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ONE WEEK TURNS INTO TWO WEEKS, two weeks melt into three, then the cold air eats up a month, and by the first week of November, the first match of the Quidditch season is upon them. Between the avalanche of schoolwork and revision, Quidditch practices had become more and more intensive, more taxing on the body and Sawyer's patience. In the morning and late evenings, private training with Violet and Harry remained a consistent, merciless demand of effort. The stress continued eating away at Violet, but she was finally heeding both Oliver and Sawyer's advice to focus on keeping her health in check. To some degree, the cracks had begun to show on Oliver, too, though there was no denying the laser-focus in his eyes. Harry seemed more and more worried by the day, considering November was encroaching.
October had been liquified in Sawyer's memory. Only a hazy, nebulous blur in periphery; of training, ignoring letters from her mother, trying to make sense of her homework, and weekly meetings with Dumbledore.
Violet's three-week probation had slipped into oblivion too. When they'd first picked out team members, Sawyer had chosen to fight for Violet's spot on the available Beater position. Despite being generally inclusive and encouraging, the other members found Violet a baffling choice for a position that demanded thrice as much upper body strength than the others, and weren't so certain of Sawyer's unshakeable decision. Nia had given them a window of three weeks to get her up to speed. And finally, after a gruelling training session, Violet was declared passable. She was to stay.
Training sessions with the Hufflepuff team, on the other hand, were amping up in brutality in quick succession. Rising tension between players wasn't uncommon, and Hufflepuffs handled the tricky situation better than the other teams. But Nia frowned each time their Quaffles couldn't make it pass the Keeper, and the Chasers had begun to exchange snide, passive-aggressive remarks between each other. Once the team was let off the pitch for breaks, nobody talked to each other. Even in the locker room, none of them could look each other in the eye for long. Sawyer kept to herself anyway, only sitting by Violet, unaffected by the tension.
"You're going to pop a vein if you keep worrying yourself like that," Sawyer had said, taking a sip from her water bottle while they lounged on the bench in the changing rooms, watching the other girls slowly trickle out in a barely contained storm of electric aggravation.
"How are you so cool about this?" Violet asked, brows furrowing.
Sawyer shrugged. "It's just a game. Everyone here treats it like it's their lifeline, and Nia wants the Cup so badly she's fracturing herself and her team over it. Learn to detach yourself from Quidditch. It'll do you some good."
Violet considered Sawyer's words for a moment. "I don't think that's entirely true. We're like this because we care. We want a shot at winning. I'd rather this over apathy."
