I made it to the Quaffle first, and I could tell that nobody on either team expected that. Even though I'd never been in a real game before, flying my dad's armor gave me plenty of experience with weaving between people and getting places fast. As soon as I had the ball tightly under my arm I took off down the pitch, trusting that my teammates would follow.
With the twins' help keeping the Bludgers away and Angelina and Alicia racing down the pitch next to me, I made it to the Ravenclaw goal. All that practicing against Oliver made me more than prepared to send the Quaffle sailing through the rightmost goal.
Just like that, I'd scored my first ten points in Quidditch.
I could hear my house screaming in the stands, but I did my best to block it out. I had three minutes until Katie came back, and my only job was to score. Nothing else mattered right now.
Unfortunately, I wasn't nearly as good at defense as I was at offense. Roger Davies, the Ravenclaw captain, went racing past me and straight towards Oliver. Thankfully Oliver managed to block him, and then Alicia and I were racing off the other way.
Alicia passed to me, and I took off like a rocket towards the goal. I didn't slow down as I headed straight for the goal post and pulled my arm back to shoot. Then, at the last second, I tossed it to Angelina instead and she slammed it home, giving us another ten points. Ravenclaw took the ball again and managed to score, and once it was our possession Oliver quickly whistled another time out.
"Nice work on the offense Alexa," roared Oliver as we all quickly landed. He only had one volume during Quidditch, and that was loud. "Katie, are you ready to go back in?"
"Ready Captain!"
"Good. Then let's go win this game!" I high-fived Katie as she took off in my place, grinning from ear to ear as I stepped back to watch.
That was a blast.
Unfortunately, my defense apparently wasn't the only problem. Ravenclaw kept scoring, shrinking our lead from 80 to 50. Suddenly, Harry started speeding across the pitch. I thought that meant game over, but the Ravenclaw seeker cut him off and he swerved to avoid her.
"HARRY, THIS IS NO TIME TO BE A GENTLEMAN!" I could hear Oliver screaming even from my position on the ground. "KNOCK HER OFF HER BROOM IF YOU HAVE TO!"
Oh, Oliver. Always the gentleman. One of these days being too polite might put him at a serious disadvantage.
A few minutes later, Harry dove towards the ground at full-speed. Cho followed, and I assumed they saw the Snitch until Harry pulled up and started streaking across the field in a different direction. Cho did the same, just a few dozen feet below him, and Ana helped me see the target Harry was headed for: the Snitch. He'd gone into a dive to put Cho out of the running, and so far it'd worked.
Suddenly, Cho screamed. I looked at her, but she seemed fine. Then I looked to where she was pointing.
Three dementors were in the middle of the field, staring up at Harry.
I thought that was going to be the end for us, but then Harry yelled the Patronus charm that the fifth years had been learning in DADA. A silver white stag burst out of the end of his wand and knocked the "dementors" to the ground. Turns out, it was really just Flint, Draco Malfoy, and his two cronies trying to throw Harry off his game. The spell knocked all four of them on their asses, and I had Ana take a quick picture so I could remember the moment.
Harry didn't even look back before grabbing the Snitch in triumph. Madam Hooch's whistle sounded, and that was it. We won.
We won!
Obviously I was always happy when my team won a game, but it felt so much different since I played in this one. Even if it was only for three minutes, it felt like I did something to help.
I rushed onto the field to meet my team as they all drifted down in a scarlet lump. I tackled Harry in a massive hug and the rest of the girls on the team actually kissed him. I thought Oliver might too, but he settled for repeating "That's my boy!" at top volume and helping Fred keep Harry in a death grip.
Harry managed to get off his broom (he was the last one to do so, since he was in the middle) only to be swamped by the rest of Gryffindor house and anyone else in the school who cheered for us.
Harry was quickly pulled away from us by other well-wishers, and one by one all of my other teammates disappeared into the crowd too. Everyone was screaming as loud as they could, jumping up and down for joy. Once Harry was out of his sight, Oliver turned to me and wrapped me in a hug so tight I could barely breathe.
"We won!" he yelled, and I swear it made me temporarily deaf. He let me go and I got my bearings enough to high-five him, then he was running off through the crowd to go talk to someone else.
"Alexa!" I turned to see Cedric on the edge of the crowd, grinning as he made his way towards me. "That was some incredible flying you did! You've really never played before?"
"Nope, first game." I was grinning too, now that I didn't have to worry about being crushed by Oliver. "I got insane amounts of training in practice though."
Cedric laughed. "I'm sure."
The field was thinning out now as everyone followed the rest of my team towards the castle, screaming their heads off and probably ready to party until the break of dawn. Other than a few Ravenclaw players trudging back to their locker rooms, the field was empty except for me and Cedric.
Cedric and I had hung out alone together plenty of times, this wasn't anything new. So why was I suddenly so nervous? I needed to get a hold of myself.
"Well, uh, you probably want to get to your Common Room," started Cedric. "I'm sure the celebration for you and your teammates will be off the charts."
"Yeah. For all I know Oliver might consider this a mandatory team event, too."
"I wouldn't put it past him," Cedric chuckled. Still, neither of us moved.
"You know, Cedric-"
"I was thinking Alexa-"
We spoke at the same time and then cut off.
"Sorry, you go ahead," said Cedric. He looked nervous, and I suddenly noticed a whole colony of butterflies erupting in my stomach that weren't there at the end of the Quidditch match.
"No no, that's okay, you go." Ugh, what was wrong with me! I needed to get my shit together! Harley and Clint would never let me live it down if they could see me right now.
"Alright, uh, well..." Cedric laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head. Then, apparently having gathered his courage, he looked right at me and started speaking. "Alexa, would you like to go-"
SCREEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!
Cedric was cut off by a horrible noise that seemed to come from everywhere at once. A wind started whipping up around the Quidditch pitch, and the sky suddenly darkened like it did right before a storm.
"What the-?"
I whipped around, trying to figure out what the hell was happening, and Cedric did the same. The wind was becoming more of a tornado, like a barrier trapping Cedric and I at its center. I had no idea what was going on, but I didn't waste a second in powering up my armor. Whatever this was, it didn't seem friendly.
"Alexa! What's going on?" Cedric had to yell to be heard over the wind. This was getting worse by the second.
"I have no idea!" I called back. I had to do something, fast. At the very least I had to get Cedric out of the danger zone, then I could go from there.
Suddenly, I remembered the sling portal Strange taught me. It wouldn't be easy to concentrate in all this, but I had to try.
I thought about the sunlight hitting the lawn just in front of the castle, the peace and calm that I always felt there. It was dangerous, but I closed my eyes to think and focused on creating a portal right under Cedric's feet.
I heard him yell and when I opened my eyes there was a portal on the ground where Cedric used to be. I quickly closed it, then turned my attention back to the crazy storm. Time to figure out where the hell this was coming from.
"Ana, give me an analysis of anything you can read. Is there anyone around that might be causing this?" I said, scanning with my Heads Up Display as Ana ran her own scan.
"There appears to be someone near the treeline at the far end of the field. All signatures align with those indicating magic or a magical being."
Shit. It was a wizard. Hopefully it was one of those people who knew nothing about muggles, and my armor would be enough to make them faint.
"Ana, get ready, we're flying right out of the storm at that point."
"Caution: high wind speeds may be more than the thrusters can handle to keep you on track. If you fly into that storm, you may end up in France or Ireland."
I glanced around and saw just how right Ana was. The wind column was tearing at the stands, getting taller and faster by the second. The eye of the storm I was standing in was shrinking rapidly too, and I realized I would be overwhelmed in seconds if I didn't do something quick.
"Do your best to calculate for the wind blowing us off course and let's go. If we don't get out of here now we might never be able to."
Ana was quiet for a minute as I rose into the air, preparing to make the jump. When she spoke again, I was left feeling less than encouraged.
"Due to the magical nature of this storm I can't get a good reading of how far it spreads. It may go all the way back to the castle before you can get out of it, and I won't know until we're through. No accurate calculation can be made."
I swore under my breath. "Alright, we're just gonna have to go for it and hope for the best. Divert as much power as you can to keeping us from crashing into a tree at two hundred miles an hour and let's do this."
I took a breath and stared down the storm before shooting into it at top speeds, going as fast as I could and hoping that I would break through the storm before it was too late. I expected the storm to end well before I got to the person causing it, but it just kept going. I got blown off-course long before I got where I wanted to go, and I plowed a trench into the nearest hill when I was finally thrown free.
"Ugh." I groaned, sitting up and popping my face mask. That sucked. The storm was still going though, and it was quickly expanding towards the castle, so I couldn't stop. "Ana, take the suit and get up as high as you can. Give me an aerial view of this thing. I'm gonna take a sling portal straight to that guy in the middle."
Ana hesitated for a split second, and I could tell even my AI didn't approve of my crazy plan. She went through with it anyway though, and once she was gone I closed my eyes and tried to focus.
I moved my hand in circles, trying to picture Ana's readout of the guy in the storm. I focused on my feelings of curiosity and frustration and adrenaline, and the picture got clearer and clearer in my mind.
I opened my eyes to be attacked with an onslaught of magical storm coming through the sling portal. I didn't have time to close it before I got hit right in the chest. I went flying backwards and felt myself get smacked into the ground, and then everything went black.