Hanging By A Moment
Disclaimer: The characters of Joel Pritchard, Clarissa Hawthorne, Blake Zabini, and Corrine Colt are mine. The rest, well, they belong to someone else. Not me, unfortunately.
You don't run with the crowd, you go your own way
You don't play after dark, you light up my day
You got your own kind of style that sets you apart
Baby, that's why you captured my heart
I know sometimes you feel like you don't fit in
But this world doesn't know what you have within
When I look at you, I see something rare
A rose that can grow anywhere
And there's no one I know that can compare
What makes you different makes you beautiful
What there inside you shines through to me
In your eyes I see all the love I'll ever need
What makes you different makes you beautiful to me
You got something so real, you touch me so deep
Material things don't matter to me
So come as you are, you've got nothing to prove
You've won me with all that you do
And I want to take this chance to say to you
What makes you different makes you beautiful
What there inside you shines through to me
You don't know how you touched my life
In so many ways, I can't describe
What makes you different makes you beautiful
What's there inside you shines through to me
What Makes You Different by Backstreet Boys
"So, I'm thinking we start with a couple of speed laps around the pitch, you know, just to weed out those who aren't able to stay in the air for long periods of time." Joel told Draco, staring at his clipboard as if it was the solution to ending the war between wizarding kind.
"That makes sense." Draco replied, trying to stifle a yawn. It was early Saturday morning; besides them, only an extremely eager second year was in the quidditch pitch.
"We could release some bludgers, just you know, to make them fly faster." Joel suggested, seriously contemplating it. "I bet we could spell them to make them fly faster."
"Are you testing their speed or trying to kill them?" Draco asked, half joking. A dead serious, quidditch-fanatic of a captain stared back at him, clearly not appreciating Draco's relaxed stance on what he considered the most important choices he would make his seventh year.
"Bludgers?" A voice behind them said. "Do you want them to call you Captain Blood?"
Draco's heart skipped a beat. She always stayed up so late, how on earth was she already up and about?
"Blaise, you're up early." Draco replied, instantly regretting it once he said it. Couldn't he have at least said good morning first? Why did Blaise make him babble like Crabbe? It was unnerving.
"What can I say? I'm a morning person," she shrugged, before sipping whatever was in her cup. "You however, my friend, are not."
"Tell me something I don't know." Draco muttered, glaring at the cause of his early rise.
"May I suggest caffeine?" She offered him her cup.
"Coffee! You are a goddess!" He declared, happily accepting the cup from her. She smiled, but eyed him as he drank half the cup in single swallow.
"You can't have that!" Joel cried out, snatching Draco's temporary happiness right out of his hand.
"HEY!" Draco's sleepiness snapped. He couldn't remember when he had been this pissed off at Joel.
"You are going to have twenty minute caffeine high and then be more tired than you are now!" Joel told him, handing the coffee back to Blaise, who, to Draco's dismay, was snickering.
"You knew he'd do that, didn't you?" He asked her, not looking at her, but watching Joel stomp over to where the second year was standing nervously.
"No, but it was a pleasant surprise," Blaise admitted with a giggle she failed to suppress.
"Thank you for that lovely moment of humility."
"Anytime." She replied, moving closer so that she was now standing next to him. "Where's the rest of your team?"
"I have no idea," Draco said, only now realizing that Clarissa, Graham, and Jesse were absent from this early morning team meeting. This note didn't really help his growing animosity towards Joel.
"Hey Joel, where are the others?" Draco asked accusingly. If he had to be up at six a.m., he was going to wake up everyone else with him.
"Graham and Jesse are in the team room, trimming the school brooms for those trying out that don't have one yet." Joel told him, while pointing the second year in the direction of the benches where he could wait for the try-outs to begin; Joel clearly thought he was underfoot.
"And Clarissa?" He repeated, his eyes darting between the trying-to-be-nonchalant Joel and the trying-not-to-laugh Blaise.
"Um….well…..she's around somewhere." He said, turning his back on Draco. "Would you please just sit there and when it's your turn, I will call your name." The second year muttered something. "Yes, I can pronounce it!" a frustrated Joel snapped.
"I bet he didn't wake her up!" Draco hissed to no one in particular.
"Your annoyingness is not helping your chances of getting on this team!" Joel shouted.
"I think it's safe to bet he's not on the team." Blaise commented.
"Good." Draco replied. "I hate morning people."
One of Blaise's eyebrows rose higher than the other. Draco missed the sign that his comment hit a nerve with her and just continued on his way to the team room, Blaise in tow.
"Top of the morning to you!' Jesse called out when Draco entered the team room, unaware that Blaise had followed him in.
"Ah, another morning person," Blaise smiled at Draco.
"What are you doing in here?" Draco spun around and asked her.
"Yeah, this is the boys' part of the team room." Graham told her.
"How come girls can go on the boys' side of the room and boys can't go on the girls' side? I must have tried like forty times and can't get through but she just saunters in, no force field…." Jesse trailed off upon the realization that all three of his fellow Slytherins were staring at him. "Um…please, don't tell your brother about what I just said." He pleaded with Graham.
"Speaking of Clarissa, where the hell is she?" Draco asked a scarlet-faced Jesse and a nearly crying with laughter Graham where their fellow, and only female, teammate was.
"Probably still asleep." Graham said, regaining his composure and returning to clipping the split ends off of the Cleansweep 715 he was holding.
"What?" Draco cried out. He was pissed off. He needed sleep just as much as Clarissa.
"You know, it's one of those benefits to snogging the team captain," Jesse said, looking at Blaise.
"Clarissa is snogging Joel?" Draco asked, still in shock. This was too much information to process this early in the morning.
"You didn't know?" Blaise, Jesse, and Graham asked in unison.
"Come on, I've only known them recently for like a week and I knew that they were together," Blaise told him. "You are oblivious to everything."
"I am not." Draco replied, indignantly, folding his arms over his chest. "I knew that they sort of had this thing, like they liked each other but I didn't realize they were actually, you know, together."
"Draco, they are with each other non-stop. They eat meals together, they leave meals together, they study together, and they spend every minute together." Blaise pointed out.
"I thought that was because they were the only seventh years. They had to be close."
"Why would you believe that? You and I aren't close to our fellow sixth years." Blaise pointed out. Draco was beginning to hate how she always seemed to be right.
"Point taken," he admitted defeat unwillingly. "But it's still not fair that he lets her sleep in when the rest of us are out here at the break of dawn."
"Hey, Draco, Joel's a pretty fair person. You can probably just talk to him about it and he'll let you sleep in." Jesse suggested suspiciously, now finally back to trimming the Comet Seven Eighty-Six in his own hands.
"I think he's right," Blaise agreed with Jesse, nodding her head with an equally suspicious smile upon her face.
"And if I'm not," Jesse smirked, "You can always try snogging him and see how that works." He and Blaise burst into a fit of giggles as if they thought Draco should have seen this coming.
"Shut up!" Draco told them, folding his arms across his chest and stomping out of the team room. Not gone for a second, he had returned and latched his hand around the wrist he had held for dear life only days earlier. "This is the team room, out now!" He told Blaise, dragging her out with him, his pale skin the color of the Dream Team's robes as his own fellow Slytherins laughed at his expense.
"Oh that was real mature in there," He told her as the two headed back over to where they had left Joel.
"And your non-stop complaining about Clarissa sleeping in was?" She retorted. Draco growled, knowing very well that once again, Blaise Zabini was right.
"You know, you can let go now, right?" Blaise pointed out after a few seconds.
Draco looked down and only then did he become aware that his hand was still around her tiny wrist. He let go, revealing the slightly purple marks from those unforgettable, unable to breathe moments when her life depended solely on the strength of his.
"Um, yeah, sorry." He apologized, something he had never sincerely done before. Blaise looked at him like she wanted to say something, but just turned away.
"Where did you go?" Joel demanded to know, when Draco had returned in his sight. "I need you to help organize this thing."
"Joel, there are all of two people here." Draco pointed out.
"You don't think I know that? That blasted second year's friend showed up too. I will let a Ravenclaw play for us before I let those two annoying blockheads play."
"You're not desperate at all, now are you?" Blaise commented as she watched the second years, whom, to both her and Draco didn't seem to be a problem. The one holding a broom was a little fidgety, but as were all people waiting for their chance to prove themselves for the quidditch team.
"You know what? I have no patience, and I know it. So just deal." Joel said, a little harsher than he probably meant to.
The pace of the morning immediately picked up speed and within a mere half an hour, Clarissa had risen and come to the pitch, slightly confused by Graham and Jesse making kissing sounds while looking at Draco, and the number of the Slytherins trying out had increased dramatically, nearly causing Joel to lose his mind.
"Some sort of order, please!" he pleaded, waving his clipboard around.
The crowd of people ignored him and continued wondering around and loudly gossiping with one another.
"LISTEN UP!" Blaise shouted, startling Draco. She was so small and fragile looking; he would have never matched up that decibel of shout with her.
A crowd full of people stopped in the middle of what they were doing and looked at her. Clarissa stopped mid-sentence in her conversation with Christina Woodbury and Kate Judd. A couple of third years stopped tossing their brooms in the air as if this was baton practice; unfortunately for the tallest of this quartet, his broom was in mid-air at the time of the unexpected shout, the shout that distracted him from his broom until it came crashing down on his shoulder. Jesse and Graham stopped circling Draco, both were still annoying him with the unrealistic sounding kissing noises. Joel just looked stunned that the crowd had shut up for the small hardly known sixth year and not for the six foot tall, known to be impatient seventh year
"Um, thanks," Joel said to her, a little out of it. She nodded as if she knew that she was a better leader than him.
"Okay! I need those trying out to be a beater over by the stands, those trying out for keeper by the rings! Clarissa! Graham! You monitor those trying out for keeper, Draco and Jesse will have the rest!"
A good ten or twelve Slytherins scurried over to the stands, a few more scampered towards the goals. Draco thought surely with that many trying out, they were bound to find an awesome team. Sadly, he was wrong.
"NEXT!" Draco moaned as the current candidate whacked his partner in the head with a bat.
"I'm just having a bad day," the first year whined as he stomped off the field.
"These people are about as good as my cousin Katrina." Jesse commented. Blaise, who had stuck around the try-outs claiming she had nothing better to do, and Draco simply stared back at him until Jesse realized that neither Blaise nor Draco knew a thing about Katrina's quidditch beating abilities. "She's three and can barely sit on a broom." He elaborated, stuffing a licorice twist in his mouth.
"Okay, who's next?" Draco asked. Jesse, who was holding the parchment, motioned to the mouthful of licorice whips, indicating that he couldn't answer. Draco didn't understand his hand gestures, but the girl that he felt mysteriously attracted to did.
"Let's see." Blaise muttered, running her clear fingernail polished finger down the parchment. "Corrine Colt is next."
Corrine, a tall strawberry blonde fifth year stood up from her seat on the stands and smiled as she walked forward, her smile especially aimed at Jesse. He smiled and raised an eyebrow, signaling to Draco that he had already decided; Jesse was giving her a perfect ten.
"Somebody's not being objective…" Blaise whispered in a singsong voice that seemed to hint at Draco that Corrine wasn't someone Blaise felt was deserving of Jesse. He felt the sudden urge to hit Jesse and yet didn't know why.
"Huh? What? You don't know what you're talking about." Jesse answered, clearly flushed, now preoccupied with the thought that Corrine knew of his brand spanking new crush.
The smile disappeared off of Blaise's face and she reached into the quidditch trunk for a bludger and beater bat for Corrine.
Corrine didn't take the bat and bludgers but smiled and then glanced over Jesse's shoulder, something in the near distance catching her warm chocolate color eyes. "You know," she said, now looking back at Blaise and Draco, "you have company."
Blaise and Draco whipped around to find a group of people that certainly weren't invited. Four boys and five girls all clad in burgundy and gold ties and crests, the two normal clothing items that separated the houses' uniforms, standing at the edge of the quidditch pitch. The smallest boy, realizing they were spotted let out a squeak that alerted the eight others that four Slytherins were marching towards them; two armed with brooms, one with a bludger and a bat, and the other with a piece of parchment and a licorice twist.
"I don't remember seeing your names on the try-out list." Draco hissed, but only the smallest boy, the name Colin Creevey coming to mind, was scared.
"Funny." The male red-haired member of the Dream Team snarled. Ron Weasley, the name itself brought anger to Draco's mind, was accompanied by his heroic best friend, Harry Potter, his obvious know-it-all crush, Hermione Granger, his pretty, fiery younger sister, Ginny, the photo-loving pipsqueak, Colin Creevey, a giggly girl named Parvati Patil, the hot-headed boyfriend of Parvati's friend, Seamus Finnegan, Seamus's girlfriend, Lavender Brown, and the quidditch captain herself, Katie Bell.
"You of all people should know that quidditch try-outs are private." Blaise told Katie, whom Draco thought was her friend. It pleased him that loyalty to her house seemed to override her apparently not so good friendship with Katie.
"Technically they are not. Practices are private." Katie said rather coldly, holding out a piece of parchment for Draco to read.
He read it with Corrine reading over his left shoulder and Jesse reading over his right. "So, what you're saying is that because not everyone on this field is technically a quidditch member, it means that this time slot is public? That's a load of dragon dung and you know it. Who made this? One of your stupid brothers?" he asked the red-haired siblings.
"Go ahead, make accusations. That's a copy right from the pages of the Hogwarts Rule Book." Hermione declared, quite proud of herself, motioning to the book in her hand. It appeared to be quite heavy, making Draco think the only possible reason for her carrying it around would be to let people think she had read the whole thing.
"Oh, shut up," Corrine snapped, eager to join in the verbal fight.
"Oh, I'm scared." Ginny teased, but Colin didn't seem to feel quite as secure as her.
"Isn't nice how you didn't bring this up until after your try-outs? That's quite convenient, now isn't it?" Blaise pointed out. Katie paled a bit, as if this infraction in the rules could suddenly rule unfavorably on her.
"We, uh, didn't find this out until, um, after our try-outs." Parvati clearly lied.
"So, sometime between eight thirty or so last night when your try-outs ended and seven a.m. when our try-outs began, you found this information?" Blaise asked, skeptical. "Let's see, what about that story makes me not believe you? Oh, I know, the fact that it's all lies."
"Shut up," Lavender hissed, much in the same way Corrine did.
"I think it's time for you all to leave." Jesse said, uncharacteristically cool and collected, with what Draco could only assume what was an attempt to show off to Corrine.
"We can stay all day if we want." Hermione replied proudly. "The rules say so."
"We didn't come to your try-outs, now give us the same respect and leave ours." Jesse repeated his basic message.
"If you didn't come then how come Blaise knew what time our practice ended?" Katie snapped happily, as if she had finally cornered them.
Before her fellow Slytherins could even turn to look at her, she snapped "Because that's when you came stomping in the Great Hall all muddy, only to accuse me of being responsible for my brother's death!" Blaise shouted, tears brimming at her green, suddenly very emotional, eyes.
So, that was why Katie and Blaise were not talking. He almost didn't dare to think it, but who telling the truth when it came to Blake's death? He couldn't imagine Blaise having anything to do with the brother, she so desperately missed's death.
"Leave," Draco said sternly, suddenly only really wanting Katie gone, the others could stick around for all he cared.
"Well, you never did answer my question Blaise, you did have something to do with Blake's death, didn't you?" Katie asked.
The tears were about to fall. One more comment, and Draco knew that the Gryffindors would have what they wanted, a broken hearted Slytherin. Little did they know, there were several already, Blaise included.
"But Voldemort was still a factor in it, wasn't he?" Hermione suggested, hugging the rule book to her chest. "Blake was a Death Eater, wasn't he?"
"Shut up! Get out of here!" Blaise screamed, pointing with the beater bat to the pitch exit. She was stronger than Draco gave her credit for. The tears hadn't fallen with that comment, but they were still certainly on the horizon.
"We can stay here if we want!" Hermione said smugly. Draco's rival and her platonic friend glanced at her as if it was occurring to him that maybe the Gryffindors were going a little too far. For once, Draco agreed with the boy he secretly wished had killed the Dark Lord when he was an infant.
The tears continued to well up. Blaise fought to push them back, not very successful. A single tear slipped down her cheek just as a single corner of Hermione's mouth turned up in a smirk. "That's what I thought." She replied, turning around to walk away, increasing the ten meters or so already between the houses.
Blaise stormed off towards her, Draco assumed to prevent Hermione from having the last word. Hermione was a fast walker however and Blaise was concentrating on preventing the rest of the tears from falling, so the distance increased even more before Hermione turned around and shouted "Go back to your Death Eater- Voldemort-worshiping friends and leave us alone!"
Draco felt as if the whole quidditch pitch had suddenly gone in super slow motion. Joel and Clarissa heard Hermione and finally realized they had company in the pitch. Katie had gasped at Hermione's words, clearly knowing that Hermione had crossed the line. Corrine looked rather unfazed; but Draco was pretty sure that her aunt and older sister were Death Eaters. Jesse looked shocked as if he didn't know how to respond. Harry and Ron were in awe that Hermione had shouted something like that, rather unprovoked. Ginny looked rather angry, but Draco thought it looked like her anger was directed at Hermione, and he couldn't be sure, it didn't seem right. Parvati and Colin had the same scared expression when they realized what Blaise was doing, only a split second before Draco and Hermione did.
"TAKE THAT BACK!" Blaise screamed at the top of her lungs, tossing the bludger in the air and swinging the beater's bat with all her might, right into Hermione's stomach. The formerly bushy haired girl went flying back, taking Seamus Finnegan, who happened to be standing behind her, with her.
Corrine, Lavender, and Parvati screamed. Joel dropped his broom and sprinted towards the group, Graham on his heels. Clarissa stayed back holding those trying out away from the scene. Harry ran over to Hermione, who had flown a great distance upon impact. Katie stared in shock at Blaise, whose hand was still in the air as she had it when she aimed the bludger at Hermione. Colin hid his face from Hermione and Seamus, as if he was scared to see what he would find. Ginny looked shocked but not totally surprised at Blaise. Ron, however, lunged himself at Blaise, but was stopped by Draco, who had shoved himself between the shocked stiff Blaise and the angry boyfriend.
"Let me at her!" He growled, Draco holding him back. Ron attempted to bite him on the arm, but missed when his little sister yanked him away from Draco and Blaise.
"You bloody moron! He didn't do anything!" Ginny yelled at him, smacking him upside the head. "Help your friend!"
Ron looked as if he had suddenly realized that Hermione would now need help if she was hurt. He and Ginny rushed over to where Harry was shaking Hermione and Lavender and Parvati were tending to Seamus's wounds.
"Blaise?" Corrine asked, touching her. She didn't move. If it wasn't for the tears silently streaming down her freckled face, Draco could have mistaken her for a statue. Her sad, secretive green eyes just stared at Hermione, while not really looking at her, but clearly seeing something else, something in her own little world, her memories, something that only she could see, something that she clearly didn't want to see.
"Blaise! Shh, it's okay," he said to her, pulling her protectively close to him. She loosened up, allowing Draco to put his arm around her, shielding her from the others.
"She's breathing!" Harry said, relieved.
"It takes a really cruel person to do that." Katie said icily. "I guess I have my answer about Blake don't I?"
Draco felt her tears on his robes. "That's not true. It wasn't my fault." She cried to Draco, who was not entirely sure what she was talking about.
"Yeah right, I'm supposed to believe that from the person that just tried to kill the smartest person in the school." Katie snapped, harshly as she walked away, following Ron and Harry who were helping Hermione to the hospital wing, Seamus and Lavender close behind them. Parvati and Colin followed suit, the only remaining Gryffindor lingered behind as if she wasn't sure which way to go. After a few long seconds, she followed the flashes of Colin's camera into the school.
"We probably better cancel try-outs." Graham suggested, indicating the twenty or so Slytherins standing back by Clarissa, eager to understand what they didn't witness.
"Yeah, I think that would be good." Joel said. "We should also find Professor Snape and tell him your side of the story before the Gryffindors go running off to McGonagall."
Blaise nodded but still seemed to be lost deep within her thoughts. Draco was supporting all her weight as she leaned against him, weak knees preventing her from standing on her own. He scooped her up the way a groom scoops up his new bride, and couldn't help but thinking of that very imagery. "It's okay," he whispered and for the first time since the blow-up, she looked like she was back in this world, her thoughts pushed aside for a second as she laid her head against Draco's shoulder.
"I'm scared." She whispered back, wrapping her arms tighter around his neck. "I didn't mean to. It just happened."
"She deserved it." Draco replied, glancing back to see Joel and Graham dismissing the Slytherin quidditch candidates.
"Then you believe me?" Blaise asked, looking up at him. "I don't want to be a Death Eater."
"Neither do I."
And that moment right there was the moment those two realized their mission; they were going to escape their pre-determined destinies; together.
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