Chapter 8

                                    

                                          
The next day brought me back down to reality pretty harshly. 
By spending all my free time in the library, it seemed I'd missed out on more than I thought. 
Because when I entered the classroom for History of Magic along with my friends, they didn't sit down on their usual seats. 
                          
Lina sat down next to Julia Ross, a very talented Hufflepuff, while Valerie and Aleya were taking the seats next to Julia's friends, Beatrice Flint and Miriam Grant.
                          
And that's when it hit me. There were no free seats close to them. And Anna already had a friend sitting next to her, so there was no one I talked to, who I could sit down next to. I'd have to sit on my usual seat, completely alone. In History of Magic, aka the most boring class there was!
                          
Swallowing down the lump in my throat, I sat down, pulled out my parchment, ink and quill, and waited for Professor Binns to arrive.
                          
When had the two groups grown so close that they had decided to sit next to one another during class? Why didn't Valerie, Lina or Aleya tell me? I liked the Hufflepuff girls and occasionally talked to them as well, and they hadn't told me about the new blooming friendship either.
                          
All of this couldn't have started only one week ago, though. They had had to start spending time together quite a while ago to grow so close, so why hadn't I noticed?
                          
I sighed when Professor Binns floated through the black board. Now this class was going to be hell in more than one aspect.
                          
Throughout the lesson, while I was trying my hardest to pay attention to the lesson and not fall asleep, there was continuous laughter coming from Julia, Lina, Valerie, Beatrice, Miriam and Aleya. 



                          
~~~~


                          
The school day went by really slowly. It was terrible.
I'd really looked forward to Charms, amongst others because I was super motivated because of my recent success, although I couldn't tell anyone about it. But we got a test back and Lina asked me what grade I'd gotten. She was always curious when it came to our grades, but I'd never really thought about it very much.
                          
I had received an 'Outstanding' and I was really happy about it, until Lina asked. I hated telling people about my grades, even my friends. To me, telling them about good grades seemed like bragging, and I didn't want to do that. When no one asked and my grade was good, I'd never tell anyone, except maybe my sister or mother in the next letter.
                          
But Lina had asked and was already bending sideways to look at my score, so I had to tell her.
"An O," I mumbled, still happy about it, but not smiling anymore.
                          
Something in Lina's eyes flashed. Her jaw tensed, but I might have imagined all of this, because the next thing I knew, she was smiling brightly. "Cool! Very good, Freya."
                          
I didn't ask her what she had gotten.





                          
~~~~





                          
In the evening, we had Quidditch practice. It was wonderful to fly around with the air messing up my hair and temporarily blowing away my worries.
                          
While there was my constant fear of messing things up and getting thrown out of the team, I felt safe with my position as Beater.
I felt powerful, being able to smack the hard ball over the whole field and sabotaging the opposite team's strategies.
                          
I'd always loved Quidditch, and I'd always known that I would participate in the tryouts at Hogwarts. I felt comfortable as a Beater, because in my eyes, it was the position on which I could fail the least. And I also liked to think that defense was my thing, and that I made a fair Beater.
I'd gotten into the team in my third year, and I had gotten more comfortable and better with the team as the years had passed by.
                          
This year, Aleya, who'd gotten into the team in our fourth year, was appointed as the captain, and she was good at her job.
                          
The team respected her on the pitch; she turned confident and really managed to command us all around and turn us into the best team we could be.
We had finally managed to defeat Hufflepuff this year, after having lost the last three years in a row, and felt confident about the upcoming match against Slytherin, who we'd beaten the year prior.
                          
This year, we had already beaten the previous Quidditch Champion, so we had good chances at winning the Quidditch cup, even if we lost against either Gryffindor or Slytherin. We just couldn't afford two defeats.
                          
Like I said, I loved playing Quidditch, and I could really let off steam while aggressively hitting the Bludger again and again.
                          
But even Quidditch didn't work that day.
"Freya, that Bludger was your responsibility!" Michael, our other Beater, snapped after he'd barely managed to save our Keeper, Celine, from a stray Bludger.
                          
I blushed. "Sorry!" 
Truth to be told, my bat had slipped out of my hand after the previous hit. When I had hurried to catch it before it could fall down (and maybe hit a poor Chaser on the head), I had almost fallen off of my broom, so I had had to regain my balance. Once I'd successfully done that, the Bludger was too far away for me to hit.
Just a great day, wasn't it?
                          
Later, I almost missed a Bludger and it hit my index finger, which hurt pretty badly. 
                          
I also missed the hoops four out of ten times in our Beater training sequence, where we had to use our bats to manoeuvre Bludger-like balls through the hoops to practice our aim.

                          
It was just totally embarrassing and a terrible day, to summarise it.
To dampen my mood even more, I also didn't know how to answer the riddle to enter the common room after training. That didn't have any consequences, as our whole team stood there and all of us collectively thought about the solution, but it still made me feel stupid and worthless when Celine said the right solution, seemingly effortlessly.


                          
I took a quick shower, 'episkey'-ed my finger and went straight to bed, hoping that the throbbing pain would subside soon. Then I reread a few chapters of my favorite muggle fantasy book, trying to lift my mood.
                          
Reality sucked.