"Sorry, Aunt Petunia."

Chapter 12: The Match And The Reunion

November began with massive drops in temperature. Everything started turning more and more grey except in the mornings when said everything was instead white with frost.

The Quidditch season was about to begin, and with the date coming closer Captain Wood was getting crazier every day, scheduling unexpected practices every moment he could get enough of the team on the pitch.

Harry suspected that Draco was similarly overworked, but he didn’t have an opportunity to ask. Ever since the Halloween Feast and the whole troll business, they’d only been able to see each other briefly during meals, somehow managing to exchange a couple of words.

Harry had had more interaction with Hermione and Neville, but it mostly involved talking about homework and working on it, respectively. Hermione tried to get him to read Quidditch Through the Ages, but he wasn’t able to find a spare moment for that.

He figured that practicing the moves would be more effective than reading about the sport in a book anyway, but he did appreciate the brief summary that Hermione gave him.

The longevity of a match came as a big surprise. He expected it to be an hour and a half at most, like football, but it turned out that there was no set restriction - the game was going to continue until one of the Seekers caught the Snitch.

Apparently there was a certain match one time - before they’d figured out all the proper charms for each ball and the stadium - which had to end by mutual agreement, as the Snitch had left the stadium at some point.

It had supposedly lasted over a week, and the scores were well into the thousands in points. How no one had noticed that they were lacking a Snitch until it was spotted in a nearby village remained a mystery.

The day of the first match came far too quickly for Harry’s liking.

All four of them sat at the Slytherin table, Hermione and Neville pestering both Harry and Draco to eat some breakfast.

“You need to eat something!” Hermione was losing her patience. “You’ll both need the energy!”

“You hear that, Draco?” Blaise Zabini didn’t look away from his plate. “If the Gryffindors are telling you to eat when they're the ones you’ll be playing against, you really have to.”

Draco rolled his eyes, but he did put some rice with chicken and what was probably a rather spicy sauce on his plate. Harry followed his example, although he settled on rice only. He didn’t feel like puking his guts out in the locker room, or, Heaven forbid, in the air. And with how bland the meals had been at the Dursleys’, that would have been more than inevitable.

By eleven, the whole school was out in the stands. Hermione and Neville promised to cheer for them both, to Draco’s visible confusion.

“It’s just a game, isn't it?” Hermione shrugged. “Whichever of you wins, we’ll still be happy.”

“Best of luck,” Neville added, and the two of them went off to find a good place to sit.

“Well,” Draco said, watching them disappear, “may the better Seeker win?”

“And gain the title of best Seeker among the first years?” Harry teased. “Sure.”

Gryffindor and Slytherin had their lockers on opposite sides of the stadium, separated further by the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw lockers, forcing them to break apart.

Harry changed quickly, and while he didn’t really hear Wood’s speech, he did join in when everyone cheered.

He followed the rest of the team as they entered the field, feeling entirely under-prepared.