A Witch in the Air

Alex and Ginny made their way down to the pitch a half over before the try-outs, followed by the Carrow twins and Tyler. Both girls were visibly nervous. No girl had ever made it onto the Slytherin quidditch team since Flint took over as a captain.

“Come on Ginny, there is no way you both don’t make it as at least reserves, since Flint took over, he has had a full reserve team. Preston Bott and James Brown from my dorm are trying out as chasers, but they even admitted themselves that is mostly is for the experience and that they probably won’t make it. I also heard that Zoe Accrington is trying out, have no idea how good she is but she faces the same problem as you guys so at least you are competing on equal foot. Though honestly, I think it is Brian Urquhart and James Vaisey you have to beat. They tried out last year and are okey, you remember right?” Ginny nodded her agreement to Tyler’s rant, really too nervous to think about it but Tyler was right in his assessment and it was important to know your opponents.

“Yeah, you are probably right. I’m sure Flint will put Pucey on the team this year again, he is in the top three chasers in school without a doubt. And no way Flint will choose me or Alex above Montague or Warrington. So, I guess one of them are going to be regular and the other one first reserve.” Ginny answered.

“It almost makes it seem easier looking at it like that,” Alex chimed in, “like it is just between us, Urquhart and Vaisey.”

“That sounds more doable,” Ginny agreed, “but on the other side they are both boys...”

“True that. But on the other hand, you do have a tendency to break the odds,” Tyler tried to pep them up and Ginny tried to get out a smile back, ”here we are, see you afterwards. Good luck!” Tyler waved them of as he and the twins turned to climb the stands.

“Good luck!” both twins echoed, finally looking up from their parchment rolls, Ginny recognised the rolls as the ones containing their projects, that they had been all into since summer break. She smiled a bit, none of the twins liked quidditch but still they had come to try-outs.

Inside the pitch there was about 20-30 Slytherin guys from different years and fourth-year Zoe Accrington divided into four groups. The girls walked over to the group they guessed was aspirant chasers and Ginny joined Bott and Brown from their own year in their conversation with Grayson Miller from the year above.

“...and this is Ginny Weasley,” Ginny turned around at the sound of her name, Alex was chatting with Accrington and waved her over, which Ginny did with a smile and a ‘Good Luck’ to the boys.

“So, do you think there is any chance Flint will let us in?” Alex asked the older girl.

“Honestly? No. Have you heard the backstory?”

“What story? To why Flint is an asshole?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Accrington answered with a laugh “Back in my first year, it was rumours of what happened the year before. Flint had been on the team from his second year but, apparently, Flint’s older sister kicked him of the team because she wanted to captain the first all-female quidditch team here at Hogwarts. The other two boys on the team had graduated the year before so I guess she saw her opportunity to get famous. Two years later Flint was captain and decided to create an all-male team…”

“Wow, I guess I should stop complaining over my brothers. Who does that to a sibling? Now I almost feel bad for him.”

Alex snorted, “Just because his sister was mean to him four years ago doesn’t give him any excuse to take it out on us now…”

“I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have a shot this year even without Flint as Captain there are too many good chasers, but if we don’t even show up to try-outs the boys can just keep saying that the reason there is no girls on the team is because no ones are trying out.” Accrington looked thoughtful. ”If any of us get the chance of showing everyone the pitch that he actually is biased I think the best way would be to get him to agree to some sort of clear contest.”

“But do you think he would stand for it afterwards?”

Before Accrington had the opportunity to answer a whistle was heard over the pitch. Looking up Ginny could see Marcus Flint hovering twenty metres over them. Starting with the seven keepers, Flint sent the other three groups of aspirants up to the closest stands. Shooting three shots at each keeper he started with sorting out the candidates that fumbled even with the easy shots.

“Alex, did you see that? Every shot is perfectly aimed.” Ginny almost hanged over the railing to be able to study Flint in action. “Say what you want about the guy’s personality, but there is no doubt he will play pro within a couple of years.” Alex nodded agreeingly.

After sending away the keepers that fumbled with the Quaffle, Flint wave at Adrian Pucey to come up in the air. While Pucey prepared to take penalty shots against the candidates Flint hovered behind the goal hoops, presumable to get a closer look on the keepers’ technic.

“That looks awful, I wonder if I really could perform with him watching so closely.” Alex said nervously. “I would be so scared to do a stupid mistake,” Ginny agreed “but I get his point, the number of goals they let in out of a few penalty shots say less than if they have good or bad keeper technique.”

Blowing the whistle again, Flint sent another keeper candidate down to the stands again.

“It looks like it is down to Bletchley and Samuels then, though I can’t see Bletchley losing first-string, he played really good all of last year and the year before.” Accrington commented.

Third-year Jack Samuels was first out. Flint had abandoned the strategy of shooting penalty shots against the keepers and was now pairing up with Pucey going 2-on-1 against the scared-looking keeper.

“5 Sickles he won’t save a Quaffle” Alex muttered. “No way I’m betting against that, they will crush him…” Ginny said looking a bit worried.

Passing the Quaffle back and forth between themselves the two chasers made their way over the pitch. With six metres left to the goal posts Pucey aimed towards the left hoop and shot, the keeper throwed himself towards the hoop in a desperate move.

“Where is the Quaffle?” Ginny heard a boy in the row behind them ask.

Pucey had feinted and in some way manged to slip the Quaffle backwards, upwards and to the right. While the keeper was still in a throw to the left, Flint scooped up the ball and lazily chucked it through the right hoop.

While the crowd was still trying to figure out what had happened, the chasers had made a lap around the arena and was once again on their way against the goal posts. Flint with the Quaffle in hand took of straight against the poor keeper with Pucey half a metre behind him.

“Is he going to smash straight into him?” One of Samuels’ classmates worriedly asked a couple of rows behind Ginny. His worry was justified, it really looked like Flint was on his way to crash into the third-year keeper candidate.

The second before the crash was inevitable Flint pulled his broom up, letting go of the Quaffle in the same move. Behind him Pucey dropped into a Sloth Grip to avoid smashing into Flint, caught the Quaffle and rolled back up before he hurled the ball into the middle loop behind the baffled keeper.

“They are just playing with him,” Alex commented, “it is almost humiliating…”

A voice was heard from behind them. “Don’t be so sensitive. They are just showing off, letting everybody waiting for their turn know what is expected of someone in Slytherins team. Probably puts some of the lower years of when they release the don’t have a shot and saves us an hour or so today.” Ginny looked behind her, recognising the guy that had spoken as one of last year’s reserve chasers, Warrington or Montague she presumed.
“If they tried to show off, they managed,” Ginny breathed out the breath she had been holding since Flint started to pull his broom upwards “did you see how well timed that operation was? The same second Flint left the scoring area, Pucey rolled up into it – perfectly executed to avoid stooging but still take advantage of being 2-on-1. And that simultaneously as Pucey managed that catch, upside down in a slow Sloth Grip Roll. I never seen anyone catch a Quaffle in a Sloth Roll at all, it takes guts to even let go with one hand in a roll…” Ginny trailed of, realizing that she probably sounded like a starstrucked fangirl.

“You actually know some about Quidditch then, not just a second-year here to take up our time?”

Ginny frowned, but still took the guys offered hand “Cassius Warrington”, “Ginny Weasley”. “I should have guessed you was the famous Slytherin-Weasley with that red hair and freckles; your brothers are in my year.” Ginny nodded back to the guy. “Well, good luck in the trials then.” After a short break Warrington added, ”If you manage to get in, I show you how you keep balance with one hand in a Sloth Roll like that.” Ginny beamed happily at the fifth-year before turning her attention back to the pitch and watching the chasers playfully making three more goals on poor Samuels. The fourth goal had Flint hanging by his knee crease while scoring. The fifth featured Pucey standing on the broom.

After switching keepers to last year’s starting keeper, Miles Bletchley, Ginny noticed that both Flint and Pucey turned more serious. Climbing up on the railing to see better over the row in from of her, Ginny watched how they kept attacking the goal posts, but now in a more game-like and less show-off way. Flint still managed to get in a Sloth Grip Roll and Pucey did an amazing Twirl, combined with a feint that had Ginny looking for the Quaffle before realizing it already had been placed in one of the goal hoops. Though, unlike Samuels, Bletchley managed to save the Quaffle during one of the five attacks.

After the exciting try-outs for the keepers, Flint started up the Seeker and Beater trials simultaneously. After an hour or so, out the four applicant seekers Flint had chosen Draco Malfoy from the year above Ginny’s as first-string seeker and Ethan Davies from Ginny’s year as reserve. With more and more butterflies in her stomach as the chaser trials approached, Ginny watched the last beater selection. Peregrine Derrick and Lucian Bole stayed on as beaters to nobody’s surprise while Anthony O’Flathery and Aiden Lestrange was chosen as reserve beaters.

“Okey, here we go. Good luck!” Alex and Ginny climbed down from the stands with the rest of the aspiring chasers. Ginny nervously clutched the Cleansweep Five she had favoured out of the school brooms she had tried. She looked around herself, including her and Alex there was 15 candidates to the five chaser openings. Flint started them of flying laps around the arena as he was flying the opposite direction. Two times he turned, caught up with a guy and sent him out of the try-outs and back into the stand. Ginny hadn’t seen anything wrong with their flying but assumed there had been some detail she missed. Realizing just how high demands Flint seemed to have she triple-checked the posture Johnson had helped her and Alex to drill in. Flying had come so natural to Alex, even though Ginny had been on a broom for five years more than Alex she had to admit that she looked just as at ease on the broom. She could also notice the difference Alex’ new Nimbus 2001 made compared to the old Cleansweep Ginny used. Though Ginny knew her talent would show more if they got a chance at more various flying and, of course, when they got the Quaffle into their hands. The whistle went off again. She and Alex both had made it through the first test!

Pairing the candidates up Flint had them passing the Quaffle back and forth, first hovering and then whilst moving faster and faster around the pitch. Ginny was paired together with Accrington, she was good, not near the level of Johnson that Ginny had practiced with last year or even as good as Alex. But good enough that Ginny felt confident, their passes hit the marks and they had yet to fail a catch. Around them Ginny could see Flint tapping on the shoulders of three guys, including Preston Bott and James Brown from her year. As Flint blew the whistle again, the three guys he had tapped on the shoulders left the group of chasers and landed on the pitch before climbing back into the stands to watch the end of the try-outs. Second test done, Ginny thought happily.

“Okey, listen up. Bletchley and Samuels will go up to defend each side of the pitch. You are all going to take five shots at each of them. The three with the lowest scores are out. The rest will pair up and redo the exercise in pairs like me and Adrian did in the keeper try-outs. I choose the winners. Questions?” The ten remaining chasers shook their heads.

Ginny tried to calm her nerves. This she knew how to do, just her, a Quaffle and a keeper. Starting off at about half the field she took off towards Samuels’ goal posts. With six meters left she went for the middle goal hoop, feinted right before pitching it into the left. Score. With a grin, Ginny did a loop before going back to pick up a Quaffle to attack Bletchley with. After five attacks on each side, she had managed to score four times on Samuels and two times on Bletchley. Alone towards the goal really was one of her strong suits. Maybe because that was what she had been able to train on during her lonely mornings on the Burrow’s quidditch pitch, Ginny mused. The result should be enough, she had seen Samuels save enough that four out of five was undoubtedly extraordinarily well. And only about half of the chasers had been able to score on Bletchley at all. When Flint waved his wand and the result showed up Ginny couldn’t help but squeal. Pucey had scored nine out of ten and then Montague and Warrington had scored five each. She had scored second best, second!

Again, both she and Alex had made their way through. This was going better than they ever could have hoped for. Though she was a bit sad to see Accrington leaving after the round and sent her a compassionate smile. Accrington smiled back and gave them both thumbs up before sitting down to watch the last round.

“Adrian and I will watch one side of the pitch each for fouls and watch your technic. In a game I have no trouble with compromising the rules as long as the referee can’t see any fouls being committed but today, I want to see proof that you both know the rules and can play by them. So, Warrington and Montague, Urquhart and Vaisey, White and Weasley, pair up. Just as we just did, five attacks on each keeper – 2-on-1 this time.”

Ginny and Alex grinned and high fived. Flint might have thought he gave them a disadvantage by pairing the two second-years together. But they had spent every awake minute training to do exactly this together since they got back to school, this year they were finally allowed to fly unsupervised. Most of the times Tyler had agreed to play keeper and even if he was no Bletchley, it was way better practice than against open hoops.

Ginny took the Quaffle, held up three fingers to Alex who nodded her understanding and started to race up the left side of the pitch catching the Quaffle from Ginny before both girls made their way towards the goal posts. Due to their never-ceasing practicing they managed to time the move perfectly. Ginny coming up in front of the goal posts, Alex diagonally behind. Samuels twisted his head trying to keep them both in his line of eye. Without stopping and giving him an idea of what they were doing Alex threw the Quaffle down a bit in front of Ginny, trusting her to keep the pace making the throw perfectly timed. Without stopping Ginny throw herself backwards, spinning her broom in the exactly right timing – hitting the Quaffle with the end of her broomstick, sending it sailing into the left goal hoop. Ginny and Alex grinned at each other, that went exactly as they trained, their own version of the famous Finbourgh Flick.

“Daring Weasley, maybe a bit reckless though, don’t think the keeper will make the mistake of being unprepared the next time.” Pucey told her in a low tone as she looped around him to get back towards the other side of the pitch. Startled, Ginny looked at him before nodding seriously. He was right, they had been lucky, a more experienced keeper that hadn’t underestimated them could have cut the Quaffle’s path off. Taking Pucey’s advice they stuck to their safer routines with fast passes, feints and twirl’s. It seemed to have paid off with five scores on Samuels and two on Bletchley.

Landing in the middle of the pitch both Accrington and Tyler met up with them.

“You scored better than Urquhart and Vaisey! They only got four goals on Samuels and one on Bletchley, there is no way Flint can take them as reserves over you!” Tyler exclaimed happily.

Accrington was a bit more sober. “Warrington and Montague scored five times on Samuels and three on Bletchley so he has arguments there to choose them first. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if he chooses Vaisey and Urquhart as well. The difference wasn’t that big that he can’t sacrifice that in 2nd and 3rd reserve. You got a plan? White? Weasley?” Ginny nodded; she had an idea – not sure it was a good idea though. If it failed, they would look like idiots. And the risk was pretty high it would fail. And she realized she would have to put in in play before Flint actually take any decision. If she waited until after he named Urquhart and Vaisey and her plan succeeded, she would make the two latter boys her mortal enemies. Not to mention that she would make Flint look stupid, probably not the best way to start a career in his team.

Flint’s whistle was heard again and everyone quieted down. An impressive deed since all 30 that had tried out seemed have stayed, reinforced with curious house-mates that was interested in how the morning’s trials had ended.

“Guided by the different tasks I have set up for the candidate chasers, I have come to the decision to keep last year’s chasers. With Pucey and Montague as first-string and Warrington as 1st reserve. For second and…”

“Captain Flint!” Ginny played up all her innocent and playful youth she had.

“Weasley? Do you have something more important to say than the results of the try-outs?”

Laughter at her could be heard from the crowd. Not letting herself get affected she continued with her fake innocence. “It is such a wonderful day for Quidditch, I had such fun being in the air, can’t we make a competition out of 2nd and 3rd reserve chasers? A game, 2-on-2, me and White here against Vaisey and Urquhart? Winners gates the reserve posts.” She almost held her breath. He must be able to see through her, mustn’t he?

“I don’t have the habit of leaving my decision making to games, Weasley. Especially not when it comes to Quidditch.” That was that, if she pushed, she would probably lose all of her and Alex’ chances at making the team not to mention making herself look stupid, an idiotic move in front of almost a third of Slytherin House.

“Come on Flint, it would be fun to see some game action after all those boring on-goal exercises. And it is not as 2nd and 3rd reserve chaser really is a cup-winning decision.” It was Malfoy, had Draco Malfoy supported her in public? Or did he really just want to watch a Quidditch match? He continued with a smirk “And besides, it was Weasley and White in the lead anyway if I counted the scores correctly. So, the only persons objecting should be them.” He couldn’t be that stupid that he really thought Flint was going to give them the positions just based on the scores, could he? No, Malfoy was a lot of things, but not stupid. He knew exactly what the stakes was here.

“Fine.” Flint looked like he thought it was anything but fine, then he sneered “I’m playing with Vaisey and Urquhart, you two find your third somewhere in the crowd that seems so eager to have this game.” Ginny’s heart sunk. Nobody would be stupid enough to challenge Flint, or good enough to have a shot at helping them win against him. Maybe if she could have gotten Johnson to play, but no way was Flint going to let a Gryff into the Slytherin try-outs.

“I play with White and Weasley.” Ginny spun around. Pucey? Really? Well, Ginny thought, being as close friends as they seemed probably made him the only one that dared to challenge Flint.

“Bletchley keep for us, Samuels for you.” Flint again.

“You and I don’t score, Marcus.” Pucey countered. Ginny had to agree with his reasoning, Flint allowed to score on Samuels could only go one way.

Flint glared for a couple of minutes “Fine, twenty minutes game. Whichever pair that scored the most get the reserve spots. We start in ten minutes.” Turning towards Vaisey and Urquhart he added in a low tone that the people on the stands might not have heard, but was clear enough for Ginny to perceive, “make sure that it is you two”.

Pucey calmly turned against Ginny and Alex, “So girls, what are our strategy?”

“What just happened?” Alex asked, more up-front than Ginny was used to seeing her.

“You intrigued me; a Finbourgh Flick in the middle of try-outs by second-years, haven’t seen anything like that in a few years – one could almost take you for reckless as Gryffs. I think you could be good for the team, some fresh blood. Marcus can be a bit stubborn sometime so let’s think about this as that push in the right direction he needs sometimes.” Pucey shrugged “Let’s hear what strategies you girls know apart from that Finbourgh Flick.” Together with a nervous looking Samuels the three chasers tried to get a grasp on each other and a ruff strategy in place.

“Okey, and forget what I said about too daring earlier – Bletchley is a good keeper and he have probably learned not to underestimate you too much after this morning. But he has only seen you playing straightforward. I think we should try to get at least a Porskoff Ploy and a Hawkshead Attack in before we go back to basic.”

“Sounds good, and maybe a Chelmondiston Charge? They never expect that!”

“No, Weasley, no. You are twelve…” Pucey looked like he couldn’t believe his ears.

“I was only joking…”

“Though, if we want to go more uncontroversial, I think you should look for a chance to try out a Transylvanian Tackle on Marcus, Weasley. There is no way he expects that and if I know him right it will put him just a bit off his game. Might be the edge we need.”

“What is that?” Alex wondered.

“Pretending to punch him in the face. No way Pucey, he will literary kill me.”

“No, he won’t, I don’t think so anyway, unless you fail and actually hits him.”

“So, no throwing ourselves off our brooms and no hitting the captain in the face?” Alex summarised. Samuels looked even more scared after the strategy meeting.

Both makeshift teams went up in the air and Derrick, who was supposed to act as referee, raised in between them. Pointing his wand up to the sky a counter appeared set to 20 minutes. “So, are you going to ask us to play nicely as Madam Hooch tries to?” Flint asked Derrick mockingly.

“As if, you are on your own. Though try not to kill the little owns, you know how much Professor Snape hates the paper work.” Blowing the whistle and throwing the Quaffle up in the air he then descended to watch game with Bole and the rest of the team.

This is it Ginny thought, throwing a fake-casual smile towards Alex – who looked as jittery as Ginny herself felt like. Then both girls speeded up, and bolted straight towards the goal posts. ‘I really hope Pucey wins the Quaffle, otherwise we are leaving our half of the pitch completely open for them.’ Ginny thought worryingly, but they had no real choice, it was all or nothing.

“Pucey got the Quaffle” a fifth-year student Ginny didn’t know had transfigured a megaphone and had taken up the task to act like commentator. “The little girls on his team are already accelerating towards the goal posts… wait, is that a school broom Weasley are flying? Looks like a Cleansweep Five or Six.” the crowd laughed as the realized the kid commentating was right. “Oh, well, if she wants to fly that museum object, who are we to judge?” the commentator taunted her.

Ignoring the crowd Ginny focused on the plan. Pucey with his superior speed was supposed to get above, feint a pass to Ginny before doing a variant of the Porskoff that Alex was suppose to pick up and quickly score. Or if he thought it was more beneficiary, actually do the pass. Ginny glanced upwards towards Pucey, facing both Vaisey and Urquhart trying to get the Quaffle off him by all means, he seemed to be getting ready to do the pass, fake or real, and braced herself. Suddenly something turned up just in front of her and she went flying off her broom. Scared off crashing down into the ground she fixated her broom in a death grip and managed to stop herself falling off but ended up hanging off the broom by her hands. “Ey, that was definitively blatching!” Ginny exclaimed angrily still hanging off her broom. In the corner of her eye, she could see Pucey executing the feint, or was he just dropping the Quaffle? It looked almost like that. “Tell that to the referee,” Flint sneered at her “you’re not playing with Hufflepuffs here.”

“YES!” Ginny turned her attention back into the game. While Flint had been busy mocking her, and the rest of his team had laughed at Pucey’s ‘failed’ feint, Alex had gotten hold of the Quaffle and pitched it into one of the hoops!

“Ten to zero! Maybe more attention to the Quaffle and less on knocking little girls of their brooms, Flint?” Looked like the commentator was mocking everyone and not just them, Ginny thought. That actually made her feel better despite the ‘little girl’ comment.

Swinging herself onto her broom she joined her team racing back to get into defensive positions. “Looks like all fouls are tolerated, should we answer in the same way? All rules off the table?” Ginny called out to her teammates. Pucey grinned at her “Well of course, that is the Slytherin way of playing! Start out hard though, before they learn to expect it of you guys. When they realize that you aren’t playing like kids anymore you won’t be able to tackle them as easily.”

Vaisey had the Quaffle, speeding up towards their side of the pitch with his teammates flying in a curve to get in front of their hoops. Leaving Pucey to act as rear defence Ginny accelerated toward Vaisey. She more felt then saw Alex diving to get underneath her. Ginny braced herself, never before had she flown straight into someone. Just a couple of metres in front of her Vaisey looked confident, like he didn’t really believe she would fly right into him. And rightly so, he had at least 40 pounds on her, it was a really stupid move. But she wanted that reserve position on the team so badly!

In the last minute he realized she was serious and desperately tried to get away and around her by pulling his broom to the right resulting in Ginny smashing into his left arm sending the Quaffle flying the other direction. She would have been thrown of her broom again by the recoil it she hadn’t been prepared this time and had crossed her legs beneath the broom and was holding on for life. As it was, she managed to stay on and regain control over her broom after just a couple of second. When she did, she continued her acceleration towards the goal hoops, trying to blink the dizziness away.

In the meantime, Alex had pulled out off her dive and managed to caught the dropped Quaffle. Though, due to Vaisey’s last-minute rotation, the Quaffle had been thrown to far backwards for Alex to manage to get back up to reach the hoops. With great effort she managed to get a pass upwards towards Ginny that she caught with a quick detour on her way towards the goal posts. With ten metres left to Bletchley and the hoops Ginny went in to the left like the start of the feint she scored two of her one-on-one goals on Bletchley with. Ginny noticed the recognizing glint in Bletchley’s eye. As if, she had been pushing it doing the feint twice during the try-outs. Halfway through the feint she did a move to the right as to execute her now trademark feint. The instance she saw Bletchley make a move to protect the middle hoop she heaved the Quaffle through the left. Yes! That teach him to underestimate her!

“Twenty to zero! White and Weasley are really taking the opportunity to show the captain what they are made of!” No insulting comments this time, Ginny thought smugly.

The opposing team recovered faster than last time and launched an attack. Ginny soared through the air trying to get back in time. Though with a hundred metres left she realized she was never going to make it, glancing to the left she saw that Alex as well had a good 80 meters left. Luckily Vaisey hadn’t been able to reclaim his stature in time to join the attack and Pucey only had to face Flint and Urquhart. Closing in towards the scoring area Flint pulled his broom up and whirled around his broom vertically to avoid Pucey’s attempt to blatch him. He was really good, no one could deny that. Fortunately, Flint wasn’t allowed to score and Pucey was able catch up with Urquhart, who fumbled with the Quaffle while trying to capture it after Flint’s pass towards him. Leaving Urquhart behind, looking sheepishly at his empty hands, Pucey accelerated over the field, signing at the girls to fall into the classis Hawkshead formation they had discussed before the game started.

The attach formation forced Vaisey to throw himself out of their way. They were now 3-on-1 attacking Bletchley. With the girls on either side of Pucey they advanced in a higher speed than Ginny ever thought she had flown towards the goal posts in, she wasn’t sure she would be able to catch the Quaffle, and even less catch and shot it, in this speed. Luckily for her she didn’t have to. Wiser from her last goal Bletchley wasn’t going to underestimate her and kept his eyes on her every move, making the mistake of leaving Alex open to the pass from Pucey. In too high of a velocity to manage to safely catch the Quaffle Alex retreated to punching the Quaffle in the direction of the right hoop. With her heart in her mouth Ginny watched the Quaffle going towards the hoop – was it going to go in?

“YEES!” Far below them the crowd started to cheer, Ginny could see Tyler jumping up and down on his seat yelling. Even Hestia and Flora had both abandoned their parchment rolls and was cheering them on.

“Thirty to zero! With ten minutes to go, the girls are leading with thirty points and the crowd is going wild!”

Ginny grinned like an idiot towards Alex as they started their race back to their own half of the pitch. This was going great. “Good job! Though, you can expect both Miles and Marcus taking of the kiddy gloves now.” Pucey whizzed passed them.

Flint had the Quaffle going for the hoops, Alex bravely signed towards Ginny – they were going to try the Body Blow on him. A bit off with their timing, not really used to this move, Ginny went into contact first, Flint looked at her almost looking amused and shoved back. Losing control of her broom she went flying several metres away, gaining back the control just in time to see Alex going flying in the other direction. Guess Pucey was right about Flint taking off those kid gloves… Pucey himself seemed to try and cover both Urquhart and Vaisey, safe in the knowledge that Flint couldn’t score. Though they weren’t stupid enough not to split up and Flint managed to get a pass past Pucey to Vaisey who accelerated towards Samuels and the goal hoops. Seemingly going for the middle hoop Vaisey tried for a Tucker feint. “Come on, Samuels!” Alex shouted over the pitch. Samuels looked more focused than ever and threw himself towards the right hoop just in time to save Vaisey’s shot! “Good one!” Both Alex and Ginny yelled back to their keeper.

But their luck was over. Bletchley started to show exactly why he was regarded as the second-best keeper Hogwarts had seen in years, only beaten by Oliver Wood in Gryffindor – and Wood was rumoured to already have a pro-contract written up for the year after. While Bletchley stopped every one of their attempts to score, Flint made every one of their attacks count – getting Vaisey and Urquhart into exactly the right positions and giving them multiple opportunities to score. The boys also made their superior weight work in their advantage. More than once, Ginny found herself clinging to her broom for dear life not to go flying of it. Samuels gave it his all but he couldn’t stop every shot and soon:

“Thirty-thirty with less than a minute left, looks like it is down to the last goal who gets the honour of becoming reserve chasers of Slytherins team of 1993!” The fifth-year commentator had really gotten both himself and the crowd excited for the spontaneous game. Though his words reminded Ginny exactly what they were competing for. It was her and Alex’ future on the line, this could be the difference between managing to go pro in the future or not.

Launching their last counter-attack, all three of the chasers accelerated towards Bletchley and the goal posts with Pucey holding the Quaffle. Alex went for a dive, starting the same pattern that they had done their first goal with – when they had managed a version of the Porskoff Ploy. Though Ginny could see Bletchley wasn’t going to fall for that again. Seeing Vaisey flying against her, probably on his way to take revenge for her blatching of him earlier in the game, Ginny went off course down to the left of the right hoop. With Urquhart covering Alex and Flint charging against Pucey he had no choice but to pass the Quaffle to the now open Ginny. She caught it and assessed her opportunities. Soon one or all three of the opposing boys would charge into her if she tried to get into a better position. But there was no-way she could reach the hoop from here. Or was there? Without giving herself the time to chicken out she shakingly stood up on her broom and jumped. Just before her jumping curve would start going down, she made the throw. Right into the hoop. She had done it!

The crowd cheered in delight! “Forty-thirty! Looks like we have a winner! I can’t believe it, Weasley just did a Chelmondiston Charge! I never seen any second-year do that, ever! But wait, is she going to manage to meet up with her broom?!”

She wasn’t. Ginny realized; she had kicked it off course when she jumped. Closing her eyes, she prepared herself for the crash.

But the crash never came, someone had grabbed her robes from above and was now hoisting her up. “If you are going to play on my team you are not going to jump of any more brooms forty feet up in the air. You heard Derrick; Professor Snape hates the paper work that comes with kids dying on the pitch.” Flint glared down at her.

“Didn’t I tell you NOT to jump of your broom just before the game?” Pucey actually looked kind of pissed at her, waving around her Cleansweeper that he must have plucked out of the air before it could soar away.

“Sorry,” Ginny said a bit sheepishly as the older chasers helped her back onto her own broom “But at least I didn’t hit Flint in the face, right?” she continued with a smug grin towards Pucey.

“So, you got some self-perseverance then, good to know, guess that was Adrian’s suggestion?” Flint said with an evil glare at his friend who only laughed back. “Had you done that, your first term on this team would exclusively be spent running laps around the pitch…”