In the Melancholy Moonlight

Chapter IX: Wingardium Leviosa!

LUCY:

The days leading up to Halloween passed in a hazy blur. I slept whenever I had the chance, but between catching up on the work from the full moon and wrapping up haunted house preparations, the only chance I truly had to catch my breath was Quidditch practice.

Fortunately for all of us, Skye Parkin was not what you would call a morning person. Our practices always started when the sun was high in the sky, and after learning about the Slytherin-Ravenclaw incident, Skye worked us as hard as ever.

"Half their team will barely be recovered by the time of the match," she explained, "so this will be a great game for offense. We have to be careful, though, because grumpy Slytherins take the most cheap shots out of all of the house teams, and since they're already starting at a disadvantage with the practice they've missed, they're going to be desperate. To prepare for this, we're going to practice with four Bludgers. Sorry, Weasleys," she added when they groaned, "but you can never be too careful. Besides, Little Diggs is here today, so she'll be subbing in and out for you two especially."

When it came to subbing in and out, we had settled into a fairly comfortable routine. I always started and ended as Chaser, because Skye had recognized by then that Chaser was where I belonged. Just the same, the other positions might be needed at any time, so after playing as Chaser for a bit, I would play Keeper until someone scored on me. From there, Fred would toss me his bat, and I'd play Beater until George tossed me his bat. Harry was a solid Seeker, so after Beater, I went back to Chaser until Skye called practice off.

Skye and I had finally managed to convince the twins to stop going easy on me, and as a result, I had taken quite a few Bludgers to the head. And back, and arm, and leg, and... well, you get the point. They always felt sorry for hitting me, but Beaters were Beaters and they understood that they had a job to do to prepare me for real matches. On this particular day, with four Bludgers zooming around and one very, very tired "Little Diggs," I knew I had to be on top of my game to leave practice with all of my bones intact.

As Skye had explained, Slytherin alternated between two primary strategies. They either kept to their half of the field and tried to use their players other than the Seeker as additional Keepers to try to stop the other team from scoring altogether, or they had all hands on deck on the other end of the field to get their Chasers to rack up as many points as possible. With a weakened team, Skye reckoned they would use the first strategy. Every team member would become more or less a human Bludger, so everyone's roles changed slightly. The goal of the Chasers was to weave through them as effectively as possible and wait until a goal was a certainty to throw the Quaffle, and to only pass when absolutely necessary because of how densely we would be packed. The job of the Beaters was to try to clear a path for the Chasers by picking off as many players as possible, while being careful not to take one of us out by accident. The Keeper was to watch for the Snitch along with the Seeker until the play moved to the other side of the field, and the goal of the Seeker was to catch the Snitch as soon as possible.

Skye pulled me aside while everyone else took to the sky. "Well, Little Diggs, I may have lied to the twins. Today, you're subbing in for me for the whole practice. I'll be flying above practice watching everyone and making sure nobody gets taken out by a Bludger, if the twins happen to miss one."

I grinned. "Excellent."

"Make me proud, kid. You'll be replacing me next year."

"I'll do my best!" I promised, joining the team in the sky. Once she was directly above us, Skye dropped the Quaffle into the field and the practice began.

My head was on a swivel. Four Bludgers trying to attack seven players was unheard of, but Skye certainly had a point. Slytherin would stop at nothing to try to win, and based on the stories I had already heard about past games, nobody was safe.