Keelan Walsh wears, for once, plain black robes with no hint of team affliation. This is rare enough at a game against Ravenclaw, but it seems she’s either had a talking-to or a rethink over the summer break about bias in Quidditch. Maybe her red robes were just dirty. At any rate, she’s standing underneath her umbrella in the center of the pitch, squinting out toward the locker rooms of each team, trying to spot red or blue robes coming through the downpour.

Riley Markham makes his way on to the pitch with a soft yawn, his pale skin sizably more alabaster than tanned under the chilling effect of all the rain. Broom draped avross his shoulders, he waits to kick off anxiously. Growing more nervous by the minute.

Nervously Andy walks onto the pitch, his broom in hand and his robes getting soaking wet in seconds. Looking up to the dark clouds he mutters to Keira “Hm, great.” Then his hands slip into his gloves as he lines up with his teammates, waiting for Keelan’s initial whistle blow.

Boyce Gardener follows behind Riley quietly, trying to hold on to the excitement he felt in the changeroom, and dismiss the nervousness that was trying creep up in to his belly. He carries his broom much more traditionally, though the damp air keeps causing the broomhandle to slip from his fingers.

Quincy Matthias lumbers out onto the pitch, making some crack about the weather to his teammates and hoisting his broom over his shoulder for now. The rain doesn’t otherwise seem to bother him, though he uses his spare hand (beater bat tucked under an arm) to push hair off his forehead.

Rhian says, “Good afternoon everyone, students and faculty alike. Today is a lovely autumn day, if you are a duck perfect for the first Quidditch game of the 1927-28 year. I am Rhian Brecon, your announcer for this year, and for those of you unable to see, I’ll make sure to tell you everything that’s happening. Today’s game is Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw and as this is their first game of the year, I will give you a quick listing of the roster. For Gryffindor, the Chasers are 3rd year Andy Carver, 5th years Keira Sanguine and Tobias Raleigh, their Beaters are 4th years Kelly Pantall and Quincy Mattias, with the Keeper the 3rd year Briony Wexler and their Seeker and Captain, 4th year Gabriel Goden. For Ravenclaw, who this year comes to try and hold onto the Quidditch Cup they won last year, their Chasers are 4th year David Mildren, 5th year Prefect Bailey Williams and 3rd year Boyce Gardner, the Beaters are 5th year Prefect Tegan Madison and 3rd year Riley Markham, their Keeper being 5th year Laney Abbott and their Seeker and Captain, leading them once again, 6th year Prefect Noémie Ribouet. The official for today’s game is Professor of Herbology, Professor Walsh. We now wait for both teams to come brave the weather as we are now, so let’s get this game underway.”

Making her way out into the pouring rain, Noémie appears to be in quite a mood today. Her face is set seriously, and her eyes squinted, though this could likely be caused by the amount of water cascading down into her face. Coming to stop near Keelan, she does not look at the captain, instead looking in the direction of where the Gryffindor team is to join them. The rain does make it difficult to see what, exactly, is going on, and Noémie finds herself biting her lip while she looks around, rather hoping that the snitch won’t be quite so hard to see when it comes time to begin.

David follows the other members of his team, muttering against the rain and how it might affect the game. He carries his broom under his arm, hoping that it won’t behave as it did during that practice, when it suddenly stopped midair for no reason. That should not happen, though, since he had it looked over by the flying instructor, who reassured him that it should fly fine from now on. A bit nervous about the match, David stays silent and waits for the game to begin.

Laney Abbott is more nervous than anything, and keeps pushing her glasses up her nose with her free hand. Her broom is clutched hard in the other, and more than once she redoubles her stride to stay with the rest of the team, lips pressed into a thin line. Still, a “Lovely, I’ll just divine where the Quaffle is in the mess and block it that way.” escapes her lips in a sour sort of mumble.

“N– I’m su– no, Bri — c’mon, you–” Gabe starts as he walks out to the pitch, trying to sneak words in while Briony chatters at him quietly on their way out to the pitch. “You’ll be fine, I’m sure,” he tells his friend and then falls silent as the two of them come out, their red robes easily dampened by the sheer volume of water falling upon him. Squaring off in front of Noémie, his nervousness is not easily hidden, especially as he turns away from Briony a bit, perhaps to hide this very fact from her.

Trailing behind Keira and Andy, Tobias nestles on his broom a last time. It’s his first match in the main team and now it comes to a close against last season’s champions Ravenclaw. Quiet as usual he hides his excitement quite well, except of a trembling left eyelid.

Not to be left out of the intial comments, Kelly Pantall holds onto her broom, bat, and, like everyone, gets very wet.

Following Gabriel out to the pitch, once she is finally coaxed into silence by him, Briony starts to fidget. Her broom in one hand, and the other hand shoved deep into her pocket, she shifts from foot to foot while glancing around at the rest of her team.

David Mildred is about as grumpy as the other teammates about the foul weather, and doesn’t mince her words about it. She is rather in a foul mood today, for no apparent reason, and twirls her bat around, ready to play with the bludgers and send them over to the opponents.

Keira Sanguine looks almost annoyed at the water as she makes her way out to the pitch, though the smirk on her lips seems to say that she might know a bit more than she’s letting on. Glancing behind her, the smirk fades as she realizes who is following her. She’s got to do well this game. She just has to.

“Doesn’t seem all that bad to me,” Riley murmurs, sincerely, as he drives his hands in to his pockets. Both of which are wrapped in suede gloves, so that the scars of his left hand don’t catch on the fabric of his robe pocket. “Could be worse. And they have ter play in the same muck.”

Usually easy-spirited, Bailey does not look quite so easy today. The conditions are not the best for Quidditch, especially not for the first game of the season, and, with only a glance to Tegan, he goes to stand next to David, holding his broom with a rather tight grip.

“Alright, let’s keep our formation close and I…ahm…want to see clean passes. Don’t give away quaffle possession to easily. Just like in the practices. We can do that!” Andy tries to encourage his fellow chasers, finishing with a weak clap and wrings out his robe for the first time. The match hasn’t even started yet and he’s wet to the bones already.

Keelan Walsh smiles, though the gesture is merely polite. “Well, it can’t be lovely weather all the time. Okay, Captains, lets get the handshake through so you can start this game, shall we?” She watches them, gives a small nod, and turns to open the box of Quidditch balls, folding up her umbrella and setting it down. A click releases the Snitch from it’s special holder, and away it flies into the rain. Then Keelan takes hold of the Quaffle and calls, “On your brooms?” before blowing the whistle and tossing it into the air to get the game started. A few moments later, the bludgers are released, and Keelan mounts her broom to watch for fouls.

Laney Abbott is in the air and traveling toward the Ravenclaw hoops at the sound of the whistle, and soon hovers before them, waiting for Chasers to come her way with a Quaffle to, hopefully, block.

Swing his broom from his shoulders and mounting it in one easy motion, Riley turns and nods to Tegan — communicating that he understood their practiced tactic of knight at dragon. He was the knight who defended his teammates, she was going to start off being the one who grabbed a bludger and attacked.,

Quincy Matthias and Kelly rise into the air and spread out a bit, wielding the bats and watching (or at least attemping to) for bludgers to hit at the Ravenclaw team.

Reaching out to shake Gabriel’s hand, Noémie doesn’t wait long before getting herself onto her broom afterward. “Alright, keep it clean, and play hard. Remember what we practiced, everyone,” Noémie tells her team and as soon as she hears the whistle, she flies upward, though not too high. She wants to see where the snitch goes, after all, so that she has more chance of catching it.

Biting his lower lip, Boyce takes off in to the air after mounting his broom — almost slipping off it from the rain. He seens to grow a bit more confident once in the air. He’s ready.

Gabe Goden shakes Noémie’s hand as she offers it and then turns to his team. “Er –” he pauses as Andy begins to tell the team a quick last minute pep talk. “What he said,” Gabe tacks on and hops onto his broom, keeping a close eye on Noémie, though his attempts to keep up with her are rather obvious.

Following his teammates, David kicks off the ground starts to take some speed, making a direct flight towards the quaffle, which he grabs deftly before flying towards the Gryffindor goals. He makes a silent nod at the other Ravenclaw chasers to indicate them to be ready for a pass should the need arise.

Flying upward, Keira makes an attempt at the quaffle which has been released. Reaching close to David, Keira‘s face is set and she reaches out with intent to blatantly steal the Quaffle from David, though this does cause her to lose balance a bit and she has to slow down in order to gain control over her broom again.

Andy mounts his broom and sets up to shoot for the quaffle once it’s tossed up into the air. He sees the ball flying upwards and accelerates, but doesn’t reach it, since David has been more agile this time. Andy orientates again and chases the Ravenclaw.

Making her way up to the goals, it is not long before there is a small crowd headed toward her, and Briony looks almost fearful as she rubs her left wrist carefully, biting her lips while she gets situated more carefully in front of the goals, at a slight slant rather than straight on.

Nodding in silent agreement with Riley, Tegan pushes her broom forward and flies directly towards the nearest bludger, which she sends towards the pack of Chasers going after David, notably Andy.

Tobias gets into the air and hesitates a bit to go for the quaffle, since Andy and Keira are already racing for it. He stays back, turns around and is flying in front of David now, trying to guess where he is going.

Rising up quickly, Bailey is too slow to even be in contention to get the quaffle. This time, however, it appears as if a Ravenclaw has gotten it, and this bolsters Bailey a bit. Making his way down the pitch in an attempt to catch up, he swerves wide around Keira as she slows down and reaches out with an arm to let David know that he is currently open.

Kelly swoops in and knocks a bludger toward a streak of blue that will probably turn out to be Boyce, while Quincy takes flight, however slowly, toward the sound of another bat cracking, in order to attempt to intercept the other bludger, though he doesn’t yet.

Boyce Gardener moves notices Bailey postion himself and moves further up field to provide Bailey a passing lane ad possibly an attempt a a score., moving at a moderately quick speed but holding a fair amount of control. He is completely ignorant of the bludger sailing at him.

Feeling that the Gryffindor chasers are getting a bit too close to him, David makes a pass at Bailey, before continuing towards the goals to prepare the field for another pass.

Not being aware of Bailey, Andy stays behind David, coming nearer inch by inch he is now at his heels, but still not able to reach for the quaffle. As David passes, Andy notices that he’ll only be able to cover the Ravenclaw now. Bailey is too far away already.

Reaching out with his hands wide, Bailey makes a clean catch and begins to fly forward in an effort to catch up to Boyce. The older boy swerves a bit and then flies in to toss the quaffle to the younger chaser as he crosses in front, making his way diagonally away for a moment before coming back behind David and making his way around to hover behind a bit, in case the quaffle needs to be passed out again.

Riley, however, is very aware of the bludger that has been hurtled toward Bailey. Laying low on his broom in an attempt to keep the rain from blinding him, he darts foreward. Reaching out with his bat, he bunts the bludger away from Boyce almost at the last moment, before wheeling back and hitting it toward Keira. Though his aim isn’t dead on, exactly, it’s a right sight more sharp than last year, and definately sail in the general direction of his hopefully distracted target,

Seeing David’s pass, Tobias tries to intercept the ball, but it’s too well thrown, so that his finger just get the quaffle’s gust. He dashes down to hassle Bailey now, but too late, another pass he could not reach. “Keira, watch out!” Tobias points at the bludger and keeps flying next to Bailey, to cover him.

Shrieking a bit, Keira turns her broom and tries to get out of the way of the bludger, finding this difficult as her broom hasn’t quite calmed down yet, and her broom is stuttering a bit as she tries to out-fly the metal orb. “You bloody beaters! Get over here and hit this confounded thing at those bloody Ravenclaw!” Several more sentences, riddled with obscenities follow and the girl’s face gets quite red while she tries to get control of her broom still.

Quincy Matthias is in the path of the bludger at last and aims it with a powerful crack of bat-on-ball back toward the Ravenclaw Chasers with a grunt. Kelly flies for the other bludger, a bit peeved that Riley redirected it.

Freed of the bludger he’d not realized he had, Boyce catches the quaffle on the tips of his fingers, nearly dropping it a few times because of his slick it was, and making his flight briefly jerky. He manages to get himself relatively under control, however, arching up as he comes at the hoops, before diving and trying to shoot over Briony’s head, hoping for a quick score.

Deciding to let her role as the dragon aside for a while, Tegan flies towards the chasers to prevent the bludger from hitting them. She is still a bit away from it, so she does not reach it immediately, but flies there the best she can.

Rhian says, “The captains come into the center of the pitch and shake hands before both teams are called to their brooms. Professor Walsh waits until they are ready before releasing the Quaffle, the two Bludgers and the Snitch. With the toss of the Quafle, Mildred is quick on his broom and manages to catch it. Ravenclaw has first possesion this game as they head down toward Wexler who waits at the goals she is guarding. Pantall manages to get to one of the Bludgers and hits it over at Gardner, who seems totally oblivious to it. The Ravenclaw Chasers seem in good form as Mildren passes the Quaffle to Williams and Williams in turn tosses it to Gardner.”

Kelly takes care of the bludger again, calling something out to Keira that is lost in the sound of the rain and noise of Quidditch, while Quincy tries (poorly) to keep pace with Tegan and prevent her hitting the other.

Reaching up with both hands as the Quaffle is tossed at her, Briony manages, for once, an easy block. The block is easy, but the catch is not, and she fumbles with it for a moment before getting a good grip on it. Tossing it outward, she aims it to Andy without a word, though a grunt does ensue.

David Mildred groans as well, but for another reason, as he sees that the quaffle has been blocked. He immediately starts to chase Andy, hoping to get the quaffle from his hands.

Rhian says, “Markham manages to notice the Bludger flying after Gardner and hits it away back over to Sanguine. However, Gardner is having a slight issue with the Quaffle while he flies. Mattias takes the other Bludger and hits it in general at the Ravenclaw Chasers, though Tegan is attempting to protect her team’s Chasers. Pantall goes after the Bludger that is chasing Sanguine, attempting to keep it away from the Chaser. Gardner, now in the clear, attempts to score… But is stopped by Wexler, but it is only batted to Carver to head down back the other way.”

A short smile brightens on Andy‘s face, as Briony saves the first shot and gets a hold of the Quaffle. Flying for a second, then seeking one of his fellow chasers, Andy finds Keira at his side and instantly flings the Quaffle to the girl, noticing David behind him. Andy then performs a hard turn, to force David to slow down and get Keira an advantage.

Finally reaching the iron ball which was flying towards the Ravenclaw chasers, Tegan swings her bat and sends the bludger towards Keira. “Take that!”

Tobias slows down and lets his broom drop a bit to avoid the crowded field. He shoots forward and heaves up again, so that he finds himself in front of Keira now.

For a moment, Noémie thinks she’s spotted the snitch. While she begins to fly toward the gold fleck that she thinks she has seen, it is a moment before she realizes that she has a bludger following her, and her course is altered in order to avoid the orb that is hot on her tail. “Riley, Tegan! Someone” she shrieks in a rather undignified fashion, flying downward through the action in hopes of losing it.

Rhian says, “Pantall finally got the bludger that was after Sanguine away, and now it heads off to Ribouet, give the Seeker something to do until the Snitch is spotted. Meanwhile, Mattias is trying to stop Madison from getting at the other Bludger, but she manages to get it away over at Sanguine, who just recently got the Quaffle from Carver. Carver is trying a nice move though of attempting to block Mildred from persuing Sanguine as she barrels her way to Abbott.”

David Mildred narrowly escapes a collision with Andy Carver as the Gryffindor does a reckless turn right in front of him, and dives to avoid him. He lets out a shout of rage as he does so. Keira is already far from her, but noticing the bludger flying towards her, he decides to anticipate her (very likely) pass to Tobias and flies directly towards him instead.

It takes Riley a few moments to divine the location the bludger, having heard the sound of a bat striking it, but unable to see it for all the rain. Sailing upward quickly, he chases after Noémie — not quite able to keep up with her in all the rain and wind (he did have more wind resistance, naturally). But he could get close enough to send that bludger away. His aim is off, though, for the angle he had to strike it. It sails off in no particular direction toward friend or foe.

Keelan Walsh pulls up short on his broom to change direction, sweating a bit even with the rain coming down. He and his broom are not the fastest on the field, and it’s likely that the bludger will inflitrate the Chasers before he makes it. Kelly remains, for the moment, on the lookout rather than the offense, thanks to the rain unable to see the result of her last hit.

Quincy Matthias pulls up short on his broom to change direction, sweating a bit even with the rain coming down. He and his broom are not the fastest on the field, and it’s likely that the bludger will inflitrate the Chasers before he makes it. Kelly remains, for the moment, on the lookout rather than the offense, thanks to the rain unable to see the result of her last hit.

Laney Abbott starts to get a bit more nervous as she squints through the rain and detects scarlet blurrs moving toward the Ravenclaw end of the pitch. She begins to bob vaguely in place on her broom and her grip tightens around the handle.

What has she done to get the bludgers flying toward her today? Keira Sanguine has only barely managed to get the Quaffle secured under her arm and started on her way to the Ravenclaw goals before another bludger is directed at her. Looking over her shoulder, she checks to see if there are any other Chasers available, before she notices Tobias in front of her. Chucking the Quaffle quickly, with a shout of “HERE!” Keira swears a little more and veers away so as not to direct the bludger to Tobias.

Beginning to grin as his bet has paid off, David begins to chase Tobias, closing in to him as every second goes by. Had he gone for Keira after his near-miss with Andy, he wouldn’t be so close to the Gryffindor chaser as he is now… David has good hopes to at least bother him a good bit if he tries to throw the quaffle.

Tobias looks over his shoulder and receives Keira’s well-metered pass. He zooms up into the zone, heading for the left hoop and attempts a score. He dekes to puzzle the keeper, but notes David then and flies out of the zone again, throwing the Quaffle to Andy.

Making his way down the pitch, Bailey seems to think it a good idea to stay close to Andy now that David has gone after Keira, leaving Boyce to follow Tobias. As the Quaffle is tossed to Andy, Bailey sees his opportunity, and flies forward a bit, as well as his broom will let him. This is just in time, as he manages to get a grip onto the red orb, turning quickly and flying as fast as his broom will take him in the other direction. He is headed straight for the Gryffindor hoops with the slick ball.

Quincy Matthias is belatedly in the fray and with a very wet smack, sends the Bludger flying in the opposite direction, hopefully scattering at least some of the Ravenclaw Chasers, now that they’ve recovered the Quaffle. Kelly scans the skies for the other and zips toward it, sending the Bludger toward the Ravenclaws as well.

Seeing Bailey crossing in front of him, Andy‘s flying becomes unstable and he can’t avoid him stealing the ball from Gryffindor. Changing into defensive mode again, he shoots away to follow Bailey and gets a hand on the Quaffle, pulling at it.

Noticing the smooth work done by Bailey, Boyce does his best to tag Tobias and prevent him to follow the Ravenclaw chaser and intercept the quaffle.

Rhian says, “Markham manages to get the Bludger away from Ribouet with ease, but where it went, I don’t know… Matthias has also managed to get the other bludger away from the Gryffindor Chasers while Sanguine tosses the Quaffle to Raleigh. Raleigh now takes a chance to pass it to Carver, but wait… Williams has managed to intercept the Quaffle and the field now turns around to head to the Gryffindor goals.”

Gabe curses loudly as Ravenclaw gets hold of the Quaffle again, and the Gryffindor pulls her broom around, making a hard turn to try to follow down to the other end of the pitch in an attempt to retrieve the quaffle for her own team and scoring.

Keira curses loudly as Ravenclaw gets hold of the Quaffle again, and the Gryffindor pulls her broom around, making a hard turn to try to follow down to the other end of the pitch in an attempt to retrieve the quaffle for her own team and scoring.

A second later, David turns his broom and flies in Andy’s direction, attempting to hinder him and prevent him from catching up with Bailey.

Tobias slows down and ponders if he should go and dive into the bunch of chasers, threatened by both bludgers or wait where he is to receive a pass, should Andy really get the quaffle from Bailey.

The situation is a bit dire for the Ravenclaw chasers, since the two bludgers are directed towards them. Noding to Tegan, Riley Markham decides to take the bludger, which he reaches easily enough. The bludger is sent away from the pack of chasers in a matter of seconds. On her side, Tegan has more difficulties to catch the other bludger, and reaches it just as it was going to hit David, but as she does so, she prevents him from tagging Andy correctly and nearly collides into the Ravenclaw boy.

Tugging back at the Quaffle as Andy attempts to grab it back from him, Bailey growls a little and says something rather unintelligible as he tries to fly over a bit, pulling both the quaffle and his broom at once while he yanks again, finding this difficult due to the wetness of the Quaffle.

Andy pulls and turns the Quaffle in Bailey’s arms and hands. A tough opponent, as Andy isn’t the strongest of boys after all. But then his arms slips through and prises the ball out of the Ravenclaw’s grasp. A quick look and the Quaffle is on it’s way to Tobias again, who seems to have been sleeping at the zoneline.

Back and forth, back and forth! Keira turns around again and makes a rather sour comment under her breath before yelling, “Make up your confounded minds!” The chaser makes her way back down the pitch and pushes her auburn hair out of her face, looking quite irritated.

Rhian says, “The two Gryffindor Beaters seemt o have a vengence for the Ravenclaws as both Bludgers are sent to the Ravenclaw Chasers. Gardner attempts to block Raleigh from following while Mildred tries the same thing with Carver, but it fails as Carver tries to steal the Quaffle away from Willaims. With this rain, it seems overly difficult to keep a good grip, and it seems that it succeeded as Carver pulls the Quaffle from Williams and tosses it to Raleigh, the closest to the goal.”

The Quaffle is pried away from him as just as a bludger connects with the Ravenclaw’s leg. “AUGH!” he shouts loudly and grabs his leg. This prevents Bailey, at least for the moment, from following the group of chasers who have turned and headed toward his goals while he — rather babyishly — rubs his leg, his eyes pricking with tears, though he’s not about to show them.

A bit surprised Tobias prepares for the catch, does well and whirls around towards the Ravenclaw hoops. Maybe his first goal for Gryffindor, today? With a small groan he tosses the Quaffle towards an empty ring, hoping that the keeper won’t get it at that speed.

Quincy Matthias gives momentary chase to the Bludger, hitting it neatly toward Noémie, while Kelly guards of her own group of Chasers, intentionally or not, in case a Bludger heads their way.

Laney Abbott‘s lips have been moving at a nervous under-toned mumble for the last few moments, as if the rain weren’t distracting enough, and so she doesn’t move fast enough, and the Quaffle soars past her outstretched hands through the hoop, bringing bright red splotches to the Keeper’s cheeks.

Letting out a loud “WHOOP!” as she hears the clang from the other end of the pitch, Briony seems to be ready to jump up and off of her broom. The game, however, is not over, as the Seekers are both still prowling about, flying this way and that, and Briony does not move off of her broom, instead, getting situated to prepare for another shot, should it come.

Rhian says, “Raleign manages to get the Quaffle, and before anyone can stop him, he turns around and tosses it to the goals. Abbott can’t seem to get there fast enough and Gryffindor scores… It is now Gryffindor-10, Ravenclaw-0. Though the game isn’t over yet… Williams has gotten in the leg with one of the Bludgers while the other one seems to be going after Ribouet once more.”

Riley Markham glances a few differant ways, trying to make out shapes in the rain that had long since gave up trying to sting his eyes in a more worthwhile pursuit of hoping to freeze them. The bludger, however, can hardly be missed as it sails past his head directly toward Noémie. Wiping his eyes with his sleeve, Riley grabs his broom, pulls up, and gives the cannonball chase.

Unclenching his teeth again after the loud scoring sound, Andy throws his hands into the air. “Yes! Great shot, Raleigh!” He backs up again to be ready for more chasing and scoring.

“I scored.” Tobias looks into his empty hands and to the score board. Then he flies back again to set up for defending.

Boyce Gardener swoops in behind the Gryffindor hoops, snatching up quaffle (much more easily than the last time) and looping back hard — Bailey and David both seemed rather close, but he didn’t reckon he could he bank hard enough in the rain without falling off his broom to give himself a good go at it. Chosing between the two, Bailey and David — Boyce tosses the quaffle to David, trying to put himself in the airway enough to set up a pick for David to have a clear shot if he catches the red ball.

Having fully recovered now from his pain — or at least put it aside — Bailey makes his way around just in time to see a score go through for Gryffindor. A sour look crosses his face at this and he turns, flying toward the middle of the pitch and pausing as Boyce comes down. At the pass, he flies forward more, making his way toward the other hoops. They’ve got to even up!

Approaching Bailey again, Andy tries to cover the zone between him and David to prevent a pass to this Ravenclaw chaser.

Catching the quaffle, David quickly assesses the situation and the position of the chasers –both Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. And then, he darts towards the Gryffindor goals, choosing not the direct path (which would probably sent him straight towards the Gryffindors) but choosing the right side of the pitch instead.

Heading for Bailey first, then trailing off towards David, Tobias tries to reach the Ravenclaw, but it’s still a long way to go. He didn’t see Andy on Bailey’s other side and lost a good amount of time, now.

Keira Sanguine flies down, a grin on her face. Sure, she doesn’t like her teammates, but it’s still her team, and a win for Gryffindor is a win for her. She tries to catch up to David, but her broom appears to have a bit of a stuttering problem, likely due to the rain, or perhaps her issues at the start just persisting on, and she has trouble catching up, especially as he swerves out to an alternative path.

It takes Riley a fair bit of effort to catch up to the bludger chasing Noémie — especially considering how graceful and fast Noémie could fly, even in adverse conditions. He was no slouch in the flying department, it was his best strength. But in this weather, it was killing him. Swinging, aming as best he can, he tries to arch the bludger at Keira. His bat begins to slip out of his hand, though, as he swings — and the bludger takes off in Gabe’s direction, instead.

The golden snitch has come into Gabe‘s view! He flies downward in pursuit of the little golden ball which e has only barely been able to see. The rain seems to have let up some and he makes his way downward, downward, making it only slightly closer to the little orb as it continues to stay just out of reach while he begins his chase.

Deciding to give the Gryffindors something else to think about than the quaffle, and cursing herself for having allowed a bludger to hit one of the Ravenclaw chasers, Tegan goes after the other bludger, which she intends to send after Andy. At the last minute, though, she notices Gabe’s dive and sends it against him instead.

Rhian says, “Ravenclaw heads back to the other end of the Quidditch Pitch with the Gryffindors chasing them. Markham manages to intercept a Bludger that was going after Ribouet, but turns and sends it toward Sanguine… What is this, seems that Goden has caught sight of the Snitch and has begun the chase. Madison has spotted this and sends the Bludger near her his way to try and change his attention and to loose the Snitch.”

The bludger, this time, doesn’t even register to Noémie as she spots Gabriel beginning to fly quickly downward. Flying before she even begins looking for it, it doesn’t take Noémie long to catch up to the younger boy, and she is flying neck-and-neck with him, her hand outstretched as if she is to be able to reach the little ball before he will. The snitch swerves this way and that, up and down, and it appears as if this chase is not about to stop soon.

Noticing that Bailey was totally covered by Andy, David has no option but doing the job himself. He approaches to the Gryffindor hoops the best he can, pretends throwing the quaffle towards the rightmost hoop but sends it to the middle hoop instead…

Bumping into Noémie a little — on accident, he promises! — Gabe makes a sharp turn as the snitch does, and overshoots it a bit in his excitement at being so close to possibly winning. His broom does not turn quite as well as he would like back, though he tries to catch up to the snitch and Noémie.

Keelan Walsh and Kelly almost simultaneously spot the double bludgers heading toward their Seeker and take off through the rain to try and stop them. Kelly, faster, arrives first and manages to deflect the Bludger, but Quincy is trailing behind.

Quincy Matthias and Kelly almost simultaneously spot the double bludgers heading toward their Seeker and take off through the rain to try and stop them. Kelly, faster, arrives first and manages to deflect the Bludger, but Quincy is trailing behind.

Reaching up as the Quaffle comes her way, Briony makes an attempt to catch it, but the Quaffle’s slickness does not help, and it flies through the hoop behind her. Briony does not look pleased at this, and scowls a bit as she retrieves the Quaffle, tossing it out to Tobias harshly.

Rhian says, “After some jostling, the Ravenclaw Chasers make their way down the pitch and right in front of Wexler. Mildred attempts to score, faking to one hoop and trying for the other. Wexler misses and Ravenclaw scores! It is now tied at 10 a piece. Bludgers are still flying around though as both Goden and Ribouet fly after the Snitch. Goben almost had it there, but seems to have missed.”"

Noémie hears the clang, but she doesn’t even know who it’s for as she reaches out, despite the jostling, and closes her fingers around the golden snitch. The little ball goes limp in her hands and its wings fold up again as Noémie holds it above her head triumphantly. The sixth year pushes her water saturated hair out of her face and flies down to the pitch quickly, hopping off of her broom and then holding both broom and snitch in the air in celebration. They’d won!

So close, and yet, so far. Gabe Goden flies down to the pitch, having nearly managed to get his hand around it before Noémie but not quite making it. He flies down to the pitch and looks up at his team, a bit disappointedly, before sighing. The captain doesn’t even wait for his team to come down before he makes his way off of the pitch, bound for the locker rooms. A nice warm shower sounds about right for the fourth year captain.

Rhian says, “Ribouet has caught the Snitch. Ravenclaw has won the first game of the year, and are on their way to a wonderful streak to trying to keep the Quidditch Cup. Final score is Ravenclaw-160, Gryffindor-10. Now what do you say to getting out of the rain everyone?”

Keelan Walsh blows her whistle signifying the end of play, and with less terseness then usual congratulates anyone who goes by as she collects the balls and returns them to their box.

Feeling quite disappointed, Briony flies down and lands soon after Gabriel has. She waits just a moment, intent to see how Kelly had done — after all, Briony couldn’t be watching the Beaters the whole game, could she? — and see if perhaps they had at least bruised up some of the Ravenclaws well enough. After she has caught up to Kelly, the girl makes her way slowly off of the pitch, whether Kelly is following her or not.

Riley cheers from his place Noémie lands, throwing his arms in to the air and whooping. “Yeah, Raaaveeenclaaaw!” Drifting down toward ground, pleased as hell to be done zipping around a too-cold sky in too-wet rain, Rilet leaps off his broom and cheers. Those practices had paid off. “YES!”

David cheers loudly, both for the ten points he managed to score than for the victory of the team, and quickly lands to celebrate with the other members of his team.

Boyce Gardener lands not from Riley, grinning and cheering “Yeth! Yeth!” Clapping Riley hard on the back, he walks over to congratulate Noémie on her catching the snitch. His first victory with the team.

Catching the quaffle as it is thrown to him, Tobias has only a moment to fly toward Ravenclaw goal before he hears that the snitch has been caught, and not even by his team. His disappointment is apparent as he flies down and hands the Quaffle over to Keelan, making his way inward. Perhaps he can talk shop with Gabe in the lockers.

Tegan Madison shakes her fist in the air. “YESSS!” she squeals, happy that Ravenclaw has won, and lands near Riley, David and Boyce. “Congratulations, everyone!”

Letting out a stream of obscenities, Keira Sanguine makes her way down to the pitch, looking sourly at the Ravenclaws, and then stomping towards the lockers. That no good Wexler, and that confounded Goden and Raleigh and Carver and Matthias, all of them were worthless. Yes, even Raleigh. The girl doesn’t head to the lockers with the rest of them, instead deciding to head into the commonroom and the girls’ bathrooms.

Cheering with the rest of his team for a moment, Bailey grins widely. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to go get dried off and head to the commons! I heard there’s going to be a wild party!” Without another word, the boy trots inside, waving a fist joyously above his head.

Quincy Matthias rather dejectedly, and with a good deal of squelching, dismounts and heads off to shower(as if being wetter was at all useful) or at the very least to dry off and sulk in the Common Room with everyone else.

Laney Abbott feels some of the good spirit at winning, though her only role in this sodden game was to let Gryffindor score. As such, her jubilation at her first Quidditch game being a win is tinged with self-mockery, evident with the rather closed expression of her eyes as she avoids the team and stalks off of the pitch, murmuring vague pleasantries that sound rather forced if anyone addresses her.

Grinning at her team, her demeanor much improved from the start of the match, Noémie looks quite pleased now. “Good work, everybody! We played beautifully!” Hearing Bailey’s comment, though, her attention strays toward the castle. “A party sounds about right, don’t you think?” the girl tells her team. “Come on, let’s celebrate!” Striding over to hand the snitch over to Keelan, Noémie turns, then, and runs inside. She doesn’t even stop along the way, instead going to the commonroom dripping wet. What’s a little detention in light of this cause for celebration?

With her broom under her arm and a look on her face that could make a stone idol run in terror, Tegan marches down onto the pitch. Her hair tied back in a tight unattractive bun that looks hastily done. The Prefect kneels down to tighten her laces waiting for Noémie to begin the practice as usual. Is she still upset at Bailey? You bet! Does she remember why? Chances are that she doesn’t but why should that stop her?

“Tegan, come on, will you stoppit?” The familiar whine comes from the boy as he follows out hastily, tripping a bit over, well, grass. Bailey manages to catch his balance in time to prevent himself from falling over, but he still looks a bit frustrated. “Come on, I’ve apologized about a hundred times. Won’t you talk to me again? Please? Tegan? Tegan!” A frustrated sigh emits from him as he comes to a stop about five feet away from the other fifth year girl. “It isn’t my fault the professor gave you detention. I even told him not to do!” It is with another loud sigh that Bailey shakes his head and decides, fine, that he can also play this game. Turning sharply, he puts his back to his teammate and crosses his arms over his broom.

“Leave me alone, guyth, I have to go to practithe,” Boyce tells some heckling classmates as he makes his way out to the pitch, still pulling on his sweater over his practice robes. “Go inthide, guyth. It’th raining anyway. You can’t watch.” The boy shakes his head and makes his way out to the pitch carefully, buttoning up a sweater lopsided and coming to stand near Tegan and Bailey. “Hi, guyth,” he greets them and stands in between them, looking from one to the other, seemingly oblivious to the tension between the two.

Like his usual self, David is totally oblivious to the little sentimental drama occuring in front of him. The boy walks the last few meters to where the other players are standing, holding his broom over the shoulder and whistling lightly. “I hope the rain won’t start to fall more heavily, that’d be too bad.” he remarks casually, before looking at his broom and noticing a twig that is oddly out of place. “Ah, darn it…” he swears, before putting it back in place.

“I’m sure we’ll practice anyhow,” Laney responds with a chuckle and a bit of an eyeroll. “After all, it wouldn’t be the first time Quidditch was played in the pouring rain. Mind the time we played last year and it was torrential?” Laney pauses. “‘Course, I was only second string then, so of course it doesn’t matter, does it?” Glancing over her shoulder to see if Noémie is approaching, Laney looks a bit pleased that the captain has not heard her say this. She does push her eyeglasses back up on her face and run a hand down over her hair while she glances around. “Will you two just stop already? It’s so annoying.”

Hearing only the last bit of what Laney has said, Noémie strides out to the pitch, stretching a bit. “Hello, everyone,” she greets her team and looks at them all silently for a moment. “Alright, today, as you can tell, it’s raining. It’s good practice, in case it’s stormy the day we play Gryffindor. So, Gryffindor’s team is better this year, it looks like, so we need to work harder this year. I’d like to do a sort of a scrimmage. You chasers, up there, running plays and taking shots on Laney. Don’t give me that look, Laney, you need the practice before the match. And then, Tegan, I want you to take out that modified practice bludger and hit it among the chasers here so that you can get some practice with your aim. Please don’t kill anyone and don’t aim only at Bailey. I mean it. Alright, In the air. Let’s do a couple of laps first. The practice balls are down over there,” Noémie points to a box nearby on the pitch. “Just get them out after we’re done. I’m going to be working with the practice snitch.”

Smiling at most of her teammates (This doesn’t include Bailey of course) Tegan nods to Noémie. “No killing…. stick to hitting Bailey…. check.” Well she got it half right at least. The fifth year girl hops over her broom and speeds off into the air quickly to get her two laps in, which is hard to do with raindrops spattering about your face and eyes but she eventually manages it. When she comes in for a landing to get her bat and practice bludger she slips up just a bit getting herself muddy here and there while the rain threatens to undo her tightly woven bun of hair.

Flying first, right-o! Quickly getting onto his broom, Boyce takes off slowly — after all, bad things happen when he tries to start too quickly — and begins to make his way around the pitch. It takes him a full lap, but after the first lap, Boyce manages to speed up a bit, gaining speed even more after a third lap. After his third lap, he comes to hover in the center of the pitch, looking at the other Chasers, who have likely beat him into the center of the pitch. “Alright, we’re trying to thcore, right?” he comments, cringing a bit as his lisp is quite loud and apparent.

“A scrimmage? Nice.” David says, hoping on his broom and taking off to do his two laps, following Tegan. The first lap goes well, but as soon as David begins his second lap, the broom begins to wobble slightly. At first, the boy does not really notice it; when he finally does, he dismisses the thought and thinks it is the wind, or his imagination. Yet the landing after the practice laps is a bit harder to manage, and David inspects the broom for a few instants, his eyebrows quirked, but nothing seems to be out of order. “Strange…” he mutters.

Laney gets onto her broom and, pausing a moment before she takes off, she glances around. Sigh, she does not need practice that badly, no matter what the stinking captain says. The girl is up on her broom, though, before she can allow herself to say anything snarky to the girl with whom she should at least put a little effort into getting along. Swerving hard to avoid David as his broom begins to wobble, Laney scoffs a bit and flies one more lap, having passed the boy, likely, due to his broom trouble. After all, she hasn’t passed him up often in the past. No matter, however, as Laney soon finishes and wastes no time in flying straight up to the hoops. “Alright, I’m ready when you all are,” she tells them all and resituates herself on her broom.

Cringing as Tegan makes this comment, Bailey hangs back a bit, letting Tegan and some of the others take the lead so that he does not have to be near the girl with whom he is now not speaking. After all, two could play at that game. “You alright, mate?” he calls down to David after he has finished two laps of his own and looks concerned as he glances down at his fellow chaser. Bailey is obviously not concerned enough to come down, however, and stays up on his broom, nearly level with Boyce, though a small distance from the boy.

Making her own three laps quickly, Noémie is soon finished and flies down to the practice box to take out her practice snitch, letting it go before she even notices David. “Mildred, get back up there and get going. If you’re having trouble with your broom, just use a school broom,” She tells him, and is quickly back on her broom and up in the air. Clearly, Noémie isn’t in the mood to dilly-dally today. This is further exemplified by the fact that she hardly lets the snitch out of her sight before she has swiftly caught it again. This time, letting it go, however, she lets it disappear from her sight before she begins to fly around in pursuit of it. Despite it being gold, the little orb is certainly difficult to see with the rain.

“You’d be better off flying a broken broom David!” Calls out Tegan playfully as she releases the practice bludger into the air only to dodge aside quickly as it comes rushing back down to her. She climbs onto her broom and makes her way into the air again grinning for the first time at Baily, it’s a menacing sort that says payback time’. The bludger comes rocketing up at her again and she deflects it away waiting for her team mates to rise as well.

“Ah, well, it’s probably my imagination.” David says, walking up to the Quidditch box and taking the Quaffle out of it. He puts it under his arm and hops back on his broom. With a firm kick on the ground, he flies up in the air, and starts to look around to see where the bludgers are. Seeing nothing, he throws the Quaffle at Bailey and flies towards the goal post.

Grabbing at the Quaffle as it is tossed to him, Bailey manages to catch it only by the tips of his fingers, and this throws him off a bit. “Don’t you hit me, Tegan!” he calls to his girlfriend — or is she? — as he flies quickly, making his way over toward the goal posts. Giving the Quaffle a mighty hurl, he ducks down a bit, aiming the red ball at Boyce, with only a glance over his shoulder to aim. It isn’t much of a throw, but it ought to get itself all the way to Boyce.

“Oof!” Boyce calls as the Quaffle does get to him, and in fact collides with his stomach. “Careful!” he calls out to the older boy, but it doesn’t take him long to figure out that he probably ought to be practicing rather than talking, and takes off after his teammates. Flying as quickly as he can manage, Boyce realizes just a moment too late that he probably ought to know better than to get his broom going this fast, as he begins to lose control. Chucking the Quaffle up in the air, he doesn’t even pay attention to whether he has thrown it to one of his teammates, instead focussing on getting control of his broom. He does manage this, but only after it is too late for him to catch the quaffle. One of his teammates will have to do it.

Watching carefully as the boys make their way toward her, Laney bites her lip, putting her hands up. What are they doing? That couldn’t possibly be a play. Not a very good one, at least. “Come on, stop fooling around!” she calls, shaking her head. Taking her spectacles off, she wipes them off, and then draws her wand, casting impervious, and a sticking charm as well on them before putting them back onto her face. Hoping the rain won’t make it more difficult for her charm to stick, Laney watches more closely what the chasers are doing, hoping to be able to see a real play going on, rather than the mess that she thinks she sees.

A shrill laugh comes from Tegan hearing her boyfriend on the rocks beg her not to hit him. As the bludger returns it looks as though she just may but instead the Bludger is knocked toward David with minimal ferocity. After all Noémie did tell her not to kill anyone. “You’re next Bailey so get your butt in gear and get flying!”

“What are you doing, folks?” David yells from his vantage point, as he observes the two other chasers. He was waiting for them to approach the goal hoops and try to score a point, but apparently, something else is going on in their minds. Deciding that he should rather try to catch the Quaffle, he starts to dive slightly to pick up speed and flies in the direction of the red ball. At this moment, the characteristic buzz of the Bludger results in David losing his concentration. He misses the Quaffle, not by much, and curses as he tries to avoid the Bludger. Fortunately, the Bludger loses his lock on him after a while and goes back towards Tegan. David turns sharply, but feels that he needs to put more force than usual on his broom handle. “Uh oh, it’s not starting again?” he says to himself, a little worried.

“I don’t know what you’re doing, folks, but I’m flying!” Bailey retorts quickly, turning and looking over his shoulder at David again. Spotting that the Quaffle has been missed, he dives low and quick, narrowly missing Noémie as she flies by. “Watch it!” he calls, though not in a malicious way. The Quaffle is almost to the ground by the time he gets his hands on it, but he manages a solid catch before it falls completely onto the pitch. Flying back upward quickly, the boy tosses it to Boyce again. “Careful this time!” he calls to the younger boy. “You ready, David?” to the other.

“Ah… yes, I am!” David yells, coming out of his turn, and preparing himself to catch the Quaffle should Bailey toss it to him. Quickly, his eyes scan the field to see where everybody is currently, especially the Beaters. “It’s when you want, Bailey!” he adds, finally, and he starts to fly a nice linear trajectory.

As the bludger makes it’s way back to Tegan she knocks it without much reserve for safety at Bailey as promised. “Keep your eye on the ball!” She says zooming quickly to another vantage point down pitch as the bludger flies toward it’s intended target. She’s not bitter…. honestly. Tegan readies her bat in her grip for when the bludger makes it’s return.

Boyce has managed to get his broom under control, and he is quite ready for the throw when it comes to him. He catches it quite easily and rather than tossing it to someone else, makes his escape for the hoops, especially as the bludger has been hit at Bailey instead of himself. Boyce finds it very easy to get to the hoops and having approached them, rears back and makes a hard shot to the left-most hoop. The shot isn’t a fantastic one, but it has a good bit of speed on it, and Boyce looks quite proud of himself, as he looks back at his fellow chasers momentarily, quickly turning to fly back down the pitch in order to try at it again as a team — hopefully with less broom issues.

As the Quaffle is thrown to the hoop, Laney makes a dive, but, not being quite as prepared for their approach as she thought she was, she falls just short, and while the Quaffle does not go through the hoop, she does not manage to catch it either. Flying down to catch it before it makes its way all the way down to the ground, Laney flies back up quickly, tossing the Quaffle forward, directly at David. “Come again now,” she calls to them, reseating herself on the broom so that she might better be prepared for the next one.

Flying about, Noémie scoffs as Bailey makes this comment to her, and he nearly prevents her from getting her hand on the practice snitch. “Watch where you’re going if it’s so much trouble to you, Bailey,” the captain calls but she doesn’t wait long down near the ground where she has caught the snitch to dwell on this. Releasing it again, she watches the happenings for a moment, applauding as Boyce makes an attempt at a shot. “Good try!” she tells both — or it is at least not clear to which of them she is speaking — and then turns her attention back to her own task, making her way upward, far around where the action is taking place and peering out in the rain for the tiny golden snitch.

“Augh!” Bailey calls, ducking quickly before the practice Bludger tries to take his head off. “Watch it with that thing!” This is yelled congenially, however, without any malice apparent. Perhaps the practice will end up being therapuetic for his girlfriend and he will be able to spend time with her again without fear for his health. “Alright, give it here, David!” Bailey calls as he flies down toward where Boyce has gone to, evening up with the boy to a degree while he watches David. “Is your broom still alright?”

David Mildred lets out one last curse but manages to catch the Quaffle this time. He keeps it under his arm as he continues to fly forwards. The slight buffeting on his broom seems to stop, and David turns his head towards Bailey, a bit relieved. “Yeah, well… the broom is a bit tough to steer, I guess it needs some serviceing.” David says to him. “Catch this one!” he adds with a grin, before throwing him the Quaffle, doing the pass from behind his back. Immediately after, he does a hard turn right to go back towards the goal hoops.

Tegan‘s glare softens a bit seeing as how she very nearly gave her boyfriend a concussion, she says nothing though not wanting to make it look as though she was sorry about it or anything. Seeing David catch the Quaffle Tegan waits for the bludger to return and when it does she again hits it lightly toward the fourth year only to see him pass it himself. “Watch yourself Mildred! Worry about that broom after you land!”

Hearing the characteristic buzz of the Bludger coming at him, David performs a series of evasive manoeuvres. For a moment, that seems to do the trick, but the Bludger suddenly resumes his course towards him. David frowns, and decides to make another sharp turn with the intent of having the Bludger overshoot him. Unfortunately, the broom decides, at this very moment, to refuse any movement. David lets out yet another curse and performs a roll as his last resort, thus narrowly escaping the Bludger. “Darn it, darn it, darn it…” he says, when he is back upright. “I really need to have that broom looked over.”

Grabbing at the Quaffle, Bailey flies forward, the ball tucked under his arm carefully while he maneuvers through the rain. “Get it!” he calls, and though he doesn’t attatch a name to this command, the ball goes flying toward Boyce as he flies downward for a moment, and then back up, headed straight toward Laney, though he is still a good distance from her. Bailey‘s broom seems to be the only one of those the chasers are riding today that is in good condition and he even brakes quickly and turns to look over his shoulder, propelling himself forward and out of the way of the hoops so that David and Boyce may make their way inward.

Watching as David is also nearly brained by her bludger Tegan cries out “Sorry David!” and being completely distracted by the bad flying broom Tegan is hit in the side by her own bludger. Luckily it was a light blow but it still managed to knock that horribly ugly bun in her hair loose letting it fall again over her shoulders soaked in the rain. Tegan shakes some of the hair from her face and turns to hit the bludger this time not at any of the chaser but at the Quaffle itself.

Leaning out to catch the Quaffle, it is a good thing that Boyce has his ankles hooked onto the broom, else he may have ended up sliding clear upside down from the reach he has done. Turning to throw, Boyce flies forward, waiting a moment before he tosses the Quaffle to David. After all, he must make sure the boy can move first. Affirming that he can, Boyce makes his toss, “Here you go! Make the thot!” he calls, his lisp not carrying as well as someone else’s voice might.

Flying up and around Boyce as he stops, Noémie doesn’t say a word about the yelling, or even the fact that it is unlikely that he would have time to stop in a game. Instead, Noémie spots the little orb upon which her attention has been fixed for the entire afternoon. Flying upward, Noémie speeds up, following it closely, but never getting quite close enough to catch it. Seeing it turn, she bears a hard right and reaches her arm out, managing to close her fingers around it. This will be the last time she does this during this practice, though, and she flies down to the pitch rather lazily, hopping off of her broom to watch the rest of the team continue on their progress. She’ll stop them soon.

“Hmmgn.” David mutters, as he tries to “unlock” his broom after having recovered from his roll. The broom doesn’t budge for a while, and David tries harder. “Hgnn, will you move, stupid broom!” he yells, shaking the handle to no avail, but suddenly, the broom resumes his motion and David is pushed backwards by the acceleration. “Ahh!” he yells, taken by surprise, and he needs a couple of second to readjust, just in time to catch the Quaffle.

Realizing that the Bludger was actually after the Quaffle, David hurriedly decides to pass it to someone else. “Bailey! Catch it!” he yells, and throws it to the other boy.

Grabbing the Quaffle that has been sent his way, Bailey quickly decides that now is the most opportune time to make a shot. Quickly flying in, he lobs the Quaffle toward the middle and highest hoop. He leans back a bit, flying upward in order to see better where his shot goes, and then glances over to David. “Might want to get down to the ground with that troublesome broom!” he tells his teammate, and then turns to look at the goal, just in time to see what happens.

More prepared this time for the shot, though not by much, Laney throws her arms up in the air, standing up on the stand of her broom, her heels hooked into it. She manages to tip the Quaffle away from the hoops, and though she doesn’t catch it, this is enough to block the Quaffle from going into the goal. Laney looks quite proud of herself as she sits back down onto her broom happily and glances at the rest of them. She is about to shout to them to get on it again, when she hears, “Bring it in!” hollered from below.

Watching as her Bludger chases the Quaffle even as it is tossed to the hoop only hitting it after it’s been blocked and then bounces away. “Bullocks!” Says Tegan with a sigh. “I didn’t hit that one hard enough to stop the score.” Tegan holds onto her bat ready to deflect the angry looking failed bludger as it returns. Though when told to bring it in she instead makes a catch and wrestles the practice bludger under and arm and comes in for a landing to return it to it’s box.

Boyce hears the same as Laney has, and wastes no time putting his broom into motion again, coming down to land on the pitch. “Good practice!” he calls and wipes some rain off of his hair which had been threatening to drip into his face. “I’ll score yet, I will. I promise.” Grinning and swinging his broom over his shoulder, Boyce waits for Noémie to make her statements to them while he tries to wring himself out a bit, for all the good it does since it is still raining quite heavily.

Flying down to land after Boyce, Laney rolls her eyes. “Don’t count on it,” she tells him and laughs a bit. She doesn’t say much else, though, waiting instead for Noémie to debrief and let them know just how many practices she is to subject them to over the course of the week.

Making his own way down to the ground, Bailey lands rather close to Tegan. He doesn’t stand as close as he usually might, keeping just enough distance from her so that it doesn’t seem too obvious that he’s about to ask her to accompany him to some secluded area around the school. He, too, only waits for the captain to give down her verdict as the team all gets down to the ground near where she has been standing for he doesn’t know how long.

“Yes, I’d better land soon” David says, nodding at Bailey. Fortunately, the broom follows his orders as he approaches the ground and touches down. “That was some practice, huh?” he says to his fellow chasers as he unmounts his broom. “I’ll give it to the broom flying instructor tomorrow, perhaps we could do something about it. It’s getting a bit too late tonight, I think. It’s strange… I flew that broom yesterday without any problem…” David says, obviously lost in his thoughts. A good thing he managed to come back to the ground without causing any major accident…

“Alright, good practice everyone. We’re going to practice again later, after supper, and I’ve arranged for a teacher to be out here with us so nobody need fear that we’re breaking any rules. Mildred, get your broom tuned up. You’re not to ride that broom until it’s fixed. You’ll have to use one of the school brooms in the meantime. Gardener, you’d best get yours tuned up, too; it appears to malfunction a little when you speed up. Alright, everyone get dried off, have some supper and then I’ll see you back out here an hour or so after dinner’s over so that we can resume practice. I want us to have the best edge possible against Gryffindor. Alright, see you all later,” Noémie tells the others, putting her practice snitch back into the box and leaving it there on the pitch, apparently so that is is there for their practice after dinner, and walking off of the pitch.

Trotting over to where the Quaffle has dropped, Laney grabs it up and plops it into the box. She goes the way of Noémie and trots off of the pitch, taking only a moment to stow her broom away in the Broom Shed before running into the school, hoping rather hard that the caretaker won’t spot her in all her drippy-wet glory.

Having wrangled the bludger while she was still in the air, Tegan has an easy time carying it over to where the box is and securing it in. It being only a practice bludger, as well, it has quite a bit less fight to it. Soon enough Tegan is walking slowly toward the broom shed and just as she goes in, she glances over at Bailey, who seems to have followed her. This time, not a sneer, but a smile erupts and it is clear that whatever anger she’d had before is now gone.

The smile has given Bailey confidence and he wastes no time in following Tegan off after depositing his broom off. The two of them are soon vanished from the pitch and from sight, theoretically off to their commonroom to study and to tidy up for supper, but those who know them likely know better than this.

Nodding to Noémie as she instructs him to have his broom tuned up, Boyce seems to jump a little. “Thankth!” he tells her cheerfully and trots to the broom shed, putting his own broom away. The stout boy is dripping quite heavily, as his sweater has absorbed a good amount of rain, but he doesn’t seem to mind, aside from the sloshing, as he makes his way into the school, presumably to get into some clothes that are actually dry.

The pitch is decorated on this warm, sunny afternoon with two obstacle courses, one on the ground and one in the air. The courses are different, the bottom with snares and traps for tripping, as well as obstacles to run through and dodge, while the top has gates to fly through and practice bludgers flying in unpredictable paths in and around them. Noémie is already on the pitch, and appears to have already got beads of sweat on her forehead while she finishes up one last lap and comes to a stop in the center of the pitch, wiping her brow and glancing around. Nobody yet. The prefect does not look worried as yet, though, at the lack of people who have yet shown up for the tryouts. After all, they aren’t scheduled to begin for five minutes yet.

Laney Abbott is a rather pear-shaped fifth year girl with strawberry blonde hair held back by black ribbons and a pair of spectacles that rest on the end of her nose, giving her a somewhat oddly stern appearance. Holding her own broom, a custom model but obviously some number of years old, she approaches the pitch in a throng of other Ravenclaw Quidditch hopefuls, some of whom have gone so far as to bring their own beater bats and one boy is wearing a complete set of navy robes and protective gear, talking about how this is his last chance to make the team–and catch the Captain’s eye. Laney’s lower lip juts out a bit at this, and her stride lengthens as much as it can, given her somewhat short legs.

Tremendously reluctance in each and every step, Riley Markham practically drags himself out on to the pitch, and in to general striking distance of Noémie. Noémie, who wouldn’t listen to a damn thing he said, no matter how adminantly he’d attempted to appologize for the incident at Sorting. Maybe if I show up early, I could talk to her, he reasoned. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Now, though, the prospect frightened the ever-loving cripes out of him. Lifting his scarred, left hand (beater bat dangling from his wrist, he makes a meager wave to Noémie once she is in sight. Hoping to feel out her reaction to him before he opens his damned mouth. Perhaps the only notable knowledge to have come out of his time as a pariah inside of his own micro-family.

Among the first down to the pitch is a thin, bordering on weedy, boy, perhaps only in third year or thereabouts, and rather short for his age. His robes are ill-fitting, his grip on his broomstick borders on unnecessarily tight, and he bites his lip nervously. Boyce Gardener is not a happy camper. One of his fellow Ravenclaws also trying out for the team nudges him, offering, “Boyce, kid, what /are/ you doing here?” “T-trying out for the team? Thame ath everyone elthe here.” “What position /for/? You’re too teeny to do anything but Seek, and we have a Seeker.” “I could be a Chather, alright? I’m thmall enough that I can dodge Bludgerth and thtuff, okay?” “Yeah, but you’ll also miss the Quaffle all the time.” “I will not. My big thithter thayth I can catch good.” Poor kid.

David Mildred comes last on the pitch, following the members of last year’s team as well as the few hopefuls who have decided to come to the tryouts. David is silent, and nods at Riley and Neomie as he spots them on the pitch. He walks to them, and stops, waiting for the instructions. Over his shoulder, he holds his Moontrimmer, which is not as new as it has been two years ago but which has been looked after well.

“Welcome, everybody, to this year’s tryouts!” The team captain says loudly to stop some of the chatter. No specific greeting is given to anyone, least of all her cousin, though she does nod cordially at everyone who approaches. “Good turn-out this year, I see! I’m glad! Alright, to start, I’ll have you all do two laps, around the whole pitch, /running/ just to get your bodies warmed up for this first obstacle course, which will be for agility. The second will be for your agility in the air. But, first things first, let’s have two laps out of all of you. You first years, there, you. Yes, you. If you’re going to try out, you’ll need to put the sweets away and pay attention, or else I’m going to ask you to leave.” Watching for a moment as the first years comply and discreetly tuck their bags of sweets away, Noémie turns without another word and begins to trot around the pitch in pursuit of her own two laps.

Laney Abbott needlessly brushes a few strands of loose hair out of her face and gently sets down her broom. “Lovely, running,” she mutters under her breath, adjusting her spectacles and then pointing at them with her wand and murmuring a spell, evidently to fix them in place, as they don’t slip as she begins her laps. Granted, she isn’t exactly possessed of running prowess, and quickly is passed by many if not all of the others, red in the face but not laboring too hard.

“Okay. Let’s do it!” David says, putting his broom on the grass and beginning to jog away, for his first lap. The pitch is rather large, and running around it is not that pleasant, especially if you have never done it before. Despite the holidays, David finds it relatively easy to pick up with Noémie’s pace, and follow her nicely.

“Running?” Boyce echoes, looking around at his fellow hopefuls, most of whom are considerably bigger than him. “Why do we have to run? We won’t ever have to do that in a game, will we?” He remains clinging to his broom for a moment, as though it is a security blanket of some sort, though after a moment he carefully and reluctantly sets it down, beginning his running at a sort of odd gait, the half-skip, half-run of someone who learned to run by chasing after other people who are considerably stronger and with much longer legs. As such, it’s not a very economical run, but he’s surprisingly agile.

Riley Markham allows his broom to fall to the grass with a dull sigh. Running. And she barely looked at him. Damn it all. Chucking his bat to the turf in an off-handed way, he draws a deep breath and starts to the task of jogging. A faint sweat creeping up on his tanned, yet somewhat pasty, forehead almost immediately. Maybe after he could talk to her — he’d just have to hold out, be good. Give her no reason to be angry. Which is a great thought, until about half way down, lost in thought, he bumps in to a second year and trips up on her, sending them both to the turf with a loud yelp. The awkwardness of the landing, his elbow catches the poor girl right in jaw, leaving a very nice bruise and an immediate welling on tears.

While Noémie takes her time, she is still one of the first ones done, though it does not appear to be for the same reason as she had hoped when she noticed she was near the front. Glancing back at the slower ones, she spies a small cluster of girls who have stopped. “Get the lead out,” she calls to them, and when they do not immediately beginning running again, she trots over. Gathering what has gone on, the girl shakes her head. “RILEY!” she bellows loudly and though she doesn’t say anything more, she does glance around for her cousin nearby. “You clumsy dolt,” she utters harshly to the boy and looks at the girl for a moment. “Go see Madam Wexler. She’ll get you fixed up, and then if you feel up to it, you can come back and join us.” A larger queue has gathered near where the brooms had been to begin with and Noémie only shakes her head at Riley while she heads back over in that direction, waiting for the rest of the hopefuls to gather.

Laney Abbott comes round to a close with only a few other people still going at all (having miss the scene with the second year and Riley entirely, being half across the pitch at the time), some of them jogging while the blonde huffs and puffs her way to a halt. “I…” wheeze, “hate… running.” As she spots the Seventh Year with an Eye for Noémie watching her (or maybe the girl who had walked the entire time while loudly lamenting the fact that she might get sweaty running around), Laney’s face drains of color and she remarks, “Just perfect,” while moving in the other direction in the crowd to retrieve her broom.

“Oh, damn, damn it all, are you alri–” Riley mutters, rolling on to knees, rubbing his elbow as he glances down at the crying second year — a child he doubles in length nearly twice over. Noémie’s loud cry of his name cuts his voice off in mid-word. Cringing, Riley scrambles to his feet, looking somewhat helpless. “Damn it,” he whispers, more at himself than to anyone else. Noémie’s insult cuts him, and his almost immediate instinct is to lash back, but he bites his lip, before turning and moving on down path, finishing his laps. Restraint. Restraint. Bloody restraint.

Having stopped in his tracks to watch the goings-on with Riley and the young girl, despite being on the other side of the pitch at the time, Boyce quickly gets it together and keeps running his odd little run until he is finally finished, looking around speculatively as more and more people join him there. He clings to his broom again tightly, biting at his lower lip uncertainly. “I don’t like running very much.” He whispers, to nobody in particular. “We don’t usually have to run, much, do we? I never heard of Chathing from the ground.”

David says, “What is happening out there?” %n mutters, as he hears some noise and sees students clustered around someone –or something. He stops on his track, observing the scene from afar. It seemed to be a little accident, but apparently, it did not look that serious. He saw Riley resuming his run, and other students following suit after a while, and %n decides that he could probably just do the same, too. Resuming his jogging, he completes the second lap a little while after and comes to a stop near his broom. Most of the other students were still at the other end of the pitch, having been interrupted by the fall. %n shrugs and decides to wait for the next step of the tryouts.”

“It helps with agility to do some things on the ground. If you can’t keep hold of a quaffle on the ground, what’s to convince me you can do it in the air, hmmm?” Noémie tells the boy with a bit of a grin. “Alright, now, anyone going out for keeper, I want you down at that end there. You’re going to try to block the shots of those going out for chaser. If you’re going out for chaser, go ahead and get into a line at this end of the course here. Beaters, get your positions on either side, even up please, and take a bat. You’ll hit bludgers to each other, intent on hitting those running through the course with a well-timed and well-aimed bludger. You may run around and hit them as long as you do /not/ change partners in the middle. Alright, get to it. Keepers, rotate after every shot; everyone gets a chance! Those going out for seeker, well, I do apologize but I filled the second string spot at the pre-tryout we had. I know, I know, but he filled the spot last year. If you’d like to try for any other spot, you’re more than welcome, though!” The captain trots around to make sure everyone’s set up. “Keep the line moving. I want a constant flow of people going through this!” With that, she releases several bludgers which seem to fly around at random through a fixed area in a certain part of the course, low enough to hit any of those trying out if they run through and aren’t paying attention.

Ah, the moment of truth – Boyce joins the line of Chasers nervously, biting at his lower lip again. How is he supposed to get a position that he can’t even pronounce? That’ll be good – My name ith Boyth and I’m a Chather for the Ravenclaw team. Just a good thing he isn’t in Thlytherin. Swallowing, he whispers to anyone who cares to listen, “My family wantth me to try out for the team. I don’t know if I’m actually any good, but my big thithter reckonth that I’m at leatht pathingly good. Maybe I’ll make thecond thtring.” He licks his lips, trying to get some moisture onto them, as he moves through the line. A lisp and a compulsive talker. Poor kid.

David nods at her captain’s instructions and lines up behind a few other students, mainly second years, who hoped to become a Chaser. He smiles at one particular boy who seems to be particularly worried about his own tryout. “Don’t be that worried”, David says, trying to give him some courage. “Just don’t forget to always keep an eye on the Quaffle.” he advises, as he waits for his own turn to come.

Laney Abbott holds her broom possesively and trundles toward the end for the Keepers (as a certain redhead moves with a group of put-out would be Seekers to the stands to watch), even though she won’t exactly be needing it on the ground. She’s just not about to leave it for the rest of these jokers to muddle with. “Merlin, I’m glad I’m not trying for Chaser,” she says to the girl ahead of her in line as the Bludgers begind to zoom around. “Don’t expect you could dodge them, ey Abbott?” A blush creeps into her cheeks at the sound of a male voice behind, and she barely turns her head and offers a loathing-filled. “Gregory Spatts, I could as well, I just don’t fancy my spectacles smashed if I miss dodging one,” and turns her head resolutely foreward again with a snide, “Better keep your eye on Noémie in case you looks your way so you can exchange a long and meaningful gaze.” Her lips press together and she moves forward in line by one.

Riley Markham collects up his bat at from near where he dropped his broom, slipping the leather thong around his wrist and giving it a good whirl before pairing off with a fifth-year hopeful for the team named, appropriately, Cobby. A big, thick-bodied, somewhat dim-witted brute who, even even by the somewhat slim standards for intelligence set by Riley‘s own admission in to Ravenclaw house, must have been Sorted under either a miracle or via copious amounts of rum imbibed by the hat pre-Sorting. “I wonder if it can drink,” Riley wondered, aloud, after that thought, raising a brow before giving a loud scwak as he finds a bludger hurtling toward his head courtesy of his big-boned mate. Just barely getting his bat up in time to prevent a broken nose, he deflects the cannonbal skyward, almost directly so, far and away from the line. Groaning, sure that Noémie would see it, and trying not to pay any attention to his other housemates as they assess his embaressment and mess-up-factor for the year to come, he clobbers the bludger toward David as his friend’s turn arrives, his aim improved from last year, but still not grand.

Shooting a curious glance to Riley as she happens to trot by, Noémie manages to stifle what wants to be a bit of a giggle. She makes her way to the head of the obstacle course. “Okay, go, go!” She calls to a first year who trips several times in the first bit by the traps and snares. “Come on, you’ve got to watch what’s coming, Lawrence!” She hsakes her head and watches as the first year haphazardly manages to get through and tosses the quaffle weakly at the low hoops. No, no score. “Come on, show them how it’s done, come on!” The captain runs up and down, watching as many people as she can manage all at once with this setup. “We’re only going to do a few runs each and then it’s up in the air!”

“I like the Captain’th name,” Boyce offers quietly, rubbing his hands together nervously. “Noémie Ribouet. I can actually pronounthe it. I think that bodeth well. Doth that bode well, do you think?” He starts chewing on his lower lip again as it comes to be his turn and he certainly does appear to have a knack for dodging things and makes it through the traps and snares well, his size and agility lending him ability. “Thee?” He cries victoriously. “I’m gonna be /good/ at Chathing. I can dodge thingth – argh.” A stray bludger hits him in the arm, possibly hit by someone who heard his bragging, and he clutches the limb, blinking back the water that comes to his eyes from the initial pain. “Owie, that /hurt/.” Oh, right, quaffles. He throws it one handed towards one of the hoops, a reasonably good throw given he’s only using the one arm, but by no means spectacular.

Laney Abbott is pointedly ignoring the seventh-year’s attempts to chat at her, as he is by no means oblivious to the venom her tone contain. “Come on, Abbott, what did I do? If you won’t tell me I can’t make it right– come–oof!” he gets hit in the stomach by a Quaffle that the person in front failed to save, and which Laney had stepped to the right to avoid. With a smirk, she moves up again, as the girl in front of her fails to save the throw by Boyce, letting it through one of the low-lying hoops through. Alright, time for Laney to prove she deserves to be on the team.

As he starts running and tries to tackle the first obstacle, David neglects to keep an eye on the beaters. Little good that did to him: he barely hears the whoosh of Riley’s Bludger coming on him, and instinctively plunges on the ground to dodge it. He lets out a worried cry as he hurriedly stands up again, and resumes his course. He was more than a bit flustered about not being able to anticipate the Bludger better. He fares a bit better with the two other bludgers sent at him as he crosses the pitch and tries to make it trough the various obstacles set there by Noémie. Finally, he makes it to the other side. He lets out a sigh as he stops and turns his back to observe the other candidates.

Beaming brightly at his success, Boyce hesitates for a moment – he goes back to the end of the line, right? Or does he wait? He looks around, trying to work out what everyone else is doing, and then eventually goes back to the end of the line, stretching his injured arm out tentatively and pushing up his sleeve to inspect the damage done. Well, that certainly will bruise up, and it’ll ache for a while, but it’s not broken and probably won’t inhibit his movements too much. Pity it seems to be his dominant arm, though. “Doth that look bad to you?” He eventually asks someone nearby, wrinkling his brow concernedly. “It’th turning black and blue already, and it hurtth a fair bit… will I thtill make the team if my arm ith bruithed, or will the Captain thay it’th evidenthe of my inability?”

Riley makes a face as David dodges his bludger, but seems pleased enough as it sails directly for his partner. “Nice follow through, anyway,” he murmurs, before allowing his eyes to go wide. His partner, Cobby, draws back a full arm, before smacking the bludger so hard at the fourth year running the course that his bat actually cracks a little. “Lighten up a little, will yah?!” Riley calls, noting with some satisfaction that the fourth year had the common sense to dive at the loud thwack that left Cobby’s bat. Cringing, knowing it will hurt his hands, Riley has to drive almost the full force of his weight in his swing just to return the ball softly to his mate. What is likely an easy dodge for the next one through the line.

“Alright, one more run through for everyone!” Noémie calls loudly and trots down to the Keepers end, keeping her eye on the Keepers more for this run-through. “And then we’re in the air!” Watching while each and everyone makes their way through, it is not very long before all of them have made their way all the way through the final time on the ground. “Alright, onto your brooms!” Running quickly over to where she has put her own broom, Noémie gets onto it and is soon up into the air. She waits until everyone has joined her before continuing. “Alright, one at a time on this one. These bludgers are meant to be dodged by chasers, and hit by beaters. I want you to be always aware of the gates and go through everyone. They light up as you go through them momenarily, see.” She flies through two in succession and they do light up momentarily as she flies through, though the light fades quickly. “I’ll be watching you all go through, so I want you to take care to get through /all/ of them if you can. Keepers, down at the end. The Chasers will try shooting from the air this time. You will not have to worry about bludgers in the shooting zone this time; we’ll save that for practice. Alright! Get to it!” Flying out of the course in the air, Noémie barely manages to dodge a bludger as it skims her back and she flies out to the side of it, swerving back and fourth while she waits for her teammates to begin.

Laney Abbott wipes her forehead and murmurs, “A bit too much energy, if you ask me,” as she climbs aboard her broom. The sluggishness she displayed in running about on the ground is virtually nonexistant in the air, however, with a good sturdy broom she easily glides to a spot in queue for playing Keeper when her turn comes up. As she waits, her broom bobbles up and down a bit, as if unable to sit very still. “Stop that,” she mutters to it. Of course, it being a broom, it doesn’t respond /or/ cease wiggling.

Riley Markham takes to his broom with some relief — he was only supposed to fly and hit bludgers, with no obvious aiming mentioned. That, he could do. A chance for him to shine. Brilliant. And, well, to be away from the dim-witted brute, Cobby. The fact that he could even mount a broom amazed Riley. It was a little like seem a small giant trying to ride a toothpick. Ah, well. Twirling his bat in his hand in a vaguely cocky way, Riley moves toward the first gate, knocking a bludger away easily enough. And miraculously not toward any teammate in particular.

Passing the three first gate is not that complicated for David and the boy is almost believing that the test is in fact too easy. But, as he steers the broom towards the fourth one, he notices that a bludger is on its way to intercept him. David starts to manoeuver to avoid it. The bludger gets closer and is soon accompanied by a second one. Cursing his bad luck, David starts to manoeuver, but it also means that he has to change his heading and not fly towards the fourth gate. He starts to zig-zag and to manoeuver until he manages to get rid of the bludgers, but he is now very far away from the next gate and has lost some precious time. He finally manages to make it through the remaining gates. All sweaty, he throws his Quaffle to the keeper but does not manage to get it through. David lands and walks away from the other chaser candidates, brooding his lame throw.

Mounting his broom and flying up to join Noémie, Boyce seems just as agile in the air as he is on foot, and his small size is quite aerodynamic. The downside, of course, is that it’s just as easy to miss a Quaffle as it is is to miss the bludgers. “Alright, let’th go.” As his turn comes up, he flies through the first gate easily – “Thith ith thimple!” – but has to take a dive to avoid a bludger and has to swerve abruptly at the last second to make it through the next one, though he does manage to just make it through. And again, with the next gate, and so on – though there are a few abrupt swerves, he does go through all the gates without getting hit by anything. He shoots for the goals inexpertly, intending to do so two-handed but finding his injured arm more of a problem than he had predicted. It is not a bad throw, but hardly a particularly good one.

Laney Abbott is up to her turn as David throws, and although it isn’t his best throw, she has to urge her broom sideways and stretch out as a far as she can to make the catch. She manages, however, and makes a triumphant sort of squealing noise, the charm on her glasses apparently worn off as they are knocked gently askew. It is with reluctance that she releases the bludger back into the air and returns to the end of the queue, cheeks flushed proudly.

This task, thankfully, comes more or less easily for Riley. A fair hand at flying, he made it through the gates more or less with ease, even the tricky ones. And deflecting the bludgers was, more or less, easily enough. A few do come close to hitting him, and one does graze his shoulder, but for the most part, actually deflecting away the bludgers was never his problem. In the last gate on his second lap, however, he has a rather sizable error, catching a bludger on the wrong part of his bat, deflecting it downward against the length of his broom, which knocks it rather hard in to his belly, up his chest, and in to his jaw, before sailing at the person behind him. He actually has to pause on his broom for several moments, and the left side of his robes cling to his chest as if they had been hooked there.

“Alright now, speed it up!” Noémie calls to a chaser who seems to be taking his sweet time in running through the course. “This is meant to be a fast course, don’t make it easy because you’re lazy!” The chaser shoots the captain a look and she raises her eyebrows at him and follows him down the course. “If you can’t be bothered, you can always leave,” she tells him, and this seems to hit home as he speeds up and nearly skids out around one of the gates, only barely slipping through. “Two more runs!” Noémie calls to everyone, flying back down to the end where everyone is lined up to watch another group fly down. “Please do /not/ hurt anyone intentionally, especially yourselves! No deaths today!”

Next in line after the slow Chaser-to-be, Boyce is looking increasingly edgy as he hovers, waiting for the previous Chaser to finish up. When he does get to go, his impatience shows – he zooms off as fast as his broom will allow, compromising direction for speed and, as a result, he has to slow down considerably as he swerves through the gates, and ends up missing one of the gates due to his turn of speed. Another two bludgers nearly hit him, and he has to swerve abruptly downwards, missing yet another gate and cursing under his breath, before finally making his way over to the hoops and hurling the quaffle at the hoop – a much better throw than before, considering. To himself as he flies back, he mutters, “Thee? I /can/ do it.”

“No deaths today, she says,” Riley mutters, gasping for breath for several moments. His face twisting in to a mask of annoyance, before he lifts a hand to wipe a small trickle of blood from his lip. Nothing that a simple Episky wouldn’t heal. Still, it damned well hurt. Passing a somewhat annoyed look over his shoulder, having hoped to earn a little more sympathy, Riley takes to the course again. This time, not allowing his cockiness to get away with him. The left side of his robes still clinging to him, as if they were damp. Something he didn’t relish having to deal with.

Laney Abbott gets another go and is luckily against an optimistic first year who lets lose a mild shriek of terror at the fifth year, who is looking rather menacing as she gets tired. As such, the ball almost doesn’t make it to the hoops at all, and she catches it quite easily. The third time she comes up in the queue it isn’t so easy, and the ball goes a little too fast for her, so that her fingertips barely graze it as it sails past her and through the hoops. A soft curse is expelled under her breath, of the sailor variety, not the magical, and she makes way for the next person’s last turn, her cheeks a brilliant red.

“Alright, bring it in, everyone!” Noémie calls as folks finish going through again. She has not missed the fact that Riley’s previous collision has not seemed to sit well with him, and begins to fly down to the ground. She waits until everyone has joined her on the ground and grins rather wide. “Alright, that was a terrific tryout, everyone! I’m leaving these obstacle courses up until I can check with the other captains, so you’re free to go at your leisure. Get your injuries checked into quickly, please. Don’t want to hear the grousing tonight in the commons of me being a tyrant or any such nonsense.” Noémie chuckles at herself as she says this and apparently thinks it quite amusing. “I’ll post the list by Monday, so don’t be pestering me about it before then. See you all at dinner!” She pauses. “Shoo!” she tells some first years who seem to be looking at her anxiously and turns, making her way toward the broom shed to store her own worn-looking broom away.

Quite relieved to hear the end, one hand rising again to rub at his bruised arm, it seems that despite all of that, Boyce has managed to come out of it quite uninjured. “Thank you for the tryout, Captain!” He pipes up, as he reaches the ground, though it is a weak little remark and possibly inaudible as she enters the broomshed. Broom in hand, he falls into step with one of his fellow third years, waving his free hand vaguely. “Did you thee the way I dodged that bludger?” He asks his friend excitedly. “Thimon, are you lithening? I thped patht, had to dive thtraight down…”

Riley Markham lands quietly, climbing off his broom and dropping down to the earth several feet from the ground. Sighing softly, he waits for the rest to go, moving toward one of the stands. Chucking both his broom and his bat in to the turf carelessly, as he begins to unbutton his robes. A very small trickle of blood still running down the corner of his lip.

Coming back out from the shed, Noémie spots her distant cousin and shakes her head. She makes her way across the pitch slowly, carefully, and rather quietly, given her usually light step and poise. “I wasn’t kidding when I said to go see Madam Wexler, you know,” she comments quietly to the boy at whom much of her recent stress and frustration has been vented. Of course, this was not undue, given that he has caused some of it. “Did it get you too badly?” she asks, coming around to face him now and crossing her arms across her chest. Despite her discomfort in the trousers of her quidditch uniform, Noémie does not seem to be bothered or nagged by them at all, rather, focussed entirely on the younger boy in front of her.

Jumping slightly, having thought in his first glance that maybe she had left as well, Riley turns to face Noémie with a measured look. As if he weren’t entirely sure what to expect out of her — roses, or vipers. Younger, by barely over two years, but taller, and more broad. He already stood nearly six foot tall, and his shoulders were squared out in a rugged way. He had developed a nice build for a beater. Solid, with a long reach. “Not to bad,” he says, somewhat off-handedly. And untruthfully, as he glances around the pitch to make certain their alone. That no one else planned on emerging from sheds. He hated to show anyone this — it was a testiment to how much, despite the recent strain in their friendship, he trusted Noémie that he was even considering going through with it. That, and how much it hurt having half one’s robe pinned to one’s chest. Nodding vaguely, once he’s sure they’re quite alone, he finishes unbuttoning his robe and slips it off his right shoulder. His smooth arm. Leaving him mostly naked from the waist up. It’s somewhat awkward, considering how the robe is hooked to him, but he manages to shoulder his way out of the other sleeve. Revealing his scarred arm — not just his arm, but his shoulder, almost up to the neck. The entire left flank of his back, and his front. Jagged, snarling, leathery scars, as if he had been dunked in acid. on the left side. Scars that vanish in to the waist of his trousers, inspiring questions of just how far down they go. “I was in a hurry, I forgot to Impervious it,” he mutters, somewhat embaressed, glancing briefly at Noémie with an expression almost as if he expected her to laugh, before trying to uncatch the cloth of the robe from the jagged, almost velcro-like hooks created by his scars, holding it in place. Each removed thread causing him to wince.

Resisting the urge to cringe, Noémie watches as he works on detangling his robes from his scar. “I’m sure Madam Wexler can find something to ease that,” she comments, looking at him carefully. The once compact boy is now taller than even she is, a concept which does surprise her, even though she has seen him often since the start of the term. “Really, you should go see her.” Her concern is one that is natural and real, and the fearful quiver in her voice hinting that she perhaps doesn’t entirely understand what it is that she’s seeing. Of course she has heard about the scars and the illness, but it is a first for her seeing it, and it is clear that Noémie isn’t entirely sure how to handle this. Licking her lips gently, she quirks her head and does not move, just continuing to watch him.

“Trying to spell it makes the scars worse,” Riley says, his tone soft. Serious. Perhaps for the first time in Noémie’s knowing Riley, unmarred with sarcasm or humour. Laced only with a quiet angst, a pain that reaches down deeper in to him than he has let anyone else see before, even his Gran. The intimacy of the moment is almost palpable, yet very simple. He’s openned the door, to let her peek inside. And in there, is regret. For what he said. But more over, ache. That goes a long, long way back. “Oils and salves might work, but don’t usually, and burn something terrible.” The softness, the quietness of his voice is so unnatural, yet so true, as he speaks. His tone conversation, despite the feelings lacing it. The fear. The fear of letting someone else see how weak he really is. “Gran tells me that there are still Healers at St. Mungo’s trying to work a cure, but they still haven’t come up with anything that won’t kill me first.” He tries to make the last line sound like a joke, and fails. Though his smile isn’t ingenuine as he tries to lift his gaze to meet her own. About half the robe untangled — the bludger went against the grain of the scars, catching more than it would have had the bludger struck the other way. “Noémie.. I..”

“Yeah?” Noémie asks in response to his trailed off thought, merely having shrugged at his comment about those at St Mungos. The girl merely watches the boy, diverting her gaze for a rather long moment before looking back and letting her eyes rest on his face instead of on his scarring. “You were… er, saying?” Noémie chews her bottem lip a bit, feeling slightly unsettled somehow, in a way she’s never been before.

Riley Markham holds Noémie’s gaze for several moments, his lips parted as if to speak, but no words fall from him. He wasn’t a terribly great peice of work at the appologies. “I..” he begins, before choking, and turning his gaze upward. “About..” he mutters, before looking down to the last bit of robe he was pulling away from his scars, cringing a little. Finally, sort of driven to force himself to speak, he yanks away the small patch that is left with one, good, clean pull. The result causing him to squelch his eyes shut in to near tears, to pull at his flesh as if it were cloth, to fill the air with a ripping sound we might commonly associate with velco coming undone, and to push his voice up an octave or two, as he says in a quick voice, “AboutwhathappenedatSortingI’msorryIhatenottalkingtoyounormallypleaseforgiveme!” Followed by a brilliant gasp of air, as if he were a balloon deflating. The quidditch robe falls to the dirt. His chest, with ever so hinted definition, finally exposed.. “Sunofa–that hurt..”

“Riley, you really should see the nurse if it hurts so,” Noémie comments quietly, with genuine concern on her face. Stepping back ever so slightly, the captain tilts her head to the side. Forgive him? For wh– oh, right. She was supposed to be mad at him. A shrug is all she answers in response, being ever the prideful creature, though it serves as some semblance of acceptance and perhaps even an apology of her own, as she is not entirely innocent in the altercation. But, of course, apologizing would be admitting that perhaps she is somehow at fault, and Noémie doesn’t think that. At the moment, however, she is more concerned with how she can possibly ease the pain of the boyman in front of her.

Riley Markham shifts his gaze toward Noémie, slowly. Her shrug — almost comforting to him. It was a response he understood, actually, all things considered. He was rather prideful himself, and it had taken several weeks for him to work past the annoyance to swallow that pride. Though loneliness helped. She wasn’t lonely, naturally. She had Joseph. He.. didn’t really have anyone, anymore. Saphia, when she wasn’t studying. Maybe that was why.. Lifting his right hand, rubbing his chest gingerly, he turns his gaze down toward his robes and pulls his wand from his pants pocket. An incredibly long wand, that once seemed quite out of place to the previously small boy, now seeming quite appropriate to the young man. Still, he holds the wand curiously, overhanded, with a finger trailing down the length. “Impervious,” he murmurs, flicking the wand at the robe, before lifting his wand to wipe away the mostly stifled trickle of blood slipping from his lip where he bit it when he got hit by the bludger. “I’m okay. Really. There’s not much Madam Wexler can do. I’ll get over it.” Kneeling down slowly, he collects up the robe as he tucks his wand in the waist of his trousers. “Sorry, to make you — see all this. I just.. didn’t want to go inside, with it caught.. and.. I don’t normally let.. others.. but, if it’s you, I thought..” Turning to face her, as he pulls an arm back in to his sleeve, he murmurs. “I’m.. sorry. I am. I was mad, and I took it out on you. And I’m sorry. Good tryouts.”

“You should see the nurse about that lip, Riley,” Noémie tells him, uncrossing her arms and letting them rest at her sides. For another long, rather labored moment, she looks at him, until he is covered “So, ah…” Noémie is awkward and looks away, glancing at the ground first, then up at the slowly darkening sky. “I’d better get in to change before dinner, or I’ll have to go in these trousers.” She pauses. “I’ll see you at studies tonight, alright?” Without saying anything more, she pauses, turning, looking at him seriously, and then slowly makes her way back into the school, her thin form slowly picking up its pace as she nears the school, soon disappearing inside.

Riley Markham watches Noémie go, quietly, his long hair moving quietly behind him in a dull breeze. He wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened, even if it had been his doing. He wasn’t sure if things were better or not, or how he felt about how things had unfolded. But she had seen, and she didn’t seem to hate him. Nor did she seem to pity him. Whatever else he might have begun to feel for her, he had never been more intrigued by her than he was at this moment. And for the first time in several weeks, he wasn’t dreading his lessons. In fact, he almost looked foreward to it. Buttoning up his robe, he collects up his broom and bat, before moving toward the castle himself. What a strange ordeal.

Another year begins at Hogwarts. It’s week one and the Wizo-Music students are either returning, or beginning late. As always, Matughi, the massive talking African warshield, is busy intimidating the students, but, since it’s a first class of the day, he seems rather sleepy. “FOOLISH CHIL… *yawn* CHILDREN! YOU WILL ALL BE CONQUERED BY THE …so tired… MIGHT OF THE … *yawn*” Darius Dwight has yet to appear yet, but the class is open and set up in ‘practical’ formation, desks to the side, chairs in the middle with instruments scattered around the classroom. Presumably, the teacher will be along shortly.

Looking quite svelte and tall, it appears that Nellie has grown quite a bit over the summer, and though the usual smirk is absent from her face, her sour expression seems otherwise fitting as she carries her trumpet lazily into the Wizo-music classroom. The red on her cheeks hints at either a bit too much sun, or perhaps a rather recent embarrassment. Between her freckles, it is difficult to tell which it is. The girl plops down into a set and pulls out a quill, twirling it in her fingers while she stifles a yawn and waits for the rest of the class to trickle in.

Afil Landiths walked into the Wizo-music classroom nerviously, as he stared at the Giant double bass he was supposed to be play in the class. He looked around, watching all the people play their instruments and the giant talking African war sheild, and looked slightly worried at the fact a piece of army wear was screaming its head off at the surrounding students. Afil walked up to the bass as confedintley as he could, Straightening up and smiling, whilst walking over quickly and prepareing it in his hands, to be played beautiflly along with Afil choice of music, Blues. Afil was looking forward to the class, or else he sound’t of signed up for it Decideding quickly to pluck the strings, Afil smiled at the surrounds and started to play happily

Yawning and rubbing at her eyes with one hand, Gertrude Baxtor makes another sleepy student to enter the room. Almost as soon as she enters the room, she seems to realise what she’s doing, even in her sleepy state, and quickly lowers her hand from her eye to her mouth as she yawns again, and draws herself up into a more formal, refined carriage than the sleepy drag she had lazily adopted on the way there. At least her robes are straight and her hair is in good condition. She never would have left the common room otherwise. Peering about the room, she seems too dazed to offer much more than a lazy smirk, though perhaps this will have the dual affect of looking like she doesn’t need to expend extra energy on being superior. Perhaps.

Coming behind a long string of students, and walking slowly, as if hesitating, David makes his way into the classroom. He stands there in the way, watching the other students as they take their seat, and finally chooses to take his own, on the second row, as usual. It is a strange feeling for David, and he hasn’t felt so awkward since his first or second year. Why did he decide to join the Wizo-Music class in his fourth year, instead of doing it at the beginning of the third like everybody else? Surely, the older students would look at him curiously, and David dislikes this. The boy puts his bag on the floor, and turns his head around. Should he take out a quill and some parchment? Apparently not. Some students are already playing, apparently, and David doesn’t know if he should begin to do just as them. Deciding against it, he finally waits for Professor Dwight to begin the class formally. Yes. That would probably be the best course to follow. Keep a low profile.

As the last students file into the room, Professor Darius Dwight, billowing red robes blowing out around his feet, enters from the Wizo-Music office and beaming his usual beaming smile. His only concession to the earliness of the class is a white drinking mug, filled with coffee and emblazoned with a Gryffindor shield on it. It’s been well known Professor Dwight was an old Gryffindor, and he hasn’t been shy about volunteering the fact. He nods to the class, and declares, “Good morning, students. Welcome back to Hogwarts,” and then walks over to Matughi, who is still half-heartedly shouting out threats between yawns and mutters. “Poor, poor Matughi. Your heart’s just not in it, is it today?” The shield mutters back, “Traitor to your own blood…” “Yes, yes,” The teacher retorts, and instructs the shield to keep quiet, which astonishingly it does.

“Now, students!” Darius returns his attention to the class, and declares, “Welcome back to Hogwarts! As always, it’s good to see you here. We have a few new students, and a few departed over the summer I see. Their loss. This year, we begin learning about Wizo-Music proper. So, and I know you’ve all waited a long time to hear this…” He grins impishly, “Draw your wands.”

Wand. Right. Pocket. It seems to take Gertrude a moment to fully realise what the Professor has said, though when she does, she pulls the wand from her pocket and twirls it through her fingers like a baton, sitting daintily in her selected seat and tiredly crossing her legs. Wait, wand? She looks up at Darius as she fully comprehends his words, silently questioning this apparent change of heart. She really isn’t with it this morning – as well as it being early, she looks almost as if she simply didn’t get enough sleep the previous night, and she seems to be working hard to resist the urge to rub at her eyes again.

Feeling quite relieved that she won’t be forced to try to make sensible noise out of her trumpet for once, Nellie reaches into her robes and draws her wand carefully, holding it out before her lazily. “Looks like morning still aren’t too kind to you, Trudy,” she whispers quietly to the nearby. Her usually twinkling eyes begin to get their usual sheen as her lips twist into a bit of a smirk. “Is it true that your sister’s put a love potion on the Minister’s son?”

Afil Landiths stopped plucking his Double bass and stopped smiling. Afil pulled his wand out, Left handedly put it in front of him, sighing slightly. Afil had no Idea of what was coming, but decided to smile anyway, he was happy to be here anyway, maybe he’d meet new people, or maybe he’d just enjoy playing the double bass. Whatever the reason he decided to come here for, he was here, and even if he could not remember why he did it in the first place, it didn’t matter. He gripped the wand and watched the other students do so themselfs. Afil eyed the other instruments around him, and decided that his one was the best, and smirked at this, for no apperent reason. Keeping the wand in front of himself, he waited for the next instructions.

Wait, no introductory speech? Oh, wow. Not wanting to disobey the orders of the teacher, David takes his wand out of his pocket and puts it down neatly on the table, before him. He then hesitates some more. The wand is obviously there to charm the instrument, right? Yet David‘s own instrument is still in his bag, and the boy does not know if he should put it out. As he debates the question, he takes the wand in his hands and fidgets with it, looking at the other students nervously and trying to listen to their conversations to get a cue on what to do. The few words he hears coming from the direction of that Gryffindor have nothing to do with music, though, and David quirks his eyes. A love potion? To the Minister’s son? Hmm… girls…

“Now, today we cross the boundary between music, and wizo-music. This is mostly charms work, and indeed, it will be a charm we practice today. Since you’ll be casting it on an instrument, and it’s awfully hard to play an instrument and cast charms at the same time, you’ll be working in pairs.” Darius grabs his chalk and strides to the blackboard to write up the words MOUSIKI ALLASSO on the board, as well as the pronunciation below, “MOO-see-kee al-AH-so”. As he is done, he swings back to the class, planting both hands down on his conductors lecturn and grins, “This is one of the most simple music altering charms, and it performed like this…” Drawing his wand, he points to a saxophone near him and swings his wand in a sharp horizontal motion, right-to-left, with a slight upward loop. “Mousiki allasso!” Once done, he picks up the saxophone, puts it to his lips and plays… a beautiful, heavenly harp solo.

“Ew. It is entirely possible. There is little I would put past her in her puppy-dog pursuit of that boy.” Gertrude replies, raising an eyebrow at Nellie in a lazily superior gesture, reclining in her chair and stretching out a little, though endeavoring to retain a certain polite, almost formal air to her actions. “In any case, I imagine that you would be well-versed in the effects of a love potion – surely, that would be the only way you could locate for yourself an escort to the Social.” It seems that she doesn’t quite care who she is being nasty to at this point, merely being derisive for the sake of doing so. Her attention flickers from the Gryffindor girl to the Professor quickly, though, and her eyes widen considerably as she follows the effects of the charm, offering a slighlty more sincere, even blissful, smile at the sound of the harp solo. Now that is appropriate music.

David Mildred‘s mouth falls open as he hears the result of the charm. Now that is nifty! David begins to relax as he listens to the music, forgetting his previous apprehension about coming to the class. If he could learn how to do that, then it is indeed worth having come here to that class. Waiting for the solo to finish, David prepares himself to rise his hand up in the air, as he already had a few question to ask about the potential use of the charm.

Pairs, is it? Nellie glances sideways as Gertrude makes this comment. “At least I haven’t got poodle hair. My date will be able to see my face just fine. And, I’ll let you know, that I’ve already been promised by none other than your brother that he’d go with me.” The smirk on the girl’s face widens and she turns her face to Darius to see his adeptness with the charm. It can’t be too hard, right? The girl half-heartedly makes her wand in the motion that Darius has done, though it comes across more as a circle than a sharp motion.

Afil had immedit intrest into the charm that had just been used. He heard the beautiful music and wanted to try it right away…But quickly relised he needed a partner, he looked around the room, searching for someone, He didn’t really know who to look at, due to the fact he only just joined the class. He looked around, not really bothered about the fact that no one seemed to want to work with him. Looking around with a smug look on his face, he stared at Darius trying to figure out more from this charm, and tried to do the sharp motion, which he thought he did quite well, and smiled to himself. Afil was happy to be here, just…Who was he going to work with?

The saxophone is taken away from Darius‘s lips, and the harp sound fades away. As he spots David’s hand go up, he asks, “Yes, David? Everyone, please begin pairing up. One of you should play your instrument, and the other practice your charm on the instrument while it’s playing, that way you’ll be able to observe the effects of your charm immediately. I’m not asking you to take notes, but be observant and don’t just mess around — Learn! If you need any help, your book ‘Music by Magic’ has pointers.” Darius then listens for David’s question while the class starts getting ready.

“We all make mistakes,” Gertrude replies, almost venemously, eying Nellie in annoyance. It is evident from her tone that the one making the mistake is most certainly her brother, in sinking so low as to accompany the Gryffindor girl. She hesitates for a moment, uncertain of what to add; oh, gosh, she needs a date, now, doesn’t she? How would it look if she didn’t have a date, but Nellie did? “Of course, I already have an escort,” she lies after a moment, turning to face the Gryffindor fully. It seems that she is taking for granted that they will be paired up, if only so they can finish their argument. “But I do consider it to be uncouth to banter such information around without the consent of the other party.”

Putting his hand down as Professor Dwight acknowledges his question, David begins clears his throat. “I… uh… well, you basically charmed your instrument using the incantation Mousiki Alasso but I wondered if it was possible to choose the sound that the instrument will produce, or if it only comes as a… well, as a complete surprise.” David says, grinning at the end of the question. “And I haven’t anybody to practice with… looks like we are in an odd number.” he adds, sheepishly.

“Ah, yes! Class!” Darius stops the class, “David has a good point here, and one I forgot to mention. Focus on the type of instrument you want to produce — Mousiki allasso can produce almost any instrumental sound, but it’s easiest to choose similar types. Easier to make a guitar sound like a violin than the drums sound like flutes. There’s no major change in the incantation or wand motion, simply in intent!” Turning back to David, he grins, “Indeed, we are. I shall play, and let you practice.” He picks up a guitar and sits down, ready to play. “Ready when you are, David.”

“Oh, right, that’s such a lie, Gertie Baxtor,” the girl scoffs and grins. “The only reason you would want to withhold that information is if you’re ashamed to have asked the person, or else if you don’t have one. It’s alright, I don’t expect everyone will have gotten asked already. I’m sure you can find someone. Perhaps that nice third year, the boy I went with last year! Although, I believe he’s dead gone on Felicity Wexler.” Nellie Caldwell pauses a moment and then turns to Gertrude with the sweetest expression she can manage. “You’ll be my partner, of course.” This is not stated as a question.

Oh, darn it, now Gertrude has to think of someone she could have possibly asked that possibly doesn’t have a date yet. “Oh, hardly.” She scoffs in turn, inspecting her fingernails as she tries to think of someone. Oh, but the only boys who would be without dates so far are so uncouth… “Matthew Cowper, if you simply must know.” She looks as though she regrets having chosen that name already, looking almost ill for a moment. Why did she have to choose his name? He has got to be one of the worst! Still, she forces a smile, almost sickly sweet and entirely insincere, and sighs that little bit too dramatically. “I almost regret having asked him, for he can be terribly, uh, exhuberant at times, but he is very good-looking and he does come from a very good family.” Does he? Well, she wouldn’t know. He’s related to a Professor or something, right? Oh, right, magic. She waves her wand vaguely, though without any obvious intent to do anything.

Nodding slightly, David rummages through his bag and takes out a penny whistle. This is the instrument he plays, perhaps not like a virtuoso, but reasonably well enough so that Professor Dwight didn’t refuse him coming to the class a year later after the other students. Trying to find some comfort in that idea, he walks forward towards the teacher, his whistle and wand in hand. “I suppose I have to warm it up a bit…” before he says, putting the head of the whistle under his armpit for it to come up to a better temperature. “I might as well start with the charm, right? How can I actually choose the sound of the instrument?” he says, as he picks up his wand and prepares himself to say the incantation out loud.

“No, no.” Darius waves his hand. “Keep your whistle in your pocket, David. Focus on your wandwork today. If you want to practice your musicianship, that is good, but come see me privately for that. This year, our focus is wandwork. Now, go on and try to affect my guitar. Surprise me with what I start playing.” He begins playing a somewhat latino style of guitar playing, although it’s really more American jazz with a slight hint of influence than true flamenco guitar.

“Handsome? Well, I suppose we’re all allowed different taste,” the girl tells her comrade. “You go first with the violin. I’m not up to the trumpet just yet.” Holding her wand out, Nellie appears ready — at least in appearance — to perform the charm at any moment. “So, are you really going with him, then? I’m sure even you could have done better.” This is said in the most chirpy voice the girl can manage, though the smirk on her face is perhaps a bit telling of her true meaning.

“Okay…” David says, putting the whistle back in a pocket of his school robe. He then raises his wand, trying to mimic the movement of Professor Dwight’s wand, a few minutes before, and he mutters the incantation. “Mousiki Alasso!” The result of the charm follows immediately, but it is not really what David would have liked to hear. Suddenly, Darius’ guitar makes strange noises, as if it were completely out of tune. “Er…” says David. “Finite Incantatum!” Fortunately, this one works. “Sorry about that…” he says. “Can I try again?”

Why, of all names to have possibly occurred to her, did Gertrude have to say ‘Matthew Cowper’? There are dozens of better boys in the school. Almost every boy in the school, in fact. Cheeks flushed slightly pink, she picks up the violin and positions it under her chin, though she does not begin playing yet. “In any case,” she hastily changes the subject, clearing her throat quietly and politely, “Have you heard anything of who anyone else is going with, on that note?” If nothing else, there is no way that Gertrude is going to allow the subject of the Social to be left at her fictional date with Matthew.

Darius Dwight trips his fingers a little bit as the guitar goes massively out of tune, but grins and continues playing as the charm is negated expertly, “Of course, David. I’m not expecting anyone to get this charm right today. Practice makes perfect.”

“Mousiki Alasso,” Nellie Caldwell states rather apathetically and shrugs. “Well, I assume your sister will monopolize the Minister’s son again, as usual. Poor boy. I do wonder at Nellie Caldwell, though. She asked Albert Bryce, you know, that Hufflepuff boy? She asked him to last year’s social, but she went with some sixth year to the ball. I don’t know who could stand her. I can’t, myself.” As if Nellie has had much interaction with the girl. “Who has your sister asked? I’m sure your brother could fix her up with one of his chums if she asked him nicely. He seems like an amiable fellow.”

“Alright.” says David, nodding at Professor Dwight. He raises his wand once again, and as he is about to cast the charm a second time, he turns his head to observe the other students, hearing some rather obvious chatter coming from that bunch of Gryffindor girls. Shaking his head, he says the incantation a second time, this time a bit louder. He then bends forward to listen to any potential change to the guitar’s sound. At least, this time, it doesn’t seem to be too out of tune, but it does still sound more or less as a guitar. “Hmm… it didn’t have any effect this time, did it? It still sounds like a guitar to me, what do you think?”

Raising his finger to pause David, Darius turns and announces, “Nellie Caldwell, minus one point to Gryffindor for gossiping! Gertrude Baxtor! Minus one point to Slytherin for gossiping! Focus on the lesson, both of you. I expect you to have perfected this charm by next week.” He turns back to David and smiles, “It’s going to take practice, but yes. It’s still sounding like a guitar. What are you trying to change it to?”

“I heard that,” Gertrude agrees quietly, playing a single note on her violin, which still sounds like a violin, if a slightly inexpertly played one, before she lowers the bow again, to turn and gape at Darius in horror. “I was not gossiping!” She protests, though only quietly – she doesn’t really want to make it worse for herself, after all. Then, turning back to Nellie, she lowers her voice still further to whisper, “On the subject of Hufflepuff boys, DeWitt and Pantall broke up, didn’t they?” She plays a few more notes on the violin, correctly played if not very elaborate, and adds, “Still a violin, dear.”

Observing Professor Dwight as he admonishes the two girls, and can’t suppress a little smirk on his lips, for the teensiest moment. He tries to concentrate again on the task at hand as the chatter dies out instantly. “Well… I tried to come up with something guitar-like…” David says to Professor Dwight, “since you mentioned it was easier to start with something not too different than the original instrument. Perhaps… yes, a banjo. I heard it once on the radio, at home… it was fun.” David says, chuckling. “I suppose I need to remember how it sounds for the charm to perform well, right?” He frowns a little. “That was a long time ago, I’m not sure I’ll have the sound right.” he says, as he readies himself to cast the charm a third time. “Could you invent new sounds with this spell?” he asks, with sudden curiosity.

“Yes,” Darius nods, “But there’s a better charm for that, called Mousiki betamorpho. We’ll be studying that in a few weeks, and you’ll be amazed at how versatile it is. But you can use allasso to create sounds that aren’t instruments, for example, you could make a violin sound like a tree creaking. It’s often used in stage shows, and the like, to produce sound effects.” Standing up, Darius asks, “So how are we all doing? Has anyone gotten the charm to work yet?” He looks out over the class.

“It isn’t gossip,” Nellie retorts crossly as she glances up momentarily to Darius and huffs a little bit. “Alright, I’ll go again.” A deep breath, and, “Mousiki Alasso,” She says firmly and points her wand sharply at the violin. “Make different music, you stupid violin.” She sighs. “I think she’s two-timing him. I haven’t heard anything about any breakup anyway.” This, however, is said much more quietly and covertly than her previous statements. “Well, try it out. It better work this time.”

“It would not surprise me at all,” Gertrude replies, a little smugly, playing a few more notes on her violin. Perhaps they sound a little off now, though this might be because of a poorly done spell, or simply because the girl isn’t very good at the violin. “And you are right, knowing her it would have been particularly loud and public, but she’s been clinging awfully close to Linwood ever since the train trip. You know what they say was going on there.” Another few notes, and the girl shakes her head, hair flying about her face. “Still nothing, dear.”

“It’s not working for me. My wand must be acting up today.” She shrugs at this. “It would be so interesting if she is double-timing him,” the girl states with a grin. “Such drama. I hear the older boy has it out for Linwood.” The girl looks slyly up at the front of the room, however, and holds her wand up. “Should we switch and see if her wand is working better, Professor?” Yes, Nellie. Make sure he knows that you’re at least trying to make it look like you’re trying.

“Oh… awesome.” David says, nodding enthusiastically at Darius. “I can’t wait for that. Anyway. I need to have that charm work at least once.” David says. The boy takes a deep breath, tries to imagine the way he would like the guitar to sound like, and casts the spell. “Mousiki Alasso!” he says. This time, it seems to have worked. The guitar was sounding differently this time, not quite banjo-like, but it was not a unpleasant sound either. And not out of tune this time. “Hmm… what do you think of this?” David asks, with a smile and an expectant look in his eyes.

“Excellent!” Darius grins to David, and announces to the class, “Listen, class!” Playing the guitar like a banjo, he plays a merry Dixieland jazz riff on his guitar, the sound similar but definitely not a guitar. “Five points to Ravenclaw for David’s excellent attempt at the charm.” Putting down the guitar, he walks into the class and says, “David, keep practicing the charm, now on your own whistle. Play it after each cast, and see if there’s any difference. I’m going to supervise the class for a while.” Stepping up to Nellie, he nods, and remarks, “Switching would be a good idea. Let’s see how you do as well.”

Shrugging her shoulders vaguely and lowering her violion, Gertrude seems to be thinking about this for a moment. “Well, could you blame him? Even if it is only Pantall, I would very much not appreciate my sweetheart pursuing someone else while we were still together.” A pause, and she appears to all at once grow tired of this conversation, pursing her lips thoughtfully and peering off towards the ceiling. “What about anyone else, do you know? It has only been a few days, but I imagine there are plenty of others who have secured dates already. What about… oh, who else?” She pauses, thoughtfully, pulling her wand and waving it vaguely, with the presumed intention of casting the charm on the other girl’s instrument eventually.

“All right, all right, let’s finish this up, all eyes to the front.” Darius moves back to the front of the class, sitting one of the chairs and mitigating his height different with the class as a result. (Although not entirely, due to his towering height anyway.) “Now, you all played very well in your group performance examination last year. I trust it wasn’t too nerve wracking for any of you?” He gets a couple of chuckles from that, and grins. “This year, your examinations get slightly tougher, in preparation for your OWLs next year. As before, there will be a theory written exam mid-year. This will be on the History of Wizo-Music, and you’ll be wanting to read ‘Swing That Wand!’ to get the answers you’ll need. I don’t want anyone unprepared for it.” Darius casts a meaningful glance around the room to confirm that everyone’s paying attention. “Now, at the end of the year, you’ll be performing, once again, in the Great Hall before the whole student body. If anyone is nervous about this, well, deal with it. This is a performance art, after all. You will this year need to do a group performance, and either a small group or individual performance as well. If you choose an individual performance, though, keep in mind we mean individual. You will need to play all instruments, sing if you choose to sing as well… it’s you alone on stage. But it’s not a bad idea, since this is how the OWLs are marked, so you’ll need to do this sooner or later.” He stresses this, since it’s important. “And we will be discussing how to make self-playing instruments later in the year, so it’s not as daunting as it sounds. Any questions?”

Though apparently intimidated by the suggestion, and perhaps inching a little closer to the Gryffindor girl as if to indicate that she doesn’t intend to perform individually for a substantial period of time, at least, Gertrude remains silent and doesn’t raise her hand to ask any questions. After a moment, she leans across and whispers, “I did hear that Morgana DeWitt is taking Seker Rathe, though. How’s that for interesting?” This is all she offers for the moment, though, sitting up a little bit straighter and turning her eyes to the front of the classroom again, offering the Professor a small smile, cheeks tinged faintly pink.

David gulps nervously as he listens to the speech made by Professor Dwight. The public performance will no doubt be something daunting, but it is still a long time away, isn’t it. “I’ll worry about that later”, David decides privately, and he shakes his head as he has nothing else to ask to the teacher. Once again, his attention switches to the two gossiping girls. That Barefoot Social is sure taking a huge proportion most conversations as of lately, especially with girls. David privately wonders if a girl is going to invite him this year, and sighs…

“I heard his sister won’t even speak to her because of it,” the girl responds and shakes her head a bit. “I think I could do an individual performance,” she pipes up quickly and grins at the professor. “Is it truly going to be all the school, though? At a feast or something?” Nellie almost seems to take back her statement as she says this and leans back in her seat, slouching a bit in her seat. It is clear that the Gryffindor is not entirely comfortable with her newfound height as yet.

“No. As with last year, it will be an open invitation, so any students who don’t wish to come will not have to be there. Any further questions? No? Alright. Class dismissed. Next week I expect you to have at least a decent hold of the allasso charm, and will be able to play a melody on the ‘wrong’ instrument. Homework is a foot-long scroll on the possible uses of the allasso charm. Class dismissed.” Darius puts his wand back into his robes, and opens the door of the class, wishing each student goodbye as they leave.

“Don’t be silly. Everyone knows that’s because of Marcus Winsley.” Gertrude whispers in response, though exactly how it relates to the boy she does not explain, rising from her seat and packing up her things slowly, offering another small smile to the Professor before slinging her bag over her shoulder and slipping out of the room without so much as a farewell to her fellow students or to Darius. Perhaps she has gone to try and locate someone in particular (perhaps the elusive Matthew Cowper), or perhaps she just doesn’t feel that a goodbye is necessary. Who knows?

“Well, that’s it then…” David nods at Professor Dwight with a little smile, happy that his class went so well. It was certainly not as terrible as what he feared. Going back to his seat, the boy takes his bag, says a little “Goodbye!” to the teacher, and walks away, not caring to listen to the girls anymore. After all, the Potions class is beginning soon, and there is no need to lose time on the way, is there?

“Ghastly,” the girl responds and shakes her head, though as the professor dismisses the class, she does not miss a beat. Nellie is close on Gertrude’s heels as she, too, darts quickly out of the classroom, her trumpet case in hand, having only briefly made an appearance outside of the brown casing. The tallish girl is out of the classroom without a single word to the teacher, nor another glance.

Rhian Brecon settles in her seat at the announcer’s booth and after a quick test she starts of. “Good afternoon Hogwarts! It may be cold out here, but we’re all warming up for a good match today. Today we have my own house, Ravenclaw versus Slytherin. As a reminder, Ravenclaw is led by Noémie Ribouet, Fifth year Prefect and Seeker for the Ravenclaws, while the Slytherins are led by Martin Foster, this year’s Head Boy and one of Slytherin’s Chasers. Today’s match is being officiated by our Professor of Herbology, Professor Walsh. Well, now that the boring part is over, we now wait to welcome the two teams to the pitch.”

Keelan Walsh waits, as usual, at the center point of the Pitch for the teams to arrive, sitting somewhat comfortably on the box containing the balls, her broom propped up against it as well. Today, with Slytherin on the field, she wears robes of a rich green, and has threaded silver through her braid today. As the announcements begin, Keelan looks up from a small book, and then toward the entrances. With a small smirk, she rises, and clasps her hands together, waiting.

Ah, a beautiful sunny day awaits Noémie as she steps out onto the pitch in the cold, late-winter air. Walking quickly to the center of the pitch where Keelan stands. Perhaps it is Noémie‘s imagination, but she does seem to see a few extra signs rooting specifically against her in the stands today. Shaking her head quickly, she gives a smile to Keelan and looks behind her as the rest of her team follows onto the pitch.

Making there way onto the pitch together in Slytherin’s last match of the year Louis and Martin both looked primed and ready to go. Louis comments to his captain after looking around the stands of the pitch and spotting a large sign with “Go Martin! Go Louis! Slytherin’s Dream Team!” written on it in large glowing green letters. “Looks like we have fans Martin, …. wait is that … it is! It’s the sign girl.” Louis shakes his head and Martin chuckles softly and gives his seeker a pat on the shoulder. Both boy’s waste no time climbing onto there respective brooms and getting into position in the air.

The seventh-year Ravenclaw keeper makes her way onto the pitch with the rest of her team. Feeling very sentimental, the idea that it’s the last time she’ll ever play Slytherin team seems to cause her to tear up a bit, and Van takes a deep breath. The Slytherin team is rather boisterous for her own taste (though Ravenclaw team is rather comparable, it’s different when they do it, of course), but she says nothing, instead coming to stand near Noémie and wait for the usual opening formalities.

Following the other members of the Ravenclaw team on the field, David and Clavicle are trailing behind. David is clutching his own tightly, and observes the Slytherin team, while Clavicle adjusts his gloves. “I wonder how the match is going to go…” whispers David to the other Chaser. “But this time, we’ve trained a lot more than last year, haven’t we?” he says, trying to sound confident. Yes, they are going to fly against Slytherin, but this is not David‘s first match anymore, and eagerness has replaced apprehension.

Bouncing excitedly, one would think that Bailey ate half of the sweets at Honeydukes before coming out to the pitch for the match. “Whooo, Ravenclaw!” he calls, waving his arms up in the air before coming to stand near Van, and rather distancing himself from Tegan, though a furtive glance is given in her direction. The chaser doesn’t say another word, though there is a large grin spread over his face.

Ashton Merck walks onto the field following his captain. With a confident smile he waves over to the Slytherin bleachers, raising his broom into the air and enjoying the atmosphere which seems to pervade him totally. “They look frightened, don’t they?” he chuckles, adressing Adalynn, the Slytherin keeper, who is walking a few steps behind him and seems to be more concentrated on the match than on the opponent’s feelings. Both of them stand in line with their teammates, nestling on their brooms and adjusting their gear, waiting for the game to begin.

Tegan Madison takes short but fast strides along the pitch, not very formiddable on the ground. She shifts her broom to one hand and tucks her bat under one arm in order to adjust her scarf and rub her nose. She comes up alongside her teammates, face set in determination. Her nostrils flare a bit as she overlooks the Slytherin team, and if her face softens as she looks nearly from the other end of the Ravenclaw lineup at Bailey, it’s hardly noticeable.

Sage Cloverwood and Tahiri Sol are following Ashton, their own broom over their shoulders, and sporting a set of matching confident smiles as they appear on the pitch. “Ah… the ickle Ravenclaws… I’ve heard they’ve trained quite a bit. But that’s because they couldn’t stomach their defeat, last year. I’m not afraid of them.” says Sage, and she readjusts her hair as she waits for the team to take off. Tahiri, in the meantime, just nods and observes the pitch, already concentrated on the match to come.

Clavicle Gravely nods to David as he walks in. The boy seems a lot more confident this game then last. His nevous step is gone and he grins up at the stands. “Come on David, we have to do the noble cry of the Ravenclaw.” He chuckles. He steps out from the line a bit and wavs to the stads. “AUK AUK!”

Keelan Walsh smiles back at Noémie, but mostly because it’s polite to do so. “Alright, teams. I don’t want to see any funny buisness,” she looks more harshly at the Ravenclaws than the Slytherin, of course, “I won’t hesistate to award penalties.” A grim sort of smile surfaces momentarily and then visably softens into a grin, “Captains?” She waits expectantly for the hand shake, and then opens up the ball box and lets the snitch fly. Taking hold of the Quaffle, Keelan lofts it into the air with one hand and blows the start-of-match whistle with the other. A minute or so after the teams are in the air, Keelan releases the bludgers, which whistle into the air after the players. Shortly, the referee mounts her broom and flys up to circle around the perimeter, eyes on the players.

Noémie‘s hand darts out for a quick-but-firm handshake with the Slytherin Captain, and then withdraws it nearly as quickly, taking her broom and mounting it. Soon, she is flying very quickly up, up, up above the stands and into the air far above the hoops and all the action. “Let’s do it, Ravenclaw!” she calls down to her team, though whether they hear her or not is debatable. She begins to fly in large ovals above the pitch, her eyes scanning the sky quickly.

Kicking off the ground, Van flies at a moderate pace towards the Ravenclaw hoops. She doesn’t appear to be in much of a hurry, though her face is set, and she takes her place in front of the goals, turning to survey the action, and find out who gets the quaffle. After all, if it’s her own team, she has reason to relax a bit for the start. The seventh year’s attention seems to become distracted to the stands for a moment, as a hastily waving Gryffindor stands out among a sea of blue scarves and banners, causing the seventh year to shake her head with a bit of a grin.

“All right, let’s go!” shouts David, mounting his broom and taking off, positioning himself near the center of the pitch at a low altitude, near the other Chasers. As soon as the Quaffle is thrown in the air, David steers his broom towards it. By pure luck, it was thrown somewhat in his direction and David catches it without difficulties, and he immediately flies towards the Slytherin goals. A quick look is given to his teammates, to assess the situation. “Clavicle, Bailey! Cover me!” he shouts as he tries to fly his way through the Slytherin line.

Rhian says, “And here they come, both teams coming out into the field, and after a type of acknowledgement from the captains, I think… the two teams take to the air. Now we wait for Professor Keelan to release all four of the balls so that the game can actually begin. There goes the Snitch, and the Quaffle is in the air! And it is Ravenclaw that claims the Quaffle, by David Mildred at the start of the match. The bludgers are now released. This game is now underway!”

Rising in the air Louis is already peering around the pitch with eyes squinted looking for the snitch. Obviously the best time to catch it is before any side score right? Martin, having shaken Noémie’s just as quickly gets a steely expression on his face and begins flying toward the quaffle trying to be the first to get it. Louis grins a bit to himself before yelling out. “Don’t worry Ravenclaw! We’ll try not to beat you too badly!” Nothing wrong with a little competitive ribbing right?

Following David sharply, Bailey makes his way down the pitch, ducking to avoid a bludger which flies a little too close to him for comfort. “Wide!” Bailey calls to Clavicle as Bailey himself widens the berth between David and himself, flying near the edge of the pitch. He glances behind him and scowls a bit at the Slytherin chasers. “Someone take care of them!” he calls, the annoyed tone in his voice rather apparent as he directs his gaze to Tegan and then to Riley, before turning it forward again.

“Let’s go and hunt some Ravens down!” says Sage, swinging her bat in the air as she mounts her own broom and takes off, following her teammates. Tahiri calmly follows suit, without Sage‘s vulgar and simplistic display of house spirit. As the Bludgers begin to be dispatched in the air, Sage nods to Tahiri. The communication between the two Beaters is going on smoothly. Understanding what is to be done, Tahiri flies toward the Bludger which is flying over the Ravenclaws stands. On the other side, Sage tackles the other Bludger, which she reaches quickly and sends towards the Ravenclaw chasers with a quick and precise swing of her bat.

Ashton Merck briskly mounts his broom as the referee’s whistle is about to be blown. His eyes focussed on the quaffle, his hands clinged to the neatly polished broomstick and his legs ready to perform a mighty kickoff. At least that’s what he’s thinking. “Let’s tear them into pieces!” he calls, not too loud, so that Keelan won’t hear it through the crowd’s buzz. Then he lifts off and heads for the quaffle, paying attention to Martin and Evan, not to interfere with them on their way to the red ball. As David catches it, Ashton slaps his broom and turns to chase David. Adalynn flies up in front of the hoops and watches the events on the pitch rather relaxed, until the quaffle is taken by the Ravenclaw. Now she is sweeping to and fro to be in the most appropriate position to intercept a scoring attempt.

Clavicle Gravely races up after Louis and tries to edge him away from David, and block the other boy’s approach. he pours on the speed with the Sandsweeper 25, the egyptian broom is elegant, and fast. His goggles reflect the light as he zips on up and towards David. “Where’s the bludgers?” he asks aloud as he zips on.

Tegan Madison is in the air before the sound of the whistle can die out, though she’s well used to Professor Walsh’s tendency to give the teams a small grace period before releasing the bludgers. Parting with Riley, the female beater grips her bat and suddenly looks a lot fiercer than she does, say, in class. As it is released, Tegan moves toward the bludger with a good deal of speed and with the crack of her Beater’s bat, sends it on a dead aim for the Slytherin Chasers, to break them up and away from her own team. Riley, on the other hand, moves himself toward the other, racing to get it before the Slytherin do–and he doesn’t, so now it’s a race to meat the bludger before it hits his teammates.

“Oh, we’ll see how things go, Harper,” Noémie comments to him, grinning, before she flies away quickly, only glancing over her shoulder for a moment at him, an amused expression on her face, before turning and flying downwards a bit, to better hear the action at least. After all, it would do her well to see what their mistakes are before they commence practicing for the Hufflepuff match.

Rhian says, “The Ravenclaw Chasers head down toward the Slythering Keeper, flying in formation to keep the Quaffle away from the Slytherins. The Slytherin Beaters have seem to have found the Bludgers, as they go chasing after them to send them after the Ravenclaws to try and knock them out of the air. The Ravenclaw Beaters have now moved after the Bludgers in order to intercept them from the Slytherins.”

“Don’t mind them!” shouts David out loud, hoping that his teammates would do their job and cover them from the threat of the bludgers. He is not aware, yet, of the bludger flying in his direction, and concentrates on trying to escape from the Slytherins. Ashton, in particular, is coming dangerously close behind. “Go ahead, you’re faster!” David shouts to Clavicle. If things are going the bad way –which would surely happen– David would then have an opportunity to make a forward pass to Clavicle. “Where’s Bailey?” he wonders to himself.

As Martin watches as bludger quickly approaches and swerves quickly out of the way while still keeping in hot pursued of David and the quaffle. Louis hovers nearby the Slytherin goalpost grinning like an opossum. “That we will Ribouet!” Not really much of a comeback, but in the heat of a match there is no real room for cheesy one-liners. Louis vaults down the pitch high above the game keeping his eyes peeled.

Rhian says, “Mildred passes the Quaffle to Gravely who continues forward toward Walker who seems to be getting ready to defend the Slytherin goals. The Bludgers narrow in on the Ravenclaw Chasers, which cased Mildred to pass the Quaffle before he possibly get hit. Harper takes a position up above the pitch, the usual position for a Seeker while Ribouet takes a lower position, seems the Captain wants to keep an eye on her team.”

Ashton Merck is still approaching David, not really knowing how to recover the quaffle from his opponent. “Come on, let’s get’m” he conjures his broom to race faster. A few seconds later he notices Martin on David’s other side. “Let’s go, captain!” Ashton shouts over, maybe trying to unsettle the Ravenclaw chaser a bit. Adalynn however is still prepared to engage in the events for the first time.

Of course, Bailey cannot hear what David says, and continues to fly wide, throwing his arm up in the air, and then swerving inward as they make their way closer to the Slytherin hoops. “Do something!” he calls to his teammate helpfully, before swerving out a bit more, looking from David to Clavicle, back again, and then forward at the slytherin keeper.

Rhian says, “The Ravenclaw Chasers continue to make their way to the Slytherin goals, closer to Walker who seems to be getting ready to defend her house’s goals. One of the bludgers narrow in on the Ravenclaw Chasers while the other one heads for the Slytherins in order to keep them from catching the Ravenclaws. Harper takes a position up above the pitch, the usual position for a Seeker while Ribouet takes a lower position, seems the Captain wants to keep an eye on her team.”

Clavicle Gravely suddenly bursts forward. There are advantages to being little more then skin and bones, you don’t weigh down your broom much. He zooms ahead from below and to the right of David, crossing in front of the boy so he can catch the forward pass that David hurled up. It’s just like practice, right over the shoulder. He pours on the speed as much as he can. “You go to the lower hoop. I’ll go to the middle. If I can’t make the shot, I’ll pass!”

Tegan Madison hovers for a moment, waiting to see if anyone will hit her bludger away from the Slytherin Chasers. Riley, on the other hand, swerves up on the bludger and sends it with all his considerable force flying in the other direction. True to form, it doesn’t exactly head toward, say, the Slytherin Chasers, but it might head up toward Louis. Or the bleachers. With an exclaimation, Tegan heads down toward the bludger to hit it toward Louis and not the crowd of specators. “Righ’, Markham, it really helps to take out portions of the crowd!” she calls somewhat irritably; Having had to bail out the mis-aimed ball, she’s lost track of the second bludger.

“Lower hoop!” David shouts to acknowledge the move, and the boy adjusts his heading slightly to go straight to the lower hoop, while still keeping an eye on Clavicle. A frontal pass… David would have only a split second to catch the ball, throw it, and break away, if he didn’t want to collide with the goal. But this is just like during the practices, isn’t it?

High above the game by now Louis turns as he hears the screech of the bludger coming at him full speed. Luckily for him he’s got quite a bit of breathing room. Louis does a sort of corkscrew on his broom and the bludger goes flying past him off into the air. “Yeah those bludger intensive practices really worked Sage!” Louis calls out to the youngest beater. Martin is now switching targets and flying for Clavicle at top speed coming up on him as fast he can until he is close enough to literally touch the bristles on Clavicle’s broom. Martin tries swipeing for the quaffle in an attempt to steal it away.

Ashton Merck is still following David, decreasing the distance rapidly and now flying at his very side, touching the Ravenclaw, trying to push him away from the lower hoop with a steady pressure, so that it would not look like a rough action and for the relief of Adalynn, who is getting ready, moisturing her lips nervously and with a determined look, covering the middle hoop, but always being alert to be able to change her position instantly. “Cover the lower!” she calls, adressing Ashton.

“Ah…” So that Ravenclaw beater got the bludger before her. Darting a somber look to Tegan, Tahiri pushes her broom forward in an attempt to catch the bludger before it could do any real harm. On the other side of the pitch, Sage is doing the same thing, and flies towards their chasers the fastest she can, confident that while the bludger would disperse the Ravenclaw chasers, she would only have to worry about the other one. A terrible mistake: she doesn’t notice Riley’s move immediately. Fortunately, Louis is capable enough to fend for himself. This give her the time to regain her bearings, change her direction, and go after the bludger, once again.

Clavicle Gravely makes a feint to the upper hoop from the middle, It would be a lousy shot. This is probably why he air brakes and sends a side pass to David, letting him go one into the scoring zone if he catches the pass. he hopes the sudden braking throws Martin off his tail. “Take the shot David!”

Stopping just outside the scoring zone, Bailey hovers, looking at his fellow chasers as they’re both covered by Slytherin chasers, and glances around. “Open?” he calls, waving his arms a bit and then looking down the field at the action. He does little else for the moment, save to fly around a bit, outside the scoring zone in his distance from the other chasers, though not out of scoring range, by any means.

Turning his waist slightly, David catches the Quaffle and pushes his broom forward, concentrating on the hoops. Entering in the scoring zone, he aims directly towards the lower hoop, and waits until the last moment to throw it. He hasn’t much time left, after that, to watch it fly and see if he has scored, and does a sharp turn instead to avoid any collision with the goal hoops or the goalkeeper.

Could that be, possibly, a glimmer of gold in the sky! Shocked that she’s spotted it so soon, Noémie tears her attention away from the pitch, though she does make mental notes as to what she has seen, zooming upward, moving quicker and quicker towards that little gold dot in the sky. The sun doesn’t help her vision as she works her way up into the sky, soon flying past Louis and still farther up, until from the stands, she is little more than a blue dot in the sky.

Spotting the snitch just as Noémie begins her ascension into the sky Louis is right behind her laterally inches away rising speedily into the air with the opposing seeker gritting his teeth trying with all his might to pass her. He only manages to get neck and neck as they both rocket toward the same object. Stretching one arm off of his broom Louis gets ready as they draw closer.

Clavicle Gravely air braking lead to a full stall. His broom drops, with him spiralling and flipping out of control. He turns the maneuver into a dive to regain direction, then he stops the barrel rolling, but the ground is racing up towards him. He pulls back. Heaving back on the broom to level out mere inches before the the ground makes a sudden stop to all his quidditch scoring dreams. “CRUMPLED HORN SNORCACKS!” he exclaims, but he manages not to ground plant himself. He tries to race back up towards the other hoops.

Stretching herself as well as the two of them make their speedy ascent still upward towards the small golden orb, Noémie‘s speed picks up to its top notch and she manages to speed just slightly forward, out-flying Louis by a bit and then reaching higher, her rear rising off of the broom itself. “Augh!” Noémie calls as she reaches just a bit too far over her broom and loses her balance. This, however, has not stopped her from capturing the tiny golden ball in her hand as she rights herself on her broom. A loud whoop is let out and she soon begins to zoom downard towards the pitch, her hand up in the air with the tiny ball clamped within it. It is several moments before she is close enough to be visible to those in the stands. Letting out another whoop, Noémie comes to a stop and dismounts her broom, still holding the snitch up. A second win for Ravenclaw!

As David isn’t really affected by Ashton‘s physical interference the Ravenclaw shoots at the lower hoop as he enters the zone and Ashton has to turn around hard not to break into it and cause a penalty. With a fierce expression on his face, he watches Adalynn zooming towards the quaffle. It seems senseless because the hoop is still far away and the quaffle sails through the ring as Adalynn is still approaching.

Missing the snitch only by a few inches Louis leans against his broom as it is all over looking terribly dejected. “We lost….. we lost……” Images dance in his head of the Quidditch cup going snitch wings and flying away. Louis shakes his head and descends to the ground. “Good job Noémie….. it was pretty close…”

Keelan Walsh curses under her breath, so that she can barely hear hereself, as she watches Adalynn miss the Quaffle. A whoop above her deepens the frown, and Keelan raises the whistle to her lips. “Game to Ravenclaw! 160 to 0.” That’s all she announces, spiraling down in a quick, frustrated way. As she waits for the balls to be returned (the bludgers tending to come directly), she smiles, weakly, at the players and murmurs something about a good game.

Rhian says, “What is this? Ravenclaw seems ready to score. The Chasers get in position to score, Walker moves to defend the goals and Gravely makes an attempt to score, but then stops just before entering the scoring zone, passing the Quaffle to Mildred. Foster is on Gravely’s trail and so Mildren catches it, entering the zone, he takes a shot to the lower hoop and Walker doesn’t manage to stop it. Ravenclaw scores! The score is now Ravenclaw – 10, Slytherin – 0. Of course, Gravely tried to plant himself in the ground because his broom stalled, but did just fine. Just a second, the Seekers seem to have found the Snitch! The two are neck and neck, getting closer and… it’s Ribouet that catches the Snitch. Ravenclaw wins! Final score is Ravenclaw – 160, Slytherin – 0. Now let’s get back to the castle where it’s warm.”

Clavicle Gravely manages a landing. After his powerdive, he looks a bit shaky. He’s nowwhere near as good at Airbraking as David is. He shivvers a bit. “I don’t think I will be trying THAT again without practice.” he grins a bit and waves “Good job Noémie!”

Putting her hand out to Louis, Noémie smiles widely at him. “Dashing chase,” she tells him. “It was really close. Thanks for keeping me on my toes, Louis,” the prefect tells him, her accent sliding just slightly into a french one, though her accent is usually delightfully English. “Good job, team! Practice, first thing tomorrow!” She strides over to Keelan and returns the snitch to the referee with a beaming smile, but not another word. Without another word, the captain makes her way to the Prefects bathroom to have a nice, long, relaxing bath.

“I scored?” says David, disbelief clearly displayed on his face, after his turn. He lands after the others, and runs to Clavicle with joy. “I really thought I wouldn’t be able to make it. I scored! I did score it.” he says. “Whoo! We only need to win against the Hufflepuffs, and the cup is ours!”

Tegan Madison gives a gleeful shout as David manages a score, and then actually zooms up a bit on her broom when she realizes Noémie caught the snitch. Her path to the ground is erratic, first a zoom toward Bailey and then a zoom far away, with a bit of a loop. They won again! “One more match to the win!” She’s in high enough spirits as she lands and dismounts, grinning ear to ear at the Captain. All the practice really paid off after all. Oh, she’ll be herself again later, but for now, Tegan is elated.

Clavicle Gravely grins at David and nods. “Excellent work Mildred. Good job. You have to show me how you do that brake maneuver though. I stalled it badly. Good thing she caught the snitch or I’d have been useless for the next score.” he grins a bit and looks at the stands “AUK AUK!” he grins then gives a salute to the Slytherin players.

Louis Harper shakes Noémie’s hand and tries very hard to be sporting about the loss. “You were a bit faster Ribouet.” He grins a little and comments in a sly tone. “I hope Alexandra is even faster in the next game.” What’s this? Louis seems dead set against Ravenclaw winning the Quidditch cup for some reason. “And she’s faster than me…. that’s a fact. Good luck Ribouet.” With that Louis turns strideing with his teammates back to the castle.

Frowning at the cheering going on at the Ravenclaw side, Sage shakes her head and lands, following the other members of her team. Tahiri is following closely, disappointment clearly visible on her face. “That’s too bad. Pure luck, I reckon.” says Sage, looking one last time at the Ravenclaws before walking away to the locker rooms.

Ashton Merck swoops down to the pitch in rage about the lost game, ploughing through the lawn considerably while breaking with his heel before jumping off his broom. His head glowing red and headshaking he smashes it down and kicks it away a few yards. “Good game.” he grumbles at Clavicle. Adaylnn has also landed and is walking up to her teammates, not accusing herself of a mistake.

Flying down to the ground, Bailey is oddly stolid. His face is steady as he makes his way down and then having gotten to the ground, inward to the school. No, Bailey‘s not much in a mood to celebrate at the moment. Well, mostly. A wide grin is given to Tegan, and then it is gone as soon as he realizes what he’s doing. Instead of hanging out, Bailey runs, quickly, into school. His destination is unknown to others, but for Bailey‘s part, there’s a secret nook, hidden away where he will soon be meeting someone special in that same nook.

Clavicle Gravely nods to Ashton. “Actually .. you guys looked on spectacular form.:” he nods. “I think if your broom was a touch faster, We’d not have scored at all. Your moves were superb. And your teamwork, excellent.” he admits to Ashton. “Better luck next time.”

With a loud cheer, Van flies down to the groud, beaming at all of her teammates. “Good game, everyone!” she calls to all the Slytherin, who may or may not even care that she says this. She trots off to put her broom away quickly, and then retreats into the castle, likely either looking for a certain Gryffindor seventh year, or on her way to her own commons for a party in celebration of their win.

Standing in the middle of the pitch, Noémie has her arms crossed, with her broom nearby. Rather than having the usual conglomeration of things, the only thing outside with her is a pile of quaffles and her own broom. Nothing else sits on the pitch with her as she looks around, looking up at the sky, as if to defy the falling rain from continuing during her practice. Nothing much else is even on the pitch, which is rather quiet, considering that most people are inside to escape the rain.

The day is drawing to it’s end, but there is yet another Quidditch practice scheduled for the Ravenclaws this evening, due to the match that is soon to be played between them and the Hufflepuffs. A bit worried about the stack of homework he has left in the common room, but eager to do well at the practice and please his team captain, David runs to the pitch to make it on time; fortunately, he is not too late. “Hello, Noémie!” he says, and then, opening wide eyes as he notices the heap of quaffles, he adds: “What are all those Quaffle for? Those are for us Chasers, I bet?”

“Heyo!” Bailey calls, trotting onto the pitch. Is his hair mussed, or is it just a cause of the rain? “Not a great day for practice,” he comments and puts his broom over his shoulders. He grins perhaps a bit giddily at his teammates and stands next to David. “I hope it’s not like this for the match.” Glancing around as if looking for the rest of the team, Bailey begins to look perplexed. “Where’s everyone else?”

“It’s just chasers for this practice,” Noémie tells them, leaning down to pick up a Quaffle and toss it back and forth between her hands. “What I’m hoping to do is work on your catching exercises. This is a game that I hear muggle children sometimes play, but I’ve modified it a bit. So, up on your brooms in the air, and then I’ll turn around and throw this quaffle as hard as I can, and yell out a points value while I’m in the air.” Pulling out her wand and conjuring a scoreboard, the names ‘David’ and ‘Bailey’ appear on it with blank tally areas beneath. “And the person with the least amount of points does ten laps.” Noémie grins at them as she says this, tossing the quaffle in the air and catching it again. “No, up!”

“Hmm… I’ve never played that game.” says David, “But it sounds fun… let’s do it!” says David, who hops on his own broom and takes off, however near Noémie, and waiting for her to toss the first Quaffle in the air. Ten laps? That’s a lot, he doesn’t want to be in for it. Better be careful… David casts one last look at Bailey, just to see where he is: that may come in handy when trying to catch the Quaffle.

Flying upward, trying to keep a rather close list to David, Bailey grins. “I’m going to win over you for sure!” he tells the younger student with a smirk, flying in a figure eight, to get himself warmed up on his broom before the quaffles begin flying upwards towards them. “This ought to be good practice, either way.”

“ALRIGHT!” Noémie calls loudly. “Now, turn around so you can’t see me!” She yells this with an obvious grin on her face. “Now you HAVE to stay on your toes!” The girl gets on her own broom and hovers just a short way above the ground, a quaffle still in hand. “Okay, one hundred!” She yells, tossing the quaffle over her shoulders towards them, trusting that the chasers have done as she instructed and turned their backs to her.”

David darts a challenging look at Bailey, before turning his back as instructed. Staying aloft at the same position without moving is a bit difficult –the wind is stronger in altitude, and the rain is not helping either– the boy waits with impatience for the first Quaffle to be thrown. When Noémie announces the value of the first ball, he startles and moves his head frantically to locate the Quaffle, only to completely miss it. Had he stayed concentrated, he would have seen that it was thrown nearly directly at him… “Oh, no…”

Bailey misses catching it as well, though he does make a noble attempt, flying almost down to the ground completely. “Cripes,” he calls, flying up next to David again and shaking his head. “Next one, we’ll get it,” he tells his teammate with a nod, glancing over his shoulder slightly apprehensively. After all, Bailey would rather not have to do laps.

“Fifty!” Noémie calls, tossing another ball up into the air in a different direction. She turns around and flies down to the pile, collecting two more quaffles before she flies back to the area where she had thrown the first and second from. A moment later, “Two-fifty!” follows, and then after a pause, “One-fifty!” Noémie turns this time to see if any of her subsequent tosses have been caught, though the tally keeps score on its own, she wants to see how well they’re coping with this.

A bit reassured that Bailey hadn’t caught the first quaffle either, David relaxes a bit –not much– and readies himself for the next throws. He misses the second throw, lets out a curse the reader would better be off not seeing, but by pure luck, he managed to catch one quaffle of the pair that has been thrown later. “Hmm… your game isn’t that easy!” he yells at Noémie. “Let’s see if I can get the next one…” he adds, taking a look at Bailey to see if he managed to catch the two other quaffles.

Bailey manages to get his hands on the fifty-point quaffle, as well as the one that had been called at one-fifty, putting him at 200 points. “Aha!” He calls, grinning in David’s direction, for even though David caught the one worth the most points, Bailey managed to get two. “Come again, Noémie!” he calls, clapping his hands loudly. “This is kind of fun!” He comments with a loud laugh and another grin.

Calling the quafffles out on the pitch to her, and glances up at them, chuckling as Bailey yells this out to her. She pauses for a moment, rearing back with her arm and biting her lip as she tosses one very high. “Three hundred!” she calls, waiting a moment while the ball makes its way into the air towards the chasers. Following that, she makes another throw, yelling, “Twenty-five!” as she does. Noémie seems unconcerned whether the points are to be evenly distributed, rather, she’s more watching how the chasers clamor to catch her throws.

David Mildred drops the quaffle he caught earlier to the ground, not bothering to watch it bouncing loudly on the grass, and concentrates to get the next one. “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” he yells happily, catching the second quaffle, only to realize that it is only worth twenty-five meager points, and bracing himself for Bailey’s comment on that. He really needs to do better…

Though he had really wanted to catch the quaffle that was worth so much, Bailey unfortunately lets it fall between his fingers, swearing very loudly as he watches it fall to the ground. “I’ll get the next one, I will,” he calls and groans loudly, especially as David’s lead increases with his catch of this other quaffle.

“Alright, bring it in!” Noémie calls, summoning the quaffles back to her and glancing up in the air at the chasers. The girl gets off of her broom and tosses the spare quaffles into the bag that she had dragged them out to the field in while she waits for the boys in the air to join her. Looking at the tally, Noémie shakes her head and crosses her arms across her chest.

Feeling much disbelief about his own luck, David nods at Noémie and lands, then walks up to her and the scoreboard, and waits for her assessment of the practice. He privately wonders if he will have as much luck for the real match… probably not. “Hmm…”

“Bollocks,” Bailey comments as he makes his way down to the ground and then gets off of his broom, coming to stand near Noémie. He can tell by the tally that he’s lost, and he very much doesn’t want to do laps for it. The boy doesn’t glance to David, either, as he stands there waiting for Noémie to say something — which inevitably will be an instruction for him to begin his laps.

“Well, that wasn’t as good as I had hoped,” Noémie comments, looking from one of them to the other. “So, I think you should both do five laps, just to keep you limber. We’ll have a regular practice with everyone tomorrow, and hopefully the laps will do you some good.” Noémie grins and turns, grabbing up her broom and the bag that the quaffles are in and skipping off towards the broom shed. Perhaps something has put the girl in a good mood all of the sudden.

“I knew it!” David says out loud, pretending to complain, but in fact grinning. It was a good idea, after all, and the running would indeed do them good… even if jogging under the rain will not be that fun. Putting his broom on the ground, he waits for Bailey to do the same, then starts his first lap. His little seat near the fireplace, in the common rooms, will be well merited after that…

“Both of us!” Bailey complains loudly, putting his broom down and scoffing a bit. All of this seems to be in jest however, as it is very clear that Bailey was not the one who won the competition. Pausing for a moment, as if he was trying to put it off ever so slightly. Bailey does pick up and run, though, beginning his five laps. Soon enough, the boy has finished his five laps honestly, and he very tiredly makes his way into the school after putting his broom away.

Leaning on her broom, Noémie looks over a bit of parchment as she stands in the center of the pitch. The falling snow doesn’t seem to bother her, though she is wearing several more layers of clothing than usual, including not one, but two scarves. The prefect waits for her team as she peruses the information on the parchment, a very serious expression set on her features. No, Noémie does not look thrilled today.

It is a busy day for David. With the school year going slowly towards the end, the essays begin to be more and more demanding, and David is often spending his entire evenings in the Library. Having Quidditch practices on the top of all that work is not helping much, either, especially since the Ravenclaw team has now a clear chance to have the Cup, which means that practicing is now essential. Running to reach the pitch before the practice begins, David arrives there totally out of breath, and with a red face. “It has not begun already, as it?” he asks nervously, but apparently he is among the first to be on the pitch.

Following David from afar, Tegan walks at a slower pace. The fourth year is totally unwilling to run to get on the pitch; this is ridiculous, especially since they were both on time. Finally reaching the spot where David and Noémie are standing, she makes a quick nod as a greeting. “Hello, Noémie. So, what do you have in store for today for us?” she asks, trying to focus her mind on Quidditch, when she is really only thinking about one particular team member. “Bailey isn’t here yet.” she states, simply, thus revealing what is really going on in her mind.

Bailey Williams strides down to the quidditch pitch, wrapped up in several layers of clothing and looking for his teammates and especially for Tegan. He is determined to show his best in the upcoming practice. As he comes into range, Bailey waves and greets his teammates. “Hello Noémie, everything set up, yet? Hey, David, Tegan.” sounding very businesslike during the last name.

“Damn, it’s cold,” Riley mutters, pulling his cloak closer about his shoulders as he trudges his way out on to the pitch. His broom drags along behind him, and his eyes are heavy. His long, wine-red hair is unbound, and moves behind in like a flame streamer in the light breeze. He doesn’t looke very well, all told, pale and puffy-eyed. Never the less, his black beater dangles from his wrist idly.

Trotting out to the pitch several moments after the rest of the team has convened, Van looks quite happy, despite it being quite cold for March, and her having to bring herself out to practice. “Hello, everyone,” she calls chipperly as she finally makes it onto the pitch with a beaming smile. The seventh year slings her broom over her shoulder and comes to stand casually near the center of the group of them on the pitch, grinning to all of her teammates as she does so.

“You’re late, Van,” Noémie comments, her voice low and rather sharp as she says this. “Alright, good job beating Slytherin last weekend,” she tells all of them, though her face doesn’t have a single bit of congratulations in them. “I think that was the least organized we ever were,” she tells them all, her eyes narrowing as she looks to each of them individually. “Today, I want us to work on our teamwork, flying and playing as a fluid team.” She peers a bit and then turns around, gathering up some cut twine. “Alright, Bailey and David, you two together. Tegan and Riley, here for you two, Van, you go over there to the hoops. No, I’m not tying you down to the hoops. I don’t want to see your legs separating,” she directs to the two teams she has designated with a fierce look. “If we can’t work as a team, then we’re not going to beat Hufflepuff. They’re a good team, they work together, and they pay attention to each other. I don’t want anyone to get ignored this time, and I want us to take the cup. As of now, we go into double-duty. We’ll break for supper, and then come back down to the pitch for more drills afterward.” The girl looks at each of them. “Well, what are you waiting for? Get situated and get in the air. I’ll pass out the balls momentarily.”

David Mildred nods silently at the team captain and walks towards Bailey. “So it’s you and me, apparently.” he says, looking at the fourth year boy while attempting to smile. “Let’s take off, shall we?” he says, grabbing his own broom, and flying up in the air in a matter of seconds. When he reaches a few meters over the pitch, he slows down and turns around to wait for Bailey. The nagging impression that much of Noémie’s speech was directed solely at him is beginning to bug him, but he tries to shrug it off and concentrate on the drills.

Tegan Madison nods silently as well, looking at her bat as the speech goes on. When the pairs are made up, Tegan walks towards Riley, but steals a last glance at Bailey before talking to the other Beater. “Let’s go, then.” she says to him, trying not to mention anything about Riley’s tendency to send the Bludgers towards the public or even the Ravenclaw players, instead of the opponents. “We’ll do just fine. Or so I hope…”

Bailey Williams initially quirks an eyebrow as his captain reveals her plans for today, but then cottons on to the rather unconventional drill method. Glancing over to Tegan, the faint wish of having tried out as a beater emerges. “Alright.” he replies to David and briskly mounts his broom. Bailey zooms up and positions himself next to his fellow chaser, waving with the piece of twine. “Come a bit closer and I’ll tie us up. I hope we won’t totally crash.” Bailey chuckles.

Riley Markham passes Noémie a somewhat curious look as he accepts from her the length of twine, before turning to Tegan. His expression isn’t it’s usual brash, energetic cast — instead, he looks tired, and vaguely pained. Knotting one end of the twine about his wrist, he hands the other end to his partner, mounts his broom, and kicks off a few inches off the ground. Hovering there until his partner is prepaed and they can both soar high. His flight is as always smooth and fairly natural, one of his better attributes. But it lacks it’s usual umph.

Van sighs a bit and rolls her eyes at Noémie as she says this. “Oh, like you’re any better. I heard you skived off Wizo-music the other day.” This is no sooner out of Van‘s mouth than she is up in the air and flying towards the hoops. No, she doesn’t want the captain’s wrath on her, and she certainly doesn’t want to get an earful at how often she’s late because of her boyfriend. This thought quickly passes out of her mind, though, as she spots that very person sitting in the closest bleachers. An animated wave is given to him and she grins widely while doing small figure eights on her broom, waiting for everyone to get situated and take to the air. Though, how this was going to work, Van can only guess.

“Alright, let’s go,” Noémie calls, pulling out a Quaffle and tossing it to David, then getting out what appears to be a modified bludger and holding it up. “This is a different kind of bludger. It’ll only come back to you, no matter how hard you hit it.” She tosses it up in the air and it hovers. “It will go when I say for it to go. “Now, I expect you all to be able to run your own plays, for I’m going to practice with this practice snitch that I’ve nicked off of Eliza. Holler for me if you really need me, but remember, I can’t help during matches, I’ve got to focus on finding the snitch. Can’t be letting Leong get it!” With this, Noémie hops on her broom and releases the practice snitch that she has had in her hand, and waits for it to disappear upwards before following it without another word.

Bailey Williams bends down and fixes the rope at his ankle with a firm knot and reaches over for David’s foot now, tying it to his not too tight and not too loosely. After having swathed their entire shanks together Bailey readjusts his seat and smiles. “You heard it, let’s go!” Bailey calls, definately being up for some new experience today. “I think we should get used to it a bit.” he offers and slowly begins flying straight as a start.

David Mildred catches the Quaffle and begins to fly away, but the flight is not as smooth as usual. Somewhere behind, something is tugging him away and prevents him from flying towards the hoops. “Oh…” says David, realizing his mistake. “Sorry about that, Bailey.” he says. “Where should we go? I thought we could perhaps, uh, toss the Quaffle to Van, but if you feel like going somewhere else…” Flying in close pairs is definitely a hard thing…

“Okay… we could perhaps try to fly in a straight direction for a moment, just to get used to that rope? Then perhaps some turns?” says Tegan, eyeing the twine with some suspicion. “I hope this won’t cause us to crash.” she says, a bit worried. “You never now what could happen…”

Riley Markham exhales a deep yawn, covering it briefly with his beater bat. “Sounds good, eh?” Taking the lead off, he flies forward quietly, taking a moderate pace. Allowing him and Tegan enough time to get used to the bound flying, before motioning briefly with the bat toward the right indicating a turn and shifting toward the right on his broom. He seems to be adapting well enough, though it doesn’t seem like he’s really allowing himself to get worked up over it. Most of Riley‘s problem seems to be stress and nerves, but today he seems to be opperating out a part of his mind where stress can’t quite reach.

“Give it right here!” Van calls with animated motions, pointing directly to herself. The seventh year chuckles as she says this and waves at the two chasers who are tied together. “C’mon, give it here!” Truth be told, though, she can’t hear a word they’re saying, so she has no idea what the two of them are planning as they get used to being connected to one another as they begin to fly along, though not getting close to her at all.

“Just hit the bludger when you’re ready to actually practice,” Noémie calls to Tegan and Riley, closing her hand around the practice snitch, then letting it go as she looks down at them from far above. “Just make sure you get to it soon. No slacking today!” The girl nods curtly down to all of her teammates before flying off again to locate the practice snitch, which, thankfully, is a bit slower than the game model, but fast enough to challenge the seeker during the practice. Back and forth over the pitch, high and low, Noémie seems to be avoiding where the majority of her team is for the moment while she executes her own exercises.

“Woho! Slow slow!” Bailey shouts, getting dragged forward as David seems to underestimate the difficulty of performing a synchronous broomflight. A wonder, that Bailey did not fall off his broom, but as he didn’t he does not really care about it. “Alright, let’s head towards Van and try to provoke a good save. What do you say?” the boy asks his teammate, with a grin, not blaming him for his unawareness.

“Okay. Let’s do that. And, uh… sorry again about that.” says David, giving himself a mental slap behind the ears for what he just did. “Let’s do it slowly, this time…” he says, steering his broom gently towards the hoops. When flying at a lower speed, and looking at Bailey, it is easier to actually fly as a pair, but it is nowhere as comfortable as when flying alone. “Not that easy, eh?” he says, before adding: “Which hoop?”

There is a bit of resistance, but not much, as Tegan belatedly understands Riley’s intentions. A split second later, though, she leans on the right to negotiate the turn with Riley. Being slightly on the outer side of the turn, she feels that she must slightly accelerate to keep up with the boy, but the manoeuvre goes smoothly enough. “It’s not that hard, finally…” she says, with a grin. Of course, it’s easier to fly with Riley than, say, David. Another quick glance is given to Bailey as she hears him complaining about David’s brutal acceleration…

“Yeah…” Bailey answers briefly, concentrating on the unusual drawback. Bailey increases the speed slowly but constantly, always assuring, that he doesn’t fly at a too fast pace for David. “Still fine?” he asks another time. “We could try to get some swerves in before heading to the left hoop and we could keep passing the quaffle among our hands.” Bailey proposes.

“The speed is fine for me…” says David, checking on his trajectory before turning his head towards Bailey and adding: “Yes, let’s do some passes…” Without changing his flying direction, he holds the Quaffle for Bailey to take it. “There. Your right hand” he says, so that Bailey could take it without looking at him.

Van hovers in front of the hoops, looking from David and Bailey to her fingernails, and then back again, as if bored while she waits for them to come close enough to shoot. The girl doesn’t appear to be particularly concerned today, though, as if she will be able to block shots no matter what. This attitude gives her a rather nonchalant air and she even goes so far as to yawn while she waits for the chasers to make their way towards her, clearly underestimating the ability for her teammates to suddenly get their speed and surprise her with a quick shot.

“No, not really,” Riley agrees, suggesting another turn with the point of his bat. This time, so that he is on the outside edge of the turn. He catches somewhat in the accelleration, but it moves relatively smoothly as well. “Alright,” Riley murmurs, finally, in response to Noémie’s call. “Let’s get the bludger, then? You first, then me, then you? Sound alright?” Even his voice sounds a bit lackluster, and vaguely hurt. Never the less, he offers a faint smile to Tegan after brushing his long, wine hair from his face, even if the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

Tegan Madison nods, feeling something strange about Riley today but unable to precisely pinpoint what it could be. “Okay, let’s fly towards the Quidditch box. The Bludger is hovering nearby, that’s where Noémie left it.” she says, and the pair begin yet another, smoither turn towards the ball. Once they’ve finally reached it, Tegan hits it with the bat, finding it very difficult to swing her bat without hitting Riley, who is just flying at her right. “Be careful”, she yells, just before hitting it.

“My right hand? Oh…” Bailey says and reaches for the quaffle. After letting it bounce from hand to hand a few times, while trying a few understated swerves, Bailey bounds it to David again. Now coming into the zone, they’ll have to prepare for a shot soon. “I could pass the quaffle to you behind my back, when we are in shooting range.” Bailey suggests with a chuckle and glances over to David shortly. “Maybe it confuses Van a bit.”

“Hehe, let’s do that.” says David, happy to try something that could show Van that she should pay attention to the game. “Just tell me when you’re ready” he says, readying his right hand and waiting for Bailey’s nod to catch the Quaffle and toss it through the hoop. The two boys are approaching the goals at a modest speed. “We need to make a powerful throw…” thinks David. “Ready.” he says simply.

The seeker seems to be on a bit of a rampage, throwing the snitch away from her after she has caught it, and hovering for a moment to observe what her team is doing. One would think that after winning to Slytherin so completely, Noémie would not be quite in this type of mood, but instead of being congratulatory, she is instead a bit short with them all. Instead of saying a word, she flies higher until she is but a spec of brown and gray to those who are closer to the pitch. It isn’t long, though, before she comes zooming downward after a snitch which seems to have found a bit of speed that she had not been expecting.

Riley Markham simply nods as Tegan warns toward caution, before pointing up with his bat suggestively and pulling up on the broom’s handle. Gaining altitude at a marginally quick pace, holding off long enough to allow Tegan to adjust before he is sufficiently near enough to club the bludger back down. Using an overhanded thrust, he has someone knock it down toward the ground. Obviously trying to stay in the spirit of the excersize by making them fly up in differant directions together. His eyes remain distant, somewhat clouded.

Tegan follows Riley without a word, and adjusts without too much difficulties to the new changes in the flying direction. Leaning a bit forward, she observes the Bludger as it flows towards the ground, eventually flying up again towards them. She wonders privately if Riley has really intended to hit it that way, but says nothing, realizing that Riley hadn’t spoken much since the beginning of the practice. “All right, Riley?” she asks, finally, wondering if there is something wrong.

“Fine,” the flame-haired boy responds, tilting back on his broom and pointing with his bat in a downward direction and toward the left. There’s a serious look on Riley‘s nearly fourteen-year-old features, that would suggest that the previously shut bludger went exactly where he believed it would. And as he reaches out with his bat, and sends it sailing out againt toward the edges of pitch, there is no indication that the bludger went anywhere other than exactly where he wished it to go. “This one is yours, Madison.” There’s an air of tired maturity to his pale features, one that gives him a much more grown up cast that he usually allows him.

Eyeing his keeper’s moves and performing a slight draft to the right, but still being in range to score at the left hoop, Bailey nods and adds a low “Go.” to call up the choreography.

Nodding slightly, David takes the Quaffle and from behind his back and throws it as fast as he can towards the nearest hoop, which also happens to be a free one. The whole movement lasts perhaps a second, and the ball flying towards the hoops is now sure to wake Van up. In the meantime, David stops his broom to enjoy the spectacle.

Van readies herself a bit more as the chasers approach, reaching out in a bit of a dive as the quaffle is thrown to the hoop. She has drifted perhaps just a bit too far to be able to manage to block it entirely, though the tips of her fingers do send it off track a bit, and rather than going straight through the hoop, it knicks one side of the hoop, bouncing to the other, then falls through with a loud CLANG. Scoffing a bit as this happens, Van flies down and catches the quaffle before it falls to the ground, and from her position, chucks it back to the chasers, a more determined look on her face as she flies back up to the hoops. “Just try that again now, won’t you,” she calls and puts her arms out at the ready.

Swooping about, Noémie‘s attention is caught by the clang. “Go again!” she calls to them, looking at Van specifically. “A few more shots and we’ll call it a practice for now.” Either Noémie is letting them off a little early to study a bit, or she’s trying not to wear them out before their evening practice after supper. One way or the other, it isn’t possible to tell by the look on her face as she closes her hand around the practice snitch quickly, flying down to the ground where she has all of the storage for the equipment out and just stands on the ground, snitch in hand as she watches her teammates perform their drills.

“Are you sure?” says Tegan once again. “You seem a bit tired, to tell the truth.” Her look is concerned, but she still tries to concentrate on the practice, and especially on that Bludger. Riley managed to throw it rather far away, but here it comes back again, as if attracted by an invisible force towards Tegan. She readies her bat, muttering “Careful!” once again a second before she swings her bat and sends the bludger away.

Bailey grins, as David scores, demanding a bit of effort from Van, who seemed to be rather absent-minded. “Good shot, David.” he cheers and cheers up Van. “Keep your eyes on the quaffle and you’ll save the next one.” Bailey says with a blink. Readying himself for the next attempt, he catches the quaffle and heads for the hoops again, always considering David on his side. Coming closer to Van with every second, Bailey fakes a pass to his partner and lets off the red ball towards the left hoop. Grimacing, as this shot is more than saveable, Bailey turns around to set up for the next and hopefully more satisfactory try.

“That last was a gift!” Van calls, just before the quaffle is shot at her again, this time in a more catchable place, as she is more ready for it to go this direction. Van dives for it, and this time manages to secure a catch of it in her hands. Coming to fly in the center, she tosses it back to them with a grin. “Come again!” she calls to them, staying in her readied position, so as to better catch the quaffle this time around.

Riley Markham passes a brief glance toward Tegan in regard for her concern, but he says nothing of it. Instead, pulling forward on his broom and pushing on. Waiting long enough for Tegan to adjust to the new direction before laying on the speed, to meet the bludger in mid-course. Shifting the bat in his hand, he gives the bludger an underhand struck from the bottom side of the bludger, sending it blazing almost in a directly upwards direction. The strike is powerful enough that the crack echoes through the stadium, and the reverbation shakes through his bat to his scarred hand, causing him to yelp almost in spite of himself. His bat slips from his fingers, but the leather strap about his wrist keeps it from falling to the ground. Wincing somewhat, he pulls his hand close to his, openning and closing it as if it ached. Something a shot even that hard shouldn’t have done.

Tegan Madison decides to drop the matter about Riley for now and instead concentrates on the match. Wielding the bat with someone at her side is hard, but shot after shot she improves, and the formation flying becomes rather natural after a few moments. Deciding to adopt Riley’s style of silent communication, she indicates the direction she wants to take with her bat, which is efficient enough in her mind. “Plus,” she thinks, “it could also work from afar, and help us to coordinate our strategy.” She decides to talk about that to Riley once they are on the ground.

Shot after shot, the awkward flying pair formed by David and Bailey turns into a more coordinated team. It is still not perfect, but they have gone a long way and are flying together more intuitively. Finally, starting to notice that the sun is getting low near the horizon, David looks at Noémie. “Hey, Noémie, isn’t it a bit late if we want to have our dinner?” he calls out, a bit worried now about that Herbology essay that he planned to finish this evening. The practice has been lasting for quite a long time now, and even if the drill has been extremely profitable to them, they need to eat as well.

For the remainder of the time that Riley and Tegan are practicing, Riley never seems to strike the bludger as hard. Even as he holds his bat, it seems as if it’s causing him some obscure pain that he’s attempting to hold back. Once they’re on the ground, he actually seems to be having some trouble standing. It’s subtle, but noticable under careful observation. Again, he hardly seems to lift his broom, and he waits officially for Noémie to call break so he can walk to the castle, though he doesn’t directly look at the team captain. “Aye, sounds good,” he mutters to Tegan, whom before now always seemed vaguely annoyed with his presence in her general vicinity.

Several shots follow as Bailey and David head towards Van again and again. The first of a series of attempt is thrown hard at the opposing hoop, with a good spin, curving nicely towards the ring. Following, there is a last-second hand off from David and Bailey tries to score, tossing the quaffle inbetween Van’s legs, a bit too obvious maybe. Getting it going they seem to harmonise better and better. Now they are trying to embed more complicated manouvers to increasingly challenge Van’s skills. One particular as they fly straight towards their keeper and lean apart to opposing sides, trying to let Van slip through the gap inbetween them and to score at the lonely hoop afterwards. They finally get untied and land to get into the warm castle to attend dinner.

Catching some shots and missing some, Van continues to go through the rest of the practice with a very set expression of concentration. No, she isn’t angry, but she doesn’t appear to be so cheery and nonchalant as when the practice first began. The girl pauses as the last shot comes to her and leans on her broom, looking around, not daring to look at Noémie, who she knows is watching them all from the ground now. “Good shot!” She calls to the last of them who made the throw, but she does not throw the quaffle back, hoping that Noémie will call the end of practice before she has to block any more shots.

“Alright, everyone come in!” the captain calls, her expression still rather tense as she watches them all. “No, David, it is not too late for supper. In fact, you’ve got plenty of time to do some homework before you all get to return to the pitch for our evening practice tonight after supper. We’ll be doing a lot of exercises, so make sure you get enough to eat this evening. Anyone who’s late will pay the consequences.” Without another word, Noémie watches for them to all come in, then goes and sets her broom in a large stand that she has drug out for the purpose of practices today. “No need to put the equipment away just now. We’ll be back after supper for it.” The girl nods to them all, then grins a bit. “I’m going to do homework and have supper, and I will see you all on the pitch this evening.” She doesn’t say another word, rather turns and strides off the pitch and into the castle quickly.

Scoffing as she lands and hears Noémie speaking, Van has barely removed herself from her broom and put the Quaffle in its box before Noémie has finished and turns to go into the school. “Snog her little boyfriend, more like,” Van comments, putting her own broom into the stand and grinning at her teammates. No, Van isn’t immune to the grapevine that has been busily spreading rumors of the prefect and her boyfriend. “I’m sure Joseph Wexler is great homework to be working on,” the seventh year adds with another chuckle then glances to everyone else. “I’ll see you at practice this evening then,” she tells them all with a sigh and makes her way off of the pitch slowly, waiting for a certain someone to make his way down from the bleachers before heading into the school.

Riley Markham nods vaguely, now that the official word has been given, before turning and starting toward he castle without a sound. His movements are natural, but slow. As if he were walking through quicksand, but trying to make everyone else believe the air was no more thick for him than anyone else. Again, he pulls his cloak tighter about himself, but he says nothing about it. Riley Markham does pauses, briefly, in his retreat, as Van’s voice reaches him. But his gaze remains downward cast, and after a moment, he continues on.

Once back on the ground, David walks away, more than a bit unhappy about the prospect of staying up late at night to catch up with his essay. “Plenty of time… yeah….” he says to no one in particular, but far enough from Noémie not to risk to be the target of her wrath once the practice resumes after the dinner.

Having gotten untied from David, Bailey stores his broom away with everyone else’s and sighs a bit. Double practices were not his favorite by any means, and he was certainly not looking foward to whatever exercises were in store for them after supper. Once he’s got his things situated, he runs back into the school, so as to make the most advantage of the time that has been awarded to them between the practices, and is gone from the pitch.

Back on the ground, Tegan unties her rope, pretending to need much time to do it but really only waiting for Bailey, who she looks from afar. Once the boy is free, too, she follows him, being careful not to run directly at his side: the last thing she needs is to spark another rumour in the school…

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.