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?

Making her way out to the pitch, Noémie‘s face is set as she glances up at the sky, from which falls a light drizzle of rain. She has the usual Quidditch fare already set out — a box with a set of practice equipment, as well as some extra quaffles. Some curious bits of fabric are hanging from each of the hoops, a veritable rainbow of variety decorating, though Noémie‘s glance does not stray there as she instead sets her broom down and begins to stretch her arms over her head slowly, awaiting the arrival of the rest of her team.

Almost bouncing as she makes her way out to the pitch, Laney looks cheerful despite the weather. This behavior is especially unusual of the girl, and it seems as if she almost has an agenda in being so as she grins widely at the captain. “‘Lo, Noémie,” she greets the girl and drops her broom abruptly, mimicing Noémie’s movements of stretching, though her own are half-done and don’t seem to do much good for her.

Riley Markham appears on a the field a few minutes after Noémie, walking beside Boyce — the two classmates having holding a mildly interesting coversation about the finer points of Goblin speech. “You’ve almost got it, eh?” Riley says, placatingly. Trying, earnestly, not to laugh at the younger-but-in-the-same-year boy’s efforts. “All things considered.” As usually, his broom is draped across his shoulders, his wrists hanging limply over it, giving him a vaguely cross-like shape. His damp hair, mostly undone from the leather strap he attempted to bind it with, clings to his sundappled, but curiously pale features. Though it was clear he spent a good deal of time outside, he looked decidely more bleached than he had in several weeks. His quidditch robes bear the same general disregard for appearance as his school robes, wrinkled and dishevelled.

Striding out to the pitch casually, Tegan looks quite subdued today, in comparison to the angry atmosphere that has surrounded her the last several days. And, is that — does her hair look rumpled, too? Well, whether it is or not, Tegan appears to be tight-lipped, saying nothing at all as she joins the others on the team, throwing an arm up to start stretching it. After all, that appears to be the thing to do, doesn’t it? Yawning and trying not to grin to wide, the girl still says nothing, though she does look smugly in Laney’s direction.

“Gehthwackthwis? Gewthawaxthwis.. I don’th know, Marthum. I juwth don’th need’th to thwear that bad,” Boyce concludes, finally, giving up on the complicated and intricate pronouncation of Goblin vulgarity, before turning his gaze toward the sky. Adding after a moment, “Nawthty weathwer.” Waving to Noémie once their in range, he lifts up his broom as if eager to get in to the air, before turning his attention back to Markham. “Iwth good to know the meawnthing though, I thupothe.” Boyce says, sincerely. “Tho, thawt meawths awthho–”

Having just waved to Noémie himself with one hand, Riley‘s eyes widen and his gaze shifts back to Boyce, silencing the boy with a meaningful look and a small shake of his head. “Ixney on the eaningmay, eh?” He hisses, under his breath — the last thing he needed was for Noémie to chuck him another detention and spark another fight for swearing. Looking back to Noémie, he puts on his best, seemingly innocent smile, in hopes that she hadn’t heard or, god willing, wasn’t paying attention.

Bailey Williams strides on to the pitch somewhat after Tegan, wearing a somewhat bemused, bewildered expression. As though the world were suddenly a differant color, and he weren’t entirely cetainly why or how it had happened. His own hair is somewhat askew, though it’s hardly unusual for it to be so. Still, he seems happy enough, flahing a smile at Noémie and nodding to the rest.

“Hello, everyone,” Noémie greets the team as she turns around and looks up at the sky once more at the light rain. “Alright, today, we’re just going to run like we’re in a game, for the most part. I’ve got extra quaffles out in case the one in the box turns out to be a bum. Alright, now, you see those ribbons? You’ve got to try to retrieve as many as you can. Tegan, Riley, your job is to prevent the chasers from getting them. It looks like David couldn’t make it today, so it’s between you and Bailey, Boyce. Laney, you’ll try to keep the boys from scoring. Only after you have made a score can you get a ribbon, and you must not get hit by a bludger before retrieving your ribbon, or else you’ll have to make a nother score first. Alright, all clear? I’m going to practice my dives over at the other end of the pitch with the practice snitch. Make sure you’re obeying the rules. Whoever has the most ribbons at the end of practice, well… wins.” With that, Noémie strides over to the box and retrieves the practice snitch from the box, waiting several moments for it to disappear from view before she mounts her broom and takes off, leaving no time for questions.

Well, at least she didn’t scold him for swearing. Passing a quick look to Boyce, wide-eyes implicating that the short, stocky lad needed be more careful with his tongue — Riley mounts his broom and kicks off in to the air. Good lord, that was close. Lifting a hand to brush his long, wet hair from his pale face — the wine red strings not unlike trickles of blood against his white skin, Riley makes himself ready. Nodding to Tegan, making sure they were far enough apart to get good coverage of the field.

“Alright! I get to actually hit them this time!” Tegan responds, sounding rather gleeful at this, despite the fact that she is not so annoyed with Bailey this time. “Up and at ‘em, then,” she tells everyone, somehow deciding that she’s the boss of this practice while she strides over and lets out both bludgers without warning, causing her to have to duck so it doesn’t hit her straight off. “Alright, Markham, let’s see if your aiming practice has paid off!” The girl says this while brandishing her bat and hitting a bludger upward while she gets on her broom. This gives her enough time to fly up into the air with a good distance from Riley while she hits it again, this time to Riley — not at him.

Boyce Gardener grins knowingly at Riley — an small glimmer of mischief in his eyes, before grabbing up a quaffle and taking to the air. Waiting for everyone to get in to place, he tosses the quaffle in to the air a few times and catches it — twice very well, once on the edges of his fingers. Nervous though he might be about the upcoming match, he was excited as well. And he was ready to show what he try.

Lifting a hand to rake his wet hair back from his eyes, Bailey grins somewhat to himself as he climbs up on to his broom and kicks off in to the air. He was grinning quite broadly, at that. And an awful lot. “Great weather for a practice, isn’t it?” He notes to Laney as he passes her, hardly noticing the tiny rivulets of water that washed down his face.

Hmmm, how is it that all the practices seem to revolve around Laney making blocks? The not-so-terribly-confident-yet keeper gets onto her broom and flies up to the hoops, not looking quite so chipper and cheerful as she had been before. “Alright, go when you’re ready!” she tells the chasers and limbers up her shoulders a bit, rotating each of them on its own. The keeper does look a bit nervous, as if the realization that the match is nearly here has just set in and she has just realized what is at stake in playing it.

Riley Markham seems relatively pleased with the change that has come over Tegan — her bossiness was something he had grown accustomed to, but her air of anger and tendincy toward violence usually left a distastefully coppery taste in his mouth. Often due to a bludger in the face. Or chest. Or groin. Twirling his bat, as if to gain it’s balance, he thwacks the bludger back toward Tegan easily enough. Same as she, not at him, but toward her. His aim and control much improved, though still needing a fair bit of refinement.

Boyce Gardener makes his go first, holding the only quaffle. Gripping the front of his broom, he darts toward the hoops in a quick, direct assualt. Unveering and unwavering. Brave, reliable, but very predictable. His attention is fairly focused, and though he is relatively certain where Tegan and Riley are behind and above him, he’s unwisely let his guard down to each of them.

Giving the bludger a good, hearty whack back at Riley, the metal orb seems destined for Boyce instead of her fellow beater. This is well and good, however, because she finds that the other bludger has headed toward her as well now, and she gives it a less forceful thwack toward her own sweetheart this time, in an attempt to slow him down. This ought to make for an interesting practice, especially as the girl is supposed to keep them from “winning.” Tegan grins and flies down the pitch a bit, making her way closer to the hoops in hopes of more easily throwing the boys off course.

Watching carefully as the younger boy makes his way toward her, Laney‘s face appears to set, though the apprehension is still a bit apparent. Come on, come on, come on, she’s just got to make this block. Nevermind that she’s got goodness knows how many shots to possibly block, the girl doesn’t want to let even one slip through the hoops. “Come on, you sissy, don’t dilly-dally!” she tells Boyce loudly, as if attempting to provoke him into shooting sooner.

Fortunately for Laney, her provokes aren’t needed. Hearing the whistle of bludger coming at him, the boy veers right and hard — completely destroying the vector of his toss. Grazing his shoulder, Boyce winces as the bludger sails past — but looks up to see Bailey and tosses the quaffle up to his older teammate. Finishing his arch behind and around the goal posts, Boyce rubs his shoulder as he moves back mid-pitch, centering himself for another pass at the hoops.

Bailey Williams is in the perfect position to grab the quaffle, having taken off as soon as he heard Tegan’s bat crack against the second bludger — knowing it had only one target. Soaring quick and high, Bailey rushes straight at Laney, Tegan’s bludger on his broomtwigs. Pulling up at the last possible second, he tries throwing the quaffle over Laney’s head through the hoop by distracting her with the bludger that Tegan had left him. One that will likely fly right under Laney and slam in to the goalpost.

Flying up high, Noémie is very high above the pitch, where the air is a bit chilly and the rain seems to fall a bit more heavily. Then again, that could be her imagination as well. The little golden snitch is so far nowhere to be seen — even though it is slower than the true thing, it still can be a bugger to catch — and Noémie decides it would be best to practice her diving for the time being. Flying downward quickly, she picks up momentum as she approaches the ground, pulling up sooner than is necessary, perhaps out of fear of crashing, or distrust for her broom. Either is plausible for the prefect, and others may never know for sure as she is soon climbing high into the sky, feasibly to do just the same thing again.

The bludger does well to distract Laney, and instead of an attempt to block the shot, she flies away instead, swerving wide to avoid the bludger. “That’s got to be a foul, Williams!” she tells her year-mate sourly and frowning. Oh, he ought to just wait. He’d find frogs in his bed if Laney had anything to do with it. Flying back up with a reddened face, Laney has retrieved the quaffle, and tosses it far out into the middle of the pitch, to neither of the chasers specifically. Sour grapes, anyone?

Finding himself somewhat caught between admiring Bailey’s handywork with Tegan’s bludger, and simply admiring Noémie, for, well — being Noémie, Riley almost completely misses tbe second bludger coming up around him and toward his face. Letting out a small squawk of surprise, he lifts his bat to bunt the bludger away from him — almost stunning it in midair for a moment, before considering the pitch. “Where do you need to go — there!” And lifting his bat up in a quick, solid arch, he drives the bludger hard at Bailey as the boy goes to fetch his ribbon. Hoping to clip him on the shoulder.

Feeling rather proud of himself, Bailey had nearly forgotten that they were still considered viable targets until they had actually collected a ribbon and thus gained the “point”. Thus, his reaction to the bludger sent by Riley isn’t nearly as quick as it might have been otherwise. Turning quickly, he manages to get out of the path of the bludger — mostly. It rather obviously strikes his right arm, just before he can snatch up the ribbon.

Flying around quickly, Tegan is headed for the bludger that has missed Laney quite completely — thanks to the girl’s swerving maneuver — and has every intention of stopping Bailey with it. This proves unnecessary, however, as Riley has chucked one at him, which has quite successfully put a stop to his point gathering. Instead, Tegan gives hers a whack and sends it out toward Boyce, hoping to intimidate the boy with the bludger again. It worked the first time, after all!

Boyce Gardener goes to fetch the quaffle tossed by Laney, having to swoop a bit faster than he’d been altogether prepared to do in order to catch it. Flying somewhat off to the side, hoping to maybe sweep past Laney and get the quaffle in to the hoop behind the girl, Boyce veers far off his original path in an attempt to dodge Tegan’s bludger — paying much more attention to the beaters than he had the first time around. Tegan’s distraction may prove enough, though, as the throw that tries to put past Laney — while solid enough and well aimed, is forced in to a rather predictable arch.

Seeing the Quaffle headed toward her again, Laney is quite a bit more prepared for it this time. No red ball is getting by her this time! She lets out a loud “AUGH!” as she reaches out to grab up the ball. Such exertion was not exactly necessary, since it was coming almost right at her, but Laney does not appear to realize this, though she does look at Boyce smugly, tossing it back to him with ease. “Go again!” she calls and grins.

Boyce Gardener catches the quaffle and takes back off back up pitch, pulling in — and passing glance to Bailey (who seemed to be rubbing his arm) to make sure that the older student didn’t mind his taking another go, before having one more pass at goal. Going straight didn’t work, going down and around didn’t work — maybe going up? Pulling up on his broom, and soaring high in to the air — Boyce does something fairly brave, and perhaps a little silly. Holding on to his broom tight as if he expected it to fly right out from under him at any moment, or expected to fall off (either seemed equally likely at the moment), Boyce half-dives, half-turns, banking at the goal (and putting every last ounce of flying skill he had learned over the last two months to use), before throwing the quaffle at what he hopes will be over Laney’s head in to the hoop, while providing the beaters an odd angle to strike at him from. The unexpected bonus being, he’s flying straight for the ribbons should he happen to actually score.

Completely befuddled by Boyce’s confusing flying — it appears the boy has had his broom tuned as instructed — Laney jumps one way, then another, only to decide the wrong direction to dive as she misses the Quaffle completely. The loud CLANG echoes through the pitch and her face becomes set and somewhat disappointed as she flies downward in an effort to catch the quaffle up again to prepare for another go-around. She also would rather be down here retrieving the safer red ball than be in the way of the bludgers that are bound to fly.

Riley Markham draws a deep breath, wincing a little at how he caught Bailey’s arm — honestly hoping that nothing where broken, though he knew with a certainty that Madam Wexler would be able to fix any damage his bludger might have done. Drifting across the pitch, he watches with quiet nod as Boyce tries some daring flying. Nothing that anyone else on the team (except perhaps Laney) couldn’t do more or less in their sleep, but for the lad still mastering his own position on a broom — it was quite well done. Finding the bludger that had bounced off Bailey coming back his way, he cobs it in Boyce’s direction — trying to stop the throw. The aim is a bit off, though, and sails well over his classmate’s head.

Everything has moved so fast that Tegan, in a moment of confusion, ends up whacking the bludger that she has approached at Bailey instead of at Boyce, who ought to be her target. Letting out an exhasperated yell, she flies around, almost as if to try to save Bailey from it (and instead direct it toward the younger boy). The force with which she has hit the bludger, though, prevents her from catching up to it as it approaches her fellow prefect very quickly and with surprising momentum.

Dive after dive, Noémie does not appear to get much lower before she has to pull out, either for fear of safety or perhaps just for ease of the reascent. It is during another of these dives that Noémie spots the little golden orb. She flies downward toward it, downward, downward, and then as it pulls up, so does she, completely oblivious to how close to the ground she was at the time. Accellerating as fast as she can manage, she does manage to overcome it and close it up with her fingers into her palm. This is followed by a triumphant whoop and she begins flying toward the other end of the pitch to see what is going on. Chaos appears to have taken over as there is a bludger flying at Boyce and another towards Bailey. What is going on up there? “Alright, bring it in!” she calls once it has resolved, flying down to land on the ground. She quickly walks over and secures the little snitch into its spot in the box marked “Practice” and waits for her team to join her.

Rubbing his arm and trying to work out the kinks of his first bludger attack, Bailey can’t help but cheer and whoop as his fellow chaser sinks the goal and darts off to grab a ribbon, unimpeded by the beaters. Tegan’s cry misses his ears, reaching him almost to late. “What?” THWACK! Tegan’s bludger hits him square in the chest, leaving him only enough time to look surprised. To his credit, Bailey remains on his broom, but he clearly is gasping for breath as he drifts toward the ground, holding his broom handle for support.

Boyce manages to get his hand on a ribbon moments before Noémie calls the practice, which he thrusts up in to the air with a resounding “YETH!” And after a small moment of celebration, he lands and moves toward the captain.

From his place in midair, as Noémie calls the practice, Riley withdraws his wand and freezes each of the two bludgers (his aim with a wand sizably better than his aim with a bat), before making his way to the ground. As is his usual habit, he leaps off the broom while it’s still several feet above the ground.

“Bailey, are you alright?” she calls, biting her lip and flying over to him. “Do you need some help? Merlin, I didn’t mean to do that, can I help you? Oh, geez, Bailey, will you at least say something to me, please?” the girl speaks quickly, though the speed she’s speaking doesn’t leave much room for interjection. Flying downward with him, she soon is on the ground. “Let’s get you to see Madam Wexler, alright? I’d rather you didn’t have a broken bone or something,” taking over the role of caretaker now, Tegan waits for Bailey to get to the ground before seizing him to almost drag him into the school forcibly, with the intent to make him see the school nurse.

Rolling her eyes at Boyce’s exhuberance, Laney doesn’t say anything as she makes her way down to the ground, putting the quaffle into the box. “I need more practice,” she mutters to Noémie at the last, swinging her broom over her shoulder and making her way off of the pitch before the captain can make any affirmative response to this remark. (And, of course, it would have been affirmative — couldn’t they all use more practice, after all?) Laney is soon gone, having put her broom away and made her way back into the school.

“Well done, mate — ’bout fell off your broom there, though, didn’cha? When yer bankin’ like that, lean in’ter the wood, alrigh’? Giver yer more control,” Riley says, after walking over to Boyce and clapping him on the back. “Yer gonna do alright, I think. Remember what I said last time, if yah miss, yah miss. Simple as that. Get the ball an’ try again. S’what my dad told me.” Grinning, though not really feeling his grin entirely, he and the stocky, short boy headed on up to the castle. Though Riley did wait for several moments to watch Noémie put things away.

Noémie is left alone to tackle the bludgers, a fact which, for once, doesn’t even seem to bother her. As the pitch has emptied and the light is waning, the sixth year flies up on her broom, wand drawn to immobilize them. Having caused them to stop moving, they are then easier to wrangle into the box. Both bludgers put away, and Noémie is off toward the broom shed, slowly making her way to put the overabundance of supplies away. But the prefect isn’t complaining. A strange calm has overcome her now and she soon makes her way back into the school, the same, easy demeanor following with.

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.

are here.

Making her way out from the broom shed, Noemie carries quite a few Quaffles, haphazardly kicking one out to the pitch as she drops it. The girl doesn’t apper to be used to carrying quite so many of these without the aid of a bag or something similar, but she manages as she drops them all near the edge of the pitch, glancing around to see if anyone has showed up yet. Finding that nobody has, as yet, she makes one more trip back, returning with a Quaffle she had dropped as well as her broom. Despite it being afternoon, it is still quite cool outside, and though she knows she won’t need it later, Noemie pulls a sweater on over her quidditch robes. It wouldn’t do to fall sick, after all.

Tegan Madison stalks her way out on the quidditch pitch in threatening silence. Stalk, perhaps, being a rather generious word for the action. Though her movements are quiet, fluid, and even graceful, and her expression seems mild enough, the narrowed cast of her eyes and the tightness of her fingers gripping the handles of her broom and bat carry the presence of her anger like a thunderclap.

The trail from the castle to the Quidditch pitch is fairly straight, but Laney Abbott still manages to meander down it as she makes her way towards practice, her dreamy bespectacled eyes focused on something far off in the distance. Her winding path takes her close enough to one of the edges of the gate to the pitch that her broom bristles knock against it, startling Laney back to reality with a fluttering blink as her broom jerks on her shoulder. Her plump cheeks, already slightly flushed from the autumnal chill, go even pinker, and she mumbles an embarrassed, “Hullo, Captain,” as she hurries past Noémie onto the pitch.

“Teg– Oh, come on,” Bailey calls as he pauses at the edge of the pitch. “I didn’t do anything. You’re being impossible.” The boy sighs and crosses his arms over his broom, rolling his eyes. Girls could be so dramatic. “Do we really need that many Quaffles, Noémie? I mean, I know you aren’t a chaser or anything, but I would have thought that you of all people would’ve understood how the game works…” Ah, always time for the ill-advised quip.

“And then th’e thaid I could come in after practithe and work on it. I’ll th’ee you then, alright?” Boyce bids farewell to his comrade as he makes his way out to where everyone else is gathering. “I th’pothe we thould have our broomth?” he comments, pausing. He is the only one who appears not to have his. It is a moment while he trots over to the broom shed and then makes his way back out. This takes longer than it might someone else, because Boyce has not yet hit his growth spurt, and is, in fact, quite short still.

Riley Markham follows some ten steps or so behind Tegan, and near Bailey. His broom draped across his shoulders and his wrists hanging over it, Riley regards Williams with a lofted brow. As they reach the pitch, however, and Bailey attempts to swallow his shoe, Riley ultimately decides distance might be the wisest option. Walking beside a man who had one upper-classwoman mad at him was dangerous, but amusing. Standing next to one who might draw the ire of two would be to implicate himself in the snark remark and write his death sentance. No, no. Already done that once this year. Not again. Moving toward the quaffles, Riley widens his eyes a little, finding it rather difficult to believe that Bailey didn’t do anything. At least, unintentionally. As usual, he seems oblivious to the weather, though he does appear rather pale. His clothes are loose and baggy and customarily wrinkled.

“Hullo, Laney,” Noemie greets the girl, giving Tegan a curious glance as she, too approaches. “Something wrong, again?” the captain asks quietly and shakes her head while the boys, too, make their way to the pitch. “Hi, everyone — stuff it Bailey,” Noemie greets them all, while setting her broom down and picking up a quaffle. “Alright, here’s the deal. Today, you beaters are going to use these quaffles instead of bludgers, and you’re going to work on your aim. We’re going to go up in the air, and you’re going to hit these one at a time to each of the chasers, and Laney as well. I want you to change it up. The Chasers and Laney will work on their agility while you work on your aim. Please at least try to aim, alright?” Noemie asks, a pleading tone to her voice. “Boyce and David go to Riley’s side, Laney and Bailey to Tegan’s. Alright, let’s see if you can’t run this smoothly. I’m going to be chasing this practice snitch. Holler if you need me.” Without another word, Noemie mounts her broom and ascends, releasing the practice snitch and pausing just a moment to let it get ahead of her before she follows it upward.

Tegan Madison had been debating between either continuing to ignore Bailey’s pleas, or turning about letting him have a rather solid piece of her mind. Either way would ensure a satisfactory amount of suffering on Bailey’s part, which she rather felt he deserved. Especially if he didn’t realize what it was he had done wrong! To Noémie’s question, she parts her lips to respond, but finds the captain has already gone on to meat of the practice. Huffing a bit, and wondering why Noémie had even bothered to ask the question if she were just going to go on, Tegan can’t help but smirk as Noémie shares the nature of the practice. “’bout time,” she says, not-entirely-quietly, as her gaze falls on Riley. She was feeling quite catty, indeed.

A passing leaf, a chilly breeze, a stray idea, a fluttering bit of unruly reddish hair – each of these things command Laney‘s attention for a few seconds at a time, throughout the captain’s speech. She hardly looks at Noémie at all, and it might appear that she isn’t even listening, but Laney nods at the end, and heads directly over towards Bailey and Tegan as instructed. She directs another dreamy smile up at her teammates, including both of them in the vague friendliness, then swings her broom down off her shoulder and climbs onto it. Up into the air she goes, and flies with a slightly startling directness to a position about halfway down the field, where she hovers, waiting for the others.

Alright, time to show his mettle! Boyce wastes no time in hopping on his broom, though it does not go quite so smoothly as he would like, and he wobbles a bit. The boy manages to catch his balance again and flies up, taking his place up where he assumes Riley will be, and he glances around, waiting for everyone else to situate themselves. If nothing else, the boy gets points for sheer enthusiasm while he gets himself better situated on his broom.

Riley Markham simply groans — not unlike he’d been punched in the stomach. This was bound to be a rough practice. Tegan’s words and glance spark a hint of challenge in the boy, however, as he swings his broom off his shoulder, mounts it, and kicks off in nearly one motion. He found himself getting rather annoyed by Tegan’s attitude. Even on those rare times she had complimented him, she seemed condescending. He was improving, damn it. He hadn’t knocked a teammate off a broom unintentionally since the second practice. Turning his attention to Boyce and David, he nods to each of them once in the air, to signal that he was ready to begin.

Cringing a bit as Noémie informs him that he will be working with Tegan for the entirety of this practice, Bailey decides that it would be in his best interest not to flirt aimlessly with Laney today. Had he done that to get Tegan mad at him? No, likely not. Still and all, the boy mounts his broom and flies upward, giving a slight glance to Riley before he watches Tegan, waiting for her signal. Perhaps he’ll let Laney go first. That would give him time to try to apologize, at least. Well, theoretically.

Rolling her eyes, Noemie doesn’t seem in the mood for drama as she zooms up ward quickly and manages to close her hand around the snitch easily. Perhaps she ought to have made it a bit more difficult for herself. After all, at games, she would have to contend with bludgers and quaffles and the reality that she’s got to keep an eye on her team. At the moment, this does not seem to concern the girl, however, and she lets the snitch go again, waiting several moments this time for the snitch to escape her vision while she watches the team get organized.

Seeming somewhat pleased with herself for Riley’s reaction, Tegan mounts her broom and kicks off, seating herself in the air relatively even to her fellow beater. Preparing herself and giving her bat a few test swings, she nods her okay to Laney and Bailey. She was ready.

Waiting a moment until Riley gives him the go-ahead, Boyce flies out as quickly as he can propel his broom to go. This, however, proves to be a bit dangerous because as he turns to look where the Quaffle is going to come, his broom skids and he ends up flying backwards a bit rather than stopping. Perhaps next time, he won’t make such a quick take-off. It takes him a moment before the broom slows down enough so that he can right himself enough to catch the quaffle, but Boyce does not appear down-trod or embarrassed. If anything, the boy just looks more determined.

For the first time, Laney looks directly at Bailey, hovering in place watching him as she waits for him to go first. And then, for the first time, uncertainty makes its way onto her dreamy face, as she registers Bailey’s posture: slightly behind her, hands motionless on his broom. The plump little Keeper swallows, and waits for a second more, as if to make absolutely sure…and then she floats forward, Quaffle in hand. Laney sends the ball towards Tegan in a quick, overhand throw – but hesitation weakens the force behind it, and even though Laney‘s aim isn’t bad, the Quaffle might not have enough momentum to carry it all the way to Tegan.

“Any catch is a good catch, mate,” Riley calls over Boyce, before drawing up another quaffle, taking fairly careful aim, and clubbing it at David. It goes a bit wide and to the right, but compative to his previous year’s attempt at accuracy, it’s a noteworthy improvement. David fetches it easily enough. A few throws happen between the two of them, with Riley batting away the want-to-be bludgers back at David until he actually strikes a score by hitting the very hand that David had thrown the quaffle with. Smirking to himself, and bolstered a little by that success, he shifts his gaze to Boyce after flagging David back.

Shrugging at Laney as she finally makes her way out, Bailey glances at Tegan. “She’s an odd one, wouldn’t you say?” he comments quietly to his girlfriend. He waits a moment for an answer, but not being very hopeful starts tossing his quaffle back and forth from hand to hand. He waits until Laney has cleared the way before he flies out in pursuit of a good catch of his own, which Tegan will hopefully not hit too far past him. He is not hopeful however, as he flies out at an angle, glancing over his shoulder from time to time to see where she is aiming.

Tegan Madison regards Laney, almost curiously, as her broom drifts toward the nicely arched, but weakly thrown quaffle, catching it with the end of her bat and tossing it straight in to the air in order to aim and direct it (in the general direction of Bailey’s chest, or possibly head — whichever gets in the way first). “It’ll need more power than that, Abbott!”

Flying back next to Riley, Boyce watches as David goes his turn. “He’th better’n me,” the boy comments quietly. “Do you think it’ll matter if I mith thometimeth? I don’t have much practithe.” The boy seems rather unsure of himself today, which isn’t like him. Though, he doesn’t seem to be distraught or down-trod as yet. “I’m going to have to do more practitheth, I think.” Soon, it is his turn again, and he flies out, not quite so quickly this time at the start, tossing his quaffle back to Riley for his own shot. Turning a glance over his shoulder, Boyce watches as he waits for Riley’s shot to come back to him.

More used to blocking Quaffles than throwing them, Laney still looks slightly sheepish at her teammate’s reprimand. “Sorry,” she calls back, and actually drifts downwards a little as she hangs her head. But she can’t be distracted for too long, not when there is another Quaffle coming towards her. She blinks her bespectacled eyes, focusing in on the ball that Tegan has redirected towards her, and zips straight towards it, scooping it up easily in one hand. Another flicker of movement draws her attention for a moment – the Quaffle aimed at Bailey zooms just past her, and for a second, Laney almost moves towards it. But she has to leave that one for Bailey, and with a regretful little wrinkle of her nose, Laney keeps going. She hefts the Quaffle in her hand, and after another moment’s hesitation, tosses it back towards Tegan. There is a little more force behind it this time, but the neat arc of her first throw is gone – Laney‘s attempt to put more strength into her throw has made the ball’s trajectory straighter, and less graceful.

This time, the snitch proves more difficult to locate, and Noemie takes quite a bit longer to catch it. For several moments, she pauses, snitch in hand, and then releases it again. Once again, taking a moment to look at her team and their progress. For all intents and purposes, things seem to be running smoothly, and Noemie does not give this a second thought while she propels her broom forward again, flying downward steeply, just past the lot of chasers and beaters — and Laney — in pursuit, once again, of the practice snitch.

“Good on you, Laney,” Bailey calls anyway, as if she had done perfectly well in catching it. The Quaffle does manage to hit him in the head, however, and a loud yelp emits. “Good grief, Tegan!” he yells to her and rubs his head, managing to only barely catch the Quaffle in his fingertips. “To me, not AT me!” With a shake of his head, he flies back and tosses the Quaffle to Tegan, flying back outward again quickly. “Please be nice this time!” he calls and flies out quickly, careful to avoid Laney’s path as he makes his way outward again.

Tegan Madison almost grins at Bailey — obviously, having gotten some of her aggression out having down the dark-haired fifth year some good. She doesn’t have much time to savor her attack, as she notes Laney’s ball sailing toward her. Reaching up, she hardly more than taps it, making the quaffle mirror Laney’s first throw at her. A well aimed arch, but one that falls short, so that Laney might have to dive to grab it. Bailey’s quaffle is given the exact oppsite treatment, as she hits it hard and slightly wide to Bailey’s right side, far enough that if unstopped, it would land in the Slytherin stands. Slightly amused, she seems at least to be taking things a bit mroe seriously now.

Riley says, “Missing sometimes is part of the game, mate,” Riley calls back to the lisping third-year, as he lowers himself on his broom a little to catch the quaffle with the edge of his bat and send it back. Arching the ball more or less in the direction of his target, but perhaps twenty or so feet higher than Boyce’s arms could reach. “Keep at it, an’ you’ll do fine.” Contrary to what might be popular belief, he was the living example of that. Unless he really just got nervous or mad and clammed up, he seemed to handle his bat at least adiquettely. A far cry from his fist shot on the team.”

Flying fast and hard, it takes all of Bailey‘s might to catch the Quaffle that Tegan has hit to him, though the boy is quite pleased that at least he wasn’t struck with it this time. Gaining his balance again — for he was a bit unstable after the chance catch — he turns and flies back, nearly evening up with Tegan before he tosses the quaffle in her direction and flies out hard again, this time not looking over his shoulder until he is nearly as far out as he was when he caught it.

Much like Bailey’s Quaffle, the interaction between him and Tegan flies right past Laney – the sparks of hostility between the squabbling couple produce only a vaguely confused blink from the Keeper. Short, long, high, low – Laney is used to catching and blocking all kinds of shots, and she times her dive perfectly to intercept the Quaffle that Tegan has sent sailing towards her. She is not, however, used to having other people in close quarters with her when she’s doing it – Laney hesitates, pulling back to let Bailey go in front of her in pursuit of his Quaffle. And that throws off her timing – Laney has to scramble to catch up with her own rapidly-falling Quaffle, going into a steep, sharp dive to catch it before it falls too far towards the ground. But she does manage to scoop it up, and she manages to get her broom under control a few wobbling seconds later. Another player might have tried to throw the Quaffle all the way back up to Tegan from that position, but Laney plays it safer, delaying yet again as she soars back up until she is level with Tegan, and tosses the ball towards the Beater in a straight, easy line.

Canting her head a little, Tegan notes the small stop-gap in Laney’s flight. How she hesitated when Bailey got to close to her. Considering, and working the angles in her head, she reaches out with her free hand and catches Laney’s quaffle rather than hitting it back. Allowing her bat to slip from her hand and dangle from the leather strap about her wrist, as well, she then catches Bailey’s. This was supposed to be about agility, right. Glancing to make certain Noémie was watching, she lifts one quaffle and points it at Bailey meaningfully. Tossing it in the air and swinging her bat in to her hand, she knocks Bailey’s quaffle down and to her left, somewhat close to her. Then quickly pointing the other at Laney, she tosses it and send it sailing far, high, and to her own right. Hoping to force Laney and Bailey to cross paths in the air again as they move to fetch their balls.

“But Mithing meanth the other team can get it,” Boyce comments before he flies out straight ahead. He hasn’t a moment before he spots the Quaffle again, but this time, he is forced to speed up faster than he would usually like. Soon Boyce begins to lose his balance again and though he is quite unsteady, he does manage to get hold of the Quaffle. He does not fly back in straight away, however, pausing out in the air, trying to get control over his broom again.

It takes a good long time before Noemie is able to spot the practice snitch again, and instead of letting her catch it, this time, it decides to make chase. The girl is quick on her broom, but as it descends sharply, she is forced into a dive — her least favorite part of being Seeker. Even the injuries are more favorable to her. She descends quickly, quickly, and pulls out of the dive just short of where the snitch has gone level and begun to ascend again. This move has, for once, worked to her advantage as she manages to close her fingers around the little orb. “Alright, bring it in everyone! Catch your quaffles and come down!” Noemie, for her own part, flies down to land, looking up to watch them all wrap up.

“That true, Riley conceeds, waiting for Boyce to throw the quaffle back at him while David finishes rubbing his hand. “But we learn from our mistake, no? We learn what not to do again. If you miss but learn how not to miss like that again, then it’s promised fer a score fer later, eh?” Riley Markham, amateur philosopher. As Noémie blows the whistle, however, he offers Boyce a small shrug. “We can practice together later, eh?” And in a lazy arch, he spirals his way slowly to the ground, leaping off his broom while his feet are still some ten feet above the ground.

At first, all that Laney sees is her own Quaffle. Fixed on it with something very different from her usual vague, dreamy look, the Keeper flies swiftly up, heading directly towards it. Only when she is halfway there, though, does she see that Bailey’s Quaffle is also heading directly towards it. Forced to break one of the cardinal rules, Laney takes her eye off the ball – she glances behind her, judging with a quick, cautious look how far away Bailey is, and where he is going. While she hesitates, her Quaffle reaches the peak of its arc and starts to fall again, crossing paths with Bailey’s once more. If she waits any longer, Laney will either lose the ball or be forced to fly even closer to Bailey than she already is – so she gulps, clutches her broom a little more tightly, and dives for it. The course of her flight takes her just barely outside the path that Bailey will take, if Laney has judged the angles correctly, and a slight sideways jog gives her an extra foot or two, just to be safe. Hardly daring to look behind her now, Laney reaches out – and grabs the ball with a grin of triumph and relief. And down she goes, flying safely towards the ground again, as the practice draws to its close.

Bailey has over-shot how far Tegan would hit it this time in his estimate, and he is forced to turn hard and dive down to catch his Quaffle. This time, he is not successful, even in a haphazard catch, and the Quaffle falls to the ground. This does not seem to phase Bailey much, though, and he flies down to the ground, landing near to Noémie, though his attention is more toward the girl up above him in the sky. Pity she was wearing trousers.

Tegan Madison watches the results of her handywork with a pleased expression — though she does look slightly remorseful as Bailey misses his catch. No matter how mad she is, or how well he takes failures, she’d always prefer see him success. A clear sign that clubbing him with a quaffle had at least proved somewhat cathatic. Once Laney has gotten her ball, Tegan makes her way down to the ground. Nothing fancy. Just a simple, easy dive. She does land next near Bailey, however, giving him a straightfoward but not unkind look that notes quite plainly she knew what he was thinking.

Making his own way down to the ground, Boyce is glad just to have managed to get himself balanced again. He lands next to Noémie and looks up at her for a moment. Well, her name was a pleasure, since it didn’t accent his lisp, but her height did make him feel rather stout. “Good practithe, everyone,” he comments quietly, shrugging at everyone, though looking in particular at Laney, as if trying to discern which of them is taller.

“Good practice, yes,” Noemie agrees and smiles at her team. “I’ll see you all tomorrow. Remember, we’ve got that game against Gryffindor coming up. I’m sure we can manage some good practice so that we’ll have our usual edge back!” With this, Noemie turns, grabbing up as many of the excess quaffles as she can, and strides over to the broom shed and out of sight. Clearly, she seems to have somewhere else to be.

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.