1 Mar 2021, 17:40
The Worst Kind of Déjà Vu
Night after second round of duels
Rose's eyes slid open slightly, and she lifted her head just a little. Blinking against the darkness around her, Rose tried to survey her surroundings, still feeling a little strange and not seeing straight. Groggy. Maybe that was the right word, however similar it seemed to froggy. She was in a bed in the Hospital Wing. It seemed serene and calm all around her, and she could see other students in the Hospital Wing, more than there usually were. She couldn't remember what had gotten her here. Why was she here?
If you've ever been in the ocean and had a ginormous wave crash over you, knocking you over, only to have more waves follow milliseconds after as you're trying to get up, knocking you over, filling your mouth and stinging your eyes with saltwater, making you wish you hadn't made the decision to come out this far... that's how it felt in the moment after that. It all came crashing towards her.
Phaedra and Cade on the other side of the platform, hurling spells at Rose and Eyre that they didn't dodge. They hadn't dodged. God, it had seemed like the duel had ended in less than two minutes, which had to be a record somewhere. Eyre in flames. Eyre with the Curse of the Bogies. Both of them giving up inside. Only five rounds of spells, and they were unconscious. The bored and happy looks of the Ravenclaws on the other side, winning oh-so easily. Rose and Eyre had tried their absolute best, but they had barely put up a fight. They hadn't stood a chance.
Why had she even signed up for dueling in the first place? She was so horrible at it. Both of her duels, she had lost miserably to the other side. What did she not have that the other teams had? Why couldn't she dodge spells like a normal, sensible witch, and why couldn't her spells, which usually worked, work on the dueling platform? She was so horrible. She was letting her captains down, her entire team down. She was letting the entire House of Gryffindor down as well. She was even letting her dueling partner-
Eyre!
The redhead's mind rushed to ask the question over and over again in her head, "Is he okay?!" She sat up quickly without really thinking about it, trying to search for Eyre. This wasn't exactly successful at first- she had a sharp pain in her shoulder as her body shot up and her vision and brain clouded with dizziness. But she stayed semi-upright until it faded a little bit, looking around for Eyre. There. He had been placed in the bed next to her, sleeping. He was okay.
But she let him down, too. If only she was a better duelist. If only she was a better dueling partner.
Rose felt another wave of nausea come over her, dizzy and sickening. She put her head back down into the pillow of the Hospital Wing bed. Once it mostly passed and Rose didn't feel as much like she was going to throw up, she slowly shifted herself onto her side. She curled up into a ball with her knees to her forehead, and thus tucked her entire body under the sheets of her bed in the Hospital Wing. She sobbed. Only once, silently and without any tears to accompany it. But she was shaking by now.
She didn't deserve the place on the team she had. Somebody else deserved it more than she did. Maybe she should just quit now to give that better person a better chance. Everyone would benefit.
Her shoulder hurt, and her brain hurt, and her eyes hurt, and her muscles hurt. Most of all, her pride hurt. Her heart hurt. She hated that she was up there, letting everyone down and being miserably beaten. She hated it with all her being.
Deep down, Rose knew, though. Rose Moon was not a quitter.
Okay, maybe she quit Quidditch because she had been scared to her death about failing at it.
Okay, maybe she also quit trying to be diplomatic and cooperative with her mother.
Okay, maybe she was a quitter on some levels.
But on a lot of other levels, Rose was not a quitter, and she would see the three duels through. She would not quit this. Even if she was knocked out in her last one as well. She may have quit other things because she was scared she wasn't good enough, but Rose was not going to quit dueling this year. If she failed horribly on her last duel as well, fine. She could drop out then.
She would push through the mud. The painful, depressing, horrible mud that was dueling right now.