Chapter Thirteen

...And Afterwards

The atmosphere in the Gryffindor Common Room was subdued that evening. The celebrations in the Hufflepuff Common Room could be heard every time you passed the Entrance Hall, which did nothing to improve the Gryffindor's moods.

"You were all good..." James said unenthusiastically, later that evening, as the Gryffindor team sat around the dying embers of the fire.

"Hufflepuff were just better," Roxanne supplied.

"Mmm," James sighed distractedly. "Well, we know what we've gotta work on, and it's not the end of the world – if we win the other two matches then we can still retain the Cup."

James' girlfriend Chlo came over to the group, leaning against the back of James' armchair.

"James, stop wallowing and come and sit with me," she implored.

"In a minute," James said distractedly. Mia followed his gaze, and saw that he'd just spotted Josh Young walked towards them.

"Forget about him," Chlo said, obviously also following James' gaze. "Seriously, James, just leave it."

But James wasn't listening to her. He stood up as Josh reached the group, his hand going to the pocket of his robes where Mia guessed his wand to be.

"Great debut, cap'n," Josh drawled, giving James a mock salute.

"Get lost," James spat.

"You're giving him what he wants," Chlo sighed, pulling on James' arm. "Come on, leave it."

"I've got as much right to stand here as you have," Josh shrugged. Mia could see that his calm serenity was infuriating James. "And," Josh continued. "I feel I have a duty to Gryffindor to inform you that you were abysmal today."

"I don't think they really needed you to tell them, Josh," someone else grinned – a fifth year who's name Mia didn't know. "We were all there, and they were playing."

"Oh, so it's like that, is it?" James said angrily, rounding on him. "That's how you feel, huh? Is that how you all feel?" James demanded, looking around the room, which had fallen silent. "Well? Is it?"

"James," Chloe said, tugging on his arm. "Leave it."

"That's what comes of nepotism," Josh shrugged, grinning lazily.

"It's not-" James began, but Josh cut across him.

"How many team members are related to you? Three – four if you count Dursley-"

"It's a team I inherited," James protested.

"And remind me who the new Chaser is?" Josh said. "Oh yeah – your sister."

"Because she was the best player to tryout," James said. "Any idiot – who was actually at the tryouts – could see that."

"And any idiot could see from today that she was aw-"

But he never got to finish his sentence, since James had drawn his wand and hit him with what looked like the silencing charm. Josh's mouth carried on moving, but no sound came out. James turned to Chlo.

"Alright, let's go sit down," he said.

"Oh, so now you notice me?" Chlo demanded. "You know what, maybe I'm getting fed up of having a boyfriend who would prefer to get caught up in petty fights rather than spend time with his girlfriend!"
"So... you don't want to sit with me?" James asked uncertainly.

"Boys!" Chlo exploded, heading for the staircase which led to the girls' dormitories.

"What did I do?" James sighed, sinking back into his armchair as Josh stalked off to the opposite side of the common room to find someone who could undo the silencing charm.

Fred rolled his eyes. "Seriously?" he said. "You seriously need us to tell you what you did?"

"She's fed up that you're always fighting with Josh, and consequently neglecting her," Roxanne explained. "Really James! You're so emotionally obtuse sometimes."

"Cheers," James scowled. "I'm gonna go to bed too. Goodnight."

As James also headed for the stairs to the dormitories, Mia glanced over to where Josh was sitting with his friends, a smug grin on his face.

The next day, Sunday, Mia decided to write to Will, and ask him for Keeping tips, as well as advice on the James-Josh problem. She was feeling disappointed about losing the Hufflepuff game, but she knew the biggest problem right now was the ongoing feud between James and Josh. The atmosphere in the Common Room last night had been disappointed, but after the argument between James and Josh it had turned decidedly icy. It was affecting everyone; Chlo still wasn't talking to James, Josh had begun to collect a small group of people who were less than pleased with the choice James had made in appointing Lily as Chaser, and Mia had heard Lily tossing and turning long after she'd gone to bed last night.

She wrote her letter in the Inter-House Common room, trying to ignore Mac, who was being unnecessarily gloating about Hufflepuff winning the match. As the gang sat around, doing homework or writing letters, Mac occasionally dropped Hufflepuff's victory into conversation, gloating gleefully about 'Super Shane Hailey'. 'Lovely Lovell', and 'Cool Colleen Creevey', until Louis snapped and told him to shut up.

"I'm just stating a fact," Mac grinned cheekily.

"Yeah, and I'm stating another one," Louis said. "If I hear you mention that Quidditch match one more time, I will hex you."

"And I'll hex you back," Mac responded sweetly, but he stopped talking about it.

Having concluded her letter, Mia stopped and looked around the Inter-House Common Room. James wasn't there – he'd announced his intention to spend all day working in the library. Chlo was there, sat not far from the gang with a group of friends, presumably discussing what idiots boys were. Rose and Scorp were sharing an armchair over the opposite side of the room, half watching a lively game of exploding snap played by what looked like half of the second year. Al was sat a little way away from the gang, helping Cassie with her Transfiguration essay.

Mia sighed and pulled a roll of parchment towards her, and made a start on her own Transfiguration essay.

Monday dragged by slowly, with a fairly interesting first two periods of Potions and Wizarding Social Studies, followed by double Transfiguration, where Professor Duncan collected in the foot-long essays, declared some of them had writing that was far too large, and decided that the next essay would be a foot and a half, to ensure they all wrote enough. Finally, when the day was almost finished, they had Professor Binns droning on for almost an hour about witch burnings.

There was no specific rule about sitting at your own House table at mealtimes, but it was an unwritten rule that one usually did so. However, when Lily, Mia and Hugo headed to sit opposite Emma, Matilda and JJ at the Gryffindor table at dinner, they found the three first years had already been joined by Archie MacMillan, Louis' 'little brother'. Hugo signalled for Louis to join them, and the four third years sat facing the four first years.

"Guess what? Guess what?" Matilda said.

Lily rolled her eyes. "What? What?"

"Archie's got a book that he got from the Ravenclaw library, and it says about all the creatures you can find in the grounds on in the lake, and we're going to take it outside after dinner and see what we can see."

"Ravenclaw has its own library?" Lily asked.

"Yeah, and it's meant to be a secret," Louis said, glaring at his little brother.

"How was I supposed to know that?" Archie protested. "Anyway, I told the others we could look at it now... I won't tell anyone else, I swear."

"Bit late now," Louis sighed. "So long as the prefects don't catch you with that book – you know you're not supposed to take them out of the Tower."

"Yeah, but I gather that hiding stuff from the prefects is a daily occurrence in Ravenclaw," Archie grinned.

"In Ravenclaw?" Hugo said incredulously. "I thought Ravenclaw tower was all calm and quiet, and... studious."

"Hello, have you met me?" Louis asked.

"You should see the prank wars," Archie grinned.

"Archie, shut up," Louis said firmly. "What happens in Ravenclaw stays in Ravenclaw. Someone change the subject."

After dinner, Lily and Mia walked out of the front doors with the four first years. They soon parted, with Lily and Mia heading to the Quidditch pitch for practice, and Emma, Matilda, JJ and Archie heading for the lake.

When Lily and Mia reached the changing rooms, they discovered that they were the last ones – even Samuel had got there before them.

"Alright," James said, once they were all changed. "We're just gonna go out there and play tonight. We're gonna get our spirits back up – remind ourselves how good we are. Yeah, we lost on Saturday, but that doesn't mean we're rubbish, or any of that; just that we got beaten by a team that was better than us. And we've got plenty of time to get our game up before the Ravenclaw game to ensure that we're the better team, but tonight we're just gonna have fun. Let's go."

The team stepped out onto the pitch and proceeded to do just that. They played and fooled around until it felt just like another game in the summer. James, Fred and Lily all played for themselves, each trying to put as many goals past Mia as they could, and gaining ten points each time they did so. Mia also gained ten points every time she saved a goal, and Roxanne and Mary every time a Bludger hit its target. Samuel gained fifty points every time he caught the Snitch, and whoever was holding the Quaffle when Samuel caught the Snitch lost ten points.

At the end of an hour, when James called a halt, they all totalled the points, and James awarded the prize – a bar of Honeydukes chocolate – to Samuel, who had 250 points from catching the Snitch five times. The booby prize – a single blank MI, was awarded to Lily, who, despite scoring four goals, had been unlucky enough to be holding the Quaffle every time Samuel had caught the Snitch, and thus, her final score was minus ten.

The Quidditch practice had its desired effect, and the team all went to bed in far better spirits than when they'd woken up that morning. As Mia snuggled down in her four poster bed, after having decided to tackle her Transfiguration essay another night, she remembered something she'd half forgotten – tomorrow was her fourteenth birthday. This week wasn't turning out to be half bad, she thought.

A/N: I forgot yesterday, so have two chapters today! They sort of read like one long chapter, anyway. I hope to resume normal posting schedual tomorrow ~ Nat.