Noyade | Rabastan Lestrange [2] ✔︎

15 | FROZEN

Rabastan felt like his fingers were about to freeze off.

Pretty soon after the game had started, a heavy wind had picked up. The gusts were so strong that they nearly knocked the players off of their brooms and made it difficult to hear each other's shouted commands, not to mention that they changed the Quaffle's direction whenever it was thrown in a certain angle against the wind. It didn't look good for the Slytherin team. Ravenclaw's new captain, a redheaded girl that had transferred schools from Ilvermorny, one of the American schools for wizardry, had made major changes to her team's constellation and they seemed to play better than ever before. Even with the limited sight due to the weather, Rabastan could see his best friend's sour facial expression.

The blonde boy rose a hand to his mouth desperately trying to warm it with his breath, only to be knocked out of balance by the wind. He cursed under his breath and dove in the direction of Alex Avery, who currently held the Quaffle under his arm. The other boy nodded at him to show him that he acknowledged his presence. Just when he wanted to pass him the ball, however, the redheaded Ravenclaw grabbed it mid-air and dashed off in the opposite direction. Immediately Rabastan followed her.

They couldn't loose. Not against the Ravens and not if they wanted to honour Will.

He saw Regulus make his circles above them, looking for the Snitch, but the game seemed endless due to the bad weather making it impossible to see anything. Rabastan and the girl flew over the stands. For a split second he caught a glimpse of Phoenix as she ducked her head in order to not be hit by either of them. He gritted his teeth. So many times seeing her face had given him hope, but now there didn't seem to be any. Not for the game. Not for the current situation in the wizarding world.

Not for him.

★

"She's kicking his ass," Maureen laughed.

Phoenix grinned as she watched Maya Selwyn, the new captain of the Ravenclaws, throw the Quaffle through one of the rings and scoring another point for the Ravens. She heard her brother shout something inaudible and leaned towards Maureen. "And Reg is totally not having it."

"Not at all," she agreed with another laugh and added, "Actually none of them are. Look at Rabastan. Even from afar you can tell by his facial expression that he's sulking."

Rabastan really looked like a child which had got his ice cream stolen while he tried to warm his hands with his breath. Phoenix tightened her cloak around her shoulders. Once again she was glad not to be a Quidditch player - not that she would have had any chance at getting into the team. Her brothers had done a horrible job trying to convince her to start flying at an early age. She had always been too scared of falling and that hadn't changed since then. To this day she battled with a fear of heights, not to mention that she was incapable of throwing a ball even nearly in the right direction.

Maya Selwyn, however, didn't seem to have a problem with any of those things. She was the shining star of the game, tricking the boys into flying in the wrong direction every few seconds and using the weather to her advantage. It wasn't hard to believe that she was a young talent in the United States. Even Phoenix watched in awe how she basically seemed to ride on the wind and shouted encouraging words at her teammates whenever she could - at least what she shouted seemed to be encouragements, as the Ravenclaws' faces always lit up with determination. Her long red hair made it easy to spot her from the stands, but obviously it wasn't that easy for her opponents, as they were startled whenever she dashed past them.

"Maybe I should dye my hair red next time and I might actually develop an aptitude for Quidditch as well," Maureen suggested, following Maya with her eyes just like her best friend.

Phoenix couldn't help but laugh at her statement. She had been praising Maya's skills every other second since she had pushed herself off of the ground, but that was it. "I don't think red is your colour."

"Pink is as close as it can get, isn't it?" the pink-haired girl sighed mockingly.

"I'm sorry to crush your dreams, but I fear you might be right."

"Too bad," Maureen played along, clapping her hands in excitement of the game. It was hard to tell by then which team she was cheering on because she was hollering while all the Slytherins around them were groaning although she was wearing a Slytherin scarf around her neck, occasionally holding it up into the cold air. Still, Phoenix was glad to see her so happy when she had expected her to be fragile due to the special occasion concerning Will.

"She must be a bloody professional. Do you think Dawn -" Maureen interrupted herself and grabbed Phoenix arm forcefully. "What by Salazar's honour is Rabastan doing?"

Instinctively Phoenix' eyes searched the stadium for his white-blond hair. When she finally caught sight of him at the other side of the stadium her heart nearly stopped and a gasp left her mouth. He was diving right towards the ground, holding the Quaffle under his arm and a Ravenclaw student at his tail. She had learned that it was normal for the players to do reckless things every now and then, but when he only seemed to accelerate the closer he got to the ground, Phoenix felt like she had gone back in time. She remembered him crashing onto the grass before anyone even realised what happened. No, not again. She couldn't bear to sit on his bedside again and wait for him to wake up, hoping that he would be able to walk again - only that he wouldn't want her there anymore.

However, this time he wasn't falling. He was holding onto his broom with his right hand, but he just kept going. Everything seemed to slow down around Phoenix and the only thing she heard next to her heart beating rapidly against her ribcage was Maureen's voice shouting, "Why doesn't he stop. He'll crash."

She jumped to her feet leaning over the railings. The snow came closer and closer, but Rabastan didn't slow down, unlike the Ravenclaw player who pulled his broom back up. His opponent was gone; why didn't he go up again? It was like... he wanted to crash.

Without thinking twice Phoenix stretched her hands out, her palms open towards the sky. She felt the warm feeling of her powers run through her veins and a faint golden glimmer appeared above her hands. Instinctively she shoved it away from her and it travelled towards Rabastan, where it was almost invisible to the naked eye. She had no idea what she was doing, but she couldn't let him hurt himself like that.

"Please, let me be strong," she whispered.

Almost breaking her concentration, she heard Ariadne's voice in her head. 'You are strong.' It felt like her fingers were bending on their own and an invisible force pushed her hands upward. Her vision started to blur and she stumbled, but regained her balance with a deep breath. For a horrible second the patch of colour which was Rabastan kept going, but then he changed direction and shot back up into the air.

Phoenix exhaled, pulling her arms back and briefly meeting Rabastan's surprised gaze before collapsing in exhaustion.

---

I know that's the most cliché ending ever, but it just needed to happen that way. 

I won't keep apologising for my lack of updates, as the word 'sorry' just doesn't change anything. The stuff going on in my life right now is just too important to be pushed aside. I'm currently drowning in an amount of revising for my finals and in the evening I just don't feel like writing anymore.

Also I'm currently so scared of portraying anything in the wrong way. As I said in the disclaimer, there's going to be depictions of mental illness and although I've done quite a lot of research I'm still scared that I romanticise things. I don't think being a Death Eater is good either, although Regulus claims that he's done it for Phoenix. Please tell me if you feel like anything is romanticised!

However, I finally managed to outline the full plot of the second book. Up until now I've simply been writing whatever came to my mind, but I hope I'll be able to write faster because I know what I want to happen next. I could already see the progress with this chapter, as I wrote it in one evening (and revised it the next).

But: Aaah, they still care about each other and now I feel like they finally deserve a shipname, don't they? How about Rabanix? Ranix? Phoestan? Merlin, I'm so bad at shipnames haha.

Love, Enya