WE'LL TAKE ON THE WORLD ; h.j.p.

29 | O.W.L.'s

Ron's euphoria at helping Gryffindor scrape the Quidditch Cup was such that he could not settle on anything the next day. Allison, too, was feeling like she was floating on a cloud of excitement, though whether that stirred from the actual game or the few butterbeers she had had last night, she could not tell.

Still, it could not distract her from the fact that Harry and Hermione were acting very strangely since yesterday. They did not share Ron and her enthusiasm in the slightest and whenever Ron directed the conversation to the match (which was really every time he opened his mouth), they simply smiled and nodded along, just like right now.

As it was another fine, warm day, Hermione had persuaded them to join her in studying under the beech tree on the edge of the lake. Ron was not particularly keen on this idea at first; he was thoroughly enjoying being patted on the back by Gryffindors walking past his chair, not to mention the occasional outbursts of "Weasley Is Our King," but agreed after a while that some fresh air might do him good.

They spread their books out in the shade of the beech tree and sat down while Ron talked them through his first save of the match for probably the dozenth time.

"Well, I mean, I'd already let in that one of Davies's, so I wasn't feeling that confident, but I dunno, when Bradley came toward me, just out of nowhere, I thought - you can do this! And I had about a second to decide which way to fly, you know, because he looked like he was aiming for the right goal hoop - my right, obviously, his left - but I had a funny feeling that he was feinting, and so I took the chance and flew left - his right, I mean - and - well - you saw what happened," He concluded modestly, sweeping his hair back quite unnecessarily so that it looked interestingly windswept and glancing around to see whether the people nearest to them - a bunch of gossiping third-year Hufflepuffs - had heard him.

Harry, whom this behaviour reminded distinctly of his father's which he'd seen in Snape's memory, broke out into a grin.

"And then, when Chambers came at me about five minutes later - what?" Ron said, stopping mid-sentence at the look on Harry's face. "Why are you grinning?"

"I'm not," Harry quickly said, looking down at his Transfiguration notes and attempting to straighten his face. "I'm just glad we won, that's all."

Allie and Hermione shared a questioning look, but she just shrugged and turned her head back to her notes. Allison understood why she wasn't really euphoric about the whole Quidditch thing, she couldn't care less for all Allison knew, but she had at least expected Harry to show some emotion.

"Yeah," Ron said slowly, savouring the words and stretching out his legs, "we won. Did you see the look on Cho's face when Allie got the Snitch right out from under her nose?"

"Oh, come on, Ron, you don't need to make fun of her," said Allison with a scolding look.

"I'm not!" He protested. "I'm just saying it looked a bit...funny."

"Just because you aren't made fun of anymore doesn't mean you can go around and be mean to others."

"I'm being bloody honest," Ron said.

"So, I suppose she cried, did she?" Harry said before Allison could talk back again.

"Well, yeah - more out of temper than anything, though..." Ron frowned slightly. "But you saw her chuck her broom away when she got back to the ground, didn't you?"

"Err -" Harry said.

"Come on, she just lost a very important match," said Allison. "Why don't we talk about Angelina, I mean she crushed that Ravenclaw Keeper, don't you think?"

"Yeah...totally," Harry said, but Hermione interrupted him.

"Well, actually...we can't really think anything of the game," said Hermione with a heavy sigh, putting down her book and looking at him apologetically, "because as a matter of fact, the only bit of the match Harry and I saw was Davies's first goal."