The next few weeks passed without incident, as far as Dora could tell. Yes, some of her roommates continued to receive glares from the Slytherin females, but they either responded with equally severe looks or-which Dora noticed had no effect-ignored them.
The problem with ignoring bullies, she reflected, was that it enabled their poor behavior. Grownups claimed that if you ignored them, you were denying them attention, and they would stop. The first part might be true, but the second rarely was. Really, it was just an excuse to forbid fighting back. Not that it would be a fair fight, she reflected, as she and her roommates were third years against older students with more advanced magic. Besides, Snape would always take their side.
Physically fighting might be a bit more equal. Dora reckoned she could throw a punch as well as the next girl, despite never having lessons.
Still. A severe look from Demelza or Morwenna (especially as the latter was not just pure blood, but part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight family list) did tend to show the larger waisted Slytherins that they wouldn't be threatened.
"Oh, look, there's another Hogsmeade trip coming up!" Becky squealed, seeing the announcement in the common room, and gathering close to have a look. "It's on Valentine's Day, too!"
"That's on a Saturday this year, then?" Polly asked, glancing at the notice. "Ah, yes, it is!"
"Lots of couples will be strolling around, snogging," Morwenna noted, laughing, "but it will still be fun for the rest of us."
Dora smiled, remembering something her parents had told her. "Dad said they decorate the shops for Valentine's Day. But there's not always a chance to go, because of when it could fall during the week. We're rather lucky it happened to be during our first year."
"Even if almost none of us have a boyfriend?" Morwenna asked, giving Dora a sideways look.
"Almost?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "How do you mean?"
"Charlie Weasley!" came the rather giggling response of a few of her roommates.
Dora rolled her eyes. "It was two dances. And that was last year."
"He's been quite friendly towards you in Herbology," Becky pointed out, rather diplomatically. "Certainly more than the rest of us."
Dora thought this was a bit of an exaggeration. They exchanged greetings at the beginning and end of each lesson, but it wasn't as though they were holding long, intimate conversations.
"We say hello and goodbye. Hardly snogging, Becky," she reasoned.
"No, that will wait until he takes you to Madam Puddifoot's," Demelza teased.
"Ugh!" Dora shivered. It wasn't a horrible restaurant, really, but she couldn't imagine going there on a first date. Or ever. Even her parents, as in love as they were, would probably only go as a bit of a joke. "I'd bolt. Truly, I would, if he tried to take me there."
The girls giggled, and that rather put an end to speculation about Dora's romantic life.
She was glad.
A few days later, on Friday morning just before breakfast, more news came out, although this was of a less pleasant nature.
Hufflepuff would compete against Slytherin in the Quidditch tournament on the first Saturday in February.
The general mood in the few days following this news, among the Hufflepuff house, were a mix of excitement and dread. Slytherin's team was good, but they played dirty. They'd easily won the House tournament for the past two years, and the general opinion was that this was because they would stop at nothing to win.
After all, when four people are sent to the Hospital Wing overnight-and only two by Bludgers-you would generally agree there was foul play. Even Madam Hooch said as much. But no amount of warnings or penalty shots could prevent the Slytherin team from treating the game like a war.
It was little wonder they kept winning.
Their chances would have been better against Gryffindor. The enjoyment level would have been higher, too. But while Gryffindor had performed reasonably well last October, all things considered, they had lost. Not by a great deal, but it was enough to advance.
Dora wasn't a devoted fan of Quidditch the way Becky and Sarah were, but she always attended the games. The Slytherin Chasers and Beaters had played brutally, nearly knocking out the poor Gryffindor Keeper on several occasions. Charlie Weasley had managed to snatch the Snitch moments before the Slytherin Seeker had glimpsed it, but by then, Slytherin was 180 points up.
Catching the Snitch was only worth 150 points.
No matter who had won the first game, Hufflepuff would be the next team to compete. Dora was filled with house pride, but she knew they had no chance against Slytherin. They played well, but honorably. When the Beaters got a shot at the Bludgers, they aimed them in the opposite direction, as opposed to at players (or even in the direction) of the other team. The idea of flying to knock another player off of his or her broom would be considered foul play. If there was a move that was even remotely questionable, they would avoid it.
They hadn't won the Cup in over a decade.
"Let's just hope it doesn't go on for too long," Sarah muttered, upon seeing the announcement. "If only Gryffindor had won..."
"We'd still likely lose, but not be massacred," Demelza finished, and likely not in the way Sarah had intended. "Goodness knows we don't have a chance at the Cup, but we'd lose honorably."
Morwenna rolled her eyes. "Where's your house pride?"
"I reckon the way we play shows that well enough," Polly retorted. Pausing for a breath, she added, "Our team could play dirty, but they won't."
Murmurs of agreement followed this statement. Dora studied her friend. Her robes weren't cut to show off her waist, but she knew Polly had laced to eighteen and an eighth inches that morning. Eighteen had left her nearly breathless, and the extra eighth of an inch probably wasn't much better. True, her face wasn't red, and she wasn't gasping for air, but her sentences were shorter, and she paused to refill her lungs. Dora had received a letter from her mum promising to do what she could to help, but warned her not to expect an overnight change.
Dora suspected that she was far more comfortable at seventeen inches than her friend at over an inch larger.
"They'd receive detention from our head of house if they tried," she countered. "Not that they would."
"Yes, Snape never does anything except praise his precious snakes," Elizabeth grumbled. "Foul things that they are."
Dora tried not to bristle. Her mum had been a snake, after all. But she couldn't deny that many Slytherin students were outright nasty, and the Quidditch team...
"We'll still go, won't we?" Morwenna asked, glancing around.
Everyone nodded.
"It will rather be like witnessing a car crash," Elizabeth added, glancing at Sarah, who nodded.
"Dreadful, but you can't tear your eyes away," the fellow muggle born agreed.
The others didn't quite understand the analogy, even though they knew about the muggle form of transportation. Even though the muggle borns tried to explain it, no one could was very much the wiser afterwards.
When Dora cracked open one of the windows on day of the match, she detected chill in the air and a certain smell that she always associated with impending snow. Dora grinned. It would be nice if they had enough for a snowball fight or make snowman, as long as it waited until after the match.
The Great Hall contained the excitement of a Quidditch match-especially on the part of Slytherin. That table looked positively jubilant, as though they had already won. Glancing at Hufflepuff Quidditch team gathered together, not yet dressed in their robes but easily distinguishable all the same, Dora could see they were involved in intense discussion. The Captain was a fifth year student, Stephen Cranford, who had been selected for the position when the former Captain (whose name Dora couldn't recall) graduated last year. Cranford wasn't the oldest, but he wasn't the youngest, either. More to the point, he'd been on the team since his second year, and had been assigned the task of replacing over half the team.
After donning cloaks, hats, and scarves-and applying the necessary charms to keep them toasty-everyone headed to the Quidditch pitch to wait for the match to begin. It seemed to Dora that the entire school was there. Dora rather suspected that they weren't rooting for Hufflepuff as much as against Slytherin. If Hufflepuff won, as Dora understood, they would compete against Ravenclaw. Should Ravenclaw win, the Cup would be theirs. But if they lost, then Slytherin would compete against Ravenclaw.
Slytherin had won the Cup during Dora's first and second year, and hadn't even lost a single match. The players may have changed as one or more finished school, but their method of playing hadn't. Andromeda had said, when Dora had described the matches, that this would never have been allowed under her head of house.
"Mind, Quidditch has always been a risky game. You can hardly avoid risk where there are bludgers involved. But the games were cleaner than what you describe," she'd recalled, shaking her head a bit.
Dora imagined her mum was relieved that she'd never shown much desire to play.
As they sat on the cold bleachers-not that she could feel anything under her clothes-Dora was grateful for the extra charms on her clothes. Her mum had applied them as needed ever since she could remember, and later taught Dora long before she learned officially in school. The result was that, despite it being cold enough to snow, Dora felt as cozy as though she was wrapped in blankets in front of a fire.
Becky sat on one side to her, and Morwenna to the other. They waited patiently for the teams to emerge, but Dora could hear Morwenna explaining something to Sarah about their Care of Magical Creatures lesson. Something about Nifflers, from what Dora could make out.
Then, the teams emerged, and the chatter turned into cheers and boos. Dora craned her head to get a good look. The Slytherin team was entirely male, all looking as large as the Hufflepuff Beaters. She couldn't quite make out their expressions, but she imagined they were unfriendly and intimidating. Madam Hooch gave them a stern warning that she wanted a clean game, and then the Captains shook hands.
Cranford, who was one of the Chasers, was hardly small, but he didn't quite reach Martin Sludgewood's shoulders. Sludgewood, Dora knew, played Beater.
Dora held her breath as one of the other Chasers nearly knocked Cranford off his broom in an attempt to steal the Quaffle. He miscalculated, slightly, and nearly fell off his broom as a result. Dora joined with her house in cheering-the Slytherins hissed and booed.
The same Chaser paid for his attempted dirty move when one of the Hufflepuff Beaters aimed a Bludger directly at him. Not at his head-the Hufflepuffs had their ethics-but it nearly rammed into his arm. Dora couldn't help but wince in sympathy.
The game continued in a similar manner for some time. Slytherin scored twice, Hufflepuff once, but only when Madam Hooch assigned them a penalty shot. The Slytherins increased their aggressive moves, and Hufflepuff retaliated, but not with the same vigor.
The Seekers, meanwhile, had little to do except fly about. The Snitch had vanished after being released, and aside from a few flickers, it seemed determined not to be caught. Well, it was probably charmed in this manner, but like the Bludgers, it almost had a mind of its own.
It was far from dull, which was good because it could last for hours. Dora remembered hearing that there had been one match, although on a professional level, that had lasted for days. Substitute players had to be brought in to give the others a few hours of sleep. She wondered about the audience. Some had private boxes, but most would likely have to make do on their seats. Unless they wanted to risk returning to their tents. Perhaps, some particularly enthusiastic families would have their members sleep in shifts...
"And there's the Snitch! Dogwood's seen it, too, and he's off! Oh, but it's disappeared again. Pity, too," Henrietta Longway, the Ravenclaw commentator, announced. "Looks like Dogwood was only a few yards away from it."
"If she had a Nimbus, she likely would have caught it," Morwenna mused. "Pity she only has a Cleansweep Five."
It wasn't fair, really, for the players to compete on varying levels of broomsticks. Either they should all use the school brooms, or perhaps, the school should purchase special ones for the teams. Instead, you had everything from a Cleansweep Two to a Nimbus 1500. There was a world of difference between the two...not that Dora had ridden either.
Yes, Amelia Dogwood might very well have caught the Snitch had her broom been a bit better. Not that the Slytherin Seeker was at a particularly higher advantage-according to her dad, the differences between the Five and Six in the Cleansweeps were rather miniscule, although the Seven had been quite an improvement...
The Chasers fought again over the Quaffle, and Slytherin scored another goal. This time, Madam Hooch determined no foul play, and the game proceeded as usual.
Polly shifted in her seat. "Can you see the Snitch? I thought I caught sight of it..."
But she'd been the only one.
Hufflepuff scored its second goal when one of the Beaters sent a mighty whack at the Bludger, causing it to briefly knock the Quaffle from the player's hands before attempting to attack him. Dora was sure the player's red face wasn't from the cold, and she grinned.
The game continued in this vain, with Slytherin slowly gaining a larger lead, and Hufflepuff occasionally scoring, but never catching up, until the score was 70-30.
At that point, the Snitch appeared less than six inches from the Slytherin Seeker's face. Almost lazily, he reached out, caught it, and then the game ended.
Cheers erupted from Slytherin l, and the look on Snape's face was one of gloating-momentarily, at least, until he schooled his features. Dora glanced at her own head of house. Disappointment, from the way her face fell. Not unlike when one of her own house failed to answer a question correctly. Still, there was no dismay, and Dora reckoned she'd been expecting the loss.
Well, they had fought hard, and the way the Snitch appeared at the very last minute over the Slytherin Seeker...perhaps the Chasers and Beaters had played dirty, but nothing worse than usual. Besides, they would have needed to be up by 160 points to win...
They all rose. Some headed to the field to console the team, but Dora and her roommates didn't know anyone that closely. There wouldn't be any kind of party in the common room, just a return to the usual weekend activities.
On the bright side, since Slytherin would almost certainly defeat Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff wouldn't need to play against them until the following year.
Author's note: According to "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," Slytherin won the Quidditch Cup for the past seven years, which means the entire duration of Dora and Charlie's tenure at Hogwarts. (Which means that, in spite of Charlie's talent, it wasn't enough to win the Cup even once.) While I do plan to take a detour from canon in some ways, having Hufflepuff win against Slytherin would be too unbelievable. Having them lose without being slaughtered is the best I can do. Sorry to disappoint anyone who was hoping for a win!
I wrote a one shot called "Matilda's Problem" which takes place several years after this point in time of the fic, although, as it consists entirely of OCs and merely EXISTS in the wizarding world-that is, there's no reference to Voldeort or even any Harry Potter characters-it could, theoretically, take place at any time. Rated K+. It's late July. Madam Barnatte's oldest daughter has begun to waist train and loves it. The only problem is, having not mastered self lacing and with her mother away for a week for her annual corsetiere's conference, Matilda now has to decide upon two "evils": not wearing a corset for that time...or asking her father for help. For a twelve year old girl, this is truly a dilemma! Fluff, family love, and no sexual content. If this piques your interest, please visit my FFN page and give it a read, and a review! :)
Next up in THIS-another visit to Hogsmeade, and perhaps a date!
As always...if you're enjoying this, please leave feedback. Doesn't have to be a long review, just a sentence or so would make my day. :)