Never Is Our Always

Eat Slugs, Malfoy!

(Minnie pov)

As I slept peacefully on the common room couch in front of the fire from reading a book; I was shaken awake several hours earlier than I would have liked by Oliver Wood, Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

"Whassamatter?" I said groggily as I moved the book off my stomach.

"Quidditch practice!" Oliver said excitedly. "Come on, Minnie!"

I slowly sat up and squinted at the window. There was a thin mist hanging across the pink-and-gold sky.

Now that I was awake, I couldn't understand how I could have slept through the racket the birds were making.

"Oliver," I croaked. "It's the crack of dawn."

"Exactly," Oliver said with a big smile on his face, at the moment, his eyes were gleaming with a crazed enthusiasm.

"It's part of our new training program. Come on, get dressed, and let's go," Oliver said heartily. "None of the other teams have started training yet; we're going to be first off the mark this year."

Yawning and shivering slightly, I slowly sat upright on the couch.

"Good girl," Oliver beams at me. "Meet you in the locker room in fifteen minutes." I glare at Oliver as he smirked at me before leaving for the locker room.

"I'm gonna kill you!" I shouted after him while he ran away from me. "Stupid Wood." I grumbled before getting up and leaving to get changed.

-

I finally left the Gryffindor tower and started heading across the dew-drenched grass, I'm just lucky I wear boots because my sneakers would've been soaked and I hate wet clothes, especially shoes.

As I walked down towards the locker rooms, I couldn't help but yawn.

"Why am I always having to bloody get up at the crack do dawn for this idiot?" I asked myself, I couldn't stand waking up early on weekends.

-

The rest of the Gryffindor team were already in the locker room. Oliver was the only person who looked truly awake.

"I'm here," I yawn as I came in.

"What kept you?" Oliver asks me.

"Refraining myself from killing you because you woke me at the crack of dawn, DAWN!" I told him in response, which earned me tired laughs from a few of the team members.

"Sit down," he told me and I did.

Fred and George were sitting, puffy-eyed and touslehaired, next to me and Alicia, who seemed to be nodding off against the wall behind her. Katie and Angelina were yawning side by side opposite us.

"There you are, Harry, what kept you?" Oliver asks him briskly while Harry sat down.

"Now, I wanted a quick talk with you all before we actually get down to the field, because Minnie and I spent the summer devising a whole new training program, which I really think will make all the difference..."

"I did most of it," I mumbled which Oliver gave me a look, "saying it how it is," I told him and he shrugs.

"Anyway," Oliver was holding up a large diagram of a Quidditch field, on which were drawn many lines, arrows, and crosses in different colored inks.

He took out his wand, tapped the board, and the arrows began to wiggle over the diagram like caterpillars.

As Oliver launched into a speech about the new tactics, Fred's head drooped right onto my shoulder and he began to snore.