Chapter 24: Cressida's Peaceful Practice
The wind is fierce against her skin, the splatter of green growing larger and larger every second. But there's a speck of gold within the sea of green, with iridescent wings fluttering so fast that no eye could see them properly. The speck of gold is targeted between her forefinger and thumb which are outstretched past the end of her broom. Her legs couldn't be tighter around her broom which needs a good polish and repair against the growing cracks in the handle.
All Cressida can imagine is herself smashing straight into the ground, both her broom and her neck snapping. At the last second, she pulls sharply upwards, curving around to the side to ease the manoeuvre. As she slows, the snitch flutters off on its own accord, out of sight and out of mind.
"Damn it," she hisses under her breath, readjusting her arm braces which have shifted through the repetitive practice.
Another broom and its occupant fly close, but not so close that they can speak at a normal volume. "You pulled up too early!" James berates. "You keep doing that and you'll never outlast the other Seeker!"
The Handle Dive. A move that James is insistent that any decent Seeker should have a good grasp on. And by her definition, she does have a good grasp, but it seems like James won't be satisfied until her handle snaps on the pitch – which commonly occurred if performed wrong, hence the name. "I feel like I'm going to smack into the ground!" she cries back, hoping he'd take note of the anxiousness in her tone and give her a bit of lenience from his normal training hardness.
James' swiftly flies closer, his face set firm. "And I keep telling you that you won't." Cressida stares right back at him, wondering if he truly had no sympathy when it comes to the sport. "Start acting like a Gryffindor and stop pulling early." He looks somewhere else at the sound of a grunt. "Heffler! I told you to dive under!" His voice fades as he flies away, leaving Cressida to glare at his back. "Merlin's sake, you lot! Practice is over for today!"
Nobody contests, despite having over half an hour left from when they usually finish on Wednesday evenings. Their Captain has been irritable all day, even before Quidditch. The only person who had any patience to deal with him is Sirius. And Sirius is the only person James is putting up with.
The team enters their tent, grumbling and with their eyes low as James paces in front of all the short benches. "I know we can do better than today. I've seen it in every single one of you. Maybe I'm overworking you all a bit." Cressida narrows her eyes at his sudden calmness. "Training resumes first week that the Christmas break ends." He stops pacing, placing his hands on his hips and his eyes glaze over all of them. He nods to himself. "Merry Christmas everyone."
There is an awkward chorus of 'merry Christmas' back and the team file out, stripping from their extra gear as they go, eager to head to their showers. Cressida doesn't move from her spot, still fumbling around with her arm brace that never feels quite perfect. It's not the same as the one she had as a Keeper.
It's not until she believes to be alone in the tent does she look up and move to grab her broom. But her Captain is still here. His shoulders are hunched slightly – his sign of tire – and his eyes soft once more. Cressida only glances at him then strides to the other side of the tent where her broom is placed near her training bag. "Is everything alright?" he asks her.
She's glad she's facing the other way, for her jaw falls open at the audacity of his question. "Fine," she manages with a lack of emotion that is flooding her heart. James appears next to her, picking up his own belongings. Before he finishes, she's striding out of the tent and back towards the pitch, leaving her bag but with the broom in hand.
The tent flaps fling open moments after they close behind her. "You forgot your bag!"
"I didn't."
"Why are you going back to the pitch?"
Finally looking back over her shoulder, she answers in a sardonic tone. "Because I'm not finished practice for today." She doesn't wait for his reply before looking forward again.
His footfalls increase as he jogs to catch up with her. "Do you want me to stay with you? I can help-"
Cressida's heels dig into the dirt, finally coming to a sharp stop and turning around to face him. "Merlin's beard, James! I'm practising now so I don't have you constantly nagging at me for every damn little thing. I need some time where you're not up my arse so I can actually go back to enjoying Quidditch. And maybe you wouldn't be up my arse so much if I was actually in a position that I know how to play properly."
He stares at her, loose faced and quiet. "Is that all?" She exhales quickly, shrugging her arms in an exhausted manner. His eyes pin on the ground between them. "Right." He turns around, marching back towards the tent, leaving Cressida in the peace she so desired before.
Subduing any inkling of guilt, Cressida turns back around and heads towards the pitch again, mounting as she passes through the threshold of the stands.
An empty pitch is one of her favourite things. The blissfulness of being able to fly around, pretend the stands are full and run strategies through her head without the distraction of other people is immeasurable.
Cressida goes back to the dive. Over, and over, and over again. Each time, it seems like she is going to hit the ground, she manages to pull away in time. The image doesn't leave – the one of hitting the ground at terrifying speed. But James is right in the annoying way that he usually is. The Seekers she's going against are good and already well-trained. Regulus is the only new Seeker besides her but she doubts that after a few training sessions with the ruthless styled Slytherins that he's going to be an easy opponent.
After half an hour of consistently doing the same move over and over again, Cressida finally feels enough exhaustion to stop. She's not doing this to satisfy James. Or make him proud. To be frank, she's quite over that notion. She's doing this because she needs to be good. For her own sake.
Done with flying, but not done being alone, Cressida takes herself over to the tallest of the three hoops on the eastern side of the pitch. She circles around it a few times in Keeper fashion before settling in the middle of the ring and carefully sliding off her broom. The hoop is large enough for her to stand in, firmly gripping the metal above her head, her broom in the other hand. The height doesn't bother her so much as it used to.
In first year, her eyes almost bulged out of her head when she learned that they'd be flying on actual broomsticks. On her very first day with Madam Hooch, James and Sirius had been either side of her, already perfecting the class. Cressida had been terrible, but she loved it. By the end of the lesson, she had so many scrapes that Hooch had her sent to the Hospital Wing. She grinned the entire way there.
"I hate to break it to you, but I think your team left you behind."
Cressida's muscles snap into action; her neck twisting around with a short shriek travelling through it. She captures a glimpse of the person who had snuck up behind her, but the sudden movement displaces the position of her foot on the hoop.
The world underneath her becomes a whole lot further away as the bar slips from her fingers. In less than a moment, the new visitor on the pitch is flying by her side. His hand latches over her wrist, which she grasps right back, her other hands still clinging to her broomstick.
"Steady on," he laughs. The afternoon sunlight paints half of his face a crisp golden colour. It lights his hair in a certain way that some strands are flat and brown, but others are highlighting the soft curls with a warm blonde. The line of his jaw is contoured by the shadows perfectly to expose the sharp edge.
Cressida recognises him instantly.
Tearing her gaze back down, her legs swing about gently with the pitch many feet below. Moving back into action, she brings the broom back between her legs and lets go of Arthur McMullen's hand once she feels the shift of the broom begin to carry her weight.
"Do you think that was a bright idea?" she chides, though in a lighter tone than she had been intending. "Scaring a woman this high up when she wasn't on her broom?"
He chuckles, bracing his arms against his broom in a relaxed manner. "I don't think standing on the hoops was the brightest idea, but I admire the brooding stance you were going for."
Cressida narrows her eyes, feeling a small part of her become giddy at the witty banter. "Why are you up here so early? Ravenclaw doesn't have the pitch book out for another half hour or so yet."
McMullen breathes out slowly with a devilish smirk. It isn't quite the same as Sirius', nor James. Maybe the closest comparison is Remus. "Thought I could use some time to warm up. Why are you up here so late? Gryffindor practised has finished."
Her lips draw up in a similar fashion. "Thought I could use some cooldown time."
Arthur chuckles, making an expression of surrender to her excuse. "I saw you at try-outs, you know. You were watching us very intently."
Her smirk falters slightly as a tint of pink dusts over her cheeks. She hadn't realised he even saw anyone in the stands that day, especially her amongst her friends. There were quite a few of them. "I was checking out the competition," comes out smoothly. "You made quite the Keeper."
"Glad to know I impressed the great Cressida Hawthorne," he sings out, letting his feet drop from the footholds and dusting his hands along his black Quidditch pants. "I think I was one of the most shocked to discover that you weren't put as Keeper this year."
Cressida huffs, glaring off to the side. "You and me both." A singular brow raises in silent questioning. "Apparently I was the only person James wanted to play as Seeker. Bastard didn't even ask me, just waited until he released the teams."
"Isn't he, like, one of your closest friends?"
She takes a second to answer, letting out a long sigh through her nose whilst her lips press tightly together. "Yeah," she nods. "Which is the only reason I'm doing it."
Arthur makes an expression of understanding, nodding. "Ah, so that explains the reminiscent stance in the hoops. Gotcha." He winks with the same confidence and arrogance of James Potter himself. Cressida shakes her head with a short laugh.
"Just in thought."
"What were you thinking about?"
"Christmas break."
He purses his lips. "Interesting. Are you staying or going home?"
"Staying," she confirms. "Peter is hanging around and I don't want him to be by himself."
"Interesting," he says again. Cressida licks her lips, waiting for him to continue as he has that look on his face that says he has something on his mind. "Do you think Peter would mind being alone for just one day?"
A response catches in her throat. He's asking her out. No. She was going to say no. What's the point of going out with someone when your heart is in another place? But maybe the entire reason her heart is stuck is that she isn't allowing herself the opportunity to move on?
"It depends on how good my excuse is going to be," she answers.
Arthur grins, looking off to the side then back to her. "Tell him I'll shout him whatever he wants from Honeydukes."
"He is very persuaded by food," she pretends to deliberate. "But trips to Hogsmeade don't run through the Christmas breaks."
"No," he agrees. "But I think you have one or two ways to get there undetected, don't you? Nobodies seen you lot do it, but we all know that somehow the five of you manage to sneak out of Hogwarts constantly."
"And you think I'm going to show you one of these ways?"
He shrugs. "The other option I had in mind was the owlery-"
Cressida cuts him off with a laugh. "Hogsmeade sounds nice." Movement at the corner of her eye drags them downwards, noting a small group of students headed towards the Ravenclaw tent. "Come find me later. I think you have training to attend."
Ending their exchange there, Cressida soars back down to the pitch grounds, gliding off her broom in one swift movement. Just before she enters the stand, she glances back. He's still flying where she left him, but his arm lifts in a small wave. She waves back.