A/N: I’ve made another attempt at poetry here so you all might want to be careful. This could hurt!
December descended upon the castle quickly and soon the grounds wore a brilliant coat of white snow. The fierce winter sun reflected off every flake making the grounds glow pure and dazzling. The scene from the dormitory window was like that of a Christmas card. All the land for miles had been stained white but every here and there a bright colour jumped out from under the snow, the tops of the trees in the forbidden forest were coated with several feet of snow but the smaller trees had been sheltered from the flurry by the taller ones and so they gleamed dark green. The bright colouring of the Quidditch stands was still quite obvious, the gold and silver of the Gryffindor and Slytherin stands winked at you in the sun. The cold winds of November were gone, only to be replaced by the sharp edge of icy air. Snowball fights consumed every spare moment, the teachers had tried to stop them from throwing the things but found they didn’t have the heart; it was the only thing that broke the subdued mood within the castle.
Every day since the attack on the Burrow had been punctuated with an attack on a wizard family, several students and teachers lost family members. Already this week a third year Hufflepuff boy had lost his cousin and two seventh year Ravenclaw cousins had lost an aunt. A first year Gryffindor girl had opened a letter at the breakfast table on Tuesday to be told that her sister had died the day before. Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey had immediately rushed to the poor, sobbing girl and taken her from the hall. News also reached them that Professor Sprouts father had died, although she took this better than the students her distress was obvious to all, her hair was wilder than normal and there were heavy bags forming under her eyes.
The gloom of death hung over the castle, even Snape seemed to be going easier on the students. A whole week worth of Potion lessons passed without a single snide remark from the pale man. It was a sign of how bad the situation was that on one Wednesday afternoon a poor second year Ravenclaw was engaged in a snowball fight with a counterpart from Gryffindor when he threw a missile that hit Professor Snape right between the shoulders. The crowd of students in the courtyard collectively held their breath as the professor turned to face his attacker, many were ready to duck for cover, sure that he would explode and take points from everyone in the nearby vicinity. Instead he glared at the student in question and said very clearly in a voice that betrayed no emotion “Ten points from Ravenclaw,” and proceeded on his way. The laughter that rang through the hallways was often hollow and short-lived.
The upcoming Quidditch match between Slytherin and Gryffindor seemed to lift people’s spirits a little, but it had not gone unnoticed that so far no one in Slytherin house had lost anyone. That was until Thursday when a fourth year girl also burst into tears at the Slytherin breakfast table. Her father was dead. Professor Snape had made his way to her but found himself somewhat unable to deal with the girls hysterics, Elizabeth joined him behind the poor girl, whispered something in his ear as he nodded, and together they prised the girl away from the table, departing the hall in the direction of the hospital wing. Harry heard Malfoy muttering under his breath “Serves the filthy half-blood right.” It transpired that the girl’s mother was a muggle and her father had been punished for diluting the bloodline.
When the Gryffindor team had emerged for breakfast on the morning of the match, Ellie was stood at the head of the house table with her wand in the air. She was once again wearing a Gryffindor scarf and now a matching hat adorned her head. When the team got to the doors of the Great Hall she clapped twice, the occupants of the Gryffindor table immediately stood up. “Right now you all know the words. One…two...three…four.” She began to swish her wand as their housemates began to sing;
“Gryffindor! Gryffindor!
We love to hear the lions roar!
Gryffindor! Gryffindor!
We can beat any score.
Potter Junior is our seeker,
The dark lord he did trounce.
If he falls from the skies today
We know for sure he’ll bounce.
Bell is quite lovely, but that isn’t all
She can’t half handle that Quaffle ball.
Little Creevey’s quite a weaver,
And Weasley used to be our seeker.
Kirke and Sloper, our lively beaters
They’ll take out the other seekers.
Weasley is our keeper but also is our king
He will keep that Quaffle out, making sure we win.
Gryffindor! Gryffindor!
We love to hear your lions roar!
We can beat all your scores
Gryffindor! Gryffindor!
Let me hear your lions roar!”
To end the entire table roared like lions. The Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs had clapped along in time with several of them chanting Gryffindor at the appropriate moment; Luna could be seen at the Ravenclaw table wearing her oversized lion hat. Members of the quidditch team’s faces burned the same colour as their scarlet robes. This was particularly funny in the case of Ron and Ginny who now appeared to be bright red from head to foot. When the team rose at the end of breakfast the same thing happened. Professor McGonagall bustled towards Elizabeth, “You are aware Professor Potter, that members of the school staff are supposed to be unbiased?” the Transfiguration teacher was trying very hard to be stern.
“I am yes. However, my cousin captains this particular house team and I feel bound to contribute to the team morale. On top of that, you are being unbiased enough for both of us,” Elizabeth smiled widely at her.
“Very well, may I give you some advice?”
“Feel free.”
“You might want to teach the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students the words. I want to be able to hear every word if we win.”
“When we win,” Ellie corrected her. McGonagall merely raised her eyebrows in a gesture that clearly said ‘that is exactly what I meant’.
“It’s only Slytherin, we’ve beat them before and we can do it again,” Ron told their team. “You heard them all in the hall this morning. We are not going to let them down.” Once again everyone reached forward to place his or her hand on Ron and Harry’s, “GO GRYFFINDOR!” they called together.
“Here come the Gryffindor team. Captain and keeper Ron Weasley, beaters Andrew Kirke and Jack Sloper, chasers Katie Bell, Colin Creevey and Ginny Weasley, that Ginny’s quite a looker isn’t she? Potter’s a lucky man and here he comes, captain and seeker Harry Potter!” called Jonathan Galloway, the Hufflepuff commentator. “They’re quickly followed by the Slytherin team, keeper Miles Bletchley, beaters Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe, chasers Graham Pritchard, Adrian Pucey, and Theodore Nott. Lastly captain and seeker Draco Malfoy.”
When Madam Hooch called the opposing captains it would have been obvious to someone miles away that they were trying to break each other’s hand. “Scared yet Potter?” Malfoy hissed out of Madam Hooch’s hearing range.
“Keep dreaming Malfoy,” Harry muttered.
“You might want to keep and eye on that cousin of yours, my father’s here today. Any luck he might hex her when Dumbledore isn’t looking,” he cackled. Harry was inches away from punching him right there and then, when he felt Ginny’s tender hand wrapping itself around his.
“He’s not worth it,” she tugged him away from the still smirking Draco. “Remember that Ellie can take care of herself, not to mention the fact that she’s sat up there with the world’s greatest Wizard.” Ginny pointed up at the staff stand where Ellie was seated to the left of Dumbledore. He noticed that Charlie was sat next to her but he also saw the blond hair of Lucius Malfoy sitting four rows behind her. Bizarrely the second Harry was thinking about it, Ellie looked over her shoulder at Malfoy and then back at Harry. She gave her head a quick little shake and looked back down at the pitch.
The teams mounted their brooms and kicked off from the ground hard. Seconds later Madam Hooch released the balls and the game began. Harry and Draco circled each other high above the pitch, every now and then Harry glanced over at the staff stand to make sure that Ellie was still alright. Every time he did Ellie looked at him oddly, then he would hear a voice in his head that wasn’t his own telling him to keep his mind on the Snitch. As always it was proving to be a rough game. Although Harry had never been sexist enough to believe that women were the weaker sex he still believed that you shouldn’t hit a girl, unfortunately some of the Slytherin team didn’t hold the same values. Five minutes into the game, Goyle supposedly got confused when he swung his bat at a nearby bludger, instead of hitting the bludger that was on one side of him he caught Katie, who was on the other side of him, right in the stomach. Madam Hooch wasn’t entirely convinced and awarded a penalty to Gryffindor, Ginny scored quite easily putting them ten points up.
The game proceeded to get even dirtier; Crabbe whacked a bludger at Ginny with such force that it knocked her off her broom. Luckily Colin had been speeding along under her as part of their play and was able to catch her haphazardly; Harry let out an anguished breath as Ginny climbed back on to her own broom and grinned at him. Seconds before the impact she had thrown the quaffle to Katie who had streaked up the pitch and put it through the left-hand Slytherin goalpost while everyone had been watching Ginny’s dramatic fall.
They followed up by ganging up on Colin and running him into one of the stands, after that they ploughed a bludger into Kirke’s face. He plummeted towards the ground with blood flying into the air behind him, as his team mates rushed to his aide, Nott and Pucey scored twice each putting Gryffindor behind twenty points. In a moment of frightening synchronisation Harry and Draco called for time-outs at exactly the same time, Harry reached the ground scowling, “Right we need to do something and we need to do it now. Does anyone have any ideas?” he begged.
“Well I think I’ve got something we can do but it might take a little while to work,” Ron responded and proceeded to lay out his rather complex plan that more or less relied on the whole team playing stupid and falling into a few of the traps that the Slytherins were probably now setting.
So they all jumped back on their brooms and took off. They put Ron’s plan into action by allowing Crabbe and Goyle to sandwich Katie whilst Pucey and Nott were cornering Ginny, Katie then threw the quaffle high into the air where it was caught by Sloper who threw it on to Colin who scored. The sounds of the new Gryffindor song roared through the stadium.
After manipulating their way out of another trap Ginny managed to score, the Slytherin team were so busy trying to dismantle their opponents that they didn’t really have much opportunity to try and score themselves. At the two hour mark the stalemate of 50-50 was reached. Harry’s search for the snitch became more frantic; he had to find it before another one of his team came close to getting killed. For a second he thought he saw it glinting above the Ravenclaw stand but if it was there it was gone a second later. His eyes searched the ground and the skies for any sign whatsoever of the fluttering golden ball; eventually he glimpsed it hovering above the Slytherin goalposts. He shot towards it like he’d been fired out of a cannon and he noticed that Draco was following in his wake. They sped closer and closer to it with barely an inch between them, their arms reached out in unison and made frenzied grabbing actions as the little ball flew further out of their reach. It soared higher and then plummeted, making a zigzag pattern through the air; it winged its way around the stadium dropping closer and closer to the ground.
Without warning it shot sideways heading towards the side of the stadium that was marginally closer to Draco, they both cut ninety-degree angles to follow it. They both continued to grab for it as it floated about three inches in front of them, they both had to pull up sharply to avoid plunging into the Hufflepuff stand and when they did Harry had the snitch clasped tightly in his hand. Draco was searching the air in front of him with fury in his eyes when he realised what had happened.
Harry landed on the ground and rushed towards his team with his fist in the air, they were well on their way to the Quidditch cup.
I apologize profusely for my terrible song, don’t know what I was thinking but alas! It’s done now.
The next chapter will be When Severus Met Elizabeth.