It is clear that Noémie has been on the pitch for a while, and for one in the midst of study for her OWL exams, the girl looks surprisingly calm. The pitch is set up with an elaborate obstacle course, strangely enough, set up on the ground rather than being up in the air. A shorter set of hoops are at the end of the course. There are hanging-type large bags, which seem to sway only slightly in the wind, hoops moving back and forth to dodge around or jump through, and various other charmed distractions to make the running of the course more difficult. The girl steps back from her creation and looks about, picking up her broom while she waits for the rest of her team to show up.

Being a bit late from a class that didn’t seem to finish, David runs on the pitch. He has barely had the time to change his clothes and take his broom in his commons, and he is completely breathless when he finally stops near the other players of the team. He just nods to greet them, as he tries to calm down, and it is only after a little while that he notices the various obstacles set up, apparently, by the team captain. “What”… he says, still trying to breath correctly, “… are we going to do, today?”

Van trots out to the pitch with her broom in hand and she pauses at the edge of the pitch, staring a bit. “You’ve got to be kidding,” she calls, then starts walking towards Noémie. “Not again.” Van has clearly gone through one of these before, and she doesn’t look entirely pleased as she sets her broom down in the stand that has been set up near the edge of the pitch. “Only a couple of times through. Last time I did one of these, it bruised me for a week, and that is the last thing I need now.” The seventh year just shakes her head and crosses her arms over her stomach.

“An obstacle course!” Tegan calls, as if her teammates haven’t already noticed this. She and Bailey come running to the pitch together, having come from the same class just before, and for her part, Tegan looks thrilled to be at practice for once. The fourth year stows her broom next to where Van has put hers and trots over to the rest of them, looking as if she’s raring to give the course a try.

Bailey doesn’t seem quite as enthralled as Tegan does as they approach, though he quickly stows his broom next to where Tegan and Van have put theirs, for easy retrieval later. “Bruises, huh?” he chuckles in response to Van, and shrugs. “Bruises aren’t so bad. At least they aren’t broken bones.” Another shrug is gifted and he elbows Tegan nonchalantly. “I bet I can beat you through it any day.” Not that it’s much of a threat, being as the two of them play different positions.

“Alright, we’ll go Chasers first, and then beaters. Van, I want you to go put yourself in front of those hoops and try to block shots when the chasers get through. Tegan, you and Riley go on either side of the course, and hit this bludger back and forth through it. That’s the last obstacle.” Noémie crosses her arms, looking almost smug as she says this, glancing to everyone. She leans down and picks up the quaffles that she has brought out for the express purpose of this course. She tosses one to each of the chasers. “Let’s get set up, I want to see this course run!”

David looks at the obstacle course, then the other players, and finally the team captain. “I take it we don’t need our brooms for the moment, right?” he says, and before waiting for an answer, puts his broom near the box where the balls are stored. He then takes out the red Quaffle, and readies himself to run through the obstacles. When the other chasers look ready to dash towards the hoops, he starts to run, and after a few meters, throws the Quaffle to Bailey.

Van trots over to the hoops as she is told to do, and stands in front of the hoops, looking up at them. “They’re a bit high,” she calls, looking up at them, and jumping up. When she jumps, she finds she is able to block the hoops, but it isn’t easy. This doesn’t look promising to the Keeper, and though she does start to look more sullen, she doesn’t say anything more to the captain, who seems to have her mind made up for the day’s practice.

Taking her own position near to the end of the course, Tegan readies the bat she has grabbed and waits for the bludger to be released. “Alright, Riley, try not to hurt anyone too badly. Especially me.” The emphasis on this statement almost seems to indicate that she thinks he will hurt her somehow in their practice. As the bludger is released, Tegan runs a bit and gives it a hard whack towards Riley, trying to keep her line as straight as possible.

Starting to run, Bailey takes speed and starts to jump over several obstacles which were magically moving so as to distract him. After the third obstacle, starting to feel a bit breathless, his course slows down a bit. The fourth obstacle, a mere sandbag, seems easier than the two previous ones, but as he jumps, Bailey‘s foot suddenly gets trapped in a sort of ring that was hidden on the other side. “Ow!” he yells, as he falls forward in the mud. He stands up, massaging his ankle for a while, then looks back. “That’s a nasty one you’ve put here!” he yells, reproach clearly audible in his voice, but he resumes his course and finally comes in front of the hoops protected by Van. With a large swing, he tosses the Quaffle at the goalie…

“Well, we’re playing Slytherin soon, and I want you all to be on your toes!” Noémie calls in response, jogging down the length of her course as she watches Bailey run through. “Get on through, you can do it!” she calls as he makes his way through. Noémie looks to have quite a bit of extra energy today. “Good run,” she calls and turns her attention to Van as she is shot at. “Next up, go!” she calls to whoever is next in the line, while she glances momentarily at the Beaters who are both steadily hitting the bludger back and forth.

Coming back from his first run, David pants and holds his knee with his ankle, after having fallen a couple of times. Noticing that nobody else is waiting in the line, he starts to run back towards the goals, holding his Quaffle (which Van threw back to him after his attempt at scoring a point.) Despite the sore ankle, the second run seems way easier than the first one, since David now knows where the obstacles are and is a bit warmed up. Reaching the hoops, he throws the Quaffle at the rightmost hoop, hoping that Van wouldn’t catch it, this time. But it is unlikely: this time he has thrown it harder than the first time.

Van jumps up, and she misses this first one, grumbling a bit, and she pushes her sleeves, despite the cold, freeing up her arms and hands to better catch the quaffles flying towards her. The second quaffle that comes towards her, the first from David, she manages to catch, and she tosses it towards the other end of the obstacle course, more or less aiming to hit him. “Take that!” she calls and turns her attention back to the course, jumping up and again missing as David makes his second shot. “God, did you have to make them so HIGH?” she complains at Noémie, jumping as another of the chasers makes a shot, which she does manage to block this time.

Tegan hits the bludger high, and it comes down low to Riley’s side, crashing into the ground. She shakes her head and readies her bat as another bludger is hit her way, sending it flying in a more straight path towards Riley this time. “Look out!” she calls as another of the chasers comes running through the obstacle course. “Don’t need injuries before the match or anything!” The girl continues hitting the bludger back and forth with her fellow beater.

Another turn for Bailey Williams. This time, the boy runs faster, jumps higher and dodges the obstacles more effectively than he had done before. This time, the practice seems to pay off and Bailey reaches the goal hoops in the shortest time yet. Letting out a loud roar, he tosses the Quaffle towards the hoop, aiming at the nearest one. The boy halts and watches the ball fly, wondering if Van would be able to catch it…

Noémie claps loudly at her team as they make it through. “You’re getting better,” she calls as less of the obstacles trip them up, and as Van does manage to make some blocks. “Just a couple more, and then we’ll wrap up. I’ve got to get back to studying, and I’m sure you all could do with a healthy dose of it, too.” She chuckles at her own comment and crosses her arms and watches as the chasers continue their rounds through the obstacle course.

Coming back from another run, panting from the effort but grinning widely since he managed to do his last tries without too many falls, David jogs back to the line where the other Chasers are waiting. “It’s getting a bit dark, isn’t it?” he asks Noémie. “And we’ve all made at least fifteen runs each. How long do you want us to practice further?”, he asks.

Van jumps up and catches the last quaffle that’s come to her and walks away from the hoops holding it. “Honestly, I’m exhausted, can’t we stop?” she whines, coming completely out of the obstacle course and tossing the quaffle towards where the brooms are. She puts her hands on her knees and shakes her head as she tries to catch her breath again.

Pulling her wand out quickly, Tegan immobilizes the bludger. Calling it to her, she trots over to Noémie and plunks it into the box that it had come from, breathing a sigh of relief. “Good practice,” she tells everyone with a happy grin. The girl does a twirl and plunks the bat down next to the box, shoving a quaffle in, completing the set. “I’ll put this away, I’ve got to go somewhere!” she hollders and practically prances off.

“Is it finished, already?” asks Bailey, making a mock pout at the other Chasers. “I was just warmed up… too bad.” he says, but if the whole truth has to be told, he is as happy as the others to call it an evening. “Seriously, I think we’ve practiced well tonight. That was a great drill you prepared for us, Noémie.” he says, nodding with respect at her. “And now, it’s time to hit the showers!”

“Yes, good practice,” Noémie echoes. “Everyone off, I’ve got some cleaning to do.” In addition to her own bit of training. She turns without another word to grab her broom and soon is in the air, doing a series of laps, clearly not allowing anyone to even try to ask her if she needs help. No, Noémie is in an interesting mood today, and her behavior has demonstrated this, but now, she is in the air, swooping and diving, and completely ignoring the couple of teammates still on the field.

Van stands up and takes a deep breath, grabbing her broom and Tegan’s, which she had left when she so quickly. The seventh year waves at Noémie, though she is already in the air, and makes her way to the broomshed, storing the brooms away safely from the elements, then heads out of that shed, and into the school, set on perhaps a snack, or maybe a secluded meeting with a ‘certain someone’.

“Well, if everybody is leaving, I’m not going to wait, either.” says David, who grabs the broom he left near the ball box. “Goodbye Noémie, thanks for the practice and the drill.” he says, and he walks away towards the locker rooms. The house elves will surely have a hard time cleaning up the mud stains out of his Quidditch outfit…

David looks at the obstacle course, then the other players, and finally the team captain. “I take it we don’t need our brooms for the moment, right?” he says, and before waiting for an answer, puts his broom near the box where the balls are stored. Catching one of the Quaffles tossed to him by Noémie, he starts to run towards the goals, trying his best to dodge as many obstacles as he can. He falls a couple of times, nothing serious, but soon his clean Quidditch outfit is completely filled wih mud. He curses mildly as another Chaser of the team passes in front of him with a laugh, then starts to run again.

Striding out onto the pitch in the early evening, there is still enough light to hold a good practice. The balls are out on the field, and Noémie herself is already out on the pitch, and has a bucket of golf balls to aid in her own practice as well. She seems to be attempting to fine-tune her broom as she waits for her teammates to approach the field for the practice she has called.

For once not looking quite as pleased as usual, Van stomps onto the pitch, her broom in hand, and crosses her arms at Noémie. “You had to schedule a practice on Valentines day, didn’t you?” Van‘s displeasure at this is apparent, and though she does not say another word about it, her face does not come out of its stony position een while she begins to stretch out for the practice.

Following the captain of the team, David walks silently on the team, his broom in his hand, with an air of concentration on the face. Looking back at Van, he replies in a sharp tone: “We must practice if we want to be the best, Van. You know that.” It’s not as if David had someone to spend the nascent evening with, either. In fact, Quidditch could prove to be a good distraction today. “What are we going to do today, Noémie?” he asks.

A fine day to practice. Even if he had other plans for the evening, Bailey Williams doesn’t see anything wrong with a bit of practice before dinner: “Exactly, Van. Training never hurts.” he chimes in, his broom in his hand. The boy seems more than ready to fly, and waits for his captain’s instructions.

Tegan tromps onto the pitch, wearing no less than five layers of clothing. “It’s so bloody cold,” she tells them with a visible shiver. While this is not something that any of them need to be told, after all — it is winter. But Tegan seems to think it is something important for them to know, and half-heartedly begins practicing just as Van is doing, though Van’s are perhaps a bit better than her own.

“It’s a lovely day, and you snog with your boyfriend all the time; how would today have been any different Van?” Noémie chuckes as she says this and mounts her broom. “Alright, here’s what I’d like to go on. Bailey, David, and Clavicle, if you’ll go run a few plays at Van, who’ll try to block them. Do some creative things, I want you all to stay on your toes. And, Tegan, if you’ll stay on the ground today and throw golfballs at me, that would be great. Riley’s out sick today, so it’ll be best for you to stay on the ground and help me practice up a bit. You can use your bat to hit them, if you like.” Noémie smiles and begins to ascend, not giving much room for complaint or protest.

Van‘s face doesn’t move from stony annoyance as she, too, mounts her broom and begins to fly up into the air, headed directly towards the nearer set of hoops. “Make it interesting at least so I’m not bored over here watching you do the usual formations.” Van shrugs and looks almost bored, though the annoyance in her face has not yet subsided. Being u in the air seems to help her out, however, in appeasing her sour mood.

Tegan shrugs idly at Noémie’s request and grabs a bat as well as the bucket of balls that Noémie has set out for her, and trots down the pitch some so that she’ll be out of the way of the chasers. After all, she doesn’t want to take any of them out with a golf ball! She tosses one up in the air and gives it a hard whack, missing a bit too late and causing the ball to fly low to the pitch and get embedded into the turf. Trying again, she manages to send the second one flying high above the pitch, looking almost smug as she manages this.

“Alright, Captain,” says David, making a mock salute before jumping on his broom and flying away. Yes, it was a bit freezing tonight, but his scarf is doing a good job at protecting his throat from the stinging cold and wind. The condensation on his glasses, created by his breath, is a bigger problem though, but David knows that it is going to fade in a few instants anyway. The boy finally stops midway to the hoops, waiting for the Quaffle to be tossed up in the sky. “Make it interesting, eh? Hmm. Let’s see what I can do.”

Bailey Williams rolls his eyes at the comment about snogging made by Noémie, but doesn’t say anything, actually agreeing with her about the importance of training. “Okay… let’s find some new tactics for a change.” he says, as he puts his own broom into position and mounts it. “Hey, David, wait for me!” he yells, but he soon manages to catch up with the third year. He takes his own position, a few meters behind and at the right of David, ready for the training to begin.

Flying around a bit while Tegan gets into place, Noémie dives a bit as the first one arcs just short of her, and dives to catch it. She does manage it and gives it a hearty toss towards Tegan, though the ball does not quite make it to the younger girl. Soon another is flying at her and another so that Noémie is having to make sharp turns to catch them, and is now just tossing them generally towards Tegan, rather than trying to get them close. Soon, there is a break, and Noémie pauses to get her breath up again. It isn’t long though before the balls start up again, and Noémie has to dart around, back and forth.

Van now flies about before the hoops, trying to get herself into her groove. It doesn’t take long, in fact, she seems to be at the top of her game today, despite her bad mood. The seventh year looks to the chasers before her with a sly grin. “Let’s see what you’ve got, then!” she laughs, apparently having quite quickly forgotten about her anger just moments before. “Show me what you plan to do to Slytherin this next match!” She laughs a bit, rather loudly, and it echoes across the pitch.

Pausing a moment to give Noémie another breather, Tegan again begins to toss the ball up, and then whacking it with the bat high, low, left or right, trying to make the most variety for her captain, as well as trying to refine her own aim for the impending match. “Hold up,” she calls, “I’m out of balls, I’ll have to gather them!” Accio golfball! is heard over and over again while the white balls fly towards Tegan and she gathers them into the pail that has been provided for them.

“Okay. So, where’s the Quaffle?” says Bailey, turning his head and noticing that David hasn’t it, either. “Oh, you didn’t take it?” he asks, taking out his wand. “Accio Quaffle!” he yells, and the shiny red ball suddenly flies up in the air towards Bailey, who deftly catches it. “Right. Let’s try to practice some side shoots. Those are the hardest to do, after all.” he says, pushing his broom forward, taking a turn and flying in a parallel direction relatively to the hoops. When he comes near enough, he throws the Quaffle over his shoulder towards one of the rings.

Tegan finally manages to gather all the balls together, and then begins hitting the balls towards Noémie again, with varying degrees of success. “Sorry about that!” she calls, as one errantly flys towards the chasers who are all grouped, nearer than she had expected them to be. It is but a fleeting moment before she readjusts her aim and is again shooting the golfballs towards Noémie instead of her other teammates.

Van zooms up towards the hoop, but a loud CLANG is heard, and it is clear that she missed catching the shot. She flies around the hoops to retrieve the quaffle and heaves it back towards the chasers. “Alright, well, you got me this time; I’ll get the next one!” She laughs a bit and centers herself in front of the hoops, and this time keeps her eyes more on the chasers this time than the previous.

David catches the Quaffle and readies himself to do a side pass as Bailey has shown. He suddenly feels a bit nervous; throwing the Quaffle sideways has never been his strongest move. David takes a deep breath, then pushes forward to launch his broom on its trajectory. As he flies in front of the hoops, he throws the Quaffle. His throw completely lacks the style and power of Bailey, though, and it is only by pure luck that it somewhat flies in the general direction of the hoops. David lets out a soft swear as he turns his head to watch the result of his throw.

Noémie flies around, missing more now, and she grits her teeth as she starts missing some. No, this is not a good thing. Pausing for a moment and letting some of the balls deliberately fall to the ground as she readjusts herself on her broom. A few more golfballs are caught, and Noémie looks about. The fading light has started to weigh heavily on her ability to see the balls flying about, and after she is hit in the shoulder hard by one she sighs a bit and begins to fly lower. “Let’s wrap it up!” She calls to everyone. “It’s getting to be a bit dark for practice!” Landing near by to where Tegan is, she smiles. “Good shots. That was a good workout for me.” She pauses and starts summoning the balls back to her as well, trying to help her teammate clean up.

This next shot, Van manages to get her hands on, and lets out a loud whoop at it. The sky is, in fact, getting quite dark, and she starts to fly down towards the pitch, the Quaffle in hand. “Good run, guys,” She calls to the chasers as she lands on the ground, plunking the quaffle into its spot in the box that Noémie had brought out. The keeper takes it upon herself to close the box up and take it to the broomshed along with her own broom. “I’m off to supper,” she calls, and she is quickly off to the school, clearly intent more on her sweetheart than the actual eating.

“Look where you throw your Quaffle, David!” shouts Bailey, who has observed the younger Ravenclaw doing his pass. “You can’t throw it correctly if you don’t aim.” he says, just before the call of the captain comes to his ears. “What, finished, already? We only did a couple of passes, do you call that a training?” he answers good-naturedly. “Okay. Let’s get down. I’m hungry as well.” he says, before diving slightly and landing near the box where the Quidditch ball are stored.

Chuckling, Tegan finishes putting all the balls back into the bucket, then plops her bat onto it, striding over a ways on the pitch where she had set her broom down upon hearing Noémie’s request. “It was good practice for my aim,” she admits to Noémie. “Thanks for a good practice,” she calls, stretching her arms a bit, and reaching tall. This motion causes her to readjust herself completely and rewrap her scarf. It seems that Tegan doesn’t want a bit of cold to get to her, even as the practice is nearly over.

“Hmm…” says David, a bit flustered by the fact he didn’t manage his throw correctly. “Look where I aim… right… and shouldn’t I also look where I fly?” he asks. “You do that as if it were totally easy… except it isn’t.” he protests slightly. “But yeah… I don’t mind a good dinner.” he says, finally, following Bailey and landing next to him. “Too bad we’re only in February. The night comes so quickly…”

Laughing a bit, Noémie nods. “Well, it’s the dark that’s keeping me from catching the golf balls. We’ll get together again tomorrow, a bit earlier, I hope, for the practice, and that way we’ll be able to go for longer.” The girl chuckles and picks up the bucket of balls as well as the bat that Tegan has left for her. “I’ll put this away if you all want to go to dinner. I promise we’ll get more complete practices in this week. Perhaps when some of our members aren’t distracted by the silly holiday.” Despite these comments, Noémie looks quite cheerful as she strides off towards the the broom shed.

Tegan waves at her teammates as she starts to run to the school, holding onto her hat as she does so. It seems as if Tegan herself might have someone to rush off for, perhaps, on such a day as this, though she hasn’t yet said a word about such a thing. The girl is soon gone, vanished into the school, and the warmth that it holds.

are here.

Standing in the center of the pitch, stretching, Noémie appears to be quite pleased with the clear weather for once. The sky is clear and bright, and the sun is shining down on the drifts of snow that cover the pitch and the tops of the hoops. “Just start stretching. It’s cold enough, without people getting injured from it,” she calls to her teammates who seem to be straggling onto the pitch. Her broom lays over the top of a box of Quidditch balls and she breathes in deeply as she begins some other stretching exercises.

Striding onto the pitch a bit behind, Van sets his broom against the same box as Noémi’s and begins his stretching. “Well it’s been colder than this… and at least it stopped snowing… and the wind isn’t as bad as it’s been.” Calls Van out to the captain. He stretches down to touch each foot and holds in place for a few moments before standing upright and tucking his arms behind his back. He’s pretty used to the whole stretching routine by now. “So what’s on the slate for today?”

Despite the clear sky, the wind is cold and stings David‘s face as he joins his other teammates on the pitch. He holds his broom over his left shoulder, as usual, privately wondering about the drills that he’ll have to perform today. He nods to the other players, without a word, as a greeting, and does just as he has been told. A few stretchings, he can do that.

Striding onto the pitch a bit behind, Van sets her broom against the same box as Noémi’s and begins her stretching. “Well it’s been colder than this… and at least it stopped snowing… and the wind isn’t as bad as it’s been.” Calls Van out to the captain. She stretches down to touch each foot and holds in place for a few moments before standing upright and tucking her arms behind her back. She’s pretty used to the whole stretching routine by now. “So what’s on the slate for today?”

“Yes, we’ve seen worse before, haven’t we? We’re in Scotland, after all.” Tegan Madison chimes in, as she joins the group. “Hello everybody, by the way.” she adds, as an afterthought, and she waves to her teammates. Then, she puts her own broom on the ground, and starts the stretching routine herself, bending forward, then to the left and the right. “So yes… what do you have in store for us?” she asks to the team captain.

Coming to the pitch at a jog, Bailey grins at the lot of them. “Afternoon, everyone,” he calls, half-heartedly beginning to stretch as he sees his teammates doing. “Have a good holiday everyone?” he asks, holding his broom out, ready to hop onto it. “Ah, I can’t wait to fly again. Sick of not being able to fly! My parents are just too weird about it.” He chuckles and switches arms, watching out the corner of his eye for when the captain finishes her stretches.

“I thought we’d fly some laps around the pitch for starters, get the holiday laziness out of us, and then do some passing exercises with the quaffle while the beaters work with a bludger. How’s that sound?” Noémie says this in a tone that makes it clear that they haven’t really much room to disagree with her. Then again, after the practice in the pouring rain during the fall, some of them seem relieved that they’ll at least be on brooms. “Alright, everyone up. Let’s do five laps.” She gets onto her broom and begins her own without another word to her team.

Cracking her back with an audible pop Van takes her broom in hand and smiles. “Hullo Teagan! Bailey! I hope you both had lovely holidays! Well laps aren’t so bad…. at least it’s not raining….” A small laugh rises out of her as she mounts her broom and begins flying a bit behind Noémie trying to get her broom back into the groove of things. As Van swings by the bleachers she waves a bit carelessly to a boy sitting pretty well alone and one might guess that it was her sweetheart from the way she blows him a kiss. Of course waving one hand in the air like a ninny throws her a little off balance but she’s kick to get herself back under control.

“Okay… it’s going to be good to fly again…” says David, as he takes his broom and mounts it. “Five laps, huh?” he asks again, to make sure he heard it right, and obviously afraid of making a fool of himself by not following the right instructions. He concentrates on his takeoff, checking his surroundings to see if nobody is in his path, and he notices Van blowing her kiss to her sweetheart, to which he rolls his eyes, before kicking off the ground.

Bailey takes to his broom and begins to zoom around the pitch. He’s a good bit behind Noémie and Van, who both got a head start on him, and since he’s not interested in wearing himself out first thing into practice. Soon, his five laps are finished, and he comes to hover in the center of the pitch, near where the box of Quidditch balls are. “So, which exercise are we doing, then?” he asks, his voice perhaps a bit deeper than it had been a month ago.

“Okay… let’s warm up a bit and fly for real!” says Tegan, enjoying the opportunity for a good training, and she takes off after the others, dutifully performing her five laps. She notices with satisfaction that the holidays didn’t make her too rusty, and smiles as she feels the wind blowing against her face with the speed.

“Alright, Tegan, you get the bludger, and your bat, and head on up with Riley, and I’ll practice with the chasers. We’ll do throwing exercises.” The prefect flies low and opens the box, pulling out the quaffle and tossing it up towards the chasers. “Van, you go by the hoops, and practice your diving until we work our way towards you,” Noémie orders, taking to her broom again and flying up high over the pitch. “What we’ll do is toss the quaffle over the two in the center, and if one of them catches it, then we’ve got to switch. We’ll fly towards the hoops as we do it. This should hopefully improve our coordination.” She smiles at the others and situates herself on the outside.

As soon as Van finishes her laps she flies over to the goal hoops as instructed by Noémie. “Alright, dives…. good…” Van takes a deep breath and waves to the person in the bleachers who is always making her late. “Watch carefully!” She flies away from the center hoop to the far right and charges back to the center as if diving for an imaginary Quaffle while grasping tight to her broom with both legs and extending both hands to clasp an imaginary ball.

Tegan Madison nods as she hears the instructions, and lands to look for her bat. The bat was useless for the warming up, hence she left it near the box containing the balls. As soon as she has gotten hold of it, she heads towards the box and releases the bludger. As the ball shoots up in the air, she walks away and gets back on her broom, kicks off from the ground, and motions for Riley to follow her.

Bailey‘s up in the air as soon as Noémie gives the order of events, positioning himself in the middle near the other Chaser. He grins to his partner and gives a sly look to David and Noémie. “Alright, we’ll be back on the outside before you know it!” He chuckles and reaches out to grab the quaffle as it comes flying upward. “Alright, which one of you wants it to start?” he asks, looking from David to Noémie and back again.

David Mildred nods as he hears the instructions, and follows the team captain from afar, hovering in the air near her as he watches her getting the Quaffle. As she takes off, he turns his head to follow her with his eyes. It is only a few seconds after that, that Tegan releases the bludger from the same box. Hearing the characteristic buzz of the metal ball flying towards him, David instinctively ducks on his broom, barely avoiding the Bludger as it flies past him. A near miss. David struggles a bit to put himself into position again. “Be careful with those, Tegan!” he yells angrily towards the Beater, before flying over to where the other Chasers are gathering. “Okay… what are we going to do?” he asks.

“David, you take the quaffle first. I fear for my own ability in this. After all, the snitch is a bit smaller.” The girl winks and chuckles as she says this She watches as Bailey tosses the quaffle towards her teammate and then begins flying at a good rate forward. “Throw it fast now. And don’t be afraid to fake them.” She grins widely and gets herself situated comfortably on her broom while watching for David’s throw. Yes, Noémie will have to do her seeker practice later.

“All right, I’ll do my best.” says David, catching the Quaffle from Noémie’s hands. He steers his broom so as to fly away from the other Chasers, giving himself some room for the throw. When he estimates the distance to be decent and still within his skills, he throws the red ball, trying to put some force in it, but missing his aim a bit as he does so. David frowns as he sees his ball flying over to Van. This is not going to be an easy throw for her, and David wouldn’t like to catch one of those.

Pulling herself up right after her dive Van gets repositioned to try another dive. This time she hovers a few feet in front of the left goal and flies all the way to the far right again trying to catch David’s errant Quaffle doing a bit of a strange sideways turn on her broom with an arm outstretched to catch the Quaffle. Catching it she gets set back up she looks a little dizzy. “Oie I hope I don’t have to do that one too often….” she shakes her head and mutters. “Just glad I didn’t have breakfast yet…” Van tosses the Quaffle back toward the group of Chasers.

“Perhaps we should start back a bit farther,” Bailey suggests. “Doesn’t do us much good to start right off trying to make goals, hmm?” He chuckles and turns, flying backwards a ways, then stopping. “Alright, now try to get it past us, David! I’m sure you’ll be in the middle in no time!” He grins at the other chaser as the others fly to where he has stopped and align themselves appropriately.

“Here, David!” Noémie calls, clapping her hands and putting them up in the air, mostly hoping that she won’t make a fool of herself by dropping the quaffle when it’s thrown to her. “Nice and high so they can’t get it,” she calls, laughing a bit as she sees Bailey rise on his broom, clearly ready to intercept a high toss, should the ball come that high. The captain watches carefully, ducking as the bludger comes flying rather close to her.

“Okay, Riley, let’s send the Bludger around the Chasers!” says Tegan, flying after the metal ball and throwing it back in the general direction of the Chasers, not targeting anybody in particular –this is still practice, after all.

David groans and nods, catching the Quaffle once again, this time getting a bit nearer from Noémie and trying to avoid Bailey. When he is close enough, he sends the ball in a parabolic trajectory, as instructed, sending it directly towards Noémie. This time it is an easy one, and Noémie will have no trouble catching it, even if she is used to smaller balls, as she has put it earlier.

Slowly stalking back and forth in front of the center goal Van watches the chaser’s carefully ready to block an attempt to score again. She takes another moment to watch the beaters as you never know when a stray bludger might end up lodged in your skull. “Good one David! Way to go!” She calls out trying to encourage the younger team mate.

Flying up as David tosses the ball, Bailey misses being able to catch it, though his fingers do brush it slightly, causing its trajectory to be much higher than it would have been, were it unbothered. He turns quickly, keeping up with the group of them as they fly slowly towards the goals, and watches to see if Noémie manages to catch the red orb.

Noémie manages to grab the ball, though she looks as if she’s ready to fall off her broom as she does so. She soon lobs it back towards David, managing to keep the thing high enough to miss Bailey’s hands once again. “See, if we can pass like that during the game, we’ll have no trouble dominating the quaffle long enough for me to find that snitch.” The girl grins and winks as she watches to see if David gets his hands onto the Quaffle.

Smiling as he manages to catch the Quaffle without too much difficulties, David nods to Noémie and agrees. “Yes, we should play like that, but for the moment, it’s not that hard, since we aren’t really moving either.” he says, throwing the Quaffle to Bailey. “Perhaps we should fly around a bit to make it harder” he suggests.

Hearing a voice calling to her, Noémie looks sharply. “Oh, what? Oh… alright,” She answers to the person, turning to look at everyone else. “Bring it all in,” she calls to those present. “I’ve got to go do studies for OWLs, and the headmistress wants to see me as well. Give the quaffle here,” she calls, holding her hands out as Bailey tosses it to her. Soon she is on the ground, packing it away. “Tegan, can you put the bludger and the box away? I’d better go quickly so I don’t keep her waiting.” With that, Noémie is gone, broom in hand still as she trots into the school.

“Alright, see you all later!” Bailey calls, making his way to the ground. He runs over to the broomshed, storing his broom inside and then he, too, runs off of the pitch and back into the warmth of the school. Ah, practice was fun, flying was better, but nothing beat the warmth of the castle in the middle of winter.

Hearing the captain call the practice to a close Van comes in for a landing. Not long after the boy who was sitting in the bleachers comes down to meet her and she wraps an arm around him. “That was a really great practice even if it was a little short. See you later everyone!” Van walks with the boy back to the castle all lovey-dovey.

“Well, since the other are leaving, let’s go as well” says Tegan. She and Riley, followed by David, land on the ground and walk away towards the locker rooms.

Landon is totally and utterly excited! He’s buzzing and jumping about and grinning from ear to hear. Of course, the crowd can’t tell because Landon looks a neutral as ever on the outside. His broom is grasped firmly in his hand and he is holding his beater’s bat between his arm and his side. He uses the free hand to wave at the audience in no particular rhythm. A few waves here, a finger-wiggle there, and arm flap after he gets a little further towards the center. When he reaches his spot, he stops and just stands like a Landon-Statue.

Gabriel is psyched. Holding his broom well off the ground as he makes his way onto the pitch with his team, Gabriel looks around, reminding himself to take cleansing deep breaths. “We’ll win this,” he says aloud, switching his broom from his left hand to his right. Looking to Keelan as she speaks, Gabriel gulps a little, glancing at Briony.

Briony, who has all week been practically shivering with excitement, looks a bit green in the face now as she strides onto the familiar pitch. An unfamiliar sight greets her as she makes her way out behind Gabriel. There are far more people here than she ever remembered seeing at a match, all with their eyes down on the pitch as the teams collect and get situated. Oh, Briony is very nervous now and she hardly hears what Keelan says; she is far too distracted by all the commotion.

It is a clear day, free of rain, and Noémie smiles a bit as she pauses at the edge of the pitch. The fifth year has a determined smile on her face as she makes her way to the center of the pitch, holding on to her broom and comes to a stop near where Keelan is. “Yes, Professor,” she responds, as she always does and puts her hand out to Marie-Anna. The Ravenclaw’s hair is skillfully pulled back for once, rather than flying all over the place in a mess of wavy light brown, for better sight of the snitch.

Clavicle Gravely comes striding out carrying his Sandsweeper 25. The Egyptian broom has sleek lines. He waves to the Ravenclaw stands and yells “AUK AUK!”

Keelan Walsh is already in the center of the pitch, perched atop the box that holds the Quidditch balls. Her broom is nearby, waiting for it’s use. Today, her robes are a somber shade of deep red. The whistle hanging about her neck shines in the autumn sun, and she plays with it idly, waiting for the children to arrive. When they do, she stands up, shoulders straight, and says, “Captains? Shake hands, nice and sportsmanship-like, now.” with a grim smile.

Broom in hand Marie-Anna stands in suitable position that she may shake the opposing captains hand. Upon the professors call the Gryffindor beater shakes Noémie’s proferred hand, offering the Ravenclaw captain a polite smile.

Van stalks behind the rest of her team, gripping tightly to her broom. The Seventh year isn’t too excited, but a faint smile is still plastered across her lips as she gazes out into the stands. She breathes out a little laugh at Clavicle, shaking her head a little but in no belittling way.

Tegan makes her way onto the pitch, a foul look on her face. The fourth-year beater grips her bat in one hand and her broom in the other and stops far to Noémie’s left, looking the Gryffindor beaters up and down, sizing them up before the start of the match. Tegan is now seasoned to the matches, and she has to suppress the urge to laugh as she looks at the faces of some of the newer players, who look rather nervous. She says nothing, and no sounds emit from her while she stands there, waiting the beginning whistle, just smirking.

Andy Carver‘s heart pounds with excitement as he enters the pitch with his team. He has clenched his right hand around his broom to minimise the trembling. He takes a few deep breaths, lines up near Gabriel and nods towards him slightly, not being able to force himself to a smile.

Josh MacLean is pale beneath his freckles, his eyes wide and his newly-developed adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows nervously. He raises a hand to his mouth to chew on a fingernail, but puts it back down at his side after accidentally tasting the leather of his gloves, proceeding to stand somewhat near Landon, and waits, his knuckles white with his hand clenched tightly around his broom.

David walks in line with the other players of his team, holding his Moonsweeper over his left shoulder. He punches his right fist in the air, saluting the Ravenclaws who were cheering on the team from their bleachers. It is a fine day for flying, and David is feeling exceptionally confident, owing to the inordinate amount of training the team captain arranged for the whole team… he certainly feels less frightened than on his first match last year.

Quidditch! Hooray! Tybalt‘s favourite sport on the planet. He lives for it, he’d die for it, and it is the best opportunity in the world to show off! He slicks his hair back with a graceful movement of his hand and pulls on the bands of his fingerless gloves a few times – just for how of course, they’re already firmly attached to his hands. Once he’s done with that move he waves towards a group of girls that are frantically waving their red and gold banners at him in an attempt to get his attention. He winks in their direction and they all shriek with giggles and start talking excitedly amongst themselves. Now, off towards the center of the pitch! After a slinking along in a graceful fashion, Tybalt reaches the seeker’s spot and stands tall and proud, waving like he’s the one who invented Quidditch, or something.

Clavicle says, “Auk! Auk!” he grins and trots over to David with a laugh. “Come on David…Just one Auk, for the team!” He grins and prepares to mount his broom when signaled to.”

Bailey Williams follows David, no trace of fear or excitement on his face whatsoever. He tries to concentrate on the match, remembering the moves drilled in him after those numerous practices. He holds his broom in his right hand, waiting for the order to mount it and dart into the sky.

Riley Markham cant’t help but feel somewhat nervous as he makes his way on to the pitch, broom slung across his shoulders like a clothes rod, as if he were carrying pales of water. A feigned attempt at looking cassual, almost as if he hoped he might somehow fool himself. His aim had gotten better in practice, but there was still a lot of work to be done. And here of all places, with his Gran wave down at him from the faculty stands, he could almost feel his heart beating somewhere in the vacinity of his throat. Purposely not turning his gaze up to respond to her, pretending interest in the color of the grass.

Keelan Walsh spends the hand shaking time undoing the latches on the trunk. Almost as if sentient and able to understand what was going on, the Bludgers begin to shake the box from the first releasing ‘click’. However, when it’s opened, they just struggle against their bonds. Keelan pushes a button which reveals the Snitch. Taking it gingerly from it’s holder, the Professor turned Referee allows the tiny golden ball to unfurl it’s wings and bat them a few times before letting it zoom away. Now, the Quaffle is collected, and Keelan turns back to the teams. “Everyone ready?” She doesn’t let it go yet, “Let’s play a fair game, I don’t feel like giving a lot of penalty shots today.” This is said seriously, and she raises the whistle to her lips with her free hands. Giving the Quaffle a toss rather impressively high, she blows the whistle, signaling the beginning of the match.

Mounting his broom, Gabriel resolves to shake of his nervous feeling as he prepares to kick off the ground, trying to have faith in his game skills. He and Briony had practiced a lot, and he needed it to pay off. At Keelan’s whistle, Gabriel jumps a bit before lifting off in the direction of the Quaffle.

Eh, what the heck? She’s not going to be here much longer so who cares? She over beside Clavicle and Dave, waving her fists in the air towards their audience, “AUK! AUK!” She screams, giggling. Van claps, turning and grinning to her teammates before swooping over to her position.

Switching from anxiety to alertness in a split-second Andy Carver mounts his broom as the referee grabs the whistle and pushes off the ground with all his force, even losing the balance a bit and nervously adjusting his seat again. He heads for the quaffle. Maybe he would be able to grab it before Gabriel. Every second counts now.

In one move, Landon jumps onto his broom and pulls his bat from under his arm, ready for use. Then, with a quick move of his leg, Landon shoots straight up into the air, and slightly off to the side so that the Chasers can have control of the field and he won’t be in the way. Now, to wait until the bludger are released so he can make sure they don’t hit anyone on his team.

As soon as she hears the whistle, Noémie is on her broom and she flies high above the pitch, above the hoops. The Ravenclaw sees the golden snitch released and watches as it quickly is gone from her sight. Well, it’s still early in the game, and Noémie is not concerned about missing it this time. She stays perched on her broom, staying very high above the action of the game, hoping to quickly spot the snitch, rather than have the game go on for days.

“Don’t clobber the ball, control your swings, follow through with the connection,” Riley murmurs, over and over again under his breath as the call to mount brooms is given. Athletism and mindless bravado his specialty, Riley hardly thinks at all as he pulls down on the handle of his broom from his shoulder, flipping it in to place. Mounting it and kicking off from the ground in one smooth motion. Impressive for a second year, even though he nearly dropped the broom and fell off the other side of the broom. Recklessness to match his brash flying style. Soaring up high, he flips his bat in to his scarred hand with a flick of his wrist. Still pointedly avoiding looking the faculty stands as he glances around the pitch at his teammates and enemies, looking for a leather-wrapped cannon ball.

Marie-Anna Greyton is back in the appropriate position for her to start on the ground from, bat under one arm as she mounts her broom. It’s not long after that she launches into the air, her bat in hand. She’s a little to the side, much like Landon is.

David mounts his broom and, with a firm kick on the ground, takes off in the air, taking his position. Once floating in the air, waiting for the whistle to be blowed, he looks at this teammates, grinning at them. “Give’em hell, Riley!” he shouts, and mutters under his breath: “and don’t send the Bludgers to me, please.” David was impressed by Riley’s skills on the broom, and never forgot that it was thanks to him, inderectly, that he got on the team. However, Riley’s aim was sometimes very random and downright dangerous…

“Remember, Riley! AIM!” Tegan calls as she, too, gets onto her broom and kicks off the ground, quickly ascending with her bat gripped tightly in her hand. She may not have as much power as her fellow beater does, but at least she can aim. Tegan‘s smirk is gone from her face now that the game is in session, and she gives a passing bludger a hard WHACK!, aiming it generally in the direction of the Gryffindor seeker, in hopes of quickly giving Ravenclaw an advantage.

Josh MacLean takes a deep breath as he mounts his broom, flying at a steep angle upward before levelling out to head towards the opposite end of the field, but not too far from the Quaffle, trying to keep himself open for passing and mostly paying attention to the other Chasers.

As the whistle is blown Tybalt makes a big show of turning on his `Seeking Sense’ – as he calls it – as he hops onto his broom and soars as high up as he can be while still visible to the female members of the audience. He flips his hair out of his eyes and scans the skies for that elusive, golden ball. He needs to catch it and he looks like he won’t quit until he has it.

Keelan Walsh gives the teams a moment of playing before stepping back from the box and undoing the bludger restraints with a charm. Mostly because she can and partially because the stupid balls are dangerous. Having unleashed them on people ranging from 12 to 17 (or possibly 18) who are typically assumed to be at least partially under her care, the Herbology Professor mounts her own broom, but does not rise as high as the players, as of yet.

Clavicle Gravely mounts the”Auk Auk!” he hops on his broom and the sandsweeper and zooms up. He heads for the quaffle as well, trying to use the foreign brooms speed to go for the falling quaffle. He pours on the speed to try to cut through the crowd. For now he trusts Riley to keep the bludgers off.

Briony Wexler flies up towards the hoops, looking rather unsteady as she does so. Chances are high that the second-year will lose her breakfast before the match is over. “Whoo, Gryffindor!” she calls as she takes her place in front of the three high hoops. Is it possible that they’re higher up? Briony doesn’t know. The girl tries to watch as there are now twice as many people on the pitch as she is used to, more things flying around to keep her eyes on. Just watch for the red one, Bri, that’s the ticket. Keep your eyes on the prize. Echoes of Gabriel’s recent pep talks fly through her mind.

Still concentrating on the match, Bailey follows his fellow Chasers and takes his position, on the right wing of the field. He keeps his eyes fixed on the box where the Quaffle was stored, waiting for it to be released. Bailey doesn’t partake much in the cheering, and totally ignores the comments that the other players of his team were exchanging between them as a way to release the tension. His flying is the only thing which matters to him now. As the Quaffle is released, he pushes his broom forward and flies directly towards it.

Worry rapidly becomes frustration as Riley flashes a slightly uncomfortable look toward David, then an annoyed one toward Tegan. “Yeah, alright, already!” Gritting his teeth a bit, Riley bucks his broom, spotting the second down low. Twisting in to a barrel-roll dive that is perhaps even more reckless and showy than normal (as if to show that he did have SOME talent), thesound of Riley‘s own bat connects with the ball almost in tandem with Tegan’s own CRACK. Pivotting his broom in a smooth turn, he does as instructed, and the bludger whistles off fast in the general direction of Briony. The first person he’d seen after coming out of the one-eighty turn. “Ha!”

Being totally surprised Andy finds himself having plucked the quaffle out of the air just in time. He hectically turns his head into all directions, sees Josh first and tries to pass the red ball to him. Giving the toss way too much of speed.

“What? I’m on your team!” Tegan calls, scoffing a bit. Really, now, one would think he’d be grateful for the advice she was offering. No matter, Tegan watches as Riley shows off a bit. “Oh, gimme a break, Riley!” she calls, rolling her eyes again at her teammate. She is forced to duck, however, as his bludger comes directly at her head. “Aim at THEM! Not ME!” Tegan does not seem very pleased, does she?

Marie-Anna Greyton grins as she watches the release of the bludgers. “Let the games begin,” she states with a bit of a cackle before swings her arm a bit, warming it up a little for those encounters she’s certain to have with those nasty bludger. As she see’s the bludger go flying towards Briony, Marie offers a shout. “Bri! Heads up!” is given, as she herself races towards the keeper intent on getting between the bludger and the Gryffindor keeper.

As Noémie sees Tybalt showing off for the girlies in the stands, she rolls her eyes. Go right ahead and do that, she decides as she flies in a figure eight over the pitch, watching around carefully. Noémie is alert, determined not to watch the action in the game, rather, to look for that bit of precious gold that will name her team winner.

David briefly turns his head towards RIley and Tegan, hearing tiny bits of their argument carried to him by the wind. He quickly turns his head back to the Quaffle, which Andy has just thrown to Josh. David decides to try and steal it from the Gryffindor player, and flies in his general direction.

Watching the players, Landon flies the length of the field as he waits for one of his players to be in danger. He’s the defensive beater, at the moment, and he doesn’t feel like chasing down a bludger so he can whack it at another player, just yet. Of course, once he has a bludger he will whack it at a player on the opposite team.

The Ravenclaw keeper wets her lips, adamantly watching the game as it continues on, leaning here and there as Van does her best to predict when she’d best actually do her part.

“Josh!” Gabriel yells upon seeing Andy’s pass to the boy. “I’m open!” he adds, shooting forward towards the Ravenclaw goals, hoping to get into a better position to be passed to. Gabe is unaware of whether or not Josh actually caught the Quaffle, or if it was intercepted.

Clavicle Gravely turns to try to intercept the quaffle as it was speedily tossed. He doesn’t have time toi catch it. So instead he tries a quick 180 to try to tail bat it toward David.

Watching David going for the Quaffle, Bailey decides to play a preventive game and manoeuvers such as to place himself between Gabriel and Josh, should David fail to catch the Quaffle and the Gryffindor try to shoot the Quaffle at Gabriel. Besides, covering the Keeper is never a bad idea.

Briony shrieks a bit and flies downward as she sees the ominous black orb flying towards her at a rather fast pace. No, Briony would rather abandon her goals than get hit straight-on by a bludger. She is now about halfway down the tall hoops, rather out of the way of where she ought to be in order to block shots, but — but the bludger! Briony is not going to head back up until the object has been deflected.

Luckily for him, Josh is better at catching and throwing than he is at flying, and was paying attention, so although the quaffle is flying really fast, he sticks out an arm in time and with a sound thwack, it connects with his arm and is held close to him, his arm curled around it, as he zooms further towards the Ravenclaw goals when he notices David and Gabriel almost simultaneously. With a nervous glance from one to the other, he clamps his teeth down on his bottom lip and circles a little to the left to see if he can’t get a clearer shot to Gabriel, and attempts to chuck the ball with enough speed to get it safely to his teammate.

Marie-Anna Greyton takes a quick whack at the bludger, the noise resounding as bat meets ball, and deflects it away from Briony, who gets a crooked grin. The bludger, meanwhile, was deflected in the opposite direction from which it was going, perhaps far and fast enough to get to Van.

Tegan is in the middle of the pitch and seeing Marie-Anna alter the bludger’s trajectory, she flies as quickly as her broom will take her to stop in front of Van. It is a mere moment before the bludger has connected with her bat again, and it spirals towards the clump of both team’s chasers who seem to be still jockeying for posession of the quaffle. “Riley! Get the other bludger!” she calls, watching as one flies his direction.

As Andy speculates that his pass has not been caught by Josh, he lets his broom fall back a bit out of the action and pushes it up afterwards to get a better view on the events on the field, not flying out of his fellow chasers passing range. And then he sees the quaffle swooshing through the air again as Josh passed it. Andy shoots forward on his way to place himself in front of the Ravenclaw hoops.

Eek. There’s a bludger flying right towards him. Stupid things have minds of their own. He winds up and whacks it across the stadium and away from himself. And, now it looks to be heading straight for Van! Good aim, Landon! Good thing he practiced with targets at the last practice!

Marie-Anna Greyton flies off towards the bludger that’s flying towards the clump of chasers. “Landon, stop Riley, get that bludger!” is shouted by the elder beater, though her call is unnecessary as, evidently, Landon’s already on it. Of course, now the Gryffindor eyes the bludger, trying to assess if one of her own chasers will get hit, or if it’ll hit a Ravenclaw chaser. Then again, it may not hit anyone. Either way, she doesn’t seem intent on stopping the bludger if it’s going to get a Ravenclaw.

Riley Markham seems fairly pleased with himself there for a moment, as he as the bludhger sails past Tegan toward it’s original target. A faint smirk touching his lips. “Past you! Jus’ followin’ your advice, eh? Aimin’!” It wasn’t his fault Tegan’d got in the way, and though he usually got on with him at least amiably, the nervousness he felt being on the pitch for the first time and the aggrivation of being told the same thing day-in, day-out during daily practices with both the varsity and junior squads — it had ground down on his patience. Add to that the undue expectations he felt with his Gran watching.. His nerves were fairly shot, she he had reverted to his more base self-defense mechanism. Show-boating and gloating. Gloating soon to become brooding. “Hah!” He shouts again, before blinking. Having, briefly, taken his mind out of the game to admire his own handywork. Turning, he manages to get his bat up just in time to deflect the bludger half-away (in the direction of Tegan herself, which is doubtful to improve her mood or disposition toward the boy). The impact catches Riley off balance, though, knocking him in almost exaggerated slowness off the edge of his broom after flailing hims arms in circles not unlike a duck. He does, however, manage to save himself, reaching up to grab the handle of his broom, leaving him dangling there for a moment with a slightly dumbfounded expression.

“Catch it, Bailey!” shouts David, as Josh throws the ball towards the Ravenclaw balls. David is too far away to attempt a catch, and besides, it would be better for him to be slightly nearer of the middle of the pitch so that if Bailey catches the ball, he could pass it to David afterwards.

Looking backwards to check for a pass in his direction, Gabriel‘s gaze first falls onto Briony– what was she doing!? “Gah!” is Gabriel‘s outburst, but he then notices Josh’s strong pass to him and turns his broom around, extending one hand towards the ball.

Tegan hasn’t moved since Marie-Anna’s bludger shot came straight for her team’s keeper. Rearing her arm back, the beater chucks the bludger towards the group of chasers once again, hoping that it’ll come into contact with someone from the other team rather than her own. Of course, as they’re all in such close proximity, it makes it difficult for her to judge where it will go or who it will hit.

Clavicle Gravely turns seeing Riley having trouble. He flies fast and herd under the boy ready to pull a catch if he needs catching. “Riley! Are you alright?” he calls out, then sees the boy catch himself and he gives him a thumbles up. “Auk Auk!” He turns and zips back after the quaffle.

Keelan Walsh is being a nicely unbiased ref(really!) and just sort of slowly circling the pitch at a level where she can see what is going on without getting involved unless she needs to be. For a worried moment she hovers, watching Riley. Under her breath a muttered, “Ruddy Ravenclaw, don’t get yourself killed.” She resumes her slow circling, patiently waiting.

Having noticed the ball being thrown at Gabriel probably second before he did, Bailey pushes his broom towards the Quaffle and intercepts it deftly. He then dives a little, attempting to get some speed so as to distance Josh and get to the middle of the pitch, hoping that he would be able to send the Quaffle to another chaser then.

Now that she is out of peril, Briony flies back up to hover about three feet in front of the hoops. As the other team gains control of the ball, her arms go up in a defensive position, one that she has been taught through copious practicing. The girl still looks a bit green in the face, but is noticably shaking less as she watches the action. Her exhileration is beginning to overcome her nervousness.

Marie-Anna Greyton hovers close enough to get in the way of a bludger if it appears to be out to hit a Gryffindor, but she makes no move to try to stop them if they’re out to hit a RAvenclaw.

“N-noooo!” Gabriel cries as the Quaffle is intercepted and whisked away from him. “Oh no you don’t!” he yells, shooting after Bailey, hoping to catch up with him and regain possession of the Quaffle for Gryffindor.

His cheeks turning crimson, Riley pulls himself back on to his broom with no small effort — immediately glad that he’d done so well with chin-ups in muggle grade school. “Yeah, yeah, dandy, Clavy,” he calls out, once he’s he’s secured himself back on to his broom, and pulled his back back in to his hands. The confidence and bravado of his anger suddenly gone, he pushes forward.. Allowing himself enough time to flash a half-dark, half-embaressed sort of look at Professor Walsh, Riley returns himself to the game. His movements nowhere near as quick or sure, but much more controlled.

“Ugh, Riley!” Tegan shouts as she gets knicked in the hand by the bludger before she manages to whack it towards Gabriel. She grabs onto the hand that got hit by the black sphere and frowns hard at her teammate. “Haven’t you been listening at all?” she snaps at him irritably, clutching her hand for the pain in it. Deciding that she would get it looked at later, the beater, rears her bat back up, waiting to see where the bludgers end up next.

Curse it! They were beaten away! Landon makes a dive and manages to hit the bludger hit by Tegan. He aimed it straight towards Noémie and it sails quickly through the air, displaying the force it was hit with. Landon supposes he probably should have waited until someone on his team was in immediate danger, but that could take too long. It was much more likely to hit a Ravenclaw if it was aimed at one.

Clavicle Gravely is lagging behind the quaffle chase, So he’s actually in good position as he never got so far down the pitch to chase the quaffle, going after Riley. He zips towards the Gryffindor hoops. “I’m open!”

Van Douglass is more nervous about Gabe and Josh then anyone else, throwing up an arm to attempt and block the approaching bludger rather then abandon her post just as her teammate moves in front of her. Not noticing the other one coming from Landon, the girl pushes out from behind Tegan to once again have a view of the field. When she does notice it, she swoops back behind Tegan until the girl beats it away, at which time she comes back out. Nope. She wasn’t as cowardly as the other keeper at all.

Josh MacLean yells, “No!” at the interception, and zooms closer towards Gabriel, trying to stay in an easy throwing distance to his fellow chaser, but not actively going back for the quaffle himself, until Clavicle shouts out from near the Gryffindor hoops and Josh lowers himself to his broom to get more speed as he flies towards the path the ball will probably take if thrown to Clavicle.

“Argh!” Andy ‘articulates’ under his breath as the pass is intercepted. He whirls round to try to get the quaffle back as he hears – and a split second later sees – a bludger fizzing behind him. Maybe he could redirect it to a Ravenclaw. Andy races down towards David and crosses his way, touching the tip of the Ravenclaw’s broom slightly. He looks back to see if it was a successful attempt, still rushing across the field.

Riley Markham shifts his gaze toward Landon, then the bludger than he struck. Tegan’s shout ringing in his ears, frustration and embaressment gripping him at nearly equal measure. Darting upward, he moves in a quick attemp to put himself between the bludger and Noémie, to perhaps reclaim some of his honor. Bat ready to knock the cannonball back at Landon with as much force as it was struck. Calm the bloody hell down, Riley.. you can do this..

Noémie is not ignoring the action of the game so much as to miss that there is a bludger flying in her direction. She quickly flies away from where the bludger is, but had not spotted it fast enough to avoid it altogether. The bludger knicks the front of her broom, tacking a good six inches off of the tip of it. “You’ll pay for that!” She hollers as she rocks back and forth unsteadily on her broom. The usually graceful Noémie looks decidedly displeased as she manages to move herself out of the bludger’s return trajectory.

“Argh!” yells David, nearly hit by the second-year Gryffindor. “That’s a foul!” he yells, and as a result looses sight of the Quaffle for a split second. Upset by the near miss, he only realizes a couple of seconds later that the Quaffle is still in Bailey’s hands… but for how long? He flies towards the Gryffindor goals, trying to catch up with the other Gryffindors who were beginning to build a defensive wall.

A day late and a galleon short, as they say. Riley‘s attempt to intercept hadn’t been quick enough, and the bludger is missed by centimeters off the end of his bat. This was going quite splendidly for him, wasn’t it. As the end of Noémie’s broom is clipped, Riley winces violently, flashing her an appologetic “I did the best I could” sort of look, before swinging back for the bludger’s return path. The same mantra he’d been repeating when the took off play in his head, he flashes Landon a somewhat harsh look before lifting his bat and swinging again. The crack errupting from his bat colliding with the ball something like thunder. Maybe the destruction of part of his Captain’s broom helped bring focus, but his aim is true, sailing quick and fast at Landon. He can do it.

Keelan Walsh is alert and not wondering if she will have to start muttering about Astra needing potions ingredients, honestly. Almost missing the collision, it isn’t until David yells foul that she realizes he’s right. Her faces falls a little as she blows her whistle and announces, “Foul! Penalty shot to Ravenclaw!” A small frown, and she waits for the attempt to be made. Sigh.

Oh no, a penalty shot! Briony has not had much practice at all with this, and her eyes are wide as Keelan announces this. The girl grips her broom rather more tightly than she needs to, her knuckles turning white. Okay, Briony, time to show your skill, your merit. Aw, hell, just try to block the shot. She tries to think encouraging shots, though she has a hard time of it, knowing that two of the keepers on Ravenclaw aren’t first years at quidditch as she is.

Clavicle Gravely turns and wanders over to the side he’s supposed to stay on while a penalty shot is being finalized. he hovers a bit and grins “AUK AUK!!!!”

What? A foul? That would simplify things for David. The Ravenclaw chaser, still holding the Quaffle, now has a free way towards the penalty line. Once he reaches the line, hovering for a while to decide to which hoop he’ll throw the ball, he finally turns his broom to the right, feinting a shoot to the right hoop, but in reality throwing it to the left hoop.

Yes, the second year has seen shots like this before, but in her nervous distraction, she mistakenly begins to dive to her right, where David has first begun to shoot before realizing that the red orb is heading the other direction. Quickly pulling on the end of her broom to attempt the block for the other hoop, she nearly falls off of the flying mechanism just as the quaffle flies through the hoop with a loud CLANG! Briony‘s face falls and reddens as she rights herself on the broom and centers herself again. No, this was not a good start.

Keelan Walsh watches Briony miss with a wince, and the announcer gives a booming “Point to Ravenclaw!” but she flies in to collect the Quaffle and resume play. With another blow of the whistle, she does just that, and quickly removes herself from the thick of things while she’s at it. A sympathic glance to the Gryffindor Keeper is all she spares.

A loud groan escapes Riley as the foul is called, of course momentarily pausing the bludgers, including the one he’d clobbered at Landon. The one good hit he’d had, the one that was bound to actually have a positive effect. The air seems to slip from him and his shoulders slump. And he makes the horrendous mistake of looking back toward the faculty stands, as David shoots. Catching the surpremely dissapointed gaze of his grandmother from the corner of his eye. Yeah, that about did it. At the moment, there was nothing more he wanted than to land, find some great rock and crawl under it to die. The fight gone from him almost totally.

Clavicle says, “AUK AUK!!!” the chaser yells as he does a 720 on the broom. He then watches to see who will take possession of the quaffle.”

Giving a cheer as Bailey makes the score, Tegan starts flying a bit as the play resumes again as normal. Well, it was something, and it put them ahead, even if it was Gryffindor’s own fault that Ravenclaw even had the penalty shot. Spying a bludger heading down towards her end of the pitch, Tegan flies quickly towards the black object and gives it a hearty WHACK! She sends it towards the captain of Gryffindor team, trying a different tack rather than attacking the chasers or keeper.

Josh MacLean curses under his breath as the penalty is called, and scowls and repeats himself as Briony misses the shot, but once the whistle blows, he is all business once again, or even moreso now that they’re down a point and Josh is a bit angry. Ascending and zooming towards the quaffle, he grabs it, slowing down to glance around and try to spot one of the other chasers.

“It’s okay, Bri!” Gabriel shouts from across the field, though he doubts she could possibly hear him across that distance and amid all the noise. Looking the other way to Josh, Gabe sees his teammate in possession of the quaffle and flies up towards the Ravenclaw goals again. “Josh!” he calls again as he passes by.

Marie-Anna Greyton cringes slightly as she makes note of the score, a shake of her head is given before she spots the incoming bludger and aims to take a whack at it. Unfortunatetly for Marie, two things went wrong with this intent, the first one being, she was too close to the bludger to hit it properly, therefore resulting in it hitting her shoulder. The second thing, the black orb was hit too hard and was going too fast for Marie to maintain her balance, so not only did it hit her shoulder, and, quite possibly, break it, it also knocked her off her broom to the ground below. Upon landing the captain wrinkles her nose. “That’s gonna hurt in the morning,” is muttered as she stands to make her way off the pitch.

“Yeah! That’s for you Gryffindors!” cheers David, as Bailey manages to score a goal. When the Quaffle is put into play once again, David concentrates and turns his broom towards Gabriel. David had difficulties to steal a Quaffle from someone, but covering another player is easier. He hopes to catch the Quaffle as it is thrown towards him, or at least turn Gabriel into a tactically useless player for Gryffindor.

Sharp eyes spy the bludger heading straight for him. Yeegads! Luckily it pauses at the penalty shot is taken, but once play resumes it hurtles straight for him. Without missing a beat Landon lifts his bat and stops the bludger and reverses it’s flight. Of course, the force of the stop and hit combined chipped a hunk out of the top of his bat, but Landon doesn’t seem to be worried about it. He’s studying the bludger closely to make sure it takes out Noémie just as it has been aimed to do. He is forced to tear his eyes away, though, as Marie-Anna takes a hit. The Gryffindor boy is now the team’s only beater, and that could be a problem.

Well, Tegan‘s shot was successful, much to her own surprise, and the bludger in true form comes flying back in her direction. As it approaches she rears back and chucks it directly towards Josh, who seems to be the most agressive Gryffindor chaser at the moment. The girl rotates her shoulder a bit as she watches to see whether the bludger indeed goes where she indended for it to go or whether she ought to start flying to intercept it again.

Bailey is still lagging behind the zone of interest, due to the fact that he was the one who shot the penalty and thus has to cover the distance between him and the middle of the pitch where the Quaffle is. He pushes his broom forward, trying to get some speed, and hoping that nobody would have the bad idea to send a Bludger against him.

Clavicle Gravely pours on the sandsweepers speed to try to go help cover the hoops and try to snag the quaffle. He pours on too much speed and flies dangerously close to the hoops. It takes him a moment to recover and he looks for the quaffle.

Riley Markham had remained fairly near Noémie while the penalty shot had been made, so it doesn’t take much for him to place himself between it and the Ravenclaw seeker. He is, after all, quite quick. And he brings up his broom and deflects the bludger back with an annoyed expression. His hit is strong, even though he doesn’t place all his weight in to it. The aim is poor, however, flying wide of Landon by several feet, sailing instead toward the Gryffindor seeker.

Andy hangs his head as the penalty has been called and sweep aside as it is performed. Not watching the first Ravenclaw goal he feels like having a big chunk of stone in his stomache. But as the game action sets in again, Andy sees Josh carrying the quaffle and tries to fly ahead of him to be the preferred receiver. “Josh!” Andy calls.

Josh MacLean doesn’t notice the captain go down, being preoccupied with having the quaffle in hand. He chews on his bottom lip, Gabriel is covered, where the heck is Andy? His searching is interrupted, though, by the glimpse of something black, metal, and moving very fast in his peripheral vision, too fast… Josh turns slightly, unable to get out of the path of the bludger, and is hit in the stomach, at which point he drops the ball, doubling over in pain and wobbling precariously on his broom as he floats towards the ground.

Tybalt Holmes flips his hair back and winks at his girls as he soars around the stadium for all to see. So, of course he doesn’t see the bludger that is heading straight for him! It connects with his shoulder and sends him spinning around in circles so fast that he is nothing more than a red and gold blur for a few seconds. Several groups of girls sprinkled throughout the audience scream in horror as their pretty boy is shot down. He floats down towards the ground for a bit before he regains his head a bit. “YEEGADS, LANDON!” He shouts across the pitch and he grabs his shoulder with one hand and rests his forehead against the handle of his broom. But, after a few moments he lifts his head and throws both of his arms up into the air (One of the making a sickening POP as it is raised) and he shouts, “But I’m OK!” and his girls shriek and clap excitedly. Now, he needs to go back to finding the snitch. That bludger is now flying off towards Clavicle and it doesn’t appear as though it’ll bother him twice in a row.

“Good one, Riley!” Noémie calls encouragingly to the beater with a wave. She has managed to pick off the sharpest bits off of the end of her now-shorter broom, and appears to be paying a bit closer attention to the game, knowing that she has not got the same flying advantage as usual. Momentarily, Noémie thinks she spots a glint of gold near to the ground and begins flying downwards, around the center of the pitch so as to avoid her teammates who are attempting to get the quaffle and make shots. She manages to get the feel for the less-than-whole broom as she comes down, but her lack of control at the start had her taking too long to get to the ground and the snitch is now gone again. Grumbling quietly, the fifth-year makes her way back up above the commotion to see if she can’t spot the snitch again.

“Aaah!” shouts Gabriel as he sees Josh hit, bringing both hands to his head, each grasping his hair. Without hesitating anymore, Gabe grips his broomstick and heads downwards, trying to catch the Quaffle before it falls down completely. Gabe comes up with it, hurling it at Andy. “Go!” he shouts after the haphazard throw.

ACK! Landon‘s losing it! He was speeding off towards Tybalt in hopes of grabbing that bludger and he completely forgot about the one headed for Josh. “Sorry!” Of course, it doesn’t sound sincere, or anything. Landon‘s not capable of that. He flies off after the bludger and smacks it with one sharp movement. It hurtles off, after Riley. Take that!

Wow. That’s got to hurt! David watches Josh falling down, but remembering the advice given him during the practices, he turns his eyes back again on the Quaffle. That Gryffindor player who nearly downed him a few minutes ago now has it. David turns his broom in his direction and pushes it into full speed. Ravenclaw has scored a penalty, but David is still decided to show Andy personally what he thought of his flying skills.

Riley Markham arches a brow.. watching the bludger collide with Tybalt with a hint of surprise and growing satisfaction. It didn’t quite ease the void that had grown in the pit of his stomach, but it did make him feel sizably better about things. “Thanks,” he calls back to Noémie, though the cockiness is gone from his tone. You can do this, just stay calm. As Noémie goes in to dive, and knowing that her broom is damaged — Riley makes a last second choice. Considering he just winged the Gryffindor seeker, if Noémie has seen the snitch, she’d become a target. Turnning his broom, he plays point, matching her descent, keeping himself between she and the Gryffindor keeper. As Landon smashes one at him, he lifts his bat to simply bunt the bludger away, pushing it almost gently in the direction of Tegan.. “Madison, heads up, ammo coming!” He shouts. He could salvage this.. he could pull himself out of the grave, or at least out from under the rock.

Keelan Walsh watches the game with a masked but growing concern. The Gryffindor team really seems to be getting smashed up, but so far it hasn’t been in the appeaance of a foul. She is, however, watching the Ravenclaws like a hungry predator, just waiting for one of them to do something that is actually against the rules.

Bargaining for Gabriel saving the quaffle from fumbling again Andy positions himself away from the other Ravenclaw chasers and the bludgers trajectories. As Josh is floating down he notices his captain lying on the floor, either. “Fair enough.” he mutters and sees the flying quaffle from the corner of his eye. And it’s flying perfectly. Andy boosts up his speed at snatches the quaffle out of the air, not thinking about his actions, just letting it flow. Like a falcon bringing its prey to the nest… Andy shakes his head slightly to redeem this flow of his consciousness, though it got him in a quite more cheerful mood. He races towards the opponent’s hoops and clinges to his broomstick, the quaffle under his arm.

Clavicle Gravely wasn’t paying attention to the bludger, but sees it at the last moment! He blinks and takes off, but he’s too close for the bludger to target someone else. “HEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPP!” he cries as he takes off….the bludger mere inches from him. It’s not a rogue bludger, just too close to find a new target. “RIIIIIILLLLEEEYYYYY!!!!!”

His head swimming, Josh reaches the ground near the edge of the pitch, where he staggers off of his broom and promptly vomits on the ground in front of him. His expression pained, he remounts his broom, wincing but determined to stay in the game, and rises slowly back towards where the action is, his eyes wary, watching for bludgers.

Bailey finally comes to the Ravenclaw end of the pitch, and flies towards the hoops, attempting to prevent Andy from having a clear view of the goals. He is essentially acting as a secondary goalie, flying in front of, and a little below, the Ravenclaw keeper.

Having had to entertain herself for the last few minutes, dear Van takes a few moments to realize that Andy is approaching. Hurriedly, she tries to finish up adjusting her pony-tail to prepare to actually do something. She grips her broomstick with one hand, keeping the other open and braced for blocking. Which hoop? Whiiich hoop?

David flies behind Andy, reducing the distance separating him from the Gryffindor, and soon flies to his side. Were they not wearing robes of different colors, one would nearly think they were two players of the same team flying in a perfect formation. David then releases the grip of the broom with his left hand, and extends his arm to try and punch the Quaffle out of Andy’s grasp.

Josh MacLean gains speed, his expression still uncomfortable and his face greyish as he flies over to the Ravenclaw side, about as far from the hoops as Andy but on the opposite side, raising up an arm and calling over “Andy! Right here!” in a somewhat hoarse voice.

Seeing the bludger coming her way, Tegan rears her batting arm back and then brings it forward, hearing the bat connect with the bludger with a mighty WHACK. She watches as she aims the ball directly for Andy, hoping to slow him down to a degree by whacking either him or his broom with the sphere.

Landon spies the bludger right off, and speeds towards it. He’s hot in its trail and ready to beat it away from Andy as soon as he catches up. It’ll take some speed, though. He presses his chest flat against his broom until he can bring himself between the bludger and his teammate. *WHACK* And it soars off in David’s direction.

Riley Markham glances back with Clavicle’s shriek and exhales a rather loud groan. “NECKFRICHZT!” (A gobledegook word whose definition is best left undisclosed) He growls, wheeling about on his broom without thought and kicking up. Laying close to his broom, acting on instinct, he blazes daringly close to Clavicle. Close enough that his robes might brush the fellow second year’s face. And without pondering it, he gives the bludger a might stroke, sending it again, unintentionally, at the Gryffindor seeker.

Spotting the snitch again, this time, near the Hufflepuff bleachers, Noémie starts flying quickly in that direction as fast as her broom will take her. (She’s definitely going to have to replace the broom now, thanks to the Gryffindor beaters.) The fifth year speeds her way across the pitch, eyes focussed only on the little golden ball across the way as she keeps her right hand out in front of her, leaning close down to her broom to increase her speed.

The whole scene seems to center around Andy. Everything seems to slow down and last for minutes instead of seconds. David approaching from the right, Josh waving to his left and the bludger rushing towards him. “It’s hopeless.” Andy thinks. But just at this moment Landon knocks away the bludger and everything seems to be colored brighter than before and seconds become seconds again. He notices David’s hand shooting towards the quaffle and reacts by doing a braking sharply and slinging the red ball into restored Josh’s direction.

Clavicle Gravely grins thankfully “Good one markham.” he flips around and a sparrow bounces off his head. “Oww!” he grins and zips back towards the holder of the quaffle. “Great save Markham!”

WHAM! Again, poor Tybalt Holmes is smacked by a bludger square in the chest. Or, is it the same bludger. Really, he’s not keeping track. He’s winded as he spins around in a red and gold blur. Once he stops, he spies Noémie speeding towards the snitch! He’s got to get it. He tilts his broom in the correct direction and shoots off like a bullet. But despite his determination he’s going down, down, down, down. . .down. He collides with the ground so sharply that his broom is stick at a forty-five degree, angle, and Tybalt does a summersault as he rolls off and faceplants in the dirt. He’s gone black. The Gryffindor seeker is down and out. Tybalt‘s fan girls shriek in horror and all run towards the front of the stands. The reach out, leaning over the railing as though it the just reach far enough they can save him. They’re in hysterics now. Someone is going to pay later. Poor Tybalt.

Josh MacLean‘s eyes widen in alarm as he sees the bludger near Andy, shouting out, “Lookout!” on reflex, but apparently that wasn’t needed, and Josh breathes a sigh of relief in the second between the bludger getting hit away and Andy lobbing the ball at him. He catches it well, and without missing a beat, throws it at the left hoop.

Riley Markham frowns slightly, wheeling about to float momentarily beside Clavicle, watching the bludger blaze in the direction of the Gryffindor Tybalt — and looking somewhat satisfied as it connects with Tybalt’s chest. “Not really, eh? I was aiming fer that prat,” he mutters, motioning with his bat toward Andy, before turning on his broom and moving to place himself physically between Noémie and the Gryffindor seeker. Hopefully causing him to vere off. With Noémie’s broken broom, any number of seconds he could shave off of Tybalt’s flight might help Ravenclaw’s captain the win. And if nothing else, Riley had proved he could fly fast enough to at least put himself in the way of things. He might not be able to hit them, but he could get in the way.

Mere seconds pass between Tybalt’s unfortunate connection with the ground and Noémie‘s connection with the snitch. Her hand closes around the golden object and she lets out an exhuberant ‘Whoop!’ as she flies around the Hufflepuff bleachers, holding the small golden ball up in her right hand triumphantly. Ravenclaw has won the game! Noémie flies down to the pitch, Her broken broom in one hand and the snitch in the other, holding both up in the air. Yes, this was a good start for Ravenclaw’s Quidditch season.

Briony‘s face falls as she sees that the Ravenclaw seeker has managed to get hold of the snitch. Gryffindor has lost their first match of the season. The second year cannot help but feel slightly responsible for the game’s result and flies down to the pitch rather slowly, getting off her broom and wiping her eyes rather dejectedly. So much for lucky robes. She will not cry, she will not cry… except she already is. Rather than wait for the rest of her team, Briony retreats back into the school, intent on hiding out in the lockers for a while until she feels a bit better.

Clavicle Gravely sees her catch it and he hollers “AUK AUK!!!!” and does a circle around Noémie.

Van Douglass rears on her broomstick, using her own weight to swat at the quaffle with her broom’s end. She too doesn’t miss a beat… in hitting it right back in Josh’s direction. Her expression slowly melts away to one of complete horror, that is, until it is taken over by her smile after Noémie catches the snitch. She moves away from the hoops, motioning for Josh to take his best shot if he likes. What with it not mattering.

As Andy has just been about to switch into a celebrating mood, because his action seems to develop into a goal, he just gets his next and last punch into his stomach, because he hears the resounding noise coming from the standings. Even the most of it from the Ravenclaw bleachers. Andy looks up and sees Noémie commemorating the victory. He shrugs, looking to Josh and Gabriel with a miserable face and heading for the ground.

Riley Markham pulls up as Tybalt collides with ground, smirking softly to himself, the soles of his shoes almost brushing the blades of grass. He shifts his gaze toward Noémie as the Ravenclaw crowd roars, and rather carelessly hops off his broom as it still moves, stumbling foward a few steps.

“Hurrah!” Tegan calls exhuberantly, waving her bat around cheerfully as she sees that the team seeker and captain has caught the snitch. She flies down and runs with her broom quickly towards Noémie, enveloping her in an excited hug, screaming rather loudly with excitement. “We win! We win! We win!” Laughter mixes with her screams as she happily clings to the captain.

Narrowly avoiding the Quaffle that locked on him instead of Andy, David lets out a cheer when he understands that the match has finished. Ravenclaw has won! “AUK AUK!” he yells, finally surrendering to the peer pressure set by Clavicle and the others.

“Ooof,” Noémie responds, being enveloped in Tegan’s arms. “Yes! Go Ravenclaw!” the usually reserved fifth year yells, waving around her fist with the snitch caught up in it still. She drops her broom to the ground. She’ll worry about that later, right now — they are the winners! “Good job, team!” Her elation is clear by the wide grin on her face.

Landon pants slightly as he rests his head against the stick of his broom. Sheesh, that game was tiring. This is why Quidditch has two beaters. He needs a nap now. But, of course, he has a terrible feeling that a hoard of angry Tybalt fans are going to want to tar and feather him. Hopefully, though, they’ll choose to fawn over him in the hospital wing, first.

Keelan Walsh gives a whistle to officially end the game, and collects the balls (either by summons or a player simply bringing them) back to their holding places until they’re needed next. “Excellent game,” she murmurs to any who go by, though her tone is considerably sulkier than one would expect from a mature grown woman.

Riley Markham is blissfully ignorant of Tybalt fans, luckily, as he makes his way over to the team, after collecting up his broom. His expression pleased, but somewhat subdued. He has resumed his practice of not looking back toward the faculty bleachers, and seems to be breathing fairly hard, even for the amount of excersize he just recieved.

Josh MacLean glares fiercely at Van, trying to resist the childish urge to stick his tongue out at her. Instead, he scowls unpleasantly, catching the quaffle and holding it far away from his injured abdomen as he descends to the ground and hands it to Professor Walsh. Walking over towards Andy, he groans. “Absolutely d-destroyed,” he comments. “And I think… I p-probably should head to the hospital wing.”

Van Douglass blushes as Josh glares at her, smirking a little as she floats gracefully to the ground to join her team in their celebration, cheering happilly.

Once he’s on the ground, Landon drags his feet over towards the spot where Tybalt is currently flopped and he pokes the boy a few times with the ends of his shoe. “Anyone care to help me cart him off to the Hospital wing, or something?”

“Nice shot, though.” Andy tries to encourage Josh and adds “I hope Nova will be back next time. I’ll come with you to the castle. I really need a shower now.” But as he passes Landon. “Ahm, sure, wait a second.” Andy fastens his belt and puts on of Tybalt’s arms around his neck.

Clavicle says, “Ravenclaw Ravenclaw AUK AUK AUK!!!!” he lands and joims the throng around Noémie”

Melvina Prichard walks out on to the pitch quietly, striding across the small grouping of damaged Gryffindor players, nodding the each in turn as she passes, “Well played,” she murmurs, congenially, to each. Keelan is similarly offered a small, polite nod. But her path across the field is fairly direct. And without wasting a word or movement, she finds Riley’s side and lays a hand down on his shoulder. Not so much lays, grips. Grips down on his shoulder, meaningfully, even though he gaze finds the Ravenclaw captain. “Well played, Miss Ribouet. Nothing less than I’d expect from a Bones descendant.”

Clavicle Gravely Blinks “Bones Descendant?” he steps forward. “Who’s a Bones descendant? The Bones are closely tied to the Gravely’s.. or were around the Goth invasion of Rome.”

Josh MacLean steps alongside Landon. “I’d help, but I, uh, wel, y-y-you two got it. I’ll walk with you, though, we’re all heading to the same place, anyways.” As the headmistress passes, he shrugs, and gives Andy a small smile. “If I’da been paying attention I wouldn’t have g-gotten hit in the stomach.” And he blanches. “Oh, no, I just puked in front of the entire school…”

“Thank you, Headm– what was that?” Noémie faulters over her speech halfway through, glancing to her headmistress and around at her celebrating teammates. Perhaps she had misheard. “What was that you said, Headmistress? I think I missed it.”

With a flip of his wand, Landon levitates the rest of Tybalt. “Come on, then.” He nods and motions his head towards the castle as he makes his way slowly across the field. “It’s fine, Josh. Come on, you’re going to the infirmary, too.” Of course, it is at this time a horde of fan girls decide to flood the field, and crowd around the trio carrying their fallen hero. They have their hoods up and sob on each other as they traipse across the field. Man, you’d think he died or something.

“I am, Mister Gravely,” Melvina replies, glancing to Clavicle with a slightly arched brow. “And Mister Markham, and Miss Robouet, more importantly.” Clavicle’s brush on geneology brings a faintly amused smirk to her lips. “Indeed, most all of the pureblood families are intermingled eventually. The Bones family is one of the oldest. Naturally, the Gravely and the Bones intermingled juncture, though as you said it was a great deal ago, on another branch of the family. Miss Ribouet’s relation is a but more, immediate, let us say.” Shifting her gaze toward Noémie, she grins, almost absently. “Second cousins, I believe. Once removed? I’d have to look at the tree again to be entirely sure. You and my Riley, I mean. Never the less, dear, well played. We must be off, an appointment to make, you see.”

“Oh no.” Andy moans as the horde of girls rushes towards and surrounds them. “Let’s get him there quickly.” he emphasizes and pushes the levitated Tybalt towards the castle. “Move!… Get out the way!” Andy keeps on repeating as the procession gets going.

Clavicle Gravely blinks at Pritchard. “You are a Bones? Wow! Er.. that means we’re related.. on a cousin aunt or uncle side.” he hmmms. “I could be your Uncle! Er…ma’am.”

“What, really?” Noémie‘s face is rather blank as she is informed of her family ties to, well, anyone, really. Noémie has known none of her family, save for Arnauld Ribouet and his parents, who are a part of her father’s family who were also ostracized. She is not able to react to Melvina any more than this however as the Headmistress makes her way off the pitch again, Riley in tow. Riley and Melvina were related? Noémie is shocked by this, and rather than celebrating with her team, now wanders into the school, seeming rather dazed and now distracted. She’s definitely going to have to think about this. And owl her parents. Yes, perhaps she would send owls. Truth be told, Noémie isn’t exactly sure where she’s wandering.

Melvina Prichard shakes her head toward Clavicle. “Perhaps, thirty or forty times removed. There are several branches of the Bones family. The one from which I hail has shied away from Gravely blood. The carnival nature, mind. I don’t think it suited their more.. refined, tastes.” She doesn’t waste anymore time, however, pushing Riley off. Not even allowing him a moment to react to the startling news.

Striding onto the pitch, Noémie looks quite annoyed by the weather. Her usually wavy hair has turned quite frizzy with the moisture, on top of having to practice in the rain. Then again, Noémie is no quitter, and she’s certainly not about to call of a practice on account of a bit of rain. However torrential it happens to be. The captain takes to her broom, flying around a bit as she waits for the rest of her team to show up.

Bailey comes trotting onto the pitch, a bit out of breath, as he was forced to run clear from the Astronomy tower down to the pitch in order to make practice on time. That was what he got for trying to ask for extra credit work! “Oi, Noémie!” he calls and hails to his captain. He does not get onto his broom, instead, begins stretching out and readying himself for the rigorous practice his captain likely has in store.

Tegan Madison stamps onto the pitch, crossing her arms as she makes her way out. “Couldn’t she be bothered to ever cancel a practice?” the fourth year comments and sets her broom down on the ground nearby, mimicing Bailey’s motions as he stretches in preparation for their practice in the pouring rain. “It shouldn’t be this rainy so early in the year.” Nevermind that it is already early November. Tegan doesn’t care; she’s just in a rotten mood.

Late again, Van doesn’t seem quite as annoyed at the rain as Tegan. Indeed, Van doesn’t seem to be noticing much of anything as she comes trotting onto the pitch. “Hullo, everyone,” she greets her teammates in a chipper voice. Subject to Tegan’s glares, Van doesn’t appear to notice that her teammates are indeed less enthused about the rain, the weather, and life in general as she is at this moment. Her mussed hair could be attributed to rain, but then, those on the team know better than to assume such a thing. After all, on the clearest days, she often shows up in that very state. Regardless, Van drops her broom rather hazardously and begins half-heartedly stretching as well. The girl is clearly distracted and not thinking about Quidditch at all.

Flying down to land, Noémie steps off her broom and sets it down on the ground, coming to stand just in front of her team. “Well, thanks for finally joining us, Van,” she says coldly. “It’d be nice if this weren’t a habit of yours.” Oh, it is clearly going to be one of those practices. Noémie crosses her arms and squares off in front of those in front of her. “Alright, this is how it’s going to be today. You might as well put your brooms away, because today, we’re playing ground quidditch.” As if the name she used wasn’t ominous enough, Noémie‘s tone is rather forboding as she looks from person to person. “So, what I want you to do for starters is run four laps around the lenght of the pitch. And I do mean run, not walk.” Noémie herself has already done these laps, which would be obvious if any of her teammates bothered to notice how thoroughly soaked she was, but the chances of that happening were slim.

“What?” Bailey asks quietly, then sighs and turns on heel to begin running his laps around the pitch. No, today’s practice was not going to be a good one. He is thoroughly out of breath by the time he finally manages to finish his four laps. The laps were no small feat, after all! He was used to flying, not running. He hunches over, his hands on his knees as he stops trotting where Noémie is still standing in the center of the pitch, waiting for the others to catch up.

Tegan is noticably annoyed as Noémie makes this announcement and frowns very hard as she takes up running behind Bailey. It isn’t long before Bailey has lapped her, either, because Tegan is nearly a head shorter than the chaser, and she is certainly not accustomed to having to run anywhere. She does her best however, slowing down from time to time, attempting to catch her wind, but keeps up a steady pace otherwise, coming to a stop several minutes after Bailey has made it there. The girl, too, hunches over in exhaustion. How was this supposed to improve her Quidditch game, exactly?

Rather than groan and scoff as her teammates have done, Van makes her way around the pitch silently, at a rather slow, but steady pace. She is noticably less winded than Tegan or Bailey have become from the run, though she is a bit out of breath. She, however, does not feel the need to hunch over in the way that they have, and stands in front of Noémie, her hands clasped behind her back, rather afraid to ask what their captain has in store for them next.

“Alright, good run,” Noémie practically barks as she looks at all of her red-faced teammates. “Now, what I want you to do is, here, Tegan, take this bat, and Van, Bailey, you go just over that way,” She directs them with her arm towards the middle of the pitch. Throwing a quaffle to each, she steps back and picks her broom up again. She gets onto her broom and hovers in the air a bit while everyone gets set up where they are directed to go. “Now, what you’re going to do — no, back up more — is throw these Quaffles towards Tegan, then I want Tegan to hit them back to the person who threw it. If it misses, you do a lap. If you throw too short or too far, you do a lap. I’ll be keeping track. This is to work on your aim, Tegan. We’re counting on you, since Riley’s aim is unsteady at best. He’s got the power, I want you to be the aim. Alright, get to it!” Noémie is high enough above them to see what’s going on, but low enough that she can still bark orders at them if need be.

Clavicle Gravely is on the broom practicing throws with the team chaser and the second teams’ chasers. He speeds a quick circle as he finishes the Laps (Probably with David) and he zips around and looks to Noémie. “What’s the game plan now Captain?”

Bailey Williams runs over to where Noémie has pointed for him to go, and oofs rather loudly as a Quaffle is thrown at him rather hard. What was going on with Noémie today? Was it the rain causing her mood? The fourth year squares off towards Tegan, who is holding the bat, and heaves his ball hard in her direction. His aim is not the greatest on the shot and he seems to throw it about two feet above her head. The boy hopes very hard, though, that she is able to hit it, because he really doesn’t want to do any more laps, as he is still rather out of breath from the four he’s already done.

Clavicle Gravely is on the foot practicing throws with the team chaser and the second teams’ chasers. He speeds a quick circle as he finishes the Laps (Probably with David) and he zips around and looks to Noémie. “What’s the game plan now Captain?” He calls out, He’s apparently rready to start flying.

Tegan doesn’t look pleased — in fact, when has she looked so since the beginning of practice — and she looks even less pleased as her first shot is far above her head. She jumps up and hastily whacks it with her bat, but it heads towards the ground, and while it does roll to Bailey, it does so most of the way on the ground. The beater frowns, knowing that this means she has at least one lap for herself.

“Good one, Bailey,” Van comments rather chipperly, earning a glare from her teammate. “What?” She asks as she throws her Quaffle as close to Tegan as she can manage. The Keeper is adept by now at making these types of shots, though this one is rather pitiful, as it hits the ground about ten feet before it gets to Tegan. “Oops,” she comments rather blandly, watching for Tegan to retrieve it. Ah, well, Van still appears to be a bit distracted.

“You’ll keep throwing those quaffles until I say you’re done,” Noémie responds, her arms crossed as she hovers above all of them on her broom. “That’s one lap for Tegan and one for Van so far,” She announces, holding up one finger for demonstrative purposes. “At least ten throws each. I want to slaughter Gryffindor this weekend,” she tells them, her face still stern and unmoving.

Clavicle Gravely continues jogging and throwing. He starts looking a bit bored doing the repititive activity.

“Sorry, Tegan,” Bailey calls, sounding genuinely apologetic. He wipes his eyes and hair, attempting to dry them a bit, then looks to Tegan again, heaving the ball in her direction again, though this time not quite so hard. He watches in hopes that this throw will redeem himself, by making it a bit easier for her to hit this one where it goes.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tegan calls, though her irritation is apparent at the whole scenario. She hits quaffle after quaffle to the best of her ability, lobbing them each to the person who has thrown it while she attempts to keep her vision in all the drenching rain. She’s going to need a nice, hot bath after this. Lobbing another quaffle back, thankfully making more to her teammates than not, Tegan rather overestimates and ends up slipping and falling flat on her back. “I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” she calls and closes her eyes for a moment before standing up again and trying to rid her robes of mud. Oh, she could not wait for her bath!

“Good shot, Tegan!” Van calls wearily, catching another quaffle directly in the chest. The seventh year yawns a bit, quite tired already, but is jolted a bit as she watches Van fall flat on her back. “Oh, dear,” she breathes and looks carefully to make sure her teammate is alright while awaiting her turn to throw again. This certainly would be a practice to remember.

“Alright, I think the count is…” Noémie flies down while she tries to count up how many drops there were between the lot of them. “Oh, I don’t remember. Six laps for everyone, because ten makes a nice round number, and call it a day.” Noémie dismounts her broom and stands on the wet pitch, her vengeance clearly served as she looks at all of her drenched teammates. “Run your six, then go have a hot shower and do your homework. I don’t want to hear that we have to use someone from the Junior Squad because someone hasn’t done his or her homework.” She walks around, collecting the quaffles, her broom still in hand, then stalks off to the broom shed without much else to say. She is, of course, watching to make sure that nobody skives off their run. There would be hell to pay if she caught someone cheating.

Clavicle Gravely continues running up and down with the other chasers. practicing tossing and catching. He occassionally watches the beater practice.

Bailey Williams takes off for a run as his quaffle is retrived from him. One, two, three… How he hates running! The chaser huffs and puffs, and the last lap of his set is rather slow as he has run out of steam for running and practice. He had to hand it to Noémie, she never ceased to surprise him. The chaser finally finishes his laps and puts his broom away, though the object hasn’t gotten much use this practice, quite glad for once that he had bothered to stretch beforehand. “See you tomorrow,” he mutters to his teammates as he makes his way inside, already stiffening up from the extra activity. Yes, Bailey will sleep very well tonight.

Tegan Madison is quite glad practice is finally over, though she’s sure she didn’t drop the ball quite so many times. Then again, Noémie seemed to just assign an amount to everyone and have on her way. The beater runs at a much slower pace in her final six laps than she had in her first, and much of her anger has subsided and evolved into pure exhaustion as she, too, stores her broom in the shed and makes her way to Ravenclaw commons. Tegan finds herself feeling very glad that she had already finished her homework before coming to practice, because she certainly was not going to be able to manage any homework now.

Van, too, is exhausted at the end of practice, and is, indeed, the last to be off the pitch after her laps. The keeper is rather glad that none of her teammates are around to see her thoroughly dissheveled appearance when she finishes. Van makes some vain attempts to smooth her hair and dry her clothes under an eave near the entrance to the castle, but finds that this is futile and instead stomps on the stairs to the commonroom, headed for hot bath and a warm bed. To hell with homework.

Clavicle Gravely wraps up his part and trots over as he helps clean up the balls and practice gear

The captain of the team organizes the supplies in the shed and then steps back out onto the pitch without her broom. She walks into the center, glancing around, then starts her own set of six laps around the pitch. She would do no less than her team did, even if none of them saw it. The fifth year prefect keeps a steady pace as she does one, two, three laps, then four… After finishing her laps, Noémie slowly makes her way into the castle, for her part, to dry off and clean up a bit, and then to work on her remaining homework. After all, she had OWLs this year, a fact which none of her teammates could claim. The girl shrugs off all thoughts of Quidditch and practicing as she attempts to focus on her schoolwork.

His broom slung across his shoulders, his arms raised so that his wrists dangle off the length of the Windwalker’s shaft, Riley yawns wearily as he strolls out on to the pitch. The dark circles under his eyes are slightly more defined than they had been recently, and he seems a bit pale. His long, brown-red hair hangs loose in front his features, and his beader bat swings lazily from a leather strap on his left wrist.

Yawning after a long day of classes, David walks to the pitch, wondering what the team captain has in store for today’s practice. Fortunately, the weather is not as dismal as it could be in that period of the year, even if it is a bit colder than what David would have liked. Gripping his Moontrimer tightly, the boy smiles as he reaches the spot of the pitch where the other players are already standing, waiting for the practice to start.

Jogging up to the pitch, auburn ponytail bouncing merrily behind her, Kara heads straight toward the shed where the school brooms are kept. Again some time is spent looking for her favorite broom, the first year beams when she finds it, jogging back toward where the others are circling up. Idly inspecting her broom as she waits to hear what she needs to do for practice.

Noémie Ribouet strides onto the pitch, her broom in hand, and rather than just her usual show of carrying the box of Quidditch balls with her, she also has a bucket, filled with rather small white balls. “Hello, everyone,” the captain calls cheerfully, setting down her equipment onto the pitch. “Everyone up and take a lap or two for a warm up!” She kneels down, opening up the box and taking out the quaffles only; she leaves the bludgers and snitch in the box, then takes to her own broom to get the feel of it and warm up a bit.

David greets the team captain with another smile, and happily complies with her order. Last year, a practice session would have begun by a few laps running around the pitch; flying the laps would be *much* less tiresome. David puts his broom on the ground, orders “Up!”, and is soon in the air flying happily around the pitch.

Kara Raine nods toward the captain, offering her a grin and a cheerful ‘Hello’. Listening intently, Kara nods before quickly arranging herself on the school broom, up and away just a few moments behind David. Giggling, the first year leans forward, her broom picking up speed as she zooms around the pitch.

Clavicle Gravely comes in carrying the Sandsweeper 25. He grins and mounts the broom. “Up!” and rises. He begins to comply with the quidditch captains order too! He grins and nods to the Captain as he does so.

Riley Markham tosses his broom to the ground, though it doesn’t seem to require a command to make it pause in midair. Shaft shane with the ground, about waist level to Riley, the second year grabs his broom and kicks up. Flying was easy, flying he could do.

Coming running at a sprint onto the pitch, Bailey stops by the captain to catch his breath. “Sorry, got held up in potions. What’s up first? Laps?” Eyes glancing upwards toward where the others are circling, he doesn’t even wait for Noémie’s reply, instead hops straight on his broom and soars upward, joining in the formation.

As she finishes several laps of her own, Noémie stops down on the ground and beckons for everyone to join her, waiting until the whole team is on the ground with her. “Alright, everyone. I’d like you chasers to head up in the air and play against each other, trying to score more goals. Van, of course, will be trying to block shots. You have to go halfway back to the pitch and back again if you intercept the ball, to make it more realistic. Beaters, I’m releasing one bludger in a moment, and you’ll each try to nail one team of chasers. Please do try to avoid me. Now, Kara, thanks for coming to this practice. What I’d like you to do is throw these golf balls up in the air. I’ve charmed them so that they won’t go too far, in case you end up missing somehow.” The fifth year smiles at the first year. “I would like you to lob them up in the air in random areas, and I’ll try to catch them. It will be good practice for us both, me for my seeking, you for your arm. Riley, take care that you aim, then hit; we don’t want anyone to get injured today.” With that, she claps her hands. “Alright, everyone back up into the air, save for Kara. Here’s your bucket of balls. Just signal to me somehow when it’s empty.”

Van Douglass comes charging up behind Bailey, equally out of breath, cheeks slightly flushed and make-up a bit mussed, though unlike Bailey she doesn’t think to actually provide an adiquette excuse. With a somewhat sheepish look, she flashes Noémie a slightly embaressed smile and leaps on to her broom to perform the laps. Once further instructions are given, she nods and moves to take her natural place at the hoops, competative spirit returning some of her flustered focus.

David nods to the captain, then walks towards the Quidditch box and takes out the Quaffle, before mounting on his broom and flying in the air once again. “Okay… let’s begin, then!” he says, looking briefly at the Beaters before tossing the Quaffle to Clavicle, and flying towards him to take it back, as if he were a player from the opposing team.

Kara Raine circles back down to land, a huge grin upon her features. She listens intently as Noémie explains what is going on, offering the older girl a smile. “Not a problem, glad I can help.” Eyes dart over toward the bucket, before back toward the captain. “Understood.” The first year girl takes the bucket with a grin, holding it in her left arm so that she can toss the balls up with her right. She waits until Noémie is ready and then tosses the first ball up, as soon as it is gone, she darts to another section of the pitch, tossing up another, keeping to a quite random pattern.

Clavicle Gravely comes zooming in. The Sandsweeper is a pretty quick little broom, as oddly shaped as it is. He nods as he listens. He grins as he looks for the quaffle. He slides upwards and into the air and adjusts his gloves. As practice really starts, he does a quick turn and a dip to catch David. And then he’s off like a cannon shot. At first Clavicle is testing the Sandsweeper25′s speed against David’s broom.

Bailey Williams sweeping back down, he waits a few feet off the ground, listening intently to the instructions. Bailey grins as he notices that Clavicle has the quaffle, and in a blink he is off, joining forces with the second year against David. Swinging past the Sandsweeper, Bailey yells out. “I’m with you, and then I’ll switch and play with him.” Two on one, got to love them odds.

Riley Markham cringes as he’s singled out, though he doesn’t soubt it’s warrented. Swinging his bat in to his hand, he pulls back in to the air with a small sigh. All his practicing after class and with the junior team had started to pay off, though he still had a long way to go. “Don’t get nervous, it’s just a bludger.. Just a bludger..” As usual, his flying is somewhat reckless but brilliant. Fast, smooth, and careless. It seems somewhat less so now, however, as he scans the sky for the bludger.. picking it out as it zooms toward Clavicle. Leaning foward, he grits his teeth and zooms toward it, streaking just over David’s head to put himself in to position — pulling up and out, performing a barrel roll, overhanded turn that would seem to keep him on his broom only by grace of centrifugal force, he brings his bat instinctively at the bludger targeting Clavicle.. meaning to aim it at David, but sending it instead blazing toward Bailey.

“Watch it, Riley!” shouts David, as he feels the wind of the air displacement provoked by the second year as he flies by. David looks warily at the Bludger, fearing for a moment that he might need to pull an evasive maneuvre, but apparently the Bludger isn’t for him. Looking back at Clavicle, David realises that he wasn’t as fast as him, and would have to resort to tricks to get him. Deciding to make good use of his broom’s superior behaviour in higher altitude, David pretends to aborts his pursuit and climbs, deciding to take a shortcut and fly directly towards the goal post, hoping to go down towards Clavicle, with a higher speed, when Clavicle would be ready to shoot.

Clavicle Gravely is running a bit of a guantlet to try to avoid capture. He sees Riley’s bludger hit and cries, “Good one Markham! Thanks!” he grins and blinks…not seeing he is being pursued. And in this excersize, there isn’t a ‘wingman’ to toss off to so he leans forward, pouring on the speed. David and he will meet right at the goalpost.

Van Douglass floats in front of the posts, watching both Clavicle and David with ready eyes. Her reason for being late forgotten (even if her cheeks are still somewhat flushed), she is focused entirely on the game now. Waiting.. Waiting was half of her position.

Seeing Kara start tossing the balls, Noémie dives for a couple, narrowly missing taking on in the head while she nabs another, and one falls to the ground. “Make sure you’re spacing them out a bit!” she calls to Kara and tosses the one down that she’s caught, turning quickly to fly up for one that has just flown far, far above her head. She manages to catch it, but missing how many for it? She tosses that one down near where the other one she had caught landed, and watches the first year’s technique as she throws the ball. Yes, the girl would make an excellent chaser with some practice.

At the shout, Kara glances up distracted. Eyes narrow as she focuses on the bludger for a few moments, before shaking herself silently. “Don’t watch them toss the balls up for Noémie.” The captain and seeker is nodded at, as the first year retreives the ‘caught’ ball, and moves off again, taking care to space out her throws and practice just ‘how’ she tosses them up into the air.

His instincts sharpened after playing on the past house team, Bailey easily dodges the bludger, diving down and twisting to the right before turning back to rejoin Clavicle. As the other boy seems to be doing well on his own, he gives David a yell, “I’m switching sides, joining you now. Lets go get ‘em!” One finger pointing toward Clavicle.

Having now reached the highest part of his intended trajectory, David pushes his broom forward into a dive, heading directly towards Clavicle, and getting ready to intercept the Quaffle should he throw it towards the Keeper, or otherwise try to snatch it from his grip. A frontal pass… David would have to be quick, there would be no second chances if he failed to grab the Quaffle.

Riley Markham cringes again, as the bludger goes sailing off the wrong direction. “Damn it!” He hisses, under his breath, before shooting David a slightly annoyed look, almost as if it were his fault that the bludger had somehow magically darted off the other way instead of attacking the third year as he had planned. Besides which, David’s shout before didn’t set well with him. Saying something unkind about third years and bludgers that gets lost in the wind (which is probally for the best, as he would feel terribly guilty later had anyone actually heard it), Riley darts upward once more. Leaning forward on his broom, it streaks like lightning. He really was quite the savvy flier, brilliant, even. It seemed to accent his reckless nature. But pulling about and clubbing the bludger again, trying to send it toward Clavicle and instead simply sending it toward the ground, his aim seemed to be hardly improving. Sweating now, he frowns deeply. He was getting nervous. He had no reason to be getting nervous. And he knew it was throwing his game.

Clavicle Gravely hurls the quaffles right as a blue flash goes by, knocking it away. “What the blazes?” David made the block! Clavicle hmmfs and dives after the boy, trying to catch him. “Bother!”

Van Douglass shifts her gaze toward David, somewhat impressed by the speed and accuracy of his block, though looking no less ready for his attack than Clavicle’s. She was, after all, the only keeper guarding the only set of goals in use. One chaser or another having the quaffle meant the same to her. Drifting somewhat toward the left, perhaps anticipating an attack on that side from David’s angle, she never strays to far from the center hoop.

The second year did indeed send the bludger toward the ground, very close infact to the spot where Kara was preparing to toss Noémie up another ball. At the sound of the incoming bludger, the first year reacts as normal, she dives toward the left landing on the ground with a soft thud, balls spilling out of her bucket and going everywhere. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, Kara glances up, mutters a few words no grown wizard, much less a first year should even know, and glances up to wave a fist at Riley. “Go after the ones in the air not on the ground!” Eyes glance over waving toward Noémie and pointing towards the spilled bucket. “Give me a minute to gather them up, before I start tossing them to you again.”

Bailey Williams cheers as David makes the block, tossing a grin over toward Van as he flies near her, “Not bad.” With a little salute to the keeper, the fourth year heads over to keep pace with David and Clavicle.

Having caught the Quaffle, David makes his way towards the centre of the pitch, making a swift 180 turn once he gets there. David then surveys the pitch, trying to assess the situation. The third year suppresses a laugh as his eyes catch the little scene happening on the ground, even if he can’t actually hear what Kara yells from his height. Okay… Clavicle is probably mad now, so David would have to escape him; and Bailey could be dangerous, too. David decides to feint them, flying in a straight line towards the side of the pitch. David‘s clear intention is to use his lesser speed but greater maneuvrability to his advantage when they would be close to him.

“Yeah, yeah!” Riley hisses down at her, as the bludger sails back up toward him, obviously not terribly happy with a target that zoom about in the air. “Sorry! …brat,” he mutters the last word under his breath, however, softly enough to get lost in the whoosp of air around him as he again moves to meet the rising bludger. Concentrate. Focus. These are your mates. You’re fine. Ease up. Untense. “David! Fer you, mate!” Make it a challenge, focus.. Not so hard with the bad, don’t over-extend the arm… CRACK! Again Riley‘s bat connects with the bludger, but this time it seems to actually cooperate. The aim isn’t spectacular, but it at least sails in the general direction of it’s target, hopefully enough to make David swerve off course.

Clavicle Gravely is slowling a touch now…and decides at the quarter way, to run interference…he slows and watches David.. ready to change direction to match the man. He slows to 1/4 speed, this will give him extreme maneuverability, but he will have to floor it top catch the boy when he catches up to where Clavicle is. He watches David carefully.

Shaking her head, Kara finally collects all the escaped balls, offering Noémie a small wave before the girl starts lobbing them up toward her again. Just to be on the safe side, she also intends to keep an eye on the bludger again.

Bailey Williams does an impressive turning maneuver, swinging high on his side while he turns back toward the center of the pitch. A grin is tossed in Clavicle’s direction as the fourth year leans forward, picking up speed, eyes focused on David and the quaffle.

Feeling the tension grow, David gives himself a couple of seconds to come to a good position, then pushes his broom forward and dives to convert some potential energy into kinetic energy. As he dives, he also turns to the left to fly directly towards the goalpost. If he is quick enough, he might be able to lob the Quaffle towards the goal.

Clavicle Gravely gauges the boys approach and zips off back towards the goal, He flies by, attempting to SNAG the Quaffle as he zips by David at full speed! Even if he misses, he hopes his flyby will cause David to wobble!

The second year chaser is fast indeed. David decides to not wait for him and throws the Quaffle at the goal, trying to give as much force to the red ball as he can, but he is still a bit too far away from his best shooting distance. Still, he is reasonably satisfied of himself as he sees the ball flying towards the hoops. He might have a chance…

The sudden throw slightly surprises Van, it was earlier than she expected, but it fails to catch her off-guard. She’d been watching David like a hawk, waiting for a sign of movement, so it doesn’t take much for her to get in to position. His throw is somewhat wider than she’d originally thought, though, and she manages to catch the quaffle — though only by the tips of her fingers, just before it sailed through the left hoop. Turning on her broom to share an impressed nod with the third year, Van tosses the quaffle in to the air and spins on her broom, using the brush of her Freefloater 18 to toss the red ball back out to about middle-pitch. “Nice one, Mildred!” She has no doubt that had she not been watching him as she was, he’d have gotten it past her. He’d improved a lot since last year.

Bailey Williams laughs, David’s throw catching him off guard as well. A thumbs up is given toward Van before racing off in the direction of the tossed quaffle, throwing a complete roll in there to show these new players a bit of how it is done.

Flying here and there as Kara makes her throws, calling out praiseas as Kara’s throws get more challenging for her, and more varied. “Great, one! That’s great!” She zooms around, breathing heavily as she continues heading out for the golf balls, then after a great many catches and a great many misses, she comes to land. “Alright, everyone! Come to land when you like! I’ve got homework to attend to, but I’ll do some of it just over here and keep an eye on you. Good shot, Riley!” she calls to the beater as he makes a particularly deft shot. “You’re doing really well, Kara. Your throws were very challenging for me. I think you’ll make a terrific chaser. Perhaps a keeper, if you’re inclined to that. We’ll se next time, hmm?” Noémie sets her broom down and pulls out her wand, calling all the outlying golf balls to her with a summoning charm.

Alright, so it wasn’t a complete waste. He’d managed to pull off a shot or two, at least. But Riley couldn’t help but feel somewhat dissapointed as he drifted lazily toward the ground, withdrawing his wand and Stunning the bludger so that it could be put back in to it’s case more or less without injury (to those trying to put it away). He was looking terribly tired, and now that the light had dwindled, even more pale. And now his brow was creased in thought, trying to work out a better quidditch game for himself.

Kara Raine jogs up to Noémie, mostly empty bucket in hand and helps gather up the balls. “Thanks! It was really fun, I decided toward the end there to start changing the way I was tossing them, and I can really see a difference in how they went.” A red blush spreads across her cheeks, “Oh, thanks Noémie. I’m not sure yet, but I have always liked the chasers.” She hangs around for awhile to see that everything is put up, before jogging back off toward the castle.

Clavicle Gravely does a tight bank and goes to get the quaffle before returning to Noémie. He is the last to land and grins as he does so. “That was a brilliant hit Riley!” Clavicle apparently misses the subtleties Riley was shooting for and was just glad not to have a bludger to his head.

Bailey Williams circles down in a lazy spiral, coming to land gently beside the others. “Hey, good job there at the end Riley, you are really starting to get the hang of hitting them.” An appreciative nod is cast in Clavicle’s direction too. “Good job as well. It turned out to be a great practice Captain.”

Van Douglass almost immediately lands once they’re dismissed, jumping down off her broom a good way before it has reached the ground. As soon as she has collected herself, she’s moving back toward the castle at a brisk pace. Obviously, she has things to do and people to sno–see. “Great practice, all!” She calls back, warmly, before dashing off.

Riley Markham nods to both Clavicle and Bailey, smiling weakly to both in turn, before guiding the bludger back in to the case with the tip of his wand. Once it’s latched in, he exhales a soft breath. “Thanks guys,” he mutters, but after collecting up his broom, he starts up toward the castle alone. A lot on his mind.

Left to clean up on her own, Noémie picks up everything, piling it all back into their appropriate containers before making her way back to the broom shed to put things away. Another day, another practice. Noémie waves as each player exits and makes her way back into the castle alone, intending, of course, to see them in the commonroom.

Striding onto the pitch on a clear, warm day in mid-autumn, Noémie breathes in deeply, looking quite pleased at the feel of this day. She drops the case of balls down onto the ground and takes to her broom, swooping around with her typical grace, just getting a feel for the air as it is this fall day. Her hair streams behind her wildly, looking rather like light-brown fire as she zooms over the pitch. Before long, she takes to the ground again, where she has left their quidditch balls and starts pulling her hair back in an attempt to pull the wavy mass out of her face.

It’s about the time that Riley Markham makes his way out on to the pitch, his school robes undone and hanging loosely off his shoulders. His cassual clothes underneath, a partially unbuttoned cotton dockshirt, and a pair of slightly wrinkled slacks held up by suspenders, left open for inspection at the soft breeze pulls at both his openned robes and the mass of mid-back length, marroon-colored hair that he works on typing back as he walks. His beater bat hanging limply from a leather strand at his wrist, tapping him in the cheek as he backs back his wild-locks.

Van Douglass walks alongside Riley, holding his broom while he goes about the process of preparing himself to practice. Her eyes fall briefly on the his scar-enveloped left hand, which seems to be snagging hairs away from the ponytail he attempts to make, but she says nothing about it, simply handing him his broom back once he’s finished. She does, however, turn her gaze upfield afterward and passes a wave toward Noémie. “Hello!”

Chaser Bailey Williams strides onto the pitch, now quite tall after his summer growth spurt. “Hoy, Noémie!” he calls to his new captain. “Hey, Van, Riley. It’s our year, eh?” The fourth year chuckles and takes to his broom. “Quaffle, please?” he calls and holds his arms out as he hovers just a few feet above Noémie’s head. “It’s great to be on the pitch again. We were travelling all summer, so I haven’t been on a broom in ages.” Receiving the quaffle from the captain, he flies up and starts a lap around the large pitch, to warm up.

“Start warming up, and I’ll let the bludgers loose in a moment or so.” Pausing for a moment, she adds. “Well, perhaps just one, so poor Riley doesn’t get overwhelmed.” A hearty laugh echos from Noémie‘s mouth as she stretches her arms and starts doing some of her ballet stretches, as she is often seen doing in the holding room before games. Finally stretched she reaches down and looks up at her teammates above her. “Bludger, coming up!” She announces, letting said ball loose. She then mounts her own broom and zooms up near the hoops. “Give it here, Bailey!” she calls, laughing a bit. Noémie as Chaser? Stranger things have been known to happen.

“Here it comes,” the boy announces, chucking it halfway across the pitch. He starts flying in her direction, laughing a bit as it doesn’t come near making it to her. He snatches it up and tosses it up to her. “C’mon, Van! We can smoke you!” A loud laugh emits from Bailey, and he stifles himself, still not quite used to his own deepening voice. He zooms around the pitch, rather goofily, enjoying his time in the air now after a whole summer without flight.

Riley Markham chortles as he mounts his broom, slipping off his school robe and tossing it down beside the box of quidditch balls. Without missing a trick, he mounts his broom and kicks off in to the air, flying much more confidently now that a certain someone isn’t here to distract him and turn his face all interesting shades of purple. “I can take as many bludgers as you can dish out,” he calls, cockily, swinging his bat about on his wrist.

“I can relate to that, Bailey!” Van chuckles, hopping up on to her broom without delay and moving toward the hoops with a pleasant expression. “It’s been so long, I was afraid I’d forget how to fly!” Once there, she takes the position she’d practiced last year — turned slightly side-ways, so that she could use the back of her broom to deflect incoming quaffles as well as her hands. She was a bit rusty from the long summer, but the blood was already pumping and she was excited to get back in to the swing of things! “Go ahead and try it!”

Riley Markham flipping his bat up in to his sandpaper hand, Riley dives after the bludger, pulling up in time to give it a good hearty smack in the direction of Bailey — but his thrust and swing is so great that it knocks him off-center, and the bludger goes sailing wide right, hardly close enough to even make the chaser readjust his course.

“Oh, no, I certainly can’t do that!” Noémie laughs, good-naturedly, as she flies around, and drops the ball back to Bailey who is swooping around rather enthusiastically. She flies up above the hoops, looking down on her teammates. Reaching for her wand, she releases the snitch for her own practice, still keeping an eye on her teammates. “It’s our year! I believe that the cup will come to Ravenclaw this year!”

Van Douglass shifts her gaze toward the bludger that goes astray before leaning back on her broom, watching Noémie and Bailey approach while shouting advice to Riley from afar. “You’re over-extending yourself! Ease up a little and control your swing a bit more.” She waits and waits for the switch and the quaffle to come her way, suspecting that it will be a quick pass to Noémie who will shoot, but hardly discounting Bailey from the equation.

Riley Markham passes a glance back to Van before giving a small nod and pulling back up after the bludger he knocked astray earlier, ducking inbetween Noémie and Bailey to get to it. Moving at a nearly blurring speak, causing his marroon hair to whip behind him in the wind like a long get of flame, he spins his broom with a quick bank and tries to do as Van suggested. Pulling in his power and controlling his swing, not putting his full force in to the blow, he directs the bludger toward Noémie. This time, the arch of the leather-wrapped cannonball swinging much closer. Hopefully enough so to cause her to veer off..

“Sure thing,” Bailey laughs, rearing back and lobbing the quaffle in Van’s direction. “Take that!” He yells with a laugh, doing a whirl of a turn, rather goofily after he does so. He then stops and watches to see whether Van manages to block his shot or not. “EEEeeeeeeeEEEEEeeee,” he calls, trying to distract the older girl from the shot he has just attempted. He doesn’t appear to be entirely taking this practice seriously, rather, enjoying being on the pitch and in the air.

Van, on the other hand, is taking the practice quite seriously. She’s having fun, naturally — her broad grin would give that away, no questions. But there is a competetive streak in her that just won’t be satisfied unless she gives nothing short of her best. It’s why she joined the quidditch team in the first place. She wasn’t world class, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try to be. Noting Riley’s bludger sailing toward Noémie, hopefully countering any last minute passes, Van pulls up in time to make a block for the ball, though it does slip out of her fingers, causing her to make a quick dive for it to snatch it out of the air before tossing it up and hitting it with the tail of her broom out to about mid-pitch. She had gotten rusty over the summer. She’d have to work out some of the kinks.

Swerving hard left to avoid Riley’s hit with the bludger, Noémie flies away rather quickly in a loop, to avoid the Bludger’s return. “Be careful, Riley! The idea is not to hit your own teammates!” Noémie calls to him, suddenly flying hard across the pitch, in the direction of a gold spec. She zooms back upward soon, empty-handed, as the little ball had zoomed off before she had even the chance to see it more closely. She cheers as Van makes a very successful block. “Good one, Van! Go again, Bailey!” The girl whoops, something that is usually not her style. Today, though, the usually calm, refined girl seems to have boundless energy and be generally and openly excited.

Bailey Williams has to fly far down the pitch to catch the Quaffle where Van has chucked it. “Good shot there, Van!” He flies back, swerving every which way, leaning more towards the right side of the hoops, which he knows in the past to be her weak side. The fourteen-year-old zooms around the hoops, coming back around to Van’s front, before throwing the Quaffle hard for the left-most hoop, hoping perhaps he’s starting to get his edge back. “Too bad David and Clavicle aren’t here,” he laments. “We could start working on our fluid teamwork. Lord knows we could use to do better now that Angelina’s gone!”

“Sorry! Just testing that out!” Riley calls back, with a bit of a sheepish grin. At least he had gotten it closer to her! Maybe there was something to Van’s suggestion after all. Pulling in and down, Riley chases after the bludger, turning in midnight as it narrows in on Bailey. A quick duck and a quick burst of speed forward and he’s out there, he swings, but his bad swings as the bludger makes a last second change in direction and he barely graces the underside of the ball. Swearing, loudly, in gobbledegook, Riley hooks about dangerously on his broom, doing something of a barrel-roll turn that keeps him mounted only by centrifigal force and luck before pushing foward to chase after both the bludger and chaser. “It’s on you, Bailey!”

Van Douglass is busy watching the quaffle, not the bludger following the chaser, so she’s fairly well distracted as Bailey circles the hooks, prepared for a block on her left side. That was the problem about circling the hoops. Shooting from behind was against the rooms, so if you didn’t take your shot on one side, you were terribly likely to take it on the other unless you were planning to circle around again. This time, Van snatches the ball cleanly out of the air, a slightly smug, satisfied expression touching her lips before the sound of the bludger alerts her and ducks, just as the bludger that had been following Bailey passes through the space her had had been occupying a few moments ago. “Beater, keep up!” She calls, repeating her mid-field broom toss of the quaffle, shooting Riley a monentarily annoyed look.

Missing the bludger-score entirely, Noémie dives towards the ground, spying that familiar gold ball once again. She flies near to the ground, her toes dragging along the grass now and then, until she finally closes her hand around the snitch. Ah, she, too, is out of practice. But that was what these were for, wasn’t it? “Let’s do some laps, and call it a day,” She calls to her teammates. “We’re losing the light, and I didn’t remember to bring the lights today.” She waves her arm in a circle, directing them around the pitch counter clockwise. She starts off in that direction herself, and is already looped halfway around the pitch in just a moment, starting her own set of laps to keep herself in practice.

Riley Markham cringes as the Keeper ducks under the bludger, though Bailey’s roll around the hooks gives him the perfect oppertunity to double in front of the goals and gain ground on the cannonball. His bat connecting with it this time in a good, solid, satisfying way, sending it hurtling in to the stands. His form chaotic again, all power and no finesse. But at least he got it away from the chaser.

Riley Markham mutters something fairly unkind toward himself about his lack of skill before pulling his wand out from his back pocket and pointing it rathering annoyedly at the bludger darting about. His scarred, sandpaper hand requires him to hold his wand slightly awkwardly in an underhanded way with his fingertips trailing the length of the wooden shaft. His spell’s accuracy, however, is unerring as he mutters a crisp, clean, “Tendo!” The ball of white light that bursts from the tip of his wand evelopes and slows the bludge as though it were encased in ice, drawing it bcak toward the tip of Riley‘s wand and rooting it there until they land after the laps and Riley can put the bludger away. In the meantime giving him the odd impression of carrying a stick of leather-flavored cotton candy.

Van Douglass seems relatively pleased with the practice, but for the bludger she nearly suffered to the back of the head. Still, for a raw recruit to the team, she had to admit that Riley showed promise. He flew well — excellently, actually — and he had power to spare. She just hoped he’d learn some control before one of the Ravenclaws ended up in the hospital wing from their own beater’s bludger. “Good practice, Noémie!” Van calls, after performing the laps and landing.

Swooping quickly with the quaffle in hand, Bailey does several laps around the pitch, up and down, back and forth, being less serious than he probably should be, and finally lands, plopping the quaffle into the box without worrying about securing it. He strides towards the broom shed with a wave. “See you tomorrow then?” he calls to everyone, knowing the obvious answer. “I promise I’ll focus better tomorrow!” He laughs loudly and stows his broom away, trotting back into the castle to tend to other duties.

“Hey, wait! I’ll walk with you!” Van calls, running after Bailey and dissapearing with him in the direction of the castle.

Riley Markham locks the bludger away with a small sigh, releasing it for the tip of his wand with a frustrated, “Nox.” Turning his gaze toward Noémie, he cants his head slightly, considering it for a moment before giving a slight nod. “You think it’ll help?”

Riley Markham finally nods, thoughtfully, picking up his robes and shuffling them back on with a little nod. “Alright,” he murmurs, before grinning a bit. “Yeah, I think I could be up for that. Gotta figure this’n out before our first match, for sure..”

“I do think it will help. After all, I had to practice my flying and such for a couple of years before I made the team. I’ve only been on since my third year.” Only. “Every little bit helps.” She smiles at him, closing up the box and latching it. She picks up the box and her own broom and stands erect. “You don’t have to show up to all of them, but whenever you feel like it, you can feel free to join us. It could very likely help your aim, I think. We’ll work extra hard on that.” Noémie pats him on the back, standing a mite taller than him. “You’d better go get your homework done, though. Can’t have my team forgetting to do their homework.” Her laugh rings out, and she starts heading towards the broomshed to put the equipment away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Riley!”

Riley Markham frowns, at that. Homework was the natural bane of his existance, but with a small mutter and nod, he flashes an almost rakish, cynical half-grin up at Noémie; the sort that is quite handsome now, but in a few years might be able to stop hearts, before taking up his broom and bat and starting for the castle. He’d had his work cut out for him, but at least this challenge was fun!