At the beginning of the year, Allie was no one
Now she's infamous
**
Until her eleventh birthday, Allie didn't believe in magic. How could she when her mother had died when she was barely two and her father had never been around. Her life wasn't ver...
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I trudged down to the quidditch pitch the next morning for practice. It was a weekend and all I wanted to do was sleep through until noon but no, I had told Kevin I'd try out for quidditch. We'd already had try-outs, although I wouldn't really call them that. When I'd gone down for try-outs, there were only actually six people there, including the captain. Including me, that made seven so I had no choice but to join. They needed seven people to play and since Kevin had coaxed me to join, they just had enough. There were some very enthusiastic second years who were ecstatic that they had made the team. Kevin told me later that he was praying they made up for their lacking quidditch skills with enthusiasm.
"Hi, Kevin," I said unenthusiastically as I reached the pitch. I sighed and clutched the bumpy handle of the ancient school broom I had to use. I wasn't expecting to join the quidditch team at all throughout my seven years at Hogwarts so didn't have a broom of my own to use.
"Hey, kid," Kevin greeted, jumping up and down as a warm up, "You ready?" He asked, practically glowing with energy. He had literally skipped over to me.
"Um, sure." I shrugged.
"Hey, Ced!" Kevin called across the pitch and a tall boy about his age looked up and jogged over, "This is the new recruit. Allie Caswell, meet the new captain, Cedric Diggory."
"Nice to meet another quidditch fan." Cedric greeted, holding out his hand to shake. Kevin had run off to give another unconvincing pep talk to a group of equally panicked looking second years who were new to the team just like I was.
"So," Cedric began after a moment of uncomfortable silence in which neither of us knew what to say, "Kevin tells me you're just as desperate for Hufflepuff to win as we are."
I chuckled half-heartedly and raised my eyebrows.
"Yeah...Not so much...I'm just a really sore loser!" Allie laughed. Cedric chuckled too, "But I mostly joined out of pity. Kev told me not many people wanted to try out."
"Yeah..." Cedric breathed, running a hand through his messy mop of dark hair, "We haven't had a win in a long time so our team's not very popular at the moment. But now I'm captain, I can change that!"
"I always thought Kevin was captain, he seems to be doing a lot of pep talks and recruiting and stuff."
"He's just enthusiastic." Cedric reasoned, "And we've been friends since first year so I'll let it slide. Plus he's a good player and I need as many of those as I can get."
Our conversation came to an abrupt end as Kevin's voice rang out across the pitch, shouting his pep talk rather aggressively at some poor second year.
"Oh god, I better step in," Cedric groaned, "Good luck out there, Allie!" he called over his shoulder as he jogged over to Kevin to tell him to dial it back. The second year looked horrified, on the brink of tears. I sighed deeply. This was going to be difficult.
