Slytherin vs Hufflepuff
The first game of the season was here and Ginny was squeezed in on the reserve-bench between Alex and Aiden, the 3rd year beater reserve. She was bouncing on her seat with nerves, the score was 160-30 in their favour, but everyone knew Draco did not have the odds with him going up against Diggory.
“Look!” Aiden yelled a few tums from her ear and her eyes shot away from her watching of Flint’s flying to join Aiden who was watching Cedric Diggory flying purposively across the pitch against something glittering of gold, with Draco helplessly over forty yards behind. Ginny’s heart fell, they were going to lose. Then, out of seemingly nowhere the Slytherin beaters showed up, flying in a pattern Ginny didn’t recognize. Diggory was forced out of his course and the Slytherin part of the stands exploded. Ginny screamed of happiness as she pulled Aiden and Alex into a celebrational hug.
“Did you see that Kelly’s Knack?!?!” Aiden asked excitedly, his eyes still following Derrick and Bole admiringly while jumping up and down with the chaser reserves.
Ginny watched Warrington making a fool out of the keeper, extending their lead to 170-30, “yes!” she yelled out before letting her eyes watch out for the Golden Snitch that had disappeared in the ruckus before. Diggory and Draco was heading towards their part of the stands, looking like they might have seen something.
“There!” Alex pointed to a spot just a few yards out from the reserves’ place.
Ginny gasped; Draco was marginally closer. Just about a yard from the snitch, he looked down on the reserve-bench with a cocky grin, before turning towards Diggory with a grin.
“How does it feel playing a real seeker Diggory? Not as easy when the opponent doesn’t fall of their brooms like Scar-Head, huh?”
Ginny felt her heart stop. Diggory didn’t pay Draco’s banter any mind, what he did do though was throwing himself into a Sloth Grip Roll without lowering his speed at all, passing Draco with just a couple of tums between their brooms and then rolling back up gracefully with his arm raised in victory – small wings fluttering between his fingers. Ginny felt as if someone had hit her in the stomach, they had lost. 170-180.
The Slytherin players made their way into the locker room, silently sitting down on their benches and waiting. Ginny wasn’t sure what they were waiting for, but assumed Flint and some kind of after-the-game speech. A quick look around told her that Draco was also missing. The door opened and Bletchley made his way in, the older Slytherin throwing a fast glance around before, and in the direction of the other 5th years muttered what Ginny thought sounded like “he tried to run”. Aiden’s hand, that squeezed her arm, kept her from asking questions. A look around the room told her they were all there now, except two. Aiden and Alex were sitting on each side of her. The fourth-year reserve beater O’Flathery on Aiden’s other side. Davies looked like he was trying to disappear next to Alex. Montague was looking outright excited while Pucey and Warrington seemed to be having a silent conversation while Bletchley looked more serious than Ginny could remember seeing him before. Only Derrick and Bole looked unaffected by the situation, looking as grumpy as ever while piling of their beater-protections.
“Move,” Pucey had made his way over and waved at Aiden to get out of his way. Aiden started to protest; all other responses had been out of character. But the 5th year Slytherin that was known for being the most lenient of the older Slytherins, usually saved from insults of being a softy by his close friendship with Flint, pulled the younger boy of the bench in a fast move that admittedly couldn’t be called harsh but didn’t allow any protest. Before Aiden really knew what had happened Pucey had pushed Ginny gently to the side and taken a seat between her and Alex. Aiden stood for a second looking lost before Warrington softly sat him down on the other bench, across from Ginny. She met his eyes and shook her head; she had no idea what was going on. The confusion of it all was almost pushing the bitterness of the lost game out of her thought. Until the door flew up again that was.
Flint came through the door, fuming of anger, the thirteen-year-old seeker and Malfoy-heir dragged behind him with a firm grip of the boy’s quidditch robes collar. Ginny felt her own anger at Draco’s idiotic loss of their game bubble up, not even lighted by the scared countenance of her sometimes-almost-friend.
“I told you what would happen after that fiasco against Gryffindor last year. I told you want would happen if you ever made us look like fools again.” Flint pushed the boy into the middle of the locker, slamming the door shut behind him.
“You wouldn’t dare!” Draco lifted his chin, trying to look every bit of his usual posh Malfoy statue. Ginny couldn’t help but be a bit impressed, in the middle of her anger. She would have run for her life if Flint ever looked at her like that. Though, it seemed as that was what Draco had already tried to do.
Flint laughed, “dare?” he took a step closer.
“I will tell my father...” Draco almost stuttered out.
“Oh, really, will you tell him how you lost us another sure game as well?” Flint took a step closer. “Do you know what he will tell you?” Taking Draco’s silence as an answer he continued, “he will tell you that Slytherins always have dealt with their own. No, I don’t think you will tell him, I think you will pray to Salazar himself that your father will never hear of your failures today.”
Ginny watched the scene unfold in front of her with fascination mixed with horror. She wasn’t sure what Flint would do; he had never done anything worse to her than forcing her to run some laps on the pitch. But the anger in the captain mixed with the fear she had seen in Draco told her this was something else coming up. She knew she should do something, but she, just as the team around her felt that Malfoy needed to be taken down on earth. She had heard all about how he lost to Harry last year even though the Snitch was just by his ear, while he had been busy insulting Harry. Draco had stopped moving backwards, stopped by the table standing in the middle of the room.
“Give me your hands,” Flint asked calmly, extending his left hand towards his seeker motioning him to put his hands there. Draco shook his head, still trying to hold on to his defiance. Before anyone, including Draco, could react, Flint backhanded him across the face. “I said, give me your hands.” When the boy still didn’t do as he said, now probably more out of shock than defiance, the captain slapped him before snatching the younger boy’s wrists up and put them into a hold in his left hand. “Thank you, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Flint said with irony obvious in his tone, before lifting Draco’s arms high above his head.
Ginny’s feeling of fascination had turned into an ice-cold feeling, how far would he go? Flint’s talk about Slytherins dealing with their own had struck a chord inside of her. Yes, she had heard the older Slytherins talk, and there had been rumours about what Rosier had done with Travers last year. Flint had a temper, and she had never seen him like this before, but he wouldn’t hurt Malfoy to bad, would he?
Her thought was barely finished before Flint backhanded the boy again, Malfoy was rendered without any means to defend himself or even soften the blow. Instinctively Ginny opened her mouth to protest but no sound came out and she met Warrington’s eyes after he put his wand away after his non-verbal silence-spell, she felt Pucey take a firm grip of her wrist, Ginny looked to him and then over to Alex, on his other side, looking pale as she stared at the scene in front of them – where Flint was taunting his victim as Draco was struggling to keep his tears in. Ginny knew her friend, she knew she had seen violence the last years of her childhood. But she also knew, just as Pucey knew, that it was a matter of time before the bully-hating Alex would pull through her shock and throw herself into the scene and create chaos. “Don’t worry, Warrington won’t let him take it too far.” Adrian Pucey tried to calm her.
“Too far?” His attempt to calm her had only pulled Alex out of her paralysis and she pulled her best to get out of his grip. “We are past too far.”
Ginny tried to help her by distracting him and fought to get free from his other hand. “Are you mad Ginny, do you want her to throw herself into Marcus’ path?” Adrian sputtered at her in a hushed tone.
“At least my mother didn’t have an affair with a troll!” Draco followed the insult up with spitting into the captain’s face.
Ginny felt dread take over her, this would not end well. Next to her, Pucey and Alex stopped their silent struggle to look up – both looking horrified.
Flint went from angry to raging in front of their eyes, his clenched fist slamming into the thirteen-year-old’s stomach. Draco was gasping heavily for air as Flint dropped his grip on the younger boy’s wrists just to slam his left fist straight into Draco’s face. The boy fell to the floor and the older teenager walked over to follow up.
“Cassius!” Alex yelled, pulling the 5th year out of the paralysis the sudden change of the fight had caused. He threw himself in between the captain and the seeker and Ginny could hear the blow hitting Warrington but couldn’t distinguish any sound of pain coming from the older boy. Just a quick “Get them out!” that threw Adrian into movement ushering them all out. It took the reluctant help of Derrick and Bole to get a laughing Montague out before Adrian went back in to help Bletchley and Warrington calm their friend down.
Ginny felt like it had been her that had the air punched out of her while walking up to the castle between Alex and Aiden. She had let herself get tricked into thinking all the rumours of Slytherins was just preconceptions. Yeah, Gryffindors could also be violent, but there had been something so calculated about what she had just seen that froze her core. Flint had known the consequences of what he was about to do, there had been no rash about it. Until that last part, she realized, Draco’s comment had pushed him over the edge.
“Do you think he is okey?” Alex asked shakingly.
“Who cares,” Aiden shrugged, “how could he fucking lose us that game?!”