Mudblood

Enemies of the Heir, Beware

The Gryffindors stalked onto the pitch and faced them, the captains shook hands and then they were off. The Slytherin chasers moved fast, catching the quaffle off the get-go and darting up the pitch. Lyssa was delighted that she got to score the first goal, and the second, and the third. It was only then that Wood realized that Lyssa's arm had drastically improved over the summer. She might not have been able to practice flying, but, she had spent countless hours launching basketballs at targets drawn on her backyard fence.

Slytherin was up 50-0 when Madame Hooch blew her whistle. The Gryffindors had called a time out and so Flint took the opportunity to give everyone an on-the-go feedback report. The chasers were doing great and the beaters had kept the Gryffindor chasers on their toes. Flint did admit that this was likely because there was a single bludger going after only Harry, but urged them on, all the same.

"We didn't tamper with the bludger so we won't get in trouble," Flint had explained, "So we may as well let it work for us." Flint didn't need to point out that the Gryffindors would do the same to them if they got the opportunity.

The only person to receive any sort of admonishment was Malfoy, who was spending more time taunting Harry than trying to catch the snitch. When they resumed play the sky let loose a down pouring of rain, but that didn't stop the Slytherins. Goals numbers six, seven, eight, and nine came easily. Wood was distracted, they used every glance he spared in Harry's direction against him. Susanna was playing marvellously as well, any time the Gryffindors took a shot she was there, ready to block it and toss it back to their team.

There were seven goals to go if they wanted to win, they were running out of time and they all knew it. Even with the buldger Harry would close in on the snitch eventually. So Lyssa, Flint, and Pucey played harder. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. One look at the scoreboard and you would think Slytherin was crushing their opponents but anyone who knew enough about Quidditch knew it was down to the wire. The rain was coming down in buckets and Lyssa could barely see as she made the fourteenth goal.

They got possession again after this goal with a bit more difficulty than before. The Gryffindors knew the stakes too and both teams were gonna go down fighting. Lyssa took the quaffle from Johnson, she passed it to Pucey. Pucey took it up the pitch, he passed it back to her, she had a shot but it wasn't good enough in the rain. Lyssa took a chance, she passed it across the pitch to Flint, whom she could hardly see, he took the shot. Madame Hooch's whistle sounded no more than a second after Flint had sent the quaffle careening through the far left post.

Someone caught the snitch. Lyssa prayed to every god she could think of that it had been Malfoy. But, the sound of the announcer booming through the mic confirmed her fears.

"The final score is 150-150," his voice rang out. Harry had caught the snitch. They had tied.

The Slytherins didn't watch with everyone else as Harry lay on the ground with a broken arm. Lockhart had gone over to help and as far as Lyssa was concerned that was good enough.

"At least we didn't outright lose," someone said as they all entered the changing room. But they all knew that losing wouldn't have been much worse. Quidditch was the one thing at Hogwarts that wasn't outright rigged against the Slytherins. The head boy and the head girl hadn't been Slytherins since before the end of the war. The teachers never awarded as many points to Slytherins in classes. Every year that Slytherin won the house cup it had been a hard-fought battle to stay in first. Anything that the professors had a say in was unintentionally biased against them, they could work just as hard and get half as far because everyone was a little bit scared of them succeeding.

So maybe in some lights, a tie wasn't so bad, but, to the Slytherins, they had just screwed up the one thing they were allowed to win at.

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