The Half-Blood Prince | Hermione Granger x Male Reader (Book Six)

14. Potter V L/N

Y/N's POV

Me and Hermione proceeded to not bring up what had happened inside the Room of Requirement, I thought it was a one time thing but it turned out to happen more than once. Outside that room, I would have to pretend that Hermione and I weren't friends, sworn enemies because of her parentage and my ties with the Malfoy family.

On top of my almost daily visits to the Room of Requirement, my N.E.W.T classes and Quidditch were occupying my mind. Academically, I wasn't struggling, but it was still stressful to have to do all that homework.

Our first Quidditch match was against Gryffindor and I was excited, although Slytherin very rarely beat Gryffindor, I hoped that I could at least make an impact now that I was the captain. However, with the players on our team, our chances looked slimmer and slimmer.

The only source of hope was the couple times I saw the end of the Gryffindor's practices, Ron seemed to be a nervous mess, Harry seemed to struggle to captain everyone and Hermione, most of the time, wasn't even there.

I managed to overhear something that Ron said. "I know you haven't got any time to find another keeper, so I'll play tomorrow, but if we lose, and we will, I'm taking myself off the team."

I knew Ron's confidence would lose them the match, I could've entered there and made a snarky comment to exploit Ron's weakness and make him even more nervous, but my almost lifelong friendship with Ron prevented me to do so.

Breakfast was the usual excitable affair next morning; all the Slytherins hissed and booed loudly as every member of the Gryffindor team entered the Great Hall and cheered when me and the others walked down to sit down at breakfast.

Sitting down, I watched Draco help himself to a single apple before turning to me. "F/N, I'm not feeling great. I don't think I'll be able to play."

Understanding what Draco was going through, I turned to a boy in the year below me, he was one of the reserve chasers. "Oi! Harper!"

His head snapped to face me. "Yeah?"

"You're playing today, get your stuff ready and meet us by the changing rooms at eleven." I instructed before turning back to the group of Slytherins I was sitting with.

Looking over at the Gryffindor table, trying to see if Ron was still a nervous wreck, I saw Harry hold a familiar bottle and I saw him pour into Ron's drink...

Surely he wouldn't stoop to such levels?

"F/N, Vaisley's not playing." Blaise told me. "Who's replacing him?"

If Harry really did use the liquid luck on Ron, it was sure as hell playing out in his favour.

The time quickly came for all of us to depart and make our way to the changing rooms, I was nervous but I tried my best not to show it. It was my debut as a Quidditch captain and this was a big step for me, I had always aspired to be a Quidditch player but if I couldn't even captain a House Quidditch team, there was no way I would be able to ever succeed at a professional level.

"Alright," I said, huddling up and getting everyone to listen to my team talk, "conditions look alright. I know Gryffindor have a strong team but we need to target their weakness, their keeper."

"Weasley, what a pathetic excuse for a keeper." someone scoffed.

"Anyways," I said continuing, "you're going to all focus on scoring goals whilst I look for the Snitch. Crabbe and Goyle I need you two to be precise and make sure you actually hit the bludgers when it's tactically right, not when you two just feel like knocking some poor soul off their broom."