Thanks to Sanguiyn my wonderful beta, who not only saves me from grammatical errors, but also dresses as a super hero when she does it.
Disclaimer:
Loosely based on '10 Things I hate about you', which was based on Shakespeare's 'Taming of the Shrew'.
A quote from Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' and the television show 'Scrubs' alert in this chapter two ;-)
You all know that I don't own the Harry Potter characters (JKR does). But if I did, something like this would happen to them...
By eight o'clock on the morning of the Gryffindor versus Slytherin Quidditch match, preparations in the Great Hall were in full swing.
Ginny sat in unaccustomed stillness next to Hermione at the Gryffindor table, while her housemates made considerate detours around her, pinning scarlet rosettes to their jackets and painting each other's cheeks with red and yellow G's. Harry and Ron dropped into the empty seats on Hermione's other side.
Harry eagerly began to pour himself a goblet of pumpkin juice and asked Hermione to pass the kippers.
Ron, on the other hand, was a sickly shade of green, which clashed horribly with the red and gold attire of everyone else at the table. He didn't even dare look at the food laid out in front of him. The sight of the slabs of butter and greasy bacon would undoubtedly unsettle his stomach further.
"Eat! You need your strength for the game!" Harry demanded, piling the kippers that Hermione had passed to him onto Ron's plate.
A shadow fell across the plate as Harry was adding some bacon, and he turned around to see Colin Creevey.
His camera was at his eye again, and Harry frowned into the lens, making Colin lower it without clicking the shutter.
"Hiya Harry! Ready for the match?" Colin said cheerily, tapping his camera and pointing proudly to his forehead, which had 'Potter' written across it in thick red paint. "I'm going to get a great shot of you catching the Snitch!"
Ron watched Colin's retreating back before pushing the plate of grease smeared bacon and kippers as far away from himself as possible.
"Excellent flying conditions!" Harry pointed up to the ceiling where the sky was an unbroken bowl of china blue.
Ron could only nod grimly in response.
"You'll be fine, Ron!" Harry pushed the plate of food back towards him. "Just remember, I want you to use the double eight loop, not just in penalties because…"
Hermione, not wanting to be subjected to another conversation about Quidditch, turned her attention to Ginny.
The latter was staring at the entrance to the Great Hall, her bottom lip stuck out in a mixture of worry and depression. Hermione followed her gaze to the doorway, where Pansy and Dean had just appeared.
Pansy was curving her pliant body inwards so that her thigh and shoulder touched Dean's, his arm resting lightly around her waist.
"It's too late, isn't it?" Ginny suddenly said, and Hermione was reminded of their early years at Hogwarts when Ginny had been infatuated with Harry.
There had been nothing alluring about Harry then. He was just a scrawny, awkward little boy. Yet the less obtainable he'd become, the more Ginny had desired him.
Hermione figured that the same thing was now happening with Dean. He was good-looking, kind, ordinary; nothing to entice Ginny beyond the point of reason other than the girl who was now firmly attached to his side.
Ginny wasn't looking at Hermione, so she couldn't tell whether she had asked a question or wanted her to confirm what she already knew in order to make herself more comfortable with it.
Hermione waited for a sign, but there was nothing. In the end, she simply answered, "Yes."
From the Slytherin table, Draco had noticed Pansy and Dean's arrival as well.
At the sight of the couple, he simply put down his knife and fork, neatly positioning them. Then he was on his feet, pushing himself away from the table. "No."
The crash of Draco's chair shook Blaise, who had been staring after Seamus and hadn't noticed Pansy and Dean.
"Draco?" Blaise reached out a restraining hand, but Draco shook it off.
"No," Draco repeated, before turning from the table and leaving.
"Draco!" Blaise called, slightly confused. Tripping out of his own seat, he noticed Pansy and Dean near the doorway and started to catch up to Draco. He had expected this kind of reaction and was prepared for it.
"You think you're so clever, don't you?" Draco said, sensing Blaise following him from behind. "Think you've got it all sorted out. What did you bribe Parkinson with? Or did you just play the sympathy card like you did with me?"
"I'll have you know that Pansy isn't in on anything like that. She has genuine feelings for Dean. This is pure coincidence."
"Finnigan starts sleeping in his own bed and then the pact is miraculously back on, because of none other than Pansy Parkinson. Yeah. Coincidence." Draco's voice was dripping with sarcasm. "You'd better find someone else to go along with what you're planning because the pact means nothing to me."
"What about Potter?" Blaise winked at Pansy as she passed by with Dean on her way to the Slytherin table. "You wouldn't mind if he started seeing someone else?"
"Mind?" Draco scoffed, scrunching up his nose in disgust at the passing couple. "I wouldn't even notice! I only helped you the first time because I didn't have a choice!"
They were out in the empty Entrance Hall now, and Draco's words echoed loudly around them, causing him to lower his voice. "You asked me. I couldn't refuse."
"That's your answer for everything lately," Blaise said, lowering his own voice, "as if Potter had been forced on you, as if you didn't make your own decisions. I know you, Draco. I've known you since we were kids. You never do anything you don't want to."
"I wanted to break up with Potter. I wanted to be free of your plan."
"If I remember correctly, it was your plan," Blaise accused, his even tone not changing. "I only asked for the dance and the library. The rest was all your doing. 'A crafty, devious, Slytherin-style plan that will benefit us both', you said. Only it wasn't about being Slytherin and it wasn't about Seamus and me, it was all about you and Potter."
"I saw a chance to humiliate Potter and I took it!" Draco was angry now, with a quick defensive heat.
"You didn't want to humiliate him, you just plain wanted him. You only convinced yourself that you were going with the plan because it would hurt him and help me. You couldn't handle the fact that you had it bad for him."
"I couldn't handle you being so dead set on Finnigan! I figured that the sooner you got him out of your system, the better!" The effort to keep his voice low in his anger caused Draco to spit and hiss, like a venomous snake.
"Because that's how all relationships work, isn't it, Draco?" The gentle breeze of Blaise's composure dropped slightly, as he too became defensive. "You can just forget them and rub them out. Toss them aside like an old rag once you're done with them and screw the next person who comes along."
"You should be careful with what you say," Draco breathed, articulating slowly, pushing out the words between his teeth to prevent himself from hissing. "What filthy things you say about our parents."
Suddenly and without warning the statement was there, and Blaise knew what it meant and was amazed by its sharp completeness. He fell silent, looking into his own childhood memories for the spectres that hid there.
The ligaments joining history and today were thick and ugly, and too strong to be severed. Draco's awkward behaviour and irritating needs and hurts made more sense when they were connected to Lucius and Narcissa.
It was the same tangle that caught Blaise too, but he dealt with it differently from Draco, who proved to himself with others that it was no big deal – sex or love – if that was what it was supposed to be. Draco didn't understand that he really was free to choose, or at least try to be brave and set himself free.
Was that the case? Blaise wondered. Did Draco not feel he had the luxury of any choices in the plodding discomfort of his daily existence, or was he really just as self-absorbed as Narcissa, and as cold-hearted and arrogant as Lucius?
Like his parents, Draco had always been very sure of everything. Of his own worth and that of his family. Of his place in the world. Of what he expected of himself and everyone around him. It was this sense of order and expectation that he was trying to convey to Blaise, but his world view was askew; it was and had been balanced on the wrong fulcrum.
He was coming out like a frightened child instead, a six-year-old version of himself, scared of the dark. Not because of its unknown cavities, but because he knew too well what people were capable of when the lights went out.
"A little criticism is necessary, especially for someone who is as ignorant as you."
"You're the one with the distorted view." Draco advanced and pressed his face close to Blaise's. "You're wrong. The plan, and this second plan or whatever it is you are doing, is all about you and Finnigan. Potter is more important to him than you are, and you're scared of losing him. You got one thing right, though. The plan certainly wasn't about being Slytherin. It rejected everything that our house stands for. It challenged the roles that we were born to fill."
"I didn't realise that by helping you find love, I would be challenging the role that you were born to fill!"
"Find love?" Draco gave a harsh hoot of laughter. "What are you, reporting for 'Witch Weekly' or something? Well then let the headlines show that he was the one who admitted to falling in love with me, not the other way round!"
"You didn't have to admit anything that night. I saw it all on your face--"
"I know what you saw." Draco rapped out the words, cutting Blaise snort. "What you thoughtyou saw."
"Five seconds later you were wrapped around him tighter than Devil's Snare."
"Fuck you," was all Draco spat in return. He swung around and Blaise automatically stepped back and stumbled.
"You're jeopardising my relationship for your own petty goals of harlot!" Blaise shouted, floundering for something to say as he righted his footing. The breeze had picked up again, turning into a forceful wind of anger that matched Draco's.
"And you're trying to convince me that I'm in love with Potter just so you won't have to start sleeping alone again!" Draco yelled back, not pausing in his retreat. "I told you, I'm not going anywhere near him!"
"It's a lot harder to avoid people than it is to face them!" Blaise shouted louder as Draco drew further away. "You can't ignore Potter forever, especially not today."
Draco was now at the front doors, pushing them open. Before they could flap shut again, he was outside, whipping himself around in time to throw Blaise an angry scowl. "Watch me."
Seamus was sitting in a sea of Gryffindor red in the stands overlooking the pitch, his chin resting on one hand. He was surprised when he saw a ripple of green, and lifted his head to see Blaise hovering above him.
"Blaise?" he asked, gaping like a fish at him in surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"I've come to watch the match with my boyfriend," Blaise replied matter-of-factly, eying Seamus's outstretched legs. "We planned to watch it together, remember?"
"Yes, well, things don't always turn out the way we pla--"
Before Seamus could finish his sentence, Blaise dropped heavily into his lap. Seamus didn't push him away, as Blaise had half expected he might. He held Blaise loosely, resting his cheek on the top of his bent head. "We can't. The pact."
"They're together. They're playing Quidditch."
"They're together, but they're not together," Seamus corrected.
"They weren't together that time in the library, but it didn't stop you." Blaise smirked, picking persistently at the three-cornered tear in the pocket of Seamus's trousers.
"If you think that I'm going to let that hand of yours advance any further out here, you are clearly mistaken." Seamus lightly slapped Blaise's hand away.
"Want to sneak off then?" Blaise suggested, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.
"You don't get any until Harry does, so quit trying."
"Interesting." Blaise furrowed his forehead in mock contemplation. "Because the way I see it, Harry is riding his broom. Riding his--"
"Nice try, but Slytherin still won't be scoring," Seamus teased, though he went on breathing with his mouth against Blaise's hair. "Not until that idea of yours works out anyway. Speaking of which, what did you have planned next?"
"Nothing. We wait."
"Wait for what?" Seamus asked suspiciously.
"Anything, really." Blaise shrugged. "For Draco to fall off his broom and for Potter to rescue him."
"You are not causing Malfoy to fall off his broom, no matter how much he deserves it!" Seamus shrieked at Blaise, slightly pulling away from him.
A gust of laughter shook Blaise's chest convincingly. "Merlin. No, no. I just mean that they might sort things out themselves."
"Hoping they'll have a reconciliation while they're hundreds of feet in the air is a shit plan! It's not even a plan at all!"
"I know, but I think maybe I shouldn't push Draco so much anymore. It seems to have a reverse effect. What happens is what happens."
"What brought this on?"
At first Blaise didn't answer. Seamus thought he was preparing to lie, but then Blaise lifted his gaze and looked straight into his eyes. "Draco and I had an argument at breakfast."
"And it was so bad that you now want to hex him off his broom?"
"I told you I'm not going to do anything like that!"
"I don't believe you. Give me your wand."
"It's not on me," Blaise said dismissively. "I'd be happy to let you hold my other wand, however."
"Yet another futile attempt by Slytherin to get it through the hoop." Seamus rolled his eyes. "That's enough sexual innuendo for today."
Blaise looked thoughtful before responding. "In your-endo!"
In the Gryffindor changing room, the team had changed into their scarlet Quidditch robes and were listening to Harry deliver a pre-game speech, something he had never felt obliged to do in the past.
The words poured violently out of him and spittle was beginning to gather at the corners of his mouth.
"Peakes, Coote, I've changed my mind about the Backbeats. They're too risky. You've been pulling them off fairly well during practices, but I want to give them a little bit more work before you use them during a game. Ginny, Katie, Demelza, same as the Beaters, try and avoid any reverse passes."
Unable to stand still, Harry paced the room back and forth in a frenzy of contained energy, prowling from corner to corner and gesturing wildly to his team-mates whenever he mentioned them.
"I don't want to see anyone, except Demelza, attempt the Sloth Grip Roll. Dodge Bludgers using one of the other ways we practised. The best offence is a good defence. This is Slytherin we are dealing with. We can't trust them to play by the rules. Expect their usual blagging, blarching, blurting, cobbing, lying, cheating--"
A loud roar from the stands above interrupted Harry's rant.
"It's time." Harry wiped his mouth on his sleeve and grabbed the handle of his broom, spinning it aggressively. "Good luck, everyone."
There wasn't even a stirring of a breeze as they strode out to the centre of the pitch where Madame Hooch and the Slytherin team were already assembled.
A silver whistle was dangling from Madame Hooch's neck, and her broomstick was under her arm, a large wooden crate placed at her feet.
"I want a nice fair game, all of you," she said, speaking particularly to the Slytherin team, as usual.
There had been so many Quidditch matches, so many variations on this same rigid routine of Gryffindor/Slytherin rivalry, with the same insults and sneers dispensed. Each of them was used to it, familiar with his or her place in the scheme.
Out of everyone, Harry and Malfoy had the longest and most complicated history of games won and lost on the pitch.
Harry's grip on the Snitch had never loosened. As regards Quidditch, he had never lost to Malfoy, and the thought gave him a novel thrill of power.
He had never wanted to beat Malfoy so badly, and he could secure his victory by crossing the Quidditch pitch and looking straight into Malfoy's eyes, unrelenting and daring, just as he had always done.
Amongst the safety of his protective Gryffindor circle, he sought out Malfoy's face. But Malfoy wasn't sneering at him like he had for many Quidditch matches in the past. He was staring at the ground.
Malfoy was mean-spirited and neglectful. If there was a culprit it was him, not Harry. A longing for a full-fledged war swelled in Harry's throat; a vicious one that would rip their separate layers and expose the flesh. After which, there could be a truce, or at least more of an understanding.
Harry thought he knew Malfoy well, but even so, he was shocked by the extent of his withdrawal.
Draco stared at his feet, at the ground, anywhere but into the ring of Gryffindor faces where Harry was standing. Among all the cries and laughter and cheers, he could hear nothing but a question vibrating between them with a tuning fork's meticulous note.
If he had only listened, he would be able to understand its language; maybe interpret the warning it was whispering to him. It was like breeding an extra sense that was not yet ready to use, a painful knob under his skin to which his fingers kept returning, pressing to test the growth. He rubbed his forehead with his fist and tried to focus on what he was supposed to do.
Forget Blaise. Ignore Potter. Catch Snitch. Forget Blaise. Ignore Potter. Catch Snitch.
Draco repeated this mantra in his mind over and over, but his concentration was shredding, splitting into fragments.
"Mount your brooms, please," Madame Hooch commanded, kicking the wooden crate open, and the four balls burst into the air.
Draco saw the Golden Snitch for the briefest moment before it sped out of sight.
Madame Hooch mounted her own broom and kicked off the ground. Once she was in the air, she blew her whistle.
Fourteen brooms shot into the air after her and the game began.
The Chasers from each team swarmed out of their places into an immediate scurry for the Quaffle. Gryffindor's energy was like none of their practice games. They sprang to life with great alacrity, Katie Bell grabbing hold of the Quaffle first.
"Katie Bell from Gryffindor has the Quaffle." Luna's Lovegood's dreamy voice floated over the pitch. "She's been on the team for a rather long time. She's very good. Oh, that boy from Slytherin--"
"Vaisey," Professor McGonagall could be heard barking.
"Yes, that boy has it now. I hope she can get it back."
"Whose idea was it to give Loony Lovegood a megaphone?" Draco muttered as he passed the commentator's podium on his first lap around the pitch.
Luna Lovegood sat in front of a magical megaphone, sporting her infamous lion-topped hat and necklace of Butterbeer corks. Professor McGonagall was looking slightly uncomfortable in the seat beside her, casting disdainful glances at the unusual choice of headwear.
"Should I ask her to be more careful of what she says?" Potter shouted, flying underneath him on his Firebolt, making his own way around the pitch. "I wouldn't want her to make the same mistake I did!"
Draco opened his mouth, but no scathing reply came to him. He blamed his inability to respond on the heavy, black Bludger that came pelting towards him a few moments later. He avoided it just in time, feeling it ruffle his hair as it passed.
"Sorry, Malfoy, I meant Potter," Goyle called, using his club to point over to the other Seeker, who was now on the other side of the pitch.
"Then maybe you should try aiming the Bludger to where he actually is," Draco snapped, the retort leaving his mouth easily.
"Oh, she got it back. I knew that she would."
"That's Demelza Robins not Katie Bell!"
"Are you sure? It looks like Katie Bell to me. They're all moving so fast, it's a wonder I can see anything at all. Could we ask them to slow down a bit? My eyes are starting to--"
"GRYFFINDOR SCORE!" Professor McGonagall shouted so loudly that she barely needed to speak into the megaphone to be heard.
The Gryffindors, along with the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws in the crowd, broke into a loud applause that filled the stands.
As the game continued on throughout the day, Draco's concentration continued to waver. Having no idea what the score was, he glided over the game, squinting about for the Snitch.
Whichever way he directed himself, Potter kept materialising like some avenging angel. He shot past Draco so fast every time, Draco had no chance to rebuke him.
Ignore Potter.
If Draco focused on Potter – and there was no conscious effort in that, the thought of him filled his head, and he saw the blur of raven hair and green eyes in every passing – there was always the accompanying swell of feelings that he didn't understand or welcome, and the hopelessness of wishing that he could be left alone.
Disliking Potter over the years, steadily hating him, had made a guilty cloud that still hung around Draco. But feeling regret for driving him away didn't make any difference to his mistrust and resentment of him. He was a Malfoy, he shouldn't feel for Potter in any way, let alone a way only Blaise seemed to notice.
He knew that Blaise was probably watching him from the stands. If he started an argument with Potter, he would undoubtedly end up in a conversation similar to the one he had had with Blaise this morning.
Draco tried to remain slick and thoughtless, pretending to dismiss every movement Potter made with a shrug and a single sarcastic lift on his eyebrows, even though it only unsettled him further.
"Leave me alone, Potter!" The statement came out of nowhere. Once it was spilt, it was like a drop of acid, smoking then burning a hole in the thin sheet of his tolerance.
"Am I again doing something that upsets you, Malfoy?" Potter swerved around and flew forward, so that they were only a few feet apart. It was the closest they had been all week. Potter was using sarcasm now, their familiar weapon. "I really should try to be more considerate."
"You got dumped. You're not the only person in the world to suffer from it. Grow up, Potter. Get on with your life." Draco backed away from him, reversing on his broomstick.
"Fine." Potter came further forward still and Draco automatically retreated by the same measure. It was as if they were dancing together. "But if you don't want me anymore, if you want to leave me, don't make this about what I do and what I say. And have the decency to admit that you're only behaving like this because you're a coward."
Draco paused in mid-air, the statement hitting him like a gush of icy water. He turned around sharply, almost knocking Potter off his broom in the process; it was his fault for being so close. He glared back at Harry in anger, a scornful remark on the tip of his tongue–
CRACK!
Behind Potter, Goyle gave a Bludger a powerful whack in their direction. It pelted towards them with dangerous speed, and Potter, busy glaring back at Draco, couldn't see it.
Draco's brain went numb, and with no clear thought or awareness, he whipped around and charged forward. He slammed into Potter, grabbing hold of him and knocking him sideways, out of the Bludger's path.
"Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?" Luna Lovegood's vague voice could be heard over the roar of rage from the Gryffindors in the stands.
"Stop talking gibberish! That's a foul by the Slytherin Seeker, penalty to Gryffindor."
"Penalty? But Draco Malfoy just saved Harry Potter from being hit by that Bludger."
"Of all the things you have said today, Miss Lovegood, that was by far the most ridiculous – GINNY WEASLEY TAKES THE PENALTY SHOT AND SCORES! GRYFFINDOR LEAD, ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY TO TWENTY!"
"I would have got him that time, Malfoy!" Goyle called over the loud applause from the Gryffindor crowd. "You didn't have to hit him yourself!"
"Get off me!" Harry shrieked, pushing away from Draco and flying as far away as possible to the other end of the pitch, hump-shouldered and frowning.
Malfoy hung in mid-air, not hearing Goyle or any of the cheers around him, his arms hanging clumsily at his side.
"Look at Draco Malfoy. It looks like a Wrackspurt's got him. I thought I felt one buzzing around out here." Luna flapped her hands vigorously at thin air, causing her hat to tip slightly off her head.
"What in Merlin's name are you talking about now, you silly girl?!" Professor McGonagall hissed.
"Wrackspurts," Luna said, righting her lion hat. "They're invisible, they float in through your ears and make your brain go fuzzy."
Draco couldn't have explained to anyone how it felt to hold Harry in his arms for those few, fleeting moments. The simultaneous longings to smother him, to inhale the scent of his skin and hair to the point of narcolepsy, to hurl him aside, to rake and pummel his own disobliging flesh until the smell was ripped from his senses.
The memories of the past few months returned to his mind with perfect and unobscured clarity. He didn't know how it had begun. The entrancement had advanced in stages, so tiny as to seem unimportant, until the threshold of guilt had long been passed and nothing could be done to revive the past for either of them.
It was better than anything he knew or could imagine; more exotic and more absorbing and funnier and prouder and simpler. He couldn't forget it or rub it out; it was like a song running in his head which carried itself down his spine and through his bones.
It was all a comedy, Draco thought. He wanted to laugh, overtaken suddenly by the happiness of acceptance. There was nothing left for Harry or for him to fight against. They were no more than a comedy and a soaring Bludger, which seemed to carry the grains of tragedy away with it.
Draco's eye was caught by the golden glimmer of something flitting around his broom handle and he vaguely heard Luna Lovegood shriek something excitedly from her podium.
"I see it! I see the Wrackspurt! I can't wait to tell my father what it looks like! It's not always invisible! It's gold and it has silver wings…"
Draco snapped to attention, both of his hands making a wild snatch, just as the Snitch stopped its frivolous flutter around him and zipped downwards.
He gripped his broom with one hand and dived, his remaining hand reaching out, ready to catch the Snitch. Everyone in the crowd was yelling and screaming, but all Draco could hear was his own solitary thought.
Catch Snitch.
He continued to gain speed, both the ground and the Snitch looming closer. All noise was drowned out by the whistling of the wind he was creating in his ears.
His fingers closed around the golden body of the Snitch, and with a loud thump he hit the grass and rolled off his broom, the Snitch struggling helplessly in his clamped hand.
Draco made his way to the Gryffindor changing rooms, determination crystallising inside him.
"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING? DIDN'T YOU EVEN CHECK TO SEE THE SCORE! HOW COULD YOU NOT HAVE NOTICED THAT WE WERE BEHIND BY ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY POINTS!"
The Captain of the Slytherin team, Uruqhart, had yelled at Draco until he had almost lost his voice, but Draco couldn't have cared less about Quidditch at that particular moment; he needed to get to Harry.
Just when he was free of his irate team mates, he ran into Blaise.
"Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?" Blaise imitated Luna Lovegood as he sprinted across the pitch.
Draco ignored Blaise and looked up to the score board where it still read:
Gryffindor: 180
Slytherin: 170
'I am crazy,' he thought to himself. 'Raving. There's no hope for me.' He grinned. There was relief in acknowledging his madness.
"Save the 'I told you so' and go piss off with Finnigan," Draco said, the grin slipping off his face. He didn't want to endure Blaise's taunting about being right. "There's a pact that needs attending to."
"What are you going to do, Draco?" Blaise asked, falling into stride next to him. "Potter didn't look too happy. He thinks you pushed him out of the way to get to the Snitch. Everyone does. Well, besides Seamus and I, and Loony Lovegood, but nobody takes her seriously."
"You would think that more people would have seen a big, black Bludger rocketing towards him."
"Seamus and I only saw it because we were watching you two. Everybody else was watching the game. Gryffindor was thrashing us so badly, everyone was in awe."
"Do you make a habit of spying on us? Have you got a thing for it, you and Finnigan?"
"You're lucky we saw! We're the only ones who can vouch for you!"
"I'll be fine on my own, thanks."
"So what are you going to do?" Blaise repeated.
"Let me handle that. You just concentrate on Finnigan."
Fortunately, Blaise didn't need to be told twice. He was off in the opposite direction faster than a speeding Bludger.
"We did it, Harry!" Ron patted Harry on the shoulder before folding up his Quidditch robes and swinging his broomstick over his shoulder. "We won!"
"I think not," Harry retorted and turned away, with a display of energy and feeling that surprised them both. "I did nothing."
"Malfoy didn't beat you." It was a flat statement. "He grabbed at you so he could get to the Snitch first. He tricked you. He cheated."
By the time Harry had finished getting away from Malfoy, it had been too late. He had been too busy focusing on his retreat.
His mouth had stretched wide in a silent howl when Malfoy had hit the ground. He knew Malfoy had beaten him. The power he had nourished had melted away like icicles in spring and left him with nothing but anger and humiliation. Even though Slytherin had lost, it had been a victory for Malfoy; a small, mean victory, but a victory all the same.
"What's happening, then?" Ritchie Coote asked, striding out of one of the shower stalls.
"I've got a couple of ideas," Jimmy Peakes said, twirling around a giggling Demelza Robins with one arm. "How about a party back at the common room for a start?"
Everyone agreed, and they were all soon making their way out of the changing room, laughing and pushing each other around playfully.
Harry remained seated on one of the benches. He had forgotten to shower and he was still only half-changed into his regular clothes.
He stared after his team crossly. Malfoy had caught the Snitch, and it had meant nothing to any of them.
"You coming, Harry?" Ron called from the doorway.
"In a minute," Harry replied distractedly. "You go on without me."
He pulled his t-shirt over his head and shoved his glasses back on. He began folding his own robes messily, upending his broomstick in his fury and knocking it to the floor.
As he bent down to pick it up, a noise from outside made him pause and look up.
Someone was standing in the doorway, motionless, watching him.
At first, Harry thought it was Ron or Ginny. But it wasn't either of them, nor any of the other members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team.
Stillness lay across the room, thickened the air and pressed on Harry, so that he found he could not move. A chain of tiny cold droplets of sweat trickled down his spine.
He stretched his fingers and they touched the discarded broomstick. He picked it up and slowly, against the heavy weight of air, placed it back on the bench.
The person stepped forward, and Harry stepped back.
Dancing.
Green eyes met grey and all the air was sucked from the room.
"I need to talk to you."
Author's Notes:
In answer to a few questions:
I'm not a wizard, I didn't write all sixteen chapters in one day. The horrible truth is, I've been writing and posting this story since the 1st of March this year on other fanfiction websites. Now, this chapter was really hard to write. (Even JKR, the legend herself, had difficulty writing Quidditch matches!) And when things get difficult for me, I switch into procrastination mode. So posting the story here was a result of my procrastination. MY HIDDEN SHAME!
It was horrible! I hadn't updated since the 19th of May! THE SHAME OF IT ALL! In my defence, Quidditch was a tough one to get my head around. And to make up for my horrifying slowness, this chapter is 5,400 words, the longest one to date!
BUT NOW IT'S OVER! The impossible chapter I mean, not the story! We still have at least two or three chapters to go until we reach our happy ending.
"Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?"
If you didn't know that that is from Macbeth, you need to brush up on your Shakespeare…or the crappy teen movies that quote him.
"Doctor, I'm getting a little tired of the sexual innuendo."
"…In your-endo!"
A quote from Scrubs, said by the wonderful Todd!
"Show Todd some love!" Hehe…sorry, I couldn't resist.
Anyway, show Lucy some love and review!
:-) Lucy