Chapter 8 – Wise Words from the Weasleys.
Almost as soon as the team announcement had been made, I couldn't wait to make it onto the Quidditch pitch for our first practice, but that was a whole week away and whilst I could pass most of the time, distracting myself with school work and subsequent homework – I still had to get through Sunday and the first thing I would have to do would be to tell Alec the good news. For some reason that felt like it was going to be more of a chore than it should. As I'd trudged into the Great Hall for breakfast, thoroughly exhausted from the night before, (celebrations has lasted a lot longer than I'd anticipated them to, Draco and I had been expected to keep up with the older years) I'd been swept into a hug and spun around by my brother. I'd blushed furiously and demanded to be put back on my feet and Alec had done so, laughing loudly the entire time.
"I knew you could do it." He grinned widely, as he pushed his glasses further up onto his nose and followed me over to the Slytherin table. I wanted to question how he already knew but Bellamy and my housemates were already seated so that question was answered for me, he hadn't been able to wait until I'd come in, he'd found out from them instead. As we passed Bellamy, Alec dropped a hand onto his shoulder as if they were friends when I knew for a fact that they'd barely spoken before. Clearly Mia and I's bond had forced some kind of friendship between the two of them.
"Told you she was great, didn't I?" Bellamy nodded as he sipped a bitter smelling coffee as I stomped my foot indignantly.
"You spoke to the captain before try-outs even started?" Alec's smile faltered a little as he realised how angry I was. Bellamy suddenly took a keen interest in his porridge as he chopped a banana and laid them across the top in a perfect line.
"Panda, I…"
"No! I don't need you putting in good words for me! I am an amazing flyer and I don't need anyone else trying to prove it for me, I'm quite capable of doing that myself!" Bellamy looked up from his breakfast again to Alec and the two of them exchanged looks before they both broke out into near identical grins. For a split second it felt like I had two brothers who were both about to mock me.
"I told you it would work;" Alec smiled triumphantly, "I've only been trying to get her to admit that for the past three months." As the two of them grinned at me and I realised I'd fallen for Alec's reverse psychology trick – I pouted.
"I hate you." I tuned on my heel and quickly headed for my group of friends who were all sat, cautiously watching my family's large owl as he stood in the middle of the table, a thick wad of letters held tightly in his beak. I took a seat and poured a glass of orange juice as Bandit took a few steps towards me, apparently eager for me to relieve him of the undoubtedly heavy postal delivery he'd been instructed to bring to me.
"What on earth?" I questioned as I retrieved the wad of letters from my owl and gave him a treat from my pocket. He hooted gratefully, opened his large swings and took off, sending Draco's cornflakes flying straight out of his bowl and over the table and the floor. He grumbled in irritation before snatching the box from Theo and pouring himself another and turning his back on us. Clearly, he wasn't handling being over tired very well.
"Someone's popular." Mia smiled as she sipped a cup of tea, it was a familiar floral scent of Chamomile and she had it every Sunday morning as part of her 'self-care Sunday routine'. I flicked through the stack before turning to my brother who had taken a seat next to me.
"Alec…who did you tell?" He examined them innocently as he used my fork to stab a chocolate-chip pancake from a platter in the middle of the table.
"Mum and Dad already knew you were trying out." He shrugged as if I was asking an obvious question.
"Yes, that accounts for this one." I said, holding up a duck-egg blue envelope with my mother's neat little script on the front. The contents felt thick and I was almost sure there was a separate response from both my mother and father contained inside. I half hoped there was a gift of some form inside. I shuffled the remaining envelopes in my hands.
"What about the other six?" I questioned, before realisation dawned and I had to suppress the urge to roll my eyes.
"You didn't." But I already knew he had. Alec had told our entire family, which meant our grandparents, our aunt, uncle and cousins in France and our other aunt, uncle and cousin in America.
"I didn't. I may however, of told Mum that she should." I could see the smirk tugging at his lips and he was so proud of himself. I was perfectly content with only our parents knowing I'd made the team, but Alec seemed to be determined that everyone in my vicinity knew about my achievement and I had never been able to work out why, he'd been the same when we were younger. When he'd seen my first display of random magic (I accidentally set an armchair on fire during a tantrum when I lost a game of hide and seek), Alec had raced to tell our parents before even thinking to put the flames out.
"What is it?" Mia questioned, examining the post marks on each letter.
"Ooh, this one's from Ilvermony!" She mentioned, before I retrieved it back from her grip. "Who do you know in Ilvermony?"
"Yes, America, America, two from France and one from Ireland. Alec told the whole family." I stated, unintentionally ignoring Mia's question. Alec shook his head in his defence.
"No, not the whole family, I didn't think our uncles in Azkaban would be overly concerned with your extra-curricular accomplishments." I nodded my head in agreement, refusing to acknowledge the questioning looks I was receiving from some of my housemates.
"Hmm, somehow I feel they've got more pressing issues on their minds." I dropped the envelopes onto the table, my attention suddenly diverted by a bright pink envelope at the bottom of the stack.
"Who's that one from?" Alec questioned, I shrugged my shoulder as I cracked the messy wax steal and pulled the letter from the envelope. No sooner had I unfolded the letter, it had exploded a puff of bright green smoke into my face before a cloud of confetti flew into the air and drifted down onto the table followed shortly by a song of congratulations that filled the air of the Great Hall. Alec's jaw was practically in his lap, my housemates were shocked, and Mia was laughing silently behind her hand but two voices behind me were laughing at full volume. I turned to Fred and George Weasley whose faces had gone so red, it almost matched the colour of their hair. I turned back to my table, removed the power from my hair with a flourish of my wand and got to my feet, taking my letters in my grip.
"Laugh now, Weasley's, we'll see whose laughing on the Quidditch Pitch." The twins laughing stopped but neither of their grins faded as I headed back down to the Common Room, I wanted to read the letters from my family in peace.
My dorm mates found me about an hour later as I folded up the last of the letters I'd been reading. Confirming my thoughts, one had been from my grandparents in Ireland, and my grandmother in particular had been less than impressed at me making the team. She may be a more liberal woman than my father's mother by a country mile but that didn't mean she believed I should be partaking in such a dangerous and barbaric game. I'd had to roll my eyes; she was very much a woman of tradition and as far as she was concerned, I should not be flying about in all manner of weather conditions playing a game that was known for causing life changing injuries. My cousins, however, were both considerably more supportive, along with both my aunts and uncles and I expected that happiness would be reiterated when they came to visit over the summer as they did every year.
Mia and Sally dropped themselves onto either side of me as I quickly stacked the letters away.
"So, who were the other letters from?" Mia questioned.
"Family." I answered quietly. "Though I was sceptical about what would come out each envelope as I opened them." I glanced at her as a small smile began to appear on her face.
"Oh, come on. It was funny!" She replied, and I knew in that moment the twins hadn't manufactured their little joke on their own.
"Oh yes, hilarious." I retorted sarcastically. "And I've no doubt who gave tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber the idea." Mia inhaled a dramatic gasp, placing a hand on her chest.
"Language, missy! Also was that a quote from Alice in Wonderland…a muggle book no less?" I rolled my eyes at her dramatics that so often matched my own.
"Yes, your copy. You loaned it to me over the summer."
"Oh yes I did, didn't I? Well looks like my semi-muggle upbringing is having a positive impact on you."
"Oh?"
"Expanding on your already admittedly impressive vocabulary, even if it is to offend the twins."
"Somehow I feel that they've been called much worse." I thought, my mind wandering back to the altercation between Mr Weasley and Mr Malfoy in Diagon Alley. It was not secret how the Weasley family were perceived amongst the elite pure blood society, there were even books that openly slated them as being blood traitors and whilst I'd been raised to not take any heed in it myself, I'd been instructed to let other people believe what they wanted and not question it, at least not in public. Openly disagreeing with certain people's ideals could create enemies in the wrong places and I'd learnt that my family seemed to walk the ever-thinning line between pure blood supremacists and muggle sympathisers, if often felt like there was no middle ground to be had and it was never entirely clear which life view provided the most safety and security.
"Yes, I don't doubt it either." Mia agreed, clearly keen on changing the subject She jumped up from where she was sat as Millie and Pansy approached from our dorm, Pansy donning a bright pink jumper with matching cropped leggings. I looked at her with suspicion, Pansy didn't exercise, to be honest, none of us did unless we were so bored, we could find little else to do. Even then we'd all put our exercise clothes on, talk about how we were going to run laps of the Quidditch pitch and then by the time we'd got there, we'd all just sit in the grass and make excuses as to why we couldn't possibly bring ourselves to do it.
"Oh, come on, grouchy. We're going to teach Pansy how to cartwheel on the lawn – coming?"
"Sure." I agreed, eager to see Pansy's less than graceful limbs flailing about all afternoon. It was also that time of year where the summer was fading fast and I wanted to make the most of it before autumn truly set in and we were exposed to the gale force winds that so often graced the Scottish Highlands for weeks on end.
#
The lawn was soaked in late September sun when we arrived and students were scattered around with the same idea as us, enjoying it as much as they could. Whilst Mia started showing Pansy how to complete the perfect cartwheel, Sally, Millie and I laid back in the short grass in the warm sun. The blades tickled the backs of my knees and the sun warmed my cheeks until –
"Sleepy, Rosier?" I opened my eyes to see Fred and George standing over me – blocking the sun from view with the oh-so-familiar identical grins on their faces. I got to my feet with a huff, crossing my arms across my chest.
"What do you two want now?" I questioned irritably. George reached forward, jabbing a spot on my temple.
"Looks like you've still got some green, right there." He grinned widely, clearly still impressed with himself from their little show in the Great Hall. I swatted his hand away in annoyance.
"I meant what I said. You're both laughing now. We'll see whose laughing in the end."
"Ok, Ok." Fred chimed in. "But in all seriousness, we wanted to say congratulations for making the team."
"I'm pretty sure you made that point with the card." The twins both held up their hands in defence.
"That wasn't even our idea." The both of them looked over to where Mia was taking sudden interest in Pansy's repeated futile attempts at a cartwheel.
"Yes, we've already had that discussion. I didn't think the two of you had the shared brain capacity to put that together in less than twelve hours." The two of them feigned hurt, clutching their chests in pain.
"Your words hurt, Rosier." George stated, wiping a fake tear from his freckled cheek.
"I do try. Now, what do you want?"
"Just a friendly, genuinely friendly, word of advice. We don't need to tell you how rough Quidditch is…" Fred began.
"That roughness often continues off the pitch too…" George continued.
"And you're saying that I should be careful because I'm a girl?" I questioned with an arched eyebrow.
"No!" Fred quickly answered as if he was anticipating me to fly off the handle at him.
"Then, what.?"
"Well, Slytherin are known for being exceptionally dirty players…"
"Both on the pitch and off of it." George explained.
"Wouldn't want you to be tarnished with the same brush now, would we?"
"Wouldn't you?" I asked sceptically, as they approached me, each putting an arm around my shoulders.
"Course not, you're Ammy's best friend, which means you're our friend. Whether you like it or not."
#
The following five days between try-outs and our first practice session felt like the longest of my life. Classes seemed to drag, I'd even lost focus in a potions lesson which nearly resulted in Snape deducting points from his own house, much to the chagrin of my friends. The only thing of any notoriety that happened the whole week was on Friday morning when, during a Charms lesson, Ron Weasley's wand shot out of his hand, hitting Professor Flitwick dead between the eyes and we'd all watched in horror as a giant green boil grew where the wand had struck him.
It was only on Friday night, when Bellamy found Mia and I playing a game of chess to tell me practice was at sunrise the following day – that the reality sunk in.
"Sunrise?" Mia questioned as if the idea itself was horrifying, let alone getting up that early to fly about in cold morning weather.
"We've got to get in before the other teams. Snape has signed a letter using the excuse we need to train Malfoy to permit us special access."
"And me?" I questioned as I used Mia's distracted attention to take another of her chess pieces.
"What's that?" Bellamy asked.
"You need to train me too?" Bellamy smiled and dropped his voice to a volume only Mia and I could hear.
"Give it three weeks, Nina. You're going to be training them." He ruffled Mia's hair, in a fashion similar to how Alec was with me, before sauntering off to sit with his friends.
"Come on, then." Mia smiled. "Early night for us." I grumbled in protest as we got ready for bed, taking the chess board into our room and placing it in between our two beds. We both changed into pyjamas and eventually climbed under our covers. We both leaned over the edges of our beds, our voices commanding the pieces across the chess board on the floor. Jinx and Iris watched from a distance, their tales flicking as if the pieces were prey, they could pounce on.
"How are you feeling about tomorrow?" Mia questioned as she took one of my Bishops, it joined her growing pile of claimed pieces at the side of the board. I shrugged from under my grey fur blanket.
"Ok, I guess…"
"But you feel like try-outs were a fluke and you'll be terrible tomorrow, and everyone will laugh." I smirked at her nervously. Honestly sometimes it was like she was actually inside my head.
"You took the words right out of my mouth." Mia shrugged casually.
"It's a gift. Now get some sleep – you need to be rested for tomorrow."
"Yes, Mum." I replied sarcastically as we switched off the oil lamp on our bedside tables and drew the curtains around our beds. I turned to face the large window, falling into a dreamless sleep.