Chapter 7 Book I Arc II
Sitting down for breakfast Friday morning, Kitty Jones decided that it was better to tune out Fred and Nick's usual early bickering. She preferred, instead, to reach over the table to grab a few slices of toast, covering them in jam. As she ate her breakfast slowly, she supressed a yawn, still half asleep.
"So, you ready for the game tonight, Kitty?" Fred asked, bringing her attention back down to earth. Nick had by then had stood up from the conversation and left the hall, just as a few other members of the Gryffindor quidditch team walked in and sat down with them. Kitty shrugged.
"As ready as I can be, I guess," she said. Asmira snorted from across the table, her captain badge shining from where it was pinned to her robes.
"We're playing against Slytherin, Fred. You know that Kitty won't let us lose to Farrar," she grinned as she moved some food onto a plate of her own. Fred snickered.
"True; losing the first game of the season to Farrar would be pretty bad; though I doubt Farrar is going to be much happier when she ends up losing to Kitty again."
"Yeah," Asmira replied, as Kitty elbowed Fred sharply. "I've heard some of the other Slytherins say that Farrar gets in a right nasty mood when that happens. She locks herself away in her room doing god knows what."
"Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea – OW!" Fred found himself elbowed once more before he could finish that sentence. Asmira still laughed though, and the beaters, Baztuk and Xerxes, hooted too. She sighed, but couldn't help a small smile herself.
"That's gross, Fred. You're lucky I have to go get my things before CoMC now, just so you know." He gave her a jaunty wave along with the rest, as she stood up before leaving the Great Hall herself, still shaking her head. Sometimes she wondered why she was friends with him, but whatever. She didn't have much time to dwell on it, and she had to get to class. Nouda didn't like it when students were late after all, and she had enough detentions already.
As bad as Care of Magical Creatures was sometimes (and honestly with the amount of stuff they had to deal with in that class, anyone squeamish had dropped out after third year), it was nothing compared to how downright boring Defense Against the Dark Arts ended up being this year.
DADA was usually one of Kitty's favourite classes, even with some of the bad teachers that they've had in the past. Rumor was that there was a curse on the job. With some of the fates that previous teachers had met, Kitty was willing to believe it. Considering how bad the class was going at this pace, she almost hoped that the curse would hurry up and add Khaba to its list of victims already.
"Good afternoon, Kitty," Nathaniel said cordially as he sat down next to her. She nodded to him as he turned to dig his things out of his bag. They had agreed to at least try and be polite to each other on Wednesdays for the sake of their grades. And, you know, to avoid more detentions. It was at that moment that Khaba walked into the room, causing the classroom to settle down.
"Hello class," he said, turning to face them. "I hope that you have all decided on your topics for your research projects by now, as this class will be a work period for your paper. Remember that it's due on the twenty-fifth of this month; now keep your wands away, and keep quiet," he finished on a sharp note, the scowl on his face accentuated particularly today by the shade of his rosy robes. "Now get to work!" He swept away up the stairs to his office pompously, leaving the door ajar to discourage students from disobeying orders.
"Well then…might as well get started on this paper," Kitty said as the rest of the class slowly moved into action as well. Nathaniel nodded, gingerly pulling the book of rituals needed out of his bag, along with a sheaf of notes.
"I went through all of the rituals we picked out on Wednesday and got out a few more books on them. After taking down some notes, I believe that we can now narrow it down to a choice of two for the project. The fae summoning one, and the ambient magic gathering one. Personally, I'm more interested in the gathering one. What about you?" Nathaniel said, quickly shuffling his parchment around, showing her the notes he took. He left her the small stacks scrawled in his near illegible handwriting, looking expectantly.
"…I think I have to agree with you there. The gathering one sounds more interesting. And I'm not saying that just because I'd rather not give someone like Khaba the knowledge of how to summon a morally ambiguous, fairly bloodthirsty fae." She managed to say this with a straight face, getting a snort out of Nathaniel.
"Agreed. Instead we're just going to give him knowledge on how to gather all the ambient magic in a select area to use for himself as he pleases."
"Well, at least that one requires a specific set of conditions it can only be done by."
"True, very true."
"And who knows just how often they all align at the same time?"
"Can't argue with that." Nathaniel slid the notes on fae summoning back into his bag, spreading out the ones on the gathering ritual again.
"Alright. So the basics of this ritual…it can only be performed on Halloween, during a waning moon, at exactly eight PM. In needs to be in an area with high levels of ambient magic to work in a concentrated space, as it essentially gathers any loose or young magic into a single vessel; usually, a person. It says not to attempt this around those of 'learning age' as their magic is still fairly untamed. The ripping of magic from them can cause horrific, painful deaths when close by. Lovely," Nathaniel said, after finishing his summary. Kitty nodded.
"Sounds good. What other books did you find, anyway?" she asked. Nathaniel reached over into his bag again, pulling out a large, dusty tome. He sneezed twice before gingerly setting it down onto the table. Kitty raised her eyebrows, looking at him.
"Allergies," he replied curtly, cheeks flaring. He leaned back over quickly again, this time retrieving a slimmer volume, albeit one that had its cover half chewed off. Quite a few of its pages were singed badly at the edges.
"That looks…promising." Kitty reached for the large tome instead, with its cramped, tiny script. "This is going to be so much fun."
Kitty had decided long ago that Friday night quidditch games had to be the worst ones. She sighed to herself, strapping her arm guards on. She had to make sure they weren't too tight, but also that they wouldn't fall off while she was playing. The conversation in the locker room was down to a low hum as everyone was prepping for the first game of the year. Everyone was psyched; the energy had been this way since she accidentally joined the team during her second year. Fred had dared her to try out as a joke; he stopped laughing very quickly though when it became apparent to everyone that she had a natural talent for flying. She figured it would continue to be this way until she graduated. Kitty had decided that she quite liked playing quidditch; beating Farrar was just the icing on the cake.
She didn't know how she and the Slytherin girl got off on the wrong foot, but they didn't like each other. They had enough in common to get along, but for some reason things didn't work out that way. At…all, really. It had gotten to the point where rumors had spread about their so called "rivalry" which had now gotten to the point of infamy throughout the school. This was probably why almost every student made it a point to show up to the matches they had versus Slytherin. Kitty thought it was stupid, if only because their games weren't any different from say, one between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. If you discount the cheating, that is. And the higher likelihood of injuries on the field. And the greater content of foul language. But other than that, it was just like any other quidditch game.
"Alright team, remember the strategies we've been working on!" Asmira was now standing up, and everyone turned around. "Please try to keep the injuries to a minimum. I don't want to visit any of you in the hospital wing this early in the year; that means you too Lucy. You don't need another bludger to the head," she said as she grabbed her broom, the others laughing. The rest of the team followed suit behind her in order as they assembled on the field, facing the Slytherin team. Kitty kept her face blank as Jane Farrar stared her down, the two of them standing across of each other as Harknett, the flying teacher and usual referee ran through the rules that were most often broken. He gave both captains Asmira and Jane a stern look as she spoke. Then, the bludgers were released. All eyes were glued to Harknett as she let the snitch go, the small golden ball quickly darting off from their hands.
"Begin!" The quaffle was thrown, and off they went.
The wind rushed by as Kitty took off, hands gripping her broom tightly as everyone sped through the air. Following Asmira and Nick as they flew after the quaffle, she intercepted it from Chosroes as she was attempting to pass it off to Jane. Nick grabbed it, falling back a little before tossing it off to Asmira. Up Kitty flew, ducking beneath a bludger shot at her by Menes, one of the Slytherin beaters, until she was ahead of the other chasers. The quaffle was tossed to her from Asmira again, right before Malbindi could wrench it out of her grasp. Grabbing it quickly, she flew up once again, tucking it securely under her arm as she took it towards the goalposts, guarded by the Slytherin keeper, Zeno. All of a sudden, Jane was there in her face.
"Hello Jones; lovely weather we're having. Hand over the quaffle," she said, shoving against Kitty to try and divert her from her course. The Gryffindor snorted, shoving Jane back.
"Not a chance, Farrar. You're not winning this game," she replied, before dropping the quaffle into Asmira's arms as she flew underneath them just then from below. Before Jane could react, Asmira had already shot off straight towards the goal posts, faking a left, before easily tossing it through the middle hoop, bypassing Zeno. The crowds cheered while the announcer roared the score, with Gryffindor leading Slytherin ten to zero. Jane gave her a scowl, eyes flashing in promised retribution. Kitty did not even try to hold back the small smirk on her face, as she flew back into position.
The game's pace only got faster from there. The beaters were particularly ferocious today, with Menes aiming a particularly hard one at Lucy. Thankfully Xerxes had been there, unlike last time. But now, Jane had the quaffle, and she was fast approaching the Gryffindor goal posts, with Kitty hot on her tail.
"You can't – stop me – Jones –" Jane panted, her broom barely ahead of Kitty's.
"Watch – me – Farr–"
It was at that moment when the bludger hit her.
Kitty cried out in pain from the hit that took her square on the center of her back, sending her broom spinning. She glimpsed the other Slytherin beater, one of the Soter boys, grinning nastily at her right before she hit Jane. Oh crap. She swore.
Both girls went spiraling down, neither able to stop the fall as the crowd was torn between watching them and the Gryffindor seeker who at that moment had managed to catch the snitch. Jane was cursing too, and Kitty was trying everything in her power that she could to avoid hitting the fast approaching ground, but there was no way by this point to stop their plummeting descent.
The ground hurt. Alot. Even though she had landed partly on Jane, Kitty still heard (and felt), something crack when she hit the ground, gasping in pain. Oh, Soter was going to get it. Once everything stopped spinning. And hurting. As her ears rang, she could see the other players starting to land and crowd around them, but her vision was now going fuzzy. Someone was shouting her name, but she wasn't sure who it was. Was that the gamekeeper over there, walking towards the forest? He watched the Quidditch games, but not today. There were two students with him; it was strange what you noticed in moments like this. Kitty Jones passed out.
Okay so I am still alive please don't kill me for the way this chapter ended and the fact that I have no idea when chapter eight will be going up because that really depends on when Jojo finishes editing it and I finish writing chapter ten. Anyways, hope you enjoyed the chapter, I apologize for the long wait for it, and please review because reviews give me the motivation to actually keep writing this story and not just give up on it so yeah.