Pre-Match Nerves
Demelza joined the rest of her team in the dressing room. It was just a few minutes until the start of her international debut, and of course it had to be an away match against England in a crucial match that would determine qualification for the upcoming World Cup. She was shitting herself.
She would have been nervous making her debut at any time, but the fact that it was against her country of origin made it worse. She loved Belgium and had done ever since her family had moved there during her fourth year because of the war brewing in the UK, but she also missed England. When she’d been younger, she’d followed the English team religiously, often going to matches with her dad. Going to matches in the very same stadium where she would be flying out in a few minutes time. She checked her watch. Eight minutes.
In one corner of the room, Roos and Matthieu, their beaters, were going over their plans, talking out which players they would target most and how they were going to take them out of the game. On the balcony, Pieter, their seeker, was speaking with Jan, the captain and one of the chasers, and Rebecca, their head coach, no doubt about the new tactic they planned to use this match. Demelza didn’t see the other two members of their team and none of the backroom staff was to be found. Seven minutes.
How many of her old friends would be in the crowd, she wondered. She hadn’t known until the day before that she’d actually be playing, so she’d only had time to tell a couple of people. What about her old team-mates? Ginny was playing for England, so she assumed Harry and Ron would be in the crowd. What about the rest of the team? Even if they were, they wouldn’t be supporting her. Well, Ritchie probably would be, actually. He always rooted against England. Demelza still remembered when they were knocked out in the group stages in 1994. He’d sent her a long, gloating letter detailing exactly why England were such a bad team. Demelza had made sure to return the favour after the embarrassing performance Scotland had put up against Luxembourg in the quarter-final. Here she was, eleven years on, hoping to give him an even bigger reason to celebrate England's failure. Six minutes. Anne, their third chaser, emerged from the changing room and began pacing around.
She wondered what had happened to everyone from Hogwarts. She’d lost contact with them all when she went to Beauxbâtons and had only managed to see a few of them after the war had ended, her family preferring to remain in Belgium rather than return to England. No, she decided. No thinking about her old friends. She had a game to win. Five minutes. Tom, their keeper, finally came out from the changing room. She noticed that Rebecca had left, leaving just the seven players in the dressing room.
Jan came over to her. “Are you alright?” he asked her.
“A bit nervous.” Understatement of the fucking century, she thought to herself.
“You’ll be fine. You’ve worked so hard to be here. You deserve it. Now, are you ready to crush them?”
“Absolutely.”
“Excellent.” He got up from his crouch next to Demelza’s seat and called the whole team together. Lots of teams liked to do their huddle on the field after the anthems but the Belgium team, at least while she’d been in the squad, always did it in the dressing room. “Game time. You all know what this one means. Win here, we’re off to India next year. So, let’s win. You all know what to do. You've been great in training. So I’ll just say this to you. Go out there, play your game, and have some fun. Let’s do this!”
With a roar, the huddle separated and the team went down to the tunnel, before lining up in order. Demelza, being the debutant, would be the first to fly out. The England team were no doubt lining up on the other side of the stadium. Demelza checked her watch again. Three minutes.
She could hear the crowd. It sounded like a full house. It had to be. The Lake District was one of the best places in the world to watch quidditch, in her opinion. It had always been a dream to play at this stadium. Now she was realising that dream, only she was wearing yellow robes rather than the red and white she had always wanted to wear as a child. At that moment, she didn’t care. In just two minutes, she would an international quidditch player and no one would be able to take that away from her.
She could hear the announcer welcoming the crowd to the game and telling them that the players would be introduced imminently. She checked all her equipment again. She knew it was perfect, but it couldn’t hurt to make sure, she figured. “One minute,” the announcer all but yelled, followed by a loud roar of anticipation from the crowd.
She jumped up and down on the spot and did a few last-minute stretches. The minute seemed to be the longest of her life. She felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Matthieu. He was holding out his hand to her. “Have fun out there. You deserve this.”
She shook his hand gratefully. The rest of the team followed suit. Her nerves had all but disappeared. Now she was just eager to get out there and show the world what she could do.
Finally, the announcer spoke up again. She mounted her broom, ready to shoot out of the tunnel. “Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome the Belgium team, starting with today’s debutant. She was born here in England before moving to Belgium at the age of 15, where she’s lived ever since. She plays for Liège and was a key member in their victorious team in the Benelux league last season. Fell stadium, I present to you, Demelza Robins.”
She flew out. There were a few cheers, but most of the stadium was filled with boos. She did a lap of the pitch as fast as she could and then rose slowly into the air, taking it in. Her breath hitched. The stadium was indeed a sell-out, but it was the view that she was more focussed on. It was incredible. All around spread the countryside of the Lake District Behind England's hoops, Helvellyn dominated the landscape. Demelza knew that if she flew high enough, she'd catch a glimpse of Scafell Pike in the distance behind Belgium's hoops. She did another slow turn to admire the view and then flew back down to join her team, the last of whom, Jan, was being introduced.
They hovered together on their side of the stadium was the England team were introduced and flew out to raucous cheers. They then flew gently to the ground for the anthems. This was new to Demelza as a player. In club games, the players all came out together and just got on with the match. Not here. Here, the atmosphere was far more intense. She loved it already, even though they were hostile to her.
She sang the anthem as loudly as anyone, letting anyone who was watching know that, while she may have been born and grown up in England, she was also a Belgian now and this was her team. She looked over at the small section of yellow in the crowd. Three flags were being flown there: in the centre the black, yellow, and red of the national flag fluttered in the wind, flanked by the black lion of Flanders and the red rooster of Wallonia. These fans were who she was playing for. She wouldn’t let them down. She couldn’t.
Next, it was time for the English anthem. It was sung loudly and passionately by the home crowd and, try as she might, she couldn’t tune it out entirely. No matter though, as then it was game time and her focus returned. She exchanged fist-bumps with her teammates and stalked to the centre circle, ready to take to the skies and prove why she deserved to be here.