What I Did For Love
Chapter One: The Quidditch and The Friend
"What?" Lindsey's high-pitched squeal reached up to the girl's dormitory, where three girls were gathered on a bed. Knowing better than to interfere, they each stayed where they were, exchanging worried glances.
Downstairs, in the common room, Noelle shrugged carelessly, looking her soon to be ex-best friend in the eye.
"I'm quitting the team," she repeated, more slowly this time. Her left, finely tweezed eyebrow winged up. "Problem?"
Problem. Lindsey mouthed the word, staring in disbelief at the girl who stood in front of her. Her hair had been carefully styled into a sophisticated bun, her face plastered in make-up that, in Lindsey's personal opinion, made her look like a drag queen.
She was wearing a dress. Rose red, it barely reached halfway down her thigh and clung to every little curve.
Of course there's a problem, Lindsey thought, clenching her jaw. My best friend looks like Bianca 'My Middle Name Is Annoying' Reynolds.
Who wouldn't have a problem with that?
But worse- so much worse- was the fact that she was actually acting like the self-appointed 'Queen of Hogwarts'.
"Noelle, you can't just quit." Feeling horrifically vulnerable, Lindsey shoved her hands in her pockets and stared down at the floor. "We need you," she whispered in a voice only audible to Noelle. The people who watched them edged nearer to listen.
"To what? Win you some stupid trophy?" Noelle scoffed, rolled her eyes. Actions that didn't betray the fact that tears were threatening her eyes, that her heart was actually shattering inside her chest. "Find someone else. I'm through with Quidditch."
That said, she whirled around and walked, on legs that weren't quite steady, over to the porthole. When she was gone, Lindsey turned and ran up the stairs to her dormitory, knowing that she'd just lost her best friend.
Noelle leant against the cold stone wall, slowly lowering herself until she was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest. As the tears swarmed down her cheeks, she hugged her legs, trying desperately not to blubber.
She and Lindsey had been best friends ever since she could remember. They'd done everything- literally everything- together. Including Quidditch.
Merlin, what was James going to say?
Noelle's jaw dropped when she remembered the other girls in her house and year. Lily, Nicole, Megan. Surely they would take sides with Lindsey; ever since September Noelle had been spending less and less time with her, and the other three sixth year Gryffindors were the girls she had tagged along with. In just one month, they had become quite close friends.
They were going to hate her.
Like Lindsey hated her.
Mother of Merlin, what had she done?
All because of Him.
Kevin Bradshaw sat in his favourite armchair, watching with interest as Bianca Reynolds flirted shamelessly with his best friend.
The girl surely was the embodiment of perfection. Flawless skin, film star bone structure, killer ice blue eyes and all that wild jet-black hair. She was just begging to be stared at and admired- or envied- wherever she went.
But it wasn't just the looks that had Kevin hooked on her. It was the way she moved, so beautifully, the sound of her voice, low, throaty, and enchanting. It was that spark she got in her eyes when she smiled, the way she bit her lip when she was worried.
Little, unimportant things that stayed with him when he was in bed, dreaming of her.
But, because life was like that sometimes, he couldn't have her. Instead, he had to settle for the Quidditch playing Gryffindor with the loudmouthed best friend. Hopefully, Noelle- he thought that was her name- had gotten rid of those two particularly bad problems; the Quidditch and the Friend.
Hell if a girlfriend of his was going to play Quidditch, and hell if he was going to be embarrassed in front of his peers by her tomboy friend.
Over the past four weeks or so, he'd managed to ease her out of the same tomboy tendencies, getting his sister to teach her basic grooming techniques he'd have thought most girls already knew.
Obviously not.
According to his sister, it had taken the girl a whole evening to grasp the concept of eyeliner. Kevin had laughed when Georgina told him; it was a little black pencil, how complicated could it be?
He could have always picked a different girl of course. The Bradshaw charm, the Bradshaw smile and the Bradshaw wealth had girls from every year trying desperately to catch his eyes. He could have had easily chosen any one of them.
But Noelle- Belle?- bore quite a large amount of similarities to Bianca. Appearance wise, anyway. The personality section was lacking, but, to be fair, it was steadily improving.
All in all, he was satisfied with how her metamorphosis going. If things kept going his way, he might even consider taking her home to meet his parents at Christmas.
It was just one more thing to think about…
End of Chapter One