Chapter 5

Gryffindor & Slytherin Battle...Yet Again

Ugh.

This is not what I need the day of the Gryffindor/Slytherin match.

James wasn't at breakfast yet, but Queen Bitch and her Ladies-in-Evil-Waiting were.

Ok, focus on Quidditch, Lia. The Bitch will not bring you down today. Come on, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

I sat down and immediately piled food on my plate, and then continued to drown my waffles in maple syrup. Yummy. Paige chuckled beside me. "Healthy much, Lia?" she asked sarcastically, looking at my plate.

I looked at her incredulously and held up my glass. "Pumpkin juice!" She rolled her eyes and held out an apple for me. I looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

Everyone knows I'm not particularly fond of eating my healthy foods, even on game days. She scowled at me.

"One healthy thing, Amelia, please." My eyebrow went higher.

"I'll do your History of Magic essay. The whole thing." The apple was out of her hand and in my mouth before you could say "Merlin's pink drawers".

I grinned at her and she shook her head. "The essay's due Wednesday."

James finally came in and walked over to the table, sitting down next to us. He was staring – more like glaring, hey that rhymes! – at a spot across the hall. Following his gaze, I rolled my eyes at the object of his obsession, Phoenix Malfoy.

Captain of the Slytherin Team. I slapped the back of his head as Paige set a plate of muffins, toast with butter, and an apple in front of him. "Stop it," I said. "Glaring at her isn't going to do anything to make Slytherin lose today. Now eat, Your Majesty."

Glaring at me, he answered, "She will go down." Maybe I should mention that Gryffindor and Slytherin have been tied 3 to 3 for the Quidditch cup every year we've been in Hogwarts. This year will decide who is better. And as captain, James is making it his life mission to beat Slytherin this year.

Emma spoke up. "You do know you're the only one who cares about this stupid Quidditch rivalry, right?"

James dropped his muffin and pointed a shaky finger at her. "Traitor!" he shouted.

Emma rolled her eyes and slapped his arm away as I slapped the back of his head. "Hey! What's with the slapping today?" he screamed.

Emma batted her insanely long eyelashes in an attempt to look innocent. "But Jamesie, I thought you liked it that way." Paige rolled her eyes again, as Fin appeared with a barely awake Belle on his back and Fred and Ethan beside him.

"Alright children," Paige said, in her Imitating-Mummy voice. "Eat up, because you lot," she pointed at James, Fred, and me, "need to be on the Quidditch pitch in 15 minutes."

James looked up in horror. "15 minutes! But it's so early!"

"James," I said slowly, "you made the meet that early, Oh Wise Captain."

"Oh. Next time, stop me." I grinned.

"I would be delighted to, Your Majesty."

~Lia~

So, the match went surprisingly well.

James was an excellent keeper, determined to block each and every points Slytherin might get. However, Claire Zabini also had the same goal in her mind.

It was a long time before either team got any points. And while I, on my own broom, was looking for that deceiving little golden snitch, I managed to have some fun with it.

Although I would get an earful about it from Paige later on, I managed to knock beater Chris Nott off of his broom, TWICE!

Don't look at me like that!

He thought it was funny too.

But James said I should've done it to Scorpius.

Oh, well. Anyway, Gryffindor won!

Barely.

Scorpius and I had the biggest race in all of history trying to catch that sneaky little snitch. I swear Phoenix was laughing at the sight of her little brother getting beaten by a girl.

She really is a lovely girl.

Ah, if only she was in Gryffindor.

So here we are, in the Room of Requirement, having a victory party with loads of firewhiskey, courtesy of Melody Longbottom smuggling it in from the Leaky Cauldron.

Now there's a girl with some balls.

She really is a rebel, that one.

If only Albus knew what he was getting himself into. Even a blind man could see that the boy was smitten with her. I looked over the room and almost choked at the sight of Belle and Hayden Goyle snogging on an armchair.

They have got to be drunk, heavily drunk, because Belle would never be snogging a Slytherin in public.

Minister of Magic her father may be, but he always had something against Slytherins, and made it quite clear that Belle "was not to fraternize with such delinquints". Belle's father was teased a lot by Slytherins when he was in school.

Looking away, I turned my attention to the other side of the room. As usual, James was on the couch, surrounded by so many girls that you could hardly see him. James proposed that out of respect for the 7th year players, Slytherin should also be invited to the party, which led to a few select Ravenclaws being invited, which led to the Room of Requirement being filled with guys drinking and girls fawning over James, Fred, Ethan, Fin, and almost every other single make in the room.

Sighing and looking away before I puked, I spotted Fin and Paige sitting on a couch, sipping firewhiskey and chatting, I grabbed a bottle off the table I was leaning against, opened it, and walked over to them. "Hey, you two. Why do you look ready to kill yourselves?" I asked, sitting down so that Fin was between Paige and I.

"Because we feel completely lonely because we are not being or trying to be intimate with one of the opposite sex." Paige said. I smirked at her sarcastic remark. Paige hated parties, for the sole fact that they usually ended in snogging and/or sex, and she had only done the former.

Once.

And since her first boyfriend broke up with her two days after they did it, she's convinced herself that she's a bad kisser. She's completely self-consious.

"Now I will drink to that." I said, clinking my bottle to her's and Fin's and taking a long gulp. "So…I can't tell from the back of the head, but whose face is Belle sucking like her life depends on it?" Fin asked, some hostility in his voice.

I laughed but answered, "Hayden Goyle."

"Really?" Paige asked. "Since when does our lovely Isabelle have an interest in Slytherins? I thought her dad said if she was caught with a Slytherin, she'd be moved to France to her aunt's."

"Since she was on her fifth bottle of firewhiskey, if I counted correctly. And yes, her father did say that, but I doubt anyone who has the balls to go up to Belle's father is going to remember this tomorrow."

"True," she admitted. "Wait, fifth bottle? Oh, she going to be so pleasant in the morning." I laughed at her look of disgust of having another "Hangover Sunday" as we had begun to call them. Suddenly music blasted through the room, causing several shouts of approval to come from most people in the room.

Turning my attention to where the music was coming from, I saw Queen Bitch heading from the stereo towards James, pulling him up from the horde of girls surrounding him and started… well, you can't even justify it as dancing, it more like humping to the music.

Shaking my head to get rid of the disturbing image, I felt Fin take my hand. "Ladies, shall we dance?" he asked, looking at us with that cliché, one-eyebrow-raised, "sexy" look.

Paige and I shared a glance, looked at him, and said simultaneously said, "We shall."

~Lia~

At some point last night I was passed onto Ethan, Albus, Fred, Belle, Roxy, Brian Wood and Phoenix before a half-drunk Paige and I managed to carry a very drunk Belle up to the dorm, where we found Emma, sprawled out on my bed, wearing someone else's shirt.

A boy's shirt.

Dropping Belle on her bed, I looked at Emma and said to Paige, "Well, at least we know she had a good time tonight."

Paige laughed and then told me to shut up and go to sleep. Which I did.

Needless to say, the next morning was not fun.

Whoever invented the after-effects of firewhiskey should undergo the Killing Curse.

Seriously.

A/N: More to come soon guys! =)