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ONE TAKE A BREAK
"Dee! Dee! Wait for me, asshole!" Meredith McCarthy exclaims as she chases her friend down the train platform. The aforementioned blonde turns around, searching for the tall redhead in the crowd. The second she finds her, Deidre finds herself in a bone-crushing hug. Now, it wasn't that Deidre was an affectionate person, she simply liked being able to breathe. Still, she accepted the inevitable and let Meredith crush her, knowing their other friend Alexis would come to rescue her soon enough.
As if on cue, another voice joins the group, "Oh Merlin, Meredith, can she even breathe?"
"I'm fine!" Deidre confirms from where she's being squished against the redhead's chest. The girl laughs before letting her go, grabbing Alexis in a hug next who simply sighs and lets her hands fall to her sides instead of hugging back like she does every year. Reuniting on the Hogwarts Express platform is pretty much the one time a year Alexis allows anyone to touch her on account of them usually having gone a whole summer without seeing each other.
"How was your summer? Come on, I barely heard from you guys!" Deidre laughs at the two of them as she begins to drag her luggage onto the train. Her family has already dropped her off, not bothering with any tearful goodbyes or telling each other how much they'll miss each other. That's how it goes every year, the fifth one would be no different, so she supposes she's fine with it. She doesn't have to be told she's loved to know she is. Well, she hopes she is.
"Oi, O'Connor!" a voice called her to attention, echoing down the train compartments. Urquhart, the new Slytherin Quidditch Captain nodded to her with an arrogant grin, "Ready to kick some ass this year?"
She laughed, nodding at his statement, "Yeah, good luck defeating Potter, though, but I'll try my best!"
"I still don't know how you understand all that Quidditch stuff," Meredith scoffed as she pushed her friend along, "Like, all I ever see is people flying around and balls chasing them, how the hell do you find a strategy in that? It all seems random and never makes sense."
Deidre just shrugs, "I dunno makes sense to me. Alexis, too."
"Yeah and we're damn good at it," Alexis agrees, holding up her hand for a high five which Deidre meets with a smile on her face.
They find an empty compartment for the three of them, settling in with ease as they try and get comfortable for the long journey they have ahead of them. Deidre doesn't really mind the long drives to Hogwarts, it gives her free time to plot ahead of the upcoming Quidditch season. She'll never be a captain since she can't get her ass on a broom to save her life, but she knows she's important to the team. They barely lost to Gryffindor last year, but she knows they probably wouldn't have even made it to the end without her brains behind everything.
"Does your brain ever stop working? Like, just take a break, hang out with us," Meredith sighs the moment Deidre pulls out her book filled with notes on how her team works, what's good for them, and what they need to improve on as well as some strategies she would love to see in the air. She studies it constantly, trying to think of what to add and how to make their team better. Okay, maybe she's a little obsessed, but she's been a fan ever since she could walk. Except for the one time her parents tried to get her on a broom of her own and she cried until it got her back on the ground. So, she wasn't a player, but she had the brains of one and that was what mattered.
"I am hanging out with you lot!" the blonde laughs, leaning up against the wall next to the window, avoiding looking at the people outside waiting for the train to depart so they could wave goodbye to the students they wouldn't see until Christmas. Maybe she'd like it more if she had someone to wave to, but that's not important right now. "It's called multitasking!"
Surprisingly, Alexis was the one to scoff at this, rolling her eyes as she tugged the notebook from Deidre's hands with little resistance from the shorter girl. "Dude, you write like a crazy person. This is about ninety-percent scribbles, how do you even understand this?"
"I dunno, I just... do," Deidre shrugs, grabbing for the book back, but Alexis holds it out of her reach. "Just give it back 'n I'll put it away, promise! I'm just trying to make sure we get ahead, is that so bad? I really want to beat Gryffindor this year! We always get so close!"
"We'll beat them," the dark-haired girl nods, tossing the book back to her. "Not sure how Urquhart's gonna do as captain, won't be the same without Flint, though, I miss that bastard every day."
"Marcus was such a prick, how could you miss him?" Meredith scoffs, stretching out on the bench she has to herself since no one ever cares to join them. They don't mind, though, Deidre likes the three of them having a compartment to themselves.
Alexis laughs, "A prick, yes, but damn good at the game, that's for sure. Oh, well, at least Malfoy's off the team, he was bloody dreadful. Whines like a muggle football player every time he so much as jams a finger. I've been on the pitch bleeding and still up in the air, but he so much as gets a splinter in his palm and he's on the ground cryin' about it. We'll be so much better off without him."
"Damn it, I forgot he quit and I don't know anything about the stupid player joining in his place. Wuss or not, he's screwed about half my strategies by leaving," Deidre sighs, trying to open up the book again to scratch out the player's name, but Alexis's playful glare stops her in her tracks. "Ugh, fine, I won't touch it. Sheesh. It's like you don't even want to get better, Lex."
"Hey, can't fix perfection," the girl teases, the three of them bursting into a fit of laughter.
Their joy is cut off by a knock on the door of the compartment before someone leans their head in. Ginny Weasley looks at them for a moment before clearly realizing she's in the wrong place, sighing and saying, "Shit, sorry girls, wrong compartment."
Deidre notices Ginny's eyes drifting to the notebook in her hands and she instantly tucks it back into her bag, away from prying eyes. She bites back, "Yeah, wrong compartment, so you best be on your way now, eh?"
Ginny gets the message, raising her brow briefly before closing the door, leaving just the three of them. As soon as she was gone, Meredith looked over at the blonde, laughing and asking, "What the hell was that, Dee? Ain't you supposed to be the nice one out of the lot of us?"
"She was peekin' at my book! I'm not lettin' her filthy Gryffindor hands get ahold of that!" Deidre reasons, laughing at the shocked expressions on her two friends' faces, "Screw you lot, I can be mean, too! How else you think I got in 'ta Slytherin in the first place?"
The three of them laugh together, falling into contentness in anticipation of the long journey ahead. Things will settle down as time passes, but right now is time for the jokes and speculations of the year ahead of them. Quidditch barely even occupies her mind, but she knows this'll be a good year for the team. It's got to be.
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