Chapter 6
The first game of the season was closing in. Ginny bounced with excitement during breakfast the Sunday morning before the big upcoming match the next weekend. Flint was going to announce the team during their practice. She had hopes she would get the third chaser position. Montague had gotten caught harassing a fifth-year Hufflepuff and Professor McGonagall had banned him from everything the rest of the term. Warrington was good but she had played better the last weeks. She still had her fights with Flint, but he just gave her some laps and never seemed to hold any grudge.
Her bubbling happiness took an abrupt ending at the pitch just half an hour later when Flint let the team knew he had no intensions what so ever to let her play. She felt her face falling, and the so hateful blush spreading, together with the even more horrifying tears threatening to find their way down her cheeks. She couldn’t start crying here, she just couldn’t. They already saw her as a little girl not able to measure up, it would be the end of her. But she had put everything into getting this position and she had earned it. She really had. The anger was boiling inside her, pushing the tears to the surface. She met Alex eyes, she looked back with sympathy that really didn’t help right now. A quick look around confirmed that all eyes were on her, expressions spreading from condescending sympathy to outright annoyance, Montague wasn’t even trying to hide his glee.
“Look, the baby is going to cry!” Montague laughed.
“Shut it!” Alex uncharacteristically exploded before taking a step in the direction of Ginny.
Ginny couldn’t take it, she did the only thing she could think of, she ran. As soon as she turned her back on the team, she felt the tears starting to fall. She needed to get out of here. Behind her she registered Flint yelling after her to stop and Alex yelling at Flint who, it sounded as, held on to her – not letting her run after. She kept running, without plan, until she got to the shore of the lake. With the need to get away still boiling in her she took of to the right, up on a track that ran close to the lake. Finally, out of sight from the Pitch she fell into a jog, still with the tears falling freely. It wasn’t fair, she deserved to play that game. She really did. She was breathing hard, but she didn’t want to stop – it felt as if her thoughts would catch up with her if she did. Steps was heard behind her, hurriedly her hand flew up and dried off the most obvious evidence of her crying. Ginny moved to the right side of the track, allowing the morning-runner pass on the inside – actively looking the her right further into the trees. Nobody passed though, the steps slowing down to match hers. Annoyed she turned. Warrington had caught up to her and was effortlessly jogging next to her.
“Warrington?”
“Weasley,” he answered calmly without missing a step.
She didn’t stop. If he wanted to follow her, fine, but she sure wasn’t going to stop.
“I deserved that spot,” it came out whinier than she had imagined.
He didn’t answer. They had reached the other side of the lake, the track running close to the shore on this side. The shore on this side was a rocky outcrop, as if made for sunbathing and bathing if it had been summer. Ginny could see the castle on the other side, towering towards the horizon. If she hadn’t been so pissed of it had been a magnificent sight. Now her eyes narrowed in on the view of the pitch between the castle and the lake. She turned and stopped in front of her older team-mate.
“You only got that spot because you’re a guy! I deserved that spot! I worked so hard for it, Flint just doesn’t like me and refuses to see that I make more goals than you do during every practise!” Warrington raised an eyebrow towards her in what she assumed was supposed to be a warning. But she didn’t care. “He always hated me, that is why he gave it to you.” She was too far into her rant to think clearly.
“Careful, Weasley, I’m not one of your Gryffindor-brothers, giving you everything you want and letting you get away with everything.”
Ginny scoffed. “As if they would, but at least they are honourable enough to never take advantage of being friends with the Captain.”
Before Ginny really registered what happened, Warrington had picked her up, taken two steps out onto the edge of a rock and thrown her into the lake. Gasping she came up to the surface a couple of seconds later trying to grasp what had happened.
“You son of a bitch!” Ginny’s mother would have been horrified if she had heard her choice of words. Ginny spluttered and fought to get her limbs in order to stay afloat. She took a couple of strokes towards the part of the rocks where it seemed to be possible to climb up. Unfortunate enough Warrington had identified that part of the rock as well and were casually sitting there and waiting for her.
“Want to reconsider that attitude?”
Ginny felt her blood boil in contrast to the cold that were starting to creep in from the cold water around her. “You cowardly bully!”
Warrington just laughed, “you’re too used to Gryffindors if that is your worst insult.”
It was hard in the cold water to both keeping herself afloat and to trying to get a hold of her wand. She knew she went straight against the advices Rosier had given her just weeks ago, this probably wasn’t a fight she should throw herself into. Against a fifth-year Slytherin boy, who – she knew from listening in on her parents worried conversations over the summer – had at least a mother who had been deep into the Dark Arts. Even with her both feet on land it wouldn’t have been a good idea to draw her wand on him. Even if he wasn’t known for being on the top of his class in magic, he was still way ahead of her. But she just didn’t care. She held her breath and stopped swimming to be able to use both her hand to get a hold of her wand from inside her Quidditch uniform. The second after she went under water, she felt the weight disappear of her clothes and she shot back up to the surface. Confused she looked around, Warrington now twirling his wand between his fingers.
“I’ve heard that Professor Snape doesn’t like the paper work when the little ones get killed,” Warrington smirked as he cited Derrick’s words from try-outs. Ginny almost smiled back on reflex before remembering that she was pissed of at him. Though, that meant that he hadn’t realized why she went under water. Careful not the let him see her wand until the last second when she took it up over the surface.
“Vespertiliones de naso” Ginny yelled the latest hex she picked up from Rosier. Shocked Warrington’s hand flew up to cover his nose. Taking the opportunity, she took two fast strokes in towards the rocks and hurriedly tried to climb.
“Not so fast,” Warrington held her wandarm in a grip with the same hand that he held his own wand. Removing the other from his face, Ginny could see him gently grasping the smallest bat she had seen – just around an inch. After allowing the bat to fly away, Warrington picked her wand out of her hand before (less gently than he had handled the bat) once again threw her into the lake behind her. “Remind me in a couple of years, Weasley, to not get on your bad side. Starting to see where Mary’s interest in you comes from.” Seemingly, Warrington could be quite chatty when not surrounded by people.
A few seconds of silence later, Ginny yielded in the battle of wills that threatened to follow. “I shouldn’t have said that you only got the part for being friends with Flint.”
“No, apparently it was also because I’m a guy and that Marcus hates you,” Warrington answered casually.
“What do you want me to say? I know you’re a good chaser but I deserved that spot!” Ginny fizzed, trying to keep any tone of whining out of her voice.
“Want to know why Marcus didn’t put you on the team for Saturday?”
“Because he is a sexist jerk?”
Warrington laughed, “you’re lucky Flint wasn’t the one following you, think he might have ignored Professor Snape’s hatred of paperwork.”
“As if he would have followed me, he is probably just relieved to get rid of me.” Ginny had drifted closer to the rocks and had her feet on one just under the surface, together with the featherweight charm on her clothes and (what she suspected) a silent warming-charm from Warrington her November-swim in Scotland was kind of enjoyable if it hadn’t been for the conversation.
“He was on his way, wanted to rip you a new one. Me and Adrian didn’t think you two colliding in anger would be a good idea though.” Warrington smirked, “so you got the soft approach instead.”
“You’re calling this the soft approach?” Ginny teared her eyes from watching the sky to stare at the sixteen-year-old sitting on the rock a couple of yards away.
“Welcome to Slytherin kid, you got all your limbs and I haven’t cursed you – yes this is the soft approach.”
“Ok, I’ll bite,” Ginny said after a minute of silence, “why didn’t Captain Evil let me play?”
“You mentioned you scoring more than me on practices?” Ginny hummed in response. “Well, only the first parts of practices, then you are out of breath and starts making stupid mistakes.”
“I-” Ginny started to defend herself, but Warrington didn’t listen. Apparently, once you got the usually silent guy speaking there was no stopping him.
“Have you ever taken a running step outside of Flint’s punish-laps? Didn’t sound like that on your breath when I caught up with you on your way here.”
“Also, have you ever played against any other keeper that Samuels and Bletchley? You don’t vary your game enough; you barely differ your attacks between those two who uses really different techniques. I played in the house cup for years – ever thought that you might need more than a couple of months to catch up to that experience?”
“How would-”
“If I woke you in the middle of the night, would you know all of Marcus formations?”
“I-”
“No, while I give you that you have taken well to the ones we practise this fall, if Adrian and Marcus wanted to spice up the game with anything from the last years you would be lost.”
“Fine, but-”
“And that is not even mentioning your attitude and temper. How could Marcus let you onto the pitch during a game not knowing if you would follow his lead or blowing up on him?”
“I wouldn’t during a game!”
“How would he know?”
Ginny felt the tears fall again. Hastily she dopped her head under the water in a desperate attempt not to let Warrington see them.
“Come on, let us get you up from there, we got a practise to get back to.” With that Warrington reached out to fish her out of the water and lifted her up on the rock before giving back her wand and following up with a drying charm.
“They will make fun of me.”
“Yes.”