Lily Black and the Twin Souls (Book Three)

Chapter Nine: Stupid Hungry Dementors

Lily was up by five the day of the Quidditch match. She had been woken up by the howling winds and was therefore in a bad mood. She needed her beauty sleep! One didn't get as beautiful as she without some serious effort. 

She dressed in the Quidditch gear and spent the better part of an hour glaring out a window in the common room at the rain pounding down on the castle and, unfortunately, the Quidditch pitch. It was a shame her magic wasn't strong enough to stop the storm. Then again, she had never once heard of someone being strong enough to change the weather, especially not to stop a storm this big. She wasn't about to try either. Perhaps another day. 

When Harry came down from his own dormitory at a quarter to six, he paused at the sight of her glaring fiercely at the storm. He walked over to her with a yawn and patted her back.

"Sorry to tell you, Lils, but I don't think glaring will make it stop raining." He told her tiredly.

Lily sighed dramatically. "It can't hurt to try." She grumbled. 

"Well, it also can't hurt to eat breakfast. Come on."

And with that, he half-dragged her out of the common room so she would stop glaring at the rain. They ate their porridge silently, glaring at the storming ceiling every few minutes in hopes that their glaring would actually make the rain stop. The conditions were awful for Quidditch. 

The rest of the team showed up by the time Harry was eating toast and Lily was morosely chomping on bacon while glaring at the ceiling. She was very tempted to curse it and see what happened. 

"It's going to be a tough one," said Oliver grimly. He hadn't touched his food.

"Stop worrying, Oliver," said Lily, adding some fake cheer to her voice. "We'd play in a tornado if it meant helping you win the cup."

Oliver's lips twitched, but just barely. Lily sighed to herself and grabbed a piece of toast. "Sorry about this, Ollie, but you leave me no other option."

And with that, she stuffed the toast into his mouth. He glared at her as he reluctantly chewed the toast. She only grinned innocently in return. When he finally swallowed the toast and had taken a sip of pumpkin juice, he lifted his glare.

"Play like it's drizzling," he ordered Lily. 

Everyone knew she was the best at acting out of the lot of them, but acting like they wouldn't be playing in a bloody hurricane would definitely be her most difficult role yet. 

It was even worse than Lily thought. She could barely stand up straight as she walked across the field. She hadn't even had the chance to see Teddy that morning, so that made it that much worse. All in all, she was in a very sour mood. 

When the game actually began, she immediately knew it wouldn't be a good one. She couldn't fly straight without being blown off-course, leading her to fly directly into the wind most of the time. She basically ended up looking like she was riding a bull with the bucking that was the result of the stupidly powerful winds. 

Still, she, Katie, and Angelina managed to score a good number of times. Lily wasn't exactly sure how many, but she was sure that it was more than Slytherin had managed to do, so that was a success in her book. 

The game dragged on and there was nothing suggesting an end anytime soon. Not with the wind and the rain and Harry wearing glasses that made it impossible to see in the rain. Eventually, a whistle rang out and Lily shot toward the game along with the rest of the team.

They huddled at the edge of the field under a huge umbrella that somehow managed to cover them all. Lily vaguely wondered what spell that was and whether she could make a huge umbrella for Ash, but she quickly dismissed the thought. She had far more pressing matters to deal with. 

"What's the score?" Harry asked, uselessly wiping his glasses on his equally soaked Quidditch robes while Lily attempted to wring out her hair. It did nothing whatsoever.

 "We're fifty points up," said Wood, "but unless we get the Snitch soon, we'll be playing into thenight." 

 "I've got no chance with these on," Harry said exasperatedly, waving his glasses. 

Despite the situation, Lily couldn't help her grin at his sassy expression.

At that moment, Hermione the miracle worker showed up at his shoulder and, for whatever reason, she was beaming. 

 "I've had an idea, Harry! Give me your glasses, quick!" 

 He handed them to her, and as the team watched in amazement, Hermione tapped them with herwand and said, "Impervious!" 

 "There!" she said, handing them back to Harry. "They'll repel water!"

Wood looked as though he could have kissed her, an expression that had Lily choking back laughter. Even she could tell it wasn't the time. 

 "Brilliant!" he called hoarsely after her as she disappeared into the crowd. "Okay, team, let's gofor it!"

Lily managed to score once more, but the wind and rain somehow managed to get even worse and she was fighting just to keep from blowing away. She barely heard Oliver's anguished yell to Harry, but she did see him streaking down the field in the direction of Cedric and the snitch, which Lily could barely make out. It was just a flash of gold. 

But, as she watched hopefully, something strange began to happen. A bone-chilling cold ran through her veins which were somehow not frozen yet. The wind and rain suddenly seemed to go silent despite not stopping and any hope she had of winning drained out of her. 

She wheeled around in horror and saw them. Dementors. They were everywhere, why were they everywhere? They weren't supposed to be anywhere near the Quidditch pitch, why were they there?

She groped in the pocket of her robes for her wand, but she realized too late that she had left it in the locker rooms in fear of it snapping in the wind. Her startling grey and gold eyes widened in horror and spun around in the air. Harry, Harry was always effected by the dementors.

Where was Harry?

Then she saw him — he was falling, falling, falling. The dementors had clearly already gotten to him. 

She thrust her hands out in front of her and screamed, "ARRESTO MOMENTUM!!"

As she watched helplessly, he slowed in his descent and then he hit the ground. He didn't look good at all from what she could see, but she also knew it was much better than it would have been had she not realized what was happening.

Could dementors die? She would have to find out, but not at the moment. No, right now, her godbrother was hurt. 

With a resigned sigh, she turned her broom again and sped down to where her godbrother laid unconscious in the grass.