The Wand Makers Apprentice

Chapter 16

The next morning dawned very bright and cold. The Great Hall was full of the delicious smell of fried sausages and the cheerful chatter of everyone looking forward to a good Quidditch match. Rosie had been banned from the lake over the Christmas months by Dumbledore and McGonagall 'for her own safety' and she was no taking well to it.

The talk of Quidditch was enough to send her to sleep as she took her seat next to Oliver, who wasn't eating anything and was instead just staring ahead of himself, muttering under his breath about what Rosie guessed was Quidditch.

By eleven o'clock the whole school seemed to be out in the stands around the Quidditch pitch. Many students had binoculars. The seats might be raised high in the air, but it was still difficult to see what was going on sometimes. Rosie was in the changing room with Wood early, and waited with him as the rest of the team entered, trying to calm him down before the match.

"I can't lose to Flint." he muttered as Rosie helped him pull on his Quiditch robes as he was shaking. "I just can't..."

"Yes Oliver." Rosie said, just agreeing with him as she had tried on several occasions in the last hour to take his mind of the game, but nothing had worked.

Then rest of the team arrived one by one and changed into their scarlet Quidditch robes. Rosie sat and watched Wood pacing in front of her, making her feel dizzy. In the end she grabbed his robes and sat him down next to her, forcing him to listen to her talk about something she had read in this weeks issue of the Quibbler called Nargles, which in the end did seem to settle him down slightly.

As the match was only moments away and the rest of the team were ready and dressed, Rosie went to sit in between Katie and Angelina to put their hair in fish tails (which was Rosie's speciality) so that they looked good for the match as Wood cleared his throat for silence.

"Okay, men," he said.

"And women," said Angelina as Rosie plaited her hair.

"And women," Wood agreed. "This is it."

"The big one," said Fred.

"The one we've all been waiting for," said George.

"We know Oliver's speech by heart," Fred told Harry, "we were on the team last year."

"Shut up, you two," said Wood. "This is the best team Gryffindor's had in years. We're going to win. I know it."

He glared at them all as if to say, "Or else."

"Right. It's time. Good luck, all of you."

"Wait up at the end for me Roz." Fred said grinning as he put her in a head lock. He called it his lucky 'charm.'

Rosie watch Harry follow Fred and George out of the locker room and, he glanced back, giving Rosie a moment to give him a thumbs up and a smile.

Madam Hooch was refereeing. She stood in the middle of the field waiting for the two teams, her broom in her hand and Roz walked out onto the grounds after the others had and the match had begun, and sat down on the edge, pulling out her book on House Elf rights and awaited for the game to end. She sometimes was forced to come to the game by Oliver as he sometimes had panic attacks and other times she sat on the side in case anyone was hospitalised. Today she hoped that wouldn't happen.

"Mount your brooms, please." Rosie heard Hooch say as the teams hoped onto their brooms. Sagar, who was beater for Slytherin, winked over to Rosier as he clambered onto his broom as she gave a long blast on her silver whistle..

Fifteen brooms rose up, high, high into the air. They were off. "And the Quaffle is taken immediately by Angelina Johnson of Gryffindor -- what an excellent Chaser that girl is, and rather attractive, too --"