𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸, harry potter

˗ˋ 47

CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
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-: fifth year :-

── IN WHICH THE SLYTHERINS
INTERRUPT

. . .

Harry wasn't particularly surprised to see Aviana sat amongst the uninvited spectators to the Quidditch practise that morning. After all, Draco, Pansy, Blaise and Theo were all her friends, and they had been since the first year of school. He couldn't have expected her not to, especially not after the occurences in the bathroom after their detention the previous night.

Quite frankly, he supposed she would find hurling abuse towards the Gryffindor team in liue of sitting and feeling sorry for herself all alone in the library or Slytherin common room. She was on the Slytherin team herself, and it would make sense for her to participate in the odd dirty tactic or two to ruin a team's confidence before a match.

The two opposing houses were the first match of the year after all - and what a way it was to kick off the season. Slytherin always played with a little less concern for the rules and much more concern for actually winning. How they got there was irrelevant. They had one goal and they stuck to it.

"What's that Weasley's riding?" Beside her, Draco shouted at the emerging team in his sneering drawl. "Why would anyone put a Flying Charm on a moldy old log like that?" 

Pansy, Crabbe and Goyle laughed wildly, a smirk appearing on Aviana's lips as she scoffed. She could get behind this. It was almost therapeutic; there was a particular anger bubbling in her stomach completely related to Harry Potter and she couldn't wait to get rid of it. Because it just wasn't worth it. 

But when Ron's ears turned red and he swung his leg over his broom, kicking up to join Harry in the sky, it wasn't Draco who the Potter was glaring at. Oh no, his eyes were directly on her, the only one sitting in the group of Slytherins watch, whether they were a part of the actual Quidditch team or not. 

Aviana had noticed him watching her - of course she had, there were moments when Harry couldn't believe how observant she was - and sat forward, elbows resting on the barrier that prevented her from falling forward. There were gloves on her hands and Harry swallowed, thinking back to the bathroom as he pulled his broom away, catching the Quaffle thrown to him from George, sending it towards Ron in the goal.

He missed. The Slytherins, led by Draco, were roaring and screaming with laughter as Ron, who had pelted toward the ground to catch the Quaffle before it landed, pulled out of the dive untidily, so that he slipped sideways on his broom, and returned to playing height, blushing.

Harry had fucked up, he knew that. Not with the Quidditch match, which was where his attention should have been, but with Aviana. In the bathroom after the detention is came to light just how much he had failed to think about after her proclamation of her wish to not allow him to attend the horrifying fate of detention with Umbridge alone. 

There seemed to have been a lack of rememberance towards the nature of Aviana's relationship to Umbridge. She had put her father - well, adoptive father, but either way the man she had grown up alongside and loving - into Azkaban. And they had experienced some of the consequences of that for the prisoners, given the arrival of the Dementors. 

And now she was there, cheering every time Ron dropped the Quaffle as payback to him. God - he knew she was an awful person, but this just seemed to be different. He couldn't blame her for being angry; of course he could blame her for directing that anger into humiliating Ron; but Harry had been awful to her as well.

He seemed to play is some form of a daze, automatically catching the Quaffle and sending it flying in the direction of the next person, and hardly even noticed when Ron caught the ball finally - and was so happy that he launched it towards Katie, who ended up with a bleeding nose. But that wasn't all. He finally blinked and snapped out of it as the amount of blood only grew; Fred and George had given her the incorrect half of one of their products, and was now leading her off the pitch and towards the castle, all whilst Harry was hanging high above them.

All of a sudden, practise was over and with the chant of 'Gryffindor are losers' playing in their ears as they went to get changed and the Slytherins made their way back up to the castle. 

Harry tore the leather gloves off his hand, making sure that the healing cut there wasn't seen by anyone else as he changed, pulling the jersey from his body and replacing it with the knitted jumper he had been wearing previously. 

He'd have to do something about it, otherwise the only person who knew anything about how he was being treated by Umbridge wouldn't even give a shit. Even if the same thing was happening to her.

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