Mara's Magic

i - quidditch match

Over the next couple of weeks, I ate, slept, and breathed quidditch. 

We didn't really talk about the troll incident since we had a match against Slytherin coming up and I more or less refused to admit the details. Oliver had learned as much as he needed to know from Harry, so he stopped his requests, and eventually all the rest of my friends gave up as well. I was in quidditch-mode, and I wasn't coming out of it until we won. And neither was my best friend, who was the only one the rest of them were close to who even knew about the incident.

My professors all knew me and Oliver well enough to understand that with the upcoming match against Slytherin we wouldn't be turning in any work any time soon. It was usually around this time that my grades began to drop, but I would make up for it later. They had already offered us extensions on our essays as long as we turned it in the Sunday after the match. All except for Snape, but after insistence from Minnie, he promised to only knock off a couple points for turning our essays on the Draught of Living Death in late.

Two of my Fourth Year friends, Elianna and Dorcas, were kind enough to do some of my Care of Magical Creatures and Charms homework, simply copying their own answers onto my own pieces of parchment using a special quill the twins had bought from Zonko's Joke Shop that replicated hand writing. They lent the same quill to a few Fifth Years who did the same for Oliver. Angelina Johnson, a fellow Chaser on our team, offered me some advice about prioritizing my health and sleep over quidditch, but I kindly refused to listen. She then recommended the same to Oliver, who had been sitting next to me in the common room during the exchange, but he just stared at her with tired eyes for a few seconds before returning to his notebook filled with plays and strategies. 

Every night before bed, Percy restocked my quidditch duffle with protein bars and special electrolyte-packed potions that I had bought heaps of at Quality Quidditch Supplies prior to term. They were supposed to give you energy and replenish any sort of vitamin loss after a quidditch match, as well as speed up your body's natural healing process. This was especially helpful for me as I had a knack for getting hit with the bludger. They made sure my workout clothes and quidditch robes were washed and ready to go every morning when I would leave before the sun even rose. But, they made sure to let me know that the only reason they did this was to make sure that I got enough sleep and didn't overwork my self even more. 

Elijah and Benji watched over me and Oliver like mother hens the week of the match, consistently getting after us for staying too long at early morning practice and missing breakfast, or for skipping dinner to head to the pitch, or for staying up late working out tactics. They insisted that it wasn't healthy to be going on runs and working out every waking moment, but we always shrugged them off. They didn't stop though, and told on us to Madam Pomfrey who sadly admitted she couldn't do anything unless something were to actually happen to us, such as passing out or getting sick.

Despite his making sure I was still surviving on protein bars and sports drinks, Percy heavily protested our work ethic, telling us that losing so much sleep over the match was pointless. 'It was just a stupid game'. Needless to say, we didn't speak to him for the next two days.

Something that ticked me off was that when Alysa said the same thing, insisting that we need rest and that it really wasn't worth it in the grand scheme of things, Oliver excused it as her being worried. But, he was peeved with Percy. Whatever.

Minnie was the worst of them all. If she didn't spot me and Oliver at breakfast, she would send a house elf to find us and then when we refused to leave the pitch, she would drag us by the ear to eat. Every time that she saw us heading for the pitch during a time where practice was not scheduled, she reoriented us to the library, promising to take away points if we didn't stay there. One evening when I was headed out to the pitch to do some flying drills, she even confiscated my Nimbus. I was so shocked that I had raced after her, yelling some things you probably shouldn't yell at your professor, all the way until we reached her office, where she promptly slammed the door in my face.