The Easter holidays were not relaxing at all. The third years had never had so much homework. Hermione was spending more time, if that were possible, with her head bent over her books, dark circles deeper than Lupin's imprinted under her eyes, and even with Divination out of the way, she still had more workload than everyone else.Neville seemed close to a nervous collapse and he was not the only one.
'Call this a holiday!' Seamus Finnigan roared at the common room one afternoon. 'The exams are ages away, what are they playing at?'
Ron had taken over responsibility for Buckbeak's appeal, and when he wasn't doing his own work, he was pouring over enormously thick volumes about Hippogriffs. He was so absorbed, he even forgot to be mean to Crookshanks.
Gwen wanted to help him, but she and Harry had no time. With their own workloads and the constant Quidditch practice, their lessons with Lupin and the pressure of the Quidditch final, they barely had time to sleep.
The whole of Gryffindor house was obsessed with the coming match. Gryffindor hadn't won the Quidditch Cup since the legendary Charlie Weasley had been Seeker, Ron's second oldest brother.
To top it all off, Malfoy had been giving all of them a hard time. He was reeling that harry had gotten off without punishment for the mud throwing in Hogsmeade and neither she nor Harry had forgotten his sabotage attempt at the last game. But it was the matter with Buckbeak that made Gwen most determined to beat Malfoy in front of the whole school.
Never, in anyone's memory, had a match approached with such a highly charged atmosphere. By the time the holidays were over, tension between the two teams and their houses was at a breaking point. A number of small scuffles broke out in the corridors, culminating in a nasty incident where a Gryffindor fourth year and a Slytherin sixth year ended up in the hospital wing with leeks sprouting from their ears.
It had even affected Gwen's relationship with her siblings. Although Eddie and Felix had tried to still be her kind, caring older brothers, the tension meant that they had broken out into verbal arguments with wands being waved about threateningly in the corridors several times. Lucille, in Hufflepuff, was stuck in the middle of it all, trying her hardest to keep the peace between her brothers and sister and remaining impartial. It got to the point where Gwen, and Eddie and Felix did not speak whenever they saw each other so as not to upset Lucille and her painstaking efforts to keep the familial peace.
Lucille, however, was secretly hyping Gwen up, as she too did not want to see Slytherin win again. She took to sending Gwen winks and smiles whenever they passed in the corridors, and even charming origami swans to fly to her in the Great Hall and giving her tips that she had heard from the Hufflepuff team. On one of these occasions, Gwen had looked up to see Lucille and Cedric Diggory watching her open the swan.
Harry was having a hard time, having received orders from Wood that he had to be accompanied everywhere in case the Slytherins tried to put him out of action. There had been several attempts already, and the whole of the Gryffindor house took on this challenge enthusiastically, crowding Harry in such a vast group of Gryffindors it was impossible for him to get to classes on time.
On the night before the match, all usual pursuits were abandoned in the Gryffindor common room. Even Hermione had put down her books.
'I can't work, I can't concentrate,' she said nervously.
There was a great deal of noise. Fred and George were dealing with the pressure by being louder and more exuberant than ever. Oliver Wood was crouched over a model of a Quidditch pitch in teh corner, prodding little figures across it with his wand and muttering to himself. Angelina and Katie were laughing at Fred and George's jokes, and Gwen and Harry were sitting with Ron and Hermione, removed from the centre of things and trying not to think about the next day. Every time Gwen did think about it, there was a horrible sensation that something large and huge and scary was going to burst from her stomach.
'You're going to be fine,' Hermione told them, even though she looked positively terrified.
'You've got a Firebolt!' said Ron.
'You're the two best players on the team,' Hermione said.
'Yeah...' Gwen and Harry said. Gwens stomach was writhing.
It came as a huge relief when Wood suddenly stood up and yelled, 'Team! Bed!'
• • •
Gwen couldn't sleep that night. She kept dozing off and having strange dreams, waking with a start, and repeat. First she dreamed that she had been on the pitch, flying around, chasing a Quaffle like a Golden Snitch, Slytherin were tailing her and then she realised she didn't have her broom. She turned around, and the Slytherin team were riding dragons. She then dreamed that she couldn't kick off from the ground, her broomstick wouldn't kick off, and she ran around the grass on the pitch helplessly, watching the game above her as her teammates and the crowd screamed at her to start flying--
She woke up, flinching so hard she kicked one of the bedposts. She sat up, silently gasping as she grabbed hold of her foot and cradled it, wincing at the pain.
At least, she thought, the Slytherin team would not be allowed to play on dragons.
As she nursed the pain in her foot, she suddenly realised how thirsty she was, so, as quietly as she could, she crept out of bed to get herself some water from the crystal decanter beneath the window.
The grounds were still and quiet. No breath of wind disturbed the treetops in the Forbidden Forest, the Whomping Willow was motionless. It seemed that the conditions for the match would be perfect.
Gwen set down her goblet and was about to turn back to bed when something caught her eye.
Prowling the silvery lawns, a great, shaggy black dog emerged from the trees. She stared, eyes wide and mouth open, as the dog stepped carefully around, glancing around almost lazily.
Her mind moved a thousand miles a minute, going through all the possibilities-- it couldn't be the Grim-- not right before the match.
Then something else came slinking out the trees, something Gwen recognised with a huge sigh of relief. That bottle-brush tail would be clear anywhere.
Crookshanks and the dog wandered up the lawn. Gwen continued to watch, confused above all else. She briefly thought of waking up Hermione - did she know Crookshanks was friends with a dog that looked suspiciously like a Grim? - but thought better of it. If anyone needed sleep, it were Hermione.
Crookshanks and the dog turned and disappeared back into the trees, and Gwen went back to her bed, thoroughly relieved. If Crookshanks could see the dog, then there was no way it was actually a Grim. It probably lived in the Forbidden Forest, was a specific type of magical creature that people mistook for a Grim.
No, there were no death omens tonight.
Tomorrow, Gryffindor were taking the Quidditch Cup home.