Little Memories

Their lips were pressed heatedly together as her back hit the rows of lockers behind her. She let out a muffled groan; in part because his cold hand was creeping up her top and caressing her skin but mainly because a lock had dug with a particular amount of force into the center of her back. Regardless, she threw her leg around his him and pulled him closer, temporarily forgetting the pain. He paid no mind and merely gave a groan in return. Soon enough, they heard voices and footsteps nearing the door to the locker room and they hurriedly broke apart.

Draco slowly looked over Charlotte’s flushed and slightly frantic face as they drew in sharp breaths of air. His eyes lingered around her plump, bright pink lips and he was tempted to lean in and kiss them once more, but he refrained. Charlotte reached up and gently ran her fingers through his white blonde hair, straightening the mess she had made of it just moments before. The two then realized the humor of the situation, wearing identical, small, and mischievous little smirks, and let out a few tiny laughs and chuckles before grabbing their forgotten broomsticks from a bench in the locker room and left. Nothing lifted the spirits of two teenagers like a nice round of reckless snogging in an empty, dark locker room.

The sun had risen ever-so-slightly higher in the sky and fluffy, cotton-like clouds blotted the crisp blue with stark white. The Quidditch hopefuls were all gathering on the nicely manicured green field, appearing as a muddle mess of broomsticks and brown protective gear. Gregory, who was standing beside Crabbe, looked between the two blondes emerging from the locker room and gave a mightily pronounced scoff and eye roll before murmuring something to Crabbe. Charlotte merely shot him a venomous look but didn’t say a word as she joined the group, parting from Draco’s side. Draco already felt a headache coming on and it wasn’t from having to deal with wimps who thought they could play Quidditch. If this was how the siblings were going to act the entire time, he had half a mind to hold separate tryouts just to make sure they weren’t on the same field together. However, if he were to put them on the same team, they’d have to try and cooperate for the team’s sake.

“So,” Draco started once he realized most of the students gathered were looking at him with a mixture of curiosity and anxiety, “I suppose the lot of you are here because you think you can play.” A few of them snickered as they chatted amongst each other in the back. Draco shot a particular scathing look around at the group of them and they hushed almost immediately. “I’ll have you know that I think otherwise, unless you show me contrarily when you play. I’ll also have to ask that if you’re third year or under, you don’t even have a chance, so just leave.”

A few of the younger looking hopefuls let out heavy sighs and groans before slowly gathering their things and left the field. Charlotte glanced around her, looking for anyone that would pose a threat to her rightful spot as a chaser. Blaise was there, looking as bored as ever. Nott and Harper were also there, looking eagerly at Draco as they waited for the massive group of younger students to leave. Charlotte frowned a bit when she noticed that her former best friend Ellie hadn’t shown to tryouts. In fact, she didn’t think she had seen Ellie once since she had been back to Hogwarts. As Draco began to speak again, she refocused her thoughts back on Quidditch tryouts with great difficulty.

“As you may know that I’m reclaiming my spot as Seeker this year, so if anyone wanted the spot, you’ll have to settle with something else like Chasers or Keeper or just leave,” he said and noticed that it took Crabbe and Gregory a while to realize what this meant.

“What about Beaters?” Someone in the back of the group asked. Draco glanced around the group before letting out a large sigh. None of them had the build of a Beater, which in his experience with Quidditch meant that they couldn’t possibly play as a decent Beater.

“Do any of you lot think you can play better than Crabbe and Goyle?” He asked bluntly, knowing that no one would speak up. Draco gave a slight smirk as the group glanced around but no one dared to give an answer or challenge Draco’s statement. “Exactly,” Draco said smugly, nodding a bit, “so, we’re going to tryout the Chasers first and then move onto Keepers, yeah?”

Charlotte’s heart plummeted nervously as she felt a large burst of adrenaline shoot through her veins like ice. Draco glanced to her, his smug expression dropping for the moment. He obviously had noticed her heart taking up a rapid beat that a tattoo would have been jealous of. The two of them grew quiet as a rather poignant look was exchanged before Charlotte just shook her head, waving Draco on discreetly so that no one would get suspicious of the two.

“Right,” he continued on after he had cleared his throat, regaining a passive look on his face that was very characteristic of him before last year, “I’d like those trying out for Keeper to go take a seat in the stands. I may pull a few of you to test the Chasers, so be ready.” There was a great flurry of movement as the bulkiest of the group, yet not brawny enough to be Beaters, left for the stands. Charlotte glanced around, now feeling very nervous, and noticed there were eight or so “Chasers” left, not counting her. She let out a short hum when she finally spotted Pansy standing as far away from Charlotte as she could, Blaise standing just beside her as he was previously shielding her from Charlotte’s view. She had to bite her bottom lip hard to keep from outright laughing at the idea of Pansy actually thinking she had a change of making the team. Even funnier still, Charlotte couldn’t even imagine her being capable of staying on a broomstick.

Draco, who was pacing in front of the group of hopefuls as he sized them up, appeared to have a similar reaction to Charlotte’s when he noticed Pansy was watching him smugly. He cleared his throat again, this time to keep the laughter out of his tone. Furrowing his brow to make sure his humor for the situation didn’t show, he asked in as neutral of a voice as possible, “What are you doing here?” Pansy grinned knowingly as Charlotte, on the other end of the line, quickly turned her short outburst of laughter into a coughing fit that still sounding remarkably like laughter. The girl in question merely pulled her broomstick closer to her as Draco fought laughter off when every fiber of his being was screaming with it.

“Blaise gave me lessons last summer and I though I’d like to try out,” she said with a dramatic flip of her hair over her shoulder. “Daddy even got us new broomsticks because of it,” she added in that sickly sweet tone that made Draco’s skin crawl. Draco glanced to the broomsticks, which both Blaise and Pansy were brandishing for him to clearly see that they had no label of a brand, nor make or model on the handle. Rolling his eyes at the ridiculousness of it all, he shook his head as he walked away from the two of them. He knew the custom broomsticks were an attempt to one up Charlotte, but it was futile attempt. She had a natural tack and talent for the sport, something that couldn’t possibly be learned through a summer’s worth of lessons and certainly not aided with the speed and maneuverability of custom broomsticks.

“Alright, this is how we’re going to go about this,” Draco said, returning to the front of the group of hopefuls, facing the nine. “There will be two teams of three in the air at one time and the object is to just make goals at the moment. It doesn’t matter how you make them, just get the Quaffle in the hoops and treat it like a normal game.” He glanced over the group once more, thinking over who to put in teams together. Quiet lingered amongst them for a few moments, but chatter was rife in the Quidditch pitch as other students from Slytherin and other houses looked in on the tryouts. “Parkinson, Farley, and Zabini will be on one team. Nott, Beckett, and…Goyle will be on the other. The rest of you go sit in the stands until I’m through with these six.”

The three shuffled off the field as Charlotte glanced between Nott and Beckett. Nott was a decent player, but she had never seen Beckett before, let alone see him play. He was tall, thin, and lanky, which could mean one of two things; he was either going to be fast and agile or clumsy and awkward. Either way, it wasn’t going to ruin her chances of making of the team, she’d make sure of that.

“We’ll play until one of the teams makes ten goals,” Draco said, pulling Charlotte’s attention back to him. “Take to your brooms then,” he said, bringing his eyes to her as the five others rose into the air. He stared at her for a moment, knowing her heart was doing all sorts of sporadic rhythms from the ones that echoed in his chest. “Calm down,” he mouthed to her as she swung a leg over her broom, “and crush them.” She managed a small smirk and a nod to him before kicking off of the ground, flying easily and gracefully into the air.

The next thing Charlotte knew, the Quaffle had been thrown into the air and Charlotte had it safely tucked under her arm as she sped toward the opposing team. Even with the custom broomsticks and Blaise’s “lessons”, Pansy and Blaise couldn’t compare to Charlotte’s natural and practiced abilities and skills at the game of Quidditch. She easily zigzagged and darted away from them as they eagerly stretched their arms and legs toward her, willing to try anything to get the Quaffle out of her grasp. Soon enough, she had flown herself into a prime position in front of the three hoops. Charlotte skillfully aimed at the far left hoop, removing both hand from her broomstick in a risky move and throwing the Quaffle with such force that it whistled as it cut through the air. It glided swiftly, much to the satisfaction of Charlotte, through the intended hoop.

Consequently, cheers erupted from the onlookers as if it were a real game as Draco, who was standing off to the side of the pitch, made the Quaffle fly back into the playing area with a casual flick of it wand. The rest of the Chaser tryouts played out like he had expected them to. Beckett showed true promise as he could spot an open player in a tight situation and make a pass as well as make a few of the team’s goals. Nott played fairly and assisted in making a few of the goals himself. Zabini’s custom broom from Pansy’s father seemed to be a bit too much for him to handle and he could barely control it and often veered way off course. Farley was only good if the point of Quidditch was to fly around idly, well behind anything that was happening. Pansy only seemed to be focused on uprooting Charlotte from her broomstick by charging at her whenever she got the chance, regardless if she had the Quaffle or not. Due to this eagerness, she ended up getting whopped on the side of the face by a Quaffle thrown by Farley when she was griping to Blaise about being too fast. And Charlotte, of course, demonstrated her wonderful ability to make passes, goals, and keep the Quaffle out of the reach of the other team.

After Keeper tryouts, he gathered all the hopefuls onto the field and made his final decisions as to who was going to play on the Slytherin Quidditch team this year. They had gone still and silent, waiting eagerly for Draco to start talking. He drew in a deep breath of air. “The team will be: Crabbe and Goyle as Beaters, myself as Seeker, Harper as Keeper, and Beckett, Nott and Goyle as Chasers.” There was a loud cry from both Pansy and Blaise and Draco shot them both a stony look. “And that’s final. Now, if the rest of you would leave, my team needs to practice.”