In The Shadows² ★ Draco Malfoy

*Match

Life at Hogwarts continued to be tense for every student over the next month. Rumours flew around about who could be the heir of Slytherin, and how they opened the Chamber of secrets. The funniest rumour Briar had heard so far was that Dumbledore had only set up this school so he could unleash a monster on the students and kill them all.

Since the attack on Mrs Norris, Hermione had basically moved in to the library and Ron was going around telling everyone that she was trying to read the whole library before Christmas. Meanwhile Ginny walked around everywhere with a stricken look, afraid another attack could happen at any moment.

But today, for the first time, everyone's attention was on something else. Today was the first quidditch match of the season and it was Gryffindor vs Slytherin which had the entire school on edge

Wood had woken the whole team up at dawn on the Saturday and dragged them down to breakfast. But Briar didn't feel like she could stomach anything as her nerves built up.

When 11 o'clock came, the whole school started making their way down to the quidditch pitch and the two rival teams prepared for the game ahead. 

Briar wouldn't be starting today's game but Oliver had told her to be ready at any moment, because Slytherin play dirty and they could hurt one of his players. Of course a small part of her was disappointed not to be starting the game, but she understood that the team starting knew each other well and played well together.

She was dressed in her Gryffindor quidditch robes though, and was sitting with the team in their changing room to listen to Wood's usual pre match pep talk

"Slytherin has better brooms than us," he began. "No point denying it. But we'vegot better people on our brooms. We've trained harder than they have, we've beenflying in all weathers-"

That received glowers from his team. Oliver had had them practicing non stop, and consequently, they had faced every type of weather; Rain, sleet, storms, wind, and fog.

Beside Briar, George Weasley muttered "Too true. I haven't beenproperly dry since August"

She snickered, which made Oliver glare at her, and so she shook her head and he continued to rant. "We're going to make them rue the day they letthat little bit of slime, Malfoy, buy his way onto their team." Chest heaving with emotion, Wood turned to Harry. "It'll be down to you, Harry, to show them that a Seeker has to have somethingmore than a rich father. Get to that Snitch before Malfoy or die trying, Harry,because we've got to win today, we've got to."

"So no pressure, Harry" said Fred, winking at the dark-haired boy, who grinned back

Once Wood wrapped up his never-ending speech about how important quidditch was, the Gryffindor team made their way out. Briar went to sit on the bench above the changing rooms, while the rest of her team kicked off into the air.

As soon as the three balls were released into the air, the roars from the crowd drowned out everything. Briar watched with a scowl as Slytherin managed to knock 6 quaffles in past Wood over the next 20 minutes, obviously those Nimbus 2001s were good for something. Gryffindor may have had better players, but the Slytherins had speed, and unfortunately that was important.

To add to Gryffindor's woes, Adrian Pucey from the Slytherin team managed to knock Alicia Spinnet off her boom, sending her to the floor, and it appeared Harry was being chased around by a bludger, despite Fred and George's best efforts to knock it back at the Slytherins

Fred Weasley scowled as he heaved at the bludger chasing Harry as hard as he could, only for it to come straight back on course for the seeker. He waved at Madame Hooch, catching her attention and signalling a time out, so Hooch blew her whistle and the two teams descended to the ground