Icy Heart #wattys2017

Quidditch Disaster

Gryffindor were facing Hufflepuff in a quidditch match, and Icy had convinced Sirius to watch it with her. "Harry's amazing. A brilliant quidditch player, you have to see it!" she'd said, and out of sheer curiosity, he'd agreed.

It was raining like mad, and Sirius and Icy sat in the topmost empty row of seats, watching the chasers pass the quaffle like mad, and Harry narrowly avoid each bludger once. Oliver Wood, Gryffindor's team captain called a time-out, and Icy watched as Hermione Granger charmed Harry's glasses. The game continued, and Harry dove and ducked, when Cedric Diggory, the Hufflepuff seeker streaked in the opposite direction.

There was a clap of thunder, followed immediately by forked lightning. This match was getting more and more dangerous. "Come on Harry!" urged Icy. He turned towards Sirius and her, completely distracted, and his hands slipped on his broom handle, dropping a few feet in the air.

"Harry behind you!" came the anguished tell of the Gryffindor team captain, Oliver Wood. Cedric Diggory was pelting up the pitch, and Harry threw himself flat against his broom handle, zooming towards him.

But something quite odd was happening. An eerie silence was falling across the stadium, and Icy felt as though she'd never be warm again. She huddled towards Sirius, and then she saw them... At least a hundred Dementors had swarmed the pitch. She felt like freezing water was rising in her chest, cutting at her insides. And then she heard the scream of her mother, and felt herself falling through the air. Not constantly being around the dementors had changed her reaction to them...

"Icy!" screamed Sirius, transforming and attempting to grab hold of her cloak, but he was too late.

All eyes were on Harry, who was falling fifty feet through the air, but Sirius was watching Icy, trying to think. "Arresto Momentum!" he shouted, and her fall was slowed slightly. She still hit the ground at a bone crushing pace, but Sirius could see her breathing.

"There's a girl lying on the ground!" He yelled loud enough for the rest of the stands to hear, and transformed, running up to the castle, to conceal himself in the Hospital Wing, where she'd surely be brought.

Sirius listened to conversations between Harry and his Quidditch team, perking his ears when he heard the name 'Cassie Taylor,' mentioned by a girl.

"Remember that little first year girl who I taught to knit, Cassiopeia Taylor? She fell off the stands..." Hermione trailed off. "Same drop as you, but there was no one to slow her. They don't even know if she'll live."

Sirius could tell that Hermione was just trying to distract Harry, but it hadn't worked. "Nobody helped her!" he shouted, sitting up in his bed, outraged. "And the whole school just thought, Oh there's Potter, let's save him! Not the eleven year old?"

He was getting rather upset, and the matron shooed all the students from the Hospital Wing, leaving just Harry, Sirius and Icy.

Hours passed before Icy woke, and Harry watched her carefully until she did. Sirius sighed in relief, and left the hospital wing, returning to the RoR, as Harry talked with her.

"Are you okay?" he asked, and Icy nodded.

"Brilliant, where's Sirius- Shite." Icy's eyes widened at her slip, and Harry looked at her questioningly.

"Sirius... Sirius Black? And that means you're Ic-"

"Sh- I have the worst headache, Potter, you don't even know. He only slowed me a little bit. I feel as though all of the bones in my body have been shattered," Icy took a deep breath, and with great difficulty she rolled onto her side, facing him.

"Icy Peverell," Harry whispered.

"That's me."

"Your case was reopened by the Ministry last week. A new piece of evidence was turned up, and they've pronounced you innocent. Someone named Zachary Yaxley was found alive, and he confessed to framing you," Harry informed her. "Hermione practically hit me in the head with a book when I first suggested you were innocent," he smiled at her. "This's the only time I've ever outsmarted her."

"And Sirius?"

"No news on that," Harry murmured. "But I heard Professor Dumbledore saying that he'll send a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts to you when they find you."

"Really?" Icy tried to sit up, and heard a bone in her arm crack. She moaned in pain.

"Madame Pomfrey!" yelled Harry. "Come quick!"

He turned to say something to Icy, but her eyes were glazed over...