Quidditch: A Soliloquy
To be blunt, Quidditch was fucking hard. Everyone thought that it was easy to ride a twig thousands of feet in the air, and catch a stupidly shaped ball. Everyone was wrong. Quidditch took strength, coordination and sheer bloody mindedness.
First, there was training. Now there were three, four, six hours he'd quite like to have spare each week. Training hurt. First there was the fitness training. They'd have to do press-ups, sit-ups, run – yes, run, not fly- laps of the pitch, the plank, throwing medicine balls…the list went on and on. That part always seemed to last forever. He hated it, hated it so much. He knew it was good for him, that it trained the muscles that would keep on his broom, but he also knew that it hurt him so much, that this alone made him want to pack it in, to abandon the team.
Next came ball skills. They started on the ground, running in complicated patterns, perfecting chest passes and shoulder passes and sideway passes and over other people passes and so convoluted he didn't understand them passes. Eventually, they'd be allowed to mount their brooms, finally taking to the skies. Only to repeat the same drills until he got them right. He hated it when he was the only one who didn't understand where to swerve, where to throw to next, whether he was meant to join that group or that one. He really hated it when they were forced to do it again and again because one of them – usually him- had made a tiny mistake in the endless choreography of these drills.
Finally, if they were lucky, came half games. Three on three with one keeper. Of course, the two beaters and the seeker were playing out of position but it gave the chasers lots of practice at avoiding odd broom manoeuvres. He still didn't like these faux games. he always felt cheated somehow, as though because there was no real opponent he didn't deserve any of the goals he scored.
Sometimes they had aiming practice, both for the chasers and the beaters. While the chasers were trying to score, the beaters were trying to knock them off their brooms with bludgers. He always thought Quidditch must be the only sport where your own teammates tried to actively maim you during training. Sometimes they'd let the snitch out, and were made to run laps until the seeker finally caught it. he hated running. Hated it so much. he felt gangly, ungainly, awkward. These seeker training drills were his least favourite.
So why did he continue to play? The answer was simple, the same answer to most questions about why James Potter did many things: Her. She may think he was an arrogant toerag, a brattish nuisance, an infuriating annoyance, but he'd seen her face during Quidditch games. he'd seen the admiration in her gaze, seen the wonder and awe. And that was why he played Quidditch, even when it drove him round the bend. Because it was the one time he didn't annoy or hurt or taunt her. Of course, there was also the fact that he enjoyed the games, and being a hero suited him very well. But mainly it was because of her.