Chapter Eight

Arya was out of the hospital by the end of that week. She was told to take it easy but that wasn't a word that was apart of her vocabulary. As soon as she was able to, she was out on the Quidditch Pitch with Jon and Robb, helping them train for the tryouts that were coming up extremely quickly. Sometimes, Sansa would join them when they were practicing, but only when Jon forced her to. Daenerys enjoyed watching the Stark children fly around and she was a regular spectator at their impromptu practices. Overall, all three Stark children were great Quidditch players but Arya's speed, agility, and fearlessness on the broom made it so both Jon and Robb, even when working together, weren't able to catch up with her.

"Holy Merlin, Arya," Jon exclaimed as his feet touched the ground one afternoon a week before the Quidditch try-outs, "it really is to bad that you can't try out this year."

Arya smirked as she hopped off of her broom. "Well, the Gryffindor team is gonna suck without me so it's your loss, really." Jon and Robb didn't respond to the jab, mostly because they agreed with her. "Arya! When are you going to show me how to spin around like that??" Arya turned just in time to see Dany racing towards her, a big grin on her face. However, she didn't react quick enough to brace herself when the girl jumped onto her, knocking them both to the ground. Arya took the brunt of the fall and let out a loud grunt when her body made contact with the ground. Dany giggled, playfully. A bright, red blush spread across Arya's face when she opened her eyes and was met with the bright violet eyes of her best friend. Jon and Robb gave each other a knowing look. Arya gently pushed Dany off of her, stood up and brushed herself off. She took a quick glance at her watch and her eyes widened.

"Dany, we gotta go." Jon and Robb looked at the two first-years, quizzically, “Sansa and Margaery are waiting in the library.” Arya offered as an explanation. The Stark boys shrugged indifferently and started to excitedly talk about strategies for the upcoming tryouts as they made their way towards the Gryffindor tower. Dany and Arya jogged the other direction, towards the library. Mere minutes later, Arya and Dany plopped down at a table across from Sansa and Margaery, both of whom were already half-way through thick books on dragons.

“You’re late,” Sansa muttered, glancing up at them. Arya panted out, “Quidditch practice.” Margaery responded with a nod of approval. Sansa only responded by tossing two books at Arya and two books at Dany.

One of the benefits of having Margaery helping them was that the girls got unrestricted access to the restricted section of the library, no questions asked. Nobody wanted to question the small Tyrell on her actions in fear of the wrath of her grandmother. The girls searched and found all the books about dragons that they could, but still hadn’t found anything about how to hatch a dragon egg. Magic folk had always been extremely wary of the creatures, starting 1666 when the Great Fire of London was started by a Welsh Green Dragon thus causing dragon breeding to be outlawed in the Warlocks’ Convention of 1709. The Targaryen dynasty's use of dragons as tools of destruction only further the stigma about dragons in the modern wizarding era, especially among older wizards who watched hundreds of people burn to death. After the mad king was killed by Jaime Lannister, almost all of the books about dragon breeding were burned.

Arya slammed a book down, “okay… so if dragons are only found on dragon reservations and dragon breeding is illegal… how did we find these three eggs?” She whisper-yelled at the other three girls

“That’s the question of the century, Arya,” Sansa responded, sarcastically. Margaery chuckled at the quip. Arya glared at her sister, “you know what I mean, Sansa.”

“Maybe someone planted it there?” Dany said, unsurely. “Yeah, but why?” Sansa muttered to herself, her nose back in her book. The table went quiet, again, as each girl began searching for more information.

“You guys know how much trouble we could get into for doing this right?” Sansa spoke up, again. “Pfffft,” Arya gave her a look, “c’mon, Sansa.”

“Arya, seriously! This is illegal!” Sansa tensed in her seat, “Mom is going to be so disappointed if she finds out.” Sansa muttered the last part. “But Dad would think it’s awesome!” Arya retorted.

“No, he would not!” Sansa whisper-yelled back. “He could get in trouble too!” Arya rolled her eyes. “Sansa... chill out. You’re too high strung.”

Sansa moved to stand up, but Margaery pulled her back down. “Ignore her,” Margaery shot Arya a pleading look, the other girl looked away, “we could show the world that dragons are good creatures if we do this right. We could change the world. Plus, it obviously means a lot to Daenerys. Also, honestly, I’m not sure this group could get in trouble. I mean, look at us. I’m the Headmistress’s granddaughter, Arya and you are the daughter of the Ned Stark and Daenerys has the best puppy dog eyes,” Dany showed off her best pout, “I think we have pretty good odds.”

Sansa didn’t have much to say in response, but she did turn back to her book and started thumbing through the pages again, which was just as good as a vocalized response to the other girls. A few hours passed by before they decided to part ways for dinner. Instead of sitting next to Dany like usual, Arya chose to sit next to her brothers. Dany gave her best pout to try to convince Arya to sit with her and Missandei. As Arya looked at Dany’s sad, sparkling, violet eyes, a familiar tingling sensation ran through her veins. The feeling was becoming a common one, but that didn’t mean Arya liked it. It confused her and it even scared her at times. She politely declined, again, giving Dany her best smile. The Hufflepuff girl seemed to buy it and gave her a quick hug goodnight, which did nothing to calm the tingling feeling running through her body. She plopped down next to Jon at the Gryffindor table, grumbling out a hello.

“Why are you sitting over here?” Robb questioned, glancing over to where Dany was sitting at the Hufflepuff table. “I can sit here if I want.” Arya soberly noted. Jon and Robb gave each other a look. “Did something happen with Dany--”

“No,” Arya snapped, “and only I call her Dany.” Her gaze turned to the corned beef sandwich on her plate. She felt Jon looked at Robb, mouthing, “only I call her Dany” mockingly. Robb chuckled. Arya glared at her plate.

After angrily stabbing at the food on her plate for thirty minutes and ignoring her brother’s jokes, Arya stomped up to her room. Not even taking off her school uniform, she flopped onto her bed and laid there until she fell asleep a few hours later.

The next day Arya woke up in a bad mood, mainly because her neck hurt from sleeping in a weird position all night. She wanted to skip breakfast and not have to deal with any awkward social interaction but her rumbling stomach told her to go anyway. When she got down to the Great Hall, she made the split decision to sit with Dany at the Hufflepuff table. Missandei wasn’t there, which both excited Arya and made her palms start to sweat.

“Good morning, Dany.” Arya greeted as she sat next to the girl. Daenerys greeted Arya with a broad smile that made her eyes crinkle a little at the corners and caused Arya’s heart to start thumping louder. They spent the rest of the meal in relative silence, only really talking to solidify their plans to hang out after classes were done. When the bell rang, Arya made her way to the Castle’s training grounds where her Flying class was to take place.

Arya loved Flying class. Partly because of the subject but mainly because she was so great at it. She also liked that the Gryffindor’s shared the class with the Slytherins because it meant that she got to show off in front of Joffrey Baratheon, who she didn’t particularly like. When she got to the training grounds she spotted Margaery standing to the side of the open field with some of the other girls. The Tyrell girl saw Arya and beckoned her over to her. As Arya made her way towards Margaery, a strong hand landed on her shoulder forcing her to turn. The hand belonged to Joffrey who stood in front of Arya with a wicked grin.

“Heard we were going to actually lift off today,” he said in an icy tone. Arya was pretty sure he was a sociopath, “you ready, Stark?”

“I’m always ready, Baratheon. I’m a Stark,” Arya remarked, a sly grin on her face. Joffrey’s smirk faltered a little but he quickly regained his sociopathic smile and sauntered off to go bother someone else. “What an ass,” Arya muttered to herself as she strolled over to Margaery and her gang.

Once the class had started, Arya felt her previous bad mood melt away. The Flying Professor, Professor Davos, spent most of his time helping Muggle-born students who were still struggling to summon their broom, which meant he wasn’t watching Arya as she was doing loops and flips around Joffrey. She had always felt a freeness in the air that she never felt on the ground. Arya’s face was light up in a giant smile as she began to do donuts around Joffrey who was attempting to follow her but failing. She could multiple pairs of eyes on her, which only made her go fast. However, what she didn’t know was that those eyes included those of Professor Clegane, head of the Gryffindor House. When she finally landed, the first person she locked eyes with was her head of house, who was looking at her with a great deal of interest.

“Uh, Professor Clegane…” Arya hesitated, speechless.

“Miss Stark, please come with me.” He turned and strode back to the castle. “Someone’s in trouble,” Joffrey’s voice whispered to her as she followed the Professor with her head down. As the pair silently made their way to Professor Clegane’s office, Arya tried to figure out an excuse to why she was breaking most, if not all, Professor Davos’s flying rules.

“I lost control of the broom!” Arya chocked out, fear gripping her heart, as she sat down in the chair in front of Professor Clegane’s desk. One of his eyebrows raised, amused.

“You looked pretty in control to me, Miss Stark,” Professor Clegane began, “in fact, that was some of the best broom work I have ever seen on this campus. I didn’t bring you here to punish you, Arya. Quite the opposite, actually. I want to offer you a spot to try out for the Gryffindor Quidditch team this year. We’ve been looking for a new Seeker and with broom work like that I believe you’d be the perfect fit.”

Arya’s jaw was dropped. “Wh-what.”

“Would you really like me to repeat all of that, Miss Stark? Because I’d rather not but if you need me too--”

“Yes!”

“Yes, you want me to repeat myself--”

“No! Yes, I want to try out!” Arya jumped out of her seat, literally shaking with excitement. Professor Clegane smiled, very amused by the first-year’s behavior. “Alright then, Miss Stark. I’ll let Miss Greyjoy know that she has a prospective first-year seeker.”

***

“YOU WHAT?!” Jon shouted later that day when Arya explained to him and Robb what had happened earlier that day. “You may be the first first-year to make the team in centuries!” Robb exclaimed.

“Just you wait for Monday,” Arya teased, as both of her brothers began to jump and dance around the training grounds in excitement for their younger sister.

***

When Monday did roll around, Arya’s confidence dissipated. She could barely eat breakfast that morning and the little bit of toast and sausage she did eat was thrown up in the bathroom minutes later. Her anxiety vomiting was not helped by the fact Dany was the one holding her hair back as she retched over the toilet, nothing coming out. The Hufflepuff was extremely close to Arya, the Stark child could feel her knees pressed against her calves which caused her to retch, again. Arya groaned and rested her forehead against the toilet seat.

“Alright, that’s gross, Arya,” Dany softly chastized, pulling Arya up so her head wasn’t where people urinated. Arya’s body lolled back so it was fully resting against Dany. “If you’re sick, you probably shouldn’t try out. I don’t want you to get more sick.”

Arya shook her head, wiping vomit off of her mouth. “It’s just nerves. I throw up when I’m nervous.” Dany looked at her, concerned. “Is that normal?”

Arya shrugged. “Sansa does it, too. Maybe it’s a Stark thing.” Dany didn't push the subject more, only wrapped Arya in a tight hug and whispered, "I believe in you. You're gonna do it."

And only then did Arya truly believe that she would make the team.

When it was time for Arya to go out on the quidditch pitch, she was dressed in Jon's handy down Quidditch uniform which made her look ten times more tiny than she already was. She could feel the stares of upperclassmen on her as she walked onto the pitch, Jon and Robb at her side. The nauseous feel returned to her stomach. She almost threw up again but before she could, her eyes connected with Dany's violet ones and she felt better almost instantly. Daenerys gave her a big smile and a wave, which Arya enthusiastically returned.

Arya obviously stood out during each of the drills that Yara put all of the students trying out through. She did laps around the other kids trying out for the Seeker position so it came as no surprise to anyone that she was picked as the next Gryffindor Seeker. It, also, came as no surprise that Jon was selected as the new Gryffindor Keeper and Robb was chosen as a Chaser.

And all three Gryffindor Starks may or may not have gone back to the Gryffindor Tower that night and cried in excitement.