*Does jazz hands in the general direction of new chapter* It's here guys! Yay! So, these are going to probably be getting shorter unless I get an overwhelmingly large amount of "No! I love your little opening author's notes!" In the comment section. That is all for now! Enjoy your chapter and your cake!
Harry clenched and unclenched his hand and groaned. He could still feel the scars that had been carved in during detention. I must not tell lies. He covered it up with his Quidditch glove and grabbed his broomstick from where it was propped up next to him.
He walked onto the field where the rest of the team, along with a group of new students, stood. The students each had a school broom with them and were looking particularly nervous. Ron stood among them.
"Okay, everyone," Angelina called out, gathering their attention, "Let's get to it; Alicia and Fred, if you can just bring the ball crate out for us. Oh, and just ignore the spectators in the stands, all right?"
Harry now noticed that sitting to his right was the entire Slytherin Quidditch team, now jeering and catcalling. Luckily, looking his other way he spotted Hermione, seated with the Doctor, Rory, Amy, and River. They all shot him thumbs-ups and smiles. When Harry looked back down at the new students, he noticed nearly all of them were gone, all of them had been scared away by the obnoxious Slytherins except for Ron.
"Okay then," Angelina said, a bit out of sorts with the sudden lack of volunteers, "Looks like Weasley is our new Keeper…. Good job, Ron, for, er, not running away. Let's get in the air!"
Everyone mounted their broomstick and kicked off.
"What's that Weasley's riding?" Malfoy called in his sneering drawl. "Why would anyone put a Flying Charm on a moldy old log like that?"
Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy Parkinson guffawed and shrieked with laughter. Ron's ears turned red.
"Ignore them," Harry said, pulling up next to his friend, "We'll see who's laughing after we play them…."
"Exactly the attitude I want, Harry," said Angelina approving, soaring around them with the Quaffle tucked under her arm. She slowed down and hovered in front of her team.
"Okay, everyone, we're going to start with some passes to warm up, the whole team please-"
"Hey, Johnson, what's with that hairstyle anyway?" Shrieked Pansy Parkinson. "Why would anyone want to look like they have worms coming out of their head?"
Angelina swept her long braided hair out of her face and ignored the insult.
"Spread out. Let's see what we can do."
Harry backed away from the others to the far side of the pitch. Ron reversed toward the opposite goal. Angelina threw the quaffle hard to fred, who passed it to George, who passed it to Harry, who passed it to Ron, who promptly dropped it.
The Slytherins screamed with laughter. Ron, who had pelted to the ground to catch the Quaffle before it landed, pulled out of the dive untidily, and managed to slip sideways on his broom. He returned to playing height, blushing.
Fred and George exchanged looks, but didn't say anything.
"Pass it on, Ron," Angelina called, as though nothing had happened.
Ron threw the Quaffle to Alicia, who passed back to Harry, who passed to George.
"Hey, Potter, how's your scar feeling?" Called Malfoy. "Sure you don't need to lie down? It must be, what, a whole week since you were in the hospital wing, that's a record for you, isn't it?"
In the stands, River looked ready to murder Malfoy, and Harry didn't doubt her capability to. He had seen her supposedly hidden muggle-gun.
Fred passed to Angelina; she reverse passed to Harry, who had not been expecting it, but caught it in the very tips of his fingers after it nearly fell a couple of times. He lofted it to Ron, who lunged and missed it by mere centimeters.
"Come on, Ron," said Angelina crossley, "Pay attention."
It was hard to say whether Ron's face or the Quaffle was a deeper scarlet when he returned again to playing height. Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherin team were howling like coyotes.
On his third attempt, Ron caught the Quaffle; perhaps out of relief he passed it on so enthusiastically that it soared right between Katie's hands and hit her right between the eyes.
"Sorry," Ron groaned, zooming over to see what the damage was.
"Back in position, she's fine," barked Angelina, "Just remember that when you're passing to a teammate, try not to knock her off her broom, won't you? We've got blunders for that,"
Katie's nose was bleeding. The Slytherins were stomping their feet and making as much noise as they could. Fred and George converged around Katie. Fred took something small and purple out of his pocket.
"Here," he said, "eat this, it should clear it up in no time."
Hermione shook her head from the stands.
"Fred, George, get your bats and a bludger; Ron, to your goalposts, and Harry, release the Snitch when I say so. We're all going to be aiming for Ron's goal."
"Ron's sure making a mess out of things, isn't he?" Fred said to Harry once they landed on the ground.
"He's just nervous," Harry said, a bit uncertainly himself, "just wait. I was practicing with him this morning."
"I just hope he hasn't reached his peak too soon," George said.
When they returned to the air, Angelina blew her whistle and the scrimmage match started. From there, it only went downhill. There was much shouting, many apologies, and apparently Ron wasn't covering the middle post. Katie's nosebleed had gotten worse. Fred and George were conversing nervously to the side with horror filled faces as they inspected the purple pill they had given Katie earlier.
The Slytherins had started up a chant of, "Gryffindors are losers, Gryffindors are losers," Angelina was trying to ignore them, but she was very rigid and stiff upon her broom.
Another three minutes of game play continued before Angelina blew her whistle and called for everyone to stop.
"What happened?" Harry asked Angelina, her being the closest teammate.
"Katie," the Captain replied shortly. Harry looked for his teammate, and when he spotted her it was only because Fred and George were barreling towards her as fast as they could. It was obvious practice had been stopped just in time, as Katie's face was chalk-white and covered in blood.
They all landed. "She needs a hospital wing," Angelina said immediately.
"We'll take her," said Fred, "She may have-er-might have stalled a Blood Blisterpod by mistake-"
"Well, there's no point continuing with no Beaters and a Chaser." Angelina said disappointedly and Fred and George hurried off to the castle supporting Katie between them. The Slytherins continued to chant as the team trudged to the changing rooms.
"That was completely lousy," Ron said half an hour later. Hermione glanced up from setting out her homework.
"It was only your first time," Hermione said consolingly, "and it could have gone worse…."
"No," Ron said, "It really couldn't have. You were there. You saw how downhill it went from the beginning."
Hermione nodded.
"And those Slytherins sitting there and making all that noise!" Ron continued.
"Rory and River were collectively planning their ultimate demise. It was quite frightening, actually. I never thought Rory would be able to describe turning someone inside out in such gruesome detail," Hermione said. The group sat in silence for a few more minutes before Hermione packed up and went to bed, obviously having done her homework throughout the week, unlike the other two.
"I think it's Io that has the volcanoes," Harry said, pointing towards Ron's astronomy essay. He scratched out the offending sentence and replaced it with the correct answer.
It was half past eleven when Hermione came wandering back into the common room to check on their progress.
"Nearly done?" She asked.
"No," the two boys answered. She took a seat in the chair next to the fire.
"Look, if you've come down here just to berate us on how we could have our homework done already, you can just go back to bed, because we don't want to hear it" Ron said.
"I'm not here to berate you, Ron! I'm just here to check on you. It's after midnight, you know." She said, crossing her arms. Ron huffed and turned back to his paper.
"Give me those," she said pushing the two boys away from their papers.
"Are you going to do our homework now?" Ron asked hopefully.
"No," Hermione said, "I'm just checking over them. Honestly, you thought Newt Eyes were used in aging potions?"
She tutted as she crossed out other sentences and words, replacing them with her own, before placing them back before the boys.
"Now finish up and get to bed. I don't want to deal with the pair of you having no sleep tomorrow." With that, Hermione turned and headed up the staircase. Harry and Ron finished up their papers, and shoved them unceremoniously into their bags. The two of them were halfway up the stairs to the dorm when they came across none other than Neville, Seamus, and Dean all sitting on a step, still in their pajamas. Seamus wouldn't meet Harry's gaze.
"What're you lot doing?" Harry asked.
"They're fighting," Neville said.
"Who are?" Ron asked.
"Smith and Williams," Dean said, "Apparently Matt isn't getting enough sleep or something. Don't see how shouting at him will help, though."
Ron and Harry exchanged a look before shuffling up to the dormitory.
"For god's sake, Doctor! Just take the bloody sleep agent! You're going to collapse one of these days from lack of sleep! When was the last time you got a proper night's rest, hm? When?"
"Come now, Rory. I don't need as much sleep as you do! I'm perfectly fine. Besides, I think it's past your bedtime, don't you?" The Doctor asked, patting Rory's cheek as Ron and Harry entered.
"Oi, you too!" Ron said, "quick yelling, or i'm going to have to give you detention. Half the dorm is out there because they can't sleep."
Rory gave him an apologetic glance, the Doctor flopped on his bed, bow tie undone and draped around his neck.
"It's safe to come in now," Harry said, looking closer at the Doctor. It was true that he looked exhausted. Dark bags rimmed his eyes and his complexion seemed pale, though it was probably just the lighting. Harry decided he'd worry about it in the morning, as he changed into his pajamas and crawled under the covers of his own bed.