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━━━ EIGHTsucker punch
November always came with a sort of vacancy that she could never fill.
Everything was dull and sodden with the occasional drizzle, and the cold was cutting.
The Gryffindor vs Slytherin quidditch match was decided to be played in the last week of November.
The practice sessions were getting rougher and rougher. Raya tried to focus on the sessions, but the weight of the pressure was sickening. Everyone was talking about it━and her housemates were all so sure that they would win this match.
She didn't have any more run-ins with Sirius after meeting him in the owlery that day. She saw less and less of him━sometimes in and between lectures, during meals in the Great Hall, and at the Quidditch pitch after her practice sessions. It was like they'd gone back to being acquaintances, as if they'd never known each other. She didn't mind that, and she didn't want to face him either. Raya had expected him to ask why she hadn't come to the party. She was glad he didn't, because she could never begin to tell him how she always felt like the wound wherever she was wanted.
The rain had drenched her clothes, causing the green and silver robes to stick uncomfortably to her skin.
"Good form, Vacth!"
She turned around.
It was James Potter, grinning broadly at her as he walked by. His usually disheveled hair was matted to his forehead, and his glasses fogged with condensation. His tone was entirely sarcastic.
Her mind wandered to her movements during their practice session, evaluating each move and swerve, dissecting her mistakes━was it the bludger that had almost hit her when she was distracted for a moment? was it when she'd almost missed the Quaffle when one of her teammates passed it to her?
Raya just gave him the finger instead.
It was better than looking at her flaws, slashing through the layers of all that she did until she found the mistakes━stark and repugnant amongst everything that she did. She'd rather brush it away and neglect it than think about it until there was nothing else she could see than them.
James's grin just widened at that. She saw him go to Madam Hooch, probably to confirm the timings for the Gryffindor practice sessions.
She didn't have a problem with the Gryffindors, but their moronic 'happy-go-lucky' attitude frustrated her. The Marauders came to her mind first when she thought of them. Raya wondered how they could take things so lightly. They seemed so least troubled by everything that happened around them━the dark lord's rise to power, the cataclysmal war raging beyond the wards of the castle, all the ambiguity surrounding their futures. And why should they worry? They were all from affluent families. She thought she saw right through them, through the mercurial high of boyhood. She had sworn to herself that she wouldn't fall for these whimsical fantasies, not when she was raised with the grim reality around her.
