Quidditch Day
When Alice befriended Sybill, a Ravenclaw, she thought she'd finally have a friend to skip quidditch matchs with. For some reason, Gryffindor students loved, like really loooooved quidditch. All of them. It's not that Alice doesn't like quidditch particularly, it's that she doesn't like sport at all. She doesn't see the atray to it.
And sadly, although Sybill may be a Ravenclaw, she was also a quidditch fanatic.
So, on Saturday afternoon, while studying silently in the library, she nearly had a panic attack. A little girl with strawberry blond wavy hair began to jump at her all dressed up in red and gold.
“Aliiiice! What are you doing? Now is not the time. The match begins in 20 minutes, you should already be on the bleachers !” Sybill said eagerly.
“You are a Ravenclaw, why are you dressed like a Gryffindor,” Alice asked perplexed.
“It's Gryffindor against Slytherin, so I'm coming with you to the Gryffindor bleachers !” she cheered. “It's so much more fun when you're in the bleachers of one of the teams playing !” she explained.
And she got a point, Alice could give her that. But she was seeing through all of this. “No other reason? Really ?” she eyed Sybill who instantly blushed.
“I don't know what you mean Alice” she declared. “Am I wrong for wanting to go to a quidditch match with my Best friend ?” she asked innocently.
Alice knew she couldn't says no to Sybill so she took all of her things in put them in her bag. “Okay we are going to the match, and if you want, when we won, we'll go to the after-party and I'll introduce you to the Prewett Twin” Alice offered knowing how to poke a joke at her friend. Sybill instantly became as red as a ripe tomato.
“Yes, we can do that,” she gulped.
* * *
The bleachers were completely packed with people, but luckily for them, Sybill asked Emmeline and Molly to keep two seats for them. They were in the third row, in the middle, so it was a bit difficult to move and reached their seats but with some cursed words and a bit of elbowing they finally sat down. Sybill was so happy, she was beaming and Alice wished nothing less for her best friend. Emmeline and Molly, those angels, not only kept their seats, but they also bought finger food to share while watching the match.
Alice was only seated for 2 minutes when everyone got up and screamed. Both teams were walking on the pitch ready to go up in the air. From where they were seated, Alice could see the Gryffindor all lined up in front of the box, Miss Hooche at its side. The weather wasn't sunny as the sky was one big cloud of white. It was chilly but with all of the students packed in the bleacher, it was totally bearable. Frank, the captain of the quidditch team, was standing in front of his team. He seemed like he was giving last minutes advice directly to the team. In front of the Gryffindor, were the Slytherins, all wearing new matching robes, bought by the Malfoy Family. Alice laughed at that. Logically thinking, Slytherin doesn't stand a chance against Gryffindor as their captain bought his way into the team. He wasn't bad, but still, no one really understood why they put him as the captain. Until we learned that his family sponsored the reparation of the quidditch pitch. Then, like everyone finally saw it, Alice heard whispers all around her. “Is that ?”, “No it can't be, he's too young”, “No it's him”. Every student went on with their little comment about the new Slytherin seeker.
“Gryffindor will win this so fast,” said a student near Alice.
“Don't be so sure”, said Molly with a grin. “Want to bet ?” she asked.
Alice laughed. People saying she's nothing like her brothers can not be more wrong at this moment. They'll be proud of her if they knew she was taking bets against them.
From where they stood, Alice could barely make the shape of this new seeker but he seemed young, even younger than James, who was Gryffindor’s seeker. She hated to admit it but it seemed like the match was going to be interesting.
She scanned the rest of the Slytherin team and identified most of them. Lucius was the first in line, with his long locks of silver blond hair but he wasn’t the only one with blonde hair in his team. Narcissa was standing straight with her bat in her hand. She looked so powerful and her hair was far more beautiful than Lucius’ and Narcissa's opinion. At her side was Andromeda, up close, you weren't really able to see that they were sisters, but from far away, you could definitely see the similarities in their way of standing and walking. True daughters of the Black Family.
When observing both teams, you could easily see the resemblance. Both teams had siblings as their duo of beaters. Slytherin has Narcissa and Andromeda and Gryffindor has the Prewett Twin. Sybill once explained to Alice that siblings are the best for this position as they can really work together in sync. Both teams had really young seekers, which was a bold choice especially for Slytherin, considering seekers were in Alice’s opinion the most important position. Kingsley was Gryffondor’s keeper, and Mulciber was Slytherin’s. Both of them were tall with broad shoulders. They were 3 players left in each team, the chasers. In Gryffindor, it was Frank, Sirius, and Marlene. Sybill warned about how Sirius could be a wild element in the Gryffindor team. Especially because 2 of his cousins, Andromeda and Narcissa were on the opposing team. She said it was only family banter but Alice heard some other possible reason when she was reading in the Gryffindor common room. Sirius didn’t seem to really get along with his family.
Miss Hooch blew her whistle and all the players went up in the air. It was a real demonstration of skills. Alice may be a witch, but she hated with all her guts, flying on a broom. She hated flying on anything even. She discovered she was afraid of heights in the first lesson with Miss Hooch. It was so stressful because not only was she scared to fall and die, but she also was scared of not doing well enough to pass the exam. Luckily for her, Frank gave her a private lesson and she was able to nail it, since then she hoped she won’t have to fly ever.
Narcissa was stunning on her broom. She was precise and looked so confident. Alice could not stop staring at her. It was abhorrent how easy it looked for her to fly that high from the ground. It pained Alice that she was jealous of Narcissa’s flying capacities but she would not admit it for anything.
***
The match was pretty intense. The new seeker from Slytherin appeared to be Regulus Black and Sirius did not seem happy about it. He was restless. Narcissa on the other hand was protecting him with a fervour like no one else. Alice could not stop staring at her. She was flying so fast from one side of the pitch to the other, always one step ahead of the Prewett twin. Not one bludger was able to reach less than 5 feet from Regulus. It was impressive. Even Sybill, who was rooting heart and soul for Gideon and Fabian confessed that Narcissa was better than them both this time. She was graceful in all of her movements. How could she be graceful while doing sport? Alice couldn’t understand and it bugged her. Of course, if someone was graceful even while flying ups and down, left and right, it would be Slytherin’s favorite princess. It was so unfair.
The match ended when Regulus caught the golden snitch. And for a second Alice forgot she was a Gryffindor because just screamed with joy when she heard the commentator announcing Slytherin’s win.
“We lost,” sighed Sybill. All around her, Gryffindors were quiet. No scream of joy, no laugh, no happy chanting. Just students exiting the bleachers. But on the other side, Alice could see Slytherin dancing and hugging. She was amazed at how important school sport was to some of the students. When Molly finally collected all of her gains from the multiple bets she made, Alice got up, ready to leave and return to the comfort and warmth of her dorm. But the noise came from down on the pitch and everyone stopped in their tracks to watch what was happening.
In the middle of the pitch, you could see Regulus on the shoulders of Mulciber and Avery, very happy about the outcome of this match. But all eyes are on Lucius, who’s reaching for his wand and pointing it at his own throat to increase the volume of his voice.
“Dear students, can I please have your attention?” said Lucius, as grumpy as he can be. “I have important news to share with you” he added with a strained voice.
At his side was Narcissa, broom in one hand and bat in the other. She was standing proudly and eyeing Lucius and then the public.
“Our new seeker, Regulus…” he began before being interrupted by Slytherin students cheering as loud as they could, obviously happy about their new seeker. “Yeah, yeah, he did well,” acknowledged Lucius. “And as much as I’d love to take credit for this, I need to tell you whose idea it was, to recruit this fine gentleman.” He then turned to Narcissa and grind. From afar, Alice couldn’t make out what Narcissa said but it doesn’t seem pleasant.
“Our favourite beater here” he paused, gesturing to Narcissa. “Sorry Andy” and said smiling at her. “It was her idea. It was Narcissa’s idea to recruit his little cousin” he sassed. Everyone could feel the tension building up on the pitch. What was all of this for? No one knew. But it was clearly another kind of match that happened before everyone’s eyes.
“And since, she is so clever” he added, “I’ve decided, to step down from the position of Captain and give her this title”
The public was silent. Alice, who really didn’t care about quidditch and couldn’t care less about Slytherin, was speechless. But above all, intrigued. Lucius didn’t seem like someone who would give up his position of power that easily. And she certainly wasn’t the only one to think that because it’s been over 30 seconds and no one said anything. When suddenly, from Slytherin’s bleachers someone screamed and clapped their hands. And then everyone followed, at first unsure of what was going on but getting along with it.
Alice recognized the first clapper. It was the little blond girl always by Narcissa’s side. Rita something, Alice thought, not really knowing the girl. Her eyes then darted to Narcissa once again. She was now smiling and waving at the public like she was royalty. Alice laughed at how ridiculous it was. Quidditch really isn’t her thing.