Artemis Hexley and the Portrait of the Vault

Chapter 6: Hufflepuff vs Slytherin

With the Gryffindor vs Ravenclaw match done and dusted, it was soon time for the second Quidditch match of the season, and Artemis' first ever time playing for the Hufflepuff team.

The match was to take place at eleven on the following Saturday morning, and at breakfast, there were a fair few visitors to the Hufflepuff table. Tulip Karasu and Andre Egwu both hugged Artemis warmly, with the latter kissing her on both cheeks, before they sauntered back to the Ravenclaw table, and Barnaby Lee wished Artemis luck extremely loudly considering that the match was against his own house. He looked as if he didn't understand why he was subjected to several dirty looks on his return to the Slytherin table. Finally, Ben Copper and the Weasley brothers came over to bid Artemis luck, all three of them briefly sitting down to engage in conversation with the Hufflepuff girls.

"Are you not feeling nervous?" Ben asked, fidgeting slightly in his seat.

Artemis shrugged, her mouth too full of toast to speak. She did have some butterflies in her stomach, but she was unsure whether those were due to excitement, nerves, or a mixture of both. Ben looked more anxious about the match than she did.

"She doesn't need to be," Bill said, ruffling her hair with his hand - the one that wasn't currently holding Penny's, their near-argument the week before having been all but forgotten. "She's been taught by the best, after all."

He nodded his head in the direction of his brother Charlie, who half-smiled as he poured himself a glass of pumpkin juice, his cheeks slightly pink.

"Look, he's all shy," grinned Tonks, and Charlie batted her hand away as she attempted to either pinch his cheek or poke his dimple, they never found out which. "Nah, seriously, last match was epic. The way you caught the Snitch just in the nick of time... Bonkers."

"Well, I didn't have much choice," shrugged Charlie. "Not when Ravenclaw took out our Keeper five minutes into the game."

"How is your Keeper?" Rowan asked.

"Wood? Yeah, he's fine now. Nasty, though. Took him a good week to wake up, and it was his first ever game, poor guy. I mean, it's Quidditch, these things do happen..." Charlie's sentence tailed off as he became aware of the way Artemis was looking at him, and he cleared his throat before continuing, "Not today, though. Obviously. You'll be fine."

Artemis pulled a face at him.

"Nice save," she said, and Charlie became suddenly very interested in his glass of pumpkin juice. "Maybe you could play Keeper next time."

Having finished breakfast - Artemis having eaten noticeably less than she normally would - they all made their way down to the Quidditch pitch, where Penny, Tonks and Rowan took their places in the Hufflepuff stands, and Artemis joined the rest of the team in the Hufflepuff tent.

She quickly changed into her Quidditch robes, which were only a little baggy for her. Artemis had always been short and skinny, but the number of hours she had spent practising flying over the past two months had changed her frame slightly. She was still small, but now she was less scrawny, and more wiry, and the robes fit her better than she had expected them to.

Outside the tent, she could hear the crowd gather, and her heart started to beat faster. Suddenly, it all felt very real.

"Dinnae tell me that you're scared, Hexley," grinned Skye. "We're goan tae batter Slytherin, ken? Nae need tae fash yerself."

Artemis nodded, and Skye's friend Lizzie gave her a small smile that was clearly meant to be reassuring, but if anything, made her look even more nervous than Artemis herself.

Orion Amari gestured to the team to gather by the entrance to the tent.

"It is almost time for us to face our foes, but before we do, I wish for us to have a moment of vivication," he said slowly, his fingertips placed lightly together so that his hands formed a small tent in front of his chest. "Slytherin have a very good team, however, success is not dependent on skill alone. We must act together, as well as individually, balancing our own roles with our collective goal to achieve victory."