Corrie doth protest too much (contrariwise) wrote in feinted, @ 2012-02-19 23:39:00 |
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Entry tags: | chase-harper, corrie-pye |
Who: Corrie Pye and Chase Harper
What: Late for practice
Where: On the pitch
When: Sunday morning, partway into practice
Rating: PG-13 for language
Status: Complete
Shit shit shit shit shit was at the forefront of Corrie's mind as she dashed down stairs and through corridors, frantic and a hair's breadth away from breaking either her or someone else's neck. It was worth it if it got her to practice slightly less late than she was already.
She had never missed a Quidditch practice, not one, even before this year. Quidditch was life. You could use illness as an excuse to miss a class, but even if you were mostly dead, you were alive enough to get on a broom. It was unthinkable not to go. It was unthinkable to even be late.
But she'd been so tired. And despite excusing herself early the night before, she had laid awake for hours, listening to roommates come in, get ready for bed, and one by one, leave her alone in the land of the wakeful.
Lying awake while everything around you is calm and still can be excruciating. But she wasn't restless. That wasn't the problem at all. It seemed like the stony, emotionless void she'd forced herself into before the match had sunk deep into her. It had started as a safe haven from the feelings she'd been rocked by in the previous week, and particularly since the love potion fiasco ended, but even when the match was over, it wasn't. That was why she had left everyone and gone to bed so early. And that was why, instead of rising with her roommates, Corrie had found herself slipping out of bed in the wee hours of the morning, slipping her book bag over her shoulder and shoes on her feet, and making her way to an obscure corner of the castle to see if she could at least get some studying in, since sleep wasn't going to happen.
And that was why, in one of life's little ironies, Corrie then fell asleep huddled in a tatty oversize jumper with her cheek against the cold stone wall, as the half-light of dawn strengthened and spilled over textbooks scattered, open, at her feet.
She woke suddenly and quietly, from a dream in which she'd used girl power to defeat a chauvinistic vampire. There was no alarm, no sound that woke her, unless you counted the cheers of the crowd in her dream. She was simply asleep one moment, and awake the next, and the moment after that, swearing with all the force of feeling she hadn't been able to muster the night before.
She had to get to the locker room. She had to get to the pitch. There was no time even to grab her broom from her dorm, where she kept it, safe under strong locking charms. She would borrow a broom from the school for the first time since first year, and it could be a lesson to her in gratitude. It didn't matter what else happened or how many people she had to plow through, she had to get to her practice or her mum would kill her.
Of all people to miss practice, the very last person should have been Corrie Pye, if only because of her connections to the team through her mother. Her mother should have been the driving force to make absolutely certain that she not only went to practices, but got there on time. For fear of death. Or something equally as awful. Instead, what Chase Harper realized as the rest of the team arrived, warmed up, and started to follow orders was that Corrie clearly had no issues being late. Or missing practice at all.
"Nice of you to show up," he snarled as she eventually made her way onto the pitch, he noticed, with a broom that wasn't her usual choice. "Five laps before you join the others."
If Corrie had known what Chase was thinking, she would have thought he didn't understand. She thought it anyway, but for a slightly different reason.
She knew she wasn't blameless. She should've been on time, she should've warmed up, she should've eaten breakfast so she wouldn't be out of it, she should've woke up so she could've had time for all that, like she always did. She knew she'd wasted a good half hour of practice, judging from what the rest of the team was up to, and just because they wouldn't play again for two months didn't mean that any of them could afford to waste time. She couldn't afford to waste time. She didn't have enough of it to go throwing it around like daisy petals.
And she knew she was in bloody enormous trouble, and after practice, her mum would... something, she had no clue what since she'd never been in a spot like this before, but it wouldn't be pretty or pleasant.
But doing laps wasn't going to fix any of that. All it'd do was keep her from hitting the air a little longer. It was a waste of time, and she'd wasted enough of that already, and her mum was going to be hacked off enough without adding five laps to it.
“Sod that,” she said, giving him a full-on, undiluted incredulous look. Was he kidding? Had his year off playing completely scrambled his brain? “I need to get up there.” A quick head jerk indicated where she should be right now, in case Harper had somehow forgotten.
It was bad enough that she had spent so much time off of the pitch already, but any one else and the Coach would have been screaming already. Maybe it was her relationship to Coach McCormack, maybe it wasn’t. Whatever it was--Corrie was getting away with murder. And he didn’t like it.
“The standard protocol for punishments is five laps, Pye. Whether she’s your mother or not. Besides, they’ve already replaced you with Goldstein for the practice. That’s what you get for being late,” he snapped, pointing at the grounds. “Five laps.” There wasn’t much else he could do. Someone else, probably, would have taken the laps without complaint. But the fact that her mother was the Coach meant she could walk all over him. And he was tired. Tired of not being able to fly. Tired of people thinking that quidditch wasn’t important enough to occupy their every waking thought. If Pye wasn’t going to eat, sleep, and drink quidditch, maybe she shouldn’t have been picked for the team.
“If you don’t want to be here, then don’t. That’s how things work out. You’re all in or you’re out. You have to make up your goddamned mind.”
Corrie’s eyes widened, her body tensed away from him and involuntarily, her foot slid back a half-step. What did he just say?
What did he say? If she didn’t want to be here? Why wouldn’t she want to be here? This was where she was meant to be, where she always knew she’d be (in a metaphorical sense, since she had had some shameful, unvoiced doubt about whether she’d make it onto Hogwarts’ team). It wasn’t just wanting, she needed to be here.
No, it wasn’t even wanting. Where the hell else would she be? Where else could she be?
What did it even matter what she wanted?
Suddenly, Corrie flinched away from Chase as if he’d swung at her. Flinging the school broom onto the ground with greater disregard than she’d ever shown a broomstick in her life, she nearly threw herself at the well-worn path around the pitch, feet rising and falling quick and steady, mind racing even faster and more frantic than her body.
It was frustrating to have to punish anyone. He didn’t want to make her have to do laps. But it was protocol. If she got away with something because she wasn’t used to being in trouble because of her mother, and he had to punish someone else, they’d get away with murder because he let her off. Connections or no connections--things needed to be kept the same for everyone. Five laps.
As she threw the broom, he narrowed his eyes, calling it to his hand as he walked over to the stands and took his place by the Coach, his things scattered--notes scribbled on awkward pages, his equipment mixed in--just in case he needed it--ready to be available at a moments notice. He carefully set the broom down, crossing his arms as he waited for her to return.
Watching her run didn’t give him any joy, in being fair. He has no desire to see her do laps. But the fact that she’d been late, that practice wasn’t a big enough priority for her, just shot daggers of anger through him. He wondered if she took it for granted--obviously she had. Today. But all the time--had she made the team for talent or because of who her mother was? He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face.
“Next time, don’t throw your broom,” he quipped when she had to retrieve it to join back in on the practice. “Cover your usual spot, just tap in from Eli. We’ll let you know when to switch.”
The run had given Corrie ample time to think, but thinking hadn’t calmed her down. She was too distressed to recover after just five laps, and the run had only made her appearance more dishevelled and given her thoughts time to grow wild and trembling like a cornered animal. And like an animal, she lashed out as she snatched back the broom.
“You won’t tell me anything,” she spat at him. “You don’t have any authority here, you just run and fetch like a fucking house elf. I listen to her,” she said, stabbing a finger past him at her mother. Whether she’s your mum or not, did he think it was easy having her here? Did he think she was having a jolly fucking time of it, like this was some kind of fun-and-games picnic-lunch family reunion for her? Was he that stupid? Had he ever even listened to the woman while he was staring at her soppily?
“Oi!” barked Meaghan from behind Chase. “If you’re done castratin’ him like a godricdamned Harpy, they’re ready for you to show ‘em how the bloody Prides do things. Hit the air and use that anger where it belongs, and put that piece of shite broom through its paces!”
Corrie glared at her mother for a minuscule moment, as long as her fury dared, then turned a bolder and more scathing look at Chase before mounting the school broom (a piece of shite, but at least it wasn’t a Cleansweep) and joining the rest of the real team.