Chapter Text
Trini stifles a yawn behind her mouth as she steps onto the pitch. It was early enough in the morning that the sky was barely lit, and Trini shivers a little at the lack of the sun’s warmth. She closes her eyes for a moment, breathing in the smell of grass and the dewy morning air. She loves Hogwarts, but sometimes the Hufflepuff dorm was too… crowded wasn’t exactly the word for it, but it didn’t always feel right. She always found it ironic that even in a world full of witches, wizards, and magical creatures, she still somehow felt out of place. Taking another clearing breath, Trini mounts the broomstick and kicks off. She lazily circles the pitch, more focused on brooding and enjoying the sunrise than she is on actually flying.
She’s seventeen. In her last year at Hogwarts, and even though she was more or less a loner at school, she still thought of the castle as home, more so than the house her family lived in. While she is excited to be back, she still can’t quiet the anxiety she feels when she thinks about the future. Shaking her head, she leans down and picks up speed, starting to weave patterns around the goalposts. She’d always dreamed of flying as a kid; it was an escape, a chance to get away from the heavy expectations of her parents, the stares and comments from the other kids at school, the bullying, all of the confusing emotions that she always tried to bury. Flying was easier than thinking about the real world, and it was something that Trini always turned to when stressed.
She’s on her third or fourth lap when a sudden shout from across the pitch startles her. She turns to face it and instinctively veers to the left, her reflexes barely bringing her out of the path of a massive object hurtling past at a high speed. It screeches to a stop, using the momentum of the drift to rotate, and Trini realizes that the enormous projectile is in fact a boy on a broom, his black hair mussed in all different directions from his maneuver. He leans one elbow on his broom and raises his eyebrows at her.
“Sup.” She rolls her eyes and resumes her mindless flying patterns, but to her irritation, the boy seems intent on following her.
“That’s not very polite of you,” the boy comments, still lounging lazily on his broom. “You know, usually people say something along the lines of ‘hello’, or ‘hi’, or at the very least a ‘fuck off’.” Trini can’t help the slight twitch of her mouth, and she hopes that he doesn’t see.
Determined to shake him off, she suddenly makes a beeline for the nearest goalpost, spiraling downwards around it before making a break for the other end of the pitch. Her path is blocked once again by the sudden appearance of the boy, and she barely manages to stop in time, coming to a rest with her broom handle just a few feet away from his face.
Once she gets her bearings, she can’t help but be slightly impressed. The boy in her path is currently hanging from his broom by three limbs, his hand pushing hair out of his face, still wearing the same grin.
“I gotta say, you’re pretty damn good, Crazy Girl,” he laughs, before swinging back up into something resembling a standard flying position. “Although I’m just now realizing that I may have come off as a bit of a creep, and that totally wasn’t my intention. I’m just a naturally curious creature, I guess, and you seem like the avoiding type so I figured direct confrontation was my best bet.” He gives her an oddly non-flirtatious wink. “I’m Zack.”
She simply fixes him with a glare before flying to the entrance to the pitch, dismounting and disappearing out of sight. She hears him yell after her.
“Nice talk, Crazy Girl!”
The first week of classes isn’t amazing, but it isn’t terrible either. The coursework is about as difficult as it was last year, and the professors somehow manage to bring up the N.E.W.T. exams at the end of the year every five minutes. Thankfully, Trini is only taking a few classes at N.E.W.T. level, mainly because she has no idea what career she wants to pursue, or if she’s even going to use those qualifications.
The best part was being able to do magic again. Technically speaking, Trini is of age, so there’s nothing stopping her from doing magic outside of school. But things were already tense enough back home between her and her parents without bringing her “brujeria” into the mix. Plus, she didn’t want her little brothers to see and start telling their friends that their sister could make things float or bring toys to life, or something equally outrageous.
She blamed her failure to animate a tiny ceramic frog earlier on a lack of practice, but McGonagall had insisted that she figure the spell out before the next class, and Trini had too much respect for the incredibly intimidating and badass woman to dare disappoint her.
Other than that, things had been relatively uneventful. However, she hadn’t gone back to the Quidditch pitch since the day that Zack kid ambushed her. To her extreme chagrin, it turns out that they have Herbology together, as he had been frantically waving and trying to get her attention throughout almost the entire lesson (“Mr. Taylor, if you disturb so much as a single Mandrake, we will all potentially die, so I suggest you keep still.” “Sorry, Professor.”) It was only when Trini very purposefully pointed her hissing Venomous Tentacula in his direction that he backed off.
She sighs, frowning down at the textbook in front of her as if scrunching her eyebrows will make it easier to understand. She’s so accustomed to tuning out sound that she doesn’t realize that someone is trying to talk to her. It’s only when she feels a tap on her shoulder that she starts, looking up.
The boy immediately steps back, jerking his hands away. “I’m so sorry, I know I probably shouldn’t have touched you, that’s kind of rude, but I needed to get your attention. Although, I don’t blame you, I noticed what you were reading—I mean, not in a creepy way, of course! And I haven’t been standing here that long, I swear, it’s only been about twenty seconds or so—”
“Shhhh!” Trini glances around, the boy’s ranting and slightly uncontrolled volume drawing some stares. “Library, remember?”
“Oh! Right.” He bends down, almost comically (Trini curses her short height once more), and resumes speaking in a whisper. “Um, hi. My name’s Billy, Billy Cranston. I mean, technically it’s William, that’s what most of the professors call me, but I prefer when people call me Billy.”
“I know you,” she says. His eyebrows raise in surprise. “We have Potions together, right?”
“Yeah! Yeah, we do, but to be honest, I don’t um, really know you? I mean I do, like, we’ve had classes together, but I- I don’t know what your name is. Your full name, I mean.”
She regards him silently for a moment, deciding that he seems like a relatively harmless person. “Trini,” she says, sticking out her hand. He shakes it, somewhat awkwardly, and the conversation lapses into silence.
“So…” Trini starts, before Billy cuts her off.
“I- I meant to ask, is it alright if I sit there?”
“Sit where?”
“There. Here. Where you’re sitting, I mean.” She blinks. A worried look comes over his face.
“I’m not trying to cause trouble or anything, I swear, it’s just… um, it’s kind of my spot? Like, it doesn’t belong to me personally, of course, but y’know, I always sit there, and…” He trails off, eyes glancing to the side nervously as he fiddles with his blue tie.
To her own surprise, Trini gives him a small smile. “No problem.” She grabs her books, shifting to the next chair.
“Thanks,” Billy says as he takes her seat. He doesn’t say anything else after that, barely even looks up from his work, and Trini finds that it’s actually quite a comfortable silence. He only moves to wave goodbye to her as she leaves to head back to the Hufflepuff common room.
It’s only as she steps into the common room that she realizes she may have accidentally made a friend.
The days pass, and while everything seems to carry on as usual, Trini finds herself gravitating back to the same window-side table every time she visits the library. Billy is always there, giving her an innocent smile that warms her heart. They almost never speak to each other, and while Trini is used to being alone, she finds that being around another person isn’t all that bad.
That is, until she runs into Zack again.
Some sort of sixth sense alerts her to the rapid footsteps heading in her direction, and she quickly picks up speed, rounding the corner to the Grand Staircase as she hears his voice echo down the corridor.
She rushes onto a flight of stairs just as it starts floating away, giving a sigh of relief. She turns to watch Zack come charging around the corner, unable to stop from giving him a smirk and a little wave. His grin just grows wider as he picks up his pace. Her smug look quickly turns to one of shock and horror as, with a grunt, he launches himself after the departing stairs.
Her breath catches, and time seems to slow as the crazy kid soars through the air. He manages to make a wobbly landing, and Trini’s hand automatically launches out to fist in his robes and drag him away from the edge.
“Hah!” he pants, bending over to catch his breath. “Bet you thought I wouldn’t—ah!” Trini smacks the back of his head, launching into a tirade.
“The hell were you thinking?!” She demanded. “What if you hadn’t made that jump, huh? Jesus.” She places a hand over her racing heart for a second.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” he says with a shrug. “The castle would have caught me somehow, and then it’s just a quick visit to Madam Pomfrey and poof, good as new.”
She stares incredulously at him. “Okay, I don’t even want to know how you know that.” She steps off on the next landing, Zack matching her pace.
“I haven’t seen you on the pitch in a while.”
She glares at him, for the first time noticing the red and gold tie hanging haphazardly from his neck. Of course this crazy kid would be a Gryffindor, she thinks to herself, before taking a deep breath and stopping, turning to face him.
“What do you want from me?” she demands.
“Like I said, I’m a curious guy. I saw you flying around the pitch, and I gotta say, you’re actually pretty good.”
She interrupts. “If that’s all you wanted to say, are you gonna leave me alone now?”
He puts his hands in the air, chuckling. “Alright, alright. See you on the pitch, Crazy Girl,” he says as he walks away.
“I have a name,” she says, before the realization hits. “Wait, what? What do you mean?”
Evidently, that was exactly the wrong thing to say. Zack spins around, a satisfied look in his eyes. “I’ve taken a liking to the early morning hours. Starting to look like we might become flying buddies in the near future,” he says with a shit-eating grin. She knows that he’s taunting her, and her eyes narrow.
“Well, you’ll have to pick another time to practice, then, because the pitch is mine in the mornings.”
“Oh really?” He steps forward, and Trini does her best to look intimidating despite having to look up. Even then, she’s glaring more into his chin than his face. “What if I said I was on the Quidditch team, so I should get first dibs?”
“That only applies for booked pitch times. In the mornings, it’s free game,” she retorts.
“Then maybe you should defend your territory,” he challenges. A beat passes.
“Fine.”
“Seriously? Nice!” He pumps a fist in the air, somehow becoming more excited than before. “How are we gonna settle this?”
“You pick.” She pushes past him, ignoring his parting calls.
“We’re gonna have a great time, Crazy Girl!”
She tries to go about the rest of her day as normal, adamantly pushing down the slight anxiety in her stomach. It’s not like she actually cares about what that upstart Gryffindor thinks anyhow. Still, it lingers in the back of her mind, and she fidgets a lot more than usual.
As if that wasn’t enough strangeness for one day, something weird happens in Charms as well. They’re sitting waiting for Professor Flitwick to show up when a quick hush suddenly descends over the room, drawing Trini out of her ruminative thoughts.
She looked over where the others were gazing, her eyes landing on a vaguely familiar looking girl who had just walked in. With a start, she realized that it was none other than Kimberly Hart, top of the class in Transfiguration, Slytherin Quidditch player, and (Trini guessed) probably a total bitch. She reminds Trini of the haughty, little Miss Perfect type that used to bully her when she was younger. She notices that the other girl had cut her hair into a short bob, and even though her posture is relaxed as if to appear calm, Trini could see that she was noticeably trying not to acknowledge the stares and whispers as she walks to an open desk.
Whatever, she thinks, as she goes back to staring out the window. It’s not like I care about any of the drama that goes on anyways.
As they file out of the classroom, Trini finds herself roughly pushed to the side. She makes an indignant sound, and she hears a rushed voice say “Sorry,” before she sees Jason Scott chasing after Kimberly, who is already halfway down the hall. “Kim, wait up!” he calls after her, and Trini stops paying attention, focusing on getting back to the common room without getting trampled by some of the more gargantuan students who don’t seem to realize that people shorter than 5’8” exist.
She tosses and turns a bit that night, anticipation making it hard for her to fall asleep. I’m gonna kick Zack Taylor’s ass is the last thought in her mind before she drifts off.
She makes a point to be almost late to the pitch, just to annoy Zack and to make it seem like she doesn’t care all that much about their showdown.
“Lovely day, isn’t it?” Zack calls out when he sees her. She scoffs, hefting the broom in her hands.
“So, how do you want to settle this?”
“With this.” His grin practically splitting his face in half, he raises his clenched fist. Trini is relatively unimpressed at first, but she’s startled when she sees a tiny pair of wings spread from between his fingers.
“You stole a snitch?” she asks, disbelievingly.
He waggles his eyebrows at her. “Don’t underestimate me, Crazy Girl. Here’s the deal: if I win, we get to share the pitch, and you gotta actually try and be nice to be for a bit. Sound fair?”
She meets his eyes confidently. “Fine. But if I win,” she says, raising a finger, “you leave the pitch to me. For the rest of the year.”
“I can live with that,” he says. He opens his hand, and the snitch zooms off into the distance. They both mount their brooms, locking eyes.
“One…”
“Two…”
“Three!”
They launch into the air. Trini’s eyes flicker around the pitch, her mind racing. She’s never officially played Quidditch, never tried to catch the snitch before. She debates letting Zack find it for her, but discards the idea when she remembers that he’s on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and most likely a better flier than her. Instead, she flies higher, hoping the birds-eye view will help her spot the snitch first.
“You’re pretty good.” She whips her head to glare as Zack comes to hover next to her.
“Are you seriously trying to start a conversation with me now?”
“Well, I would go so far as to say that we’re on even ground right now, so to speak.” She rolls her eyes at that. “No, but actually, you’re a decent flyer. Why aren’t you on the Quidditch team.”
“Not my thing,” she responds absentmindedly, eyes straining as she scans the pitch. “Besides, I’m not all that good. I barely know how to play.”
“Well, no offense to your house, but the Hufflepuff team is starting to look kinda desperate.” He leans back defensively at the look she gives him. “Easy, I’m just being honest!”
“Why do you care?” she asks suspiciously. “Doesn’t a weak team make it easier for you?”
His nose scrunches, and he scoffs. “It’s no fun if it isn’t a challenge.”
She rolls her eyes with a sigh, turning back to her search. “Typical Gryffindor.”
“By the way…” and this time, she lets out an exasperated groan. Oddly enough, Zack’s face looks somewhat genuinely intrigued. “What’s your name?”
“Why do you want to know?
“Well, I can’t keep calling you Crazy Girl forever. I mean, unless you’re into that.” He wiggles his eyebrows.
In the peripherals of her vision, something flickers. Zack is too focused on teasing her to notice. She gives him a patronizing smile. “I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait to find out.” Without any warning, she suddenly dives, hearing Zack swear as he sets off a second after her.
As she picks up speed, the snitch gradually comes into focus. It zigzags across the field, and Trini tries to minimize her movement as she tracks it, trying to predict where it will be next. Zack isn’t in her field of vision, and she smirks to herself as she creeps closer and closer to her target.
It’s almost within arm’s reach, and Zack is still nowhere to be seen. Ignoring the mild concern in the back of her mind, she let’s go of the broom with one hand, ready to stretch out and grab the snitch—
A rush of air blows into her face, a blur of color flashes before her eyes, and she instinctively flinches, slowing down ever so slightly. Blinking the water out of her eyes, she’s looking for the snitch when a motion below her catches her attention.
To her fury, Zack had been flying below her the whole time, turning belly-up at the last second to snatch the snitch out of her grasp. He waves it in her face. “I win!” he yells over the wind.
Anger and frustration pulses through her, and her hands tighten to a white-knuckled grip around her broom. She dives down to ground level, hearing Zack’s startled “whoa” as he barrel-rolls out of the way, and promptly dismounts. She hurriedly stomps her way out of the pitch, ignoring Zack’s calls.
As she’s leaving, struggling to blink the tears out of her eyes, she almost bumps into two people heading the way she came from. Looking up, she sees Jason Scott and Kimberly Hart, both in Quidditch gear holding brooms. As if she wasn’t embarrassed enough, Jason’s face becomes slightly worried when he sees her.
“Hey, is everything—”
“I’m fine,” she answers brusquely, clearing her throat. “There’s some crazy guy out there with a stolen snitch. Just in case you were planning on making out, or whatever.” She can’t help the snide comment that slips out automatically.
She notices Kimberly draw in a breath, her eyes darkening dangerously. She opens her mouth, and Trini is so not in the mood for a snark-off with the HBIC, but Jason lays a hand on Kimberly’s arm, giving her a look. With a heavy sigh, Kimberly simply gives her a parting glare before marching off, Jason following after her.
Trini trudges back to the castle, her stomach still tense with shame and her mind buzzing with unwanted thoughts. She ignores her dorm mates’ sleepy greetings as she flings herself facedown on her bed, taking deep breaths as she fights the urge to cry. She decides to skip breakfast.