Professor Potter

Chapter 31

Chapter 31 

"Are you ready, Harry?" Charlie Weasley asked. 

"You have no idea how ready I am, Charlie," Harry replied as he finished pulling on his Quidditch gloves. 

It was the second Saturday after the 'incident' with the seventh year research projects and Harry was looking forward to getting on his broom and playing some serious Quidditch. He had gotten a message from Charlie and Eleanor that a match had been suggested by some friends of theirs and he had replied enthusiastically in the affirmative. Ginny of course was going to be sidelined because of her pregnancy but an old friend had been found to take her place. Ernestine Appleby was going to fly with them in Ginny's place. Harry had the chance to talk to her when they first arrived at the public Quidditch park. She was working as the second assistant to the assistant manager of the Wimbourne Wasps. As she put it, the salary was almost nonexistent, but it was a foot in the door. 

The past week and a half had been a bit tense, for lack of a better word, for Harry. He was still chaffing at the way things had turned out with the project concerning himself. Understanding someone's point of view is not the same as accepting it or agreeing with it. He also had a little talk with Abagail about her comments and explained that while he clearly loved her as much as any father could he wasn't prepared to have her refer to him as 'daddy', especially when it was intended as a jibe. The girl was suitably contrite and promised it would be 'Harry' from there on out. 

With all that going on Harry was more than happy for the chance to get out and stretch his Firebolt just as far as he could. The practice session that was held the prior Sunday had helped loosen everyone up and Harry was now ready to really let go. 

"Harry, we're going to mix things up a bit today. Charlie will start off as Seeker and we're putting you in as a Chaser," Eleanor said. 

"Really? I wasn't aware that you thought my ball handling was up to any standard," Harry replied. 

"We've seen you play with a quaffle enough to know you can do it. Plus we think it will confound the other side a bit. And to be perfectly honest we'd like to see how much of a distraction you can be. So don't hesitate to let the stops out on that broom of yours. The more trouble they have figuring out where you are, the less likely they'll be able to mount any kind of serious scoring challenge." 

Harry looked at his friend and occasional chess adversary with slightly narrowed eyes. 

"Excuse me for thinking this, El, but you're sounding like you have something devious in mind. Am I missing something here?" Harry asked. 

El smiled a bit and he thought she was looking a bit rosy in the cheeks. With a bit of a laugh she said, 

"One of the Chasers on the other team is an old friend of mine. We were always very competitive when up at school, grades, boys, Quidditch. Quidditch was the one area she could never beat me at and I intend to keep it that way," El said in a very determined voice. 

"Alright, you're the boss. I'll be happy to oblige," Harry said with a smile. 

In fact, he was more than happy since it was essentially carte' blanche to do what he wanted to do and that was fly the bristles off his broom. The referee for the match was an old classmate of Bill's who had taken to hanging around the park on weekends to offer his services as a referee to anyone who needed one. He whistled the teams into position and sent the balls aloft. Then he tossed the quaffle into play and the match was on. Now it has been noted on many occasions by any number of people that Harry was an exceptional flier. His performances at Hogwarts during his student days were the stuff of school legend. His ability to maneuver his broom through seemingly impossible aerobatics was without parallel and there wasn't a snitch made that he couldn't get the better of, or so it seemed. That all paled in comparison to what went on during the three hour match that took place this day.