A Bludger barreled right towards me, sun glinting off of it’s iron shell. Swerving to the side, the Hufflepuff Beater hit it away from me, into the patch of red and gold players.
The other Beater, Jack yelled at the other one. “Grimble! Don’t wait that long to beat that Bludger! Do you want our Seeker to be decapitated?”
Sighing, I turned my broom and flew down to the Hufflepuff side of the field. James Potter followed me, thinking that I had seen the Snitch.
“Hey, I saw the Snitch!” shouted Potter. He flew closer to me, reaching out with his hand. For one, horrifying moment I thought that the Snitch was hovering right next to my yellow and black robes. Potter let out a laugh. “Sorry there Malfoy, I thought you were the Snitch. What happened to your green robes? Did Slytherin not want you?”
Hissing softly, I shot up into the bright late-March air, trying not to look up into the sun. Once I had reached the desired height, I circled the pitch from above, searching for a speck of gold that fluttered innocently down below.
I’m going to kill Potter, I thought furiously. If he does that one more time, I’m going to grab his head and twist it.
Potter’s attitude was pretty common, though. Ever since my blasted grandparents went to Azkaban, it seemed like everyone else was trying to get Hazel and I to leave Hogwarts.
“You can’t show temper, Scorp,” I muttered under my breath. I leaned further on my broom, still looking for the Snitch. “Great advice, Hazel.” I has never shown temper before, that was Hazel’s job. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t have one, one that was almost as fiery as my twin’s.
“And there goes Jack Prince,” the commentator, a burly Ravenclaw named Emanuel Oke. “He’s pursuing that Bludger, it’s getting closer and closer, and YES! He’s beat it back! And now Hufflepuff’s very attractive Keeper, Hope Grace, is taking the Quaffle to the Gryffindor side… That’s a hard throw— will Gryffindor be able to save it?”
There was a pause, and Oke’s voice rang out through the stadium once more. “And, yes! She makes it!” There was an almighty roar from below. “Albus Potter, Keeper, isn’t looking very happy.”
I glanced at my sister’s best friend. Although he was far away, the look of both anger and frustration was evident on his face.
“Scorpius!” Came an anguished yell. I looked around, face to face with a spitting Prince. “What are you doing? The Snitch!!!”
Breath in my throat, I looked down and saw Potter speeding beneath us, his red and gold robes billowing, hand reached out to snatch the speeding golden ball…
“Knock a Bludger at him!” I yelped hoarsely, pulling into a dive. Oke’s commentary rang in my ears, and I could hear Prince yelling back at me.
“I could hit you, ya know!”
“Don’t care!” I wheezed back, urging my broom to go faster. My broom was a model better than Potter’s, the Nimbus 7500. But he had already gotten a huge head start, and although I was gaining on him, he could easily reach the Snitch now.
Come on Prince, I thought desperately. Almost as if I had accioed it, a speeding Bludger came hurtling right to Potter. The other Seeker made some kind of gasping sound, and twisted through the air, Bludger flying behind him. Potter had lost his lead, and I was gaining on the Snitch.
“Little farther,” I grunted, leaning forward on my broom. The Snitch glinted before me teasingly, it’s tiny wings fluttering and just begging me to catch it. The ball took a sudden dip towards the crowd and I sped after it, right over the heads of the Slytherins.
“Come on Scorp!” called Hazel. I could faintly see her white blond hair shining amongst the mass of yellow. The Slytherins were supporting Hufflepuff, because they sort of had to, and would rather die than support Gryffindor. “Get the Snitch!”
Reaching out, I could see that my brand new Seeker gloves where all dirty, which I loved. After a life time of getting only brand-new things, a little wear and tear was welcome. Come on, come on, I thought.
The Snitch was still a little bit out of reach. For one, frantic, scared moment, I froze, then gripped one hand on my broom. With the other I threw out to catch the Snitch, my body going over the broom. There was a shout that rose over the crowd, and a muffled pop!
Suddenly the Snitch wasn’t in my hands anymore. And neither was the broom. For one split second, I looked down, seeing Hazel’s shocked face reflecting my own, and, with her red hair gleaming in the sun, Rose, with her wand still extended.
The blue sky went farther and farther away, and the green ground came closer. The hard ground.
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