FIC: Judgmental Bell (3/6) (Zacharias Smith/Katie Bell)
Title: Judgmental Bell (3/6)
Author/Artist: dovingbird
Characters: Zacharias Smith/Katie Bell
Prompt number: 22
Word Count: 11,926
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Rated for language.
Summary: Katie Bell's finally snagged a spot on the starting line-up on the Wimbourne Wasps! But her excitement wanes at the appearance of the new transfer to the team: the one and only Zacharias Smith. How in Merlin's name can she cope playing beside the biggest git Hufflepuff has ever seen, especially when he seems bizarrely determined to prove to her that he's changed?
Disclaimer: I do not own anything relating to the world of Harry Potter at all, nor do I own this prompt. These all belong to their respective owners and authors. The only thing that I own are all of the words on these pages and the OCs therein.
Author’s Notes: Thanks to my wonderful boyfriend for being my beta on this piece! I hope everyone enjoys my first Harry Potter fanfic.
Chapter Three
The sun was setting before they finally slid off of their brooms for the last time and began making their way back toward the inn. Katie rubbed the sweat from her forehead and eyed the beginnings of the stars flickering above her head. There would be no drinking tonight. It was hard enough to avoid a hangover this morning, much less trying to avoid one when she actually had a firm reason to drink.
“Hey, Bell. Wait up.” That firm reason was currently weaving his way toward her, in fact, and it took every bit of Katie’s will to keep her from only walking faster. Instead, she sighed and slowed her steps, rubbing the back of her neck.
“What do you want, Smith?”
“I just want to talk. Chill out.”
“I’m chilled.”
He eyed her, frowning. “Chilly, not chilled.”
Katie scowled at Zacharias as she shoved her hands into her pockets. The urge to storm away was almost unbearable. But she wasn’t a Gryffindor for nothing. “All right, you wanna talk? Fine. Talk.”
“I mean…all right, look, you seem pretty angry about the fact that I can’t remember you that well from Hogwarts.”
“No! No, I’m not angry about that at all.”
Smith paused. After a moment or two of silence he quirked a brow, spreading wrinkles across his forehead. “Sarcasm?”
If it was anyone else, they’d get a smack on the arm, but Smith didn’t even deserve that much. “…no. Do you remember ANY of Gryffindor’s Quidditch team?”
“Sure.” He began counting on his fingers, pursing his lips in thought again. “Harry Potter, the Weasley Twins, Oliver Wood, Ginny Weasely, Johnson…”
“But you don’t remember me?”
Smith hesitated before he shrugged helplessly and rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean-”
“Fine. That’s fine. No big deal.”
Smith’s lips began to spread into a tentative smile. “So you’re not angry any more.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well, what in the world have you got to be angry at me about?” His voice was raising a bit, and their teammates in front of them were beginning to look over their shoulders while whispering to each other. “As far as I remember I wasn’t the one that beaned you in the head with the Quaffle there.”
“That’s because I actually remember what a GIT you were at Hogwarts.”
“What?! Come on, I wasn’t that bad!”
“You ran over my first year cousin at the Battle of Hogwarts and gave her a sprained ankle!”
A long moment of silence stretched over them before their teammates suddenly burst into snorts and giggles and hurried away, leaving Katie and Zacharias far behind. For his part, Smith rubbed at the back of his neck a little harder before he chuckled softly. “I, uh…okay, so maybe I was, but what does that have to do with anything?”
Katie whirled around on him and planted herself firmly in the ground, her eyes burning from how wide they were in fury. She wouldn’t have been surprised if her hair suddenly ripped out of its ponytail and started levitating. “What does that have to do with anything?!”
“Well, you don’t have to bloody shout about it!” Zacharias clenched his hands into fists and leaned in with blazing eyes.
“I can shout about whatever the bloody hell I want when I’m talking to a selfish, immature, ridiculous little bastard!”
Smith open his mouth wide to say something no doubt scathing, or as scathing as a former Hufflepuff could manage, but before Katie could so much as steel herself for it he instead closed his eyes and leaned away from her. As he drew in a long, steady breath through his flared nostrils, Katie furrowed her brow in confusion. He opened his eyes with relative calmness, though a few sparks still shone through, and raked a hand through his hair. “Look, Bell…Katie…in case you forgot, some people have the ability to change.”
“…including yourself, I suppose?” she asked, flicking her eyes up and down his figure as distastefully as she could.
“Yes,” Smith began calmly. “Yes, like myself. Like the Malfoy family. Like Neville Longbottom. I suppose you remember all of them too, if you remember a random Hufflepuff like ME so well?” He waited for her curt nod before he pressed forward. “Longbottom changed in seven and Malfoy changed in, what, five? I’ve only been working on this for about three or four years, but that’s gotta count for something, right?”
Katie bit the inside of her lip as she looked away, rubbing her arm uncomfortably. If that scrawny little Longbottom could lob off Voldemort’s snake’s head and if Draco Malfoy himself could be the one to coax his father into giving away all those dark artifacts like the papers claimed, then Smith was saying something with a decent amount of merit. But merit wasn’t the same as actions. She frowned up at Smith and nudged a few flyaway hairs away from her eyes. “You were still a bloody bastard in the D.A.”
Smith’s entire demeanor dropped from strong and confident to looking as if he was going to melt right into the ground. “…are you kidding me?”
“I am not.” Katie turned on her heel and began to march back toward the inn. “Good night, Smith. See you in the morning at training.”
“Oh, you bloody will, Bell!” Smith called after her as he kicked a clump of dirt awkwardly. “And this time, you’ll pass that Quaffle to me too instead of Weaver alone!”
Fat chance.
It was easier than Katie anticipated to get through training while utilizing the bare minimum of contact with Smith. Weaver was more than happy to take the younger player under his wing and to show him the ins and outs of their various plays, defenses, and all out assaults, and Katie merely functioned on Weaver’s other side to play her role in them. She could count on one hand the number of times that she ever had to pass the Quaffle to Smith, though Oliver DID glare at her a few times when she dropped the Quaffle after Smith passed it to her.
She begrudgingly began to notice, however, the sort of sixth sense that Smith appeared to have when he played the game. The boy was effortless in the sky for a twenty-two-year-old nearing his birthday. He pulled off dives for the Quaffle that Katie dropped with an air of finesse. Loops, spins, and rapid turns weren’t a problem for him, and he never seemed to lose sight of the ball no matter what. His eyes were so keen and his reflexes so fast that Katie fancied he might’ve become a Seeker were it not for his rather bulky build. Not everyone could carry Cedric Diggory’s frame, God rest his soul, and still manage to catch a little flying golden ball.
What wrangled her, however, was the number of days that Smith walked off the pitch without a drop of apparent sweat on his body. Everything was an easy game for him. Katie got where she was on the pitch out of sheer hard work and determination. Smith coasted onto the pitch with wings on his feet like Mercury and snappier reflexes than a cobra, and Katie wanted nothing more than to smack him around for it. But Wood was there, always watching, always waiting for Katie to make a single slip-up in terms of her relationship with her new fellow Chaser. It was enough to drive a woman mad.
The evening before the game, Katie lounged in her inn room and flipped through pictures of Puddlemere’s plays, focusing closely on their three Chasers. They were a bunch of fine bastards, working together like they had bloody telepathy or something, and she knew she could never be too prepared for them. A soft knock came at the door and Katie rolled her eyes as she crawled off her bed. “Forget your key again, Lizzy?” she called as she opened the door and nearly fell backward when she came face-to-face with Smith instead. “…what do you want?” she muttered, eyes casting over his arms crossed over his chest and his firm stance with a degree of disdain.
He tilted his head to the side with a shrug. “Thought I’d stop by and have a chat with you, since you’re apparently not leaving your room for the entire evening.”
“So you spy on people too. All right, good to know.”
Smith rolled his eyes as he leaned against the doorframe and huffed out a loud sigh. “Bell, I just got back from dinner with the starters and the reserves, and you were nowhere to be seen. You’ve been locked up in your bloody room for the past, what, six hours? Come on. It doesn’t take a stalker to notice it. It just takes a few words to your roommate.”
Distantly Katie felt the urge to strangle Elizabeth. “All right, fine, you’re not a stalker.” Smith looked rather pleased with this observation. “What do you want, then, really?”
“I want to figure out what the hell’s going to happen at the game tomorrow.”
Katie lifted her chin high. “Simple,” she began, clutching the doorknob tighter. “You stay out of my and Weaver’s way and we win the game. Just try to lure the Bludgers away. That’s all we need.”
When Smith’s fist suddenly slammed against the doorframe with a hiss, Katie backed into her room with wide eyes. “For Circe’s sake, Bell, will you get your head out of your arse for two seconds and treat me like a bloody adult?!”
Even with her heart suddenly pounding in her chest, she forced herself to take two steps forward until she was less than an inch away from him. “I don’t owe you a damn thing!” she shouted, throwing her head back until she could look him in the eye while narrowing her own. “Not a damn, bloody thing. Get the hell out of my doorway.”
“With pleasure,” He grabbed her shoulder and shoved her back into the room.
“What the he- oww!” Katie stumbled into the desk and grabbed her hip, wincing in pain. “What the bloody hell are you doing?!”
“We’re talking.” Smith gently nudged the door and made his way toward her, apparently not caring a bit that the door didn’t shut the whole way. “And if you’re going to act like a child, then I’m going to treat you like one. Sit down.”
Katie wrapped her arms around herself as he gestured to the bed. “No.” There was no way she was going near that right now. “Just say what you have to say and get out.”
“Fine. Whatever.” Zacharias dragged his hand through his hair. The slow breath that hissed out from between his lips only made Katie feel more worried about the fact that she was trapped in a room with him. He was a git, but he was an angry git, by the looks of it. She flicked her eyes toward the door and let the fact that it was still ajar soothe her faintly. “…look, Katie…” His voice dropped in volume until Katie had to watch his lips closely to even hear it. “…Bell, I was a git. I know that. I went through Hogwarts with more enemies in my own house than any other Hufflepuff’s ever had.” He chuckled dryly and shook his head. “And you know, I was kind of proud of it, actually. As long as people were looking at me, even if they were pissed off, it meant they were noticing me, right? You ever been there?”
“No.”
Smith flicked his eyes up to meet her own for a brief moment before he shook his head and snorted. “Of course not. You were one of the star Gryffindor Chasers. How could anyone NOT notice you?”
“I thought you didn’t remember me.”
“Well.” His hand cupped the back of his neck as he smiled sheepishly. “I mean…let’s be honest, Johnson caught my eye a hell of a lot more than you did.” Katie’s indignation sparked at the base of her belly, and Zacharias chuckled again as if he noticed it. “But she had a taste for redheads, I guess, so that’s neither here nor there. My POINT…is that I’m not that boy anymore.”
Her eyes widened. “Says the person who just manhandled me into my room.”
“I was being forceful! I thought that’s what got through to Gryffindors. Circe knows Wood and Johnson always acted like that all the time when they were captains back in Hogwarts.”
“And Harry too, I suppose?”
Smith paused, rubbing his stubbled chin. “Well. Yeah. But he was ALWAYS being a bastard, so that’s really no surprise-”
“Excuse me? As I recall, you were the bastard that ran over about forty-six first years to escape the Battle of Hogwarts. In fact, you might’ve been the only member of Dumbledore’s Army who didn’t fight with us. Huh. Fancy that.”
“Haven’t you done enough dredging?” He sprang to his feet and began to pace, throwing his arms into the air. “Enough’s enough, Bell. There’s no way we’re gonna contribute anything to this match tomorrow unless you stop dredging up the past like this. I’m a changed man. I came here to show that to you. And I’d really like it if we could end the match tomorrow with more points than what Elizabeth grabs us.”
Katie huffed and rubbed her forehead. “Look, as far as I’m concerned, you haven’t shown me anything. And it’s remarkably uncomfortable for you to be in here right now when we’re alone, so, if you could…”
“What else do I need to show you? I left the door open, I’ve stayed several feet away from you the entire time I’ve been here, I’ve been open and honest with you-”
“And yet you’re still not out of my room.” Katie strolled over to the door and opened it wider as she turned her head to stare at Smith. “Look, Smith, I don’t like you. I don’t have to like you just because we’re playing together tomorrow. And as far as I’m concerned, until you show me some inexplicable and obvious proof that you HAVE changed? I have absolutely no reason to think otherwise. Out you go. I’ll see you on the pitch tomorrow.”
Smith stared at her helplessly. His mouth was working like a fish’s and his hands were gesticulating, but after a few seconds he snapped to attention and groaned. “All right, fine. I’ll respect your wishes.” As he walked past her, he cocked an eyebrow at her. “Which is a clear and obvious change, by the way.”
“Out,” she growled, shoving him through the door before shutting it and locking it tightly behind him. She leaned against the wood and sighed, closing her eyes. She felt more stressed than ever before, even before taking her N.E.W.T.s. This was it, her first time starting in an influential match, one that could get her noticed by England for the World Cup coming up in two years, and she had to play with the person that she had the worst chemistry with on the face of the planet? The image of Smith reclining against her doorframe, eyebrow lifted snarkily and hip cocked off to the side, passed by her mind’s eye unbidden, and she felt her hands prickle and her stomach flop. That bastard. He’d only come to her rooms to make her more nervous, hadn’t he? To make her perform worse so he’d get all the fame and glory?
Katie curled her hands into fists and muttered, “That’s just like him too!” as she stormed to her bed and fell face first onto her pillows. She kicked at the mattress a few times before she collapsed into a lump and sighed.
She fancied she might even be able to fall asleep there when she heard a soft knock at the door. “Katie, sweetie?” Elizabeth’s muffled voice called in. “Can you let me in? You‘ve locked me out…”
All at once cursing inn locks and their magical fields to keep a simple Alohamora from doing the job, Katie groaned and rolled off the bed. Fine. But she was still going to manage to sleep. No mangy Hufflepuff would keep that from her.
Chapter Two | Chapter Four
Author/Artist: dovingbird
Characters: Zacharias Smith/Katie Bell
Prompt number: 22
Word Count: 11,926
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Rated for language.
Summary: Katie Bell's finally snagged a spot on the starting line-up on the Wimbourne Wasps! But her excitement wanes at the appearance of the new transfer to the team: the one and only Zacharias Smith. How in Merlin's name can she cope playing beside the biggest git Hufflepuff has ever seen, especially when he seems bizarrely determined to prove to her that he's changed?
Disclaimer: I do not own anything relating to the world of Harry Potter at all, nor do I own this prompt. These all belong to their respective owners and authors. The only thing that I own are all of the words on these pages and the OCs therein.
Author’s Notes: Thanks to my wonderful boyfriend for being my beta on this piece! I hope everyone enjoys my first Harry Potter fanfic.
Chapter Three
The sun was setting before they finally slid off of their brooms for the last time and began making their way back toward the inn. Katie rubbed the sweat from her forehead and eyed the beginnings of the stars flickering above her head. There would be no drinking tonight. It was hard enough to avoid a hangover this morning, much less trying to avoid one when she actually had a firm reason to drink.
“Hey, Bell. Wait up.” That firm reason was currently weaving his way toward her, in fact, and it took every bit of Katie’s will to keep her from only walking faster. Instead, she sighed and slowed her steps, rubbing the back of her neck.
“What do you want, Smith?”
“I just want to talk. Chill out.”
“I’m chilled.”
He eyed her, frowning. “Chilly, not chilled.”
Katie scowled at Zacharias as she shoved her hands into her pockets. The urge to storm away was almost unbearable. But she wasn’t a Gryffindor for nothing. “All right, you wanna talk? Fine. Talk.”
“I mean…all right, look, you seem pretty angry about the fact that I can’t remember you that well from Hogwarts.”
“No! No, I’m not angry about that at all.”
Smith paused. After a moment or two of silence he quirked a brow, spreading wrinkles across his forehead. “Sarcasm?”
If it was anyone else, they’d get a smack on the arm, but Smith didn’t even deserve that much. “…no. Do you remember ANY of Gryffindor’s Quidditch team?”
“Sure.” He began counting on his fingers, pursing his lips in thought again. “Harry Potter, the Weasley Twins, Oliver Wood, Ginny Weasely, Johnson…”
“But you don’t remember me?”
Smith hesitated before he shrugged helplessly and rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean-”
“Fine. That’s fine. No big deal.”
Smith’s lips began to spread into a tentative smile. “So you’re not angry any more.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well, what in the world have you got to be angry at me about?” His voice was raising a bit, and their teammates in front of them were beginning to look over their shoulders while whispering to each other. “As far as I remember I wasn’t the one that beaned you in the head with the Quaffle there.”
“That’s because I actually remember what a GIT you were at Hogwarts.”
“What?! Come on, I wasn’t that bad!”
“You ran over my first year cousin at the Battle of Hogwarts and gave her a sprained ankle!”
A long moment of silence stretched over them before their teammates suddenly burst into snorts and giggles and hurried away, leaving Katie and Zacharias far behind. For his part, Smith rubbed at the back of his neck a little harder before he chuckled softly. “I, uh…okay, so maybe I was, but what does that have to do with anything?”
Katie whirled around on him and planted herself firmly in the ground, her eyes burning from how wide they were in fury. She wouldn’t have been surprised if her hair suddenly ripped out of its ponytail and started levitating. “What does that have to do with anything?!”
“Well, you don’t have to bloody shout about it!” Zacharias clenched his hands into fists and leaned in with blazing eyes.
“I can shout about whatever the bloody hell I want when I’m talking to a selfish, immature, ridiculous little bastard!”
Smith open his mouth wide to say something no doubt scathing, or as scathing as a former Hufflepuff could manage, but before Katie could so much as steel herself for it he instead closed his eyes and leaned away from her. As he drew in a long, steady breath through his flared nostrils, Katie furrowed her brow in confusion. He opened his eyes with relative calmness, though a few sparks still shone through, and raked a hand through his hair. “Look, Bell…Katie…in case you forgot, some people have the ability to change.”
“…including yourself, I suppose?” she asked, flicking her eyes up and down his figure as distastefully as she could.
“Yes,” Smith began calmly. “Yes, like myself. Like the Malfoy family. Like Neville Longbottom. I suppose you remember all of them too, if you remember a random Hufflepuff like ME so well?” He waited for her curt nod before he pressed forward. “Longbottom changed in seven and Malfoy changed in, what, five? I’ve only been working on this for about three or four years, but that’s gotta count for something, right?”
Katie bit the inside of her lip as she looked away, rubbing her arm uncomfortably. If that scrawny little Longbottom could lob off Voldemort’s snake’s head and if Draco Malfoy himself could be the one to coax his father into giving away all those dark artifacts like the papers claimed, then Smith was saying something with a decent amount of merit. But merit wasn’t the same as actions. She frowned up at Smith and nudged a few flyaway hairs away from her eyes. “You were still a bloody bastard in the D.A.”
Smith’s entire demeanor dropped from strong and confident to looking as if he was going to melt right into the ground. “…are you kidding me?”
“I am not.” Katie turned on her heel and began to march back toward the inn. “Good night, Smith. See you in the morning at training.”
“Oh, you bloody will, Bell!” Smith called after her as he kicked a clump of dirt awkwardly. “And this time, you’ll pass that Quaffle to me too instead of Weaver alone!”
Fat chance.
It was easier than Katie anticipated to get through training while utilizing the bare minimum of contact with Smith. Weaver was more than happy to take the younger player under his wing and to show him the ins and outs of their various plays, defenses, and all out assaults, and Katie merely functioned on Weaver’s other side to play her role in them. She could count on one hand the number of times that she ever had to pass the Quaffle to Smith, though Oliver DID glare at her a few times when she dropped the Quaffle after Smith passed it to her.
She begrudgingly began to notice, however, the sort of sixth sense that Smith appeared to have when he played the game. The boy was effortless in the sky for a twenty-two-year-old nearing his birthday. He pulled off dives for the Quaffle that Katie dropped with an air of finesse. Loops, spins, and rapid turns weren’t a problem for him, and he never seemed to lose sight of the ball no matter what. His eyes were so keen and his reflexes so fast that Katie fancied he might’ve become a Seeker were it not for his rather bulky build. Not everyone could carry Cedric Diggory’s frame, God rest his soul, and still manage to catch a little flying golden ball.
What wrangled her, however, was the number of days that Smith walked off the pitch without a drop of apparent sweat on his body. Everything was an easy game for him. Katie got where she was on the pitch out of sheer hard work and determination. Smith coasted onto the pitch with wings on his feet like Mercury and snappier reflexes than a cobra, and Katie wanted nothing more than to smack him around for it. But Wood was there, always watching, always waiting for Katie to make a single slip-up in terms of her relationship with her new fellow Chaser. It was enough to drive a woman mad.
The evening before the game, Katie lounged in her inn room and flipped through pictures of Puddlemere’s plays, focusing closely on their three Chasers. They were a bunch of fine bastards, working together like they had bloody telepathy or something, and she knew she could never be too prepared for them. A soft knock came at the door and Katie rolled her eyes as she crawled off her bed. “Forget your key again, Lizzy?” she called as she opened the door and nearly fell backward when she came face-to-face with Smith instead. “…what do you want?” she muttered, eyes casting over his arms crossed over his chest and his firm stance with a degree of disdain.
He tilted his head to the side with a shrug. “Thought I’d stop by and have a chat with you, since you’re apparently not leaving your room for the entire evening.”
“So you spy on people too. All right, good to know.”
Smith rolled his eyes as he leaned against the doorframe and huffed out a loud sigh. “Bell, I just got back from dinner with the starters and the reserves, and you were nowhere to be seen. You’ve been locked up in your bloody room for the past, what, six hours? Come on. It doesn’t take a stalker to notice it. It just takes a few words to your roommate.”
Distantly Katie felt the urge to strangle Elizabeth. “All right, fine, you’re not a stalker.” Smith looked rather pleased with this observation. “What do you want, then, really?”
“I want to figure out what the hell’s going to happen at the game tomorrow.”
Katie lifted her chin high. “Simple,” she began, clutching the doorknob tighter. “You stay out of my and Weaver’s way and we win the game. Just try to lure the Bludgers away. That’s all we need.”
When Smith’s fist suddenly slammed against the doorframe with a hiss, Katie backed into her room with wide eyes. “For Circe’s sake, Bell, will you get your head out of your arse for two seconds and treat me like a bloody adult?!”
Even with her heart suddenly pounding in her chest, she forced herself to take two steps forward until she was less than an inch away from him. “I don’t owe you a damn thing!” she shouted, throwing her head back until she could look him in the eye while narrowing her own. “Not a damn, bloody thing. Get the hell out of my doorway.”
“With pleasure,” He grabbed her shoulder and shoved her back into the room.
“What the he- oww!” Katie stumbled into the desk and grabbed her hip, wincing in pain. “What the bloody hell are you doing?!”
“We’re talking.” Smith gently nudged the door and made his way toward her, apparently not caring a bit that the door didn’t shut the whole way. “And if you’re going to act like a child, then I’m going to treat you like one. Sit down.”
Katie wrapped her arms around herself as he gestured to the bed. “No.” There was no way she was going near that right now. “Just say what you have to say and get out.”
“Fine. Whatever.” Zacharias dragged his hand through his hair. The slow breath that hissed out from between his lips only made Katie feel more worried about the fact that she was trapped in a room with him. He was a git, but he was an angry git, by the looks of it. She flicked her eyes toward the door and let the fact that it was still ajar soothe her faintly. “…look, Katie…” His voice dropped in volume until Katie had to watch his lips closely to even hear it. “…Bell, I was a git. I know that. I went through Hogwarts with more enemies in my own house than any other Hufflepuff’s ever had.” He chuckled dryly and shook his head. “And you know, I was kind of proud of it, actually. As long as people were looking at me, even if they were pissed off, it meant they were noticing me, right? You ever been there?”
“No.”
Smith flicked his eyes up to meet her own for a brief moment before he shook his head and snorted. “Of course not. You were one of the star Gryffindor Chasers. How could anyone NOT notice you?”
“I thought you didn’t remember me.”
“Well.” His hand cupped the back of his neck as he smiled sheepishly. “I mean…let’s be honest, Johnson caught my eye a hell of a lot more than you did.” Katie’s indignation sparked at the base of her belly, and Zacharias chuckled again as if he noticed it. “But she had a taste for redheads, I guess, so that’s neither here nor there. My POINT…is that I’m not that boy anymore.”
Her eyes widened. “Says the person who just manhandled me into my room.”
“I was being forceful! I thought that’s what got through to Gryffindors. Circe knows Wood and Johnson always acted like that all the time when they were captains back in Hogwarts.”
“And Harry too, I suppose?”
Smith paused, rubbing his stubbled chin. “Well. Yeah. But he was ALWAYS being a bastard, so that’s really no surprise-”
“Excuse me? As I recall, you were the bastard that ran over about forty-six first years to escape the Battle of Hogwarts. In fact, you might’ve been the only member of Dumbledore’s Army who didn’t fight with us. Huh. Fancy that.”
“Haven’t you done enough dredging?” He sprang to his feet and began to pace, throwing his arms into the air. “Enough’s enough, Bell. There’s no way we’re gonna contribute anything to this match tomorrow unless you stop dredging up the past like this. I’m a changed man. I came here to show that to you. And I’d really like it if we could end the match tomorrow with more points than what Elizabeth grabs us.”
Katie huffed and rubbed her forehead. “Look, as far as I’m concerned, you haven’t shown me anything. And it’s remarkably uncomfortable for you to be in here right now when we’re alone, so, if you could…”
“What else do I need to show you? I left the door open, I’ve stayed several feet away from you the entire time I’ve been here, I’ve been open and honest with you-”
“And yet you’re still not out of my room.” Katie strolled over to the door and opened it wider as she turned her head to stare at Smith. “Look, Smith, I don’t like you. I don’t have to like you just because we’re playing together tomorrow. And as far as I’m concerned, until you show me some inexplicable and obvious proof that you HAVE changed? I have absolutely no reason to think otherwise. Out you go. I’ll see you on the pitch tomorrow.”
Smith stared at her helplessly. His mouth was working like a fish’s and his hands were gesticulating, but after a few seconds he snapped to attention and groaned. “All right, fine. I’ll respect your wishes.” As he walked past her, he cocked an eyebrow at her. “Which is a clear and obvious change, by the way.”
“Out,” she growled, shoving him through the door before shutting it and locking it tightly behind him. She leaned against the wood and sighed, closing her eyes. She felt more stressed than ever before, even before taking her N.E.W.T.s. This was it, her first time starting in an influential match, one that could get her noticed by England for the World Cup coming up in two years, and she had to play with the person that she had the worst chemistry with on the face of the planet? The image of Smith reclining against her doorframe, eyebrow lifted snarkily and hip cocked off to the side, passed by her mind’s eye unbidden, and she felt her hands prickle and her stomach flop. That bastard. He’d only come to her rooms to make her more nervous, hadn’t he? To make her perform worse so he’d get all the fame and glory?
Katie curled her hands into fists and muttered, “That’s just like him too!” as she stormed to her bed and fell face first onto her pillows. She kicked at the mattress a few times before she collapsed into a lump and sighed.
She fancied she might even be able to fall asleep there when she heard a soft knock at the door. “Katie, sweetie?” Elizabeth’s muffled voice called in. “Can you let me in? You‘ve locked me out…”
All at once cursing inn locks and their magical fields to keep a simple Alohamora from doing the job, Katie groaned and rolled off the bed. Fine. But she was still going to manage to sleep. No mangy Hufflepuff would keep that from her.
Chapter Two | Chapter Four