Chapter 19 - Quidditch at Dawn
About a week later, I woke up to the scary face of my cousin, Katie, shaking me awake.
"What?" I whined opening one eye to look at her.
"Oliver wants to see you, downstairs." Katie whispered so she didn't wake up the others.
"Five more minutes." I muttered then rolled over.
"Now, Ash." Katie ordered.
"What time is it?" I dared to ask.
"About dawn." She replied nonchalantly.
"Dawn?" I shrieked before Katie shushed me. "This had better be good." I grumbled as I climbed out of bed.
"Come on, Ash. Hurry up." Katie whispered trying to pull me faster.
"Just because you want to sleep with the captain." I muttered. I don't think Katie heard. Either that or she didn't deny it. I climbed downstairs to see Wood, only then did I notice he was in his Quidditch uniform. "What do you want, Wood?"
"You're not even dressed!" Wood said.
"No, I'm not. Do you know what time it is?" I asked.
"Yes, it's dawn. Now, go get dressed. We're having Quidditch practice, I want to see this new broom of yours before it gets taken off you for summer." He actually grinned at me.
"Right now?" I asked.
"Yes!" He replied exasperatedly. "Get dressed and get your broom, you have fifteen minutes."
"But I want to sleep." I whined.
"God, you're worse than the twins." Wood muttered. "It's part of the new training program. None of the other teams have started training yet, we're going to be first off the mark this year."
"You are currently my third least favourite person right now, Wood. Voldemort is second and my godfather is first. You actually beat Snape and my father. You're so damn well lucky I love Quidditch and we do anything to win." I growled then headed back up the stairs.
"That's-a-girl! Don't forget, fifteen minutes." Wood said cheerfully as I listed off swear words to him. I quickly got dressed and grabbed my new broom before Hermione woke up.
"Where are you going?" She asked groggily.
"Quidditch practice. We have to practice at fucking dawn! Without breakfast!" I growled.
"I'll get dressed and come and join you. See you there." Hermione sighed as I left the room and made my way to the pitch. After I got out of the castle I decided to fly on my new broom, I hadn't been on it much. I flew into the changing room to see only Katie and Wood really awake, I was too because of the flying I had just done. Fred and George had pink puffy eyes from lack of sleep while Angelina looked to be dropping off. There was no sign of Harry. Wood gave a slow whistle at my new broom.
"That is one good broom." Wood sighed dreamily. I rolled my eyes at him. A few minutes later, Harry appeared. He looked half asleep. "There you are, Harry, what kept you?" He asked without wanting an answer. Oliver Wood then droned on for nearly a bloody hour about tactics for the New Year. When he finished he asked if anyone had any questions.
"I've got a question, Oliver. Why couldn't you have told us all this yesterday when we were awake?" George asked.
"Hear, hear." I mumbled almost asleep laying on Harry. I opened my eyes to see Oliver beyond pissed off.
"Now, listen here, you lot." Wood ordered angrily. "We should have won the cup last year, we're easily the best team at Hogwarts, but due to consequences beyond anyone's control, we didn't." Ah, yes. The final Gryffindor game last year was probably the worst game for Wood, ever. While me and Harry were unconscious in hospital they had their final game without a seeker and one of the chaser's.
"I make no promises to not be unconscious at the end of the year, I am generally a danger to myself but I'm sorry if I am." I mumbled loud enough for everyone to hear.
"I'd rather you wasn't." Wood replied briskly. "This year we will train harder than ever. Okay? Good. Now, let's go test the new theories." We then grabbed our brooms and went out into the freezing cold air. There was only three people in the stands, Hermione, Ron and Colin Creevey with his bloody camera. He's a new Gryffindor that had been following Harry around like a lost puppy. All anyone could hear was his camera echoing through the stands.
"He could be a Slytherin spy trying to find out about our new training programme." Oliver said angrily flying towards me, Harry, Fred and George.
"He's in Gryffindor." Harry told Wood.
"And the Slytherin's don't need a spy. They're here in person." George said pointing at the Slytherin's making their way onto the pitch.
"I don't believe it!" Wood hissed. "I booked the pitch for today! We'll see about this!" Oliver went flying towards the Slytherin's followed by me, Harry and the twins. Ron and Hermione also made their way from the stands to the pitch. "Flint!" Wood bellowed. "This is our practice time! We got up specially so piss off!"
"Plenty of room for all of us." Flint replied cockily. Katie and Angelina had also made their way down and we were squaring off to them.
"I booked it!" Wood growled.
"And we have a specially signed note. I, Professor S. Snape, give the Slytherin team permission to practice today on the Quidditch pitch, owing the need to train their new Seeker." Flint read. I personally didn't know he could read.
"You've got a new seeker? Where?" Wood asked angrily. That's when Draco Malfoy strutted forward.
"Aren't you Lucius Malfoy's son?" Fred asked.
"Funny you should mention Draco's father. Let me show you his generous gift to the Slytherin to the team." That's when all seven of them pulled out their new Nimbus 2001's. That's when I pushed forward.
"Well isn't it good that I've got mine." I growled showing my broom. "We'll still wipe the floor with your pathetic excuse for a team." The Slytherin's glowered at me. "Now get the fuck off our pitch!"
"No can do." Flint replied smugly. I was about to lunge at him when Wood grabbed me. "You've got quite a little spitfire there, Wood."
"A lot better than any of your Chaser's, Flint." Wood growled back as Hermione and Ron made their way to us.
"What the hell is Malfoy doing here?" Ron asked immediately.
"I'm the new Seeker, Weasley." Malfoy said smugly. "We were just admiring our new brooms." Ron's face fell as he saw the Nimbus's.
"At least no one had to buy their way onto the Gryffindor team. They got in on pure talent." Hermione said sharply. Malfoy's smug grin fell immediately.
"No one asked your opinion, you filthy little mudblood." Malfoy growled. As soon as that word had come out of his disgusting little mouth, my broom was on the floor and I lunged at him. He was straight on the floor and he was punching his stupid little face rapidly. I could hear the whole team in uproar at what was said. I got distracted and Malfoy got a punch in while Flint roughly dragged me off Malfoy and threw me back to my team mates, I landed on the floor. Harry pulled me up and I could see the fury in his eyes. Harry, Oliver, Fred and George immediately went for Flint while Katie and Angelina held me back. Both teams were fighting now, this was when Malfoy crawled out of the crowd and straight to near Ron and Hermione. I finally got a good look at my damage. His nose looked broken and he had a cut lip, there was quite a lot of blood. He also looked like he would have a black eye in the morning. "Is that all you got?" He sneered. I shrieked in anger and tried to get away from Katie and Angelina to fucking kill him.
"Eat slugs, Malfoy!" Ron yelled with his wand pointed at Malfoy. There was a loud bang and a green light came out of the wrong side of Ron's wand hitting him in the chest.
"Ron! Are you alright?" Hermione squeaked. When Ron opened his mouth to reply slug's came out. It was pretty disgusting. The girl's immediately let me go and I rushed over to Ron as had a dishevelled Harry plus the twins and Oliver.
"You alright?" Wood murmured to me. I looked up at him and grinned.
"Fine. Have you seen Malfoy?" I asked. Wood looked up and laughed.
"Definitely a spitfire." Wood grinned.
"Let's get him to Hagrid's." Harry said while Ron threw up another slug. That's when I heard Malfoy laughing. I stood up and strode straight to him.
"This is not over, Malfoy. I'll embarrass you like I did your pathetic death eater father in Diagon Alley. Mark my words." I growled. Malfoy looked like he was going to piss himself. I then kneed him in the balls which made him double over in pain. "Furnunculus!" I hissed pointing my wand at Malfoy. Ugly boils then started spreading over his face. Malfoy looked up as Colin caught a picture of him. "Make sure you keep that one, Colin." I orded while I walked off to catch up with Harry, Ron and Hermione. I finally caught up with them as they were knocking on Hagrid's door. He ushered us in and gave Ron a bucket while making the rest of us some tea.
"Better out than in, Ron. The on'y thing to do is get 'em all up." Hagrid said cheerfully. "Who were you tryin' to curse?"
"Malfoy." I growled while looking in Hagrid's mirror at the bruise that was slowly starting to form on my cheek.
"He called Hermione something. It must've been really bad because everyone went mad. Ash went straight to smash his face in, succeeded too." Harry replied.
"Is tha' were you got tha' bruise, Ash?" Hagrid asked. I nodded while Harry rushed over to look.
"It's fine." I whined at Harry.
"It was bad." Ron choked out.
"He called her a Mudblood." I growled.
"He didn'!" Hagrid growled at Hermione.
"He did." Hermione replied. "But I don't know what it means. I could tell it was really rude."
"It's about the most insulting thing he could have thought of." Ron gasped before putting his head back in the bucket.
"Mudblood's a really foul name for a muggleborn. It means dirty blood or common blood. Pure bloods like the Malfoy's think they're so much better because of their disgusting inbred ways." I ground out. It sickened me to be related to the Malfoy's.
"The rest of us couldn't give a shit." Ron finished for me. I went to sit next to him and patted his back as he threw up. He burped and one final slug came out, he pushed away the bucket and looked at me. "Does that hurt?" He asked.
"A bit." I admitted "But look at it this way. Malfoy has a broken nose, a busted lip, two black eye's, got kneed in the balls, is now covered in boils and got his arse handed to him by a girl." I finished grinning causing everyone to laugh.
"Besides, they haven't a spell our Hermione can't do." Hagrid beamed proudly while Hermione blushed. "I don' blame either of yeh for what yeh did. But old Lucius migh' have a thing or two to say 'bout it to you, Ash."
"Bring Lucius on. I've faced him before, I'll do it again." I grinned as Ron sipped a glass of water. We sat in Hagrid's hut for ages until dinner, drinking tea and eating treacle toffees while laughing about Malfoy and poking fun at Harry.