (who despite his stupid outward appearance could admittedly hit a bludger) and one of my own, Seamus Finnegan. He was always a good cheer. Other than Crabbe, our team was a quick one, and easily towered over the mainly offensive based Krum's team. It would be close though, I anticipated.
On the other team, like I already mentioned, Ginny was a Chaser. I knew she'd have a tough time getting any passes from Clive. I expect a lot of physical contact from Malfoy, my Seeker counterpart, who was notorious for his sly tackles. Krum's selected team was good, but if we got past Ginny enough we'd prevail.
"All right kids, try not to break anything. I picked you all for a reason. Don't let me down!" Gwenog said, and exited the field. Well, it's a good thing Gwenog's not know for her speeches.
I mounted and took my spot atop of the circle and the rest of my teammates. The sooner I caught the snitch, the sooner we would win.
Madame Hooch dragged out the school certified Quidditch balls. She was interrupted, however, by one of Gwenog, who ran something to place in her hands. I saw a golden glint from my high perch. Ah dang, they weren't seriously going to make us play with that were they? If this was the snitch I was thinking of…
"On my whistle!" the commanding professor shouted.
She quickly undid the bludgers, and finally let go of the snitch. She blew it, and tossed the quaffles up, and the chasers jumped at them, our team gaining possession first.
The snitch gave me a good run. I was chasing it close to the ground before it took a tight turn, and zoomed further and faster than I could turn. I took to the sky to survey the pitch better. Malfoy was perhaps aimlessly flying around the pitch hoping to find the snitch. He had absolutely no patience.
Finally I saw the sun glint off a far off spec, by some of the high bleachers. I zoomed toward it, on my mission. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Malfoy pick up on my scent, and he too started to follow me.
"Don't you have somewhere else to be, Malfoy?" I yelled behind myself. My voice was almost getting lost through the high speed.
I didn't hear his response, but when I looked back forward, there was a bludger coming at me from the side. I realized I was moving too quick to dodge it, but for some reason I thought it would be smart to try and kick it away. So with the bottom of my foot, I launched off the speeding ball. Pain shot through my right foot, and I strayed to the bleacher, almost hitting the teachers. I made sure though, to hit my good foot upon a certain bat-like headmaster's head.
I lost the trail of the snitch, but then so did Malfoy. I had time to see how my team was doing. We hardly had as much as I thought we would. In fact we had more. The opposite team only had sixty points against our strong 80 points. We were sure giving each other a good match.
I felt the bottom of my foot. I probably cracked or terribly bruised. I tried not to notice the low "Ouu" of the crowd as my injury had happened.
I flew around for a while, simply watching my team swiftly weave their way in through Krum's team.
I turned around, searching some more. Malfoy seemed unimpressed with my style and decided to stop following me. I don't think Malfoy noticed at all, but while he flew away after he insulted my skill level, the snitch started to sneak after him. How could that daft boy not hear the whizzing of the snitch?
I zoomed up next to Malfoy, knocking him aside for good measure. He smacked my foot with his elbow and caught up to the snitch with me. I yelped but shook it off, and spun, kicking him with my good foot, still following the snitch hard. The snitch literally brushed my nose three times, zigzagging in front of me, with constant speed and each time I would swipe missing by desperate inches.
The game ended conclusively after hard flying when I accidentally smacked the snitch, in attempts to grab it, to the side right into Malfoy's outstretched hand. The mistake I had just made had seemed to happen in slow motion.
The entire pitch was silent. I had slowed as Malfoy held the snitch proudly in the air. Not a second later did people start cheering. I lowered myself to the ground. Shame crept up my spine and weighed my arms down. I looked at the scoreboard. With their caught snitch, we were one hundred and twenty points behind. If I had waited to catch it instead of thinking of myself, then maybe… oh there were so many things I could have done better.
I was glad at least that our team had a very good lead. I momentarily sucked down my pride to permit myself to shake the other team's hands. But when I stepped off my broom to touch the ground my right leg collapsed under me in familiar shooting pain. Right, it's definitely broken.
I denied help and used my broom as a crutch and allowed it to carry my over under my armpit to shake the other teams hand. I ruffled little Ginny's hair, as she stuck her tongue out at me. I stopped to give Malfoy and scary enough glare, though it did not silence his sniggers.
Krum stuck his hand out roughly and wrapped his other arm around my shoulder, like he did for the other players on my team. Only me and the other girls seemed to melt. Well, the boys sort of did.
"You did very well, I thought," He said unintentionally intense. I think that's just how he normally was. His accent only added to that. "Especially after playing through that injury."
"Thanks!" I said. Despite losing, I think this definitely made up for it.
"Why are you so happy? You lost." Ginny said, coming up next to me after we got changed.
"Shut up, I still got complimented by the Krum." I managed to not sound bragging.
Ginny helped me limp up to the hospital wing, which seemed to go by fast as we chatted about certain Bulgarian Quidditch players.
"He's actually amazing with his plan of attack. I'm not sure if you noticed but even though you beat us in points, he taught us pretty neat tricks." Ginny said.
"Lucky. We would have showed you, if Malfoy wasn't so good at picking up my garbage." I said, referring to the snitch.
She laughed, but kept her opinions of Malfoy to herself, since it was pointless to point out our mutual hate all the time. Well not completely pointless…
I told Ginny to just go back to the common room while I waited for a quick and painless heal. I plopped myself on a hospital bed, waiting for the lady to come out. I still couldn't remember her name.
"Hello, Ms. Brand." She said from behind me in her stern voice. I have heard her voice before.
"Uh, hello, Madame…" I cringed, thinking I should know her name at the very least.
"Pompfrey. I remember you, Heidi. I knew your grandmother."
"Pompfrey? No way!" I said, jubilant. She gave me a warm smile. This the first warm welcome I'd received in a while.
"I heard she's on the run." She said quietly, after carefully sliding my boot off of my leg. I tried to hold back tears of pain. My foot was red on top; I could only imagine how it would bruise in a week if I weren't here with a healer. Trust me, waiting it out like a muggle is no fun.
"Yeah, I hope she's fine. Gwenog Jones asked about her earlier, and there's not much I can say. She used to talk about you a lot." If that helps, I added as an afterthought. Probably not, since we're talking about her like she's dead.
Madame Pompfrey abruptly stopped evaluating my foot to heal it with a 'pop' from her wand, and left swiftly, mumbling a shaky 'good day' and that she had more business to attend to, to me on her way out.
So here I was sitting on a hospital bed, all by my lonesome, not quite sure why people thought I liked to feel alone.
The following morning after that eventful game, Ginny had called a little meeting in the courtyard for the DA members. We noticed that a couple of suspicious Slytherins would slip by occasionally, but none drew near enough to listen, as we would send dark stares in their general direction. Teachers wouldn't think us that stupid, would they?
"Alright guys, I just wanted to say that it's great that you're all here. Keep showing up when you get my call, and we'll have a great resistance going in no time!" Ginny said enthusiastically. She paused for a second, as another green-robed boy passed by. "And we'll be having a Christmas party before the year is out, hopefully before the train leaves, on the thirteenth."
We steadily progressed into talking about how lax the teachers were now that there were people here to witness.
"Snape must've sent out a strict order, because they've never been this good to us," A Hufflepuff boy said. There were a few chuckles, but still there was bitterness in the air. This must have once been a great school to be in.
After Ginny dismissed everybody, I spoke: "Hey, Ginny, do you think the Harry support slogans were received well?" I asked jokingly.
She gave me thumbs up; "I can only assume that because Snape is only giving me dirty looks that he knows it was us."
"Oh, you think so?" I asked slowly.
"Yeah, I'm surprised he hasn't tried to infiltrate us or anything. We must be better than I thought." We fist bumped.
"Yep, we're pretty t-tight knit." I said as she turned to wave at someone else on our way up to the dormitory.
"What? Yeah, I guess." She headed faster than me up the stairs, which gave me time to think.
I hadn't realized how close I had grown with my dorm mates. I had almost completely forgotten about Snape's previous quarrels in the last couple of days. He had barely looked at me, especially after I had intentionally tried to hurt him during the game. Maybe he would explode later, after everyone has left? Well for the moment I would enjoy my solace.
Okay, so first of all, i would like to say how sorry i am that i have been really late in updating. i started a bit of the eleventh chapter, but no promises in it being up within the week, because i have exams... well easy exams (advanced functions and french)but still, studying has been taking up my time..
i hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and i look forward to your reviews.
-sage94