A new friendship in the face of adversity (Katie)

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy escorted Katie through the throngs of students in the corridors. She was worried about the first year; she seemed to be in a lot of pain. Ivy wasn't sure if she'd broken something or what, but she wanted to get her to the hospital wing as soon as possible to have her checked over by Madam Pomfrey.

"We're nearly there now," Ivy told Katie reassuaringly. "I expect you haven't been here before?" This was a question, as Ivy wanted to know whether she was going to have to make a habit of helping Katie out.

Ivy helped Katie to sit down on a chair and made eye contact with Madam Pomfrey so that she knew they were there. At the moment Madam Pomfrey was attending to another unfortunate student but Ivy was sure that she would make an effort to come and see them as soon as possible.

Ivy looked at Katie in concern. "Are you all right for now?" she asked.

[quidditchgrl34]

"It’s just a little sprained not to much I am really used to it I play soccer back at home in London and many bad things happen to me" Katie said searching her memory about soccer at home. She might know Ivy didn’t like soccer and proffered Quidditch but Katie was only a first year.

Katie leaned back in the chair and continued to look at Ivy but Madam Promfey came by with warm blankets. She handed one to Ivy and than Katie.
"What happened" Madam Promfey said examining her swollen leg and wrist.

"I was just tripped and I fell into the lake and couldn’t get up to the surface Ivy saved me" Katie said ignoring her pain. She had to suck it up since she was in front of Ivy who was much older than her and might think that she is a baby first year Gryffindor.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy smiled.

"I thought football wasn't supposed to be a violent game?" she said, smiling. Personally, she had never liked it, but then it wasn't like her to do sporty things. Like Quidditch, for example. Why she did it she didn't know.

Ivy looked up as Madam Pomfrey came over. She took her blanket with some surprise, supposing that Madam Pomfrey just couldn't help being motherly, even to people who weren't hurt. Even if the bottom of her robes were wet - it was no big deal.

"A group of three girls deliberately tripped her and she had quite a bad fall into the lake," Ivy added to Katie's description of events. It was hardly as if Ivy had done such a great thing, she'd just done what any person should do.

"Is she going to be all right? Is she hurt?" Ivy asked Madam Pomfrey, looking up at her and then back at Katie, to whom she gave a smile, wondering if she'd be as brave when she was in so much pain as Katie obviously was.

[quidditchgrl34]

Katie smiled to Ivy’s concern.
"I am a very sporty girl you never see me wear make up it hides the real you" Katie said as Madam Promfey touched her swollen leg. She let out a little shriek of pain.

"It’s a really bad sprained a charm will only heal it a bit" Madam Prompfey said to Ivy putting an ace wrap on her leg.
"I am very surprised it didn’t break and I can’t believe someone did such a thing" as she said tightly put the ace wrap on.


Katie closed her eyes hiding the pain. After she was wrapped she looked at Ivy once again hoping to make more conversion.
"You’re on the Hufflepuff house team" Katie said just remembering.
"Sorry about your defeat but you guys played well and took the defeat like real companions" Katie said smiling.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy grimaced in sympathy as Katie let out a cry of pain. It must be hurting a lot more than she was trying to let on.

"So what now?" Ivy asked Madam Pomfrey. "Will it take time to heal, or can you do it quicker if Katie stays in the hospital wing?"

Ivy looked at Katie with a small frown on her face. It really wasn't fair. Why did a buch of selfish Slytherins have to give such a nice girl a bad memory from her very first term at Hogwarts?

Ivy looked at the wrap on Katie's leg. "Any better?" she asked. "At least you're tough. I never wear make-up either." The reason for this was that she was actually allergic to it, but she didn't consider it necessary to divulge this. If it was necessary to hide, you could hide behind your hair.

Ivy listened and thought for a while about what Katie had said about Quidditch.
"You're right that I'm on the Quidditch team," Ivy said. "I guess you saw me making a fool of myself on the pitch. It was really embarassing that we didn't score one single goal... but... at least we put up a fight."

Ivy trailed off for a second. She hadn't really talked about the defeat; she blamed herself in some part. "I mean, most of us are fairly young compared with the older Ravenclaw team, so it wasn't a fair match. But when they leave I guess we'll be the most experienced players around."

Ivy smiled at Katie. "Are you looking forward to Gryffindor playing on Monday? I'll be coming to support them; especially after what's happened today."
Ivy grinned at Katie, trying to make light of it. She then looked back up at Madam Pomfrey, who was still busy and hadn't given her a reply yet.

[quidditchgrl34]

Katie looked at Ivy and nodded her head.
"I cant wait but I am a bit worried about our team if Slytherins did what they did to me it might happen in the match" Katie said looking back at her leg that hurt really badly.

She closed her eyes and laid her head down but the fall kept coming back in her mind. Tripping and tumbling right into the lake almost dieing. Katie took a deep breathe she knew she would never swim or go by the lake ever again. She opened her eyes as Madam Promfey started to speak.

"She will need to be on crutches and stay her for a while until the charm works" Madam Prompfey said nodded her head in disgust and left to her office.

Katie than turned to Ivy.
"Next year I am going to try out for beater on the Gryffindor house team" Katie said siting up.

She looked around for another chair for Ivy. She spotted one and got up and limped towards it and moved it so Ivy could sit down. Katie smiled at her.
"Sit down you don't need to stand" she said moving back to her chair.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy nodded at Madam Pomfrey.
"OK," she said, "if you could come and check when the charm should have worked. Although I expect Katie ought to know."

Ivy watched Madam Pomfrey walk to her small office and looked back to Katie in concern. She didn't look very good.

Ivy took the seat Katie gave her. "Thanks," she said, "but it's you I'm worried about." Ivy smiled at her. She was used to standing up and being busy at home; she hadn't really noticed that she wasn't sitting down.

"Gryffindor Beater, huh?" Ivy repeated. "It's certainly one way to take your frustration out. You'll have to try not to injure me too much, though. As a Chaser you get subjected to quite a few attacks from Bludgers that the other team's Beaters have aimed at you."

Ivy thought for a while before she spoke again, thinking about what Katie had said she liked doing. "Don't you want to be Keeper though?" she asked. "By the sounds of it you'd be quite good at it, from what you've said of playing soccer."

Ivy hoped that if she gave Katie something else to think about, she wouldn't notice the pain as much. She racked her brains for details of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. She knew all the teams quite well, being on one herself.

"The Keeper of the Gryffindor team is Ron Weasley," she stated, "so he'll be leaving in a few years time anyway. Then maybe you can be the new Keeper." Ivy smiled at Katie.

[quidditchgrl34]

Katie nodded at Ivy’s response. She already meet Ron already and Harry and they both seemed nice.

"I could try I guess but I don’t really know I am just too worried about making new friends and classes but Quidditch is still in the back of my mind" Katie said smiling at Ivy.

Than she leaned back her head and closed her imaging if she could catch the quaffle.
"If I can play soccer as goalie I can play keeper" Katie thought in her mind.

Katie than leaned forward to talk more to Ivy.
"Yes but what’s about chaser what kind of skills do you need to have to be one" Katie ask very interested.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy smiled at Katie's question, but kept a note of what she'd said before in her mind.

"Chaser," she said thoughtfully, "Well... I mean I just tried out and got on the team and with a bit of practice I'm not too bad. What's most important is that you can throw and catch the Quaffle. You need to be able to communicate well with other members of the team. It's also necessary to know how to intercept passes and know how to steal the Quaffle too, otherwise you won't be able to get in possession at all, if the other team gets it, until they score a goal. Um..."

Ivy broke off. "I'm not boring you, am I?" she asked, worried.

[quidditchgrl34]

Katie was staring Ivy with her twinkling eyes of interest.

"Oh no you’re not its quite interesting" Katie said smiling at Ivy.

She couldn’t imagine herself playing chaser she was a very good forward when she played soccer. She always would not pass and that kind of stuff.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy smiled at Katie's dismissal.

"OK then, where was I?" she asked herself. "Oh yes... you need to be good at scoring, if possible. The most important thing is to be good with the Quaffle, but it really is also essential to be able to score. And then you need to be able to dodge Bludgers, because when you have the Quaffle they often get aimed at you. I think that's about it. I haven't been playing for all that long, and apart from that I've never really got involved in anything sporty."

Ivy smiled at Katie and then came back to what she'd said before. "You know how you said about friends and classes," Ivy said quietly, "well you have a lot more friends now than I did at the end of the year. And classes aren't too much to worry about - no one's all that good to start with. Only Professor Snape to worry about, really."

Ivy smiled at Katie.

[quidditchgrl34]

Katie was really happy to be where she was with Ivy. She could feel a bundle of joy rising within her.

"Okay than chaser out of my list of Quidditch position" Katie said still looking at Ivy with her twinkling eyes. Katie eyes always twinkled and she didn’t know why.

"I just noticed that Gryffindor doesn’t have any classes with Hufflepuf why not because that means I can’t be in a class with you, Jordan, and Kyila" Katie said. She mostly had Hufflepuf friends and a few Slytherin and a few Gryffindor.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy smiled at Katie.

"Why not Chaser?" she asked. "I think it's the best position; it's the most exciting. I mean, think about it, throwing, catching, shooting, scoring, dodging the bludger, wow! Real exhilaration! Keeper and Seeker, you just sit around most of the match." Ivy grinned at Katie. She was only half serious, although she did think that the Chaser was the position that suited her best.

"No, Hufflepuff doesn't really have any classes with Gryffindor. But don't worry about it, cos being the kind of person you are you'll soon have plenty." Ivy replied. It was true, and she had thought about it plenty of times before. She hadn't really had much contact with people in Gryffindor up till now anyway.

[quidditchgrl34]

Katie smiled she was a little disappointed she didn’t have classes with Ivy or any of her Hufflepuf friends.

"So.... is their anything else I need to know about you like your past history anything" Katie said smiling. Once Katie made a new friend she always wonted to know more about hem.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy looked sideways, away from Katie. She'd always been taught it was bad manners to ask too probing questions when you'd just met someone. And besides, Katie didn't need to know everything about her. Especially what had just happened.

"No, not really," said Ivy, looking back at Katie with a smile on her face. "I live with my dad in a two up, two down house in Somerset, and I come here during termtime, naturally. I like reading, embroidery, and when I get the chance, horse-riding. How about you?" Ivy asked, not phrasing it in quite the penatrating way that Katie had, rather just doubling the question back.

[quidditchgrl34]

Katie smiled at Ivy
"I live with my dad back at home has a muggle doctor so I am rich but I don’t act the way..... My mom died last month from brain tumor she was a muggle also..." Katie said calmly.
"When I got my letter to Hogwarts my mom was still in the Hospital and then when I went to tell her she was dead I only had a second to be with her until the nurse dragged me away" Katie said fighting back the terrible memories.
"No let go" katie could her saying when the nurse dragged her away.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy looked at Katie as she relayed what had happened to her. It didn't sound as if Katie had had a very happy time when she got her letter either. But at least she still managed to be cheerful on the outside and not withdraw into herself.

"Oh Katie!" Ivy said, "I'm so sorry. That's awful." Ivy broke off for a moment, looking at Katie with a pained expression in her eyes. Why did so many people have to lose their mums at the moment?

"I lost my mum when I was your age too, in a manner of speaking." Ivy admitted, feeling that perhaps Katie knowing that Ivy had had a similar experience would help. Although Ivy would not have managed to speak of it so lightly then. Or now, for that matter, but then again that was because it had all been dragged up again.

'Well, it's different really,' a voice reasoned inside Ivy, and this time it was not particularly hostile. Both sides of her agreed on the one point. They just had different aspects at which they were coming from. 'I mean she lost her mum forever. But you lost your mum because she didn't care about you, and she's still here, just not for you.'

Ivy looked up at Katie again. She was surprised that Katie had even mentioned it. Perhaps she wanted to talk about it. That was something that Ivy had tried to avoid doing, but if Katie wanted to, Ivy was there.

[quidditchgrl34]

"You don’t have to talk about it was just something always happens well to me than it turns out bad" Katie said puting her head down.

Katie closed her eyes to hide the tears. She could see herself running into her mom’s room and noticing she was dead. She could see her self crying on her moms shoulder and then the nurse dragged her away.
"NO LET GO GET OFF" Katie could hear herself echo in her head.

She sat up and open her eyes looking at Ivy.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy looked at Katie in concern, knowing that there was more than physical injury that she was enduring. She was obviously plagued by painful memories. You had to have them yourself to be able to tell.

"I'm sure that's not true, Katie," Ivy said gently. "I mean, not everything turns out badly. It's a rocky road, but in the end most things resolve themselves. You're an ordinary, nice, kind-hearted person and there's nothing that means that bad things are going to happen to you incessantly. Sometimes you'll have something that's really good, and then it'll come crashing down and make you miserable. But that doesn't mean you can't go on, or anything like that."

Ivy paused, thinking about her own mum. "What you've got that's most important are the memories of your mum, and no one can take those away from you."

Ivy smiled, a little sadly, at Katie. She'd tried to block her mother out of her memory, but somehow, she kept coming back. Both the bad and the good memories, but mainly the bad.

[quidditchgrl34]

Katie looked into Ivy's eyes as she said such wise words.

"Yes but it will always come back and haunt you. The problem is how you can stop it" Katie said confused. She know Ivy wouldn’t talk to her about her mother death it must of been horrible.

"I know they always say be strong and be proud and that the good times will come but what if they don't what if you life gets horrible to worse" Katie said looking at Ivy with a confused gaze.

"Let’s talk about something else..... It’s just too painful for the both of us to think of it again" Katie said with a sigh. She gave Ivy a smile to tell her she was okay but was Katie really okay.