HP8 (On Hold)

Quidditch

Quidditch had always been a very important part of Harry’s time at Hogwart’s he had been the youngest player to be allowed in a team in over a century.  He had been acclaimed as one of the best seekers ever to play at Hogwart’s, even better than his father, yet the Gryffindor team he had played in hadn’t always won the Quidditch cup. 

Ginny had also been part of the team for a number of years, as seeker when Harry had been unable to play, but she had proved herself as an even better chaser.  Harry was sure she would also prove to be a great captain, he would support her in that role as much as he could, but didn’t want his presence with the team to lesson the importance of her appointment as captain.

He just hoped that he could use some of his experience, as the longest standing player at Hogwart’s this year, to help the Gryffindor team win for Ginny sake as much as for his own or for the house.

Ginny organised trials for the third week of term, the turn out was reasonable, but the standard wasn’t great, there was a small second year who was quick on his broom, but wasn’t very good at passing, Harry thought he might be suitable as the new seeker, Dennis Creevey was a good chaser as was another fourth year student, the Weasley twins were probably the best ever beaters the school had ever had, Ginny managed to find two Gryffindor students who understood the role, although they would never be able to get to their standard. 

There was another trial scheduled for the weekend, here positions would be allocated to those flyers who had looked promising at the trials, as usual the hardest position to fill would be the keeper, it took a special kind of flyer to be able to be good at the role. 

Ginny, Ron and Harry spent several evenings talking about all the flyers who had turned up at the trials, discussing their merits and faults and which positions they seemed suitable for. 

Ginny asked both Harry and Ron to come to the next practice, to fly with the others in order to give tips and to have a better idea how they flew,

Saturday was a clear and fine day, no wind and still warm for the time of year.  Harry was delighted to get his firebolt out and have a chance to fly for a while.  When he got to the Quidditch pitch most of the others were already there, zooming up and down the pitch practising sharp turns and rolls. 

Harry couldn’t see Ginny about yet, so mounted his broom and joined the other flyers, Ginny had been right flying with them allowed Harry to judge their capabilities a lot better than from the ground.  Two of the other flyers that Harry had thought to be possible team players were actually slow at reacting and would be left behind in a fast game.

When Ginny arrived at the pitch, she blew a whistle and everyone descended to the ground to hear her instructions.

“Morning everyone.” She said brightly, first of all as you can see we have a couple of extra flyers with us this morning, Harry and Ron are going to do a work out with us, they have kindly agreed to help me captain this team by giving coaching tips to the seeker and keeper.” 

“Ok first things first, lets have a warm up, I want groups of four to race a circuit of the pitch, starting at the centre line, you just need to get round both sets of goal posts as fast as possible and get back to the start.”  Looking around them Ginny sorted the twelve people on the pitch into three groups, Harry in one, Ron in the next and Ginny in the last.