~*Chapter Six*~
A Match To Remember
~*You'll never see me fall apart/ In the words of a broken heart it's just emotions taking me over/ caught up in sorrow/ lost in the song/ but if you would come back/ come home to me darling/ don't you know there's nobody left in this world to hold me tight/ don't you know there's nobody left in this world to kiss goodnight/ Goodnight…*~~*Emotion*~*Destiny's Child*~
Oliver got up and locked the wooden box, dusting off his worn Quidditch practice robes and wiping rain out of his eyes. He squinted through the blur, searching for the blot of red that was Angelina. He saw something out of the corner of his eye but by the time he turned, it was gone. Oliver sighed and bit the inside of his lip until it bled. No one would ever know how he felt about Angelina. He would make sure of it.
***
Angelina ran behind the locker rooms and waited, peering over the side of the low building every now and then to see if Oliver was still there. The Gryffindor captain stood there for a long time, the rain running down his face and matting his short hair down against his scalp. Then, finally, he turned to go inside. Angelina waited a few minutes more, and then she slowly walked up to the castle. "Lumos," she whispered to her wand. She could make out the square figure of Madam Hooch silhouetted in the light.
"Good job today," Madam Hooch said. Angelina nodded and, in no mood to talk, made her way past the flying instructor and up at least ten shifting flights of stairs until she reached the portrait of Sir Cadogan, who mysteriously failed to either 1. Challenge her to a duel, or 2. Call her a 'fair lady' and let her pass with a gracious wave of his hand. But Angelina didn't notice this. She walked into the common room and dragged an armchair into the corner of the room, seeming to be watching everything that was going on. But really, she was sitting there and thinking.
Why had Oliver singled her out, when it was a well-known fact that Cedric Diggory was sought after by Katie and Alicia also, not to mention every other girl in the school? What was that strange look in his eyes when he said, 'don't let your feelings for Diggory complicate the match'? He had seemed so sad when he said, 'I'm not blind.' Angelina wasn't sure if she had liked the look in his eyes when he had said those things. Maybe it's your imagination, Angelina thought. You were out there in the wind and rain and everything.
Halfheartedly Angelina watched a furious game of wizard chess between the two Weasley twins, and then she climbed the stairs to the girls' dormitory and lay in bed, the wind roaring against the windows and causing the glass to shudder and rattle. The next day's Quidditch match was the last thing on her mind.
***
The next morning dawned as stormy as the preceding night had been. Angelina nervously slipped into her Quidditch robes and picked up her broom. She climbed down the stairs to the common room, the roar of the wind and rain beating against the castle growing louder with every step. She was surprised to find Harry Potter staring into the fire, already up.
"Something wrong, Harry?" Angelina asked, sitting in the chair across from him. "You're up early."
"Peeves woke me up," Harry grumbled.
"Storm woke me," Angelina said.
Harry's glance jerked over to the staircases for a moment. "Be right back," he murmured. "CROOKSHANKS!"
"Crookshanks?" Angelina asked curiously just as Oliver came haltingly down the stairs. He walked slowly across the common room and sat in a chair, drumming his fingers on a table and clutching his broom in his hand so that his knuckles turned white.
"Hermione's cat," Harry answered, plopping back down in the chair and covering his tired eyes with his hands.
"D'you need another review of the maneuvers, Harry?" Oliver asked, his face tense. Harry shook his head, absentmindedly stroking the end of the bristles on his Nimbus Two Thousand. Oliver breathed in a shaky breath, and then sighed. "Breakfast." Oliver called to the other members of the team, straggling down the stairs. Harry sat closer to the team this morning, next to Oliver whose plate was empty.
"It's going to be a tough one," the Captain said, his face a light shade of green.
"Don't worry, Oliver," Alicia said, looking as nervous as he was. "It's only a bit of rain." A clap of thunder boomed overhead just as she finished her sentence. Fred, looking serious for once, buttered a piece of toast and left it on his plate, not having a bite.
"Eat!" Oliver insisted.
"You try eating," George replied. "Anything that goes down is going to come right back up again, so what's the use?"
"It's only Hufflepuff," Angelina reminded the team. "Only Hufflepuff."
"Locker rooms," said Wood.
After failing to give his pre-game speech, the team's feeling of stomach sickness grew even more. They walked onto the field, immediately soaked to the bone. The rain crept through the thick fabric of the Quidditch robes and wet their clothes underneath. The Hufflepuffs were seven yellow blurs on the field as they kicked off. Katie started with the Quaffle, and from what Angelina could tell was making her way down the field with it. A whir past her left ear told Angelina that she had narrowly escaped being creamed by a Bludger.
"Damn things!" Fred called to her as he flew past, brandishing his club. Angelina squinted her eyes and could make out the three Hufflepuff chasers making their way down the field. She pulled in closer as Wood made an amazing save and the Quaffle was passed to her. Angelina zoomed forward, down the field towards the canary-yellow Keeper at the other end. She swerved right, then left, then faked a right and put it in the left hoop.
"Score…thirty…Gryffindor," was all that was heard of the commentary. The Quaffle was passed to a Hufflepuff keeper just as a Bludger flew under Angelina, skimming her foot. A few minutes later, a whistle barely penetrated the roaring wind. Angelina landed, mud splattering the hem of her robes and soaking her shoes through.
"We're fifty points up," Oliver said. "But unless we get the Snitch soon, we'll be playing into the night."
"I have no chance with these on," said Harry, taking off his glasses and rubbing them on his soaking robes. Hermione Granger appeared over his shoulder and took the glasses, tapping her wand against them and making them repel water.
"Brilliant!" Wood cried. "Okay, team, lets go for it!"
Angelina kicked back off and flew around on the bottom of the field, watching her fellow Chasers up above. But something was happening! An eerie silence fell over the entire stadium. Angelina looked up. Harry was falling down, off his broom! Angelina kicked off and tried to catch him on her broom, but he hit the ground. Angelina landed beside him, just as she saw three tall dementors through the rain.
"Dementors!" she called to Oliver, who was running over to talk to Madam Hooch. She blew her whistle and the Hufflepuffs landed, Cedric Diggory with the Snitch in his hand.