𝔖𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔶 𝔯𝔢𝔭𝔢𝔞𝔱 𝔦𝔱𝔰𝔢𝔩𝔣 | 𝐇𝐏 ʷᵗᵐ

𝟎𝟕𝟕; ғɪɴᴀʟ ᴍᴀᴛᴄʜ

THE EASTER HOLIDAYS WERE NOT EXACTLY RELAXING. The third years had never had so much homework. Neville Longbottom seemed close to a nervous collapse, and he wasn't the only one.

"I feel them." Evan whines softly, with a pout. He remembers how many works they got from their rachers.

"Call this holiday!" Seamus Finnigan roared at the common room one afternoon. "The exams are ages away, what're they playing at?" But nobody had as much to do as Hermione.

Even without Divination, she was taking more subjects than anybody else. She was usually last to leave the common room at night, first to arrive at the library the next morning; she had shadows like Lupin's under her eyes, and seemed constantly close to tears.

Marlene could recognize who Hermione remind her. It was Lily, she remembers that Lily was a sweet girl not a bitter woman.

"What happen to you?" She whispers.

Weasley had taken over responsibility for Buckbeak's appeal. When he was nott doing his own work, he was poring over enormously thick volumes with names like The Handbook of Hippogriff Psychology and Fowl or Foul? A Study of Hippogriff Brutality. He was so absorbed, he even forgot to be horrible to Crookshanks.

Coventina, meanwhile, had to fit in her homework around Quidditch practice every day, not to mention endless discussions of tactics with Wood. The Gryffindor-Slytherin match would take place on the first Saturday after the Easter holidays. Slytherin was leading the tournament by exactly two hundred points. This meant (as Wood constantly reminded his team) that they needed to win the match by more than that amount to win the Cup.

"Slytherin against Gryffindor again, I wonder who will win." Arcturus humms.

"Slytherin, naturally." Lucretia states.

"Who ask for your opinion?" Says Alphard shamelessly embarassing
one of the member of his family.

It also meant that the burden of winning fell largely on Coventina, because capturing the Snitch was worth one hundred and fifty points. "So you must catch it only if we're more than fifty points up," Wood told Coventina constantly. "Only if we're more than fifty points up, princess, or we win the match but lose the Cup. You've got that, Haven't you? You must catch the Snitch only if we're --"

"OLIVER, QUIET!" Coventina yelled.

"Oh, he really had you fed up." Draco snickers.

"He couldn't shut up for one second." Coventina shrugs.

The whole of Gryffindor House was obsessed with the coming match.
Gryffindor hadn't won the Quidditch Cup since the legendary Charlie Weasley (Ron's second oldest brother) had been seeker. But Coventina doubted whether any of them, even Wood, wanted to win as much as she did.

Never, in anyone's memory, had a match approached in such a highly
charged atmosphere. By the time the holidays were over, tension between
the two teams and their Houses was at the breaking point.

A number of small scuffles broke out in the corridors, culminating in a nasty incident in which a Gryffindor fourth year and a Slytherin sixth year ended up in the hospital wing with leeks sprouting out of their ears.

Coventina was having a particularly bad time of it. She couldn't walk to class without Slytherins sticking out their legs and trying to trip her up; Crabbe and Goyle kept popping up wherever she went, and slouching away looking disappointed when they saw her surrounded by people. Wood had given instructions that Covenyina should be accompanied everywhere he went, in case the Slytherins tried to put her out of action.