Chapter 9: Serpent in the Sky
The next day, Ivy awoke, for the second time that term, lying in the hospital wing, resting on her back. Her head, to be fair, felt a lot better, but, reaching to touch the bandages, she winced. Ouch. There was still a cut there. She may still be in here for a few more days more.
Hermione, who she had not noticed was sitting opposite her bed, spoke to her, not bothering to look away from her book.
"Morning Ivy. Dumbledore threw out the troll, in case you're wondering. He looked furious. I didn't know he had it in him. We've all been popping in and out of here, waiting for you to get better from your 'minor injury',"
Ivy looked at her, raising one eyebrow slightly, and then let her head rest on the bed again. "And by you all, you mean…?"
"Myself, Rose, Draco, and…" she paused, and spat into a cup of water by her side, "Ronald,"
She groaned and rolled her eyes. "You still angry with him?" Not waiting for an answer, she asked, "How long will I be in here, anyway?"
"Today and tomorrow," said Hermione, sounding slightly more friendly already, now that the conversation topic of Ron had been dropped, "You'll be out in time for your Quidditch match, joy. Oh! And you've got a letter," she finished, tossing a small envelope with Ivy's name written on it to her. She opened it, and skimmed through.
"Just my mum worrying about me," she said, disappointedly crumpling it up and throwing it into the bin. "I s'pose I should write back to her?"
"I suppose," she replied, nodding.
…
Dear Lily,
Heeey, yeah I'm doing okay. Yes, I did knock out a mountain troll with its own club, but Hermione was okay: she's doing fine. I really miss you. Just got out of the hospital wing, and need to catch up on some herbology homework, so don't have much time to write now, bye!
Ivy. P
She read through it for the seventh time. The truth was, she didn't particularly miss Lily at all. Wait- no. She crossed out the 'Lily', replacing it with 'Mum'. It wasn't, now she looked at it, very long at all, but it had taken her half an hour. Somehow. Time was just weird like that, she supposed. Amaya crawled onto her lap, and rolled up into a ball. She stroked her head playfully.
"Where were you when I was lying in the hospital wing, eh?"
She yawned, and leant against her stomach, batting her eyes up at her.
She grabbed a small brown owl from an armchair, and tied the letter to its leg. She whispered to it.
"Lily Potter,"
As she watched the owl fly out of the door, she found her eyes darting to the portrait of Salazar Slytherin, empty, as always.
She felt a very slight pang of homesickness.
…
Ivy was walking down the stairs towards the table. She wondered vaguely whether Merlin would be having dinner with them. She called out,
"You there, Merlin?"
There was no reply. She frowned. She wasn't that far away from the dining table at all. Certainly, they should've heard her.
"This isn't funny, guys!"
Still no response. She shivered a little. She quickened her pace, walking through the sitting room, dodging out of the way of Salazar's enchanted bookcase, but just as she spotted the table, she froze.
Every single seat was occupied not by a founder, but by one of the Dursleys.
"Where were you, eh?" asked Dudley, standing up and shoving her to the ground.
Let me out.
Let me out.
Let me out.
Let me-
Ivy awoke, lying in bed. She was sweaty, but it didn't sound like she had woken anyone up. Aside from herself. It was a trick she had learnt a long time ago. Years and years. Repeating let me out to herself always made her wake up. At least, when she was dreaming. Whenever something was going badly, she liked to imagine she was.
She wiped a tear from her eye, cursing herself quietly for being an idiot. When she had lived with the founders, she had never wanted to find out who her real parents were. Of course, like any small child, her imagination had toyed with the idea, creating crazy concepts that her dad might be a werewolf, or so on. But she didn't believe she had ever cared about it too deeply. She played that fateful conversation, from one year ago, back in her head.
"Will I be able to come back?"
"You will always be welcome to come back. Your parents will think you missing if you do not go to Hogwarts in your time, however."
But Lily and James weren't her parents, not really. They simply couldn't be. It wasn't possible. That was Salazar and Rowena, Godric and Helga. Merlin, even. Fat lot of good those two had done parenting her. She stared up at the ceiling. Green, watery shapes danced across the stone, highlighting the imperfections. It was…
Beautiful.
What had happened since she got here again? She had met Rose. That was good. She had also met Hagrid, and Dumbledore, briefly. She smiled to herself.
At least it wasn't all bad.
And she drifted off back to sleep, dreaming about Salazar, and Amaya, and magic.
…
She pulled on her emerald green robes immediately upon entering the changing rooms. She surveyed herself in the mirror. It was a pretty impressive uniform, she thought to herself. The house logo was large, and the green bright. Heck, it almost made her eyes look dark. Emphasis on the almost. Silver strips highlighted its shape. It was lightweight and comfortable. Aerodynamic, if nothing else. Useful for a seeker.
"Oi! You in there, new stuff?" called Marcus Flint, the Slytherin captain and one of the three chasers.
"Yep!" she called back, hastily pulling on her boots and walking out, carrying her nimbus two thousand loftily by her side, and stroking the bristles. "What's up?"
"Good," he answered, "It's a strong team, boys. Wood, Johnson, Spinnet, Bell, and the Weasley twins,"
Ivy, who had spotted a hole, butted in, "And who's their seeker?"
"They had trouble, the only guy they could find was some idiot named Henry Mulligan, fourth year, don't you know. But you'll crush him, Ivy!"
She surveyed their team. Terrence Higgs, the ex-seeker, Adrian Pucey, and Marcus Flint were the chasers. Miles Bletchey was their keeper. Peregrine Derrick and Lucian Bole, the one with the poor arm rotation, were their beaters. A lot of muscles here, she thought. Could have a little more brain.
Dean Thomas, the commentator, started calling the names of all the Gryffindor players in turn.
"Wood, Spinnet, Bell, Johnson, Weasley, Weasley, Mulligan!"
There was a lot of cheering from the Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff fans.
"That's strange," whispered Terrence, "There's usually much more cheering for the old lions,"
"Bletchley, Pucey, Higgs, Flint, Derrick, Bole, Potter!" he called out, with noticeably less enthusiasm.
As she walked onto the Quidditch pitch, marvelling at how much better it looked than the one she had played on in the past, she realised why there had been less cheering for the Gryffindors than usual. Of course, everyone in Slytherin was supporting their own house, but the others were less clear cut. It seemed that Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw had been split into those cheering for Gryffindor, wanting to finally see Slytherin finally knocked down a peg, and those cheering for Slytherin. The latter, she was sure, was caused by herself. Even Gryffindor had the odd Slytherin supporter mixed in there, but Rose, Ron and Hermione, were all backing the red house. She waved at Draco. He waved back.
"I want a nice, clean game!" called Madam Hooch, making Ivy jump and go back to the task at hand. Oliver and Flint shook hands, but Marcus did not dare cause him injury in the presence of Ivy.
"On your marks! Get set!"
Hooch had barely released the balls before the entirety of the Quidditch teams kicked off the ground, rising into the air.
"Go!"
The crowd immediately burst into noise. Laughter, cheering, and insults filled the pitch, but Ivy ignored them, she had a job to do.
She searched around the pitch, catching sight of Flint winning Slytherin the first goal of the game. There must be a glint of gold somewhere. Anywhere?
Now, dear reader, would be a good time to explain the rules of Quidditch. Now, of course, the majority of the magical population of Britain is aware that a Quidditch team has seven members. Three chasers, two beaters, one keeper, and one seeker. But a shocking amount of people do not understand the finer details of Quidditch. There are four balls, a quaffle, a large black browny red ball, two bludgers, smaller black balls, and the golden snitch, the smallest, and shiniest. It is the chasers' jobs to get the quaffle through one of the three hoops of the opposing team, earning their own team ten points. It is, of course, the keeper's job to try to stop the other team's chasers from getting these points. The beaters, meanwhile, attempt to use their bats to hit bludgers, small black balls that fly around the pitch, away from themselves, and potentially towards opposing teams' chasers, keeper, seeker, or, if they are particularly stupid, beaters.
But the seeker's job, in this case Ivy, is merely to find the golden snitch, a small golden ball that flutters around with wings, ending the game, and gaining their team 150 points. Unfortunately for her, no matter where she looked, she just couldn't find it.
She had a good eye for snitches however, so she was sure she would find it soon. She just needed to make sure Henry Mulligan didn't find it first.
She soared around the edges of the pitch, making sure to keep out of reach of some of the more troublesome Gryffindors, who were yelling swear words at her. She heard Dean's voice, yelling to the crowd,
"And Bell passes to Spinnet, who passes to- oop, no, intercepted by Flint! Who passes to Higgs, but oh, what are you doing Bole? Bole shoots a bludger straight at his own chaser! And it's grabbed by Johnson, who passes to Spinnet, and she scores! Ten all!"
It was a wonder, she thought, that Dean made it through a year commentating six Quidditch matches without losing his voice. At least, she thought he didn't. She'd have to ask him.
Narrowly missing a bludger launched at her by Fred- or maybe George Weasley? (the two were indistinguishable), she saw Mulligan flying towards her out of the corner of her eye. He was following behind her, evidently not realising he was in her line of sight, until she turned around.
"Can I help you, Henry, dearest?" she asked, coldly, and sarcastically.
She spotted Theo. He alone of the Slytherins was supporting Gryffindor. She felt rage bubbling inside her. The little piece of-
"Nevermind," Henry muttered, darkly, flying off.
'Was he trying to use me to find the snitch?' she wondered, as she sped off in the opposite direction. 'Someone needs to keep my ego in check.'
From there, she blotted out almost all background noise. Occasionally, she would glance up at the scoreboard to see how her beloved house was doing.
20-10 to Slytherin.
30-10 to Slytherin.
40-20 to Slytherin.
50-50.
60-50 to Gryffindor.
70-60 to Slytherin.
80-80.
It was a remarkably close game. It did, indeed, play late into the night, and it was nine o'clock when Ivy finally caught the snitch, winning the game for Slytherin at 340 - 210. When she returned to the common room, people immediately cheered for her. They had strung signs with all the faces of the Slytherin Quidditch team around the room, and they had saved her the nicest chair by the fireplace. She felt elated. She had won her first game as a seeker.
Just as she was walking up the stairs towards her dormitory, she noticed Theo sitting in a corner. He alone looked not pleased at all, but angry.