Hogwarts Reimagined

Content warning: Depiction of an abused and neglected animal. Referenced transphobia, suggested unfair punishment and abuse of authority, implied past trauma.

Rhiannon’s school life improved following the troll incident. Someone – presumably Minerva McGonagall – intervened and had their pets returned, much to their relief. Rhiannon had struggled to sleep without the familiar presence of her cranky, rapidly growing cat and she’d grown accustomed to the peaceful night-time chirruping hum of Faye’s owl, who had at first been consigned to the Owlery at the start of term but soon been allowed permission to stay in the dormitories with the other pets – Faye had been upfront that the owl was accustomed to sleeping beside the bed, and apparently it was adamant about doing so.

One interaction in particular stuck out to Rhiannon following the encounter with the troll, and that was one with Professor Snape. The lank-haired professor was as bitter and bad-tempered as ever, but his usual jibes darkened in tone after their escape. They’d as good as slain a troll, perhaps they thought his class a waste of time – an unfair criticism, given Rhiannon, Hermione and even Neville’s studious tendencies, but much of what Snape had to say these days usually fell into that designation anyway.

During one particularly unpleasant lesson on a Wednesday afternoon, he as usual held up Rhiannon and Hermione as examples of poor potioncraft – they stuck too closely to the formula, showed no creativity or flair, their potions were grey to hear him describe it. One could argue that a teaching style like Snape’s didn’t exactly foster creativity or flair in his students and that a good grasp of theory could only be a good thing at such an early level – in fact, Faye did try to argue this at one point, to the immediate loss of house points for ‘cheek’. This behaviour was no different from usual, but as he leaned in to vanish Rhiannon’s potion his robe slipped, revealing an ugly blackened welt snaking up his neck from somewhere on his chest. As he extended his wand hand, Rhiannon’s eyes were drawn to similar bruised weals on his forearm. The professor must have noticed her staring, as he retracted his hand quickly, almost scattering potion ingredients across the table. “Clean up and get out,” he snapped roughly. And that was that. The memory would have been discarded entirely had Neville not reacted so strongly when Hermione described the welts after class, frantically flipping through pages of a Herbology textbook and waving distractedly to Rhiannon and Hermione, wordlessly imploring them – stop, wait, got it - to hold on until he found what he’d evidently remembered. He held his wand upside down and circled around a diagram in the Herbology textbook with the handle end of it. Hermione, Rhiannon and the others looked at Neville and then at eachother blankly. “Devil’s snare!” Neville repeated out loud, tapping the textbook diagram with his wand impatiently. “S-Snape,” he added, now drumming his wand against the top of the book in a distracting manner. The girls looked at it more closely, it was evidently important to Neville – wait. They’d been looking at the picture of the plant, not the effects Neville was trying to point out to them. “No wonder he was in a mood. He got on the wrong side of some of that,” Hermione murmured, a line forming between her eyebrows as she considered it. For some reason or other, Professor Snape had gotten on the wrong side of Devil’s Snare, and it had happened around Halloween.

With no real context for it other than a general sense it was important, Rhiannon shoved the realisation to the back of her mind and returned to her studies with a stubborn will. And so November slid seamlessly into December and the days grew steadily colder. Her participation in Quidditch matches was limited by detentions, but she had been granted a reprieve for the final match of the term. Sunday the 16^th of December approached rapidly, and Wood had ramped up practices to twice a week in preparation.

Rhiannon expected the tougher schedule to stress her, but if anything it kept her more focused, more reminded of her allies as the impending match against Slytherin drew nearer. Her glasses were swapped for specialised goggles and a low face-mask added to the team’s regular uniform, and finally Rhi relented and traded in her fingerless gloves for a full set lest she freeze her hands to the broom in training. The winter gear felt unpleasantly restrictive and Rhiannon struggled to stay focused with so much of her usual sensory input missing – a bout of pain and sudden deafness in practice had Rhiannon flying with ear-muffs on as well, and she felt unpleasantly cut off from the rest of the world.

Still, even the discomfort of gloves and earmuffs was nothing compared to the competitive rush of the wizarding sport, and the Gryffindor team felt a savage sort of glee at the prospect of a match against Slytherin. They’d been slated to face the Slytherins back in November but the match had been cancelled due to bad weather, so while they’d played eachother a few times before by now, Slytherin’s attitude since the awful first friendly had a few of the Gryffindors itching for payback.

So it was a tense air of competition that carried Rhiannon into the final week of the first term, and she felt unduly distracted from her academics as the game drew closer. Friday afternoon even Professor Binns gave up and sent them away early, and Professor Sinistra cancelled their Astronomy class. On the Saturday, Professor Sprout chased them out of the greenhouse with a broom and so most of the class spent an extra hour with the magical creatures that day, with very little actual study done. And so by the time Sunday came, the students were an unfortunate combination of apprehensive and well-rested; and the stands hummed as Rhiannon stood with her team-mates beneath them.

This time it was not Oliver Wood but a sixth-year girl named Lacey Oliver who gave the order to mount up, and this time Rhiannon’s first name was printed on the back of her jersey alongside her surname. Her Nimbus was painfully cold in her grip, present as a dull ache even through her gloves and Rhiannon reluctantly pulled her scarf up to cover her mouth, wincing at the unpleasantly sweaty sensation of her breath on her own face as she anchored the scarf under the nose of her goggles. Her earmuffs dulled the quidditch team’s apprehensive chatter and Oliver Wood’s anxious muttering as he paced beside a bench against the wall, and as in her first match she almost missed the starting horn as the gate up from the team room was lifted and the teams released. Unlike her first game, the team they faced wore green, and Rhiannon wasn’t entirely convinced that she imagined a sort of collecting nastiness about them – far unlike the good-natured rapport she had formed with Ravenclaw’s Seeker.

The differences became more marked as Rhiannon faced her opponent in the wait for the game to start in full. Whereas she and Sorcha Cho had been relatively evenly matched in size and experience, here Rhiannon was reminded uncomfortably that she was the youngest player in a century. The Slytherin Seeker opposite her was sixth or seventh – seventh, she remembered, catching sight of the name on his cloak as the teams circled eachother around the pitch in a display Rhiannon didn’t totally understand, half some kind of animalian sizing each other up, half for the crowd’s benefit. Terrence Higgs was wiry and far taller even on his broomstick than Rhiannon, and he grinned mockingly at Rhiannon as they passed eachother, making a crude gesture to his crotch. Somewhere to her right, Rhi caught the tail end of a growled curse – presumably a Weasley twin had caught sight of that, and Rhiannon’s discomfort eased – her team had her back. Waiting for the whistle, she studied the rest of the Slytherin team. One of the Chasers, Adrianne Pucey, had dyed her long hair lime green since Rhiannon saw her last, and she too favoured Rhi with a taunting grin when she caught the younger girl staring.

Rhiannon was saved any further embarrassment by a shrill whistle blast, and she shot backwards on instinct to avoid the Bludgers as they rocketed skyward, then taking up her usual position high above the game to scan for the Snitch. The grey weather made that difficult, the heavy sensation of an impending snowfall pressing on Rhiannon’s already limited senses. Several times in her scans she caught sight of the Snitch for a scant moment, only to lose it again. Thanks to her earmuffs any comment from the spectators was muffled, but she knew the Weasley twins’ friend Lee Jordan was commentating – if anything went wrong, at least she’d not be kicked while she was down.

Initially the game went fine, with Rhiannon even assisting in a few Quaffle passes to score. Gryffindor were about sixty points up, so when Rhiannon spotted the Snitch she dove for it. Immediately the Slytherin seeker was on her. Her superior broom kept her clear of him and she closed on it, the game would be over, she could go inside to the warm fire and – WHAM.
Fuck.

Rhiannon’s earmuffs were knocked askew and her goggles rammed into her face as she collided with someone’s green-clad shoulder, and the roar of the enraged crowd reached rose in her ears. She reeled back, knocking into Terrence before she got clear, desperately trying to assess the situation – she’d crashed directly into the Slytherin captain, Marcus Flint. No, not crashed, she guessed from his malicious smirk – he’d blocked her. Someone was yelling – that she could definitely hear, now that her ears were no longer sealed. “After that open and disgusting FOUL -” she caught briefly, apparently the commentator was raging, and a crookedly amused smile touched Rhi’s lips. It was nice to know someone was on her side.

With a resentful glare at the Slytherins Rhiannon rearranged her earmuffs and climbed back into the sky from where she had drawn dangerously low over the stands. She glanced down as she did and waved to her friends as she passed over their heads, a sloppy hand signal in that for Neville – fine. Rhi was warmed by their silent-to-her cheers, and she laughed out loud at Faye and Ron’s messily-printed banner. They’d spelled her name wrong, but since the first game she’d lost a lot of her single-minded focus and their support kept her calm instead. A shuffle of movement indicated the Slytherin chaser who’d fouled her being reprimanded, and Gryffindor were awarded a free shot at the goal hoops as penalty. She guessed Marcus would be sent to the bench if he fouled another player, he’d been carded a few times similarly in past matches, and his substitute Jessamy Gladden was significantly fairer to play against.

Rhiannon was diverted from her musing by a mutinous wobble from the broomstick beneath her and she slowed to inspect it more closely. Something about her connection to it felt off, stilted, as if it was blocked somehow. The broomstick steadied, but Rhiannon’s nerves rose – it didn’t feel steady steady, it felt dead and trapped. Her awareness of the game started to drop as her anxiety grew, and she barely managed to drag her resisting broom through a roll to avoid a Bludger. Something was very, very wrong – had it been damaged in the collision? Rhi descended slowly, she felt tense and unsafe and she wanted to get out of the sky.

But luck wasn’t with Rhi this time, and her broom lurched dizzyingly when they were about ten metres above the top of the viewing stands. She didn’t have a sensation to compare it to, but it felt as if a very strong hand had gripped it and was attempting to bodily shake her free. Another hitch in its’ rhythm and the broomstick bucked again, throwing Rhiannon forward to hug it desperately, the harness pressing into her chest uncomfortably as she rapidly lost altitude. Now the broomstick was pitching and see-sawing wildly, with no discernible pattern to the movements and Rhiannon lost track of the game around her, desperate to remain mounted. Another buck had her face collide with the handle, knocking her earmuffs free and as they tumbled to the ground she groaned and covered her ears against the onrush of biting cold wind and the horrified babble of the crowd,

That instinctive motion was her undoing. Another buck of the broomstick knocked Rhiannon clear off and she hung, suspended from her harness, clutching at the thrashing Nimbus with one hand as she desperately cast around her for something, anything, to save the situation. The Nimbus’ downward drift had ceased, leaving Rhiannon some ten feet above the ground, staring around into the stands. The broomstick lurched in her grip and she curled in on herself, still hanging from one hand. The crowd was quiet, hundreds of gaping faces turned to her – but not all. A cluster of tangled activity caught her eye up in one of the stand towers. She couldn’t make out individual figures, only a blur of black dotted with red, green, blue and gold, and the hazy ovals of staring faces that smudged and blended together in the flat snow-day light. Blinding pain flashed through the scar on her forehead and she choked on blood in her mouth, fighting the urge to go limp, to give up.

She was Rhiannon Hestia Potter. She wasn’t giving up for a damn bucking broomstick and a headache. Grimly, she uncurled herself, taking some of her weight off of the harness and glaring at the now deceitfully still broomstick that she hung from. Rhi spat, grimacing at the copper taste, and threw up her other hand to grasp the broomstick. Stubbornly she pulled herself back on and gazed around her at the bleak-coloured blur of the pitch. The crowd was restless and quiet, even commentator Lee Jordan had fallen silent. Acting on muscle memory she fished her goggles out of her tangled scarf and with one hand still firmly on the handle of the untrustworthy broomstick Rhi returned them to her face. Immediately the blur solidified into focus and she shook her head to clear it. Another glance into the stands set her scar pulsing and she grimaced, wiping her mouth with her sleeve as bile rose in her throat. She cast around for her friends and the banner, looking to ground herself – no luck. It stood in the corner of a tower box abandoned, Ron and Faye nowhere to be seen.

Nothing to be done. Rhi set her jaw and shook her head, knocking the heel of her palm against her temple a couple of times. Grimly she nodded to the silent commentator, and the young man grinned and pumped his fist. “YES! Gryffindor seeker Rhiannon Potter is back in the air following what looked to be a nasty spot of broom-hexing – ref, you checking that? Nobody? Gryffindor is down sixty to ninety, but with their Seeker back in the game they have a shot! Let’s hear it for first-year seeker Rhiannon Potter, the Girl Who Lived!” Lee hollered, encouraging the crowd to cheer their support as slowly Rhi climbed back into the sky, her cheeks flushed and ears burning in the bitter cold.

The wind picked up and Rhiannon squinted, straining for a glimpse of the Snitch through the cluster of players below. Nothing, nothing – there. A brief glimmer of gold in the gray flat light, high over the game. Her opponent Terrence had already spotted it and with only a moment’s hesitation she flattened herself to the reticent broomstick and urged it forward, wincing at the chill bite of the wind in her ears as she closed on the Snitch. By now familiar with the curtain that encroached on her vision as she drew nearer, Rhiannon ignored the claustrophobic sensation and gritted her teeth as she jostled against the opposing Seeker. He might have uttered something mocking, she didn’t notice – steadily she drew ahead, their brooms closer matched than she usually had to worry about. She missed and swore, fumbling for it, lurching forward and casting around for it and – whoomp. Something smacked her directly in the open mouth. It was reflex to snap her mouth closed and she spluttered at the sensation as her teeth met metal. Bad feel bad feel bad feel! She thought, coughing and choking and clawing at her mouth with one hand trying to fish the thrashing thing out. Rhiannon spat the offending thing into her palm and held it up, wings now a little bent. The Golden Snitch.

Its’ bent wings fluttering limply in her grasp, Rhiannon held the Snitch aloft and pulled up, away from the other Seeker, a broad grin spreading across her face even as the wind picked up and tore at her robes. Dimly she took in the crowd’s surprise, then hunched forward and clapped her hands over her ears as the cheers began. Previously the spectators had been muted, shocked following her fall – no more. As Rhiannon descended to the pitch below, she caught sight of her friends, hollering elatedly. Lee Jordan’s narration was lost in the cheering mass, and as soon as Rhiannon’s booted feet touched down on the soggy pitch she was mobbed by her team-mates. Led by an overjoyed Oliver Wood they surrounded her, Oliver opened his arms wide to gesture around them. “Look at that! Youngest player in a century, and we’re first in the running at the end of the first term, one-ten to ninety! Well done kid, well done – we lost points while you were out of commission there but you recovered, never been so proud,” he congratulated her, grinning broadly. Numbly Rhiannon shook her head and dashed water from her face as she detached herself from her Nimbus, she thought her cheeks would split from smiling and she spun in place and flapped delightedly for a moment, letting out an elated shriek before she recomposed herself, sheepishly straightening out her robes. Someone ruffled her hair from behind and she reflexively swatted out with her broomstick, to a resulting groan and a round of laughter.

Wood’s face sobered, and he held out a hand. “Hooch told me to get that off you, it’s clearly been hexed. While it was probably an in-the-moment thing, it could still have lasting effects and it was a damn near thing you didn’t get hurt as it is.” Rhiannon realised belatedly that the captain meant her broomstick. It was a wrench to hand it over but he was right – something had gone seriously wrong in the air today. It had only thrown off her game, but it could well have been more serious – and following her encounter with the troll on Halloween, Rhiannon had a fairly good grasp of how serious magical mishaps could get.
So begrudgingly the broomstick was handed over, and Rhiannon left to celebrate and drift back to the castle with the rest of Gryffindor house as her friends joined her from the stands.
___________________________________________________________________

Following the most exciting Quidditch game of the term, Rhiannon and her friends stayed up late into the night talking about it, all cosy on couches and beanbags around the central common room fire. Unbeknownst to Rhi at the time, Hermione had spotted Professor Snape acting suspiciously – for a hex like the one that had been placed on her broom, sustained eye-contact and continuous incantation was required, and Hermione thought it looked as if he’d been doing that. She had conveyed that to Ron and Faye, who had gone to distract him – that was when Rhiannon had seen their cast-aside banner. Whether Snape had been the culprit or not, the kerfuffle her friends instigated had been enough to break the focus and Rhiannon had been able to continue and then complete the game.

Neville shyly pointed out that it looked like the hex on her broom was being interfered with, and that sparked its’ own avenue of distraction – the theory certainly would explain why the broom hadn’t simply thrown Rhiannon outright. But eventually even this train of thought was exhausted and the Gryffindors fell to recounting the exciting moments of the match. Rhiannon’s disgusted description of the feeling of catching a filthy, freezing, gold-plated ball in her mouth drew a round of laughter even from the older students. Eventually the rest of their housemates drifted away, and Rhiannon’s eyes grew heavy as she flipped through the history text she was reading. Hermione settled against the arm of the couch and Rhiannon gradually shifted so that she rested her head sideways on her taller friend’s shoulder to read. More gradually still, the group of first-years fell asleep as the fire grew low and the late night drifted into very early morning, and an air of contentment settled over them like a weighted blanket.