Author's note: This was written for the minor characters' Time-traveller fic challenge on HPFC. Updates will probably be weekly.

"Do you ever regret how your life's gone?"

I turned around to see Pucey, an equipment box tucked underneath his arm, looking so serious that I did a double-take. "What kind of a question is that? No."

"Sorry. Didn't want to...you know, I just...was, er, thinking about...a couple things that didn't work out quite as well as I would've hoped, and, I don't know, you just get philosophical sometimes." He shrugged a blue robe against the gray sky.

"Maybe you do," I said shortly, "but I don't, and anyway, aren't you getting married next week?"

He laughed. "Hopefully that's not what brought this on."

"Awwwkay," bellowed Jenkins as she made her way out of the dressing room, Firebolt in tow. "Laps!"

That was Jenkins for you. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Seekers very rarely make good captains. Most of the best I've seen on other teams are Chasers, who are actually good at working alongside their teammates. Seekers, though, at this level? Are mostly concentrating on doing their own thing, not understanding how to design actual practices that involve the whole team.

And yes, they say that about Keepers too.

Point being, nothing much interesting happened for the first fifteen minutes of practice, because Jenkins the Sage was making us do laps. This meant that I had time to brood, as if I didn't do enough of that already, about what Pucey had said. Did I regret how my life had gone?

It was a dumb question, but I had given the right answer. No. I was lucky. I was alive. My family was alive, and we expected to stay that way. That was more than a lot of people could say.

Plus, Puddlemere had just finished runners-up, and consequently qualified for the European Cup, so that was something, too.

This obviously doesn't mean I was pleased about the way the last couple years had gone. I'm not a fan of people being killed...everywhere, especially all over Britain, and fearing for my family's safety kept me on edge. Plus, the Ministry's policies, if you'll pardon my language, were kind of...

Well, never mind that, that's an insult to perfectly functional body parts.

It was easier to stay put. Once or twice a couple of my old friends...no, not friends, I missed them too little. Acquaintances, dropped by and tried to tell me to make a fight of it. I told them I was used to putting up with stupid rules. I mean, come on. 150 points for a Snitch is completely disproportionate.

They didn't take it well.

I understood. Some of them couldn't put up with the rules. But for them, being carted off by the Commission or getting blown up in a fight were about equally bad options. They might as well have tried...something. I had a life to live out.

It had been over two years since the Week of Shadows, closer to three since Thicknesse took over. We were finally starting to see the promised peak in talent that had followed the massive decline in play since a quarter of the league got...arrested and even more players dropped out to go on strike. I was fortunate—well, skillful enough to have been promoted to the first team before all of that, right when Bruce got traded, but only by a couple of weeks. Any later and I'd have been left asking whether I really got my place on talent alone, and then they would have been a rough couple of years. That was good fortune, as far as timing goes.

Finally, Jenkins whistled to call us out of the air. The Beaters would practice "juggling" Bludgers (not literally, of course), while the rest of us practiced our actual skills. Jenkins proudly informed us that she'd put the special spells on the field herself to simulate the special, fanciful conditions of the European Cup. There was the golden, visible but intangible, line in the air that marked the pitch boundary from above. There were the silver lines that did the same for the edge of the scoring area. There were the time charms on the goalposts that would—in principle—mark the exact time of the goals to sync with the magical scoreboard.

I know what you're wondering. You're wondering if I had any bad feeling. Any intuition that something was off.

The total and honest truth was, yes. Yes, I did. I was a little...not bitter, just darkly amused at the way of the world that the most exciting and top-line research in the wizarding world was going towards fancy spells for showing off Quidditch pitches.

Not that Quidditch isn't important, of course. It's just that, you know, the players at European Cup level should be able to see where the pitch boundaries are. I guess it was for the fans.

But that was my only reaction, and we started playing. Of course Jenkins could do her own thing, the rest of us had a while to practice on our own before the Beaters would come out. These conditions aren't really good for simulating a game—it's much better when the reserves are mixed in—as you lose the feel of your opponents going against you. So the pace is all off. The Chasers can try passing to each other, yeah, but there's nothing stopping them from just shooting towards goal. Of course, that kept me busy.

You can see how I don't do as well during that situation as I would in a normal game. Despite this, I was really on top of my game just then. The first shot was low, and I swooped down between the goalposts to pass it up to the Chasers and start the cycle again. The next, I caught on the fly and threw it back out to them. Two for two so far, pretty good, maybe I was a little more keyed up than usual to keep the streak going.

Then came the third shot.

I was just hanging out, literally, when the Quaffle came streaking towards the opposite post. Hastily, I angled toward it, and began backing up so I could get between it and the goal. Backing up. Backing up some more. I wasn't looking where I was going. Maybe if I had...

Instead, the bristle end of my broom passed through the post, and I heard a sizzling sound from behind me. There was no time to react—I was following it. One moment, I was suspended inside the circle of the goalpost, feeling like I'd just gotten a really painful shock. The rest of the circle seemed to shine with a bright blue light.

And then, utter darkness.

In retrospect, they probably never got the Quaffle back, either.