Stellar | ENG

chapter 5

I broke away from the embrace again when my alarm clock went off.
"I'm late for practice!!!" I said impishly as I looked at the time.
"This is new. Since when do you set alarm clocks?" said Bianca surprised.
"Oh no. It's not my doing. It's all Oliver's fault, he's become obsessed with winning the Cup. He has given away watches and set alarm clocks and the whole team. So he won't be late for practice," I explained trying to turn off the annoying noise.
" You know you should use that as a method so you wouldn't be late anymore." He said plugging his ears. The noise had become deafening.

I heard people coming up behind me, they must be from the team as the noise had tripled.
"We've already tried that Rose. The noise doesn't stop until you're on the Quidditch pitch." it was the Weasley twins, saying this they took me by the arm, one on either side and started dragging me away.
My feet now lifted off the ground, given the difference in height.
" Hello Bi" I shouted, by now seeing my friend off in the distance.
"See you later Rose" and so saying she disappeared from my sight.

Before long we arrived on the Quidditch pitch and the noise stopped.
The twins stopped but neither of them let go of my arms.
"Do you mind?" I asked amused, practically laughing.
"Ah yes sorry," said George, letting go of my right arm.
"We didn't think you'd be so short," said Fred, letting go of my left arm, but not before I was firm with my feet on the ground.
"Hey-" I was interrupted before I could even retort.
"Okay team!" said Oliver, with a proud smile on his face.
"This summer I've come up with new strategies to win the Cup. We're going to train earlier, harder and longer."
"How much earlier?" asked Fred, widening his eyes.
"Every day at seven o'clock we will train," said Oliver in a firm voice.
"Seven o'clock at night," I suggested, starting to get a little worried.
"Oh no, 7 o'clock in the morning" Oliver said looking me seriously in the eye.
"Are you kidding Wood?" I said to reassure myself.
"Does this look like the face of someone in a joking mood Kenns?"

There began to be tension in the air, the whole team now worried. Everyone was aware of the great friendship that existed between Olivier and I. And everyone knew that when we started calling each other by our last names, it wasn't a good sign.
I looked at Oliver incredulously for a while, when he started to open his mouth to retort I was interrupted.
"Come on, everyone on the brooms. We'll do 20 laps to warm up. We don't have time to waste!" said Oliver in a leader's tone.
And so we all began to fly.

The qudditch training was ultimately enjoyable, and regrettably too short. It seemed like 10 minutes after we started playing, when we were interrupted by the Slytherins.
I was trying to work out a new attack strategy with Angelina and Katie, who like me were the team chasers. Our task was to score points by getting the ball into the massive hoops, which the goalkeeper protected. When we...

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave," said Marcus Flint emphatically.
Marcus Flint, 16 years old, Slytherin, pureblood, black hair and dark eyes.
Rude and obnoxious to most people, though to be honest with me individually he always tried to be kind and polite, even though it was obvious it wasn't really in his nature. Although we never talked much, he always greeted me in the corridors and both in class and around the castle he tried to make conversation, though almost always with little success.

Oliver claimed he had a crush on me, noting these behaviours and the fact that he had never tried to throw me off the broom and had probably forbidden his teammates from doing so as well, since in two years I was the only one of the entire Gryffindor team, if not also the only one compared to the other houses, not to be thrown off, and for the Slytherin team it was practically a game strategy.

I, on the other hand, thought he was acting this way simply because I was a close friend of Bianca's, the two were somehow related.

"Courage! Give way to the best," Flint said full of himself.
Oliver strangely didn't retort. Evidently in a great mood from training.
My team and I gathered our things, while the Slytherins stood there, motionless, staring at us.

At the exact moment we passed by the opposing team...
"Hi Rose" Marcus said to me in a soft tone and a chagrined smile.
"Hi" I replied politely, but still shocked at how he had changed his attitude in a split second.

Passing the Slytherin team I continued to make my way towards the changing room, but still feeling watched.

Before entering the locker room to change I turned around and saw Adrian looking at me. I gave him a friendly smile and for the umpteenth time, as we stood there looking into each other's eyes, it happened again, everything around us stopped.
It was a surprisingly and pleasantly magical feeling, and although the magic never ceased to amaze me, when this happened I felt strange, with an incredible adrenaline in my body, my heart was beating fast and I felt like I could handle anything if I just wanted to.
But of course someone had to interrupt.

"Come on Pucey! The quaffle isn't going to stick itself in the hoops." said Marcus, waking Adrian up from the moment and consequently me too.
Adrian looked at me one last time, giving me one last smile, before mounting his broom and heading off towards the rest of his team