Leviathan {Book #2}

Chapter 7

"Glad you could make it, bucket brain! Now pay attention!" Phoenix hissed, nodding toward a girl standing and staring hard at the group. Neil straightened up and shut up immediately, watching the girl as her hard looks passed over all of them. Her scarlet robes reflected a Gryffindor patch weaved into the cloth. Her brown hair hung over her shoulders, and she clutched her Nimbus 2001 next to her.

"Hello, newbies, I'm Elizabeth, the deputy captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Welcome to the tryouts for Gryffindor."

Murmurs broke out around the crowd.

"Where's that Gregory guy?" Phoenix whispered to the boys, bu5 was heard farther, "He's supposed to be the captain!"

"He had other school duties to attend to," Elizabeth said quickly. "Now break up into groups, chasers here, beaters... No, no, not there, budge over a bit. That's it! Keepers? Right there. And seekers, There you go."

The Gryffindors split up, and Cillian said goodbye to his friends as joined the group consisting of three people. Two of them were either his age or eleven and were holding very fragile looking broomsticks. The third was about fifteen and was much too big to be a proper seeker. They were all boys. Cillian felt slightly better at his odds, although Phoenix and Neil looked like they had plenty of competition for their positions. The beaters were especially plentiful this year.

Elizabeth backed up to take a look at her handiwork. She nodded approvingly at the large crowds of keepers, beaters, and chasers, but shook her head at the four seekers.

"Well, we have only four openings on the team this year, a chaser, a beater, a keeper, and a seeker. One of each position. Best of luck to all of you, and just play your best."

Elizabeth started with the Chasers, the rest of them sitting on benches, watching kid by kid shoot the Quaffle at the hoops. Some of them were pretty good, others, not the best. One boy managed to throw the quaffle backward and give the girl in line behind him a bloody nose.

While the chasers were still flying around, a glint of silver and green robes made their way onto the field. Cillian groaned, the Slytherins had come to try out on the other side of the pitch. They sneered wickedly at the Gryffindors, making faces.

The chasers glanced at them, and Elizabeth glared as they laughed and grinned at her. She rolled her eyes, flipped around her broom around, and continued the tryouts. Cillian glanced at the keeper's, not very far away from him. He caught Neil's eye.

"What are they doing here?" Cillian mouthed to Neil. Neil shrugged and shook his head.

They finally came back down and Elizabeth yelled for the Keepers. Cillian saw Neil wave nervously and gave him an encouraging thumbs up.

Neil and the other keepers pushed off the pitch with their feet and flew to one of the three goalposts. Neil's was the middle, and he was sandwiched in between a tall girl with black braids, and a third-year boy. Elizabeth allowed the chasers to shoot quaffles at the three, and Neil only let two by out of twenty. But when the balls ran out, Elizabeth flew to the middle of the chasers and fired three rapid shots at the keepers. They all missed. Then she flung a ball in the girl's direction, as she ducked out f the way just in time to save herself a broken nose.

"Hey!" She shouted. "Are you trying to kill me?!"

Elizabeth responded while throwing a quaffle at the other boy. "If you're gonna be a keeper, you have to be fearless, and your reflexes have got to be--" She hurled a ball straight at Neil's face.

Right before it hit him in the nose, he caught it with his palms. Elizabeth raised an eyebrow.

"Fast."