New Perspective ⌁ Fred Weasley

Chapter Nine

Cedric rolled his eyes. "How do I expect to trust you to pay attention outside while we are playing if you dont even pay attention here? Honestly Maxine, if you end up getting distracted by a bit of lightning out there and get smacked in the face by a bludger it's your own damn fault."

Everyone stayed silent. Maxine found herself biting her cheek even harder, teeth digging into the soft flesh to the point where just a bit more pressure would he sure to draw blood. Her eyes flickered up and locked with her brothers; Gavin scratched at the stubble on his face as he hesitated speaking.

"No offence, Ced," he looked over at the Captian, who seemed to be feeling a whole mix of stressed out, irritated, and tired. "But Max knows what she's doing. She's the best Beater we've since she joined the team in her third year."

"Basically," Heidi jumped in and stood up, her long blonde pony tail bouncing with her. "Stop being so uptight and calm your arse down. Dont talk to Maxine like that either." Cedric, normally calm and collected, pressed his lips together and squeezed his eyes shut. "It's bloody rain. You know how many storms we've played in before? Loads."

Cedric sighed and muttered a quiet sorry to Maxine, who accepted it in silence. "I know, but this one just feels so much more..." he looked over his shoulder at the heavy rain outside. "Aggressive."

As she pushed herself out of her seat, Maxine glanced at the Gryffindor table where their Quidditch team. She made eye contact with one of the Weasley twins, who had no expression as he looked at her. Maxine swallowed and averted her gaze to Cedric. "It's only going to make you more nervous if you think about."

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With her bat at her side and broom over her shoulder, Maxine only felt like a hypocrite as she walked onto the field into the pouring rain with her teammates. In the twenty minutes since sitting in the Great Hall, she only thought about the rain. And the thunder. The lightning. And now as her hair and robes began to stick to her skin and water dripped down her face, she could only think about how the raindrops hanging off her eyelashes blocked her vision.

Someone is going to get hurt.

The thought was persistent. Like an annoying sibling that wont stop pulling your hair. A bug bite that wont stop itching. A sneeze that wont just blow. It only made Maxine more anxious.

The team positioned themselves across from the Gryffindor, everyone eyeing up the person acrossed from them. Maxine knew one of the Weasley twins was in front of her. The red hair and tall, lanky body gave it away. The rain was too heavy for her to see the look on his face though.

Cedric and Oliver shook hands before backing up. Brooms were mounted upon the order. A shrill whistle that usually split Maxine's head in half this time sounded dull.

It was rough trying to get into the air at first due to the wind. Maxine didnt have the nicest or strongest or fastest broom either so she had to rely on her long legs to help boost her in the air.

The rain made it difficult to hold her broom with her right hand and her bat in her left. While her gloves were meant to help maintain a steady grip, they were not doing the best job.

On her broom, Maxine circled around the pitch, passing red and gold and yellow and black sets of robes. She eventually was able to see where Anthony was and she quickly got closer to where her fellow beater was, maintaining a safe distance in case either of them needed to swing.

It was wild on the field. Every passing bludger was one that Maxine barely hit. The rain made everything heavier and darker. The wind made everything louder, however she could barely hear Madame Hooch's whistle as a timeout was called.

She flew to the ground, nearly falling into a puddle of mud as she dismounted her broom.

"Who called the timeout?" Heidi had to hell in order to be heard.

"I think it was Wood," Gavin wiped his nose on his sleeve. His gloves seemed to be just as worn as Maxine's. "We are losing by fifty points. It doesn't look to good right now."

"Don't say that, Gavin," Even though her hair was pulled back, Tamsin's ginger hair covered bits of her face. She was covered in mud and had a red welt on her check; she must have been hit with the quaffle.

"He's not wrong," Cedric glanced across the field at the Gryffindor team, who were just barely visible. "We can barely see. Its freezing out. Also, we are being chased horribly by those blunders. Anthony, Maxine, what the hell are you two doing up there? You're meant to be hitting those bloody things, not taking laps."

Maxine clenched her jaw and crossed her arms. "You know what, Diggory? We have to try and hold that bloody bat and our broom as we try to fly around blindly in this shit. My gloves can barely grip on any longer and I can barely tell the difference between a quaffle being thrown and a bludger being hit at this moment. We are trying our best! Do you honestly you think you can do better?"

The conversation was ended by another blow of the whistle and Maxine looked at Anthony as she mounted her broom again. "You stay by the goal post. Cover Tamsin. I got the front." After a nod in response, they took off with the rest of their team.

The rain remained ruthless, showing more mercy as it seemed to start to fall harder and harder. Lightning lit up the dark sky and the repetitive thunder was almost painful. But it was the slow growing cold that made everything worse.

Cedric's comments irritated Maxine. Of course it wasn't unlike her either to get mad easily, she was always incredibly sensitive even when she didn't show it. She usually took her anger out on the Quidditch field. It's why she was a Beater. And despite leather peeling from her gloves and the slippery handle of her broom, she was going to hit those bludgers with everything she had.

Bludger after bludger Maxine sent flying back towards the Gryffindors. She couldn't even see the Weasley's through the rain but she knew they were working again because only moments after hitting the bludgers they were sent right back to her.

However there was one particular bludger that came at her with such force she couldn't hit it properly. With an awkward and incredibly painful bend of her wrist, her bat fell from her left hand and to the ground. Maxine knew she was high enough that if was going to be a slow fall, so she gripped her broom with both hands and dived towards the ground, laying on her chest so she could reach her arm out. Barely fifteen feet from the ground was when Maxine was able to wrap her long fingers around the bats handle.

Yet rather than flying back up towards the rest of the players, she found herself frozen. Not literally, but the air quickly got colder and soon it was painful to move. She glanced down at her fingers; the exposes tips were bright red and painfully numb. Maxine's attention was quickly brought elsewhere, when the dark shadows appeared in appeared above her.

The shadows were cloaked and sticklike. But through the rain it took Maxine only a moment to realize that they weren't shadows at all.

In horror she watched as the Dementors circled above the stadium. And in horror she listened to shouts and screams erupt through out the stands. But everything seemed muffled.

Maxine rose up towards the rest of her team. That was when she saw the figure fall past her, plummeting to the ground.