Bad Bludgers
When Holly finally made it down to the dungeons, half of her house - the half she least liked, welcomed her with cheers and “how did you do it”’s. She ignored all of them and went straight up to bed. Almost everyone else was already in the dorm, whispering to each other. When she came in they all stopped and stared at her. “How’d you do it, Holly?” Daphne asked, quietly. They had never really been friends, but it still hurt that she could think Holly would do something like that.
“I-I- I…” Holly stammered, looking from Daphne, to Isolde, to Tracey and finding only uncertainty on all of their faces. Tracey was holding Lucus, her cat, and PuffPotter protectively away, and staring at Holly eyes full of fear. Holly’s vision went bleary and her breath hitched. How could her best friend think he could do this? How could any of them? “I would never!” she spoke lowly, but her words were clear in the room, and they hung in the air far longer than was comfortable.
“Holly, we all want to believe that, but the fact is, you were there. You were right there!” Daphne said, uncomfortably.
“I was coming down from the hospital wing!” Holly seethed. “I- we only saw it like a minute before the rest of you!”
“Okay, Holly, say we believe you - like Daphne said, we all want to - who do you suggest did open the chamber? It would have to be a Slytherin. The rest of our house was at the feast!” Tracey said, accusingly.
Holly half growled. “I thought you were my best friend! I can’t believe you’d think I’d do something like this! I don’t even know what the Chamber Of Secrets is!” She screamed. “... all I know is that poor cat got petrified by something - even Dumbledore couldn’t say what…” she added, in a whisper.
“I believe you, Holly.” Isolde finally spoke up. She offered Holly a sweet smile, and then turned to the other two. “Ginny wasn’t at the feast either, or Harper. I think you're letting your fear get the better of you.” she said, softly, before taking PuffPotter from Tracey and carrying her over to Holly.
There was another long pause. And then Daphne offered a quiet, “I’m sorry Holly. Isolde’s right.”
Tracey stared another long moment at Holly, and then nodded. “Yeah… yeah. I was being a bad friend. I should have trusted you, and I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?”
Part of Holly wanted to stay mad. She wanted to hold this against them forever. But not enough of her to matter. Mostly, she just wanted to sleep. “Yeah Trace,” Holly said tiredly, “I forgive you.”
The next day, Marcus Flint changed the password into the common room to “the chamber is open”, and Holly very seriously debated sleeping in the library and counting on the fact Filch hadn’t left the spot of the crime as her cover. She swallowed her pride and said the words when a hoard of Hufflepuffs ran away from her.
For the next several weeks, Holly mostly hid in her dorm. She almost stopped going to help in the hospital wing when an older student screamed at her that he’d rather die than let the heir of slytherin mend the rather minor cut he’d gotten during Care Of Magical Creatures. Madam Pomfrey had told him under no uncertain terms that that would not be tolerated in her infirmary, and then pulled Holly aside and reminded her that she did not for a moment believe she had anything to do with it. After that she did things out of sight like intake papers, prepping, and potion brewing, which, as it happened, helped her catch up in Potions class far more than the study group full of students who wouldn’t shut up about how cool they thought it was that she’d opened the chamber.
By the time Ginny’s first Quidditch game had rolled around, Holly was ready to trade a limb for a simple day of fun. She woke early with the rest of her dorm, dragging Ginny out of bed with them. “No dairy today!” Isolde chirped, stashing the weird old book in her trunk and locking it. “You’ve got Quidditch!”
“Hey!” Ginny complained, looking very alarmed.
“Don’t worry Gin, Nobody’s gonna read it,” Tracey promised. “Now c’mon, we gotta get you ready! How do you want your hair? Do you want face paint?”
Ginny sat up groggily and stared at them. Sje shrugged. “Can you just get it out of my face?” she wondered.
Tracey and Daphne got to work pinning Ginny’s hair out of her face by taking small sections from her hairline and pinning them back with alternating green and silver butterfly clips. Meanwhile, Holly set to work painting Isolde’s face like she’d seen Seamus do for Harry’s games, only Slytherin green instead of Gryffindor red. Once finished, they swapped places until everyone was painted festively, then they headed up to breakfast.
The meal went by quickly, and somewhat subdued, but by the end, Ginny looked at least a little less pale and distracted than she had the last few weeks. In fact, she almost looked excited about something again. When the Slytherin team came to collect her, she even smiled that feral smile Holly liked so much.
As the rest of them headed to the stands, green and silver banners and home-made pom poms in hand, Holly couldn’t help but think about the difference time away from the creepy book had done for Ginny. “Guys, we have to get that thing away from her! It’s creepy! And look at her now, when it’s locked up…” she gestured loosley back towards the castle where they’d last seen her.
“The diary?” Tracey checked.
“Yes!” Holly half screamed, earning a particularly strange look from Daphne who was a few paces ahead of them.
Isolde spoke quietly. She always sounded meak and looked small, though objectively, Holly knew Isolde (and practically everyone else) was a bit bigger than she was, and that the name Rosier held more power than most in the magickal world. “I agree,” she said, thoughtfully, “it has dark magick in it.”
Holly stopped on the steep stairwell up to the stands to look at her friend. “What do you mean, Isolde?”
“Yeah, are you sure?” Tracey added, uncertainly.
Isolde nodded. “My father’s study - it hasn’t been touched since he was arrested, but there are… things inside that feel like Ginny’s diary. Things my mum and uncle told me never to touch.”
“Oh my moons!” Tracey breathed, a hand flying over her mouth in shock.
“We’re going to miss Gin’s first game.” Isolde said, clearly desperate for them to forget the implications of what she’d just said. She began to move up the stairs again, and lost for what else to do, they followed.
The game itself was great fun. Right from the start, Draco and Harry were on each other, but to be honest, it was Ginny they were all watching. That is, until the bludger.
None of them noticed it, actually, until not ten minutes into the game, the Gryffindors called a time-out. At first, all of the Slytherins in the stand - them included - booed at the interruption. And then they saw it.
They saw it because it in fact, did not stop when the players did. Instead, it came soaring at her so fast she didn’t even have time to process what was happening before she was hit in the head. The last thing she heard before going unconscious was the whistle blowing to signal the restart of play, and Tracy and Isolde screaming for help.