Ten

                                    

                                          
The next two weeks were amazing, the Hufflepost was more popular than ever and had grown with more students showing an interest in contributing. DA meetings were a welcome reprieve to Umbridge's lessons and Eleanor had been on two more dates with Reggie while Cynthia had begun to spend more and more of her time talking with the twins from Gryffindor.
"If I didn't know any better I'd say you had a crush," Susan smirked on the morning of the first Quidditch match for the year.
"Then it's a good thing you know better," Cynthia replies sharply.
"Don't poke the bear, you know how snappy she gets when she's cold," Eleanor says, shivering into her own thick scarf and rubbing her gloved hands together.
"Holy shit don't look now but like, totally look now," Susan says, looking at something just beyond Eleanor's head.
"Wha-?"
Turning around she comes face to face with Malfoy, a silver crown badge pinned to his robes reading 'Weasley is our King'.
"I just wanted to check if we were still studying tonight after the match?"
"Yeah, though I'm assuming if you guys win you might want the night off to celebrate."
He nods only slightly, turning when the rest of his team calls out that they're going down.
"Good luck," Eleanor says, stopping him in his tracks.
"Aren't you supporting Gryffindor?"
"I don't spend two days a week with anyone on the Gryffindor team, do I?"
He smiles for a brief second before strutting off to join his team.
"You're not seriously gonna cheer for Slytherin?" Cynthia says the moment he is gone and they begin to make their way down to the stands. The cold wind biting at their exposed faces and the grass still shining with frost from the night before as they huddle further into their jumpers and scarves.
"And why not? We don't know or hangout with anyone from the Gryffindor team, and he's not so bad. He's really helped me with my studies and sometimes he's even nice."
"Speak for yourself I have plenty of friends on the Gryffindor team."
"Ahh yes, the twins. You have been hanging around them an awful lot lately. Are you sure there's nothing going on there?"
"Well. I, a few weeks ago I told George that I thought he was cute-"
"You what?"
"Yeah, I was mortified. But afterwards he tracked me down and said that he thought I was amazingly brave to say it and I don't know, we just keep meeting up to talk and sometimes he just sits there while I read or write and he's so funny and, oh I'm rambling. I just think he's great and I really, really like him."
"Aww, I'm so happy for you." Eleanor pulls her friend into a hug.
They walk up the stairs of one of the stands, Susan hurrying forward, pushing through the crowd to grab a few seats for them at the front of the stand. A few seats over they spot Luna Lovegood with a massive lion head roaring above the crowd.
"Oh that is brilliant," Eleanor says, running over to get some pictures of Luna and her hat.
A few minutes later the Quidditch match has begun, the normal announcer, Lee Jordan beginning his commentary over the match with Professor McGonagall barking at him every few minutes when he says something inappropriate.
From the Slytherins in the stands everyone begins to hear a song growing louder every second.
Weasley cannot save a thing