An American at Hogwarts

Chapter Forty-Six

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!