unforth | Hogwarts, and a Litany of the Things on My Mind

First of all,

closetgnome, there's an icon just for you at this link. Seriously.

Anyway, there's a lot on my mind, and I thought maybe I'd ramble a bit. This is really long and rather unfocused, but if any one is bored, go for it. Though I will declare openly that there is a single tragedy: no more Halloween Pudding Mochicreams!! It's the very worst of news!!

Edit: Well, I'd written a REALLY long rant, but I'm feeling better enough now that I decided to excise it, since it has just enough of teh drama to make me feel like I'm whining stupidly in my LJ. So now it's in a private post. How was everyones day? Mine was better after I got all that random crap off my chest. ;)

Marcus sat with me quietly the whole time. Once Ubelwalt had left, his good humor seemed restored, and he was all supportive smiles, holding my hand very pleasantly, and I was glad to be able to think of something other than how much every little movement hurt and I much I wished that I might never see another broomstick again. All too soon, though, Reginald and I both were hustled from our pallets and out onto the pitch for the resuming of the match.
The crowd greeted the beginning of the second part of the match with considerably less enthusiasm than they had greeted the first. There was little cheering, and though I couldn’t make out facial expressions, there was a very pervasive sense of oppression. The exception to this was the area to my left down the pitch, in which rows sat the small but now incredibly vocal contingent of Durmstrang supporters. For their part, they cheered very loudly indeed, and the more underhanded the action of the Durmstrang players, the more the whooped with glee.
I had been giving some thought to how to counter their usual strategy in regards to myself – which is to say, hitting me with the bludger until I couldn’t respond, faking me out with two chasers so that I couldn’t be sure which hoop they were aiming for – and had come with a solution that aughta work at least once. I was still very hard on myself for allowing the score to go so very high against us, though Marcus had been quick to point out that it was very good keeping indeed that had held the score to 120 against in the entire four hours over which we had played. Now, I saw the approach of all the parties, the two chasers, the beater, the quaffle, the bludger, and prepared myself. As Mathilde went to score – and Ubelwalt, for all his apologetic looks, beat at the bludger as hard as ever – I ignored the incoming bludger, swooped, caught the quaffle – ignoring the already beginning cheers of the Durmstrang fans – and whipped about, using the quaffle to deflect the bludger that had been about to score a solid hit. Deletrious intercepted the bludger at once and it hit Mathilde hard, bringing a grunt, as I through the quaffle to Aya, far down the pitch. The Durmstrangs were so completely caught off guard that she scored easily.
Meanwhile, though, the beater Baer took the opportunity to send a bludger towards Sereminia. Deletrious, just after his previous hit, looked furious, and with a wordless cry he placed himself directly between the bludger and its target, striking the bludger with so much force that his wooden bat quite shattered. The bludger reversed its course and struck Baer with such force that I believe it broke his shoulder in some fashion, and he was forced to seek a medic. The bludger turned right back round after this and went directly for Deletrious, who then proceeded to catch it with his bare hand! To this day I’ve still never seen the like, and the whole crowd looked utterly stunned, such that Baer’s exclamation – his cries of pain silenced – seemed to echo as he whispered, “mein gott!”
Deletrious wound up to throw the bludger – it was emitting purple bursts of magic, struggling to be free – when suddenly a crack filled the stadium and Deletrious swooned. Ubelwalt had hit him, quite solidly, in the back of the head with his bat. “Mine…does not break,” he said proudly, brandishing it, as Deletrious turned on him. “I think…perhaps you should throw that,” he indicated the bludger, “not at my…friend. I am maybe not so strong as you, but certainly I am more strong than Baer. Also,” he added, noting how Deletrious’ broom now wavered as its master tried to regain his senses, “I fly much better than you.”
The brawl between the two – and its proximity to the hoops I was Keeping – quite distracted me from events elsewhere on the pitch. Fortunately, the quaffle came no where near for a few minutes. A moan went up from the fans, but then a cheer – I gathered, watching around, that Lars had once again failed to gather the snitch. However, this cheer was followed immediately by a shriek from the antiquated snitch, a loud cry of “Interference!!” as it went zooming off towards the school. I could only wonder at what might have happened, though Maya and Aya – I could see – shared guilty looks, and the student body, the next day, was given to think that the vast increase in the number of points awarded to Gryffindor house was surely related. At the moment, though, all that could be heard were loud thumps from the direction the snitch had gone as we all paused awaiting its return. This came soon enough, as the snitch announce, “Penalty assessed!” and play resumed.