An American at Hogwarts

Chapter Fifty-Three

Thankfully, it wasn't too hard to get Ana back in shape. My dad was pretty good at what he did, and both Ana and the suit were as good as new after spending a day in the Astronomy Tower drying out.

I didn't even have to stick the suit in a giant bag of rice.

As soon as Ana was back to her usual self, I didn't waste a second giving her the blood sample I'd pulled from the grass. This was the strongest lead I'd had all year, and there was a chance this case could be closed in the next few days.

"Alright Ana, what do you have for me? We getting anything especially promising yet?" I asked as soon as I'd fully uploaded the sample. I was sitting cross-legged on my dorm bed, staring intently at the many screens displayed on my Stark glasses.

"Nothing yet." Realistically, I expected this. The sample analysis would take far longer than a few seconds, and then from there I still had to wait for Ana to find a match. However, I was impatient. It felt like I'd been working on solving this stupid mystery forever, and I wanted answers now.

"Any estimations of how long it will take?" I asked, unable to help myself.

"None yet. I'll let you know as soon as I have an idea."

I sighed. "Alright. Thanks Ana."

Ana, like Jarvis, was very smart. By saying 'I'll let you know', she preemptively stopped me from asking every twenty seconds from now until we had our answer.

I was just starting to go stir crazy from waiting (yes, I know, it had barely been a minute. Shut up.)
when Angelina and Alicia came bursting through the door looking frustrated and frazzled.

"Alexa! Come on, we have to go down to the Pitch!" Angelina huffed, storming past me and digging through her trunk until she pulled out her headband.

"What? Wait, is something wrong or...?"

"Oliver's been yelling for the past thirty minutes trying to get everyone together," Alicia sighed. "It seems it's finally hit him that the last game of the season is this coming weekend, and he's back at the practice regimen with a vengeance."

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," I groaned. "Do we ever just get a break? Like, is there ever going to be a time in our lives where we have nothing going on, no insane homework, no crazy Quidditch practices, just normal school?"

"Summer, if you're lucky," Angelina quipped as she marched past me and Alicia. "Now come on. We've got work to do."

I quickly grabbed my uniform to change into, then Alicia and I hustled out the door to keep up with Angelina. I was not looking forward to this.

****************

I almost died that week.

Not literally, but it sure felt like it. Oliver had us practicing for three hours minimum every day, and with finals on the horizon our teachers weren't letting up on the homework front either. I had no time for anything but school and Quidditch, and I ended up having to cancel on poor David again. By the end of the week, I was more exhausted than I'd ever been before in my life, and that was saying something.

On the bright side, being constantly busy kept me from going crazy over waiting for Ana to get me results. On top of the blood sample analysis she was running, she was also going back over all the readings she got before plummeting into the lake to see if she could find anything interesting there. I would've been checking for updates every five seconds if I didn't have something else to keep me so busy.

Finally, Saturday came. One way or another, this would be the end of the Quidditch season and all of Oliver's crazy practices. If we won this game by 200 points or more, we would actually win the Quidditch Cup.