An American At Hogwarts: Book Three

Chapter Thirty-Three

I found my friends at the Gryffindor table quickly, since everyone was sitting close to the doors and as far away from Umbridge as possible. I sat down between the twins, and despite my wonderful day with Cedric, I couldn't stop the gray cloud from creeping back in just a bit.

Across from me, Angelina looked absolutely miserable. All our friends were trying to be extra cheery to help lift her spirits, but we could all tell it wasn't working. After taking a few glum bites of food, Angelina paused and looked up at me.

"Alexa, can I ask you something?" she said. The rest of our friends all stopped talking to look between the two of us.

"Sure thing, Ange. You can always talk to me."

She sighed heavily and dropped her head, then looked back at me with a new resolve in her posture.

"Listen, I know this is the absolute last thing you want to do... and I don't want to make you do anything you don't want to... but... is there any way, with us losing three players and all, that you might be willing to play Beater full time, instead of acting as a sub?"

Years of playing Uno and Poker and all kinds of other games with my family was the only thing helping me keep a straight face. Angelina was right; the last thing I wanted to do was add full-time Quidditch to my plate. But Angelina needed me, so I took a deep breath and reached out to take her hand.

"Of course, Ange. I'm here for you." Her shoulders slumped in relief, and a smile started to form on her face. That was enough to keep me from regretting my decision, at least for now. "Besides, how hard can Beating even be?"

"Hey!" chorused the twins in indignation. The rest of us just laughed.

It felt so good to see a smile on Angelina's face after everything that had happened over the course of the last day. Besides, w ho knew? Maybe adding Quidditch into my schedule as a bigger time commitment wouldn't be that bad anyway.

We managed to keep the mood light throughout the rest of dinner, and Angelina had a new energy to her as she discussed possibilities for finding another Beater and a Seeker. In the back of my mind, I couldn't help hoping she'd manage to find two amazing new Beaters just by chance to get me out of the commitment, but I knew it wasn't likely to happen.

After dinner, all of us basically headed straight to bed. It had been a long day, and we had all of Sunday to do any homework for the coming week. Tonight, we just needed to rest.

I woke up the next morning to find Angelina energized all over again, hovering over a piece of parchment and planning out Quidditch tryouts and possibilities for replacing the twins and Harry. She didn't even look up as I passed her and headed down to the Common Room, and I could tell she was in her own little world.

I did my usual morning routine with Jackson (this time with much less aggression), then started heading back up to the Common Room. Before I got even halfway there, however, I got stopped in the middle of the hallway as two familiar faces popped out from behind a tapestry.

"Alexa! Come here!" hissed George, motioning furiously for me to join them. I quickly glanced around the hall to make sure no one was watching, then ducked behind the tapestry with them.

"What's up?" I asked, giving them both curious looks. "Are you guys okay?"

"We're fine," said George.

"And we're about to be even better," added Fred, a wicked grin spreading across his face. "It's time for the Monarchs of Mischief to get serious, especially now that Georgie and I aren't doing Quidditch."

"Alright, I'm on board... what did you have in mind?"

"First we need to get somewhere a little more private," said George, heading further down the corridor. "This is one of the secret passages on the map that we never saw anyone go down, so it should be the perfect secret meeting place for us."