Waiting For the End- Chapter Fourteen
The morning of the game my hair waved down my back and was the disgusting color of a mixture of green and purple: nervous and excited. And of course Fred and George had plenty of time to comment on the loveliness of it.
"Your hair looks like vomit, Lily Pad," George said, as he sat down on the right side of me and slammed a piece of toast into his mouth.
"I try," I said through a mouthful of cereal that I wasn't truly tasting, but instead forcing down my throat and adding to my stomach filled with rapid butterflies.
"What's this color mean anyway?"
I swallowed my cereal. "Nervous Green plus Excited Purple equals Vomit Hair. Didn't you guys learn your colors in Art Class?"
"Nope," they both said, and at the same time reached for more food to shove into their bodies.
I sighed and pushed the cereal away from me. "Which one of you idiots wants it?" Fred quickly slid it to his side of the table but midway to Fred, George tried changing directions of the bowl. The milk splattered across the table and I stood up and away from them.
"Okay, I'm done here," I said. "I'll see you guys at the game."
"Don't worry about it, Lily," Fred called while wrestling with George.
"This game is going to be our best yet!" George finished.
I didn't respond to them though and made my way back the several moving flights of stairs back to Gryffindor Tower. "Hey Ginny," I said as I passed her in the common room.
"Ick. Your hair looks disgusting."
"Thanks. I've been told," I said, continuing on my way to my dormitories. Ginny left and followed me.
"Can't you do anything about it?"
"I'm kind of nervous, and excited—first Quidditch game!"
"Oh, don't worry about it," Ginny said, entering my dorm with me and sitting on my bed. "It's going to be the best game ever."
"That's what everyone keeps telling me," I said as I rummaged through my trunk to find my maroon and gold Quidditch robes. I found them, the golden three on the back catching my attention, and pulled it out from under other clothes, books, and prank products. I grabbed the hairbrush from the top of the mess and flipped my head over and brushed my hair out, the collected it and wrapped a hair tie around it. "But what's supposed to be so special about this game?"
"I guess everyone can just feel it," Ginny shrugged and played with a loose string on my quilt.
"We'll see," I mumbled.
When I got down to the locker room Harry grabbed my wrist and pulled me over. He whispered urgently, "Have you seen what the Slytherin's are wearing?"
"Their robes?"
"No," Harry said sharply. "Their badges. The badges, they say, 'Weasley Is Our King.'"
"Why would they say that? Ron's on our team!"
"Honestly, how dumb are you, Lily? They mean that he's going to suck."
"Oh," I said, looking at the ground. "Well we'll see what they say when we cream them." I smiled and walked away to stand by Fred and George.
"See the badges?" George asked, while slipping an arm through his robe.
"I've heard about them."
"Ron better not screw this up for us," Fred muttered, his head popping out of the top of his number one robes. I slapped his arm, leaving a faint pink mark.
"He's your brother," I snapped. Fred shrugged.
"Exactly."
I rolled my eyes and Angelina started her pre-game speech. "Okay, I've just found out the line-up for Slytherin. Last year's Beater's, Derrick and Bole, have left now, but it looks as though Montague's replaced them with the usual gorillas, rather than anyone who can fly particularly well. They're two blokes called Crabbe and Goyle, I don't know much about them—"
"We do," Harry and Ron chorused.
"Well, they don't look bright enough to tell one end of the broom from another, but then I was always surprised Derrick and Bole managed to find their way onto the pitch without signposts."
"Crabbe and Goyle are in the same mold," Harry said.
"It's time," Angelina said. "C'mon everyone… good luck." The team stood off the benches and threw their brooms over their shoulders. When we got out onto the field the Slytherin team was already there waiting for us, their famous, silver badges were glistening, and I couldn't make myself take my eyes off of them. They were mocking me, like maybe this game wouldn't be nearly as perfect as everyone was saying it was going to be.
"Captains shake hands," Madam Hooch ordered and Angelina and Montague shook hands, Montague crushing Angelina's fingers. "Mount your brooms."
We mounted just as the whistle blew and kicked off, soaring into the higher atmosphere of the Quidditch field. Lee's commentary echoed throughout the stadium. "And it's Johnson, Johnson with the Quaffle, what a player that girl is, I've been saying it for years but she still won't go out with me. "
"JORDAN!"
"Just a fun fact, Professor, adds a bit of interest—"
I flew around to Katie Bell, who got the Quaffle from Angelina and I went farther down away and she passed it to me. We tossed it back and forth across the court and I shot to score, but the Slytherin Keeper saved it.
I tried to pay attention to the game, to keep my head it in. But I heard singing coming from the Slytherin side of the stands. This cannot be good. I tried to decipher the lyrics while working on stealing the ball away from Warrington.
Weasley cannot save a thing,
He cannot block a single ring,
That's why all Slytherin's sing:
Weasley is our King!
Weasley was born in a bin,
He always lets the Quaffle in,
Weasley will make sure we win,
Weasley is our King!
Weasley is our King,
Weasley is our King,
He always lets the Quaffle in,
Weasley is our King.
Ron let Slytherin score, so that now they were ten more than us. Ten to zero. Katie had the ball, so I flew in closer to her. She passed the ball to me, I caught it in my arms, and tucked it under my armpit while I soared closer to the Slytherin's goal.
I felt a gust of wind blow through my hair, and Fred appeared, swinging the bludger that was going straight for my head rocketing in the other direction. "Careful, Lily Pad," Fred said, and smirked before flying away.
I passed the ball to Angelina and she scored for us. The Slytherin's currently had thirty more points than us, but that wasn't too bad. Fourty to ten. Harry could easily catch the tiny golden snitch and win us the game still. Loony Luna Lovegood was dressed as a lion, and I could hear the roars loudly in the crowd. But the Slytherin's, with their chorus, continued to grow louder and louder.
Weasley was born in a bin!
He always lets the Quaffle in!
Weasley will make sure we win!
Focus on the game. I have to focus on the game. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Harry dive down, and Malfoy close, the two of them were neck and neck. Harry's arm reached for the snitch, and he enclosed his fingers around it, just as a bludger hit Harry in the back. Madam Hooch's whistle echoed, and the angry comments from the stands came forth.
"Are you all right?" Angelina asked, as I landed down by Harry, Fred and George behind me.
"Course I am," Harry said.
"It was that thug Crabbe. He whacked the Bludger at you the moment he saw you'd got the Snitch—but we won, Harry, we won!"
Draco Malfoy snorted from behind us though as Harry got off his feet.
"Saved Weasley's neck, haven't you? I've never seen a worse Keeper, but then, he was born in a bin. Did you like my lyrics, Potter?"
Harry said nothing, but I knew he wanted too. He turned around and joined me and the rest of the team. We were hollering and yelling in excitement of our triumph over Slytherin, no matter how badly Malfoy wished to ruin that for us.
"We wanted to write another couple of verses! But we couldn't find rhymes for fat and ugly00we wanted to sing about his mother, see—"
"Talk about sour grapes," Angelina said, casting a glance to Malfoy.
"We couldn't fit in useless loser either, for his father, you know."
This is the moment where Fred and George realized what they were talking about. "Don't listen to him," I hissed.
"Leave it," Angelina said and took Fred by the arm. "Leave it, Fred. Let him yell, he's just sore he's lost, the jumped up, little—"
"But you like the Weasley's, don't you Potter? Spend the holidays there and everything, don't you? Can't see how you stand the stink, but I suppose when you've been dragged up by Muggles even the Weasleys' hovel smells okay—"
Harry grabbed George to stop him, but it took all of Angelina, Katie, and I to hold back Fred the best we could. Malfoy was laughing at the scene in front of him, the chaos he had so perfectly created.
"Or perhaps," Malfoy added to it. "You can remember what your mother's houses stank like, Potter, and Weasley's pigsty reminds you of it."
Even my hair shot up the most red it has been in a while, and even though I tugged back on Fred all I really wanted to do was set him free and watch him attack Malfoy. I wanted to see Malfoy's face when his fist connected to it, because Malfoy deserved it. You don't talk about people's dead parents.
But I got the satisfaction, although not from Fred, because George and Harry both sprinted at Malfoy and tore him apart, like a Muggle.
Angelina and Katie cried, "Harry! HARRY! GEORGE! NO!" And although I knew this was bad, and I wanted it to stop and continue all at once, I spoke no words and watched the events.
Madam Hooch came over swiftly, screaming, "What are you doing?" The fighting stopped, mostly thanks to the Impediment Jinx Madam Hooch had conjured.
"I've never seen behavior like it—back up to the castle, both of you, and straight to your Head of House's office! Go! Now!"
XxX
"Why'd you hold me back, Lily? I could have had him!"
"I know, Fred, okay? I'm sorry. You can go pound his face in later." I said, watching Fred pace in front of the fire place and put his hands in his hair. "At least you're not in trouble like Harry and George are!"
"I wish I was. Did you hear the way he was talking about my family? Did you hear him talking about your mum?"
"Yes, Fred, I did hear him say all of that stuff about my mum, actually," I snapped. "Don't remind me."
"Sorry," he muttered.
"Where are they? Professor McGonnagall would have given them their detention by now," I said, sinking into the armchair located by the fire.
The portrait door swung open in that moment and a grumpy George and Harry wore frowns as they were surrounded by people. "Come on," I said, and grabbed Fred's wrist to pull him over to George and Harry. We had to fight through the immense crowd to get to them and find out the information.
"We're banned from Quidditch—for life," Harry said unhappily.
"What?" I cried. Quidditch was nothing if we didn't have Harry and who could possibly match Fred in another beater? It seemed impossible. And McGonnagall wouldn't just ban them from it. Give them detention, probably, but ban them forever?
"It was Umbridge. She came in. Something about being someone who can discipline and has more ruling than the average teacher," George said. "Even banned you too," he said to Fred.
"What? I didn't even touch that twat!"
"She said something about, you would have, if those three hadn't been holding you back," George said and point to Angelina, Katie, and I.
"Banned?" Angelina said, still refusing to believe in it herself. "Banned. No Seeker and no Beaters… What on earth are we going to do?"
"That is just so unfair!" I said. "What about the bludger Crabbe hit after the whistle had been blown? Has she banned him?"
"No," Ginny said bitterly. "He just got lines. I heard Montague laughing about it at dinner."
"And banning Fred when he didn't do anything!" Angelina said.
"It's not my fault I didn't," Fred defended himself. "I would've pounded he little scumbag to a pulp if you three wouldn't have been holding me back."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I said and sighed. "I'm going to bed." I got up and left the group discussing the Quidditch tragedies. The rest of the Quidditch season is officially going to suck with Harry, Fred, and George gone from the team.
And I've been gone forever again… but I have a reason! Sort of, I mean, I was in my school's play and busy all the time, but yeah. I'll try to update more, but don't I always say that?
Review anyway, please!