SUPERSONIC | oliver wood

4. Blue Monday

The whistle blew, and like a bludger being released from its bindings the players set off in motion. Adore nodded to her fellow beater, Padraig, and they split off from each other in opposite directions hoping to cover more ground and therefore prevent their teammates from being battered by the pestering bludgers flying around the pitch.

From the onset, Adore could tell this was going to be a bloody game. Just like themselves, their opponents had spent months preparing for this match and this match alone. It was the first in the season, and they were going to use all the energy they had reserved for the last few months to unleash hell on the opposing team. The red-haired woman swore to herself as she batted away a bludger that nearly tore poor Wendy's head clean off her shoulders while she carried the quaffle. Casting a glare towards the nearest Appleby beater who was the likely culprit, she took off chasing after the bludger this time and decided to keep it close by in case she should feel the need to hit it in a particular direction.

That need soon came when Appleby scored for a sixth time, leaving the scores looking a measly 60-0 in Appleby's favour. It was a stereotypical Slytherin move, she knew, but Adore closed the gap between herself and the bludger she had been keeping a small distance from. Whirling her bat through the air in a Westerly direction, she watched with a victorious smirk when it just skimmed the back of one of Appleby's chasers and startled them into falling off their broom, only hanging on by their fingers as they dangled through the air.

Having lost sight of the bludger, Adore drifted backward and closer toward their own hoops, her eyes scanning the pitch for any sign of the astray ball while one of the oppositions's beaters helped the fallen chaser get back onto her broomstick.

"I didn't realise you were going to play dirty," Oliver spoke lowly from beside her, catching her off guard as she didn't realise she had hovered so close to him. Tsking at his disapproving tone, Adore readied herself to take off away from him.

"Let me worry about being a beater and you can worry about being the keeper, got it?"

Four hours had passed and the November air was starting to leave the players feeling a little chilly. The urgency of play was getting to everyone's head, as the scores were now coming in at 140-50, still in Appleby's favour. The longer the game continued Adore recognised the dirtier the tactics would get, and she hoped beyond hope that Robert, their seeker, would catch the snitch sooner rather than later.

Adore was already tense as it was, she had lost sight of one of the bludgers and a quick passing conversation with Padraig had told her he had been keeping a close eye on one of them and hadn't seen a second.

It couldn't have left the stadium, but with each minute passing that she couldn't find it or see it she feared it would come from nowhere and knock one of their players, or herself, clean off their broom.

Adore centred herself in the field, letting out a cheer as she gave herself a minute to watch Andre sending the quaffle soaring through the air and into the middle hoop. Against her own free will, she cast a curious glance back to Oliver to see how he would react. She noticed he was clearly tense throughout the match, just as the rest of the team had been given their dissatisfactory score. True to her memory of how he would react during their school years, Oliver was beaming from ear to ear and raising his right fist into the air in small celebration of the score.

For a brief moment, Adore's mind cast back to her sixteen year old self, watching Ravenclaw play against Gryffindor from the stands at Hogwarts and finding her eyes trail back to the keeper almost every moment of the gameplay.

The memory was cast aside as a flicker in the upper left hand corner of her line of sight caught her attention, and there it was. The missing bludger was returning, and it was sailing straight toward an unaware Oliver Wood. Leaning forward on her broom to speed up, Adore was suddenly speeding across the pitch in his general direction. His head tilted curiously at the sight of Adore Kingsley coming straight at him with a bat in hand, and he half contemplated the possibility she had suddenly snapped and became murderous.