Bella and the Chamber (Book Two)

Chapter Fourteen

Niall Horan's Flicker album is sooo good <3 My fave song is On the Loose and Seeing Blind <3 if you've heard it, what's yours? 

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October had arrived and with it brought a damp chill all over the grounds and inside the castle making everyone shiver as we walked to class. Students and staff were catching a cold like a wildfire making Madam Pomfrey, the matron, very busy making Pepperup Potion which worked instantly, but it left the drinker smoking at the ears for several hours afterwards. Ginny, who I still hated, had been looking very peaky and was bullied into taking some by Percy which left me giggling behind a cushion. The steam coming from under her vivid hair made it looked like her whole head was on fire, but unfortunately, it wasn't.

Since it was October, that meant that there was a lot of rain. Raindrops the size of bullets thundered on the castle windows for days and weeks on end. The lake froze and many students ice skated along it but only ended up in the hospital wing a few hours later. The flower beds turned into muddy streams and Hagrid's pumpkins swelled to the size of the garden sheds. I wondered what Professor Sprout thought of them. She always liked things that grew large. But, despite the rain and cold weather, Oliver Wood still had us training none stop which was way, one late stormy Saturday afternoon, a few days before Halloween, me and Harry could be found returning to Gryffindor Tower, drenched to the skin and splattered with mud. 

"Oh sure, let's just train none stop until we get poorly," I grumbled trying to get a clunk on dried dirt out of my hair. 

Harry wiped his glasses clean and nodded. "It's pretty ridiculous now"

"Ridiculous doesn't even cover it," I say, "I mean, I know he wants to win but he's overtraining us."

"I know he is, but he's the captain, what can we do?"

I looked at him. "Trust me, if I could, I would do a lot of things right now"

Even aside from the rain and wind, it hadn't been a happy practice session. Fred and George, who had been spying on the Slytherin team, had seen for themselves the speed of those new Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones. They reported that they Slytherin team were no more than eight greenish blurs, shooting through the air like jump-jets which dampened our mood quickly.

We're screwed.

As we squelched along the deserted corridor, we came across somebody who looked just as preoccupied as we were. Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost of Gryffindor Tower, was staring morosely out of a window, muttering under his breath, "...don't fulfil their requirements...half an inch...if that..."

"Hello, Nick," Harry greeted him and I waved. 

"Hello, hello," Nearly Headless Nick said and looked around. He wore a dashing, plumed hat on his long curly hair, and a tunic with a ruff, which concealed the fact that his neck was almost completely severed. He was pale as smoke, and I could see right through him to the dark sky and the horrible rain outside.

"You both look troubled," Nick said, folding a transparent letter as he spoke and tucking it inside his doublet. 

"So do you," I responded.

"Ah," Nick waved an elegant hand, "a matter of no importance...it's not as though I really wanted to join...thought I'd apply, but apparently I 'don't fulfil requirements'."

In spite of his airy tone, there was a look of great bitterness on his face and I raised my eyebrow in confusion. 

"But you would think, wouldn't you," he erupted suddenly making me jump, he pulled the letter back out of his pocket, "that getting hit forty-five times in the neck with a blunt axe would qualify you to join the Headless Hunt?"