Bam! Another chapter is out! I bet ya'll were settling in for winter to come before this bad boy came out but here he is!
Anyway, I hope you guys like it and please follow/favorite if you do and if you want to give me a nice little boost then please review. Reviews always get me in the writing spirit.
Chapter Fifteen: A Rousing Game of Who's Who
If Clara Deschamp had been happy about the utter decimation that befell the Gryffindor team after their time out, that would have quickly be dispelled at the agonized expression on George's face just as his team had left the field.
"I don't like it," Cedric muttered, looking disheveled and tired but angry all at once. His hair was a sloppy mess, slicked back with mud in some areas and completely dry in others. His quidditch robes were dry thanks to Professor Sprout but dirty and crusted with mud.
"You don't like winning?" Archie asked, his voice beaten by the full day of getting hit with bludgers. The beat down of the Hufflepuff chasers had continued into the second half of the game, picking up speed as the twins had sensed the changing tides of the game.
Clara glanced over the edge of the banister, catching the swirl of dark robes as the students chattered below the stairwell leading to the school infirmary. All of them, likely talking about the events of the quidditch game.
"I don't like winning like this," Cedric hissed, clearly disgusted, his eyes darkening.
"It was rather surprising that they continued the game with Harry falling from his broom like that," Clara murmured, remembering the swell of dementors and then that single piercing scream from Hermione as Harry's crimson robes had broken through the darkening clouds and rain.
"Cedric had already caught the snitch by then," Archie grumbled, wincing as they went up another flight of stairs. Beside him, Molly was shaking her bow out, trying to pat down the rumpled mess of her hair. Somehow she had gotten a variety of twig and leaves stuck into it.
Clara had simply given up trying to tame the unruly mess of her curls. After Professor Sprout had preformed the drying spell on the Hufflepuff lot, Clara's hair had poofed up like an inflating balloon, losing all gravitational reasoning as it fluffed towards the air.
"We're Hufflepuffs, Ced," Keela sighed, taking Archie's arm in her own as she saw him struggle up another step. Beside her, the bruised chaser let out a sigh, leaning into her warmth with a content expression. "They are Gryffindors. If you noticed the difference in our names, it's because we're two separate houses."
Clara gave a bland sigh. "Yes. Personally I would have fed Harry to a swarm of hippogriffs if it had meant the immediate success of our team today."
Keela nodded, completely missing the edge of sarcasm that had bled into Clara's voice. "Thank you, Clara. I'm glad you agree."
Cedric had barely heard the two, his brows tipped together unhappily. When he had touched down with the snitch in his hands, he had been happy. In fact, he had been more than happy. For the rest of his life, he would be able to say that he beat Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived on the quidditch field. He could picture his dad's face when he got the owl with the news, the hoots and boasting at the local pub he went to.
But that had all quickly vanished when he had landed in the midst of what could only be described as pandemonium. Potter had fallen from his broom from above the cloudline - no one could tell how high - and worse yet, the dementors had crept past the school boundaries and into the quidditch field. Already half of the teachers were snarling out spells, their wands pointed stiffly at the willowy forms of the creatures that still lingered at the edge of the field.
Woods was speaking furiously with Madame Hooch, gesturing angrily at the pale, limp form of Harry as one of the teachers performed a few warming spells on him. As he'd approached, that golden sphere still clutched in his fingers, fluttering sporadically, Woods and Hooch had stopped, turning to him.
"You've caught the snitch," Madame Hooch said dumbly.
"He's caught the snitch," Wood roared, clearly both enraged and borderline hysterical at the idea.
Cedric blinked, the quivering shell in his hands seeming cold and foreign. Wrong. His father would still be proud of him, even if he didn't win on fairgrounds. Cedric flinched. What was the use if he couldn't even beat Gryffindor in an even match? Harry was being taken to the infirmary and who really even cared that Cedric had the stupid snitch anyway? That wasn't what mattered.
"I don't want this win," he said, his eyes widening at the words that were coming out of his mouth. Woods had looked scandalized. "We'll redo the match when Harry's better - it's not fair like this."
When Madame Hooch had shaken her head, Cedric knew that he wouldn't be getting his way. There were only so many days in the school year and no one knew how long Harry would be in the infirmary. They weren't going to wait on him.
A cluster of Gryffindor quidditch players bustled past them, one of them giving Cedric a nasty sneer that made it all too clear who he blamed for their recent defeat.
"Hey!" Keela snapped, whirling around so that she could rage at their retreating backs. "Why don't you save that face for yur ma, ya burnt pumpkin pasty!"
"Want me to jinx them?" Clara offered slyly, sending Cedric a sideways glance that made him grimace.
"You look so small and nice but you're actually scary and kind of psychotic," the handsome quidditch keeper informed her, looking vaguely unsettled as she blinked up at him, her eyes wide and honest even in the wake of her offer.
Molly stepped a bit closer. "I know a place to put their shoes where they'll never find them."
Cedric grimaced, stalking toward the heavy doors of the infirmary. "No, Molly."
Molly stayed silent for a moment. "You can also put their ties ther-"
"I SAID NO!"
Frowning, Molly followed glumly after Cedric as he burst through the infirmary entrance, making his way singlemindedly towards a cot at the farthest corner of the room. While most of the beds were vacant, sheets tucked stiffly in with curtain dividers pressed here and there, this one was crowded with bedraggled Gryffindor students, still splattered with the games leftover mud.
Clara's eyes immediately snapped to the two tallest in the group, their hair a golden-red riot. If Clara had been confused about telling George and Fred apart before this moment, the amount of dirty crusting their robes and skin would have made them unrecognizable.
"I think lost shoes are a wonderful solution to bullying," Molly said to Clara quietly, elbowing her conspiratorially. "There's a reason why people have dreams about coming to class without pants."
"Yeah," Archie said blandly, still holding onto Keela. "Because people will be able to see their willy."
Keela nodded, her mismatched eyes sparkling. "It's the scarring humiliation that really gets 'em, Vansteen. After people see your willy there's no going back."
Molly took that in with a sort of silent contemplation before finally nodding. "Then I'll steal their shirts. That way they aren't completely embarrassed but there's still enough humiliation to make them really think about their actions."
Clara stared at the witch, not fully understanding her train of thought. Personally, she still thought that jinxing was the best course of action.
"Is anyone really confident about their stomachs?" she concluded, looking around as if to ask for open support to her cause.
"Sssshhhh!" Cedric hissed, shushing them with a venomous glance as we got closer to the cluster of Gryffindor students.
"Well, well, well," a low feminine voice broke in, the catlike gaze of Angelina Johnson, the Gryffindor chaser catching sight of them before anyone else. "If it isn't our favorite Hufflepuffs."
George's eyes immediately zeroed in on the bedraggled French witch, his expression one of immense agony and despair. Clara couldn't completely understand why except perhaps that he cared about quidditch a great deal more than she had originally thought.
"We're your favorite?" Cedric asked, his eyes lighting up hopefully. At the blank expression of all those assembled, he wilted, coughing nervously. "Right then. Well, I just came over here to see how Harry's fairing and...um and to say that I didn't like how that game ended. It wasn't fair-"
"Even though we definitely won," Keela cut in, looking vaguely defiant as she eyed the looming forms of the Gryffindors.
"By over 150 points," Archie piped up, earning a few pointed glares from the assembled quidditch players.
"If I had known," Cedric continued loudly. "That Harry - you - had fallen off your broom, then I wouldn't-"
"Have caught the snitch?" the dark-haired boy, currently propped up by a cluster of pillows asked blandly.
There was a long moment of silence in which the Hufflepuff students shuffled around nervously - or more accurately, Cedric shuffled and the others stared on in scornful, defiant silence - and the Gryffindors watched.
"Fred and George told me that you wanted to do a rematch," Harry finally said breaking the silence. "Either way, you were already up by a great deal so I think you won fair and square."
Clara noticed the tightness in his mouth though, taking in the stiffening of his shoulders and the general pain in seemed to take him to say those words. She had heard that he had always caught the snitch before today. To go from being undefeated to such a colossal loss must have been hard on him.
"The dementors affected you," Clara piped up, catching the widening of his eyes and the way that Hermione and Ron seemed to flinch at the statement. He had obviously talked to them a bit about what he had experienced. Someone with Harry's background… Well, it wasn't surprising that he had attracted their attention. Brushing back a chunk of hair that had fallen directly into her eyes (it immediately frizzed straight up, clinging on to her hand for a moment before drifting into the air with static) and pulled a soggy, slightly drenched bar of chocolate from her robes. "Here. Chocolate should help with the draining."
"Draining?" Harry questioned. Clara's eyes caught movement just to his elbow - Fred and George whispering furiously at each other, poking and elbowing as they had a near-silent argument.
"That's what dementors do," Clara said, shrugging. "They've been guarding the school grounds for how long now? They must be starving for a good meal and you happened to be flying around like a steak dinner. They couldn't help but take a bite."
"You said that they were despicable, miserable creatures," Fred cut in, his brows going up.
Clara nodded. "They are. But they're also living creatures. They have needs and urges just like any other. If you know those then you'll be able to understand and avoid them." Her eyes found Harry's, her head tipping to the side. "They were just hungry, Harry."
"Well, that's bloody brilliant. I'll make sure to bring someone miserable with me from now on since I know that they're just hungry," Ron snapped, his mouth twisting sarcastically. George's lips twitched down, his hand flying out slap his brother in the back of the head. "WHAT WAS THAT FOR?"
"That was for being a git," he bit out, his eyes a dangerous amber.
Keela and Molly were smiling goofily, the red-heads cheek pressed to Archie's shoulder as she watched the exchange. Beside her, Archie looked thoroughly unenthused but Clara just assumed that was his natural expression whenever he was in the presence of the twins.
"We'll be going, Harry," Cedric broke in, looking a little dejected from the visit. Clara assumed that it came from his general feelings toward the game. While he wasn't the type to dwell on unnecessary things for too long, he was in the habit of replaying events until he had beat himself up about it an appropriate amount. Clara estimated that his sulking would last for a night. "Hopefully, we can redo this next year under better circumstances."
Clara waved to the Gryffindor team, giving Angelina a smile as the girl flashed her a crooked smile and turned to leave.
"Clara," a voice called out and she turned to find Fred jogging after her, his lips pulled into a half-smile. "I just wanted to apologize for what Ron said. He can be a right git when he wants to be."
Clara's brows furrowed. It was nice that Fred was talking to her but a bit unexpected. Behind her, Keela and Molly had paused at the door, waiting expectantly. Clara couldn't remember the last time that Fred had searched her out without his brother. In fact, she couldn't rightly recall any one-on-one conversation with him. She grimaced. Did that say something about her one-sided affection for George or what?
"It's alright," Clara said cautiously. Her eyes flicked uncertainly to just around Fred's side, catching George's rigid form, his eyes narrowed on where they stood. He looked like he was tied to the ground, watching something unfold that he wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to. "It's not like those dementors came and asked Harry for tea. I probably phrased what I was trying to say wrong."
Fred's eyes crinkled, a low laugh escaping him. He was just as tall as his brother, Clara realized as she craned her neck to meet his eyes. Still… there was something different in the way that he carried himself - maybe a bit more arrogance? Well, both of them were arrogant.
"I actually came over to talk to you about our bet," he said with a playful grin. Clara's eyes widened, her mind spinning. Did she have a bet with Fred? No. She had barely even spoken to him. The only bet that she had was with George. Could she have mistaken George for Fred?
Clara sniffed, leaning a bit closer to the twin, watching as his eyes widened a little. No. Even under the layer of mud and sweat, Clara caught the foreign whiff of sugar and something spicey. That wasn't how George smelled. And more than that, it just didn't feel like him. There was something stiff and unfamiliar about their conversation - nothing like talking to George. She couldn't entirely explain it.
"What bet do you mean?" she asked suspiciously. Her eyes narrowed on his face as he gave a charming smile.
"You know - the one we made before I went back out on the field," he said with an amiable grin.
Her eyes narrowed further. "Fred, I know your not George."
The amber-eyed wizard blinked, taken aback. "Yeah. I am. You don't even know who I am?"
"Fred," Clara warned, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Some friend you are," he huffed, mustering up an enormous amount of bravado as he continued. "Lucky for you I'm willing to let this slide-"
"George!" Clara called, leaning around the side of Fred so that she could catch sight of George. A smile broke across the beater's face, the tension that had been stiffening his muscles melting away.
"See?" Fred continued on, stubbornly. "There you go. Can't believe it took you that long to figure it out-"
"Ah, you might as well stop, Fred," George cut in, throwing an arm around his twin's shoulder. A giant grin split George's face, his eyes gleaming with joy.
Clara had no clue what was going on.
"What's this all about?" Clara huffed, eyeing the two suspiciously.
"Ah nothin', Clara love," George bubbled, smirking.
"Just a fun little game-" Fred said airily.
"Experiment," George cut him off.
"That we like to play-" Fred finished with a grin.
"Uuuuuhhh hhhhhhhuuuuuuuhhhh," the small, French witch said slowly, clearly unconvinced. "Well, even though it's been a pure delight being a part of your...experiment... I have to go." Clara gave the two a curt nod, turning for the door. "I'll see you in Defense."
"Clara love - Clara darling, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait," a firm voice called, reaching her just as she neared the double doors to the infirmary. This time it was George who had followed her, a goofy smile splitting his face. His eyes twinkled as he crowded her against the door, leaning forward until they were mere centimeters from each other. "I'll be going to the kitchen tomorrow night. We'll meet in front of the fruit basket painting at midnight."
Clara blinked, taken aback as he slowly backed away, heading back to Harry's cot. "George, you don't have to-"
"A bets a bet," he called. "Meet you at midnight."
For a moment, Clara stared after him, her mouth moving without a word escaping. Finally deciding that going after him and telling him that the bet was off would be a waste of time, she slipped from the infirmary, make her way to an alcove where her classmates were waiting.
Cedric and Archie were all but asleep, tucked into the corner with glazed expressions on their faces. The aftermath of the match had obviously worn them out. Keela's head tipped back as she turned to the smaller witch. "What was that about?"
Clara's mind reeled, searching for words. "I...have no clue."
A harsh caw broke through the hallway followed by something of impressive weight thumping down onto Clara's skull (the witch giving a responding yelp) and then rolling to the ground.
"That bloody owl," Clara hissed, stooping to retrieve the package as her other hand rubbed at her head. "Why does he always have to drop it on my head?"
A silvery box rested in her grip, the material slightly damp from the flight here. It was a long, slim rectangular package with a glittering, purple ribbon laced around it.
"Oh my Merlin," Molly breathed, her eyes giddy.
Keela blinked owlishly down at it. "Is that-?"
Glee and trepidation burst through Clara at once, her fingers moving nervously along the edge of the box. She gulped. "My wand."
Anyway, I hope you guys like it and please follow/favorite if you do and if you want to give me a nice little boost then please review. Reviews always get me in the writing spirit.