I meant to post this during Spring Break- oops. Well, summer is closing in, so I should be able to write a little more once that comes!
In the meantime, enjoy!
Within the fourth year, we dubbed Headmaster Damien's outburst the Gryffindor Massacre. After all, six had died, all from the lion house. They had died like lions, they deserved to be remembered like them.
Only two fourth-years had been directly affected by the deaths of Vincent, Lisa, Liana, Ash, the fifth-year girl, and the second-year boy (I learned from Nick that their names had been Camellia and Alexei)- Art and Lyndsay. Of course we were all devastated, especially the popular Gryffindor girls, but Art was a mess. His face was permanently streaked with tears, and he hadn't said a word since Liana had died. His dark curls, normally so perfectly styled into a fluffy nest, were in the same droopy, messy state they'd been in on New Year's Eve. Lyndsay seemed mostly unaffected- just a little quieter was all- but I knew she was hurting, probably even more than Art. She was angry, too. But she seemed to keep it bottled up inside as she helped the rest of us set up the shrine.
Yes, shrine.
It was the Sunday before classes started, and for the second time in a week, I was setting up a shrine.
About half of the candles in the Room of Requirement had been moved to stand by one of the walls, where six ornate golden pedestals stood clustered together. Vincent's was the most prominent, with the biggest candle blazing bright on top of the base next to a picture of Vince that was probably a few years old. The short boy looked about our age in the photo as he laughed with another boy, a friend back home, no doubt. The picture smiled whenever Lyndsay entered its sight, and it always waved furiously to anyone who looked its way. Wrapped around the base of the candle was one of Vince's House ties. As the candle burned, melted wax would eventually stick the tie to the pedestal, making the shrine permanent. The podium itself was covered in sheer, floaty, shimmery gold fabric, and the base of it was bedecked in red poppies.
The whole process had been repeated with the other five shrines (only with pictures of a shyly grinning Liana, Lisa striking a silly pose, Ash with an arm thrown around Nellie, Camellia smiling contentedly, and Alexei making a face). I recognized the pedestals from my first year, left over from the room's incarnation that I knew fondly as the Gryffindor Room. It was raining outside, pouring down water like the sky itself was crying for the perished Gryffindors, but yet the still-tiny Tamsin, Lanie, Lorie, and Lynne had ventured out into the cold and wet. They had brought back armfuls and armfuls of the red poppies without explaining where they had picked them, but no one had complained. Millie and Helen had set to trimming the flowers. Art and Lyndsay had claimed decorating rights for Liana's and Vincent's shrines, respectively. Well, Art hadn't really claimed anything, but whenever anyone came over with a trimmed poppy for Liana's shrine he snatched it from their hands without saying a word.
Decorating the shrines took about forty-five minutes, total. While the flower-gatherers dried each other off with quick spells, the rest of us arranged the remainder of the candles to give the main gathering optimal lighting. Once everyone was dry and lit up, we claimed our cushions and sat in our normal circle. Nick took attendance, purposely skipping Liana's name and letting a beat of silence hang sorrowfully in the air instead. She was the first fourth-year we'd definitely lost (I'd decided that Eli was the patient in the infirmary- Madam Pomfrey had simply been confused about who she was taking care of. Madam Pomfrey was a great Healer, but she was getting older- she was bound to mix some stuff up). He didn't even hesitate on my name this time, though.
"Welcome to today's meeting," Nick announced. "As you all know, our last meeting was supposed to be a New Year's Eve party, but it got cancelled in light of- er- recent events." He cleared his throat, not a single trace of his usual arrogance showing through, and gestured to Nathan.
His friend stood. "Since a New Year's party wouldn't be very appropriate now that we're already three days into January," Nathan explained, "we decided to do something different. Who here has ever played Quidditch?"
A fair amount of people raised their hands.
A mischievous glint appeared in Nick's eye. "What about… indoor Quidditch?"
All of the hands, including mine, went down.
Nick sighed. "It's just Quidditch indoors and with no Bludgers. But people can knock others off their brooms instead!"
Nathan rolled his eyes. It was obvious that this was Nick's scheme for raising everyone's spirits, and although Nathan had been privy to this before that moment, it was as plain as the nose on his face that he didn't like it. He had never really liked Quidditch, which was odd considering his best friend lived for it. "If none of you want to play it, we can always do something else-"
"No," everyone else said.
Nathan sat down, looking sheepish and a bit disgruntled.
"How do you score?" Kayla asked Nick. The Hufflepuff Keeper from the previous year's face had lit up the moment Nick had mentioned Quidditch- she missed the sport, just like I did.
"See the target on the wall?"
I glanced away from Nick and up at the west wall, where there was a big red circle painted perfectly in the center. Huh. How did I not notice that when I first came in? I guess I was preoccupied with the shrines.
"No Keepers," Nick continued- Kayla's face fell- "but you just try to hit that target. Ten points every time you do so."
"Team captains?" someone suggested.
Brooklyn stood. "Me."
Someone else shouted out, "Nick- you go!"
Nick smirked. He'd already been standing- no doubt he'd planned to be a captain from the start. "Anyone object to Brooklyn and me as captains?" He glanced around, but when no one spoke up he grinned and beckoned for my best friend to go stand by him. (She did.) "Come on, Vawdrey! Who'll pick first?"
"Ladies first, I think," Nathan said, pointing to Brooklyn.
My best friend glanced at Nick. "You heard the boy, Justice- ladies first!" She gestured to him.
Nick took the snub gracefully and curtsied, causing an uproar of laughter from our gathered comrades. He cleared his throat, fluttered his eyelashes in a very good imitation of Elysa, and spoke in a falsetto. "I'd be delighted to-" His voice cracked, and he lapsed back into his normal semi-deep speech amid howls of laughter. "You sure, Brooklyn?"
She shrugged and caught my eye. "Won't make much of a difference, yeah?"
Nick won't pick me, I mentally assured her, even though she couldn't hear me. If you're going to pick me first- and I know you will, we've been playing Quidditch together ever since we got our first kiddy brooms for Christmas when we were little tykes- you don't have to worry.
"Everyone who's playing, line up shoulder-to-shoulder across the room," Nick ordered. "Everyone who isn't playing, sit behind them."
About half of us stood and arranged ourselves in a line that spanned partway across the spacious room. The other half- which included Rossalene, Steven, Nathan, Elysa, Art, and Eric- pulled a bunch of cushions together to create sidelines and sat behind us, unsure which team to cheer for yet.
Nick scanned the line. His eyes alighted on Lanie, but instead, he decided, "Aly."
I stood there for a moment and then moved robotically to stand behind Nick.
Brooklyn folded her arms and glared at him. "Not fair, Nick- you only chose her because you knew I was going to."
Nick ignored her words, but gave her a victorious smile. "It's your turn."
Brooklyn sighed. "Er… Lanie."
Lanie walked up and grinned at Brooklyn.
"Pick Shawnee," I suggested quietly.
"Nate," Nick picked instead. Brooklyn ended up getting Shawnee.
This pattern continued, Nick picking his friends and Brooklyn choosing all of the good players, mostly people who'd been on teams before. We got Tommy, Lyndsay, Melissa, Lea, Aleyn, Lynne, Jamie, even Brandon Trotter. In the end, Nick had a team of eleven, as did Brooklyn (she had, in addition to those already mentioned, Conor, Will, Kayla, Mari, Grace, Lorie, Helen and Alexandra). They used the Color-Changing Charm to turn their robes a brilliant white, while we kept ours black. Tommy, who had been steadily recovering his cheeriness ever since the Christmas Ball, suggested we turn them red, for Gryffindor- but Aleyn, Lynne, Jamie, Brandon and I shot that down real fast.
"Here's the Quaffle," Nick said, appearing with a dusty red ball. I hadn't even noticed he was gone. "Anyone can be a Chaser, even the Seeker, but there can only be one Seeker. No one else can catch the Snitch." He opened his left fist, which had been closed tightly, and out zoomed a small golden Snitch with sharp, fluttering wings. It tried to zip away, but Nick snatched it from the air with his easy, agile Seeker's reflexes.
"Where'd you get that?" Aleyn asked in awe.
"Nicked it," Nick said casually, releasing the snitch and allowing it to flitter quickly away. It was gone in an instant. I found myself admiring Nick's reflexes. I would never have been able to move that fast. "Anyway, I'll be the Seeker for my team."
Brandon, who'd been Slytherin's Seeker the previous year, wrinkled his nose but didn't object.
"Lanie's our Seeker," Brooklyn decided.
"What about Mari?" someone pointed out.
Mari shook her head. "No, I'm fine with Lanie being Seeker!"
"Perfect," Nick agreed, nodding. I ground my teeth together at his arrogance. Thinking he could beat Lanie that quickly! "Now we just need a referee. Anyone want to volunteer? Someone neutral."
"A Hufflepuff, maybe?" Lynne suggested, fiddling with the hem of her dark robe.
"Steven, you go," Lanie put forward. "You like Quidditch, right?"
The quiet Hufflepuff boy slowly stood. "I guess. Captains, shake hands."
Brooklyn held out her hand, and Nick shook it. I assumed that he did something to annoy her, like tickle her palm with a finger, because Brooklyn snatched her hand back as if she'd been burned. I stifled a little giggle. A real giggle. Under Damien's regime, playing a sport with my friends, I was beginning to lighten up and enjoy myself.
"Mount your brooms," Steven droned.
"Wait!" Kayla held up a palm, stopping him. "We need brooms first!"
Nick pointed to a corner behind the sidelines. I glanced at the shadowy place, and was surprised to see a stack of brooms- old brooms, but reliable-looking ones- piled there.
Those weren't there before, I'm sure of it!
"I love this room," Lea sighed contentedly as we all hurried to claim a broom. The one I took was a Nimbus Two Thousand and One- a broom that was probably nearly fifty years old, but still very fast and with some of the latest safety precautions. I patted the handle as I hurried back to my spot and waited for Steven to call for mounting again.
There turned out to be twenty-three brooms. Steven, who was neither a great flier nor a bad one, took the last Nimbus rather reluctantly. "Mount your brooms," he said with even less vigor than he'd had before. "Do I need a whistle?"
Rossalene tossed him one from where it hadn't quite appeared but more been beside her cushion without her noticing. Steven's reflexes weren't that horrible either, and he caught it quite easily. "On my mark. One… two…"
Tweet!
I rose into the air, feeling both relief and loathing. How I'd longed to fly again, to play Quidditch- but no, this wasn't Quidditch. There was no wind whipping my straggly curls around and into my face. I was wearing no gear. There was no natural light- barely any light at all, really- and the stale air was starting to stifle me. Suddenly I felt suffocated, like someone just out of reach was pressing a pillow over my face and I could no more breathe than I could reach him.
"Aly! Catch!"
Bam!
Something slammed into my chest, and instantly I could breathe again. Instinctively, I grabbed hold of whatever had hit me and took a tighter hold of my broom so I wouldn't fall off. I was holding the Quaffle, and sturdy Will in bright white robes was rocketing towards me, ready to knock me off of my broom.
I swerved to the left, found myself facing a trio of very fierce-looking figures in white, and jerked my broom sharply upwards. I wasn't a great Chaser, but I knew enough to be able to pass properly. When I spotted that Brandon was open, I promptly did so.
The Slytherin boy, unused to being a Chaser as he was, caught the Quaffle and then fumbled it. Not much, but he did drop it a few feet accidentally to where Grace was patiently waiting. She sped off toward the red target.
Bam! Stocky Tommy crashed into Grace from the side. Her broom flipped over, and Grace's waterfall of shiny black hair streamed down toward the floor. She was forced to grab on to her broom with both hands in order to avoid the thirty-foot drop to the floor, and the Quaffle fell two feet, five feet, fifteen feet.
Grace flipped back over and patted her now-messy hair back into its normal straight mane at the same instant that Jamie snatched the Quaffle. She was immediately confronted by Mari, but I urged my broom to speed up and fly right at the dark-skinned Hufflepuff girl. Her many beaded braids clinked together as she was forced to flee in order to stay on her broom, leaving the path clear for Jamie to throw the Quaffle at the target. Her toss was intercepted by Conor.
"A Mathieson throw intercepted by a Mathieson!" boomed Johnny. He was clearly having a field day, having apparently nominated himself and Matt as commentators for the match. The sudden loud voice nearly startled me off of my broom, but I stayed on.
"What a play!" Matt added. His voice, when magnified as it was, was hilariously high-pitched, but he didn't seem to notice. "And now Conor's got the Quaffle, he's dangerously close to that target, that's the problem with only having one scoring area…"
"But Melissa's blocked him, and he's forced to fly farther out," Johnny interrupted. "Wait- has Nick seen the Snitch?"
All eyes turned to Nick, except for Conor's. The latter Gryffindor boy darted around all of us as we searched quickly to find the former, and I only saw him throw the Quaffle with all of his might out of the corner of my eye.
Nick shook his head and waved his arms wildly, yelling for us not to pay attention to him but to the Quaffle. By then, it was too late- Matt was shouting that the score was ten-naught to Team Brooklyn.
The game went on for about an hour with no sign of the Snitch, and (surprisingly) Team Nick was in the lead by twenty points when the door to the Room of Requirement slammed open. In the door stood Cher, panting, her face brilliant red against her black hair. I hadn't even noticed she was gone.
"We have to run," she gasped out. "Headmaster Damien's coming here- now- they passed the first-floor girls' lavatory as I was coming out, saying that if they could catch the rebels in the act of meeting-" her voice seemed to rise an octave- "they'll finally have an excuse to kill us all!"
We had landed while she was speaking, all of us who had been playing Quidditch, and Nathan was on his feet in an instant. "What are you all waiting around for?" he screamed. "Run!"
There was a mad stampede for the door, which magically became large enough in the next moment to let all of us pass through in seconds. Nick grabbed my arm in the hallway. "Some of us have to stay here and take the blame for the others. Pretend like you've caught me. Shove me up against the wall or something- and it's okay if I die, don't blow your cover protecting me." His turquoise eyes were wide and scared, but his mouth was set in a grim, determined line.
I pulled my wand out. "I'm sorry if I hurt you," I whispered as the corridor rapidly cleared. "But you're not going to die on my watch, Justice."
I pinned his arm to his side with one hand, mumbled another apology, and slammed him into the wall. I could hear a stampede of people rounding a nearby corner, and I glanced over- thankfully, the door to the Room of Requirement had vanished since nobody was in it anymore. I put my wand to Nick's throat, where it brushed against his Adam's apple, which bobbed as he gulped nervously. Either he was a very good actor or he wasn't as brave as he claimed to be in the face of death. I resolved not to let him die even if It meant my own murder. Of course, if I was killed he probably would be too, and soon after.
The footsteps came closer, and I put an expression of loathing on my face as I glared at Nick. Just as the sounds of Headmaster Damien's army seemed to be just around the corner, I growled, "Why so suspicious-looking? There's nothing in this corridor for you to see. Moseying along down it won't do you any good."
I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and heard the feet slow and still. Then I spotted the flicker of gratefulness in Nick's eyes and knew I was making the right choice to not act as if I'd caught him actually doing anything wrong.
Nick gurgled, and I realized that I may have been pressing my wand against his throat a little too hard. I lightened the pressure but kept my wand at the ready- not to kill Nick, but to set off some kind of charm to allow the two of us to escape should we need to.
"Speak up!" I demanded.
He coughed. "Got caught in a… moving staircase…." He coughed again. "Got lost. I was going down… to the Great Hall."
I narrowed my eyes but let him go. He half-fell, half-slid to the floor, massaging his throat. I prodded him with my wand, trying not to wince when he flinched. "Well? Get up! We're going to the Great Hall!"
Nick slowly got to his feet, I jabbed my wand into his back as softly as I could, and together we turned to face the masses.
I saw Headmaster Damien first, leading the charge, his black hair bushy and blue eyes glittering with a feral light. Then I spotted all five captains behind him- Eve-Charlotte looking beautiful as usual, Ivan stoic and silent, Peggy excited, Katy shocked, and Finley the exact copy of his master. Then there were the hordes behind them. I tried my best to look surprised. "Commander! Is something wrong?"
Finley's eyes narrowed, but Headmaster Damien spoke first. "What are you doing here, Alyssa?"
I raised my chin. "I received the same tip you did." It was a foolish gamble, and I realized belatedly that Nick was in front of me and would die first if anyone shot a Killing Curse. I tensed instantly, ready to throw him to the side.
But after a beat, Headmaster Damien threw back his head and laughed. It was a hearty and true laugh, not beastly or frightening, and I found myself wanting to laugh along with him for a change. The thought didn't terrify me as it once would have.
"Of course," Headmaster Damien said once he had regained his composure. "He is a help to us all, isn't he? Come with me." He beckoned.
I gestured to Nick, making sure that the relief didn't show on my face. "I was about to escort him to the Great Hall-"
Katy stepped forward. "I'll do it. Come on, Justice." She took my place and stabbed her wand hard between Nick's shoulderblades, harder than I had. He arched his back and hunched his shoulders together, probably trying not to cry out in pain. Katy shot me a look, one I recognized well from years of being around Brooklyn- it was a we'll talk about this later look. Then the two marched away, and I followed Headmaster Damien down the corridor in the direction of his office.
So? What did you think? You know the drill- R&R, please.