The Slytherin Princess | Draco Malfoy x Reader

Chapter 31: Slytherin vs. Ravenclaw

You return to Hogwarts, and play your first quidditch game of the term.

~~~

The next day was a whirlwind. Draco's mother graciously sent you back to Hogwarts, right back through the fire you'd come from. Or at least, the one you assumed you'd come from. You hadn't really had a window seat to your own kidnapping.

Juniper asked a million questions about where you'd been, but you told her you'd just had a family emergency. You knew just from her expression that she didn't believe a word of it, but luckily for you, she didn't press the issue either.

Draco hadn't been gone long enough for anyone to notice his absence, so he simply greeted you in the halls like it was any other day.

You received an earful from Arlie about skipping practice, but you had reason to believe that Draco had said something to Snape, because his threat of removing no less than seventy-five House Points from you had fallen through. (Draco had warned you about that threat, and you had not been looking forward to Snape following through.)

You weren't sure what strings Draco had pulled to get Arlie to let you play in the game against Ravenclaw, but you also weren't about to complain about it. After the week you'd had, and then scrambling to figure out how to cover up the Dark Mark without magic for the both of you, you were in desperate need of an outlet.

And so here you were, on your broom in the Slytherin vs. Ravenclaw match. You had to win this match if you wanted to move forward towards the House Cup. You had to win the next three matches in a row if you wanted any chance of winning the House Cup. You were going to have to beat Ravenclaw at this game, Hufflepuff at the next game, and Gryffindor at the one after that. Then you would have to play Hufflepuff and Gryffindor one more time each, and then matchup one last time with whoever won in the last Hufflepuff vs. Gryffindor match.

So despite Arlie continuing to say, "No pressure!" you knew there was, in fact, quite a lot of pressure, and most of it was on you.

Sure, you could lose the Snitch and still win the game, but you had to be 160 points ahead of the other team to pull that off. And the most you'd ever been ahead of the other team the entire time you'd been playing Quidditch for Hogwarts, the furthest ahead you'd ever been had been 70 points.

So when it started to rain halfway through the match, with Slytherin 40 points behind Ravenclaw, you felt your heart drop as you realized you could probably kiss the match (and the Cup) goodbye.

Once it started raining, it felt like the heavens had opened up. Rain beat down on the players on the field, and the stands had even started clearing out as the fans were getting pelted with huge raindrops.

You saw the Ravenclaw Seeker, Aspen Gooseberry, dive quickly down towards the pitch, alerting you to the fact that he'd probably seen the Snitch. He wove around in spirals, which you had already grown accustomed to, since you knew it meant he was trying to throw you off. You wove yourself around him, getting ahead of him and spotting the small golden ball all on your own. You picked up the speed just a tad, scooting up on your broom and reaching out to grasp it in your fingers. You grew closer, closer, closer—

And then Aspen knocked you out of the way.

He flew just ahead of you, his arm only inches ahead of your own. You strained to move forward, pushing your broom to go faster and faster. His fingers grazed it, when you lunged forward off of the stirrups of your broom to grip it firmly in your wet leather glove.

"EVERGLADE CATCHES THE SNITCH!" bellowed the announcer, ringing the giant bell that signaled the end of the game. "SLYTHERIN WINS 230 TO 150!"

The crowd that still remained in the stands cheered as the teams landed on the pitch, the Ravenclaw team leaving the pitch a bit more defeatedly than the Slytherin team.