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As December rolled around, I noticed how miserable people grew as the snow began to fall. I always found snow rather graceful and dust-like, but this snow was thick and sometimes hard to walk through. Fred and Lee would like to throw snowballs at Professor Umbridge, which would gain them more detentions, but they considered it worth it. George liked to joke about throwing his own snow at me, but I didn't find it funny, especially after I slipped while dodging one of his throws.
Now I dreaded Care of Magical Creatures, no matter how interesting Grubbly-Plank was. Over the course of the two weeks, we had two more DA meetings, practicing simple jinxes and hexes I had already learned. Angelina would complain about the difficulty level, but I restrained her from telling Harry we had already mastered these spells.
Not only had we been busy with studying, DA, and finishing our piling number of detentions, I had begun talking with Angelina about trying out for Harry's position as Seeker. We kept it a secret from anyone, especially Fred, George, and Harry. But Angelina was one of the only people who knew of my love for Quidditch and was desperate for someone to at least tryout. The best she had so far was Ginny, who had announced she'd rather be a Chaser.
"Come on, please," Angelina begged, and I shook my head.
"I'm sorry, Angelina, but I could never do what you do. I prefer intellect and would be too stressed to commit to the team," I argued.
"At least try," she said, and I crossed my arms, sighing heavily. "You just have to have a good eye and know how to fly!"
"And what if I don't have one of them?"
"But you do! You're definitely observant and focused. I wrote to Fleur to ask if you know how to fly since you're too stubborn to tell me. She told me you used to play Quidditch all the time as a little girl and even got a broom from your parents on your tenth birthday," she explained, and I turned to narrow my eyes at her.
"You wrote to Fleur?" She shrugged.
"When?"
"After the boys got kicked off the team."
"And she wrote back to you?"
"Yeah, in a week or so."
I scoffed, running a hand through my hair as I muttered, "and she can't answer mine?"
Angelina didn't hear my grumbling and instead added onto her side. "Why don't you just see, alright? It'll probably only be you versus Ginny —"
"And that's the second issue. If I somehow beat Ginny and make the team, she'll be furious, and she already doesn't like me —"
"Who cares! She's a sassy 14-year-old. What'd you expect?"
"She'll tell her mother, and the both of them will dislike me even more, possibly make the rest of the family hate me. Then they'll despise not only me but also Fleur if they see her with Bill," I rambled, and unlike many times where she would cut me off, Angelina stood there and listened. I continued groaning about what this try-out would cause, and by the end of it, I looked at Angelina, who had her eyebrows raised and an unamused look across her face.
