✔️ 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓&𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 → 𝑓. 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑦

09 | L O S T

•••
be careful making wishes
      in the dark ...
•••

  "You can fight it as much as you want", Daphne said, the corners of her mouth twitching. "The git has a thing on you, I tell you."

   "Has not", Lynnea muttered into her cornflakes bowl, refusing to look at anyone in the great hall.

   "He's fallen for you, Lynn", Tracey giggled, and Lynnea already regretted telling the both girls what has happened near the courtyard.

   "He's a girlfriend for almost one year", Lynnea hissed.

   "You're well informed about his love life, Lynn", Tracey laughed. "So tell me then why he is trying so hard to ignore you ever since Aiden lay an eye on you -"

   "- Aiden didn't -"

   "And why is he, despite the fact that he's sitting next to Johnson right now, only having eyes for cute Lynnea here?", Daphne added, wriggling her eyebrows. "Don't get me wrong, he's a git and I don't really mind him no longer being around you."

    And in fact, the moment Lynnea looked over to the Gryffindor table, her eyes immediately locked with Fred's, who's cheeks turned pink, before he threw a small smirk, before he turned away.

    "Well, I'm informed, because George told me", Lynnea said, leaving the detail about her asking George about this fact. "And as you already said, he's a git, so neither will I mind if he's around or not."

   "What about Aiden?", Daphne asked, giggling again. "

   "Uhm, he's ... nice", Lynnea muttered. Fact was, that she'd thought about Aiden a lot lately, mainly asking herself, if she would have wanted to kiss him. One year from now Aiden had been all she ever wanted. But now all she could ever see was Fred's hurt facial expression over and over again. Stupid Fred!

•••

   The morning of the match Lynnea awoke way too early and couldn't fall back asleep. The sound of the icy wind outside kept her awake, so she finally decided to head to the common room, placing herself on one armchairs in front of the fireplace, staring into the flames until my eyes started hurting.

   "What are you doing here up that early, Bailey?", a snarling voice from behind her spoke, making her flinch slightly. "Nervous?"

   Draco Malfoy stepped out of the shadows, his white blonde hair shining in the light of the fire. He sat down next to Lynnea, also staring at the flames.

   "Why should I be?", she said in a defiant voice.

   "Don't know, maybe you're afraid of your dimwit Gryffindor friends and loverboy?"

   "Crap", she hissed. "And stop talking about them like that, you exactly know that I hate it. Have you stopped that stupid song about Ron by the way?"

   "Ah, no, I won't, it's too much fun", he cackled. "And no, I haven't. So what are you doing here in the middle of the night?"

    Rolling her eyes at him, Lynnea sighed. She felt pity for Ron. The song was one of Draco's diabolical masterpieces, and she often thought about telling Ron about it, so he'd be warned. Otherwise Ron had been awfully nervous for days now, and she thought, he'd might lose the last bit of his nerves, if he'd know about Draco's plan. So Lynnea kept quiet, and of course tried to persuade her teams' seeker to stop that crap, what, of course, failed. Draco hated Ron passionately, and the fact, that Ron would get stressed out during the match, caused by the Slytherins' mean lyrics, was a nice side effect for the blond git sitting next to her. "I couldn't sleep any longer", she then said and shrugged. "And it was too soon for breakfast. So I thought I'd just enjoy the silence for a while."

   "Nice way to waste time", he laughed.

   They sat in silence for a while until one by one their housemates awoke and joined them in the common room. It was almost time for the match, so Draco and Lynnea went down to the Great Hall, where she immediately earned a sharp glare from Fred. She went crimson and looked away hastily. This would be so much fun then ...

•••

   The match was lost. It was a catastrophe. Draco was an awful seeker, and if that wasn't bad enough, he couldn't even manage to catch the Snitch when it accured to fly right next to his ear. Harry did the job and finished the painful misery for the Slytherins. Lynnea landed, she thought about congratulating Harry for his fabulous catch, but he was surrounded by cheerful yelling and screaming Gryffindors, so with hanging head Lynnea slurped back to the changing room.

   "Hey where are our three flying fools?", Aiden greeted her with a sinister glare. "I'm in the mood to wrench some necks."

   "I don't know, maybe they went straight up to the castle", Lynnea muttered, kicking her boots aside. "I'm sorry, that was awful ..."

   "What are you talking about? Adrian, Myles and you did a great job", Aiden said, his eyebrows still furrowed, while his face wore an otherwise exhausted mask. "I should kick those dimwits straight out of the team."

   By now Adrian and Myles left the changing room with low shoulders. Lynnea immediately felt uncomfortable for she tried for weeks now to not be alone with Aiden. Until now it perfectly worked out.

   "Why don't you just do so?", she quickly asked in a high pitched voice, before Aiden could come up with another issue.

   "My father would kill me", Aiden muttered, pulling his sweater over his head. Lynnea heavily blushed and turned around hasty by the sight of his bare chest. "He's befriended with those's parents. That's even the reason why they're in the team."

   Lynnea looked back at him, fortunately he was dressed again. "So it is true what the folks around here say?", she said, cocking an eyebrow. "The members of this team aren't just in because of their talent?"

   "You, Adrian and Myles for sure are talented", he replied, staring at the wall without seeing it. "But Mr. Malfoy has some sort of grande influence, and - well, I'd really like to kick there untalented arses out, but ... uhm."

   "Maybe you should stop doing what your father is telling you to do", Lynnea hissed, grabbing her broom and stomped away.

   "Lynnea, wait!", Aiden called after her, but she ignored him. She didn't want to go back to the castle right now, so she took a stroll alongside the Forbidden Forest and sat down by the lake for a while. The dusk was setting and her hands were frozen when she finally made her way back.

   In the entrance hall she saw a redhead on his way to the main stairs, his head hanging, his broom in his hand.

   "Hey Ron, why the long face? Didn't you just win the match?", Lynnea said loudly, so he turned around and waited for her to catch up with him.

   "I think I quit, it was horrible", he muttered, frowning. "I was horrible!"

   "Don't be stupid, you were great", Lynnea said, shaking her head. "You shouldn't care about that stupid song. That's exactly what Malfoy wanted. It was your first match, you just need a little routine, and some practice. No one is ever good at his first match. I landed in the hospital wing after four minutes with a cracked nose, because the Quaffle slipped through my fingers and ... well, the rest of the story is obvious. But the point is, you can't just leave your teammates hanging."

   He blinked at her several times, before he slowly said: "I guess, Fred's right. You're ... Well, I guess I shouldn't tell you that." He laughed nervously. "Good night, Lynn."

   She stared after him as he climbed the stairs. So Fred was talking about her? Why should he do that? And what the bloody hell did he say?