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Late.

I was completely and utterly late.

This morning, I was once again awoken by Lyra, standing over me with a less than impressed look on her face. Me, being the forgetful human that I am, looked at her, my brows furrowed in confusion, as to why she'd woken me up so early.

"What?" I asked, desperate to go back to sleep in order to rid myself of the enormous migraine I had, as a result of last night's fun.

"Haven't you forgotten something?" She said, raising her right eyebrow.

It took me about a minute to figure out what exactly she was referring to.

"Shit!" I exclaimed, jumping out of bed, grabbing a pair of leggings and a T-shirt and running to the bathroom.

About 10 minutes later, was when I managed to arrive at the Quidditch pitch, the idea of breakfast had long since exited my mind.

I walked across the pitch to where everybody was gathered in a rather large group and stood next to Katya Ford, a seventh year Slytherin and one half of our beater duo.

"Your late." She whispered, trying not to attract the attention of our overly flustered Captain, who was trying to gain control over the chattering crowd in front of us.

"No shit Sherlock." I said, rolling my eyes.

"Well, aren't you happy this morning." She spoke, her voice thick with sarcasm.

"Oh yeah, I'm overjoyed to be at Quidditch tryouts at 6am with a hangover." I said, equally as sarcastic.

"Hangover? What party wasn't I invited to?" She questioned, offended.

"No party. Just Dom, Rose and I hanging out." I replied with a chuckle.

"I wished my friends would get drunk with me." She sighed.

I laughed at her expression.

"I'm serious! All they seem to want to do is study. It's so boring." She exclaimed.

"Well, to be fair, you do take your NEWT's exams this year." I stated.

"I know, the work load is already huge, and it's not even been a week!" She said, exasperated.

Katya was the type of girl that was always down for a bit of fun, and she'd almost always do anything she was asked without asking questions if you were close to her. I liked to think that we were close, we often joked about during practice, which usually got us trouble with the Captain. She had long chocolate brown, wavy waist-length hair and matching eyes. She was shorter than me, but that's not hard to do, well built and could probably lift me up over her head she was that strong. She's also more like a big Sister to me than my actual one ever is.

The crowd had gotten even more restless in the space of time since I'd arrived, the voices of the excited students were doing anything but help my migraine, so I decided to shut them up myself.

"Oi! Shut it!" I shouted, drawing all eyes towards me. "First rule of Quidditch, you're always quiet when your Captain is speaking."

I nodded to Scorpius, who was giving me a look of thanks, for him to take over.

"Thank you, Jones." Scorpius spoke and immediately everyone's attention, previously focused on me, turned towards the blonde.

It was about ten minutes later, when Scorpius had managed to sort everybody into their respective groups, depending on what position they were tying out for. The students who wanted to tryout for the missing beater position went off to one end of the pitch with Katya, whilst the rest of them, who were either trying out for chaser or not tying out at all, followed myself and Christopher, a fellow chaser, to the other end. On our way there, Christopher turned to me and whispered.

"Oh merlin, he's here." His voice was quiet, as not to attract prying eyes. "Benjamin's here."

I turned my head so quickly, behind me, to get a good look at the swarm of students trailing us, that I thought it was going to snap right off my neck.

You see, Christopher is gay, oh so very gay, which is by no means is an issue, but Benjamin Turner is your classic 'closet case'. Meaning, Christopher is completely and utterly besotted with Benjamin, but Benjamin is in denial about how he plays for both teams, despite the fact that they've slept with each other on multiple occasions. Even though Christopher is 'boy crazy', he doesn't like that Benjamin won't even admit his sexuality to himself, let alone anybody else, so, he's currently avoiding him.

I spotted Benjamin, talking animatedly with his mates, so obviously pretending that Christopher wasn't 3ft in front of him. I turned back to Christopher, who had gone a few shades redder than he was two minutes ago, and gave him a look of exasperation.

"Why, do you not just try to talking to him?" I asked, raising my right eyebrow.

"Excuse me, you think I haven't tried? He's in denial, I know what that's like, if you don't want to admit it, your not going to." He said sadly, hanging his head.

"Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be a bitch, I have a hangover." I said putting my hand on his arm reassuringly. "And your a great guy, so, if Benjamin can't see that then he's an idiot."

"Thanks...wait hangover? Why have you got a hangover?" He asked.

"Rose, Dom and I had some fun last night." I answered.

"Oh right, your annual 'thing'." He sounded a little bit hurt, so I did what I thought would cheer him up.

"Wanna join us next time?" I inquired, he looked at me and beamed, I was right, it did cheer him up.

"Can I?" He spoke quietly, I nodded. "Yes please, I could do with some alcohol."

By this time, we had reached the tall, golden goal posts at one end of the pitch, stopping, Christopher and I turned around and addressed the excited crowd in front of us.

"We're going to run through some drills, to see how good you are, then we'll do some manoeuvres with a select few and then we'll deliberate with the captain and make a decision." I said confidently, every pair of eyes on me.

"Now, get into groups of three." Christopher spoke, loud and clear, from my side.

They did as the were told, sorting themselves into threes, they then took to the skies, running through the drills that we had set them. Christopher and I looked on, sometimes in surprise and other times in frustration, as we tried to work out who would work well with us, and whether we could work well with them.

We were just about to bring them down when Albus came cover, walking as if the whole world was at his feet, Merlin I hate that boy and I was in no fit state to entertain him today.

"Hey Albus." Christopher said, I glared at him and he just smiled 'innocently' at me.

"Hey Christopher," Albus replied then turned to me. "Jones."

"Potter." I replied, trying hard not to hex him.

God, I've got anger issues this morning.

"I came to warn you that Scorp's on a mad one." He whispered, looking over his shoulder to see if our deranged Captain had heard him.

"Oh, God." Christopher sighed.

"What's he done now?" I asked, unenthusiastically.

"Oh you know, freaking out because he couldn't find the bludgers earlier and then he couldn't get control of the students, nice going by the way." He said, all in one breath, nodding in my direction.

Hold on, did Albus Potter just compliment me?

Christopher seemed as shocked as I was, Albus hadn't even noticed as he gave a quick goodbye, saying that if he didn't get back soon, Scorpius might commit man slaughter.

Christopher turned to me, wide eyes, I just shook my head, telling him to forget it as we called down the potential chasers.

About and hour later, when Christopher and I had tried some moves with a few of the students, we were deliberating with, a now calm, Scorpius.

"I think that the fourth year girl, Kacy, was the best, she worked well with us and she knew a lot more than the others." Christopher was trying to convince Scorpius, not to make a big mistake.

"I prefer that Benjamin guy, he was good, and he's older, meaning he's got more experience." Scorpius spoke, confident in his choice.

That was the big mistake we were trying to avoid, Benjamin being on the team. Don't get me wrong, he was a good chaser, probably one of the best, but we did not need all the extra baggage that he carried with him. Of course, we couldn't exactly tell Scorpius why we didn't want him on the team, so we had to resort to convincing him in other ways.

Besides, Kacy really was better than him.

"I agree with Christopher, she's better than him and Benjamin's a seventh year, meaning, he won't be here next year." I said, trying my best to sway him, if not for Christopher's sake then for the team's.

We did not need any tension or drama, that would be a disaster, and could potentially lose us the Quidditch Cup, something I was, most definitely, not okay with.

"She's got a point mate." Albus chipped in from next to the Captain. "And they worked better with her than they did him."

Seriously, what was with the niceties from him today.

I decided I was going to ignore the fact that he was being civil, and instead, focused on the task at hand.

"I suppose your right." Scorpius said reluctantly.

"I'm always right." I said smugly.

Albus snorted at this.

"Arrogant much." He jeered, smirking.

Merlin, did I hate that smirk.

"Hypocrite much." I retorted, earning a scowl.

So much for being civil.

Only now, had I realised how close we actually were, we had, apparently, moved subconsciously closer to one another. Though I was tall, he had a good few inches on me, glaring down at me as I tried to burn a hole through his head. What didn't help was that that feeling was back again, the searing, painless heat, that spread throughout my body, warming every finger and every toe right to the ends. There was a tingling down my back, and I couldn't decide whether I liked it or not. Once again, the minute he looked away, the feeling left too.

I stepped back, taking a deep breath and collecting myself. I don't know how long we had stood there, but I think that the people around us were starting to get concerned by the lack noise.

"Well," I said, turning to Scorpius. "have we come to a decision?"

"Yes, we have." He sighed in resignation.

We had already announced the role of beater, which went to another fourth year by the name of Myles Parker. So, the only people left were the ones that Christopher and I had tried working with, Benjamin, Kacy and Mark, another seventh year.

"Kacy Harper, welcome to the Slytherin Quidditch Team!" I announced, the look of pure joy on the girl's face was enough to make anyone smile.

I got back to the castle in time to have a quick shower, get ready for school and make my way down to the first class of the day, Transfiguration.

I arrived in the nick of time, sliding into the seat next to Dom, thanked her for saving it for me and opened my textbook to the page Rose told me we were going over, just in time for Professor McGonagall to walk swiftly and calmly into the room.

The lesson went rather slowly, and more than once did I think about hexing the girls behind us who were giggling at Potter and Scorpius, of all people, just to shut them up.

Honestly, where was their self-respect.

Dom looked like she wanted to do the same, although her attention was more often directed at Alexander Wood, apparently, double Potions went well yesterday, Rose had noticed this too. We shared a look that said 'We're so grilling her about this later'.

Eventually, the bell went, and we were dismissed, but not before we were set a foot-long essay on the rules and regulations of Transfiguration, in which Dom and I would both be asking Rose for the answers.

After that, I had double Divination, Rose had Ancient Runes then Herbology, and Dom, the lucky bugger, had a free period then Muggle Studies. So, we went our separate ways, promising to meet up at lunch.

I made my way to the Divination classroom, I was late, but Professor Greggory didn't usually mind, I think I was one her favourite students, but that was probably because I was one of the only people that actually wanted to be in the lesson. I enjoyed the subject, I liked the fact that there are ways to know what could happen in the future, but you can only see into it, never change it. It was one of the only rules that was kept no matter what, if you knew something about the future, you couldn't do anything to change or stop it.

Just as I turned the corner into the corridor where the classroom was, the feeling that someone was watching me was back. I stopped, turned around and there was a figure, in a dark cloak, standing right behind me. I stepped back, startled, my hand automatically reaching for my wand, but, to my utter horror, it wasn't in my pocket like it had been ten minutes ago. I couldn't see their face, as it was covered by a large hood and their head was tilted towards the floor.

"Looking for this." The figure spoke, their voice laced with malice, holding up my wand.

"Who are you and how did you get that?" I asked, my voice wavering.

"That's for me to know and for you to find out," They chuckled, darkly. "eventually."

Suddenly, they pulled their wand out, pointed it at me and muttered a spell I didn't recognise. Before I even had a chance to react, everything went dark as I felt myself fall to the floor, hitting my head on the cold stone.

Smoke. There was so much smoke. I could feel it making its way into my lungs, slowly suffocating me. It was so thick that I struggled to see anything through the large cloud that had enveloped me. The potent smell of burning flesh was strong, filling my nostrils and making me want to throw up. There was ash everywhere, stinging my eyes and making it even more difficult to see.

There was a scream. An earsplitting scream, that was so full of agony it made my heart lurch. I wanted to find them, help them, but I didn't even know where I was. Nothing around me was familiar, the ceiling was high, as the smoke was rising, and I was definitely not outside as I could hear the crumbling of brick and the burning of wood, which was no doubt fueling the already blazing fire.

The scream sounded again, but closer. I turned around and I saw it, a person, set aflame, the red and orange colours mixing, rising up then back down again, skinning them alive, like a predator would do to it's prey. I ran trying to reach them, but the smoke was restricting my movements. When I got to them, they were lying flat on their back, looking lifelessly above at the swirling smoke.

Their body was no longer that of a human, but that of a charred piece of meat. There was barely any flesh left on them and bones were visible, covered in a sticking black substance, that I could only imagine was the remains of their skin, and positioned awkwardly.

What I was looking down at was a skeleton, with the remnants of what it used to be hanging off the broken and burnt bones. The worst part was the eyes, gone were the round balls that allow a person to see the world around them, replaced they were, by two empty holes, filled with the same thick goo that stained the former person.

Those seemingly bottomless pits were the last thing I saw as the building we were trapped in collapsed around us, subjecting me to eternal darkness, making me wonder whether I would ever see the light of day again.

I gasped and opened my eyes to see Albus looking down at me with concern, worry and relief in his enticing emerald eyes, I realised he was carrying me, to where, I had no idea. But as my eyes fluttered closed and I began to slip into unconsciousness, I heard his voice, low and soft.

"You're okay Mel, I'm here, I've got you."

AN:

Woah! That was intense. I'm sorry it took me so long to upload this, but I, stupidly, started quite a few other stories and have kind of neglected this one. This chapter is shorter than the others, but I hope the drama makes up for it. I hope you guys like it and as always constructive criticism is welcome. I hope you are all okay and are staying safe and sane during this Pandemic. Remember to R&R!

Until next time, happy reading!

Sincerely,

Purple_slytherin xx