Summers at The Burrow - Fred Weasley

Chapter Forty-six - The Grim

the cold had not ceased to exist and now we were subjected to the sky's tears as they thundered on the earth on the morning of our Quidditch game against Hufflepuff. we had been training in cold conditions for the last few months but we did not expect such a hurricane of wind and rain to bring itself upon us. we never cancelled a game for quidditch however so we were stuck getting ready for the ten o'clock game.

the girls and i put on a thermal layer and then a then our uniform jumper and pants before we wrapped ourselves in a traveling cloak to keep us warm and hopefully dry before the game when we had to walk down to the locker rooms to gear up. The seven of us went down the night before to wax our brooms to allow the rain to slide off as the sky was telling us the night before that there would be a torrential downpour the next day.

once we all gathered in the common room Oliver gave us the first pep talk of the day and we went down to the great hall to eat breakfast before braving the elements to reach the locker rooms.

when we reached the great hall the Hufflepuff team was already looking lively for the game in their canary colored jumpers. I walked over the the Hufflepuff table and found Cedric sitting with the rest of his team enjoying a bit of eggs on toast. i tapped him on the shoulder since he didn't seem to notice me and he turned and held out his hand and i high fived him and we clasped hands for a moment shaking them for a moment before releasing.

"you ready for whatever's going to happen out there?" Cedric asked still sitting as he looked up at me.

"certainly not. Did you guys remember to wax your brooms?" i questioned and his face fell for a moment.

"we completely forgot. none of us have any good weathering wax. i guess we didn't think of that." he replied.

"no worries." i said pulling a brick of weathering wax out of my pocket tossing it in the air for him to catch.

"thanks a lot, Chloe!" he said standing up pecking me on the cheek as he ran past me. it was a friendly kiss i knew that but it still felt weird since we were just friends now.

i rubbed the kiss off and awkwardly waved at the rest of the Hufflepuff team then went back to my table sitting down with the rest of my own team.

"what was that about?" Oliver asked with an upset expression. he didn't like that i was friendly with the opponent but that's his own problem.

"Cedric forgot to wax his broom." i said.

"so you helped him?" Oliver was growing more annoyed.

"do you want a fair game or not. he didn't have weathering wax so i loaned him my brick since we waxed last night." i said closing the conversation by shoving a piece of toast covered in peanut butter in my mouth.

Oliver just gave me a final annoyed look and went back to what he was doing which happened to be calculating our stats for winning the game. since we now new that Cedric's broom was being waxed as we speak and that the rest of the team had unwaxed brooms he had to adjust his stats grid entirely. we don't know why he likes doing this because it stresses him out a lot and we could tell he didn't sleep much the night before because he was being rather irritable.

once the seven of us had finished the last bit of our food and drink we got up and left the hall wrapped tightly in our cloaks as we made the difficult trek to the locker rooms. the wind was blowing the rain through the archways on the bridge as we ran. we ran and did not stop running until we reached the locker room where we ran in and tore our soaked cloaks off hanging them up to at least start drying as we got changed. 

 i put a water repellant charm on my boots and all three pairs of my socks but there was no use doing the rest of me since it had already soaked through no matter how hard i had tried to remain dry. we all helped one another lace up our straps and guards then we put on our game cloaks and tied them with triple knots this time. the last thing we had to do was listen to Oliver's pep talk as we put our goggles on.