Edmund could've died a happy man there and then as Fauna connected with the bludger. He was ecstatic. So early in the game, and she was showing so much promise: the Lis and the Knights and the Strelnikovs of the world could go jeer in somebody else's direction. Edmund had a surge of optimism: this was going to be her game, and the sigh of Kitty plummeting down towards the pitch after a successful hit only made him more pleased. Hell, Fauna could be quite the player. It was a shame that it'd taken her so long to get into Quidditch - girl could've had a career lined up and everything. The miraculous discovery that was Fauna Blake made the Ravenclaw grin from ear-to-ear: not his usual, cocky smirk, but a warm smile, full of genuine relief and surprise.

And that miraculous feeling disappeared. That wondrous awe-inspiring start from Fauna Blake evaporated. Edmund's face fell. The Hufflepuff whacked straight into Callum Knight in a display that could only be described as hilariously clumsy - he'd spoken too soon. She really was far too accident-prone for the beautiful sport. Edmund placed a hand over his eyes, sighing slowly like a father who'd received of lacklustre grades from his child prodigy. He was too mortified to even scold the jeers and comments of nearby spectators. Trust Fauna to botch it up, but, at least she was trying.

Looking up to witness more of the scene, Edmund's day just got worse. A voice screamed out as Kitty Li scored, a profanity that Edmund could only associate with one of three people - it most certainly wasn't George Carter, and it didn't sound much like Quinn McAvoy, which left just one -

He caught Lou's eye and immediately froze. Taking another gulp of the contraband nerve settler, she initiated conversation, and all of his focus and energy upon Fauna was transferred into the heartache and frustration he'd endured since the break-up. Simply giving a brief smile at her pro-Gryffindor comment, Edmund was struggling for words to say without sounding like the desperate, lovesick teen that he was. What could he reply with? They weren't friends - they'd not even spoken. Why did she have to show up, with that perfect smile, and perfect hair and carefree nature? It was clear to Edmund that she'd moved on - why else would she be so blasé? Edmund's thoughts were faster than a Firebolt - had she met someone else? Did she even think about him anymore? The thought of another boy sharing knee-knocking kissing sessions and quiet whispers in broom cupboards made the Ravenclaw feel physically sick.

"Are you..." she murmured, looking a tad more concerned - yet Edmund was far too absorbed in his negative speculations to even believe Lou still cared for him. Glancing at the hip flask, he quickly stuffed it into a pocket. All he really wanted to do was down the whole bloody lot and slump into a sleep-induced oblivion. "What do you care?" he snapped. Edmund couldn't help it. His voice wasn't sharp, nor cutting, but more of a murmur one would hear from a scorned six year old. Fidgeting a little, he looked everywhere except into her face. That sort of pain would send him straight over the edge.

Her final comment fell on deaf ears, and Edmund gazed out onto the pitch. He wasn't even really watching the commotion, merely staring at the green, pristine lawns. It wasn't fair. None of it was fair.

Everything seemed to be happening in very quick succession, almost too fast for Pax to take in. And the fact that his head hurt from Erin Harper accidentally kicking him didn't particularly help matters. (He still had part of a boot-print on his forehead.) Not even Dax's commentary could quite encapsulate everything that was going down. Pax managed to cheer jubilantly when Hufflepuff bagged the first score, and groan just as enthusiastically at Slytherin's equalisation. Then-- smack went Fauna's bat, straight into Callum Knight's nose. Pax winced, and felt a lot less bad about his own dull headache. And Fauna was sent off, and Kitty Li had scored in the confusion, and-- wait, what had happened to Heliotrope? She had been right there-- Pax barely heard Mary Beth's yells over the tumult of the crowd, and only managed to realise what had happened when Heliotrope floated back into view, and he was just pushing his way over to her, when he heard the sickening crack of a bludger colliding with-- Pax whirled around to look despite himself-- and only just managed to get out of the way before Razzy Chancelier landed with a thud in the midst of the Hufflepuff stands. 'Razzy!'

Pax was agape. When Erin Harper zoomed back around, pulling Heliotrope the rest of the way to safety, Pax had two concerns on his mind. The first he addressed by reaching over to Heliotrope and grabbing her by the hand. He was not taking the chance that she would make her way back dangerously close to the edge of the pitch again. The second concern mostly threw him into full-fledged panic mode. Pax was a calm, rational boy in the face of a crisis, at least in theory. In practice, it was a different matter.

'Is Razzy going to be okay?' he yelped at the Slytherin Seeker. 'His arm shouldn't be bent like that! Is he conscious? Where's Tulo?' He looked around as if that would magically summon the school's healer. For the moment, it didn't make much odds to Pax that Figaro had a prime opportunity to try and catch the snitch while Harper was distracted, nor did he care for the moment that Hufflepuff were down yet another player, with no substitutes on hand. Well, okay, he was thinking of all that a little. But it paled drastically in comparison to how awkward an angle Razzy's arm was at.

Ormen strode into the spectator's stands sporting a faded grey hoodie, black jeans, white sneakers and an exasperated look; he was fairly new to this magical world and Quidditch was always on his mind as an interest. The weather greeted him with a warm touch on his skin as he looked out onto the field where witches and wizards on brooms flew at top speeds, racing around the court, dodging bludgers and calling at their team mates. Ormen carefully made his way through the Hufflepuff crowd, some of whom looked at him oddly, then appeared at the Slytherin stands. He pulled a flag from his hoodie pocket which was green and had the Slytherin house symbol imprinted on the front. He raised it into the air and waved it, cheering on his house team; Slytherin!

His eyes were fixated on a brown-haired boy from Slytherin's team, Xavier Tawse. He watched in awe as he raced toward a bludger and hit it with full force back toward a few Hufflepuff chasers. Ormen was now wearing a large grin; he loved anything to do with magic. Quidditch was so unique compared the sports he was used to... football, hockey, rugby... this beat them all by a long shot. He looked around and saw a different assortment of people, both Slytherin and Hufflepuff, cheering for their respective teams and chatting to their friends. Ormen looked back to the field and continued waving his flag in admiration of his team.

As he glanced back towards Xavier, he noticed one of the Hufflepuff members grab his stray broom and hover beside him and Demetria. Ormen gave the Hufflepuff an odd look; why was she giving the broom back to her opponent?

Between Heliotrope and Razzy, Mary Beth hadn't taken a breath in nearly two full minutes. When she finally did, it was choppy and unsatisfying. Her relief at Erin dropping Heliotrope back into the stands was short-lived. She had broken her own arms- and legs- several times, and knew firsthand how shite it felt. It made her feel a little better to see Pax nearby; for some reason, she felt like he'd be a good hand to have in the situation.

She hadn't broken a limb since being at school, however, and wasn't really sure how they handled them here. When she'd broken her arm badly in her ulna, it had set improperly (due to the fact that she denied having broken it in the first place, because then her parents would have found out that she was sneaking off again to attempt to ride their neighbors' ornery stallion) and they'd had to rebreak it. While she was fairly sure they would have better means of doing things here, she hoped to God they wouldn't have to do it for Razzy.

The forefront of her thoughts was very worried and frazzled, but in the back of her head she was trying to remember who the patron saint of broken bones was. Frodo? Grobo? It was something silly sounding.

Ormen kept intently watching the game, seeing people zooming past him on their brooms, the quaffle being thrown left and right, bludgers aiming for people and the fans out bursting with cheers and laughter. As he witnessed the match, he came to look to the left of the field and his eyes caught upon the large erected goal posts. He marveled at them for a second... then returned his attentions back to reality. He glanced around at his cheering fellow Slytherins and then turned his focus to the game once again. Then it occurred to him... he had forgotten his wand in the common room. Nearly face palming, he looked to where the direction of the staircase was and began to make way towards it. He had left his wand in the common room before and it had nearly been broken by a couple of rowdy 2nd years.

As he strode through the Hufflepuff stands he was forced to make a quick turn to the right as big, burly 3rd year walked in front of him. He side stepped and barley missed colliding with the student's stomach, but to much avail, bumped into another student; Mary Bet MacEvoy. He backed up a little bit so he wasn't standing directly beside her and shook his head,
"Er, excuse me. I didn't see you there.." he said, getting a little embarrassed at the situation.

Cross-posted from the game:

Some kid was yelling at him - well, strike that, a bunch of kids were yelling at him, completely incoherent over the roar of blood and adrenaline in Erin's ears - apparently Razzy had landed in first-year central. Erin spared the lot of them one bewildered, narrow-eyed look, feeling rather like a bull or some other ungainly animal in his bulky Quidditch leathers and Slytherin green surrounded by children like a half-dozen shouting bees. Then he gave the mental equivalent of a shrug and turned back to Razzy. Awkwardly, he patted his boyfriend on his fluffy, uninjured head.

"Hang in there, Razzy," he said. "Nagde'll get you fixed right up, no worries. I'll see you after the game."

His duty done, he gave Razzy's hair one last ginger, guilty pat, then leapt on his broom and shot out of the stands so fast his hair flattered against his face.

Mary Beth was kinda steamed that they hadn't given so much as a time-out for this latest crisis. It seemed like they'd given ages to Knight's injury. While it hardly seemed fair, she had to admit if they won in spite of it, it'd be that much more awesome. She looked around. How had she drifted so far from her seat? She had somehow been spirited a few rows down nearer to where Razzy had crashed, and she glanced up at her seat where she had abandoned her plaid shoulder bag and her spiralbound notebook.

For a second, she didn't know why she was upset about her stuff being left behind. She seriously doubted anyone would legitimately want to abscond with her stupid flannel bag or her glittery notebook. Then she remembered that she had written about ten drafts of what ended up being a very dorky and embarrassing letter to Alfie Vaillancourt and that said drafts were still spirally-bound in her glittery spiralbound notebook. "Bleedin' eejit," she smacked herself on the forehead and took a quick sidestep that was immediately foiled by some unexpected barrier.

"Mary mother of Jaysis!" she squeaked, a little startled. When she focused her attention on Ormen, she was relieved but still slightly frazzled. "You scared the shite outta me! And why're ya apologizin', can't you see it was half my bleedin' fault?"

She looked around for a second, then closed her eyes. "Sorry. Sorry. I'm just, um... tryin' to keep meself from lookin' like a total arse. ...About... something else. Not this. But... I'm sorry for runnin' into you. You're Ormen, right? From Slytherin?"

Ormen, recovering from bumping into her, looked up into her expecting some sort of rage to permit or some kind of slap across the face. He watched and awaited until she blurted out a couple words that Ormen had never heard ushered before. He stood there, one eyebrow raised looking a little frazzled. All of the sudden, she started going on and on about how it was half her fault then, closing her eyes, apologizing to him. Ormen was a little confused.

"Er-" he managed to get in before she began to talk again. He heard his name, then tuned into the conversation he was apparently having now. He nodded once she had finished. "Yeah, I'm Ormen Morne. Mhm, yeah, I'm in Slytherin" he said, sticking out his hand to shake hers. "I - Uh.. I don't know who you are, I don't think. You're... You're in Hufflepuff though, right? Maggie something..." he said, pondering what her name was.

Dahlia had become rather enthralled with the game. Despite herself she found that she was cheering her sister on and was following almost every move the older Hufflepuff was making, including being nearly knocked off her broom. Dahlia gasped and held her breath hoping her sister wouldn't fall. Thankfully someone from the opposing team (of all people) straightened her out and the game resumed from the break it had taken from Fauna's penalty and Knight's injury.

The stands soon exploded with activity. Heliotrope was being levitated back over the edge and Razzy had literally crashed into the stands, only to be followed by the Slytherin Seeker. Dahlia herself was rather shocked that Hooch hadn't called a time out for the Chaser's injuries and left him to the Healer to be taken care of. The only problem was, Madame Nadge was in the Professor's booth which was a fair distance away from the downed chaser, not to mention the absolute sea of first years that seemed to think it was their duty to rush in on the poor injured fifth year.

Dahlia had originally decided she was just going to ignore it. Afterall it wasn't like Razzy was her favourite person in the world. Actually, ever since Ayla's birthday party the aloof Hufflepuff had been rather nasty to both Collins girls. Though Dahlia supposed she couldn't really blame him, afterall she had hexed his cousins in front of him and then told him to take care of their petrified bodies.

With a sigh of resignation Dahlia gathered up her bag and pushed her way through the throng of first years. When she came to the older Hufflepuff's side she put her bag on the seat nearest her and rummaged through it. She pulled out two sticks that she had been hoping to use in an experiment later and placed them on either side of the older boy's arm. She then removed her wand muttered a spell that was barely audible over the crowd and a wrap of bandages snaked around his arm using the sticks as a splint, "I'm not even going to try and fix the bones myself, even I'm not that good but this should help." She wasn't expecting a thank you from him and so she simply gathered up her bag and pushed her way back to her seat hoping she hadn't missed anything interesting happening in the match.

She shrugged good-naturedly. "Close enough," she giggled. "Mary Beth. ...MacEvoy."

Mary Beth, for whatever reason, loved making friends with kids from Slytherin. There was such a negative stigma that went along with them that every time she was able to prove it wrong was a tiny victory. And so far, she had yet to be foiled in her diplomatic attempts. "What're you doin' in the Hufflepuff section?" she asked, though not unkindly. "If we were in my hometown you'd be drawn and quartered by now, comin' over here like that."

Pax had stopped flapping around Erin Harper (if for no other reason than the Slytherin Seeker had, understandably, left the stands to rejoin the game) and, following Dahlia's example, decided to try to stop panicking long enough to do something productive. So he had summoned the nerve to approach a small group of sixth-years, deployed his best 'small, imploring child' face, and asked a couple of the older students to help Razzy (carefully!) down to the hospital hut, while a third volunteered to run and get Tulojow in case she hadn't already realised she was needed. Pax offered to accompany them, but was told kindly that they had the matter in hand, and he could stay and maybe fill them in on what they missed in the game. (It didn't occur to Pax that his constant fussing sometimes did more harm than good when it came to handling minor crises.)

'Hey, Dahlia, nice first aid,' Pax told his classmate as he rejoined her and Charles. 'The sixth-years were commenting on the good job you did with the splint.' That weight temporarily off his mind, Pax peered back towards the pitch, trying to make out what had been happening while he had been reoccupied by Razzy's crash. 'Merlin. This game has been something else.' From what he could tell, Hufflepuff were still a player down. Figaro and the young Beater Pax didn't recognise seemed to be briefly conferring over something or other in midair. And Fauna was-- attempting to help out one of the Slytherin Beaters?!

Despite how disastrously this game was going for his house, Pax grinned widely. Hufflepuff wasn't about being the best, or about winning-- Merlin knew Hufflepuff wasn't about winning-- but they were about doing the right thing. 'Thatta girl, Fauna!' Pax cheered. 'Fair play! Huff-le-puff! Huff-le-puff! Huff-le-OH!' If Xavier Tawse wanted to get back on his broom, he'd need to do it quickly. That bludger was approaching him and Strelnikov at an alarming rate (as bludgers were wont to do).

"Oh, well I--" Ormen looked around. It had completely escaped his mind that he was standing in the Hufflepuff section, a few people had their eyes on him and Mary Beth. He ignored them and turned his attention back to her. "I was making my way out, but I guess I stumbled into these stands somehow... not completely sure." Ormen said, flushed. He took a moment to admire the essence of Mary; she was light, seemed fairly happy and quite friendly. Ormen wasn't one to make enemy's right away, and, unlike most Slytherins, didn't care if he made friends in separate houses or not. He was actually drawn towards the more devious folk that were fairly kind to him, seeing as he didn't have many friends to begin with.

"So.." Ormen started off a little awkwardly. "Where are you from?" he asked rather friendly.

She giggled. "You're a nervous little guy, aren'tcha?"

She indicated the (very few) empty seats in the yellow-and-black thronged stands and smiled. "Well, lucky for you, Hufflepuffs are a lot more friendly than some of the bastards that go to football matches back home. You're welcome to sit with us if you wanna! We won't bite, we promise!"

It was true. Of all the people she knew in her house, she had never seen one of them pick on a person based only on the house they belonged to. "Ballycanew," she replied. "It's a little nowhere town in Ireland. I usually just say County Wexford or people have no idea what the bollocks I'm even talkin' about. You?"

Ormen let out a soft chuckle. She was very friendly, and something about her really brought forth the willingness to talk to her. Ormen got comfortable in his seat, then listened to Mary.
"Never really heard of that place before. I can understand why some people may get confused." Ormen laughed. He peered back to the game, saw a bludger zoom past the stands, then turned to Mary once more. "I'm from Eastern London. It's fairly quaint compared to the majority of London and downtown, but it's nice." he replied smoothly. His bright blue eyes kept bouncing from his feet to the game in hopes of picking up something interesting to say.

He finally got an idea and smirked at Mary, "What's your favorite subject?" he asked. "It may be a kind of random question, but I'm interested in what kinds of magic people are into."

Her attempts were foiled, like an ill-planned move on the pitch. Fauna would have had better luck executing it. (And she did love Fauna dearly.)

She supposed she should have expected this. It was her doing, after all. But the sting of his words was hard to ignore, and no one could ever accuse Emmylou Carter of being meek and demure.

She glanced at him, and for the briefest moment, there was pain in her face as she watched him hide the pain in his. Then, she came to her lioness senses. The good, old Gryffindor anti-logic.

“You’re right. Enjoy your snog session with that flask,” she sot back. He’d tried to hide it, but she wasn’t going to let him think that he’d fooled her, or even come to a mutual agreement to pretend she hadn’t seen it. It was a cheap, low blow, and she wanted to kick herself for it as much as she wanted to congratulate herself. For all her insistence that they no longer got along, and that things were best this way, she had never meant to turn him into an enemy. But no boy liked being groped in a half-abandoned corridor and then asked to be friends in the ‘let’s-study-and-drink-non-alcoholic-beverages-while-we-play-the-word-puzzle-in-the-Prophet’ sort of way. It was... well, supremely cockteasy.

“Later, Klint.” Her voice suggested much later. Lou brushed past him, continuing toward the field.