Someday, I will own something of great value. This will not be Harry Potter, as J K Rowling already owns it.

End of Quidditch

"Get off!" Ryua screeched, plummeting down into a knot of green and yellow robes. Earlier that week, Goyle had gone a little overboard with the bludger during practice, and given Cassie such a crack over the head that Madam Pomfery had grounded her. Naturally, this was two days before their match against Ravenclaw, so Ryua had had a fair bit of juggling to do. Cassie, still slightly cross-eyed, was down in the stands, cheering wildly while Professor Snape tried to force her to hold still. As Ryua sliced through the knot of Hufflepuffs mobbing Ashley, she glanced back up at the Slytherin hoops, smiling at the small, vibrating figure hovering there.

As soon as Cassie had gone to the hospital wing, Ryua had ran down to the dungeons and hauled Josh Treevale off of his homework. By the end of the practice, Ryua had decided he was nowhere near Cassie's speed. He could catch and throw incredibly well, however, so she stuck him in front of the hoops and warned him not to let anything through. He hadn't, for the next six hours of practice against everything they could throw at him, so Ryua left him there. This meant that she, Ashley, and Pucey made up the chasers, and Ryua was enjoying herself quite a bit.

She heard Ashley's shout, and rolled over just in time to catch the quaffle. She flipped 180 and headed for the Hufflepuff posts, adrenaline pumping. One of the other chasers, on a Cleansweep, might have been standing still, for all the chance she had of intercepting her. One bludger was an easy dodge, and although the second caught her leg and spun her into a full barrel roll, she ignored the stab of pain and fired the quaffle through.

"Seventy- zero, for Slytherin!" Lee Jordan called out, flipping the scoreboard to the new count. Ryua shook out her leg, decided it wasn't broken, and took off back to her end. She felt incredibly alive, the wind in her face, whipping her robes back like some fantastic falcon's wings, the yells and screams from the crowd below, the look of elation on her teammates' faces.

"You could name that shot… Like, the Malfoy Corkscrew of Death!" Pucey said clapping her on the shoulder as she flew past him and swung into a defense formation.

"You should grow up." Ashley said, gliding up on his other side. She was grinning away though, and Pucey just laughed.

Ryua smiled, glancing up at the seekers circling the field high above. "Let's get 160 points ahead, and forget about needing him to win the match!"

"Okay!" All three of them were downright giddy, nearly as excited as Josh back at the posts. He'd already made three spectacular saves, and ambushed two more chasers before they got within range, and was becoming a rapid crowd favorite. "I can't believe this is the last match…"

"Yeah, now we just get to tease the Gryffindors fighting Ravenclaw…" Ryua said."

"Poor Cassie, she must be going nuts down there. She'll have my place next year, eh?" Pucey asked. Ryua would have answered, but had to intercept a pass, dodge a bludger, pass the quaffle before she ran headlong into a wall of yellow players, and then cheer Ashley as she got another goal.

"Yeah, she will. And Josh is staying as keeper, he's incredible."

"Which frees you up to have way too much fun with me and Cassie up here, eh?" Ashley said, gliding back into position.

"Better believe it!" Ryua said diving forward and smacking the quaffle out of someone's arm into Pucey's waiting hands, who promptly shot upwards into the sun, and put an excellent shot past the blinded keeper.

"Do you think we ought to take it easier on them?" he asked as he pulled back into formation, leaning back with his arms behind his head like he was reclining on a lawn chair.

"Nah. Bad enough that they're losing terribly, it'd be worse to play with them and still beat them." Ryua said, leaning forward and resting her chin on the front of her broom. She dropped low this time, letting Ashley and Pucey sandwich the poor chaser, and neatly catching the quaffle. Crabbe let fly with one of the Bludgers and took another chaser, leaving her a clear path to the hoops.

At 150 points, Draco plummeted down, through one of Josh's hoops, and caught the snitch, which had been hovering under the keeper's broomtail. "Aww… almost got there…" Ashley said, then laughed wildly and shot down to congratulate Draco. The rest of the team followed, creating a large, loud mass of giddy players sinking down to earth.

Cassie came thundering down the stairs to throw herself on top, laughing and shrieking as much as any of them. Snape came down and gently dragged her off, holding her still, which was probably a good thing. She appeared to be listing sideways a bit; apparently her coordination was still a bit off.

Pansy, wisely, stayed well clear of them until well into the celebration party, and even then only stayed on the side of Draco farthest from Ryua. "Hah HAH! We've got them, we've got them for sure!" Cassie was saying, slapping at Josh and Pucey who were trying to keep her sitting upright.

"Yeah, Gryffindor'll have to win by, like, three hundred odd points to pass us now. Not bloody likely eh?" Draco said, grabbing a chocolate cookie off of a huge tray. The team had raided the kitchens, forbidden homework inside the common room for the evening, and started in on a good, loud party. That had been three hours ago. They'd taken a quick break for supper, and gone back to the party, after Ryua made a detour to the Three Broomsticks to load up on Butterbeer.

Snape did come and shut them down around midnight, force-feeding Cassie a sleeping draught so she'd actually relax, and threatening the rest with the same. They'd gone to bed, although Ryua suspected Draco's dorm room was still partying on.

It was probably a good thing Snape stopped them when he did, as none of them felt the least bit like getting up again the next morning. They had to, of course, and had to do the homework no one had paid attention to last night. Draco looked hung over, which was quite an accomplishment on Butterbeer alone. "Just how late did you boys stay up?" Ryua asked, eager for the excuse to ignore her Charms essay.

"Ungh."

"Well that's informative. Want me to do your Potions work?"

"Ungh," he said again, pushing his barely-started questions onto the table and curling up on one of the couches. Ryua grinned and pulled his homework on top of her un-cooperative essay. Ashley came over a while later and moved his legs over, slipping Ryua's essay out, and putting her own Transfiguration essay down instead. They did this a fair bit, editing each other's worst subjects, or in the worst cases, doing a fair bit of the work too.

"Ryua, has he been like that all morning?" Ashley asked, gesturing at Draco with her quill.

"Yep. Must've drunk an incredible amount of Butterbeer to be that hung over," she replied, setting down the Draco's finished questions and picking up Ashley's essay.

"Ah." Ashley set down Ryua's essay and walked over to the other coffee table. She poured a glass of water, came back, and started to poke Draco in the shoulder. "Come on, get up."

"Shaddup. You talk to loud…" he mumbled, trying to pull a pillow over his head.

"Up. I want you to drink all this water, and more if you can. It'll kill the headache, I promise." Ashley tossed the pillow behind her and pulled him up. Draco, willing to do just about anything to get rid of the headache, took the glass of water and downed half of it at once. "It'll take a while, but most of a hangover is just thirst. Drink enough water, and it'll go away. Just don't drink so fast you get an ice cream headache instead"

"…Thanks…" he said, sipping the water and staring blankly at the table.

"Eh, he'll revive in a while. Here's your essay, should be passable now."

"Thanks… and here's your Transfiguration, I think you're getting better."

"It'd be hard to get worse."

"Nah," Draco said hoarsely, then cleared his throat. "You could be as bad as Ryua is at Charms."

Ryua flicked a balled-up piece of parchment at him and serenely started writing her edited essay out.

Monday came around, and Ryua had just barely got everything done. They'd been pushing so hard with the quidditch the past four days that none of the team had done much in the way of homework. No Potions or Care of Magical Creatures, which meant she couldn't go bug her Gryffindor friends about Quidditch. And she had double DADA, which meant it was an incredibly awful day.

"I can't believe you did that," Draco said as they all filed out to lunch.

"Of course you can believe it."

"Well yes, but why…"

"Oh, she deserved it." Ryua had slammed her book closed during the section on curses and counter-curses, saying that these piddly little spells didn't deserve to be classed as a curse. Or words to that effect. Umbridge had risen to the challenge immediately, asking what Ryua, a fifteen-year old witch, thought she knew about it. Naturally, Ryua asked if she'd like a demonstration and without waiting for an answer, disintegrated an empty desk. Not vanished, not burned, not teleported or transformed, but a very advanced, painful curse that dissolved whatever the user wanted. Ryua had then swung her wand not quite to Umbridge and asked if she wanted another example.

"Well, I'm not going to argue with you on that point… but you really, really didn't need any more detentions. And since we're done quidditch for the year, she doesn't have to give you a weekday for that either."

"Oh, it's just for three weeks. I'll be fine."

"You're going to end up ruining your hands, you know."

"I'll be fine. And yes, I'll use the healing cream every night this time. Wonder what she'll make me write this time."

"You still have empty skin to write something new?"

"Yep! Left palm," Ryua said brightly, looking at it.

"… There's something wrong with you, you know that?"

Author's Note: I'm sorry, I was asked a couple chapters ago how to pronounce Ryua's name. It's Ree-you-ah. At least, that's how I say it, cause it sounds cool, I think.

I've been so busy, I'm sorry for not updating for so long. And my computer is freaking out on me, it doesn't always like to work…

It's mostly been dying on my drawing program, actually. But I have a few things up, so if you have some free time, please go take a look at www . mediaminer . org, under the FanArt section. My name is still Ryua. Please?