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Margaery is repotting Devil’s Snare with more force than strictly necessary when she hears them come in. It’s not as unusual as one might think - she’s the only herbology nerd at Hogwarts, as far as she knows, but the greenhouses are a popular place to find some privacy. She only hopes that it’s not a couple looking for a quiet spot to make out. Especially since this is my makeout spot. Margaery puts down her spade and is about to stand up when she hears the familiar voice of Robb Stark.
“ - Please Sans? It’s just one game. One!”
Then the less familiar voice of the quiet and withdrawn Sansa Stark. She sounds exasperated, which is intriguing. So intriguing that Margaery stays crouched behind her work bench to listen.
“Robb. I don’t like Quidditch. I don’t want to play and I definitely don’t want anyone knowing that I even know how to play.”
“You’re ridiculous Sansa. How can you be so good at something and not even like it?” Robb’s tone indicates that this is an old argument that they are rehashing. Sansa Stark, good at Quidditch? Margaery has never even seen her on a broom. She’s more likely to be found in the library - so much so that it’s a wonder she had been sorted into Gryffindor and not Ravenclaw.
“I’m good at flying, Robb, and I like that just fine. If I show my face on the Quidditch pitch I’ll spend the next two years with people trying to recruit me to the damn team.”
“Little bit cocky there, little bird?”
“Don’t call me that. And the complete dearth of decent Quidditch talent in Gryffindor is why you’re in such a bind right now, so I'm really just calling a spade a spade.”
Margaery stifles a snort. Sansa is right. The Gryffindor team is strong - but they have no good alternates to speak of. They have exactly seven good Quidditch players in their House. Robb is captain and Chaser, alongside Theon Greyjoy and Jon Snow. The three make the best Chaser team Hogwarts has seen in generations. That’s what happens when you live together and play Quidditch together from the time you’re old enough to sit a broom. Meera Reed and Mya Stone are the Beaters, tiny girls who are mind-bogglingly strong. Gendry Waters is the Keeper, surpisingly agile for his size. And Margaery’s own brother, Loras, is the Seeker.
Margaery’s jaw tightens at the thought of her brother. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be hiding out from my own godsdamned housemates.
“With Loras banned from playing, we have no chance without you. Please Sansa. I’m begging you. One game. This is my last chance at the Cup!”
Their footsteps crunch on the fallen leaves of the Insidious Ivy and they move into Margaery’s view, although she herself is hidden behind the Devil’s Snare. Through the green tendrils she spots Sansa and Robb’s twin heads of firey hair, almost on level with each other. Sansa is tall for a Seeker, Margaery muses. Even if she can fly, in a game like this she might be in over her head. The other girl runs a hand through her hair in frustration and sighs. Margaery senses that she is close to giving in.
“I’m a good flier, but I haven’t played since summer. I don’t think I can beat Margaery Tyrell on the pitch.”
Margaery is inordinately pleased by that. Not only because she is a damn good Seeker, but because somehow she likes the idea that Sansa Stark knows it too. She’s spent enough time staring at the younger girl from across the classroom in Ancient Runes to feel some satisfaction that Sansa has noticed something about her as well. Not that Margaery is a shrinking violet - but Sansa Stark doesn’t seem to care or pay much attention to anything other than her schoolwork, her family, and her small group of friends. Especially since her father had been arrested for embezzling funds from the Wizengamot the previous summer. All the Starks turned inward to their family after that. Margaery feels relieved that the siblings are worrying about something as innocent and simple as a Quidditch match for once.
Margaery is yanked back to the present by Robb’s reply, an unwelcome reminder of her own predicament. “You won’t be flying against Tyrell. She’s suspended from her team the same as Loras is.”
“So who’s their alternate?”
Robb hesitates. Margaery catches her breath. Slytherin’s alternate…
“It’s Joffrey Baratheon.”
Sansa turns slightly, giving Margaery a view of her face for the first time in the conversation, and chills run down Margaery’s spine at her expression. She has a sudden vision of what a Sansa Stark sorted into Slytherin would have looked like.
“Why didn’t you just say so in the first damn place?”
Margary and Loras trudge down to the pitch together. The one time we get caught, Margaery thinks, not for the first time. The two of them are allowed extended Hogsmeade privileges to apprentice with their brother Willas in one of the Tyrell apothecaries, and they often use the opportunity to smuggle contraband into their common room. This time, however, Professors Lannister and Seaworth had caught onto their little scheme, and their entire haul had been confiscated (Margaery privately thinks she knows what happened to the Firewhiskey once Professor Lannister took it away). The worst part of the punishment, though, had been being banned from playing in the crucial semi-final Quidditch match. It was even more galling to Margaery that Joffrey Baratheon got to play and not her. He had been throwing snide remarks her way all year, jealous that she was the primary and he the alternate. And he won't shut up about how he's going to play so well in this match that Obara will start him in the final.
But despite her disappointment at not being able to play, she is eager to find out for herself just what Sansa Stark can do. She feels a little bit guilty for not saying anything to her team, but she justifies it by telling herself that she's playing a part in Sansa’s revenge on Joffrey.
Her stomach turns when she thinks of Sansa’s relationship with Joffrey. The two had been not-so-subtley steered toward one another from a young age, as old Pureblood families were wont to do. When the two began dating the year before, they had been for all appearances the perfect couple. Sansa had been beautiful and meek and polite, and Joffrey had doted on her, playing the perfect gentleman. Perhaps Margaery had been the only one to find it all a bit nauseating - she knew Joff, and she knew how controlling he could be. She didn’t realize how cruel he was - not until she had caught a glimpse of the bruises on Sansa’s arms. It hadn’t lasted long. The Starks are a close-knit family, and once Robb, Jon, and Theon were through with him, it had taken a long time for Joffrey to find his smirky, overconfident self again.
“So how’s Sansa on a broom?” Margaery asks Loras. He knows about her eavesdropping of course. They don’t have secrets from each other.
“I don’t know, to be honest,” Loras replies sheepishly. “I didn’t watch practice this week. Robb told me it wasn’t mandatory, and I sort of got caught up with Renly…”
Margaery rolls her eyes. That’s just like Loras, to get all sulky and spend all week with his boyfriend comforting him.
“You could have at least been there to give the girl some tips, since she’ll be covering your position!”
Loras snorts. “Oh right, I bet you were in the stands all week coaching Joffrey. And you can’t just live vicariously through me. If you want to hang out with Sansa Stark, you’ll have to ask her yourself.”
They sit high up in the stands in the section that the assorted Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws have chosen to sit in. The day is clear and sunny. It’s a perfect day for Quidditch, and Margaery feels the lost opportunity like a punch in the stomach. A look at Loras confirms that he is feeling the same. They take out their omnioculars, the better to follow the action.
The teams come out. There is some murmuring when Sansa emerges, resplendent in red and gold. Margaery can’t take her eyes off of her. Sansa Stark has always been impossibly beautiful - impossibly beautiful and, since last year, impossibly sad. Her face is impassive as usual, but there is something else there that Margaery has never noticed before - a sort of implacable just-you-try-to-fuck-with-me kind of look. Margaery can see that Joffrey wants to say something to her but is too afraid to approach with Robb, Theon, and Jon on the pitch. Instead Sansa’s sister Arya, a Slytherin Chaser, sidles up to her and the two share a rueful grin. Margaery doesn’t know what Arya says, but Sansa throws her head back and laughs. Margaery realizes that she’s never seen Sansa laugh before, and that she’s even more beautiful happy than she is sad.
Professor Tarth blows the whistle and the teams take off. Robb scores early, faking out Ramsay Bolton and getting the Quaffle through the left hoop. Arya seizes the quaffle and sets Hot Pie up for an open shot that Gendry is too slow to block. The Chasers on both sides are skilled, and the back and forth is exciting to watch (and to listen to - Jeyne Poole's commentary is passionate and frenetic as usual). Margaery only has eyes for the Seekers, though. Sansa looks relaxed, making slow passes above the action and scanning the pitch for the Snitch. That isn’t Margaery’s personal style, nor is it Loras’s - the two of them are both more hands on, often running interference for their Chaser team, screening the opposing Keeper, or, especially in Loras’s case, heroically seizing the attention of the Beaters to free up their teammates. She’s obviously confident on a broom, but Margaery hasn’t seen anything yet that makes her match Robb’s confidence that Sansa is Gryffindor’s best hope for the Cup.
It doesn’t take long for Joffrey to fly over to her, now that her brothers are otherwise occupied. Margaery feels a flash of irritation that Joffrey is focusing on Sansa rather than on the Snitch. She’s still a Slytherin, after all, and if her team doesn't score enough points this match they won't qualify for the final. Joffrey says something to Sansa and for a moment Margaery sees fury flash across her face. Probably about her Dad. But then Sansa ignores him, veering sharply away to the other end of the pitch. Joffrey keeps following her, though, and it becomes a game of Joffrey trailing Sansa like a puppy, despite Obara’s screaming at him in between plays to keep a lookout for the godsdamned Snitch.
Then suddenly Sansa is zigging and zagging through the action, so quickly and so suddenly that Joffrey can barely keep up. “AND IT APPEARS THAT STARK HAS SPOTTED THE SNITCH!" Jeyne Poole makes no effort to keep the jubilance out of her voice. Margaery is dumbfounded. Sansa Stark flies like a godsdamned dragon.
“I don’t see the Snitch,” Loras says, following the action intently with his omnioculars. Once Margaery takes her eyes off of Sansa, she can see that he’s right. It’s always possible that they can’t see it from where they are, but then she starts noticing other things. Like how Sansa seems like she’s slowing down just a little for Joffrey, who is clearly the weaker flier, taking wider turns, almost like she wants him to keep up…
Then Sansa is diving. She is completely vertical, just a red and gold blur, her hair streaming behind her. She is flattened to her broom, but Joffrey is right behind her, his weight giving him an advantage. The crowd is going wild. They are twenty feet from the ground, ten - Margaery realizes she is standing - five, two - And Sansa pulls up, so close to the ground that her feet brush it as she levels out her broom.
Joffrey doesn’t have the same skill. He crashes into the ground, his broom splitting into three pieces, his prone form bouncing on the ground of the pitch before slowly coming to a stop. He is screaming - the softened pitch has protected his head, but his right arm and leg are bent at crazy angles. With a sharp whistle, Professor Tarth stops play and Madame Gilly rushes onto the pitch. Margaery raises her eyes to Sansa Stark. She has floated up above the hoops again, her impassive mask back in place - or is there a satisfied smile peeking through?
Loras is sputtering beside her. “A Wronski Feint! Sansa Maiden-fucking Stark just pulled a perfect Wronski Feint! Why in the hells am I the Seeker for this team?”
(From the commentator's box, Margaery can hear Jeyne Poole openly cackling).
The game continues, although with Joffrey out and no alternate Seeker, a Gryffindor victory is a foregone conclusion, unless the Slytherin Chasers can rack up enough points. To Slytherin’s credit, their Chasers go all out, Arya and Hot Pie and little Missandei putting immense pressure on the more experienced Gryffindor team. It’s not enough, though, and Margaery feels like it’s a mercy when a mere twenty minutes after Joff ate turf, the Snitch appears. It’s in a mischievous mood, it seems, and it leads Sansa on quite the chase. For the first time, Margaery sees Sansa’s point about not being a Quidditch player - she’s an incredible flier, but she snatches at the Snitch and misses twice before the little golden ball appears mere feet in front of Margaery. A hand reaches out and plucks it from the air, and all of a sudden Sansa Stark is right in front of her, hovering on her broom, flushed with exertion and victory. Margaery looks up and meets those shining Tully blue eyes and abruptly feels like all the breath has been stolen from her body.
I am in very big trouble.
Margaery slides into the chair beside Sansa in Ancient Runes the following Monday, blithely stealing her cousin Megga’s seat. Sansa looks over, surprised.
“You were incredible on Saturday,” Margaery says without preamble. “A perfect Wronski Feint. I don’t think I’ve ever pulled up so close to the ground. I’m starting to understand why you were sorted into Gryffindor.”
Sansa blushes prettily. Gods, I’m done for. “Thank you - I mean - I wouldn’t have done that if I had been flying against you. I mean - you never would have fallen for it even if I had tried. But I wouldn’t have anyway.” Margaery smiles at her rambling and leans over, chin in hand.
“I’ll take you at your word. Although… Joffrey is still in the hospital wing. They had to remove his bones and regrow them. So I’m actually starting to wonder why you weren’t sorted into Slytherin.”
Sansa raises an eyebrow, and a smirk emerges from behind her mask. Margaery's heart stutters.
She's in over her head.