Black

XIX // Quidditch Commences

Saturday

November 15, 1977

Great Hall

Not entirely sure if I've mentioned it previously, but James Potter is a bloody menace. 

I just need to write this down for clarity of mind, but I'm really struggling to even think straight due to exhaustion.

For the past two weeks we have had a total of ten Quidditch practices, half of them at the crack of bloody dawn, and even then we only had ten practices because the Slytherins decided that they were going to try and practice during all the times we practice, so we had to cancel a few due to rescheduling. 

I'm sitting in the Great Hall right now, trying my best to eat a well-rounded breakfast for the match today, but Marley is on my left staring into space because she's probably asleep except with her eyes open, and Martin-George McGonagall is chattering about some utter codswallop that nobody bloody cares about because we have our first Quidditch match of the season today.

I remember when I was nine my mother went through breathing exercises with me because I was stressed about a spelling test I had (on a side note, what's up with Hogwarts not teaching you how to properly speak the language of your country, right?) but for some reason I'm completely blanking on them right now and if there was ever a time to remember them, it would be now.

Oh no, here comes Potter.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Potter says, sitting across from us on the table, "today is the day we have been training for, and we are going to smash those Slytherin skulls into the dirt and turn them into glue and then feed that glue to their grieving families as we wave our Quidditch trophy over their heads."

"Excuse me?" asks Marley, suddenly very awake. "That's... that's so incredibly disturbing, James." 

"Thank you Marlene," says Potter, grinning from ear to ear. "In other words, we have been training and training for this and I have complete faith in each and every one of you to play the best bloody game that Gryffindor has ever seen, and annihilate those Slytherins in the process. Good work team. Good chat. Finish your food, let's go.

Despite that speech being honestly awful, it does feel kind of exhilarating to be given a pep talk, so I'm going to put this away and go get ready to destroy... well, win a Quidditch match.

Wish me luck!

Saturday

November 15, 1977

Gryffindor Girls' Dormitory

Suffice to say, we did not turn the Slytherins into glue. Poor Thom Mickle almost did become glue, however, after Frieda Parkinson decided Thom's head looked more like the snitch than the snitch itself. 

He managed to get to the snitch before she did anyhow, so I'm sure when he gets out of the hospital wing he'll be feeling much better.

Can I just say, Lily and Lottie truly are great friends. They made signs, big red and gold ones with Marley and Potter's and my names on them. There's something awfully encouraging about trying to fight for your life in a Quidditch match and then seeing 'BISHOP WILL BEAT YOU' flashing in the midst of the crowd. The slightly disconcerting aspect of this whole thing was seeing Lily swap posters with Black at some point during the match, and having to look at his face every time I needed encouragement. What an odd paradox I found myself in. 

The game itself was pretty tricky to say the least. The Slytherins were not there to play fair, and I think there was a Hogwarts record amount of fouls played during the game (although I have to admit that us Gryffindors were the perpetrators of just a few of them). Sean Kayne and Ervyn Avery did an excellent job of using their beater's bats on Meathead Morris and not the actual bludgers, but true to his name, he was not even slightly fazed.