Chap 5

Dina reacted fast, putting up a strong Shield Charm before any of the lights could hit her. Snape, however, was relentless, a skilled dueller, young as he was. As he fought to cast spells, his face contorted with fear and concentration, Dina heard running footsteps behind her, and suddenly, she was not alone.

She heard James' voice as he shouted out a spell to slow Snape down as he fought. Snape looked past her shoulder to see where the spell was coming from, and that was the opening Dina needed. "Levicorpus," she said in her head, the spell easier than it had ever been before, and watched as Snape was hoisted into the air, as if by an invisible hook on his ankle.

On the ground, Avery was beginning to stir. Dina felt a steadying hand on her shoulder and turned to see Lily's determined face inches from hers. Together, they cast Stunning spells, the combined force of both knocking Avery back down.

Lily stepped towards Snape, who was still dangling mid-air, his thin face now looking a tad more fearful.

"Wake the hell up, Toni, Dina! We're going to be late for the match!" Dina opened her eyes blearily to Lily knotting a bow into her hair. Even this tense and her face flushed from the haste, she looked lovely in a blue sweater and a blue bow in her red hair, her eyes sparkling. Lily Evans loved Quidditch, and no one was going to make her late for even a bit of it.

Dina sat up and stretched, taking in the scene around her. They'd all fallen asleep in the Music Library after what now seemed like very blurry bouts of dancing and chocolate eating. There had been some Firewhiskey Cauldrons, as far as she could recall…

"I have a devil of a headache, Lily, please just let me go back to sleep." Toni had started grumbling, unwilling to give up the last few dredges of sleep. Dina leaned down to whisper in her ear. "Ravenclaw Slytherin match, Toni. We're about fifteen minutes away from it."

The magic words said, she leaned back to observe the effect. Within the next minute, Toni was up and looking wide awake, and in ten minutes, both Toni and Lily were dressed, waiting by the door, while Dina put on her scarf in the dorm. Why do they both have to look quite so flawless in those clothes?, she thought, struggling with her tie. I always look like a right dork in the robes.

"Hurry up, Dina!" Lily screamed again, anxiously checking her large watch- it had been a gift from her parents during a long ago Christmas, and she treasured it, and had since last year, taken to fiddling with it whenever she was nervous.

Dina checked her own watch and started. They only had five minutes to grab breakfast. She yanked her tie into place, pulled on a blue sweater and a gray scarf, and rushed out the door, dragging Lily and Toni on each side of her. Two minutes to get down to the Hall, one to grab breakfast, a bit of toast should do, and, about one or two to rush to the pitch. Dina groaned. She hated this all this endless running; seemed to be all she'd been doing since the beginning of this term.

They got to the pitch with a minute to go, huffing from the stitches at their sides. Suddenly the morning didn't seem cold anymore. There seemed to be a haze covering the Quidditch pitch; it was nearly vibrating with all the energy held in it. Two blocks of colours dominated- blue and green. Who ever said Ravenclaws are not aggressive was clearly neither a Ravenclaw, nor someone who actually ever came to one of these matches, thought Dina as the three of them struggled over the stands, clambering over people who hardly seemed to care that there were three girls literally climbing over them. They fought over the stands until Lily raised her hand and called out to someone Dina couldn't see yet. "Hey, Remus, could you boys make some space next to you? We can't find any!"

Dina looked up, blushing furiously, to see Remus waving back and beckoning them to where they were sitting. She hadn't really spoken to him after the breakfast, and not much even then. But she had kept replaying their handful of conversations in her head, feeling warm inside, and not quite knowing what to do with the smile that seemingly of its own volition stretched across her face whenever she thought of him, or how his eyes sparkled when he smiled, even through a lightly scarred face; the scars continued to intrigue her, and there had never yet been a mystery Dina had been able to let go of.

Within minutes, they had reached where the boys were, and they sat down, squeezing a little to make space for each other. Lily looked quite a bit disgruntled with her own placement, quashed in between Pettigrew and Potter, while the latter seemed more than happy with this arrangement, and was already beginning to babble away about the finer points of the practices they had watched and how he thought Ravenclaw and Slytherin were a very well-matched team. He practically glows when he talks about Quidditch, there's something so heartwarming about that grin stretching across his face when he's not smirking, thought Dina as she sat down between James and Remus, another blush already suffusing her cheeks. She looked down and pulled her hair around her face in an effort to hide it. She looked across at Toni, and found her keenly watching Lily, studiously ignoring Sirius next to her, whose face had frozen into cut marble. Wondering again about this development that she was unaware of, Dina followed Toni's gaze to where Lily was sitting. In the past few minutes, while she had been busy hiding her face from scrutiny, Lily, shockingly, had seemed to become slightly more comfortable, and was beginning to answer James' queries about her opinions. James' smile had grown warmer, and from what Dina could hear, he was clearly impressed by Lily's knowledge of the game.

Well, that has to be a first. James Potter and Lily Evans having a civil conversation. Dina was startled out of her train of thought by Remus voicing them right next to her. "Nice, right? I've told that prat so many times to get out of that arrogant act he manages to pull off so well. I always knew he and Lily would hit it off if they ever actually spoke."

Toni leaned across with a smug grin plastered on her face as well. "Yes, well, I always knew too. I predicted this around this time last year when I realized both of them were such huge Quidditch buffs. I'm usually right about these things."

Sirius grunted. Remus reached across and slapped his arm.

"And what exactly is your problem, Pads? You've been behaving very strangely since the girls turned up, and that seems more than out of character."

Sirius turned to glare at Remus, but Dina was looking at Toni, whose face betrayed a flicker of something right before it returned to its customary expression, which usually told the world at large to piss off. Interesting. Dina made a mental note to follow up on this when they got back to the Common Room.

Just then, James shouted. "Hey, Moony, Pads! The match is starting, you can save your staring match for later!" As he spoke, they heard the shrill whistle of Professor Michael, their Quidditch coach and Flying Instructor, who was going to be refereeing the match. They watched as the two captains strode towards each other and shook hands, Hofstader's calm not betraying a single twitch as Harrington, the Slytherin Captain, held her fingers in what was unmistakeably a crushing grip. They went back to their brooms and positioned themselves as Professor Michael let out the Snitch, the Bludger, and finally, the Quaffle, and blew his whistle.

The match was under way.

"TEN POINTS TO SLYTHERIN!" Nikolas Daza screamed, red in the face, his voice magnified to reach the far ends of the stadium. The whole Slytherin crowd rose, a wave of green and silver, cheering for their team, and an answering wave of blue stood up to boo them.

"That makes the score a whopping sixty to ten in favour of the Slytherins. Ravenclaw will have to buck up, and soon, to catch up with them, and oh, there goes McDonald!" The Ravenclaw crowd groaned, and Dina heard Remus groan with them next to her. "Could he not see the effing Bludger coming at him, ugh, this match is terrible." She grinned to herself a little- she'd never seen Remus this excited for a match. Or perhaps she had just never noticed how he behaved at matches; never seen him run his hands through his hair exasperatedly at every loss and whoop for every win, something distinctly feral in his grin and his sparkling eyes. I can barely see that network of scars now that his face is glowing from the match. Remus turned to face her, still stamping his feet exaggeratedly. "Hey, did you guys have Marl with you last night? She usually doesn't miss matches, particularly ones against Slytherin."

Dina snapped out of her contemplative reverie at that. "What? We thought she was in your dorm! Lily came over alone last night. Have none of you seen her since then?"

"Toni", she leaned over, "Marl hasn't been in her dorm since last night."

"Fuck. Where do you think she could be? Wait, ask Lily if she's seen her."

"Lily. Lily! LILY!" She turned around, flushed and excited, a little annoyed to have been pulled away from what had seemed like an intense conversation with James.

"What?"

"Have you seen Marl since yesterday? Remus says they haven't seen her this morning, and-"

"She never misses Quidditch matches! Boys, how could you not have mentioned this before? What on earth is wrong with you?"

James and Peter looked at Lily sheepishly, while Sirius was having a furious whispered conversation with Toni Dina could only hear snatches of. Remus had his head in his hands. "Should have checked for her before, this is so irresponsible, she was in danger and we knew that-"

"Ok, shut up, Remus. Hold on." Dina whipped out her binoculars- she always had them on her during matches- and scanned the crowd. "Hold up, guys. I think something's really fishy. I don't see Avery and Snape anywhere, nor any of those girls who simper around Avery all the time. We need to locate Marl right now." She turned to Remus and put a hand on his shoulder. "Remus, where's your map? We need it."

He looked up, hope dancing in his eyes. "James, get the map. We need to find Marl."

A look passed between the boys, and Sirius stopped whispering to Toni. "Alright, let's go. We need to get out of here and make sure no one notices."

"No one's going to notice us leaving, it's the middle of a match," Lily chimed in. "And James, I think we could do with that cloak of yours if someone sees us."

"And I can do a pretty good Confounding Charm even if they think they've seen something", said Toni, standing up and brushing her robes off.

"So what are we waiting for? Let's go, people!" Dina herded them out, looking at the pitch once before they headed out. This school year is turning out nothing like I expected it to, she thought as she rushed after everyone as they climbed over the stands.

Sirius and Toni were running along the corridor. Dina was trailing behind the others, cursing her lack of athletic abilities. Remus was running beside her, holding her hand, pulling her as fast as she could go. James, Lily and Peter had run on ahead, the map with James.

"Come on, Dina, she's on the fourth floor and this bloody castle is no joke to get around!"

"Wait, hold on. Stitch in my side. Hey, what's that?"

A ghost had floated out of the tapestry they were aiming at running behind to get to the classroom they could see Marl was in.

"What are you all doing here? I thought there was a match on. We ghosts don't leave the castle very often, but I do like to get to hear about these things-"

James had skidded to a stop. "Hey, Nick, old man. Do us a favour, won't you? Rush to the farthest distance you can, and find a way to convey this message to McGonagall, or to Dumbledore. Tell them a fourth year Gryffindor is being attacked by four boys in an unused classroom on the fourth floor, and they need to get there as soon as they can."

The ghost, whom Dina had seen before but never spoken to, straightened up, and fixed his ruffle more elegantly than before. "Fear not, sirs. I will use the portraits to get that message to them as soon as possible." With that, he was off, gliding along the corridor faster than Dina had ever seen one of the school ghosts go.

"Ok, now, we need to move." Toni and Sirius had stopped, next to each other, Toni's hand resting casually on Sirius' shoulder before he gave her hand a pointed look and she dropped it as if he were hot. Dina and Remus exchanged a look and a huff before they all started running again.

Within the next ten minutes, they were on the fourth floor, James and Peter having successfully Stunned two of the staircases with a spell of their own invention so that they stopped shifting around. They hurtled to the classroom from which they could hear the sounds of a fierce duel coming. Lily reached first, trying the door with Alohomora, which didn't seem to work.

"The bastards must have put a spell on it," she wiped her hair out of her eyes, nearly in tears. They were losing valuable time.

"Move." Dina shoved James and Sirius aside to where they were crowding the door. She put a hand on Lily's left arm. "Let's try it together, and we blast it this time. No need to unlock it."

They aimed together at the door, and behind them, Toni and the boys raised their wands as well. "REDUCTO!" The combined force of seven spells hit the door and it was blown off its hinges, hitting one of the boys inside, the Hufflepuff boy Dina had seen hanging out with Snape and Avery before. He was thrown off his feet as the door collapsed, taking him with it.

"Well, that's one down and four to go." Dina turned to see Sirius grinning as he spoke, his smirk covering his face. The next minute, though, his face contorted. She turned to see what was making him look quite so broken, and she saw the horror on James, Peter and Remus' faces before she saw that Avery had shifted to reveal the fourth Slytherin. In their hurry to get to the fourth floor, they hadn't read all the names on the map very well. Regulus Black's face blanched an unpleasant colour when he saw his older brother, and he looked for a second as though he might run and hide behind the other boys, but then he straightened and stood, his sadly defiant face looking at Sirius.

"Well, well, well. Looks like we have company." Avery stepped forward, a smile on his face, his wand raised.