regulus falls down from heaven (his broom)
Marlene Mckinnon did not want to be here. She loved quidditch, adored quidditch even, but not on a day when it was this incredibly hot out. James had told everyone to bring lots of water, but Marlene still felt a sense of dryness in her throat. She took a sip from her water bottle, immediately being soothed by the refreshing liquid. “...Got it?” James finished, looking at her, knowing she hadn’t been listening.
“Sorry?” She responded, not actually very sorry; James was a great captain, but gave a lot of instructions.
He rolled his eyes, trying to seem annoyed with his friend, “We are up 60-30, they are going to start relying on Black to catch the snitch, do not let him even get near it.” Marlene dramatically nodded, then continued to take a drink of water.
James always found it awkward playing against Regulus. Back when he had a crush on him, he would sometimes lose focus, or secretly get excited whenever he went after the snitch. He had assumed that would end once they started secretly seeing each other, but it had only gotten worse. Even when he simply mentions his boyfriend to his teammates, it feels like his throat clogs up with sand. Luckily, nobody has noticed any change.
The game starts back up again. Regulus flies up high in the pitch, along with the Gryffindor seeker. He forgot to bring water (even though he remembers getting a bottle), and with how busy he’s been recently, hadn’t gotten a chance to have breakfast or anything to drink earlier. The lack of energy and hydration was starting to make him feel a little light in the head.
Regulus continues to peer around the pitch, looking for the small golden ball. He sees James shoot past Mulciber, the Slytherin chaser, with the quaffle. He takes a second to admire James’ hair blowing as he flies across the pitch, the way he leans forward just enough to maximize his speed, the way he brings his bottom lip into his mouth ever so slightly when concentrating.
That’s when Regulus sees it.
He dives down, perusing the winged ball, with the Gryffindor seeker right on his tail. This is when the small light headedness he was experiencing earlier starts to get worse. The snitch starts to blur, things seem to dim ever so slightly.
Marlene watches as the two seekers go after the snitch, Regulus with a significant lead. She gets ready to swing a bludger towards him. She lines herself up just perfectly, so it will knock him away from the snitch long enough for their seeker to get the lead. The bludger starts darting through the air.
Then suddenly, Regulus stops moving - the dizziness had gotten to be too much for him. Marlene starts to panic. Now that he had stopped moving, the bludger is headed directly for his head
She wants to scream, yell at him to move, but she knows it’s already too late.
It happened in only a millisecond, the bludger made contact with Regulus’s head, and soon he was falling.
James Potter was racing towards the rings with the quaffle, when he heard screams. He turned around and saw his boyfriend falling through the air. He immediately darted across the pitch. Daisy, the Slytherin captain was also racing towards Regulus, but she surely wouldn’t make it in time. She must have known that, you could see the fear in her face, which was very rare for the always focused and collected captain.
The Slytherin seeker was falling with his back towards the ground, with his arms and legs following. His green quidditch uniform was lightly flapping in the wind, along with the curls sitting on his head. James leaned forwards even more, wanting to – no, needing to get there in time.
Regulus was almost at peace in the moment. He was falling, that’s for sure, but it wasn’t half as scary as one might think it’d be, he was more upset about the pounding pain in his head. He was only a couple meters from the ground when he felt arms wrap around him.
James lowered to the ground, setting Regulus on his feet, only for him to start tipping forwards. James caught the boy in his arms, and sat him down on the grass. He didn’t get a chance to say anything to his boyfriend before Daisy landed next to them.
She immediately got down on her knees beside Regulus, looking at his head, where there was a bit of blood dribbling out. “What’s my name?” she questioned him, continuing to look at the injury.
“D-Daisy.” Regulus mumbled.
“Can you walk?” Regulus hesitated, before nodding his head lightly. She huffed and looked up at James, “Can he walk?”
James shook his head, “No, he nearly passed out when trying to stand up.”
She nodded, looking back down at Regulus, who’s eyes were starting to flutter shut, “Oi! Black! Where are you right now?” She asked, desperate to keep him awake until a teacher gave them further instruction.
“Um... the quidditch pitch.” He muttered, fighting to stay conscious. Finally, Madam Hooch ran over, with some students following behind, including Sirius Black.
“Stand back!” She yelled at the students, sternly.
Marlene flew down, she almost fell over when she landed on the ground due to her shakiness. She was trembling out of fear. It was an accident, she hadn’t meant to. If he had kept flying forwards at the speed he was going, it would have hit his torso (at most), it wasn’t meant to hit his head. Why had he stopped? What if James hadn’t caught him? What if Marlene had ki– she quickly cut off her own thoughts, not wanting to think about that.
Soon, Madam Hooch had scooped Regulus up, and was walking back towards Hogwarts. Sirius squeezed through the few students and quidditch players, “Hey! Hey! What happened?! Where are you going?!” He snapped, but James ran over and held him back.
“Calm down, mate. She’s taking him to Pomfrey.” James tried to appear as calm and collected as possible, but it was hard to do so, knowing Reg was likely unconscious with a concussion right now.
Sirius, James, and a few others started towards Hogwarts as well. Usually the game would have kept going, but everyone was a little shaken from the intensity of the heat and the death that almost occurred.
When they arrived, Pomfrey was looking over Regulus’ head. Daisy immediately walked over, “So? How bad is it? When will he be back to playing?”
“For Merlin’s sake, you can worry about quidditch later. Now tell me exactly what happened.” Madam Pomfrey scolded.
Daisy grumbled, “I looked over and he was falling through the sky, I think he got hit by a bludger.”
Madam Pomfrey set a potion beside the cot, and continued to talk about details of the injury, while wrapping Regulus’ head with a bandage.
Throughout all this, Sirius Black, James Potter, and Pandora Rosier (who seemed to have snuck up as well) were standing there, fear across their faces and tears rolling off their eyes. Pomfrey finally turned around to face them, “You lot should leave, I have everything taken care of. I’ll let someone know when he’s awake.”
James had to practically drag Sirius out, but managed.