- Chapter Sixteen -
"Oh, sweet suffering Jehovah."

SWEATY. BOTHERED. PISSED. The arctic winds and polar breezes of that evening's climate did nothing for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team who had just finished a lengthy three hour practice. A starless sky above them coated the earth in a moody blanket of dark ink, making it harder for the team to see where they were throwing the Quaffles and Bludgers so a couple of them ended up with a Quaffle to the shoulder when they had managed to block it before it hit their faces. They were surely all sweltered and exhausted from the long time they had spent up in the air on their brooms and it made for a very tense yet atmosphere when they all gathered on the ground when Louis had called a cease.

Faint shadows of blue crowded around Sherry as she stood at the front of the group, her ponytail a mess and her cheeks flushed a bright colour of pink. Louis' silhouette stood in front of them all, his features barely noticeable due to the dark shadows of the night closing around him. Sherry wrinkled her nose at the amount of sweat that was reeking off of the team as a whole, people were huffing heavily and fanning themselves with their hands from having been flying around for three hours. A stomach rumbled from next to the girl and she turned to face the culprit; Oliver was rubbing his stomach uncomfortably and grimacing at the small gurgle.

"Great work today guys." Louis said, stepping into the silence like a gunshot in the middle of a meadow. The group all flinched, surprised at the sudden voice but all quickly realised it was just Louis talking to them through the restricted vision they all had.

Embarrassingly, another stomach rumble rang out and although everyone turned to face Oliver in accusation, it had been Sherry's stomach that had cried out for food but she didn't bother correcting anyone. Oliver didn't think to deny it anyway.

"We should all shower and get to dinner." The Captain said and was met with no complaints from the rest of the team as they all eagerly set out for the Ravenclaw changing rooms where they could wash off the stench and let their muscles relax with the water travelling down their backs.

No one uttered a word as they walked  into the changing room, all setting off to the different places where they had put their bags. Sherry and Amber's bags were placed next to one another and they shared nothing more of an eyebrow raise before making their way to the girl's bathrooms installed in the changing rooms.

The mirror was the first thing Sherry paid attention to when she entered, Amber going straight towards the third shower since the other two were already running so Georgia and Michelle must've been in there. Sherry stared at her reflection, it's recently dyed hair tied back into what was originally a neat ponytail but was now windswept and messy. She took the hair tie out and let the ends of her hair tickle her Quidditch Uniform as she moved away from the mirror and over to one of the small cupboards that  people could put their clothes and shit in.

She shed off her blue Quidditch robe and her underclothes before hastily grabbing a towel and wrapping it around her as she made her way to the next available shower.

The warm water did wonders for the problems that the long training session had conflicted on her muscles and the goosebumps that had arrived from undressing were soon quelled with the heat of the shower. She didn't want to stay in too long as dinner was about to start and she was unbelievably hungry so all she put on was body wash and face wash from the dispensers to her left, not bothering with her hair routine until after dinner.

Amber was running a brush through her hair in front of the mirror when Sherry stepped out in her towel, albeit self-consciously, and moved quietly over to the cupboard where she had stored her clothes to wear after practice which consisted of a yellow long-sleeve top and another checked mini-skirt. One of the empty showers which would have been dry from no one being in there welcomed her as she went in for privacy when getting changed.

"Sher, you ready?" Amber called from outside when Sherry was pulling her last boot up her leg, she had used a quick Transfiguration spell she learnt in Ilvermorny to dry her hair quickly, the curls bouncing as she exited the dry shower with a towel in her hand.

"Not quite." She mumbled as she shoved the towel into the laundry basket by the showers and moved to the cupboard, taking out a makeup bag and moving back to the mirrors.

"Makeup? Seriously?" The two girls met eyes through the mirror, Amber was shaking her head at her as she got out some eyeliner, mascara, lip gloss and an eyeshadow pallet with a brush.

"Yes, seriously." Sherry said indignantly, gathering some neutral eyeshadow on the brush and bringing it up to her eye in the mirror. She closed one and glanced at Amber from the other. "It's only the small essentials."

"Lip gloss is essential?" Amber asked with an incredulous breath of laughter, Sherry ignored her and continued with the quick eyeshadow. "And eyeshadow? Really?"

"Takes the attention away from my skin." Sherry moved onto her other eye, happy with the first one. "I haven't put any foundation or concealer on, or primer, so I need it."

Amber didn't dignify her sentence with a response and just leant against the wall, waiting as her friend finished her makeup in the mirror. When she had eventually finished, she started touching up her hair and adjusting it slightly.

"Guys, where are you? I'm fucking hungry!" Oliver's voice rang out from the other side of the door, telling them that he was waiting for them to come back out to the main Changing Rooms.

"One minute!" Sherry yelled back, brushing her hair with her fingers slightly before moving over to the cupboard and grabbing the pile of her Quidditch Uniform and dumping it in the laundry basket once more. ""Let's go, Ams."

Amber smiled and exited the bathrooms, Sherry right behind her as they came face to face with a now just as casually dressed as each other. Sherry walked over to her bag and stuffed her smaller make-up bag in there before picking it up and swinging it around her shoulders. Oliver ushered them all out quickly when he saw that they were ready, as impatient as ever and still hungry.

"I'd say that we have a pretty good chance of beating Slytherin, you know?" Louis brought up as they began their walk back up to the castle, the large structure was looming ahead of them liked a threatening beast.

"Well, the match is only next week." Amber brought up, grimacing slightly a the closeness of the first match of the Quidditch season. "I heard the Slytherin Seeker's really good though." She mentioned in a small whisper.

"How good?" Louis asked immediately, his eyebrows furrowing together in worry. "Better than me? Or almost as good as me?"

Amber only shrugged and Louis suddenly looked as though he was going through emotional turmoil as he huffed and looked at the ground when they approached the Entrance Hall of the castle, the Changing Rooms had been empty when they left so they supposed that Georgia, Michelle and Jacob had already gone up to dinner which had started about 5 minutes ago.

"You've done it now, Amber." Sherry sighed, looking at Louis' distressed face whilst trying to keep up with Oliver's large strides. "You know what this means, don't you?"

"No?" Amber looked over at her inquisitively, they were near the Great Hall and they could see Oliver practically drooling over the smell of chicken and gravy. "What does it mean?"

"Extra training." Sherry patted her on the back and followed Oliver's eager steps into the Great Hall where the four tables were filled with students digging into their meals. Amber whined slightly at Sherry's answer before speeding up to walk beside her, Louis behind them but still looking distressed.

Oliver found them a place big enough to fit the four of them but unfortunately, they were sat right behind Potter and his friends, Sherry rolled her eyes but sat with her back to them nonetheless. The first thing she did was pour herself a drink as Oliver loaded his plate with food, Sherry looking at the options in front of her. She saw her free friends immediately dive for a certain thing that looked like a popover, she grinned at the sight of her favourite side dish.

"Pass me a popover." She requested Oliver, pointing towards the large plate that was closest to him and furthest away from her. Al three of her friends snapped  their heads up to look at her and stared at her like she had just said something outrageous. "What?"

"What did you just call these?" Oliver asked, stabbing a popover with his fork and holding it up.

"A popover?" Sherry said unsurely. "That's what is it, a popover."

"Popover." Oliver scoffed angrily, still holding it on his fork as she stared at him cluelessly. "This is a Yorkshire Pudding, not a popover."

"What the fuck is a Yorkshire Pudding?" Sherry asked and all three of them gasped, Louis finally out of his state as they all stared at her in disgust.

"What is a Yorkshire Pudding?" Amber repeated, outraged as she tilted her head at Sherry and clenched her jaw. "What is a Yorkshire Pudding?"

"I think you guys forget that I'm not from here, or Yorkshire, wherever." Sherry raised  her hands in defence, shaking her head at their angry stares and settling on putting chicken on her plate instead of a Yorkshire Pudding. "It looked like a popover so that's what I called it."

"All right." Oliver narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously, glaring slightly as he starting to cut the side dish instead of just hold it on his fork.

Sherry opened her mouth to say something but just as she did, something hit her on the back of the head. Her hand touched her hair before she turned to see what it was, but instead saw the so-called Marauders snickering, Potter the main culprit. He turned his head towards her ever so slightly and snickered once more, Remus shaking his head at him as he took a bite of his own Yorkshire Pudding.

"If that's how he wants to play..." Sherry mumbled to herself, turning back around and scanning the table before spotting a small bowl of peas near a second-year. "Excuse me, can I borrow those? Thanks."

She didn't wait for a response from the young boy and turned around in her seat anyway, grabbing the back of Potter's shirt collar and quickly pulling it back as much as she could for a minute as she poured the cold peas down the back of his shirt. The boy yelped as the small spheres went down his back and he jumped out of his seat, gasping and trying to grapple at his back before realising they were in his shirt whilst Remus shrugged as if to say 'you started it'. They toppled out of the end of his t-shirt but a couple of them were squashed, meaning they had squashed on his back.

Sherry snickered herself and turned back around, putting the empty bowl of peas back down and going to eat her chicken when she felt something hard on her head. Oliver, opposite her, let his mouth fall open at the sight in front of them. Sherry felt some of the pressure release and raised her hand up to her head to feel the handful of chicken Potter had squashed onto her head.

A small, bitter laugh came out of her and she grabbed one of Louis's Yorkshire Puddings off of his  plate, ignoring his whine. She stood from the bench, turning to see Potter stood there and with one movement of the wrist, the gravy-filled Yorkshire Pudding was sliding down his t-shirt, the gravy staining already. Surrounding students gasped at the sight of it, gasping again as Potter grabbed a spoon and flung a spoonful of cooked carrots at Sherry.

She responded by grabbing a square of butter which came with the bread rolls and smearing it down his chest long with the gravy before wiping her hands on his face to dry it of the butter that had gotten stuck. Potter chucked a single green bean at her and Sherry turned to get something else, finding a pot of refried beans but as she turned around to throw it at him, a cold liquid had already been thrown at her face.

"Holy shit, she's gonna go mental." Amber gasped, turning to grip Oliver's hand across the table before she started muttering something under her breath. "God, if you're there..."

Sherry ignored her and turned to grab her own drink, throwing it back at him and catching a small glimpse of Remus covering his face with his hands tiredly. They were sure they had nearly the whole schools attention on them now, Potter moved along his table to grab something else from the poor lower years who just wanted their dinner and Sherry did the same. He had found a lasagne but she had found a chicken pie and they both turned at the same time, but she got there first, smashing the pastry into his face as the filling spilled out onto the rest of him.

Potter didn't respond after that and just let the filling drip from him, the hall deadly silent apart from the sound of McGonagall's shoes clopping against the stone as she descended from the staff table and went to make her way over to them quickly, her face contorted into apprehension as she approached, having spent too much time supervising a detention with the both of them.

Then Potter replied to her pie with a face full of lasagne. It was silent again.

"Oh, sweet suffering Jehovah." Remus Lupin's voice rang out across the hall.

McGonagall had nearly reached the pair but not before they had engaged in their battle again, flinging food at each other harshly and yelling at each other but nothing could be heard of her the talks of the surrounding students who tried to escape the line of fire. McGonagall tried shouting at them to stop but neither paid attention and continued to attack each other with messy food and swear loudly.

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A/N: Remus struggling whether to be on James's side because he's his best friend or on Sherry's side because she lives with him (cough cough, future sister figure, cough cough) is my favourite thing ever.