The Chaser's Heart

Year 3: Friendly

'Oi, Knight! Grab your broom!'

I looked up from my essay on Swelling Solutions at the sound of my name. I had always been easily distracted and anything was a welcome distraction from Potions homework.

It was Skye Parkin who had spoken. Well, at least that was who it appeared had spoken. We locked eyes from across the common room. She'd never initiated any sort of contact with me before. Why would she? She was the star Chaser of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team and a year older than me. I was a third-year with a penchant for getting into trouble. Not on purpose, I always had good intentions, but unfortunately, I had developed a reputation of sorts around Hogwarts.

She looked mildly irritated when I didn't immediately jump up.

'We need a third Chaser,' she explained. 'You still play Chaser, right?'

'Er... yeah,' I shut my book and rolled up my parchment hastily, not caring if I smudged the ink in the process.

'Meet us at the pitch in ten minutes,' she nodded curtly before leaving the common room.

It was early on a Saturday morning, so the common room was mercifully empty. I didn't need any other rumours circulating about either my brother or myself. It had been worse in my first-year, but I certainly didn't want to give fuel for any new rumours.

I was still in my exercise clothes, I rose early on the weekends to run and train. I had planned on getting a bit of homework done before cleaning up, but this was much better.

I dropped my bag hastily in the dormitory and shouldered my old Shooting Star before hurrying out to the pitch.

There was a group of players dressed in all colours of robes gathered in the changing rooms. Quidditch trials hadn't begun yet, but it hadn't stopped the pitch from being used. If anything, it was being used more than ever by prospective players hoping to catch the eye of their team Captain. Once a week on Saturday mornings, team members from all four houses participated in Quidditch Friendlies, which was sort of like an unofficial Quidditch match. It was played exactly like a Quidditch match, only the final score never mattered and the teams were made up of a mixture of players from different houses.

Skye waved me over to her group and I hurried over.

'Glad you could make it,' she gave me a half smile. 'Here, but this on.'

She handed me a blue pinny identical to one she and the rest of the players were wearing. I took it and pulled it on.

I was honestly surprised she had remembered me from Quidditch trials the year before. That had to be how she knew I played Chaser. I'd tried out in my second-year as soon as I was allowed to but didn't make the team. I had been upset at the time, but had eventually come to terms with the fact that I was barely old enough to play and the bloke who had been awarded the position had been in his seventh-year. He was gone now, so there would be another opening this year.

'This is Jensen, Beater,' she indicated to an older Hufflepuff boy I didn't know, but had seen around the pitch a few times. 'deBoer, he'll be Chaser with us,' this was a Slytherin boy I did know as he was in my year. She went around the group and introduced me to the rest of our team.
'This is Knight, she's here because Orion isn't well, so we'll see how she does,' she gestured to me.

I didn't care how it was that I came to be here this morning. I was just happy to play. Another role the Quidditch Friendlies played was for Quidditch teams to scout potential players. A lot of the people who participated were already on their house teams, but there were quite a few who weren't. Orion Amari was the new Captain of the Ravenclaw team and I'd been hearing rumours that trials would be offered on an invitation-only basis. The fact that Skye Parkin had invited me to be on her team for this week's Quidditch Friendly was huge. I couldn't mess this up.