Gryffindor Princess and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter Fanfiction)

Chapter Nine: Quidditch

It wasn't long before Defense Against the Dark Arts was nearly everyone's favourite subject. Only Draco Malfoy and his gang of Slytherins had anything bad to say about Professor Lupin.

"Look at the state of his robes", Malfoy had said, "he dresses like our old house elf."

But no one else cared about the state of Professor Lupins robes or his shabby briefcase. His next few lessons were just as exciting as the first. After Boggarts they studied Red Caps, nasty little goblin-like creatures that lurked wherever there had been bloodshed: in dungeons of castles and the potholes of deserted battlefields, waiting for those who'd gotten lost. From Red Caps they moved on to study Kappa's, little water dwellers which looked like scaly monkey, waiting to strangle unwitting waders in their ponds.

Their potions lesson had become almost unbearable however. Snape seemed to be in a particularly bad mood these days, and if Hope had to guess it was due to the stories of Neville dressing Snapes Boggart duplicate in his grandmothers clothing. The story had spread like wildfire and clearly Snape had not found it as amusing as the rest of the school.

Her Muggle studies class had become far more interesting, they'd continued to study muggle professions and had moved on to study plumbers (who fixed things like sinks and toilets) and then Dentists, like Hermione's parents, who fixed muggle's teeth and filled them with this sort of plastic stuff if one fell out. The only down side to Muggle Studies was Draco Malfoy seemed to take it upon himself to consistently irritate Hope and Hermione, pointing out how silly the muggles were and how inane their way of living was.

After their first care of Magical Creatures lesson Hagrid hadn't dared to try any action packed creatures again. They'd spent every lesson since then learning how to look after Flobberworms, which had to be some of the most boring creatures in existence.

"Why would anyone bother looking after them?", said Ron, after another lesson of poking shredded lettuce down the Flobberworms throats.

At the start of October something happened that put classes out of Hopes mind entirely however.

"Oliver's holding quidditch tryouts!", Lee Jordan announced, loudly staring at the Gryffindor notice board.

"The whole teams got to go as well! It says no ones spot is guaranteed!"

"Your welcome", George Weasley jumped over the back of the couch and sat beside her.

"We talked to Oliver", Fred said jumping over to sit next to him, "told him that perhaps we needed to look at our own team to find out why we haven't been winning."

"But you've risked your own spots on the team", said Hope.

"We'll be fine", said George, "but we've got to work on getting you on the team. Tryouts are tomorrow night, we'll see you then."

"That's bloody good of them to help you out", said Ron, "bet they'd never do something like that for me."

Hope's stomach was doing summersaults. Now that she had a chance to be on the team, would se be able to make it stick?

The next evening Hope and Harry said goodbye to Ron and Hermione and went down to the quidditch pitch. Harry was carrying his Nimbus two thousand while Hope was carrying one of the schools spare brooms.

"You'll be fine", Hope assured him, noticing his pale expression.

"I've never had to try out before", Harry said.

"Oliver would never find a better Seeker than you. You've never lost a game."

The weather for the tryouts was appalling. It was freezing cold on the quidditch grounds and the wind was howling loudly around them. Hope folded her arms across her chest, wishing she'd thought to bring a jumper.