Scratches (Fred Weasley)

(124) Keeping it Together

Nicolai loved practicing her Expelliarmus skills on Alexander. Ever since Harry had taught them during their DA meeting, she had been disarming the blonde boy whenever she had the chance, always enjoying the annoyed look on his face whenever she would do so. The last straw was when she had disarmed him at the middle of trying to levitate a book down from the top shelf in the library, the heavy, leather bound book landing on Xander's forehead, giving him a nasty looking bruise.

He ended up not talking to her for a whole day.

But eventually he gave in, since her excessive apologizing annoyed him as well.

Florence was frequently seen at the Quidditch pitch as the days grew closer to their first match. When not practicing for the game, she was undisturbed in the library, or with the twins, trying to help them with their Quill Line project. But it was mostly the former.

Fred and George understood that, despite the fact that they really didn't care much for school, Florence did, and that it was a big deal for her. Plus, they have also been busy themselves, especially in training their little protégée, who's progress was coming out good so far.

Florence really had to keep good grades up for the last few months of school for the sake of her records. The Auror program had an inexplicably high grade standard for Defense Against the Dark Arts, and with Umbridge having a personal vendetta against her, she had to work twice as hard so she won't find any flaws or reasons to fail her. As much as Florence despised Umbridge, she knew that she had to stomach it for the sake of her career.

Thursday came along, and Florence was sure that she was on the very verge of having a mental breakdown from all the homework and the triple quizzes she had going on that day. What made matters worse was that Owen was unable to make it to practice because he was sick, the team having to practice with only one beater.

"That's...Ivy..." she sighed in a disappointed manner, as the Quaffle soared in to one of the hoops for what appeared to be the nth time in an hour, a guilty look on Ivy's face, "Sorry..." she squeaked, "The wind's in my face...it's irritating."

"It's fine." she lied through her teeth, keeping her frustration in as she didn't want to take everything out on the poor girl who looked genuinely apologetic for her lack of skill for the day. Florence combed a hand through her brown hair, already feeling a headache coming up.

"What about we do this? Everyone off your brooms. We can't slack on our hand-eye coordination, okay? Jeremy, I'm noticing that your throws are getting sloppy...so are yours, Roger. We have to work on that."

Cho swerved her broom down, getting off of it almost gracefully as she made her way beside Florence, a slight panting evident in her voice, "Does that include me, too?"

"Yes, Cho. I meant everyone. You may not need to toss things around, but it might help your agility."

She gave her a mock salute, before joining her teammates in the wide circle formation, the Quaffle in Roger's hands as he waited for Florence to give off the signal. As soon as everyone was settled in, Florence blew on her whistle, everyone scattering around as they ran as far from each other as possible, "Davis to Buchanan!" she hollered, watching the ball soar across the field, and landing securely in her Keeper's arms.

Ivy circled the pitch, Florence raising her arms up, "Buchanan to me!"

The Quaffle came barreling towards her at full speed, Florence already at a catching stance when a hand reached out and smacked the ball from it's trajectory, making it swerve away from Florence's direction and onto the grass.

"What the...?"

Her gaze snapped up to see Graham Montague, in all his smug glory, his useless band of players standing behind him, all of them cladded in their own Quidditch robes, their Nimbus 2001 brooms secured in their grip.