Alright, so if anyone actually reads this thing, this is just a replacement from my old Chapter 11. I was (once again) reading Harry Potter and I realized that this chapter was against Quidditch history, and that Gryffindor actually needed to lose this game. So I just changed the outcome of the match and a few paragraphs. So that's all that happened.

For all of you that don't read this intro, just smile and start reading.

To those that do, I'll see you at the end of the chapter.


Chapter 11

Oliver moaned into his sheets as his alarm went off. He quickly shut it off to avoid waking up his roommates. It was a serious mental battle with himself as he swung his legs out of bed and headed for the bathroom. His body was begging him to go back to his bed, but his mind wanted him up to get ready for the day and to go through his compulsive morning routine.

He went straight for the sink and drank a glass of water. Then he splashed his face with cold water to finish waking up. After brushing his teeth, Oliver checked his chin and jaw in the mirror, looking for any signs of facial hair. He'd only just recently started having to shave, but he could often go two or three days without it. Seemed like he'd go without this morning. He rubbed his eyes, getting rid of the rest of the sleep that was nestled there, and then jumped in the shower.

Once he was done in the bathroom, Oliver went to his trunk, pulling out a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He got dressed, threw his dog tags over his neck, kissed the blank tag, and then headed down to the common room. Every morning before a Gryffindor Quidditch game, Oliver would go through these motions. He didn't truly believe in luck with repetition; he really did it to calm his nerves.

A half hour after he got to the common room, Charlie joined him on the couch. They both nodded at each other but didn't say much. Oliver knew Charlie was nervous about this game; he was putting a lot of faith in a new Chaser whose name Oliver couldn't remember for the life of him.

Eventually the rest of the team was in the common room, just in time to head down for breakfast. As they walked down the stairs, Oliver glanced over at the newest addition to the team. She was tall for the average second year, but very lanky. She had medium brown skin, and her head was covered in sleek black dreadlocks. When Oliver first met her on the pitch, she had an air of confidence about her. Now, however, she seemed unsure of herself.

Breakfast was a semi silent affair. Oliver and David discussed how the light cloudiness would protect them from the sun's glare, Lance and Chase babbled away uselessly while Hannah went between the two conversations. Charlie was silent. He gazed over little Johnson, who was pushing her eggs around on her plate, apparently having lost her appetite. Charlie knew she was good; he just hoped the stress or anxiety she was suffering from wouldn't get in the way. All she had to do was calm down and she'd be fine.

"You know, it's not that bad," Charlie said to her. Johnson looked up, intently listening for any advice. "Don't worry about a thing. Just go and have fun."

Johnson lowered her eyes back to her plate. Then she just barely whispered, "I don't want to disappoint you."

Charlie smiled and reached over and touched her arm to get her attention back. "You know what to do. You've practiced and you're good. That's why you're on this team. You were the best out of everybody. Now that means something." She smiled just a tiny bit. "Besides, I'm sure you'll do much better than those three did their first time." He motioned over to Oliver, David, and Hannah. "I swear, I need an insurance policy on them."

A little giggle. Charlie knew he'd done all he needed to do. She was relaxed.

Chase looked around the hall and noticed it was filling up. "Hey, Charlie, we going soon or what? I think the Slytherins have gone and changed."

Charlie motioned for them to head out, him leading the way of course. Oliver and David followed quickly, but Hannah stayed towards the back of the group where Johnson was trailing behind. Hannah put her arm around the girl's shoulders.

"Angelina, what's the matter?"

"They're all better than me," Angelina said softly.

"Well I'd assume Charlie and those guys are better because they're crazy about the sport…"

"I'm not talking about them," she said, motioning to her teammates. "The Slytherins. I saw them practicing once. And they're really good. Like better than last year. I dunno what Zele had them do over summer, but they're… well it was amazing to watch them. And I'm worried I'm going to let Charlie down and he won't want me on the team anymore and…"

"Whoa! Slow down, one issue at a time!" Hannah said comfortingly. "First of all, like Charlie said, he picked you, didn't he? So you've got talent, and don't you dare deny it. Second of all, so what if Slytherins good? We're better. We always have been… except when Charlie or Oliver gets hit with a Bludger, then bad things happen… but that's not the point. The point is, is we will beat them and you will be great, just like we know you will be. Okay?"

Angelina nodded and for the first time that morning gave a true, genuine smile.

"C'mon, we're going to be late," Hannah said, quickening their pace to catch up with the boys.

Once they reached the locker rooms, the girls headed off to their side to change into their robes. When they returned, they saw the guys stretched out on the benches, trying to relax, but it was obvious they were all very tense about the upcoming game. Hannah sat down next to Oliver and put her hand on his shoulder. He smirked at her, his eyes gleaming with excitement for the upcoming game. Poor Angelina stood in the corner, feeling sort of outcast from the group.

When Charlie exited his captain's office, the team sat up and paid attention to what he was about to say.

"All right, mates, here we are…"

"Again," Lance cut in.

Charlie backhanded him. "My last year. So let's start it off good. Oliver, if you get hit with another Bludger this game, I'm going to kill you!" Oliver shrugged innocently. "Angie, don't worry, okay? It won't be that bad."

"Yeah, you won't get hit by any Bludgers. That's Oliver's job," Chase said, winking at the youngest member.

"Why do Bludgers hate me?" Oliver mumbled to Hannah.

"So let's get out there," Charlie finished, picking up his broomstick and leading the way towards the pitch.

They could hear the cheering long before they reached the entrance to the pitch. Oliver and David grinned as they mounted their brooms and kicked off after Charlie. Hannah made sure Angelina was okay before chasing after the other two. Angelina, now feeling much calmer, trailed behind Hannah and followed her to the center of the field. Charlie and Terrance Higgs met above the rest of the players, glaring at each other. Below them, Chase and Lance were surveying the Slytherins on the opposite side. Right across from them were their Slytherin counterparts, Derrick and Bole. Both were big, menacing, and in Chase's opinion, stupid. Maybe because Bole was still cross-eyed from last year when Chase had directed a Bludger smack in the middle of Bole's giant forehead. Next to them were the three Chasers: Marcus Flint, Adrian Pucey, and Corbin Zele, the Captain. Lance could swear the Zele got bigger every time he saw him.

Now he understood a little why Angelina was so nervous; these guys had to be huge compared to a tiny second year. He glanced over at the young Chaser to see if she was nervous again, expecting to see wide eyes and trembling hands. Instead, her face was set and determined to win.

Madam Hooch was underneath the two teams, opening up the chest to release the balls. The second the trunk opened, the Bludgers shot into the air, and Oliver had to duck a little when one decided it wanted to take the route that passed through the area that Oliver's head had been. Hannah sighed and rolled her eyes at him, who shrugged innocently.

No one saw the Golden Snitch come out; once it had left its case, it had sped away instantaneously. Already, Charlie and Higgs were looking all around for any speck of gold. While the Seekers were preoccupied with finding the Snitch, Madam Hooch had picked up the Quaffle and had tucked it under her arm. She gave them a knowing meaningful stare before she tossed the ball up into the air.

Hannah immediately dove to avoid the chaos that was beginning as both teams made grabs for the Quaffle. David managed to get a hold of it and flew out of the rush, looking around for Hannah. The goal had been for her to get a head start on Bletchley, which was already working perfectly. David chucked the Quaffle hard and Hannah caught it while still maintaining the lead.

The first ten points of the game were scored in the first fifteen seconds.

The Slytherins did not take kindly to the Gryffindors tactics, and quickly went into sabotage mode, which involved removing one of the Chasers as usual. Chase noticed who their target was and quickly flew over to protect Angelina from getting crushed by both Bludgers that were coming from both sides. With his right hand, Chase pushed her down and smacked the Bludger coming in on the left with his bat. He then swiveled to the other side, tossed the bat to his right hand, and sent that Bludger directly back at Bole.

Oliver was doing exceptionally well at his end of the pitch. He'd saved five of the eight attempted goals from the Slytherins. The last one he was annoyed with himself, but more with Derrick and Pucey. Oliver had never been stooged until now, and even then it wasn't technically stooging. Derrick had flown way too close to Oliver, who had to pull his broom up to avoid colliding with the Beater. Pucey had then taken that opportunity to get the Quaffle through the center hoop.

As Oliver tried to forget the almost cheating that had taken place, he noticed a green blur headed in his direction. Oliver gripped his broomstick and faced his oncoming opponent. Marcus Flint smirked at Oliver as he feigned to the right. Oliver went along with it; he knew he was fast enough to stop the goal if Flint decided he would go left instead.

But he wasn't prepared for Flint to nearly charge him. Oliver had about half a second to realize what Flint was doing and then react to it.

And the first thing that came to mind was for him to fly into the Slytherin. Apparently Marcus had expected for Oliver to mimic his idea and quickly dove to avoid the possible collision. Oliver pulled his broom around and quickly cut off Flint's pass. Once he had the Quaffle, Hannah swung by to take it from him.

"Better luck next time, Flint," Oliver said over his shoulder as Flint returned to the middle of the pitch.

A few minutes later, thanks in large part to the Slytherins two against one tactics, the game was tied at sixty points to both teams. Hannah and David were both frustrated as time and time again they were forced out of their formations by either Bludgers or Slytherins themselves. Even once Hannah had to jerk out of the way when Charlie dove right in front of her when he'd spotted the Snitch. But one of the Bludgers, this time on its own accord, had put an end to that attempt of winning the game.

Angelina flew around the pitch and brushed by David. Just as she passed, he motioned with his right hand and held up four fingers. She nodded and continued on to the Gryffindor side where she gave the motion to Oliver and pointed to Hannah. After Oliver once again saved the Quaffle, he handed it to Hannah, who had already gotten the message from David, and she joined her two teammates halfway along the field. She took point, and was already observing Bole's approach. She swerved to the left and chucked the Quaffle to Angelina, who dodge around Bole and resumed Hannah's previous position. The figure eight formation continued until the reached the scoring area, when Hannah and David pulled out, leaving Angelina to score.

Hannah cheered mentally while the Gryffindor students did the verbal work. But she only had a second or two before she was completely unseated by a Bludger that had been directed from Bole.

Hannah had fallen off a broomstick plenty of times, but usually she'd never been more than ten feet off the ground. At nearly thirty feet, she knew things were going to end a little differently. She started to relax her body and prepared for impact, but then she felt someone grab her wrist, and then heard a pop as her shoulder dislocated.

"OWW!" she screamed.

"Sorry! Give me your other hand!"

She threw her left hand up above her head where her rescuer took it and released her right hand. The pain let up a bit. The person who'd grabbed her was now hauling her up onto the broomstick. As she was getting pulled up, she tried to get things back into focus.

Someone must've called timeout, because all the Gryffindors, including Oliver and Charlie, were coming over to see if she was alright. That was when she realized that a Slytherin had to have saved her, because she was seeing her entire team. She looked behind her seat and saw Marcus Flint holding her carefully by the shoulder.

"You alright?" he asked. She managed a nod before she was yanked off Marcus's broom and onto Oliver's.

"I'm fine," she answered before Oliver could even talk. "Just my shoulder. It's no big deal."

The Gryffindor team landed and Oliver sat Hannah down on the lawn. David squatted down next to her and carefully ran his hands over her hurt shoulder. There wasn't any pain when he touched it, but when he moved her arm, she yelped.

Charlie was standing a little further back, his arms crossed and his face unsure. Hannah noticed but didn't say anything. A second later, Charlie sat next to her and said, "You're gonna have to sit out."

"No! I'm fine!"

"Hannah, your shoulder is dislocated," David said firmly. "You can't play."

"Yes I can! Pop it back in!"

"No," Oliver said, pressing his hand on her left shoulder. Hannah turned and glared at him. "For once, you're going to listen. You aren't playing." He helped her stand up and walked her over to the sidelines. "Just stay here. Please?"

Hannah grumbled, "Fine," and sat down again.

Unfortunately, the game didn't go too well for Gryffindor after Charlie made her sit out. Now with a missing Chaser, David and Angelina were having a much harder time trying to score. That, and combined with Zele's secret desire to be a kamikaze and kept ramming into David, the Gryffindor Chasers kept losing control of the Quaffle, let alone having the chance to make a goal. Oliver also fell victim to Zele's tactics, resulting in more goals for Slytherin. Back on the ground, Hannah shook her head dejectedly. This was pathetic. Why didn't Charlie just let her play? They wouldn't be losing this badly if he would've just popped her shoulder back in.

Then she saw Charlie dive. Hannah jumped off the bench and started shouting, cheering with the rest of the Gryffindors. Higgs dived after him, but Charlie was already too far ahead; Gryffindor was going to catch it. It didn't matter that Slytherin had earned them a fifty point lead. In two seconds it wouldn't matter.

That was until Zele flew head first into Charlie, sending the Gryffindor Seeker spiraling out of control. Everyone other than the Slytherin House booed loudly. Charlie managed to regain control of his broom; he gave Zele the one finger salute while looking around for the Snitch again. He spotted it and dived again, but Higgs was too close. Charlie just barely reached his ankles before Higgs wrapped his fingers around the Snitch.

"Tha' was such a cheap shot," Oliver muttered later in the hospital ring.

He, David, and Charlie were all being checked out due to the massive bruising they had. It wasn't that bad; David had two broken ribs that Madam Pomfrey quickly fixed. As for Oliver and Charlie, they were alright. After all, they hadn't been smashed into a dozen or so times by Zele.

"I'm telling yeh, it's a miracle tha' Zele don' have a concussion or something," David complained as Hannah argued with Madam Pomfrey, who was trying to insist that Hannah spend the night in the hospital wing. By the sound of it, Hannah was winning. "I mean, Charlie's like a brick wall. OW!"

Madam Pomfrey had apparently given up on making Hannah stay and was now checking David's ribs. The nurse shook her head muttered to herself something about "Quidditch" and "stupidity."

Hannah got off her bed and crossed her arms. "I still can't believe Madam Hooch didn't call a foul," she said angrily.

Lance shrugged. "It wouldn't've helped. It was too late."

"It was still a cheap shot," David said before hissing angrily. The nurse had just prodded a sensitive rib.

Angelina was the only who hadn't spoken since the game had ended. She stood off, out of the circle of the team members. Chase had noticed and broke out of the circle to walk over to her. He put his hand on her shoulder and gave her an encouraging smile.

"What's up?"

"It's my–"

"No, it's not. Don't say that. Slytherin just has dirty tactics," Chase said. "You did great for your first game."

"We still lost," Angelina insisted.

Hannah overheard them talking. She turned around to face Angelina and said, "It's my fault. If I'd been paying attention, I wouldn't've gotten hit with the Bludger and then you wouldn't've been down a Chaser."

"Exactly," Chase said, patting Angelina's shoulder.

Charlie groaned as he twisted around to look at Angelina, his ribs screaming in protest. "And besides, Slytherin always plays dirty. Zele would've flown into me no matter what; it had nothing to do with you. You did great, Angelina."

Everyone else on the team nodded in agreement.

A half hour later, the team was trudging up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower, including David and Hannah. They were all still cranky about losing, but were hoping that maybe the House would be a little lively. After all, they had put up a good fight against the "enemy."

"Think your brothers snuck us some food?" Hannah asked.

"Knowing Fred and George… they might've snuck the whole sweetshop," Charlie said, still grimacing in pain.

"Why didn't you just stay at the hospital wing?" Hannah scolded.

David smirked and said, "Why didna yeh? Yeh had a dislocated shoulda."

"Yeh have two broken ribs!" Hannah snapped back.

"They're fixed," David argued, motioning at his side where the mentioned ribs were.

"Just give up David. We all have," Charlie commented.

They laughed and came up to the fifth floor landing, where Marcus Flint and Adrian Pucey were talking quietly. The two Slytherins saw the group and stopped. Charlie, Lance, and Chase nodded at Marcus. David spared a glance and gave a very small smile. The boys and Angelina continued up the stairs, but Hannah and Oliver stopped.

Flint crossed his arms defensively out of habit. "What?"

Hannah smiled kindly at him. "Thanks. You saved me a few broken bones."

Flint relaxed and he returned the smile. "Oh that. No big deal."

"Well, thank you," Hannah said.

Oliver took Hannah by the elbow and pulled her towards the stairs to the rest of the team. About halfway up the stairs, Hannah looked back over her shoulder and smiled again at Flint and gave him a small wave. Oliver pretended not to notice and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to himself.

"Let's try not to need their help next time," he said.

Hannah scowled and slapped him in the chest. "You're one to talk!"

"Think Flint could extend the friendliness and spare me some broken bones?" David grumbled, still clearly nursing his grudge against Zele.

"Considering you're the one who started this whole thing with him, I doubt it," Hannah said. "Besides, maybe Flint just has some chivalry skills that you seem to lack."

"Wot?" Oliver asked, surprised. "We're chivalrous."

"You guys gang up on me and tickle me. That's not chivalrous!" Hannah argued.

And the two of them quickly climbed the steps to their tower, laughing and poking each other like they always did when they made fun of the other. When they got to the tower, the party was already kicking up. Danniell and Kaden greeted them at the entrance with butterbeer and sweets. They headed over a few feet away where Nanda and Raheem had claimed a few chairs.

"So…" Danniell started.

Hannah held up one threatening finger. "No one, especially Oliver, is allowed to bring up that Bludger accident. Got it?"

The boys laughed; they were too used to Hannah that they never took her threats seriously.

"I was actually going to bring up Oliver's issue with the Bludger at the beginning of the game," Danniell replied.

"Oh! Well that's perfectly acceptable," Hannah replied. Oliver pretended to look upset about being picked on, but Hannah poked him in the side and he was immediately smiling again. "You know I love you."

"Yeah," Oliver agreed. "I love you, too." Kaden laughed at them. Oliver looked over at where Kaden was sitting. "What?"

"Nothing," Kaden said jokingly. "You two. You make fun of each other one moment and the other you love each other again."

"I ignore it," Raheem said. "Seriously, Kaden? This surprises you? Where have you been the last three and a half years?" He and Danniell laughed and they both smacked Kaden in the head, who then proceeded to spill some of his butterbeer on his pants. This only made the group laugh even harder.

"And this is why you are my best friends," Hannah said as Kaden looked at the wet spot on his pants. "Because you guys are weird."

"Tell me about it," Nanda said, grinning.


And that's the end. So obviously, big difference since they lost now. No big deal really. After all, next match is Hufflepuff, and they're a pushover. :P

Anyways, please review because it makes me smile and happy and more motivated to write.