Being A Champion

Brave

"Spencer watch out!" Riley screeches seconds before the bludger cracks into the red head's side. Thankfully, Spencer's grip is tight, keeping her balance, unfortunately the quaffle was knocked out of her hands and Lucas picked it up, now speeding towards their hoops. Growling under her breath, Riley races after Lucas with her teammate, Jacob right behind her. The air stings her cheeks and she feels the first drop of rain assault her face. The two chasers catch up to the Gryffindor boy and slam into him on either side, sandwhiching him. Jacob throws elbows into Lucas' shoulder, while Riley is more focused on knocking the quaffle out of his grip.

In this moment, Riley almost forgets that Lucas has been ignoring her for a full week and that he'll just pass the ball off. Instead, in a smooth movement he switches the quaffle to his other hand and slams his hand down on the front of Riley's broom. In a flash, Riley finds herself flipping, almost being bucked off. The gasp and boos of the crowd goes unnoticed to her ears, the only sound is her own heartbeat, drumming loudly at the near fall. Sure, Riley has fallen countless times off her broom, a few resulted in concussions and multiple broken bones, but knowing it was someone who she cared about trying to knock her off, just made it feel more personal and terrifying.

Lucas was able to shake off Jacob, but he was unable to add points to Gryffindor. Tori, Hufflepuff keeper, successfully knocked the quaffle away at the last possible second, earning tremendous cheers from the crowd.

"It seems the seekers have finally located the snitch!" The announcer roars out. Riley snaps her head to where Yogi, their seeker, is hurdling straight down with Sarah, Gryffindor's seeker, on his heels. Yogi is positively small for his age, a sixth year barely 5'3 and is very thinly built. Far too sweet to be a beater, too small to be a keeper and not strong enough to be a chaser, but the quickest person Riley has ever seen on a broom. His small physique allows him to cut through the air and slip into the smallest of gaps and weigh almost nothing on the broom. It made sense he was a seeker and a damn good one at that.

Riley watches for a few moments as they narrowly miss colliding with the ground, pulling up at the last second to follow the snitch back up. 

"Matthews!" Right the game. Shaking her head, Riley barrels down the pitch to assist Spencer and Jacob. She weaves through Gryffindor players and dodges bludgers whistling pass her. The rain then decides to pick up and now random droplets become a steady stream of light rain. Each tiny drop is cold and at the speed Riley's going, each one feels like tiny pins to her skin. Just as Riley is about to fly behind the Gryffindor stand, Spencer passes back the quaffle, Riley snatching it one handed. The ball is slick and it's a miracle Riley even caught it. She secures the ball tighter to her as she makes a sharp turn back inside the stadium. Jacob comes zooming above her and Riley tosses the quaffle up easily, before spinning and following behind him. 

"Jacob! Left!" Spencer's voice rumbles out causing Riley to look over to the left. Haley, a chaser, is on a direct path to Jacob with a bludger right behind her. Knowing what to do, Riley dives under Jacob and hopes he gets the message. 

He drops the quaffle seconds before Haley swerves and the bludger crushes into his shoulder. Riley has no time to worry over her teammate, the quaffle is in her hands and the goals are opened. She tosses the ball, fully intended on smacking it with her broom, but plans don't always work out.

She doesn't see it, a hard body slams into her, her broom slides out from her and the next thing she knows she's falling, rapidly down to the ground. Riley's limbs fumble over her body and the whole world is spinning far too fast for her mind to make sense if she's up right or facing whichever way. Funny, how her hearing seems to go out and she doesn't register anything, just the air rushing pass her ears and an odd static noise. Sure she wasn't up too high and she might have a broken bone, but she doesn't know which way her head is facing and well, no wizard can survive a snapped neck. It's strange how slow it feels while she's falling, shouldn't it be quick like blinking?