Cast yourself (you are the spell)

Chapter 3

Hope is waken up by a pillow to the face. A jinx makes its way half-out of her throat before she realizes it's just Maya Machado.

"Get up, we're gonna be late to practice," Maya tells her, wrapping a scarf around her neck on top of her quidditch uniform. It's slightly cold outside, and when Hope looks outside the window, she finds that the sky is dark.

They used to not have windows at all, until some spoiled kid had complained about how the common room was in the dungeon, so they got moved up to the east tower.

"How long have you been up?" Hope asks, throwing the cover off her too-hot skin. Her throat feels sore.

"For an hour or so," Maya says, very nonchalantly.

"It's six o'clock. You couldn't have woken me up sooner?" Hope sits up straighter, glancing to the clock on her bedside table.

"Well, I thought about it. But...you're hot when you're mad." Maya punctuates the sentence with a wink and smiles at the mirror, seemingly happy with her herself. Hope is not happy at all.

She raises her wand and Maya almost sprints out of the door, the tickling jinx deliberately hitting the wall above her head.

"Hurry up," Maya calls out, effectively leaving Hope by herself. She gets dressed in twenty minutes, almost uncaring that she will definitely be late. Although she's the captain, she's never been concerned with punctuality.

Consequently, Hope is the last one to make it to the quidditch pitch, and when she approaches her teammates she finds that they're all huddled together discussing the prophecy.

"Do you think it's real?" Maya whispers conspiratorially.

"It doesn't matter," Hope cuts in. They all turn to her quickly, adjusting their quidditch gear. "We have a match against Hufflepuff on Saturday we need to prepare for."

"'It doesn't matter'?" Maya asks. "That's a little difficult for you to say, Great Evil's heir."

"Whatever." Hope shrugs off. "Let's start."

They do a couple of warm up laps, just flying around the pitch, and then she has the chasers-Ryan Clarke, Ethan Machado, and Jo Victoire-practice the passing drill she made against the keeper, Rose Nicot. They do it perfectly five times over, so Hope allows the beaters-Penelope and Maya-to take part in the drill to make it more difficult.

She watches above, the snitch twitching in her hand, making small comments and interjections wherever she can. At one point, Penelope gets frustrated and steals the quaffle from the chasers, using it as a bludger against Maya's brother Ethan. The quaffle flies towards Ethan, just barely missing his head. It changes direction, soaring to the right of where Hope is hovering in the air. She swiftly raises her hand and picks it easily out of the sky.

Hope looks down and finds that Maya and Penelope have started hitting each other with their bats, which quickly makes Hope interrupt them. She had hoped they would've been able to solve it on their own. She scolds them briefly, and they begin to argue loudly. Hope only entertains them for a minute.

"She hit me first!"

"Huh, I didn't know first years were allowed on the team," Hope remarks sarcastically, taking their bats away from them. They fold their arms angrily in unison just as Ethan starts to glide down, jumping of off his broom and hitting the ground softly.

"What the hell was that, Park?" He crosses the short distance fastly, his fists clenched at his sides. The rest of the team that's still in the air floats down as well, Rose being the last to make it.