Belonging

Looking Inward -Madelyn Watson-

When eleven year old Madelyn had come home from Hogwarts for the first time she had had so much to tell her family she didn't stop talking for days. The information overload her parents were experiencing was very apparent even to herself as an eleven year old. She would always remember how she lost them at Quidditch.

Somewhere around the bludgers her parents had just snapped, no amount of reassurance that medical maladies were more easily healed in this world would make them think that children should be zooming through the air with cannonballs crashing into them.

Her parents weighed heavily on her mind. A week from today she would be sitting across from them with McGonagall explaining something that would upset them more than bludgers. Hufflepuff scored, and Madelyn was still present enough to cheer with her friends, but the serge of joy from her team sneaking the quaffle through the Slytherin keeper's outstretched arms was a little empty for her today.

Somewhere too far away to see, her husband was likely grumbling under his breath, he always got so worked up when his team did not correct mistakes they made in the last game to this one. That was the same opening their keeper had left in the Slytherin and Gryffindor match that they had lost. Her husband was very hands on with his team, a reason why they had a ridiculously long winning streak.

Madelyn knew that Professor Sprout had never once given their team a list of things to practice, nor a lecture on focusing, and most definitely had not personally attended practices to correct bad broom form. Perhaps that's why Hufflepuff was frequently in last. Last in quidditch, last in house points. They were all good natured and relaxed, no one taking anything seriously enough to get competitive.

When it happened again, the same blind spot taken for another ten points, the cheers from the Hufflepuff bench were slightly deafening. "Uh oh, Mads, is Professor Snape gonna be cranky at his Hufflepuff wife if we actually beat them for once?" Bethany asked.

"We aren't going to beat them," Madelyn's low mood she had had all week as she ramped up preparations for telling her parents was making her altogether pessimistic.

"Professor Snape seems rather passionate about Quidditch," Hortencia observed. "Is he very moody when they lose?"

"A bit," Madelyn answered distractedly. She was busy imagining members of her family sitting beside her, gawking at the game in action before them, the gravity defying feats, and being so taken with it all they forgot to be mad about her husband.

Another sudden goal for Hufflepuff and those on the benches were losing their minds as their score pulled ahead. A rare moment indeed. Everyone started looking for their seeker, this would be the opportune moment to lock in those points, a good step forward in the points at the start of the year.

Suddenly it seemed the Slytherins were frazzled, the Hufflepuff lead made them make a few bad decisions in a row. First, their beater bent a bludger straight for Hufflepuff's best seeker, but it hit their own instead, sending him off to get some medical attention, and then they got caught doing some dirty tricks and suddenly, some of their best players were off the field and the Huffepuff's scored three more times.

Madelyn could not remember a time that they had ever beat Slytherin in her time at Hogwarts. The Hufflepuffs around her were cheering so loud she couldn't hear her own screams of support. Her eyes were drawn to the tower where the staff sat, and she could see the outline of a figure in black leaning at the edge. Perhaps her husband? Hard to say at this angle with the sun in her eyes.

Suddenly, the snitch was theirs, and Madelyn was extremely glad she had chosen to sit down here today. The raucous cheering felt like being part of a unit, an amorphous blob of happy screaming. Winning at quidditch was one thing, but winning against Slytherin had created pandemonium. The celebration party began the second the snitch was caught. Their house was the last out of the pitch, waiting by the exit to scream once more for their winning team as they came out of the changing rooms.