𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐒, james potter

15. slytherin vs. gryffindor

THE DAY OF the first Quidditch game of the year is hectic and chaotic and just about every other synonym Nesrin can think of.

There is an excited energy in the air that she finds rather exhilarating. The anticipation of the year's biggest game swallows up the entirety of Hogwarts. Gryffindor versus Slytherin is always a good game.

And rarely played in good sportsmanship.

The game is always brutal, and someone always gets hurt.

Nesrin would be lying if she said this doesn't worry her.

She doesn't usually go out of her way to watch the games. Before she moved away, she only went to a few games, and even then she only went when Idris or Evan forced her to come. When she and James started dating, he tried to get her to come to his games, but she seldom agreed.

Something about watching James play and potentially be injured at any second just killed her on the inside. It still does.

And she definitely wasn't planning on going to the game this afternoon, but there's something nagging at her. Telling her that something is going to go wrong.

The feeling is too strong to ignore, so she lets out a half-hearted argument when Evan tries to get her to come and then agrees to be there.

When she gets to the Quidditch pitch hours later, the stands are already packed. She sits beside Vanessa in the Slytherin section wearing her green and silver sweater because she knows someone will say something if she doesn't show some sort of support for Slytherin.

She thanks Merlin that Vanessa is chatting with another girl in their year instead of her. Nesrin waits impatiently for the game to start. She keeps picking at the skin around her fingernails—a habit she picked up from James—and her knee keeps bouncing.

After what seems to be forever, the players finally start coming out and instantly—almost as if Nesrin's eyes were trained for this exact reason—she catches sight of James. His dark hair tousled and strands falling onto his forehead.

His red robes somehow make him look younger in a way. A memory of James teaching her how to throw a quaffle and how to efficiently ride the broom flashes through her head so suddenly that her heart gets caught in her throat. And in that exact instant, James's head turns and their eyes meet.

Just as quickly, he turns away and is flying to the center of the pitch, leaving Nesrin to retreat back into herself.

James and Idris shake hands—even from her seat several feet away, Nesrin can see how tightly both of them are holding onto each other—and the game starts soon after.

It is a close game throughout. When one team scores, the other is quick to counter that and score back, leveling the score. Nesrin cheers when Slytherin scores, though in her head, she's secretly rooting for Gryffindor.

It is about an hour or so into the game when it happens.

What Nesrin had been dreading all along.

Someone on the Gryffindor team passes the quaffle over to James. He catches it smoothly and starts speeding over to the goal post. Just as he only has a quarter of the way left to go, something is suddenly shooting across the pitch toward him.

Nesrin's heart starts slamming against her chest. More rapidly than it ever has before.

The bludger comes out of nowhere. It hits the back of James's head, the sharp, painful smack heard from all over the stands as onlookers hold their breaths.

In a horrifying moment, James falls from his broom.

Nesrin doesn't let herself watch. She is not so masochistic as to do that to herself. Instead, she looks across the pitch to the culprit who launched the ball. And she finds him.